Essiac and the Brave New World. 2007. Fast Forward to 2021. Montana, Essiac and Blue Moon Herbs.
Greetings from Montana's beautiful Flathead Valley! Blue Moon Herbs is a small independent Montana business run by women with the help of a few good men. There are more or less four of us. We are all employees and approach our work as a team. Since 2008 we have been making Essiac tea the way its developer Rene Caisse did, based on the research of Mali Klein and Sheila Snow, who worked directly with Nurse Caisse to get her story out and keep the knowledge of Essiac going. We have put on seminars, workshops, talks, Essiac tea parties and more over the years to continue that work and have been producing, selling and giving away Essiac tea for over 14 years now!
Where We're coming from. My family has been in Montana for seven generations, arriving as refugees from 'east of here' like all the white people in the U.S. once did. The original peoples of this area (Flathead Indian Reservation) have been here since the ice age, and no doubt even earlier. The first modern record of Essiac came from the indigenous world of 1890s Canada, North Ontario.
We are honored to be helping keep Essiac available for our local community and outward from there to that place where we can still keep our equilibrium and be of service.
A lot of people could benefit from a cup of tea to temper the intensity of these times and help navigate the changes we will make to see our way forward. Essiac at bedtime to bring our peaceful wits back together... even if not everyone is getting along on that bigger stage, is important.. The Scope of our Mission Given the Current Affairs of the World We want to do all we can to keep the right information and a good product available and serve as many people as we can with what we have. We have always shipped our products internationally but the cost and reliability of shipping overseas has been a money and time drain that is making it more difficult to flesh out the work we are trying to do right here at home.
When the pandemic lockdown began 19 months ago, we bought supplies in advance, anticipating that prices would be rising. It was a good move, as we still have a good store of tea-making, packaging and office supplies on hand. Not only that, the availability of some of these items has been impacted by supply chain issues. Planning ahead has worked well for us as we are not out of stock on anything! Herbs have substantially risen in price and it is a new ballgame with supply and demand in that world, which we are tackling by growing our own Sheep sorrel. We continue to look for a good contract grower in the Northwest US and/or an experienced commercial organic herb grower that is looking for work and might like to help us in our garden.
For the Record and from Debbie's heart We are cheering for the little people that look out for each other, guided by an inborn kindness of the heart. I stand behind our fairly elected President Biden, the Constitution, doing the right thing, cooperating and collaborating to find and learn from the truth as if nothing was more important. I am for being kind and respectful towards all and really listening. So here we are coming out for all that is good, including Essiac. I hope we can all agree that the best way to stay indivisible and keep liberty and justice for all of us is to work together with an eye to what's best for our kids and all those who will come after them so they can enjoy the safest happiest healthiest future there can be, one cup of tea at a time...
Friends and families are struggling with lots no matter what your politics are. It is so hard sometimes but I believe we should never give up on trying to work together for the common good, in a respectful honest way that will help us all.
Where to get good Essiac information The best source of information about Essiac is not so much from universities, medical doctors or even herbalists and definitely not unfamiliar sources on the internet. It is an old recipe that has been kept alive thanks to the dedication of a succession of people who have all done their part. Its a story with many chapters that spans way over 100 years although the written record doesn't begin till then. In the 20th century Essiac came out of the wilderness and began its journey in the modern world. Sheila Snow and Mary McPherson were there helping and supporting Rene Caisse and Essiac for much of it.
Mali Klein and Sheila Snow - a 15-year collaboration Mali Klein helped Sheila write about the story of Essiac and Rene Caisse, and is the one who brought to light the previously well-guarded silence about Sheep sorrel roots being Caisse's 'secret ingredient'.
Based on her own research findings and personal journey with Essiac, and all she learned from Sheila and Mary and the archives, Mali strongly advocates for research on Essiac and has shared the knowledge base she and Sheila amassed worldwide in print and electronically at the Essiac Council.org. Sheila Snow and Mali Klein combined have authored 7+ books on Essiac, which represents the vast majority of the entire body of literature in print on the subject. The most recent is the Essiac Essentials Handbook. Besides on our website, is also available on Amazon and other platforms as an ebook. We sell the softcover version. It addresses the questions former industry studies on Essiac have left unanswered, and represents a very compelling argument for more and better research on Essiac based on the latest research findings on the individual herbs.
