The Herbal Alchemist’s Handbook: A Complete Guide to Magickal Herbs and How to Use Them - Karen Harrison 2020
Ritual Oils
Practicum: The Creation, Composition, and Blending of alchemical Herbal Formulas
The composition of Ritual Oils is relatively simple once you know your Planetary and energy correspondences. Just as each herb, plant and resin is associated with a specific Planetary energy, the essential oil from the plant from which the oil is gathered shares the same association.
What are essential oils? They are the oils collected from freshly harvested herbs, flowers, resins, and roots. There are varying methods to extract the essential oils depending on the nature of the herb material and the amount of oil that is naturally contained within the plant. Maceration is the method of crushing the freshly picked plant material and submerging it in alcohol. The crushed fresh plant is placed into a jar and then alcohol is poured into the jar to fill it about three-quarters full to allow for expansion of the materials. The bottle is then sealed and stored near a low heat source such as a radiator. It should not be placed directly on the radiator, as the heat should not exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), or the resulting oil will be destroyed. This mixture is then shaken several times daily to disperse the oil into the alcohol. After approximately two weeks, the plant material is strained from the alcohol, and the remaining alcohol-oil mixture is left open for the alcohol to evaporate, leaving the essential oil behind. Maceration is typically used for less delicate plant material such as orange peel or thick, aromatic herb leaves like bay.
Another method is enfleurage. This technique is used most often with delicate fresh flowers such as jasmin. To extract the essential oil in this way, you would apply a thin layer of a neutral oil like sweet almond oil or nonscented fat to a flat glass plate (something like the glass for a picture frame works well). Place your flowers evenly over the glass plate on the oil or fat. Now apply another thin layer of oil or fat onto the surface of another flat glass plate and place the coated surface face down on the plant material. Press lightly to seal the glass plates together. Let them sit in indirect sunlight for a day, then remove and discard the plant material but leave the oil or fat, and repeat the process, applying fresh plants to the oil. Depending on how much oil you intend to extract, repeat this method for several weeks, leaving the same oil or fat so that you are building up a concentration of essential oil. When the oil layer on the glass has a strong scent, you scrape the scented oil or fat into a jar for future use.
Water and steam distillation is another method and may be the one most often used in commercial essential oil extraction. With this technique, fresh plant material is placed in a colander set over a pot filled with a few inches of water and then covered. The water is heated to a slow simmer, and the steam passes through the plant material, collecting the essential oils. The oil rises on the steam to the lid. When you see that a layer of steam has collected on the interior of the lid, pour it off into a wide-mouthed bottle. You now have a mixture of water and oil. Repeat the process until you have obtained as much volume as you need for your work. At this point you can let the liquid cool and then pour off the oil on the surface of the water, or simply let the water evaporate, leaving the extracted essential oil.
Essential oils are extremely concentrated. They are sixty to one hundred times stronger than the plant material from which they are extracted because the oil distillation process intensely concentrates the herbal properties.
You may find the extraction of essential oils to be too much trouble or the obtaining of fresh plant material to be problematic. Fortunately, in this day and age there are many companies that specialize in extracting essential oils, making the oils readily available. You can find a nice selection of essential oils through mail order and online companies or at your local health food store.
A Ritual Oil is blended from selected natural essential oils and then diluted by at least half with a neutral-smelling carrier oil such as sweet almond oil. You want it to be neutral smelling so that the scent of the blended essential oils is not compromised by the scent of the carrier oil. Peanut oil is much too strong smelling, as are most olive oils, even the most virgin. There are specific traditional blends such as Abramelin that call for olive oil, but the scent of olive oil is intentionally part of those formulas' smell.
Ritual Oil blends are very versatile. After blending and diluting your oil formula, your oil can be added to bathwater or used in an aromatherapy oil diffuser as a smokeless Incense. Or you may use your oil to charge Amulets and Talismans, to dress and dedicate candles for specific purposes, and to anoint the different Chakras for activation and balance. Oils also can be worn on the body to influence events in the immediate vicinity (a Love Oil worn on a date for example, or an Employment Oil on a job interview). If you want to create a specific feeling or effect in an area such as your bedroom or office, you can add some of your blended oil to a Magickal Potpourri.
If you do plan to wear your oil on the skin or put it in your bathwater, do some research first to make sure that the oils you plan to blend won't harm the skin. Cinnamon oil, for example, burns the majority of people who place it on their skin. You'll want to use it very sparingly, if at all, in an oil blend, and be sure to dilute the blend by at least 75 percent to prevent blistering. Clove oil can make some individuals' skin sensitive to sunrays, making the potential for sunburn more likely. Many people are sensitive to eucalyptus oil as well—so do your homework before you put essential oils on your skin. It is a good idea to test a small amount of your blend on the inside crook of your elbow a few hours before you plan to use it in a ceremony. This way you can ensure that you won't have an unpleasant surprise during your rite. After you have worked with essential oils for a few months, you'll know if you have a sensitivity to any of them.
If you wish to combine all the energies most effectively when making a Ritual Oil, be aware of the Moon Phase, the Magickal Day, and the Planetary affinities of the oils (they will be the same as the herb's affinities). This way you are combining all the aspects of influence and energy in your oil. The general rule is to combine the essential oils three drops of each at a time, then smell the combination with each addition to make sure it still smells pleasant. As you begin to build your scent, you may find that you have the perfect amount of one particular oil and just need to add a few more drops of one other to balance it for your nose. The spicy oils (nutmeg, ginger, clove) should be added just one drop at a time, for they quickly overpower any other scent. Lavender, jasmin, patchouli, and rose can also overtake the smell of a blend, so go easy at first with those as you learn how much you like in a mixture.
When diluting the oil, be aware of the Element to which your final product is attributed. Water energy and Earth energy oils should be diluted with sweet almond oil. Fire energy and Air energy oils should be diluted with safflower oil. For example, a Love Oil falls under the Element of Water because it deals with emotions and would be diluted with sweet almond oil. A Mercury Oil falls under the Element of Air because the Planet Mercury is ruled by Air and thus would be diluted with safflower oil.
I like to use a dropper bottle to disperse the different essential oils into a blend as I work. It makes it much easier to keep your essential oils untainted by the scent of the other oils. Essential oils can be pricey as well, so you may not want to depend on a steady hand when you are pouring several different oils into another bottle. As you blend, keep track of how many drops of each scent you are using so that you have a record of each formula you create. I have found that using a one-ounce dropper bottle full of rubbing alcohol makes the process very easy. Using the dropper, you can count exactly how many drops of oil you are adding at any given time. Cleaning out the dropper between applications of different oils by drawing some alcohol into the dropper and shaking out the excess ensures that you don't inadvertently get any oils into other oil bottles, keeping the scents pure. You just want to be sure that before drawing up a new essential oil into the dropper all the alcohol is out of the dropper. If you drip alcohol into your essential oil, it can make it cloudy.
The general supplies you will need handy to create your blends are the following:
selection of small, pharmaceutical-grade glass vials to contain each formulated oil (one dram-size vial is perfect—it contains one-eighth ounce of oil)
bottles in varying sizes from one-half ounce to four ounces to store alcohol
carrier oils
labels for marking which formula is in which bottle
Keep all your oils in a cool, dry place out of sunlight and away from heat. Essential oils are very volatile, meaning that UV rays and heat cause them to evaporate. If you store them correctly, they can last for years. In some of the excavations of Egyptian tombs, researchers have found vials of essential oils and essential oil blends buried with the owner of the tomb. When the vials were opened for testing, it was found that many of the contents are just as useable today as they were when they were first stored.