Maybe I should entitle this “Lotions and Potions.” Allopaths sneer at folk lore remedies that have worked for centuries because they have no scientific explanation available for how they work. But they don’t know how aspirin works either. Lotions and potions have been viable remedies for centuries.
When I first began as a health writer about forty years ago physicians sneered at the possibility that applying some folk remedy to the skin could possible affect the inner workings of the body. Now we have all sorts of patches available from Big Pharma, and of course the physicians act as if they knew about it all along, as they sneered at vitamins and supplements for decades, and now want to make them prescription only.
Some remedies act like magic to the person who doesn’t understand the place of energy fields in magic and health. I will be writing about some of these ‘as if by magic’ modalities in the next few postings. Remember Sci Fi writer Clarke’s concept that any sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic to a more primitive mind.
Since 'The Order of the Phoenix' movie has just come out, and the final book of the Happy Potter saga is due out on the 21st of this month it will not be inappropriate to quote the great master of Lotions and Potions Severus Snape, when he said in the first Harry Potter book:
‘As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses ... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — IF you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.’
That beautifully eloquent and snide introduction to Potions 101 could be used as an introduction to a couple or more of easily available sets of liquids that do no harm and often work just like the fictional magic of Severus on the mind, mental state and bodily situation of clients and patients. And some of them were created and tested by MDs, in countries other than the States of course.
One famous and very qualified English MD created a set of liquids that act as if by magic and should be studied by all magicians and healers to see where they may be applicable. Every kind of energy worker and magician should be familiar with the Flower Remedies of Dr. Bach because they are designed to work directly with the energy bodies of the client.
Those who use sigils, like those in the various Reikis, can, by observing which symbols produce most impact on the client also see which Essences may be appropriate.
They are produced according to homeopathic principles and therefore act on the chakra system, not the body chemistry. But like homeopathic remedies they are diluted by a tried method until only the energy signature of the plant remains. In this way both homeopathic and Flower Remedies avoid the problems of side effects. The pages of four point type in Reader’s Digest and Prevention ads for drugs are not present in the homeopathic or Bach Remedy literature, the only side effects seem to be beneficial when properly applied.
Since conventional medical practitioners often cannot even conceive of the energy fields and the subtle bodies of their patients and their importance, they sneer at homeopathic remedies because they sometimes don’t contain even a molecule of the original substance from which the essence was made.
It seems to be a principle of American medical education that what physicians aren’t up on they are down on, unless a new gene can be discovered (or invented) to make matters scientific.
But energy workers, psychics and magicians can understand these matters of essence, as do the medical intuitives who are coming into prominence recently. The effects of such remedies are often based on subtle energies that conventional medicine does not have in its current curricula.
For an example from Dr. Mary Hardy, the eminent homeopathic physician and researcher; when a child has a fever, the auric field is full of what feels like hydrogen to a sensitive. A psychic might perceive this as a red aura. If the psychic then transmits the color blue into the aura there is an energy effect as if oxygen is fused with the hydrogen, forming the energy equivalent of water. The patient emits large amounts of water as perspiration in the ‘real’ world, and the fever is broken.
This of course is nonsense to those who can’t see auras and therefore treat those who can as hallucinatory, in self defence. The fact that it may work is irrelevant, just as the amazing factual results of Acupuncture.
The Bach Flower Remedies are due to the work of Dr. Bach who studied medicine at Birmingham University in England and finished his internship at the University College Hospital in London just before the WWI.
He held posts in medicine and surgery in London for some years and then became interested in immunology. He obtained a position as Assistant Bacteriologist at the University College Hospital in London and did seminal work there.
He was the physician who discovered a connection between specific bacteria in the gut, and chronic illnesses. He developed a set of seven vaccines from his discoveries and with them achieved some remarkable medical cures. His vaccines were recognized, reviewed and used in general medical practice. He was not hallucinating. He was not a flake.
He continued his research in laboratories in Harley Street, the most prestigious address for physicians in the British Isles, and then, after the War was over, took the post of Bacteriologist and Pathologist at the London Homeopathic Hospital.
Homeopathy was and is an accepted and respected medical modality in Europe. The British Royal Family have always had homeopathic physicians since the days of Queen Victoria, when the homeopathic hospitals had death rates of about 10% for Crimean War cholera and typhus patients and the allopathic hospitals were all way over 50%.
The current Queen of England always carries her little box of remedies with her if she travels, just as the pioneer women here carried theirs in the Conestoga wagons, and kept their families in good health miles away from medical help. Since her mother died at beyond 100 years and the Queen is in good shape around 80, maybe, just maybe, they knew something.
The AMA is a trade union that was founded in the USA in 1846 to get back the business that the allopaths had been losing to the more popular homeopaths, and their relentless persecution of every modality but their own is history.
Physicians in other countries have homeopathy and other alternative modalities such as acupuncture taught in their medical curricula. There were already qualified MD acupuncturists in France at the time when Americans first heard of it during Nixon’s visit to China.
Seeing how recent allopathic medicine compares with centuries and even millennia old remedies, maybe we should be calling the drug, cut and burn set the alternative medicine. It was because of the AMA that such medical advances as Flower Remedies could not be made in America.
Back to Bach. At the Homeopathic Hospital he read for the first time the book ‘Organon’ by the founder of homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. He realized the sanity of the principle of homeopathic medicine, ‘Treat the patient, not the disease.’ and remade his famous Seven Bach Vaccines as homeopathic remedies. These became the seven oral vaccines or nosodes now known as Seven Bach Nosodes.
Looking at medicine from this new perspective Bach realized that certain types of persons, certain character types seemed to react in the same way to different diseases and treatments.