The Essiac Council The Essiac Council.org website was created to showcase the Sheila Snow Fraser Essiac Archive Collection, a body of historical information about Essiac that Mali Klein and Sheila Snow amassed over 25+ years of research and recently finished the work of converting to an electronic format for anyone to freely access online. It also provides ongoing real-time data. It has a very good searchable database to look up specific questions. The website is not beholden to any corporations or outside influences. The Essiac Council website has a list of suppliers worldwide that are making very high quality Essiac.
Overseas shipping of orders suspended as of November 1, 2021 A number of factors have played into our recent decision to suspend international shipping except to Canada, until the pandemic and the problems that we currently have with the global supply chain function are resolved better. 1. Deliveries increasingly encounter issues and are neither delivered nor returned with no explanation. Sometimes a substantial amount of money is lost because of the lack of accountability, which negatively impacts both us and the customer! 2. More and more customers are confused by misinformation gotten from the internet, canceling orders that have already been shipped and can't be resold if returned. 3. New VAT charges hugely increasing the cost of shipping to Britain from the US 4. Last but not least, it just doesn't make sense to send small packages long distances when now finally there are good sources for Essiac overseas. Our friends in Ireland, for example: Rene Caisse Tea Ireland!
If you are already an established customer, and can't find a US address to receive your order, we will still try to work with you, just contact us. The change will be effective November 1, 2021.
Trust your sources We recommend that you get your information from the most reliable sources you can find. We are sorry but we can only provide the herbs, the books about them, Essiac Tea-making kits and Essiac Seed kits, but we are legally barred from giving advice or claims that are medical. When a business sells Essiac, it cannot talk about its properties, but the reverse is also true. Sites like the Essiac Council are free to provide information about the relationship between Essiac and wellness because they aren't selling a product.
Why good Essiac is not easy to find As you will see on the Essiac Council site list of suppliers, there are only a handful worldwide that even include Sheep sorrel roots in the tea. Most use only the leaves because there is currently no commercial source for Sheep sorrel root. There are contract growing arrangements which require significant financing. With growing climate change issues, the western US has felt it this year with drought and wildfires.
On top of that, historically the established organic herb farms have been hesitant to grow Sheep sorrel without a contract because Essiac is not well-known enough to speculate and just plant Sheep sorrel, which they can't even harvest until the second year. As a result, they are hesitant to invest in it. They need the money from good cash crops more than the mission to keep the world in Essiac, which is truly a labor of love. We are growing our own Sorrel for the roots and will have to rely on it solely to stay in business within one year. This is a little tricky since we are trying to be a company that makes the tea and now also be organic farmers. However, we love our garden and are beyond excited to bring in our first major harvest next spring!
The Good News In 2019 three of us from Blue Moon Herbs joined Mali Klein at the First International Health Congress on Integrative Oncology in Geneva, Switzerland. Mali Klein presented the section on Indigenous Medicine and Essiac and gave the world a gift from the past that may play a very vital role in leading a large number of people out of the woods of today's health crises with a simple option that is a good companion to whatever else may be available. How? We can all grow these herbs ourselves in our own backyards or balconies and make our own Essiac. It is all spelled out in the Snow/Klein books how to manage with what is available. Essiac is getting some traction in Europe and around the world. There is much more to come. We carry the seed.
A multiple choice answer 🙂 The Blue Moon Herbs Deluxe Essiac Tea Sampler Pack
We have been putting together buying options for small and medium budgets at Blue Moon. In the past week we have added two products that widen your choices when looking to try working with the variations on the basic Essiac formula. Now there are three combination pack buying choices, with up to 10% savings!
The Essiac Tea Combo Program - a six month program - $123 - 120g herbs - Includes the Essiac Essentials Handbook and Program Guidelines.
The Deluxe Essiac Tea Sampler Pack - $55 - 50g of herbs, approx. 3 months' supply + 10g Essiac Topical Solution herbs (can be used either internally or externally) Also includes a 1 oz. measuring spoon and ceramic Blue Moon teacup!
