The
Bach Flower Remedies and Homeopathy.
by Peter Morrell
Olive Tree – Portugal – 2004
– Peter Morrell
The Bach Flower Remedies and
Homeopathy
As any discussion of “whether Bach’s
remedies are homeopathic in nature, and therefore appropriately
controlled for safety and purity,” [M Price letter, 29 Jan
2004] as such, to some degree concerns where Bach Flower Remedies [BFR]
should be placed in a medical classification schema, it is worth making
a few preliminary comments about that subject at the outset.
Taxonomy
No matter how hard and fast or how natural they may
appear to be, all systems of classification [taxonomy] and nomenclature—as
used in biology and pathology, for example—are ultimately arbitrary
and artificial human constructs that we impose upon reality for our own
convenience. They all follow the same basic rules—similar things are
placed together and different things are separated—with the most
similar things being placed closest together and the most different
being placed the furthest apart. Rather like branches of a tree, closely
related things are placed on different parts of the same branch; very
different things are placed on widely separated branches.
The purpose of any classification scheme is “to
name reliably and conveniently,” [Bullock and Trombley, 858-9]
but inevitably also involves “a degree of resemblance that
unites members,” [Bullock and Trombley, 858] of the same
category or group, such that members of the same category “are
united by a basic similarity or ground plan.” [Bullock and
Trombley, 858] Obviously, some members of a group “are united by
a somewhat closer degree of similarity,” [Bullock and Trombley,
858] than others in the same group. Inevitably also, any system of
classification imposes restrictions, concerns the [real or imagined]
relationships between different classes and categories and subtly shapes
our perception of reality to suit its own purposes.
One ineradicable problem with all taxonomic schemes
is that to some degree it is “a system of idealised entities…fictions
compounded out of observed uniformities…concepts and categories…conditioned
by human aims.” [Berlin, 301] Because all such systems are “a
set of formulas, of imaginary entities and mathematical
relationships,” [Berlin, 302] so to the same degree it is
always in part a false and abstract system imposed upon raw reality
itself, an “artificial construction of our intellect,”
[Berlin, 302] that is not so much found but made. In reality, “nature
is not a perfect machine, nor an exquisite organism, nor a rational
system,” [Berlin, 302] it is rather “a savage jungle:
science is the art of dealing with it as best we can.” [Berlin,
302]
By overlooking “that the disease
classification is man-made…they assume…that disease entities somehow
have an independent existence,” [Wulff et al, 82] which of
course they do not. They are human constructs with no more reality than
pipe dreams. The “disease classification is still largely a
mixture of disease entities defined in anatomical, physiological and
microbiological terms,” [1; 77] which is indeed “a
man-made classification of individual patients.” [Wulff et al,
77] True and natural disease “classifications are not arbitrary
but must be moulded on reality as it is.” [Wulff et al, 88]
Thus far, these do not exist.
In the case of medical systems, a similar approach
can profitably be adopted. Natural therapies generally huddle together
as a minority under the same vague umbrella, so as to distinguish
themselves from the more numerically dominant allopathy. Though their
methods vary a great deal, all natural therapies can be said to share
some common features—being gentle, natural and vitality-enhancing,
they aim to improve health through safely enhancing the innate vital
powers; to restore health autonomy and to cure. By contrast, allopathic
medical methods mostly seem to have “reduced the patient’s
autonomy to a therapeutic choice of drugs or surgery,“[Diamond,
11] which stands as a chilling indictment of its claim to cure disease
Because natural therapists regard all healing as
either truly curative self-healing or a suppression, then by their own
definition, any ‘healing’ by non-innate vital powers tends
automatically to be regarded by them as a suppression. For example, when
John Foley says, “only that nerve energy that runs through you
and controls every function and autonomic process of your being every
second of your life is capable of healing you. No drugs of doctors can
do that. We can only facilitate it,” [Foley] then he clearly
echoes the vitalist views of homeopathy and acupuncture. When he further
contends that “drugs, if anything, interfere with that innate
ability to heal from within,” [Foley] and that mere “covering
up symptoms with pharmaceuticals has done little,” [Foley] then
he inclines towards the claim of homeopaths that drugs do not cure but
delay healing and complicate disease by suppressing symptoms. Bach would
doubtless have agreed.
All the chemical therapeutic approaches essentially
stand quite close to herbal medicine and use natural products but in
material doses. Then we can discern the manipulative therapies like
yoga, osteopathy, massage, chiropractic, reflexology, which assist
lymphatic drainage or correct bad posture that could be underpinning
causes of sickness [refs]. There are also mind-centred therapies like
hypnosis, meditation, autogenics, positive thinking and thought control.
These can also assist self-image that may alleviate many types of
sickness.
With regard to Bach Flower Remedies [BFR] in many
respects they seem to lie closest to homeopathy and the tissue salts of
Schuessler, because they are derived from plants and taken orally. Like
homeopathy, they use sub-material doses and each remedy has a fixed and
distinctive profile that predetermines its therapeutic sphere of
application. Unlike homeopathy, however, there are no provings of drugs
and only mental symptoms are considered important for use. Their mode of
preparation employs sunlight and spring water as compared to
trituration, succussion or serial dilution in homeopathy. They might be
seen as closest to the mother tinctures of homeopathy.
The obvious similarities seem to easily outweigh the
differences, and it therefore seems logically convenient, for taxonomic
and regulatory purposes, to place BFR, homeopathy and tissue salts in
the same branch of natural therapy, all being basically homeopathic in
concept, mode of preparation, storage and mode of use.
Edward Bach’s Career
Bach
believed that “health is our natural state, and disease
indicates that our personality is stuck or in conflict.” [Shaw,
1998, 6] The Bach remedies “treat the person and not the
disease; the emotional state that presages the pathological changes of
illness.” [Shaw, 6] The aim is that “treating the mood
can, in many cases, make the disease redundant.” [Shaw, 7] It
is thought that “through their subtle vibrational energy the
remedies work,” [Shaw, 7] for “no physical part of the
plant remains in the remedy;” [Shaw, 10] the remedies “contain
the energy or imprint of the plants from which they were made.”
[Shaw, 10] Bach increasingly came to believe “that the
personality type and mood of an individual is a vital element in
avoiding disease.” [Shaw, 8]
Bach had a medical career that “evolved from
conventional medicine via bacteriology to homeopathy, where he became
widely respected for the discovery of the bowel nosodes.” [van
Haselen, 121] Like Hahnemann before him, he was “driven to
innovation by dissatisfaction with the limitations of conventional
medicine.” [van Haselen, 121-2] However, in the course of time,
this spilled over into dissatisfaction with homeopathy and with
bacteriology as well. He held the view that certain bacteria “were
not directly pathogenic [but] could lead to intestinal toxaemia and…chronic
disease.” [van Haselen, 122; see Bach, April 1920] He thus
began to “apply potentised vaccines orally.” [van
Haselen, 122]
This suggests that he regarded his work as “a
continuation of that of Hahnemann or leading the way to further
discovery,” [van Haselen, 122] but it also suggests he was
dissatisfied with homeopathy as it is—or why else would he be aiming
to ‘improve’ it?
