Mystical systems
Essential Oil
Direct answer
Essential Oil: An essential oil is the concentrated, scented liquid drawn from a plant by distillation or pressing, used for its fragrance and strong enough to do harm if misused.
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At a glance
- Also called
- aromatherapy oils
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Frankincense, Myrrh, Anointing Oil
An essential oil is the concentrated, scented liquid drawn from a plant by distillation or pressing, used for its fragrance and strong enough to do harm if misused.
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What is an essential oil?
An essential oil holds the volatile, fragrant compounds of a plant. Most are made by passing steam through the leaves, flowers, wood or resin and collecting the oil that separates from the water; citrus oils are pressed from the peel. The yield is tiny: several tonnes of rose petals give about a kilogram of oil.
The word essential does not mean necessary. It comes from the alchemists' quintessence, the fifth essence thought to be the soul of a substance. Because the oils are so concentrated they are not gentle: many irritate the skin, several are poisonous if swallowed, and some harm animals. The house speaks of them for scent alone.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Herbs, oils and stones.
What sets Essential Oil apart
An essential oil is not oily in the kitchen sense. It contains no fat, evaporates completely and leaves no greasy mark, which is what volatile means. It is also not the plant in miniature: distillation carries over only the light, fragrant molecules and leaves the rest behind, so the oil can be many times stronger than a herb tea in some respects and lack its other contents entirely. That concentration is the source of both its scent and its hazards.
- Made by: steam distillation; cold pressing for citrus peel
- Yield: several tonnes of rose petals for about one kilogram of oil
- Name: from quintessence, the alchemists' fifth essence
- Aromatherapy: word coined by René-Maurice Gattefossé, 1937
- Chief hazards: poisonous if swallowed; irritant on skin; several toxic to pets
- Safe handling: a drop on paper or brief diffusion in an aired room
Often mistaken for something else: A carrier or fixed oil, such as almond or olive, is a fat pressed from seeds or fruit and has little scent; an essential oil is a volatile fragrance with no fat in it.
The story behind Essential Oil
Scented oils made by steeping plants in fat are as old as Egypt. Distillation of plant essences was developed in the medieval Islamic world, and the physician Ibn Sina, who died in 1037, is traditionally credited with refining it for rose water. European apothecaries distilled many oils from the sixteenth century. René-Maurice Gattefossé named their use aromatherapy in 1937.
Why Essential Oil matters
The oils are the strongest and most widely sold of the plant materials, so the gap between scent and medicine needs saying plainly.
How to read Essential Oil
A drop is smelled from paper or diffused briefly in an aired room; perfumers and incense makers blend the oils for fragrance.
Essential Oil in practice: an example
Two drops of lavender oil on a tissue by the bed, smelled and then set aside, is use for the senses in the sense meant here.
Where readings of Essential Oil go wrong
A common error is to swallowed and never neat on the skin; kept from children, flame and pets, and checked with a doctor in pregnancy.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- essential oils, essential oil meaning, what are essential oils, aromatherapy oils, essential oil safety
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is an essential oil?
It is the concentrated fragrant oil of a plant, usually obtained by steam distillation. A few drops carry the scent of a large amount of plant material.
Why are they called essential oils?
Not because they are needed. The name comes from quintessence, the fifth essence of the alchemists, the idea that the oil is the essence of the plant.
Are essential oils safe?
Smelled in small amounts, most are. Swallowed, or put undiluted on the skin, many are harmful; children have been poisoned by them, and several are toxic to cats and dogs.
