Hemp oil occupies a very specific and troubling position in Aajonus Vonderplanitz's framework. It is categorized not as a food, not as a neutral substance, and not as a medicine in any straightforward therapeutic sense. Rather, Aajonus placed hemp oil at the extreme end of the pressed-oil spectrum, describing it in the most alarming terms he used for any pressed vegetable oil. His single direct statement on hemp oil is blunt and unambiguous: "Hemp oil is a poison. Almost similar to castor oil."

This categorization places hemp oil within the broader class of pressed vegetable oils, substances Aajonus consistently described as solvents, detoxifiers, and decontaminants rather than foods. Every pressed oil, in his framework, is primarily a solvent that the body converts into a dissolving agent. The body uses these oils not for nourishment, structure, lubrication, or cellular repair, but to break down and eliminate toxic material. This is fundamentally remedial, fundamentally detoxifying, and therefore fundamentally stressful to the body when consumed in excess or without proper pairing.

Hemp oil, however, is positioned as even more extreme in this action than other pressed oils. While olive oil is described as highly acidic and detoxifying, while flax oil is described as solvent-reactive and drying, hemp oil is compared directly to castor oil, an oil Aajonus used as a benchmark for powerful, uncomfortable, and potentially damaging purgative action. This makes hemp oil not a dietary staple, not a supplement, and not something to incorporate casually into the diet, but rather something that demands the most careful, limited, and deliberate approach of all the pressed oils.

Hemp oil does not appear in Aajonus's therapeutic protocols as a treatment for specific conditions. It does not appear in his recipe formulations. It does not appear as a recommended topical application. Its presence in his teachings is primarily as a cautionary example within the broader discussion of pressed oils, their dangers, their limitations, and the strict quantity ceilings that must be respected to avoid harm.

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To understand hemp oil, one must first understand what Aajonus taught about pressed oils in general, because hemp oil is understood entirely within this framework. Aajonus taught that when any oil is pressed out of a plant, seed, or nut, the resulting concentrated oil is used by the body almost exclusively as a solvent, a chemically active dissolving agent designed to break down toxicity, dead tissue, and accumulated waste products. He stated clearly: "The fat in pressed oils, like I said, 90% solvent reactive, mainly makes virals, virus in the body. That's what helps make virus. Pressed oils, olive oil, coconut oil, any of them helps you make solvents to dissolve toxicity in the body."

He elaborated: "90% of them will be made into solvents for dissolving some kind of tissue or in-product metabolism in the body. That means if you have a lot of pressed oils like olive oil, you're going to be into detoxification a lot."

This means that hemp oil, like all pressed oils, enters the body and is converted by biochemical processes into a solvent. This solvent then goes to work dissolving something, some accumulated toxicity, some degenerative tissue, some stored waste product. This sounds beneficial in concept, but Aajonus consistently emphasized the problematic consequences:

1. It does not stabilize the system. Pressed oils "will not stabilize your system," Aajonus said. They provide no structural support, no building material for cells, no nourishment for the nervous system or brain. They are purely reactive and cleansing in their action.

2. It dries the system out. Aajonus repeatedly noted that pressed oils, when used as the primary fat, cause dryness: "It dries it out. It dries it out." This is because the solvent action strips away fats and other substances without replacing them with anything structurally useful.

3. It creates irritability and emotional volatility. Aajonus linked olive oil consumption to the passionate, volatile temperaments he associated with Italian and Greek populations who use large quantities of olive oil. This emotional effect, irritability, instability, volatility, is a consequence of the detoxification process that pressed oils initiate, which unsettles the system.

4. Without animal fat pairing, it becomes caustic. Aajonus explained that if pressed oil enters the body without animal fats present to buffer its action: "When that oil goes in there and is made into a solvent to start dissolving the body, you're not going to have any good fats to bind with those to keep it from being caustic in your system. So it's like taking a solvent and you use a pure solvent to degrease something and you have no water to dilute it. What's going to happen? You're going to have this gunky mess. It's going to be floating around in your blood."

5. It does not regenerate tissue. Pressed oils are explicitly distinguished from animal fats in their ability to rebuild: "Pressed oils are mainly used by the body as solvents to dissolve toxicity for removal. Animal fats with meat help regenerate tissue."