He used his seven nosodes as a filing system, and found that he could indeed fit people into seven categories that seemed to correspond to the nosodes. Knowers of the Kybalion will perceive a connection with the Seven Hermetic Principles. Magdalene devotees will recognize a possible connection with the contents of the seven levels of initiation she achieved, that the Church propaganda spun as seven devils. Alchemists can connect the seven alchemical metals.
From that point on he always prescribed according to the way his patients were responding to the illness, and found that his treatments were more effective than if they were based merely on a clinical examination.
His success made him determined to find some way to counter the negative moods and emotions that he considered were the basis for the health problem in the first place. He incorporated into his medical philosophy an idea that the Theosophists made popular, that life is a learning process, and that everything that happens contains lessons to enable us to achieve greater self awareness, IF we take notice of them.
From this basic premise he concluded that if the physical and spiritual areas of life are in harmony, then the body can take care of itself since its own healing powers meet with no obstruction.
In other words, if an emotional equilibrium can be achieved and maintained, then the mind and body will stay healthy. Bach assumed that mental problems, though manifesting differently, had the same cause as physical problems, and the same remedy.
He roamed around the Mount Vernon area of England, and in Wales looking for clues among the wild flowers of the countryside. His highly developed sensitivities led him to his first two plant essences, which he made from Impatiens and Mimulus.
He gave the first to his patients whom he discovered were frustrated and aggravated by people who slowed them down, and who were always imbued with a sense of urgency to get things done fast. He gave the second to people who seemed paralyzed by some fear or other that made them incapable of action, or who were extremely shy and withdrawn and afraid of their own shadow, so to speak.
The results were immediate and amazing, and made firm his conviction that patients could be treated according to their emotional state, and the apparent diseases based on those states would disappear. So he researched further and discovered a total of 38 single flower essences that he made up according to homeopathic principles. Further work left him convinced that the 38 covered all bases and no more were needed except for a combination for first aid work, which he called Rescue Remedy.
Whenever any negative emotional state arises these remedies are used in other countries to forestall the possible physical manifestation associated with the state.
Everybody knows how depressed people are more likely to become infected than others. Widen the concept to include the minor emotional states that could lead to depression and the value of Bach’s work is obvious.
Your health food , or metaphysical store will carry Bach Flower Remedies, usually from Nelson's, and will likely have a brochure with the famous questionnaire that you can give yourself to see which areas in your life could be addressed by the Remedies.
Here is a very simplified set of 38 attributes from the Mount Vernon Centre in England where Bach’s international work is now based. How many of these real mental problems would be addressed by your doctor as a possible root cause of your physical problem? Practical experience of thousands of practitioners and their clients indicate that The Bach Essence addresses the problem behind the symptoms:
Agrimony - mental torture behind a cheerful face
Aspen - fear of unknown things
Beech - intolerance
Centaury - the inability to say ‘no’
Cerato - lack of trust in one’s own decisions
Cherry Plum - fear of the mind giving way
Chestnut Bud - failure to learn from mistakes
Chicory - selfish, possessive love
Clematis - dreaming of the future without working in the present
Crab Apple - the cleansing remedy, also for self-hatred
Elm - overwhelmed by responsibility
Gentian - discouragement after a setback
Gorse - hopelessness and despair
Heather - self-centredness and self-concern
Holly - hatred, envy and jealousy
Honeysuckle - living in the past
Hornbeam - procrastination, tiredness at the thought of doing something
Impatiens - impatience
Larch - lack of confidence
Mimulus - fear of known things
Mustard - deep gloom for no reason
Oak - the plodder who keeps going past the point of exhaustion
Olive - exhaustion following mental or physical effort
Pine - guilt
Red Chestnut - over-concern for the welfare of loved ones
Rock Rose - terror and fright
Rock Water - self-denial, rigidity and self-repression
Scleranthus - inability to choose between alternatives
Star of Bethlehem - shock
Sweet Chestnut - Extreme mental anguish, when everything has been tried and there is no light left
Vervain - over-enthusiasm
Vine - dominance and inflexibility
Walnut - protection from change and unwanted influences
Water Violet - pride and aloofness
White Chestnut - unwanted thoughts and mental arguments
Wild Oat - uncertainty over one’s direction in life
Wild Rose - drifting, resignation, apathy
Willow - self-pity and resentment
There is also the combination remedy called Rescue Remedy as mentioned before.
Here are some standard books:
Twelve Healers and Other Remedies by Edward Bach - descriptions of the 38 remedies in his own words.
The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach by Nora Weeks
The Dictionary of the Bach Flower Remedies by Tom Hyne-Jones
Bach Flower Remedies Repertory by FJ Wheeler
An Introduction to the Benefits of the Bach Flower Remedies by Jane Evans
Books by Stefan Ball
The Bach Remedies Workbook
Pinciples of Bach Flower Remedies
Bach Flower Remedies for Men by
The Bach Flower Gardener
Books by Judy Howard:
The Bach Flower Remedies Step by Step
Bach Flower Remedies for Women Growing Up with Bach Flower Remedies
The Original Writings of Edward Bach The Story of Mount Vernon
Heal Thyself by Edward Bach - with John Ramsell
Illustrated Handbook of the Bach Flower Remedies with Philip M. Chancell
Bach Flower Remedies for Animals with Stefan Ball
One of Hahnemann's students started a homeopathic business in London. It is still extant and makes the genuine tried and tested Bach Remedies. The US distributors are:
Nelson Bach USA Ltd., Wilmington Technology Park,100 Research Drive, Wilmington MA 01887 at 508-988-3833. Surf the Web for more data.
