Helpful Clay and the Unique Ways to Use It

Over 5 Therapeutic uses of Clay

Dried clay image by Jose Antonio Alba

Using Clay throughout History

Mother Nature, ever so generous, has given us many things we can use in our daily life.
One of these gifts is the earth we walk on. Clay has been used throughout history by all the different civilizations.

What happened is that this knowledge of natural therapies has been forgotten as modern medicine took its place. Luckily those ancient remedies have been “rediscovered” and nowadays are living a comeback.

We can go back in time some 3000 years and go to Egypt at the time when the pyramids were being built. The doctors of the pharaohs, this information was found written on papyrus, used the yellow earth for healing wounds, inflammation, and other internal issues.

They knew of the purifying and antiseptic properties of clay, and therefore it was also used by the people who mummified the dead.

There is an island in the Aegean Sea called Lemnos. The Greeks would go to collect the clay, which was extremely abundant there. This clay was used in case of burns against the Pest and also for a serpent’s bite.

They even sent this valuable earth to other countries with a seal. A wise Greek with the name Dioscorides wrote in his treaty On Medical Material that clay was being used for abscess and healing of wounds. His work was translated into many languages and into English in 1655.

Also in Rome, clay was known and used. Plinio the Elder writes in his Historia Naturalis a detailed account of it. It came from the hills close to Neapolis, it was dried in the sun and then mixed with wheat. Its use was against infections in the stomach and intestines.

Also in the Bible, there is the mention of clay when Jesus used it to give sight to a blind man.
Explorers worldwide mention its use, which they discovered on their voyages to far-away countries. Like Marco Polo, who mentioned on visiting the holy city of Niabar that people would go outside the city to find this red earth to use for fighting fevers.

Lyall Watson, one of my favorite writers, explains in his book The Omnivorous Ape that in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, and places in Africa the use of clay was widespread.

In Occident, the use of clay was not well known. After the Middle Ages, when the Renaissance came some 200 years later, it was about completely forgotten. At the end of the 19 century, Abbot Kneipp from Germany used clay for curing animals. Archduke Francis Joseph from Austria asked him to heal his sick horses.

In the first World War, the French and also Russian soldiers who suffered from dysentery while being in the trenches were given 200 grams of clay with mustard. There are much more examples of the use of clay and its benefits throughout history.

An informative YouTube video on the benefits of Bentonite Clay.

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What makes clay so special?

When it is analyzed under a microscope comes this list of ingredients.
Silica, aluminum oxide, iron, magnesium, calcium, sodium and potassium, and some magnesium.

Clay has some potent properties. It disinfects in an intelligent way. It goes there in the body where it is needed. It inhibits the spreading of microbes or bacteria and at the same time activates the reconstruction of healthy cells. It has an extreme capacity for absorption and is therefore very efficient in absorbing toxins.

Festering wounds can heal with clay as the bad is absorbed, and the healing is accelerated, leaving much smaller scars. It even seems that clay has the ability to absorb part of the radioactivity which surrounds us.

There is clay with different colors depending on the amount of iron oxide hydrate.
Yellow, red, white, brown, blue, gray, or green. The green variation seems to be the most active one.
One can use it for drinking diluted in water, make a paste for cooling a bruise helping in the healing process of wounds. There is a long list of problems where clay may be helpful.

My experience with clay

In my kitchen window, I have a glass filled with approx 1 cm of green clay and then filled up with water. I try to drink 1 glass a day, afterward; I fill it up with water again.

My cats, who come in for breakfast, have a glass with clay water standing next to their food and they drink it. One should remember that clay should only be in contact with glass or wood and never metal or plastic. This is very important.

My meditation tree

Behind the house, I have a big fishpond with a lovely ancient tree. Underneath the tree is a small stone bench. This quiet place is ideal for relaxing and meditating. From there one can observe the life in the pond. Fish and frogs, snakes who come for the wedding. When they have baby’s that pond is kind of not safe anymore as they go hunting the fish and the frogs.

There also live many generations of turtles, some of them enormous. This all started when I fished 2 small turtles in the small brook nearby and gave them a new home in my fishpond. Just as well as years later, the life in that brook was killed by an urbanization build higher up in the mountains.

Frog in a water-lily pond image by F Richter and S. Hermann

How to help a wounded Frog

It is quite some years ago when I went for a stroll in the afternoon. Arriving at the pond I saw 2 big snakes disputing a frog between them. Each of the snakes had one fang on the frog’s back. Normally I try not to interfere with nature, but this time I did. On coming really close, the snakes “ran” away, and I picked up the wounded frog and took him home.

I put him in my laundry room where there is a big and deep basin which I filled with clay water so it just covered his back. He sat in my clinic for 24 hours and then I took him back to his home.

The little fishpond on the patio

Saving Goldfish

On my patio, I have a small fishpond and whenever I notice a fish who is behaving funny, like floating on its side, I pick it up and put it in a regular fishbowl with clay water also for 24 hours.
The clay will have gone through its entire system and like that has a chance to recover. I have done this often over the years and the success rate is about 50%.

A must-have in your library

The Clay Cure contains complete information on how and when to use clay. The value of minerals contained in the many varieties of clay. It also explains the science and history of ingesting clay.

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Conclusion

In nature, animals often use clay. Perhaps you have seen the film The Bear. When the gigantic bear had a shot wound, he rolled in a mud puddle.

Mother Earth has so many gifts we really should be grateful for.
I buy my green clay in powder form in the Health shop and always take care to have a good amount of it in the house for emergencies.

I have made a special page for you. Before you leave, have a look at Recommendations, you might find something of your interest.

Source: Wikipedia and My Life

Photo Source: Pixabay and Private Photos

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