All of our herb mixes (with the exception of Essiac Topical Solution) contain Rene Caisse's classic 4-herb Essiac formula consisting of Burdock, Sheep sorrel (25% roots), Slippery elm and Turkey rhubarb. Essiac Gold also includes Goldenseal and Essiac with Red Clover also includes Red clover. Essiac Extra's Sheep sorrel is 50% roots.
Want Sheep sorrel root?
The Essiac Topical Solution herbs contain 63% Sheep sorrel roots, with Sheep sorrel leaves and Slippery elm inner bark comprising the rest of the mix. There are a lot of different ways to work with this tea mix. It can be taken as you would take regular Essiac, but it is designed to also be used topically. The many possible uses are described with the included instructions. One use that is not mentioned is that it could be used to increase the root content of Essiac made from scratch. This is something to consider, as Sheep sorrel root remains commercially unavailable sold alone.
A little history
The 4-herb Essiac was Rene Caisse's core formula from the late 1920s onward. However, odds are definitely in favor of her occasionally using some of the other herbs from the original 8-herb formula - Watercress, Red clover, Periwinkle and Goldthread - when they were available and/or she wanted the additional herb for a specific patient. She also substituted other herbs in when supplies were low. For example, she probably occasionally substituted Red clover or Watercress for Sheep sorrel. Essiac Gold and Essiac with Red Clover are two of the adjunct formulae that Mali Klein determined were the most accurate representations of what Rene Caisse was doing, based on testimony from the 1939 Canadian Cancer Commission hearings and many other clues in the Essiac Archives collected and analyzed over time.
The Sheila Snow Fraser Essiac Archives Collection is now available online for the whole world to enjoy, study and learn from! I can't begin to say how amazing this new website is! It is completely searchable and worthy of being the database for formal Essiac research for our future and that of everyone on the earth! There is nothing like it anywhere else on the internet for solid Essiac information. We were honored to be one of only a few to receive our own copy of the original archive collection digitally. We very much look forward to analyzing and blogging about the information and evidence, when we are not growing Sheep sorrel or getting in hot water!! Do visit EssiacCouncil.org.
Enjoy your Essiac and the return of sunnier days. May we all be very well!
A lot of people have inquired about whether there is a more intense Essiac regimen for serious illnesses such as cancer or even COVID. The standard dosage recommendation is an all-encompassing 1-2 oz. per day regardless of the condition. Rene Caisse didn't go along with the 'more is better' approach, and remained adamant about the lower dosages. However, there is a way to make the smaller doses more potent: increase the amount of Sheep sorrel roots by substituting them in place of sorrel leaves and stems. The Essiac Tea Combo Program includes our most potent Essiac formula, Essiac Extra, Sheep sorrel content 50% roots, as well as two other Essiac combinations, for variety in both dosage and the formula.
Included in the Kit:
Four 20g packets Essiac Extra (4- herb Essiac with Sheep sorrel 50% root)
Two 10g packets Essiac with Red Clover tea
Two 10g packet Essiac Gold tea
Program Guidelines
The Essiac Essentials Handbook(Mali Klein, 2016, softcover)
This program will last approximately six months.
In The Complete Essiac Essentials book (2010) Mali Klein presented a series of different possible regimens for people to follow that would accomplish two things that greatly enhance the efficacy of herbal medicine: varying formulae and dosages. This kit does that. All of the herbs are U.S.-grown and either Certified organic or wild-harvested responsibly from clean places.
Here are a couple examples of additional ways to work with the herbs in the kit: (We also include a basic protocol you can follow.)
Vary the dosage
Instead of taking 2 oz. at bedtime, take half in the morning and half at bedtime.
For one week, take 1 oz./30ml per day, and the second week, take 2 oz./60ml per day.
Take an extra serving for up to 3-4 days, either taking one large dose, or dividing it up over the day.
Take one or two days off weekly.
Take one week off after three months.
Take Essiac with the changing of the seasons.
Vary the formula
Vary the amount of Sheep sorrel root, always using formulae with a minimum of 25% root to arial parts. The Sheep sorrel content of all of the herbs in the Kit is at least 25% roots.
Include Goldenseal in the basic formula (Essiac Gold).
Include Red clover in the basic formula (Essiac with Red Clover).
Save 10% off the list price by purchasing this Kit!
