Essential Oils

Yesterday I went to a class on essential oils. This is the first time that I have ever really delved into this topic. As a witch I'm really interested in using natural remedies to help heal people. I took this full-day introductory course with a spiritual healer that I felt comfortable with and I learned a great deal. I was most impressed with the fact that she let us try the oils during a meditation session and had us give our impressions of the oils. She emphasized that each oil would create different responses in all our bodies. I could relate to this information when comparing it to candle magick or tarot. I've heard various witches say you should make colour associations or card associations as you see fit. That if a colour doesn't represent to you what someone else says that it does, then you should do what feels right to you. This was obvious as we moved around the room talking about our experiences with the different fragrances. Some of us had interesting reactions to an oil like coffee, while others, such as myself did not feel anything.

The two that we tried that I related to most were rose oil and chamomile roman. Rose oil, when placed in my aura, did all kinds of wild things. I would see bright lights, shapes and colours. At one point she sprayed a diluted amount above my head and I felt like a cone of light (or something) opened over my head. It was a very neat experience. The chamomile roman caused my heat chakra to spin... and it went on for a quite a while. When she asked our experiences with the oils and I explained that one to her, she asked me if I was a "workaholic", to which I answered "yes". I'm not sure what she was getting at but perhaps when I do some more research I will figure it out.

She stressed the importance of buying oils from reliable sources where they weren't using chemicals to extract them. I understand what she was getting at because the vibrational qualities of the oils would not be as high. My problem is that a small bottle of an oil like rose would cost over 100. I simply cannot afford that, especially when you would want to buy several oils to use for different healings. I must confess that today I went out and I bought two oils and a diffuser. They were the cheap ones... lavender for 12 and rose for 25. I figure that I'm going to try them for myself and see how I feel about it. I once heard a witch say that the reason the oils work is that they trigger a healing process in the brain. I can appreciate the vibrational argument but I question whether the other oils would help in some way... even if it is not as good.

Any opinions?