However, like Hahnemann, he saw an important link
between emotional and mental factors in the patient and the causes of
sickness, feeling also that the selection of the correct remedy must
take into account this pivotal aspect. Therefore, it is not surprising
that he prescribed the “bowel nosodes based upon the
mental/emotional constitutional picture of the patients, rather than on
bacteriological data.” [van Haselen, 122; see E Bach, Homeopathic
World, 1930] He then gradually shifted away from bacteria and
towards herbal remedies, and one aspect of his innovation was to replace
“the bacterial nosodes with herbs,” [van Haselen, 122]
the connecting link between them being the emotional and mental profiles
of remedies and patient.
Bach wished to “replace the bacterial nosodes
by the pure and simple herbs of the field,” [Weeks, 41] and
this shift in his attitude occurred “towards the end of 1929.”
[Weeks, 41] He decided that “the true healing plants held a
greater power,” [Weeks, 49] than had previously been known to
soothe and relieve “the sufferings of the human body.”
[Weeks, 49] He selected plants that “bloom when the days were
longest and the sun was at the height of its power and strength…[using]
the flower-heads alone, for the life of the plant…[he figured, is]
concentrated in its flower.” [Weeks, 49] He also felt that “Nature
was always lavish in her gifts to man.” [Weeks, 49]
The thought “flashed into his mind that each
dewdrop must contain some of the properties of the plant upon which it
rested…[and that] the heat of the sun…would serve to draw out these
properties until each drop was magnetised with power.” [Weeks,
49] In his view, therefore, “the resulting remedies would
contain the full, perfect and uncontaminated power of the plants.”
[Weeks, 49] He therefore set about “collecting the dew from
certain flowers before the sun had caused evaporation.” [Weeks,
50] He “shook the drops from various flowering plants into small
bottles, filling some with dew from flowers which had been in full
sunlight and others from those still in the shade.” [Weeks, 50]
He was then able “to test the dew he had collected from the
flowers.” [Weeks, 50] In due course, he found “that the
dew from each plant had a definite power of some kind,” [Weeks,
51] and that “the sun’s heat was essential to the process of
extraction,” [Weeks, 51] because the “dew collected
from plants in shady places was not so potent as that from the plants in
full sunlight.” [Weeks, 51]
He then wished to move from collecting and using dew,
to “perfect the new method of preparing healing remedies.”
[Weeks, 51] He then picked flowers and placed them “in a glass
bowl filled with water from a clear stream…[left] standing in the
field in full sunshine for several hours.” [Weeks, 51] The
resulting liquid he then decided was “impregnated with the power
of the plant, and was very potent.” [Weeks, 51] This method
especially satisfied his search: “it was the method of
simplicity he had longer for,” [Weeks, 52] to “produce
healing remedies of great power.” [Weeks, 52]
Bach “made plain that disease of the body is
not primarily due to physical causes, but to certain disturbing moods or
states of mind which interfere with the normal happiness of the
individual.” [Weeks, 53] Thus, in his view, “any
disturbance of the mind…would not only result in a loss of peace and
serenity, but would…[ultimately affect] the proper functioning of its
organs.” [Weeks, 53-4] Thus, his view became that “disturbing
moods…were the true indication for the treatment of disease,”
[Weeks, 54] and that their true remedies would be those that have “the
power to elevate our vibrations…cleanse mind and body, and heal.”
[Weeks, 54]
Through this work, he gradually became convinced that
all sickness is caused by “the underlying…moods or states of
mind from which various types could suffer.” [Weeks, 59]
Therefore, although conventional medical treatments “relieved
the physical symptoms of disease…they did not remove the underlying
cause—the mood.” [Weeks, 60] He therefore resolved to “treat
the patient’s personality and not his disease.” [Weeks, 61]
When the remedies were prepared “in the sun
for about four hours…the water was now impregnated with magnetic
power, was crystal clear and full of small sparkling bubbles.”
[Weeks, 66]
Dr Charles E Wheeler, was his “acquaintance
with Edward Bach began in the early twenties.” [Weeks, 134]
Later he says, “we had rooms in the same house and saw a great
deal of one another.” [Weeks, 134] Wheeler found him to be “free
from any taint of self-seeking…single minded in altruism…[and]
courageous in asserting what he felt to be the truth.” [Weeks,
134]
One might almost say that Bach was building his
system of healing amid the ruins of homeopathy, in the sense that the
1920s was certainly a period of stagnation and decline of UK homeopathy.
The process is therefore akin to “Paracelsus and van Helmont
building their systems impertinently amid the ruins of the
Galenic.” [French, 211] Certainly, they were all empirics and
pioneers in the same grand tradition as Lorber, Hahnemann and Cooper. It
is very hard to accept that they were not feeding off each other.
Any comparison of Bach and Cooper tends to be a
re-run of the Hahnemann-Paracelsus comparison. In this case it is Bach,
Cooper and Hahnemann who all converge in their views and ideas. When
Bailey says the essences ‘are not really medicines,’ exactly the
same applies to Bach remedies and to homeopathic remedies.
Cooper’s Arborivital System
Focusing
next on their mode of preparation as a feature of BFR that clearly
distinguishes them from all other therapeutic systems, in using sunlight
and spring water to capture the remedy ‘essence,’ Bach [1886-1936]
adopted a technique reminiscent of the Arborivital Medicine of Robert T
Cooper [1844-1903]. The use of sunlight also points to the ideas of
Jakob Lorber [1800-1864] and Paracelsus [1493-1541]. Sunlight and spring
water can quite justifiably be regarded to comprise a ‘process’
somewhat akin to distillation, in that the flower is ‘cooked’ in the
spring water by the heat and light rays of the sun, such that the water
becomes impregnated if not entirely saturated with the healing essence,
vibration or energy of the flower. There is a similarity with the Bailey
Essences, the Australian Bush Remedies and the Arizona tinctures.
Cooper described his own method thus: “the
preparation of remedies used are tinctures made on the spot from living
plants, proof spirit being employed for the sake of preserving their
inherent properties…by allowing the spirit to come into contact with
the living plant – the branch, while still attached, being kept plunged
in the spirit and exposed to sunlight while thus immersed –
heliosthened, as I term it.” [Cooper, 1900, xv] Many within
British homeopathy were impressed: “Dr Cooper had an uncanny
genius for discovering unusual remedies; some of these he got, no doubt,
from old herbals; but it has been said that he used to lie down before a
flowering plant by the hour, dragging from it its virtues of healing.”
[Tyler & Wheeler, 136] This comment could just as easily have been
said of Bach, so closely do they match each other.