The Ancestral Medicine Section of the First International Health Congress on Integrative Oncology and Ethical and Sustainable Patient Care was held on Saturday, June 29, 2019. The place: Geneva Switzerland! We were there to see Mali Klein's presentation on the subject of the relevance of Essiac to health and healing in the 21st Century. Following Mali's presentation on Essiac are presentations by her co-panel members Dr. Patrick Shan (France) - Traditional Chinese Medicine and Dr. Manan Soni (India), Ayurveda. The speakers are very informative and provide a great perspective on the nature of healing and the common themes that cut across cultural and temporal boundaries.
In 2018 we started a project encompassing our Flathead Valley and surrounding communities called the Glad To Be Here Project. There are many reasons for being glad to be in the heart of Western Montana, with the grandeur of Glacier National Park and the Mission Mountains and Flathead Lake right out your window. Glad to be here is a state of mind though, and the positive effects from Essiac can make it apply to wherever we find ourselves. There is beauty inside us no matter where we go. Read More →
Mali Klein talks about the role diet plays in the body's ability to heal itself and how working with Essiac as part of that can be beneficial. Mali gives some diet guidelines for cancer patients and emphasizes the importance of everyone making their own personal choices about what to do with their diet and other health factors in order to heal and even thrive.
Wishing all of our friends, colleagues and customers a very happy, healthy 2019! Above, from left to right are the team at Blue Moon Herbs with Mali Klein, who visited recently - Emily Angelo, Danielle Yoder, Anais Starr, Debbie Jakovac, Mali Klein, and Hannah Rostocki. Not pictured are Angie Vance, Danielle's and Emily's daughters and sons, who are Junior Blue Mooners 🙂 nor the many more who remain anonymous but have helped us help you better through their friendship love and support.
Update as of February 9, 2019:The light is now noticeably coming back here on the 47th parallel, both in length and intensity. January was a bit of a winter no-show as we watched points east of Montana getting the business. But ever since February came, it has been blizzarding and making up for lost time. I'm just about done dreaming of hills blossoming in green and gold and planting Sheep sorrel and a candy store's worth of vegetable and herb seeds, many from Strictly Medicinal Seeds and, snow or not I shall plant seeds next week! Inside. Ho hum! Outside and planting and prepping the irrigation system, adding lots of wood chips, etc., all too soon by May or maybe even April it'll be time to trade in the parka for gardening duds! Its been a few years of getting underway with infrastructure in our garden in Hot Springs Montana. Just recently we tested our Sheep sorrel seed and it is ready and viable, 50% germination rate, and those tiny seeds guarantee a good outcome.
This original blog was posted on January 12, literally just a few days before...you guessed it...winter officially really started nailing us... 🙂 Boy do I sound naive!
How Bout the Weather this Winter!
"Another six short weeks and what so far is the warmest winter I can remember in my whole life of living in Montana won't have enough blast left to make a cold snap. Hopefully there will be moisture of some sort coming, though. Our area is naturally on the dry side and we need snow in the mountains in the winter to produce a spring runoff for the valleys.... I could even rake the yard but I am holding out for snow in hopes it doesn't come to that!...It is so seductive to think maybe we'll get away without a real winter. But it being Montana and all...it always seems to come...and actually I really do like it like that. It feels 'normal.' All I know is it is Way Too Soon to call winter a no-show..." Winter has shown! It is still showing!
The Glad To Be Here Project
2018 was dedicated to strengthening our community connections. Danielle, Emily, myself, Hannah and Angie began volunteering at the local soup kitchen. Soup kitchens are great places to give Essiac away as there sure are ample folks in need who appreciate it. Essiac is a new idea to many, often welcome and encouraging.
In this vein, we have started a project encompassing our Flathead Valley and surrounding communities called the Glad To Be Here Project. There are many reasons for being glad to be in the heart of Western Montana, with the grandeur of Glacier National Park and the Mission Mountains and Flathead Lake right out your window. We believe a little bit of the healing energy of this place is in every packet of herbs we put out.
Glad to be here is a state of mind though, and the positive effects from Essiac can make it apply to wherever we find ourselves. There is beauty inside us no matter where we are.
However...there are people here, just like everywhere else, that live with poverty and despair because of health and other problems. We are giving Essiac herbs and/or made-up decoction ready to consume to anyone in our area who would like to try it for a few months or if in need, longer, at no charge. We will be keeping close track of the folks who want to take part in our follow-up research but for those not wishing to share their personal information, no questions asked. Essiac doesn't care about all that.