6. It does not feed the nervous system. The nervous system requires water-soluble fats, not pressed oils. Aajonus was emphatic that the oils found in plants make up only 2-4% of the plant's composition, and that concentrated pressed oils are not what the body needs to build or maintain neurological tissue.

The comparison to castor oil is the most critical detail Aajonus provided about hemp oil's specific character. Castor oil is understood, within natural health traditions broadly and within Aajonus's framework specifically, as a powerful purgative, a substance so strongly solvent in its action that it is used to forcibly move things through the body. Aajonus's comparison of hemp oil to castor oil in terms of its toxic or purgative quality places it at the far extreme of the pressed-oil spectrum. It is not merely detoxifying in the gentle, gradual way that a small amount of olive oil might be. It is aggressively so.

Aajonus consistently framed the danger of pressed oils in terms of concentration. In nature, plant oils exist in very dilute form. He stated: "Your oils in any plant make up no more than 2-4% of that plant. In coconuts, it makes up 7-8%." And in a separate passage: "In a leaf, they're about the same, six to eight percent." When an oil is pressed and extracted, you concentrate what was 2-7% of the plant into 100% pure oil. This dramatic concentration is what makes pressed oils problematic. The body is not designed to encounter these substances in concentrated form. It encounters them only in the dilute, water-surrounded, fiber-buffered form they exist in within whole foods.

Hemp oil, being a pressed oil, carries this concentration problem in full. And because it is described as even more toxically active than other pressed oils, being compared to castor oil, the concentration concern is amplified.

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Aajonus made a universal teaching about oils that applies directly to hemp oil: any oil heated above 96 degrees Fahrenheit is no longer living and begins moving toward toxic or plastic states. He stated this in the context of all pressed oils: "Oils that are heated above 96 degrees F are not living." He further elaborated that pressing processes that generate heat above certain thresholds produce oils that are progressively more damaged.

For hemp oil to be in its least harmful form, it would need to be cold-pressed at temperatures below 96 degrees Fahrenheit. However, Aajonus did not specify in these sources whether hemp oil is typically pressed below or above this threshold. He did specify for other oils:

• Peanut oil and olive oil: pressed below 96 degrees Fahrenheit by Spectrum
• Flax oil: pressed between 82 and 86 degrees by Barlean's
• Sesame oil: cannot be obtained pressed below 160 degrees

Hemp oil's processing temperatures are not specified in these sources, but the poison designation suggests Aajonus viewed it as problematic regardless of temperature.

Aajonus noted about flax oil, and by extension this logic applies to all pressed oils, that as oil sits, it becomes more acidic. He stated: "oil that sits in plastic for very long dissolves the plastic; as oil sits, it becomes more acidic but not rancid, unless it is heated over 96 degrees F." This means hemp oil stored in plastic containers is doubly problematic: not only is it inherently a poison in his classification, but the oil dissolves the plastic container, adding plastic contamination to what is already a caustic substance.

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Aajonus provided no specific sourcing recommendations for hemp oil, no brands to look for, and no preparation guidance. This is consistent with his overall characterization of hemp oil as a poison, there is no "good" version to source. His sourcing recommendations for other pressed oils (Spectrum for peanut and olive oil, Barlean's for flax oil) were predicated on low-temperature pressing. For hemp oil, no equivalent recommendation exists in these sources, presumably because the substance is characterized as poisonous at any level of care in its production.

What Aajonus did teach universally about pressed oils regarding storage is relevant: pressed oils should be stored in glass, not plastic. Since oils dissolve plastic over time, any hemp oil stored in plastic bottles would carry the additional contamination of dissolved plastic compounds, compounding its already poisonous character.

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Even though hemp oil is described as a poison, Aajonus's universal teaching about all pressed oils, that they must never be consumed without animal fat, applies here with even greater urgency. He stated: "If you're a thin person, I recommend never having those oils with the meat without some other fat, without some animal fat with it because you will get irritable. You may not be able to sleep well. You may get so acidic that you don't like your life around you."

The biochemical reasoning he provided: pressed oils, when converted into solvents inside the body, need animal fats present to bind with and to prevent the solvent action from becoming caustic. Without animal fat: "you're going to have this gunky mess. It's going to be floating around in your blood."