Cooper conceived that there existed “in
plant-remedies a force…which acted by virtue of a power in all
respects similar to a germinating power in the human body,”
[Cooper, 1900, 2] and “…in the living plants we get a force
which, if applied…to disease, will arrest its progress and even cause
its dispersal.” [Cooper, 1900, 3]
When we read Cooper’s methods, we often see strong
hints of Bach: “Cooper’s hypothesis was that a curative ability
or action is inherent in all living plant material, and that this does
not require trituration, succussion or dilution to be
effective….Cooper directed that the tinctures should be administered
in single drop doses, and that these remedies should be given time to
act fully before being repeated. The dose was administered in powder
form with a single drop of the tincture on to a dry tongue and on an
empty stomach.” [Bonnard, 23] How could Bach not have been
inspired by these views?
There seems little doubt that Cooper was “influenced
by the Doctrine of Signatures and relied on observation of plant
structures and characteristics…Cooper claimed that arborivital
remedies were most suitable in crises which were incurable by any other
means, and this includes homoeopathic methods” [Bonnard, 23]
Cooper obviously decided that one should “allow oneself some
latitude,” [Cooper, Feb 1893, 66] in deciding upon the true
profile of any remedy, and that one should seriously question the view
that “all medicine is contained in the repertory,”
[Cooper, Feb 1893 66]. In this manner, he claimed to be “returning
to the methods which, in the early days of homeopathy, Hahnemann
undoubtedly employed,” [Cooper, Feb 1893, 66]
He believed that “the practitioner ought also
to be able to go amongst any variety of plants, or any variety of
medicinal agents, and determine their actions as weapons for the
dispersion of disease in a manner undreamt of by any code of rules
enunciated previously to homeopathy,” [Cooper, Feb 1893, 65].
He boldly drives very close indeed to the doctrine of signatures
employed in previous medical systems [herbalism] when he states that he
takes “advantage of all kinds of indications – such as occur
to me from the habits of the plant, their appearances, and apparently
unimportant features,” [Cooper, Feb 1893, 66]. Yet, in due
course, he candidly admits to making some deviations from the straight
and narrow. However, “any departure that I may be guilty of from
the beaten tracks is to be judged of simply and solely by result.”
[Cooper, Feb 1893, 67]
Having already cast doubt upon the reliability of
provings data for the employment of medicine in sickness, Cooper then
goes into more detail about his alternative method of obtaining reliable
information about drugs in the field. He feels at the outset that “the
doctrine of signatures…[ought to be brought] into accord with modern
thought,” [Cooper, 1898, 265], especially considering that “the
appearance of the roots or other parts of plants very often serve as a
guide to their administration in disease, owing to…[their] resemblance
to the diseases they cure,” [Cooper, 1898, 265]. Clearly,
regarding such clues as gifts from ever-bountiful Nature, Cooper gives
some fine examples. These include the “virtues of Hydrangea in
Diabetes,” [Cooper, 1898, 270] which everybody knows is “the
thirstiest shrub known, especially in the act of flowering,”
[Cooper, 1898, 270]; the leaves of Ledum palustre are “somewhat
spear-shaped,” [Cooper, 1898, 270], and thus its use for
“penetrating wounds, bee and wasp stings, must have been guided…by
a special morphological feature of the plant,” [Cooper, 1898,
270]. As Cooper questions, such notions could never have been derived
from drug provings upon the healthy.
He does not regard this employment of signatures to
displace provings, but merely to supplement it, to flesh out more
details. He also maintains that the imperfect nature of all provings
must inevitably mean that some symptoms are missed and thus “these
symptoms cannot always be available for the purpose required,”
[Cooper, 1898, 267] in treating the sick. The signatures that plants
contain must be seen as “any feature connected with plant life
that suggests the use of such plant as curative for any form of
disease,” [Cooper, 1898, 268]. While “modern thought
has discarded it in toto,” [Cooper, 1898, 266] the idea of
signatures, Cooper would have us “take advantage of such
knowledge,” [Cooper, 1898, 269] and encourage the keen student
to “depend upon his recognition of these sign-boards and his
ability to decipher them,” [Cooper, 1898, 268]. Even though
such an approach “depends entirely upon specialised
vision,” [Cooper, 1898, 271], which keen students should
endeavour to refine, this “should not excite the ridicule of
those whose vision has not been exercised thereupon,” [Cooper,
1898, 271]. In other words, we should be open-minded in our approach to
gaining deeper knowledge of drugs from all sources, including both
provings and signatures.
Bach held similar views with regard to the
unnecessary nature of provings and that the medicinal properties of
herbs could be determined, as Cooper says, by deploying
“specialised vision.”
Cooper bares his teeth and reveals his truly
reforming character when he states that “all great improvements
in science are made by men who throw off the trammels of previous
teachings and begin by a complete and radical overhauling of the entire
subject,” [Cooper, 1894, 389]. The therapist should “give
drugs in single doses in chronic and obstinate forms of disease…especially
of single doses of the undiluted juices of plants,” [Cooper,
1894, 389]
In his quest for therapeutic enlightenment, Cooper
personally resolved “to throw aside all provings and repertories
and to rely simply upon the action of the uninterfered-with curative
principle of plants, which I believe to be none other than
growth-force,” [Cooper, Jan 1893, 14] and to employ
“tinctures…made by myself from ordinary field plants in
accordance with indications such as occurred to me from the habits of
the plants, their appearances, and other apparently unimportant
features.” [Cooper, Jan 1893, 14]
Cooper recommended “prescribing a single dose
of a plant mother tincture prepared from a fresh, living (vita = life)
specimen. Cooper was of the opinion that living plants have an inherent
curative action that does not require trituration or succussion to bring
it forth.” [Watson] He also suggests “that it is
possible to combat the “growth force’ of a malignant tumour with
the growth force of a suitable plant – undoubtedly an ingenious
variation on the principle of similars!” [Watson] He adopted
what Watson calls “Cooper’s off-beat approach…it seems that
Cooper used his intuition as much as anything in arriving at his
prescriptions, and it is apparent that he also drew insight from his
deep botanical knowledge.” [Watson] AS Watson points out, “Dr.
Le Hunte Cooper, son of the then late Dr. Robert T. Cooper…continued
the work begun by his father in obtaining remarkable curative results in
patients with various types of cancer.” [Watson]
Distillation is in turn an overtly alchemical method.
Others include calcination [roasting to red heat], boiling, filtration
and trituration. A link from alchemy to homeopathy, for example, can be
shown from Hahnemann’s general use of trituration, and also his use of
calcination to prepare remedies like Causticum and Hepar sulphuris
[Hahnemann, 1828]. Once we accept that sunlight and spring water
comprise a method akin to distillation, then on this basis it is not a
large step to say that Bach and Hahnemann share a similar appreciation
of alchemical approaches in remedy preparation. They share in fact some
of the alchemical techniques enunciated by their great forebears like
Paracelsus and Van Helmont.
Though it is not very clear, from a strictly
documentary point of view, where Bach obtained his method from, yet
Cooper is the closest and most obvious source that he must certainly
have known about. It is possible, for example, that he heard of Cooper’s
system [Winston, 176-7] from Charles E Wheeler [1868-1946] or John H
Clarke [1853-1931] after Cooper’s death in 1903. Likewise, it is
unclear where Cooper first obtained his idea of ‘heliosthened’
remedies, but he could have been inspired by Paracelsus or possibly by
Lorber, whose work was published in German in 1851. Cooper may have
learned of it perhaps through James Compton Burnett [1840-1901], who is
known to have read German; the only English translation of Lorber dates
from 1997.
