There’s nothing strange about healing with plants; even most pharmaceuticals are plant-based. Plant remedies are highly effective and their use goes back millennia. The ancient Chinese, Egyptians and Sumerians were skilled users. But Dr Edward Bach’s use of plants in healing at the beginning of the last century was truly revolutionary.
Bach is best known for exploring the relationship between flowers and humans. He was born in the English Midlands in 1886 and trained as a bacteriologist. He worked briefly at University College Hospital in London, then at the London Homeopathic Hospital. In the 1920’s he ran a clinic in London’s Harley Street but gave this up to pursue his studies of plants and trees and their psychological effects.
He did not agree with the conventional wisdom that illness was a result of microbes and/or defective organs and tissues, but a result of an inner conflict between the deepest self and the needs of the personality. This internal war, according to Bach, leads to negative moods, blocked energy and a lack of harmony which leads to physical diseases.
Bach’s remedies were based on his psychic connection to the plants. His approach was to use the vibrational character of plants, which he believed was strongest in their flowers. Working intuitively, he ‘attuned’ himself to the subtle vibrations of particular plants, picking up on their unique characteristics, which he then used for healing. If he felt a negative emotion, he held his hand over different plants, and if one alleviated the emotion he deduced that the plant had the power to relieve that particular emotion. By the time of his death in 1936, he had developed thirty-eight remedies.
His original method for producing flower tinctures was to collect dew drops from the plants in the early morning and preserve them in a diluted alcohol solution. He believed that morning sunlight passing through dew-drops on flower petals transferred the healing power of the flower into the water. The water, flowers and sun combined to make the essence which he believed contained the healing properties of the plant. Just holding the bottle has brought about emotional release in some people!
Bach’s flower remedies, as you would expect, do not enjoy universal approval. Critics point out that the essences, like homeopathic remedies, include no part of the plant. Bach retorted that they contain the healing energy imprint of the flower.
‘The action of the flower essences raises the vibration of the being. They cure by flooding the body with the beautiful vibrations of the highest nature – in whose presence there is the opportunity for disease to melt away like snow in sunshine’.
Dr Edward Bach
Bach’s methods of course drew the condemnation of the UK General Medical Council, who tried to stop him advertising. He wrote[1]:
‘Disease will never be cured or eradicated by materialistic methods, for the simple reason that disease in its origin is not material. It is in essence the result of conflict between the Soul and Mind and will never be eradicated except by spiritual and mental effort.’
Others have followed where he led, for example, Australian Bush Flower Essences and California Essences are also popular in healing circles.
Bach’s Flower Remedies are not biochemical in nature; they are bio-information medicines par excellence. The mainstream medical establishment have been slow to embrace them since those trained in biology and chemistry have no explanation for how they work. But they do: millions of beneficiaries swear that vibrational medicine works. Perhaps in finding an explanation lies the future!
©Feeling Good All The Time, 12.3.2017
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[1] In his book, ‘Heal Thyself’