The heart of our mission is to simply put people and Essiac together. That is truly what we are about more than anything - that and encouraging others to do what we are doing, in their own communities. Say Yes to being an Essiac tea-maker and/or Sheep sorrel grower (for the root). There's a big change coming and it's returning herbal medicine to its well-earned place at the table. "Essiac is a worthy vocation." - Gregory Klein
The Glad to Be Here Project is putting Buddhist philosophy (lovingkindness, gratitude, service) into action and it is also an experiment to see how high quality local Essiac can make a difference in lives!
The big projects and huge organizations have a role to play but we all do. What it ultimately boils down to really is about making a difference in a direct way, with benefit for giver and receiver alike from one-on-one connections, one person at a time, one day at a time. Saying "Yes" and keeping promises.
It was Rene Caisse's dream that Essiac become freely available for everyone everywhere. We CAN change the world. We were told that one person was not going to be able to, but the rest of the story is that people coming together to heal what is broken opens the doors of miraculous positive change where anything is possible. May the Force be with you!
We have a new partner for sourcing Essiac done properly in Europe! We have been working closely with a team based across Germany and Switzerland, Arupa AG, to produce a fresh organic crop Sheep sorrel. It's been two years in the making and I have now received word that the sorrel roots and tops have been successfully harvested and will be available to us in the next couple of months. Germany has long held a reputation for producing some of the finest herbal medicine in the world and we are very pleased to announce we will be offering an international sampler: Essiac with German Sheep sorrel and Essiac with US Sheep sorrel - both top quality and certified organic!
Our new partnership with Arupa AG means that we will also be able to offer our overseas friends and customers a more local source for good quality Essiac herbs. This will help bring down the high shipping rates considerably as well as reduce the delivery times. For more information click here. All teas are now in stock and can be ordered online from the link.
Thank you everyone for a great 2018! May our world be blessed with peace and prosperity for everyone everywhere in 2019.
Debbie Jakovac
Owner, Blue Moon Herbs
"This is the Way of Peace: overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." - Peace Pilgrim
Update as of May 18, 2018: The Essiac Essentials Handbook by Mali Klein is now in print! It is a beauty! Just drove to Pine Orchard Press in Moscow Idaho to pick the new books up! Mali Klein is arriving in just over one week and we'll be looking forward to sharing our visit via video, with all who love Essiac! Stay tuned 🙂 Click HERE to order the Essiac Essentials Handbook!
Sheila Snow and Mali Klein are the light-bearers of the truth when it comes to Rene Caisse and Essiac. They have collectively written a total of nine books about it. Now the number is eleven! Mali and Sheila began a collaboration in the mid-1990s following the death of Mali's husband Gregory. Mali was starting an Essiac charity in England to honor how it had helped in their journey with a brain tumor. Mali traveled to Bracebridge Ontario to meet Sheila, who had written The Essence of Essiac in 1993. (The charity, Clouds Trust, has been very successful and is still in operation and thriving in 2018!)
Mali returned for many more visits over the years, and she learned more and more from Sheila and Mary McPherson, Rene's other long-time friend and associate. It became apparent that there was more to the story than the public had been told, and there was substantial misinformation circulating. After Rene's death in 1978, there was no one left who knew the whole truth about Essiac, except Mary and Sheila. A trend towards stronger concentrations of the decoction and higher dosages that began in the U.S. had begun to obscure the ways in which Rene had worked with the formulae.
As a result, each successive Snow/Klein book has had more to say on the subject. The first book Sheila and Mali co-authored was Essiac Essentials (1999). Essiac the Secrets of Rene Caisse's Herbal Pharmacywas published in 2001 and The Essiac Bookwas published in 2006. Mary died in 2006. Sheila passed away in 2008. Sheila had spent years collecting Essiac history and all the papers and pieces of it were passed on to Mali in 2010. Yours truly Debbie Jakovac began working with Mali to preserve the Essiac legacy that same year. In 2011 The Complete Essiac Essentials was published as part of that collaboration. We brought Mali from Europe for a visit in 2010 and brought her back to the US again in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and Mali and I spent time in Bracebridge Ontario, Rene's home town, as well as in the NW US giving Essiac classes. Since then many more have joined us on our journey and mission to keep the knowledge of Essiac accurate and to keep the herbs available to all who wish to explore this simple and safe key to good health. It is very heartening to see how Essiac and herbal medicine have begun to be recognized more widely again. It is also very heartening to see how the importance of Sheep sorrel root in the Essiac formula has become known more widely known largely because of Mali Klein's work!
