Ep. 63 Barbara O’Neill: Forgotten Remedies, Women’s Health + the Body’s Ability to Heal

Barbara O'Neill (0:00)

The body can heal itself, whether it be acne, psoriasis, liver damage, cancer.

Bethany McDaniel (0:06)

What if things like fevers, the sun, fasting, and natural remedies are necessary for healing? Barbara O'Neill has spent decades teaching millions of people all around the world to think differently about these things and so much more.

Barbara O'Neill (0:21)

I was brought up in a home where we questioned everything, but we never questioned medicine. And I'd like to suggest we must.

Bethany McDaniel (0:27)

Her teachings have built a massive following, but they've also made her a very controversial figure. She's even been banned from giving health advice in her home country of Australia.

Barbara O'Neill (0:38)

I think what drives most people there is fear. I began to question drug therapy. They investigated me.

Bethany McDaniel (0:45)

Today, I'm sitting down with Barbara to unpack some of her most deeply held beliefs about health and healing. We're talking about what every family should have in their home medicine cabinet, why pregnancy shouldn't be treated like a sickness, fertility.

Barbara O'Neill (1:00)

When I was a teenager, every girl I knew was on the pill.

That time on the pill causes a hormone disruption. It can even go through to your children.

Bethany McDaniel (1:11)

And the health practices we've forgotten that previous generations understood intuitively.

Barbara O'Neill (1:17)

You've got nothing to lose.

Bethany McDaniel (1:26)

Really quick before we dive in, we love getting your feedback. So please take a second to leave a comment and tell us that your favorite topics that we've covered or guests that you want to see on the show in the future. Also, by reviewing, liking, and subscribing, you'll never miss a single episode and we get to keep providing you with this ad-free podcast. Okay, without further ado, let's get back into it.

Barbara O'Neill, thank you so much for being here today. What an honor. And we just survived an insane rainstorm. On the set, we've been doing this for two years now, over two years now, filming Grounded Wellness. And this is the first time this has ever happened. So we had a bit of a delay, but we're here. Looks like it's passed and we've got our well water and some Celtic salts, which is one of your favorite things. Can you share a little bit about how, like, the benefits of consuming salt in this way and how exactly you kind of take the salt with your water?

Barbara O'Neill (2:23)

Well, Dr. Robert Thompson, he wrote the book The Calcium Lie. He said when you take a crystal of Celtic salts, put it in your mouth, crunch it a bit, drink your water, all you're doing is replacing the salt that you lost yesterday. How do we lose salt? Our perspiration, our urine, coming out our colon.

So the salt is actually very, very important.

Bethany McDaniel (2:46)

Just kind of chew it?

Barbara O'Neill (2:47)

Yeah. You take a little bit and put it in your mouth.

Chew it a little bit, and then drink the water. And you certainly want water then. There are three magnesiums in the Celtic salt, and those three magnesiums as water-hungry molecules, they effectively, right now, as we're sitting here, Bethany, they're pulling the water inside the cell.

Bethany McDaniel (3:14)

A lot of times people are drinking a lot of water, but it's not actually getting into the cell.

Barbara O'Neill (3:18)

That's right.

Bethany McDaniel (3:19)

That's right. Barbara, you have a massive following around the world. You've helped millions of people recognize their body's own healing potential, and often allowing them to recover from conditions that conventional medicine would consider to be incurable.

And in doing this, you've also faced your fair share of criticism throughout your career. What's one controversial belief or perspective that's gotten you into the most trouble over the years?

Barbara O'Neill (3:49)

I think basically that the body can heal itself, whether it be acne, whether it be psoriasis, whether it be liver damage, whether it be cancer.

Bethany McDaniel (4:00)

That's a big one.

Barbara O'Neill (4:01)

Yeah, it's a very big one.

Bethany McDaniel (4:03)

Yeah, I bet that one's ruffled some feathers, the cancer one.

Barbara O'Neill (4:07)

Yes, it has.

And one of the reasons I'm not in prison is they investigated me, but they could not find anywhere where I claimed to heal cancer because I cannot. It's only the body. It's the body and the body alone that has the ability to heal, and it will if you give it the right conditions.

Bethany McDaniel (4:30)

And what does that look like? What type of conditions does the body need to have in order to heal itself?