Wheeler forms an important connecting link between
those nineteenth century figures like Burnett and Cooper, and later
figures like Clarke, Bach and Paterson. This view recognises that they
all existed in the tiny community of homeopaths in London between about
1890-1930 and all knew each other to some degree. Some, like the members
of the so-called ‘Cooper Club,’ were on very intimate daily contact.
The Cooper Club “were responsible for the development of many
new remedies [mostly nosodes] and of various approaches within the
context of Hahnemann’s medical system.” [Verspoor &
Decker, 140]
It
also recognises that Wheeler, Bach and Paterson all worked on the bowel
flora and on developing the bowel nosodes in the 1910-40 period
[Winston, 186] Therefore, the possible link connecting Cooper and Bach
is not as tenuous as it might otherwise appear. For example, Bach and
Wheeler published ‘Chronic Disease: a Working Hypothesis’ in 1925
[Winston, 186].
Looking more specifically at Bach’s life, then it
is clear that he was never an actual homeopath, never treated patients
with homeopathic remedies or used a conventional homeopathic approach.
He also disagreed with some of its major tenets, such as using
originally toxic material like Belladonna, for healing purposes
[Winston, 187]. However, in spite of these differences, broadly
speaking, there are still more similarities between the two systems than
differences.
Jakob Lorber
TheOf special significance for Bach, is that “Concerning
the light of the sun, its illumination is the same as the familiar
spark. The difference is only that the ‘white light’ stems from the
vibrations of love, while the ‘red light’ stems from the vibrations
of rage; and, since the light of the sun originates from the vibrations
of love, its propagation is different from that originating from anger.”
[Lorber, The Fly, p.48]
Lorber regarded the sun “as an entity, is a
planet in a perfected state.” [Lorber, The Fly, p.51] and that
the light from the sun “comes from the spiritual love-joy of the
spirits surrounding this perfected planet.” [Lorber, The Fly,
p.52] Further, that “these spirits are the ones who, through
their vibrations of love and joy, cause the actual illumination of the
sun.” [Lorber, The Fly, p.53] Lorber believed that “these
expelled spirits are the actual shining light of the sun which, when it
falls on a planet, imparts the positive part to it, which is the
accompanying light, or rather, the continued love-joy vibration of the
completed spirits.” [Lorber, The Fly, p.54]
For Lorber, “God’s revelations regarding
health and well-being are based on a spiritual foundation, and the
reader will discover that the origin of all things is spiritual, not
physical.”[Lorber, book review of Lord’s Book of Life and
Health]
In a very broad sense, Lorber’s remedies,
“prepared with the healing power of sunlight belong to the category
of homeopathy, because both are based on the same foundation. The reader
is shown several ways how the energy of the sun can be directly bound by
the carrier substances of mineral, animal and plant kingdoms, and how
these substances can assist in healing the mind, body and spirit.”
[Book review of The Healing Power of Sunlight]
Sunlight
The process of using sunlight has quite a history,
and is clearly akin to the process of distillation in alchemy and the
parallel extends to the way the sun’s light and heat rays fall upon
the earth, lifting water vapour into the sky and creating clouds, which
ultimately returns to earth as rain, frost, dew, mist or snow. This
easily observed aspect of sunshine in the world could to the
metaphysical eye of ancestors be seen to represent a distillation
process in which ingredients of the land and water of the earth are
purified, and rarefied into an invisible vaporous form that is lifted
into an essence state in the air element using the fiery elemental power
of sunlight. This notion, this way of seeing, can be easily extended
backwards in time to the Ancient Egyptians, who revered the Sun [Osiris]
and who regarded it not only as the source of all life on earth, but
also as a purifying spiritual agent on the earth and so also in the life
of man.
Such parallels would resonate powerfully with figures
like Paracelsus and Lorber as important antecedents of Hahnemann, Cooper
and Bach. Light is also of course associated with spirit and so
resonance can be clearly established between the sun, light and spirit
essences way before the appearance of Edward Bach. In essence, you
cannot get more natural than sunshine. Therefore, it is replete with
many healing overtones. Paracelsus even declares that an important aim
of medicine is “to bring to light that which lies hidden.”
[Coulter, I, 372] This was a crucial concept to Paracelsus. He also
emphasises the central aspect of process—also called coction,
or physis—in normal physiology [e.g. digestion of food], in disease
and in curative therapy.
A good example of Paracelsus’ view is when he says,
“the light of nature in man comes from the stars, and his flesh
and blood belong to the material elements…one is that fundamental
light…the second influence emanates from matter.” [Coulter,
I, 397] For he says, it is spirit whose light “illuminates our
work, and our task, our talents and our doctrine.” [Coulter, I,
463] He also calls alchemy the “eyes of fire,”
[Coulter, I, 463] and that the true physician should always strive to
drive out whatever is invisible from medicine [Coulter, I, 463] by
letting in the light of nature and reason. Hence, the true physician “has
the true knowledge and experience of Nature’s light,”
[Coulter, 470] and makes all things clear and visible to the eyes. The
sun also represents the life force, the Godhead, Elixir, Gold, and
Healer in ancient medicine.
The alchemists undoubtedly regarded “the
energy of the sun and stars as the power outlets of God,”
[Reid] because “the light-energy of the sun is the source all
life.” [Reid] That being the case, “how is one supposed
to be able to capture, store, and use the energy of the sun?” [Reid]
The sun has a healing effect; its rays “fall gently on your
shoulders and massage out the stiffness of the winter.” [Reid]
It was supposed that the energy carried
“within the rays of sunlight that reaches our planet is loaded with
universal Sulfur. The gases and subtle water vapours in our atmosphere
interact with this energy and delicately condense it into a somewhat
tangible form. This is the “sidereal distillation of the
macrocosmos”…” [Reid] As Bach and Cooper discovered,
“the best time for collecting this energy is in the middle of the
day when the sun’s rays are at their most intense. You would be right…”
[Reid]
“The Philosophers speak of two waters that are
the primary cause of creation. Both of these waters are said to be
produced or issue forth from the chaos of the sun.”
[Reid]
“Here for the first time the intangible, unseen
energy of the sun is clothed in a material albeit diaphanous
garment.”
[Reid]
“a very subtle type of alchemical circulation
was going on. The sun’s rays enter the earth’s atmosphere and react with
it
.” [Reid]
Certain alchemists regarded gold as being akin to
sunlight: “the concentrated “solidified sunlight,”
gold, to gild the body’s immune system and aura. On a subtle level it
actually…[streams] through the body’s channels.”[Feite]
Hahnemann on Vexation
A range of quotations made by Hahnemann and scattered
throughout his works reveal his awareness of the part played in sickness
of mental and emotional strains and upsets. For example, when he says “some
violent exertion of the body or mind, but particularly some shock to the
health caused by some severe external injury, or a very sad event that
bowed down the soul, repeated fright, great grief, sorrow and continuous
vexation,” [Hahnemann, 1828, 3] can induce a collapse of good
health. He says that is especially those who “have been exposed
to many mental exertions and thousand fold vexations of spirit,”
[Hahnemann, 1828, 44] where sickness will crop out.