For a substance as extreme as hemp oil, compared to castor oil, this pairing requirement is not merely advisory. It is critical. The animal fat acts as a buffer, diluting the solvent action, giving the body something to bind the dissolved material to, and preventing the aggressive detoxification from damaging tissues rather than cleaning them.

Aajonus's general guidance for pressed oils consumed with meals specified that overweight individuals can handle the solvent reaction better because they have stored fat to buffer against: "if you're an overweight person, you can have a meat meal with just olive oil or just, you know, a fish meal with just flax oil... because you'd have enough fat on your body." Thin individuals have no such reservoir and are most vulnerable to the caustic effects of unpaired pressed oils.

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Aajonus stated the maximum explicitly: "It's okay in small amounts. Like a tablespoon a day, the maximum."

This is the dose ceiling for hemp oil specifically. It is the same ceiling he applied to all pressed oils universally, "The body can only handle a tablespoon a day of those pressed oils", but in the context of hemp oil, given the poison designation and the castor oil comparison, this ceiling carries special weight.

Aajonus provided the reasoning behind why a tablespoon represents the maximum the body can handle by explaining the natural concentration of oils in plants. In nature, oil exists at 2-7% of the plant's composition. A tablespoon of pressed oil represents the oil content of a very large quantity of the source plant. The body is designed to encounter oil in the dilute form it exists in whole plants, embedded in fiber and water. When you give it concentrated extracted oil, even a tablespoon taxes the processing system maximally.

As described above, one tablespoon of pressed oil requires approximately one day of processing. This means:

• Do not consume more than one tablespoon of hemp oil (or any pressed oil) per day.
• If you consume a full tablespoon, the body is occupied processing it for that entire day.
• If you consume the equivalent of four tablespoons in pressed oils on a given day, you do not need any more pressed oils for four days while the body completes processing.

This four-day rule is critical to safe hemp oil consumption. Someone who uses hemp oil in cooking, adds it to a sauce, and then also uses other pressed oils on the same day is stacking solvent loads that will take days to clear, during which time the body is locked into sustained, intense detoxification. For hemp oil, the most extreme of the pressed oils in Aajonus's classification, this stacking of doses is particularly dangerous.

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Hemp oil exists within Aajonus's extensive historical and political narrative about how vegetable and seed oils came to dominate the food supply to the detriment of human health. While his direct historical commentary focused on margarine, hydrogenated oils, and the King and Queen of England's role in promoting these substances (as they owned controlling interest in the companies producing them), the same political and commercial forces that pushed harmful vegetable oils on the public are implicated in the promotion of oils like hemp oil as health foods.

Aajonus taught that the food industry actively misrepresents pressed vegetable oils as healthy, as superior to animal fats, and as beneficial for conditions that are actually caused or worsened by these very oils. The historical crime, as he described it: "The greatest crime, and it is criminal, is that margarine and vegetables oils have been sold as healthy, better-for-health over butter and other animal fats. That is completely fraudulent."

Hemp oil, positioned in health food stores and natural health communities as a beneficial source of essential fatty acids, omega-3s, and other nutrients, represents exactly the kind of misleading promotion Aajonus rejected. He explicitly addressed the scientific-sounding claims made for pressed oils, particularly omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acid claims: "Urea-rasmus is a great scientist, but what happens in the chemistry lab does not happen in the human body. You know. It's a great sales tool. It's a great oil marketing tool. But, again, those are mainly used as solvents to degenerate degenerative tissue, to break down degenerative tissue."

The implication is clear: the scientific literature on essential fatty acids in hemp oil and the marketing claims that follow from it describe what happens in a test tube or chemistry lab, not what happens inside a living human body operating at 98.6 degrees. In the human body, all pressed oils function as solvents, not as the structural, anti-inflammatory, brain-nourishing compounds they are marketed as being.

Aajonus also noted a broader problem with commercial oils that extends to hemp oil: the widespread adulteration of pressed oils. He stated that most commercial olive oil is diluted by up to 90% with mineral oils or petroleum-derived oils, then clarified and hydrogenated, so that people buying olive oil to avoid hydrogenated oils are actually consuming hydrogenated oils. The same commercial dynamics and the same potential for adulteration apply to any pressed oil on the market, including hemp oil. There is no reason to trust commercial hemp oil to be what it claims to be.

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