{"id":10798,"date":"2015-10-09T16:06:54","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T21:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.essentialoilsage.com\/?p=10798"},"modified":"2017-06-15T04:57:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T09:57:40","slug":"gary-young-first-distiller-prototype-1990","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentialoilsage.com\/?p=10798","title":{"rendered":"Essential Oil Mentors and Early Distilling Adventures of Gary Young"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you read about Gary Young\u202c’s early self-driven education on the distillation of essential oils\u202c, it will hold much richer meaning if you keep these things in mind…<\/em><\/p>\n

1. He could have easily sought out English-speaking teachers who distilled plants for fragrance companies without regard for therapeutic value.<\/em><\/p>\n

2. There were plenty of companies selling\u2014and books written about\u2014inferior perfume-grade essential oils. Americans were surrounded by “hippie incense and feel-good candles” that had little or no therapeutic value.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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3. Instead, Gary invested years\u00a0pursuing\u00a0a handful of key Frenchmen who\u00a0were passionate about distilling for therapeutic purposes.<\/em><\/p>\n

4. There where no books and teachers or practitioners of this art\/science in the English-speaking world.<\/em><\/p>\n

5. Compare this to certain chemists and authors of essential oil books who parrot\u00a0what they learned about chemicals in laboratories during college. These people understand how to mix chemicals together, but have no idea how to coax the life-blood from a plant so that it maintains its synergy for the human body.<\/em><\/p>\n

6. Also juxtapose the actions of Gary to the minions of business-school graduates behind their office desks who wake up one day and decide that the bar graphs show that there is money to be made by starting an essential oil marketing company.<\/em><\/p>\n

7. Since none of these people have a clue about farming or distillation, much less actually OWN farms and distilleries, they all get together with one another\u2014the chemists in the white coats with the MBAs in their suits\u2014and create virtual companies out of the blue and buy essential oils from sources that have been rejected by Young Living. And they create fancy websites and wax eloquent on social media about how they are able to do things better and cheaper than Young Living.<\/em><\/p>\n

Does this help you understand that there is a bunch of jealousy out there from those who have never paid the dues? And that the only way the minions can compete with Young Living\u202c in the marketplace is to lie about Gary’s commitment to producing the highest possible quality essential oils? Or for the minions to sew doubt by spreading misinformation and confusion about what actually makes a pure and therapeutic essential oil?<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Gary<\/p>\n

While I traveled in France from 1985 to 1990, I met a lot of people but had never met someone who would teach me about distillation. So I read books and hired a teacher who taught French at the community college in Spokane to teach me French. After taking classes for six months, I was really good at saying oui oui and merci beaucoup. And that was about it.<\/p>\n

But I would have him translate the books so that I could read them. I started trying to learn from little booklets on distillation and was very excited, so I built this distillery in 1990\u2014two pressure cookers welded together. In the top one, I drilled holes in the bottom, so I could put the plants in the top and use the bottom as the boiler. That\u2019s where I put the water that created the steam. The copper pipe coming out behind me by my belt is the swan neck going to the condenser that was coiled up in the sink full of cold water.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where it began; that\u2019s where I distilled my first lavender oil that launched Young Living today. I planted the starts the winter of 1988 in the greenhouse, grew them, planted them in the little garden here in the spring of 1989, and then harvested them in 1990, two years prematurely, because I didn\u2019t know the difference. They had little flowers and I thought that was good enough. So I cut them, distilled them, and sent the 3 milliliters of oil off to Dr. Kurt Schnaubelt.<\/p>\n

He analyzed it, sent a fax back, and asked, \u201cDr. Young, where did you get this oil?\u201d<\/p>\n

So I called him on the phone and said, \u201cWell, I distilled it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he said, \u201cNo, no, no, Gary; where did you really get it?\u201d<\/p>\n

And I said, \u201cI distilled it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he said, \u201cNo, there\u2019s no lavender growing in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cYes there is.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cAre you serious?\u201d<\/p>\n

I replied, \u201cYes, I\u2019ve been growing lavender; and I cut it, distilled it, and just sent it to you so you could analyze it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He replied, \u201cI have a hard time believing that; but because I know you, I believe you. This is the finest lavender oil I have seen in many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I blame Kurt Schnaubelt for everything else.<\/p>\n

Source: Gary Young Blog, September 3, 2015<\/a><\/p>\n

\"GaryIn 1990 I met lavender grower and distiller Jean-No\u00ebl Landel at the Whole Life Expo in Pasadena, California; and he invited me to come and visit him in France. However, as he was extending this invitation, I could see this little bit of reservation in the back of his eyes saying, \u201cYeah, he\u2019ll never come. I know those Americans; they\u2019re too lazy to come over to France and walk the fields and get their feet dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n

One month later I called him from Paris; he was very surprised but told me how to get to his house. I made my way there, up in the middle of the mountains in Provence, in a little place called S\u00e9deron. And that was the beginning.<\/p>\n