Health, he says, will be vouchsafed if “he
may also lead a quite endurable life…without much hindrance, attend to
his business as long as he is young or still in his vigorous years, and
so long as he does not suffer any particular mishap from without, has a
satisfactory income, does not live in vexation or grief, does not
overexert himself; but especially if he is of quite a cheerful, equable,
patient, contented, disposition.” [Hahnemann, 1828, 47]
However, “as soon as these persons advance in age, even moderate
causes (a slight vexation, or a cold, or an error in diet,” [Hahnemann,
1828, 48] or are visited by some upset “caused by mental
disturbance (grief, fright, vexation), a chill, over-exertion of the
mind or body immediately after eating,” [Hahnemann, 1810,
intro] “a vexation (sometimes even a bewitchment), etc,”
[Hahnemann, 1810, aph.206] then sickness of some form is almost bound to
follow in its wake.
Hahnemann said he could see no internal innermost
essence to any disease and to search for one was futile. Hahnemann
bemoans the “search into the internal essence of diseases,”
[Ameke, 95] which he regards as an utterly futile endeavour. He also
condemns any medical system that searches out and respects only “the
mechanical origin of diseases…[and] which derives diseases from the
original form of the parts.” [Ameke, 95] However, Hahnemann—like
Bach, Paracelsus and Bailey—regarded sickness as due to “a
morbid derangement of the internal dynamis,” [Hahnemann, 1810,
Aph. 12] and an affection of the “morbidly deranged spirit-like
dynamis.” [Hahnemann, 1810, Aph.15]
He declared all diseases act to “dynamically
derange the living organism…[by deranging] the automatic life-energy,
called vital force.” [Hahnemann, 1810, Aph.72] He regarded “symptoms…[as]
the expression of the vital force untuned.” [Handley, 66] He
also states that “diseases obviously are not and cannot be
mechanical or chemical changes in the material substance of the
body…but are an exclusively dynamic, spirit-like untunement of
life.” [Hahnemann, 1810, Aph.31] All these views undoubtedly
place Hahnemann close to Cooper, Bach, Paracelsus and Bailey in the way
he perceives sickness and the conceptual basis upon which he constructs
his medical system.
Hahnemann’s expresses his own sentiments in the Organon
[Aphorisms 11 [9, 10], 15 and 16]: “let it be granted now…that
no disease…is caused by any material substance, but that every one is
only and always a peculiar, virtual, dynamic derangement of the health.”
[Hahnemann, Organon, Aphorisms 11 [9, 10], 15 and 16] Such is
certainly a view of disease as a “dynamic derangement of the
life force,” [Close, 37-8, 74] As Hahnemann states, “fright,
fear, horror, anger, vexation, a chill, &c., are impressions that do
not present themselves in a concrete form, that cannot be subjected to
physical. Investigation,” [Hahnemann, 1809] but he regards them
all as reliable triggers of sickness.
Bailey Essences
The Bailey essences were developed in Bradford by Dr
Arthur Bailey, an engineer and dowser. These remedies “are
hand-made using spring water and alcohol as a base.”
[Bailey homepage] They are thought to act through the mind: “mind
and body inter-react with each other. When the mind is not at ease,
neither is the body. It is this unease of the mind that is often the
origin of our illnesses. Out of date attitudes and conditionings can
disempower us and make us very unhappy. They stand in the way of
positive personal change. The Bailey Essences act as catalysts for this
needed change.” [Bailey] They also aim to “honour the
inherent healing potential of the flowers to the greatest possible
degree.” [Bailey] The essences, “relate to attitudes of
mind rather than clinical symptoms.” [Bailey]
The initial inspiration for the Bailey essences,
“was the work of Dr Bach, but they are not produced in quite the
same way. They are usually made by floating the flowers in a bowl of
spring water in full sunlight for several hours (Sun method). This
“Mother Tincture” is then diluted in an alcohol preservative
to make the bottled essences. Dr Bach’s boiling method has been replaced
with alcohol extraction, which gives a more rounded quality to the
essences. In this case, the essences are floated in alcohol for 15
minutes (apart from Pine Cones which are left for several hours). For
one essence, Cymbidium Orchid, we use moonlight in a similar way to the
sun method.” [Bailey]
The Bailey essences “are not medicines as the
word is normally understood. They are not intended to cure or alleviate
any medical condition. Their mode of operation is to help to rebalance
the mind-body-spirit unity of the person taking them. However, physical
health and symptoms are related to the internal harmony within the
being, so improvements in clinical conditions may well be experienced.
They are catalysts for change, not medicines that impose their effects
on the body.” [Bailey] These points could equally be applied to
Bach Flower remedies and even to homeopathy. Neither are really ‘medicines’
in the narrow and ordinary allopathic sense either.
When Bailey says, “as a child I was always
drawn towards flowers. I found them fascinating with all their different
colours, smells and shapes. To me they were beautiful and somehow
mysterious,” [Bailey] then he again echoes similar sentiments
expressed by Bach, Cooper and Paracelsus: they all equally resonated
with nature and wild plants.
The present range of Bailey essences is “primarily
concerned with personal growth and liberation. This does not mean…[they]
cannot help physical illnesses – far from it. Yet their main emphasis is
that of helping to integrate mind, body and spirit. We need to break the
hold of old conditionings and beliefs which can so deny us our freedom.
As these old patterns ease away, we need support and insight so that we
can find our own true path in life.” [Bailey] The first Bailey
essences “were then prepared from them using Dr Bach’s
“Sun” method…” but “they were not for emotional
states like the Bach ones.” [Bailey]
In the above sense, they were therefore
“quite different from the Bach remedies. Indeed, it is our
attitudes of mind that give rise to negative emotional states…many of
us are severely restricted in our freedom to live life as we would wish.
These restrictions usually stem from childhood, when the development of
true self-confidence is often stunted. As a result we also lack
confidence in our innate spiritual natures.” [Bailey]
Bailey says that he “discovered for myself,
experience is far superior to belief. Beliefs are usually based on what
other people have told us, and may be totally untrue. Personal
experience, even though it can be misinterpreted, is a far surer path.”
[Bailey] Such a sentiment is often expressed by pioneers and empirics of
all types—like Hahnemann, Cooper, Bach and Paracelsus. Examples
include where Cooper declares, “any departure that I may be
guilty of from the beaten tracks is to be judged of simply and solely by
result.” [Cooper, Feb 1893, 67] He always claimed to be “returning
to the methods which, in the early days of homeopathy, Hahnemann
undoubtedly employed,” [Cooper, Feb 1893, 66] Cooper reveals
his truly reforming and experimental character when he states that “all
great improvements in science are made by men who throw off the trammels
of previous teachings and begin by a complete and radical overhauling of
the entire subject,” [Cooper, 1894, 389]. He personally
resolved “to throw aside all provings and repertories and to
rely simply upon the action of the uninterfered-with curative principle
of plants…” [Cooper, Jan 1893, 14]
Like Paracelsus before him, Hahnemann also despised
book learning as a source of medical truth. What he also called “speculative
refinements, arbitrary axioms…dogmatic assumptions…[and the]
magnificent conjuring games of so-called theoretical medicine.”
