EH asks: “Are tinctures considered new age? Here is a comment from a friend of mine I received in an email who is considering using a tincture as a digestive aide: ‘I found out that…(it) is called tincture for people with digestive disorders whose intestines cannot absorb…it is not called homeopathic in writing at all… it is called an alcohol tincture and things like cayenne pepper are soaked in the 12 percent alcohol so I am trying to see what I can find out about tinctures…'”

Tinctures are not in themselves New Age, but they are definitely associated with New Age health practitioners.

Tinctures were once the preferred method of delivering medicine to patients. Maintaining drug potency was a problem for early pharmacists because many of the drugs they sold to patients in powder form lost their potency after only a few days or weeks. Creating tinctures by mixing these drugs with alcohol, glycerin or vinegar, kept the medicine useable for several years.

However, modern pharmacology has eliminated the need for tinctures, relegating them to use mostly by those in the alternative medicine field such as herbalists and homeopathic practitioners.

This means the chances of your obtaining a tincture created by a New Age practitioner is high, as the field of alternative medicine is pretty well saturated with New Agers.

But this is not a rule carved in stone and much depends on whether or not you buy the product from a New Age health food store or from a friend who likes to create tinctures or teas in their spare time – which would not be a problem.

The biggest danger in buying products mixed by New Age practitioners is that these folks are heavily involved in the occult and may be adding “blessings” to their concoctions that call upon spiritual forces to act in some way either upon the medicine or the person imbibing it – not the kind of blessing a Christian would want!

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