Jean-No\u00ebl is married to an American lady named Jane from Fresno, California. She taught Jean-No\u00ebl English.\u00a0They had two little children, Nicolas and V\u00e9r\u00e9na; Nicolas was 3 months old. One night while I was in their house, he had kind of an upset stomach and wasn\u2019t settling down. I took him on my lap and started rubbing his feet with lavender, and he went sound asleep. Nicolas and I have been bonded buddies ever since.<\/p>\n

Source: Gary Young Blog, September 10, 2015<\/a><\/p>\n

\"GaryIn 1986, when I was traveling and trying to learn about essential oils, I kept hearing about Mr. Henri Viaud. He had a reputation of distilling more plants, more shrubs, more sticks, more flowers, more needles, more seeds, and even more rocks than anyone. He was considered the father of French distillation. So I said to myself, if I\u2019m going to learn distillation, I\u2019ve got to find the best. It took me five years to find him; and finally in 1991, he came to dinner at Jean-No\u00ebl and Jane\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

That night I was sitting on the right side of Mr. Viaud; but through the entire two-hour dinner, Mr. Viaud never talked to me. He never even looked at me. I was feeling that because he didn\u2019t speak English, it was too uncomfortable for him to try to talk to me.<\/p>\n

However, when the meal was finished, he turned to me, laid his right hand on my left forearm, held up his finger, and was shaking it just a little bit, and said, \u201cMr. Young, what do essential oils mean to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

His stare into my eyes went right into my soul, and I knew this was really the test to decide whether he would accept me as a student. I was just taken; I had no words; I couldn\u2019t even think of something to say. So I just took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and said exactly what appeared on my screen: \u201cMr. Viaud, essential oils are the closest tangible, physical thing to God there is on this planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Viaud

This is Henri Viaud\u2019s classic book on essential oil distillation. Dr. Kurt Schnaubelt has written that Viaud \u201c. . . was the first to articulate that an essential oil for aromatherapy needed to fulfill a different set of criteria than those for the fragrance industry.\u201d From Schnaubelt\u2019s The Healing Intelligence of Essential Oils, Healing Arts Press, 2011, page 64.<\/p><\/div>\n

After Henri Viaud heard my answer to his question, he was still holding up his finger, but it stopped shaking. He still had ahold of my forearm and was squeezing harder, as tears ran out of his eyes and down his cheeks. When he was able to, he then shook his finger and squeezed my arm a little harder and said, \u201cYou are absolutely right; and anyone, anyone who adulterates them, anyone who messes with them should be treated as a criminal!\u201d And then he invited me to study and learn from him.<\/p>\n

\"GaryThis picture\u00a0was\u00a0taken in his apothecary in France; his wife is standing between us. He also made this statement: \u201cMr. Gary, if you don\u2019t grow your own plants, the day will come when you will not have oils.\u201d<\/p>\n

We saw that as a fact, starting three years ago. If Young Living did not have the farms we have, we would have to discontinue 27 oils. Wouldn\u2019t that be interesting? Would that be okay with you if we did that? That\u2019s today. But probably by next year, we would be discontinuing over 58 oils if we didn\u2019t have farms; and the quality on the world market would be compromised for the oils that were left. That\u2019s why we do what we do, so I really hope you all appreciate my being crazy.<\/p>\n

Source: Gary Young Blog, September 17<\/a> &\u00a0September 24<\/a>, 2015<\/p>\n

\"MarcelIn 1991 Jean-No\u00ebl introduced me to Marcel Espieu, who in the photo is sitting behind me. Marcel Espieu was my second teacher and greatest mentor because he lived longer and was able to spend more time with me.<\/p>\n

Mr. Viaud and Marcel were the two greatest distillers in modern times in our world today, and I was their only student to whom they taught their techniques of distillation. It was a great honor learning from them and sitting at their feet, literally.<\/p>\n

I volunteered to work at night in the distiller, so I could learn. When I was working at night, I had my measuring tape and measured the size of the chambers and cookers and separators and condensers. I was making sketches and drawings because I had a dream. Mr. Viaud said if you don\u2019t grow it, you won\u2019t have it. Well, if I\u2019m going to grow it, I\u2019ve got to distill it; doesn\u2019t that make sense? So it was all Mr. Viaud\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

Source: Gary Young Blog, October 1, 2015<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Philippe

Even if you can\u2019t really read French, Mr. Mailhebiau\u2019s book title suggests essential oils have compounds that affect emotions: La Nouvelle Aromatherapie: Caract\u00e9rologie des essences et temp\u00e9raments humains.<\/p><\/div>\n

Next, I met Mr. Philippe Mailhebiau, who is a French chemist. He made the comment one day, \u201cI feel that essential oils have compounds that may affect emotions.\u201d Whoa, boy, did that ignite me.<\/p>\n

So I went to work at that time looking at emotional behavior.<\/p>\n

Then when I went to study in Cairo, Egypt, with Prof. Radwin Farag and started going into the temples, tombs, and crypts and seeing the hieroglyphs and reliefs and how the ancient Egyptians were using essential oils for emotional clearing, emotional release, that also set me on fire.<\/p>\n

Source: Gary Young Blog, October 8, 2015<\/a><\/p>\n

In this video, Gary nicely summarizes the important role that his unique hands-on experience has played in making Young Living the world leader in essential oil quality…
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