[Ameke, 134] Instead, he reserved his greatest respect for “a
science of pure experience…knowledge of the disease to be treated and
the actions of drugs.” [Ameke, 134] These, he insists can only
be deduced “from pure experience and observation.,”
[Ameke, 134] Such words could equally be those of Bailey, Cooper, Bach
or Paracelsus.
More Bach
In the early phase of developing the BFRs, “he
potentised these remedies [Impatiens, Mimulus and Clematis] and
prescribed them purely on the basis of the mental and emotional
constitutional features of the patient.” [van Haselen, 122; see
E Bach, Homeopathic World, Feb 1930] These were in fact the first three
of the 37 BFRs to be discovered [Weeks, 41]. Putting microbiology firmly
behind him, in 1930, he pursued development of the BFRs with renewed
vigour [van Haselen, 122]. He then “went to Wales to find new
remedies, which is where he also discovered the new method of ‘potentisation’
involving placing the fresh flowers…in a bowl with spring water and
exposing them to direct sunlight.” [van Haselen, 122]
His new method of remedy preparation also involved
boiling “flowers and twigs of trees, bushes and plants…which
bloom early in the year before there is enough sunshine.” [van
Haselen, 122] In 1930-31 he also made the “definitive break
between the new system of healing he propagated and homeopathy.”
[van Haselen, 122] He considered his new system to be “a further
advancement of the principles laid down by Hahnemann,” [van
Haselen, 122] but that is not how homeopaths saw it, and increasingly
his views were “not well received in homeopathic circles.” [van
Haselen, 122]
Certainly, he viewed sickness as “a learning
process…to help us understand more about ourselves,” [van
Haselen, 122; see also Dethlefsen, 1990] and profoundly, like Hahnemann,
he believed that “health comes when we regain harmony between
our physical and spiritual selves.” [van Haselen, 122] But Bach’s
departure from homeopathy can in part be appreciated when we regard his “exclusive
focus on the mental state of the sufferer,” [van Haselen, 122]
which is so characteristic of his new approach, but which is by no means
the only focus for the homeopath.
Like Hahnemann, he also believed in the innate “self-healing
energy in the patient,” [van Haselen, 123] what he called the “self-regulating
vital force, the vis medicatrix naturae.” [van Haselen, 123]
Both he and Hahnemann were “exponents of the empirical…therapeutic
method…in which symptoms and signs of the curative effort of the
dynamis…must be interpreted as positive or beneficial phenomena.”
[van Haselen, 123] They both therefore stand in the grand Hippocratic
medical tradition. Bach also believed that remedies should “not
be repeated once improvement has taken place.” [van Haselen,
123] This type of ‘therapeutic minimalism’ is certainly normal
practice in homeopathy, where too frequent repetition of remedies is
generally condemned both as uncurative and potentially damaging to the
patient.
Both systems also “aim to transfer the
healing energy contained in the source material to a pharmaceutical
medium and involve a form of energisation.” [van Haselen, 123]
However, it is equally clear that Bach departed from mainstream
homeopathy in his preferred mode of remedy ‘potentisation’ using
spring water and sunlight. He “claimed to have found a simple
and more perfect method of energisation,” [van Haselen, 123] by
which the “healing energy of plants…concentrated in its
flowers…could be passed into a carrier [water] by the energy of the
sun.” [van Haselen, 123] For some plant species he employs “boiling
the fresh flowers and twigs of trees, bushes,” [van Haselen,
123] etc to obtain a decoction or infusion of the plant’s healing
energy. By “simple and more perfect method,” he might
have meant a method more suitable for remedies made from flower essences
and suited for use based on emotional profiles, NOT a method superior to
Hahnemannian potentisation.
Clearly therefore, these methods “are
different from potentisation as used in homeopathy,” [van
Haselen, 123] and it would be futile to pretend otherwise. For example, “exposure
of [homeopathic] remedies to direct sunlight or intense heat is thought
to inactivate,” [van Haselen, 123] them and are therefore
factors specifically to be avoided in order to vouchsafe the longevity
of homeopathic remedies. Nevertheless, one might say the two systems
acknowledge “the influence of direct sunlight and intense heat
on the energy contained in [medicinal] substances,” [van
Haselen, 124] or indeed, upon plant and animal extracts. Thus, even an
apparent difference between the two systems can be seen to contain a
similarity.
In relation to finding some common ground, then
homeopathy and the BFRs, both “contain a non-material healing
energy.” [van Haselen, 123] They are also prescribed “based
on presenting symptomatic layer,” [van Haselen, 123] and they
both aim to mobilise the “self-healing vital force,”
[van Haselen, 123] which they both recognise as the source of all
natural healing. Sir John Weir [1879-1970] said in an address that
homeopathic “remedies do not act directly on disease; they
merely stimulate the vital reactions of the patient, and this causes him
to cure himself.“[Weir, 200-201] Both systems “use
single remedies,” [van Haselen, 123] which are “not to
be repeated once improvement takes place.” [van Haselen, 123]
All these points of obvious similarity between them inevitably bring the
two systems into close proximity.
In the quite other sense, that “Bach’s aim
was to develop a system which was simple and accessible in order to
promote self-help,” [van Haselen, 124] for the common weal of
humanity, then he resembles Dr John Henry Clarke [1853-1931], who
deliberately taught lay persons homeopathy, and lent bold support to lay
homeopathy, either through genuine conviction or to aggravate those
faculty doctors who he despised as traitors, and who condemned such an
approach as beneath their professional dignity [see Morrell, 1999, 190].
It is also of interest that Dr Clarke was editor of The Homeopathic
World until his death in 1931 and it was therefore he who
published all Bach’s most controversial papers on vaccines and Flower
remedies during the 1920s. [see also Morrell, 1999]
Robert T Cooper
Clarke was also a big friend of Dr Robert T Cooper
[1844-1903] who originally used the sunshine method of remedy
preparation, [‘arborivital medicine’] as also was Dr Charles Edwin
Wheeler, with whom Bach had worked on nosodes. Therefore, the claim that
Bach did not know about sunshine making remedies looks far less
credible, the deeper one probes into that very small world of British
homeopathy, 1900-1930; that all these people knew each other and were on
friendly terms somewhat erodes the validity of the claim made that Bach
just plucked original ideas from thin air.
It is genuinely hard to believe that no such
influence took place. It is hard to believe that he lived in the tiny
world of London homeopathy for over ten years without ever knowing of
the work and methods of Cooper and his son Robert M Le Hunte Cooper
[c.1863-c.1940], both friends and close associates of Clarke and
Wheeler. Such a view beggars belief.