As Mali became more and more aware of the importance of Sheep sorrel roots in the Essiac formula she felt the public had a right to know. Especially considering how strongly Nurse Caisse felt about it in her correspondence with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center during the 1970s when they researched Essiac.
“You can buy the crushed leaves but they are no good alone. I found this out when I needed so much, when treating three to six hundred people afflicted with cancer every week for eight and a half years. I do know that the whole plant is needed.”
Each Snow/Klein book had a little more to say about it as a result.
The first book, Essiac Essentials, placed little emphasis - 'One level teaspoonful of it is sufficient for each 16 ounces of the powdered summer harvest of leaves." In both Essiac Essentials and Essiac The Secrets of Rene Caisse's Pharmacy (Snow/Klein, 2001) the recipe simply calls for "Sheep sorrel, powdered." But then when The Essiac Bookcame out in 2006, Mali recommended that 25% of the Sheep sorrel portion should be roots, officially breaking the 'code of silence'.
In The Complete Essiac Essentials (2010), Mali reported, "The root contains important additional elements in comparison to the aerial parts of the Sheep sorrel herb and must be included in as great a quantity as possible in the decoctions." (emphasis added) Mali herself uses 100% root but it is still difficult to source Sheep sorrel root, so it is difficult to include that much for most people unless they grow their own. (It is easy to grow.)
Mali has now completed her thesis and made her findings on the key to what made Essiac so effective when Rene Caisse operated her Cancer clinic in the 1930s. Coming available in softcover format from Blue Moon Herbs in the summer of 2018 is The Essiac Essentials Handbook. Its here!!! As of May 15, 2018 we are so pleased to announce that the new book is off the press and available!! They are really beautiful books, with full color illustrations throughout and if it is true that the best comes at the last, then this proves it out. Mali Klein, thank you!
The Essiac Essentials Handbook is also currently available in English, French and German on Amazon, with excellent translations. The book illustrates how the Essiac formula was altered after Rene Caisse's death. The ebook even has an audio file of a telephone conversation between Dr. Charles Brusch and Sheila Snow wherein he confesses he does not know the Essiac formula. Mali makes a powerful case for formal research of the original Native American 8-herb Essiac formula (not to be confused with present-day 8-herb formulas on the market, which only have some of the right herbs). Lastly, this book really shows Mary's personality more than the earlier books have, and it is a delight to get to know Mary a little better inside these pages.
Mali Klein also released another ebook book in April 2017 - this one is available free of charge, just click on the link: A Dangerous Sweetness.It is the life story of her husband Gregory Klein. Much of the book is based on his memoirs covering growing up in Buffalo NY, service in the Marines in Viet Nam, being discharged as a disabled veteran, and his subsequent journey to becoming a Theravadan Buddhist monk and one of the first four to bring this form of Buddhism to the Western World. It also chronicles his service-based brain cancer diagnosis and the poignance of that lesson in impermanence.
Last but not least! Mali is coming back for another visit! ...And lo and behold, that time has arrived! Mali will be here from May 28-June 3 and we're very excited to share the visit via video! Stay tuned as we visit about Essiac and contact us if you have something you'd like us to discuss. Mali Klein is a living encyclopedia of Essiac knowledge and we encourage your questions!
Greetings all! It doesn't seem like three whole months have passed since Mali Klein's 2014 visit. It is good to have the relative quiet of winter to absorb it all and start making plans for the coming growing season. February is like a lingering chance to do that before the sun is flooding in again and it is time to get back in the field! One of my winter projects was putting together this little recap of 2014 in a video format. So come along for a trip out to our Essiac growing sites in Montana's Flathead Valley to see what we have done in Phase 1 of growing the Essiac herbs. There is also a section with a few harvesting tips and some footage of Watercress and Goldthread in the wild. We hope you enjoy it!