John Henry Clarke and Charles
Edwin Wheeler
However, unlike Clarke, Bach seems to have genuinely
espoused a ‘treat yourself’ medical philosophy and may therefore be
credited with genuine foresight in conceiving of a medicine “for
the purposes of self-help,” [van Haselen, 124] because in
recent times “over the counter [OTC] self-treatment has become
very popular,” [van Haselen, 124] whether for tissue salts,
homeopathy, aromatherapy or Bach Flower essences. However, this was not
so much the case back in the 1930s. The easy do-it-yourself method Bach
employed, of preparing remedies, by floating flowers in spring water for
3 hours in direct sunshine [Shaw, 12] allows anyone to make their own
remedies and so frees them “from dependence on doctors and
medical systems, and allowed them the power to heal themselves.” [Shaw,
12]
Certainly Bach viewed sickness “as a ‘correction’
for an error,” [van Haselen, 125]—shades there once again of
Kent—but few would “agree with Bach’s total emphasis on this
principle.” [van Haselen, 125] Maybe he held a rather
simplistic or highly judgemental view of sickness? Such a view was not
shared by most homeopaths. However, he did, like Hahnemann, place great “emphasis
on the importance of compassion as part of the healing process.”
[van Haselen, 125] One might well agree with van Haselen that “although
homeopathy and DBS are clearly different, relationships between both
systems exist.” [van Haselen, 126] Many homeopaths would also
agree with him that the “flower remedies can be used to ‘open
up’ a case by stimulating the vital force.” [van Haselen,
126] Therefore, “although both systems are clearly different,
some common ground exists…both systems may have a complementary role
which is perhaps insufficiently recognised.” [van Haselen, 126]
Bach clearly “recognised that mental and
emotional symptoms were the most important ones.” [Franz, 29]
He employed “potentised nosodes from the pathological intestinal
flora,” [Franz, 29-30] and prescribed them “according
to the mental and emotional symptoms that he recorded intuitively,”
[Franz, 29-30] and which he saw in patients. He regarded the intestinal
toxaemia as analogous to “the physical substrate of Hahnemann’s
Psora,” [Franz, 30] which Steiner construed as: “if our
egos are low our intestinal flora is pathological.” [Franz, 30]
Eventually, Bach “looked for plants that could replace these
nosodes,” [Franz, 30] but similarly selected them on the basis
of emotional symptoms.
To prepare his essences, Bach used “water
from a certain spring,” [Franz, 30] and being “inspired
by the sunlit morning dew, he developed a new method for capturing the
ethereal plant quality in remedies—comparable to the ‘arcanum’ of
Paracelsus.” [Franz, 30] When Franz says Bach also ‘cooked’
some remedies “in water over a wood fire to utilise the sun’s
energy of the past few years,” [Franz, 30-31] he presumably
means that the wood represents the sun’s light energy captured in life
as growth by the plant and then released by the flames of the fire.
Few would dispute Franz’s assessment that the “Bach
flower remedy is best compared to a low homeopathic LM or Q
potency,” [Franz, 31] and that they lead to “stimulation
of a person’s self-healing strengths.” [Franz, 32] He also
thinks that “homeopathic remedies and Bach essences act as a
catalyst,” [Franz, 32] to stimulate innate self-healing
processes. Franz claims that “Hering’s law is also
observed,” [Franz, 32] in the action of Bach flower essences,
and also observes that Bach contends, as with homeopathy, that “there
is a constitutional remedy for each person.” [Franz, 32-33]
Franz clearly believes “they act directly at the emotional
level,” [Franz, 33] for he regards this as a fulfilment of Bach’s
main “objective…to determine the emotional state of the
patient,” [Franz, 29] and upon which he believes the entire
Bach system is based. Franz estimates that “both in the
preparation of remedies in homeopathy and also the preparation of Bach
flower remedies are based on the principles of alchemy.”
[Franz, 33]
Bach professed—just like Paracelsus and Cooper
before him—an “overwhelming love for nature,” [Richardson,
174] and thus resolved to find and use “natural healing
substances.” [Richardson, 174] Paracelsus believed that “attenuation
would release from the crude matter the inner ‘arcanum,’ the
essential curative virtue,” [Richardson, 174] and it seems
clear that Bach held exactly the same view. Arguably, the sunlight
performs for Cooper and Bach the same function as attenuation does in
homeopathy. In this way, he thus proposed to utilise therapeutically “the
ethereal life force which animated all life.” [Richardson, 174]
This view contends that “the spiritual and material interwove to
create the specific dynamic of all processes,” [Richardson,
174] which for living things he saw as “their spiritual and
material dynamics.” [Richardson, 174]
Paracelsus and van Helmont used the term “archeus…which
referred to the human vital force.” [Richardson, 174] The
matter did not rest there, however, as they further contended that “each
organ had its own specific archeus, with the stomach being the leading
factor.” [Richardson, 174]. In their system, “disease
sprang from specific seeds, ‘semina’…[related to] certain
invisible disease patterns.” [Richardson, 174] It was these
invisible disease patterns that could affect “the archeus
undermining its healthy functioning,” [Richardson, 174] and so
elicit symptoms of sickness. Similarities exist here to the miasms of
Hahnemann. They further held that “the overall archeus or vital
force and the archeus of each organ could be healed by a corresponding
archeus of a medicinally prepared plant or mineral.”
[Richardson, 174] The obvious analogy here is the essence of a
potentised homeopathic drug or a Bach flower essence.
A very good example of the parallel between Bach and
homeopathy concerns the plant, Walnut [Juglans regia]. In the 19th
century, “homeopathic investigations revealed Juglans regia…as
beneficial in migraine headaches, and Bach considered this plant as a
unique and protective healer that shields the mind from heightened
impressionability and suggestibility.” [Richardson, 175] Other
examples have been less interesting as the profiles of some homeopathic
drugs also used by Bach do not reveal so much overlap in their
therapeutic range of application within the two systems.
Like
Bach and Hahnemann, van Helmont “also hinted at the power of the
mind in the causation of disease…[especially that] fear or loss of
honour could start an illness.” [Richardson, 175] He saw
disease as often being caused by “an intruding archeus…[leading
to] an unbalanced organism…led by the imagination.”
[Richardson, 175] Again we see the connection between the ideas of
Hahnemann, Paracelsus, van Helmont and Bach. Certainly, “Hahnemann
reflects van Helmont’s notion that the image of disease is originated
in the mental/spiritual realm, in the imagination, which is located in
the archeus.” [Richardson, 175] According to van Helmont, “illness
begins as the personal archeus becomes subjected to the archeus of
another life form…[which] imparts a new and erroneous image to the
increasingly unbalanced vital force.” [Richardson, 175] This is
not so far as it might seem from what Hahnemann and Bach were also
saying. In this way, the organism “falls out of tune initially
and then becomes accessible to invasion by a foreign archeus.”
[Richardson, 175] Such would be the ‘error’ of Bach, the miasm of
Hahnemann and Kent’s primary Psora.
Hahnemann also “believed that consciously
held erroneous thoughts or beliefs could spark disease,”
[Richardson, 175] a position which comes quite close to the ideas of
Bach, and “is in tune with Paracelsus’ and van Helmont’s
concept of the archeus.” [Richardson, 176] According to them
all “the dynamis of the corresponding natural life form,
medicinally activated by potentisation…restores the individual human
dynamis to health…[and represents] the highest immaterial or spiritual
extraction of medicines.” [Richardson, 176] Kent’s view that
potentised remedies contain “purely energetic medicinal powers
imprinted on the water/alcohol medium during preparation,”
[Richardson, 176] is entirely consistent with the views of Hahnemann and
Bach, and they would probably all further agree with him that such
remedies resonate “profoundly with the soul, mind and
will.” [Richardson, 176]
Regarding
sunlight, perhaps Bach, like Rudolf Steiner, “linked the power
of the sun…to the human heart as a seat of goodness.”
[Richardson, 176] This might partially explain his insistent connection
of the flower remedies to basically emotional states of health or
sickness. Steiner also “used various methods of energetic
potentisation…[including] exposure to light or heat.” [Richardson,
176] For Steiner, as with Hahnemann and Bach, “natural agents
are selected to uplift the disharmonious human condition to a more
synchronised one,” [Richardson, 177] and of “resonating
with the unwell dimensions of the human being.” [Richardson,
177] In these entire natural healing systems it is quite apparent that
they “aspire to utilise the harmony of nature for the [treatment
of the] diseased human being.” [Richardson, 177] It is hard to
see how any of the great pioneers of natural medicine would disagree
with that sentiment, which reads like the ultimate summary of or last
word on this subject.
Bach affirmed that “all diseases begin in the
mind…[resulting from] errors in the personality.” [Richardson
II, 26] This notion is akin to “disease begins in the
imagination, according to van Helmont, or is conceived on the
spirit-like, dynamic plane, according to Hahnemann.”
[Richardson II, 26] The difference, if any, between them is subtle if
not non-existent. It also approaches the fundamental innate Psora of
Kent.
The Bach method of using “freshly plucked
flowers…floated onto the surface of water in the open air and sunshine
for optimal release of subtle, ethereal healing powers…[is] catalysed
by the four elements of fire, water, air and earth.”
[Richardson II, 26] These remedies clearly “derive their healing
powers from the [same] sunshine and heat which deactivate homeopathic
remedies.” [Richardson II, 26-27] What might be termed “the
special method of Bach Flower potentisation,” [Richardson II,
27] using sunlight and spring water, “enables Bach to achieve
the desired vibrational power and healing effect within the personality
sphere of the human being.” [Richardson II, 27] It might be
assumed, therefore, that this “catalytic power of the BFRs in
freeing the vital force from disease patterns or foreign archeus,”
[Richardson II, 27] achieves this result solely by “addressing
the root of the personality,” [Richardson II, 27] rather than
by any imagined impact upon the biological or physiological plane of
organism functioning. Improvement in the emotional plane is then deemed
to be transferred to the biological plane. This again is reminiscent of
Kent’s fixation with hierarchies.
It is also clear that in his first ‘nosode phase,’
of medical research, Bach “had attempted to match the healing
vibrations of the nosodes to those of the healing plants of nature,
which he later identified as the Bach Flower Remedies.”
[Richardson II, 27] This might be seen as strong evidence that all along
he had been in hot pursuit of a mental/emotional form of healing as one
of his primary objectives. We might well conclude therefore, that “errors
in the personality, as well as the forces of aging or the consequences
of accidents or other events, may propel distortions in the personal
archeus or vital force.” [Richardson II, 27] In this way,
disease expression “is shaped by the person’s temperament,
while being predetermined by genetic and miasmatic heritage.”
[Richardson II, 27]
The Bach system clearly acknowledges that the vital
force becomes “more challenged during times of stress and
adversity,” [Richardson II, 27] and in that sense, the BFRs
could well be “more subtle than homeopathic remedies…[in
addressing] the first tendencies in the personality to distortion and
imbalance…[which] appear even before the archeus becomes deeply
affected,” [Richardson II, 27] that is even before sickness has
become manifested at the level of physical symptoms of ill-health. It is
as if the BFR sphere of action is at the pre-physical or pre-biological
level of organism functioning, what Kent termed ‘the realm of causes:’
“all disease causes are in Simple Substance. We must enter the
realm of causes in order to see the nature of disease.” [Kent,
1926]
Empiricists like Paracelsus, Hahnemann and Bach were “rejecting
sterile rationalism,” [McLean, 27] in favour of personal
experiment. Paracelsus was referred to as “the Luther of
medicine,” [McLean, 78] primarily because he represented a
troublemaking tendency, “an anti-authoritarian stance and
insisted…on the importance of inner revelation or ‘lumen naturae’…”
[McLean, 78] This knowledge-creating power he respected far more, as a
fertile and reliable beacon of hope and revelation, than the thunderous
hair-splitting rationalism of philosophers and textbooks. For book
learning he had only a thinly-disguised contempt. Like van Helmont, Kent
and, to some degree, Bach, Paracelsus insisted “on the unitary
nature of the field of medicine and theology,” [McLean, 91]
refusing to separate God from Man in the realm of human health and
sickness. Paracelsus saw words “as the bark covering the sap of
invisible arcane knowledge,” [McLean, 112] just as Kent said “…the
results of disease (symptoms) are but the outward expression of the
internal sickness,” [Kent, 1926, 641] and “there is an
Innermost to everything that is, or else the outermost could not
be.” [Kent, 1929, 645]
For
Paracelsus, “each individuum was wholly peculiar and…[for him]
there were as many diseases as patients.” [McLean, 170] Bach
and Hahnemann would agree. Another important connecting link to
Paracelsus is found in Bach’s intuitive use of signatures in finding
the plants he desired. Yet, “the correspondence theory of
signatures in plants…is the most contentious manifestation,”
[McLean, 324] of the whole cosmic impulse of Paracelsian medicine. Some
physicians at the time argued “that the theory of signatures
fails to distinguish between significant and insignificant
similarities,” [McLean, 325] and this is precisely the problem
Bach himself hit against in his travels around Wales and England
searching for healing plants. Certainly, the doctrine of signatures was
not a simple one, but easily opens to misinterpretation and
over-simplification.
A good example of Paracelsus’ qualification as a
radical empiricist, like Bach, is when he “thought he could
learn more medicine by travelling and observing than from any
library,” [French, 148] which is certainly a sentiment
reminiscent of Bach’s travels in the English countryside searching for
healing plants. The notion is further repeated when Paracelsus insists
that “God sent diseases, but also cures; and it was the true
doctor who could recognise from signs the abundant natural remedies that
God had provided.” [French, 149] He also held that the true
knowledge of medicine “was not to be acquired from authority,
but existed in the natural objects themselves.” [French, 149]
Such is precisely Bach’s perhaps naïve view that numerous would-be
healing plants were simply ‘out there’ in the lanes and fields just
waiting to be discovered. Bach also felt that “Nature was always
lavish in her gifts to man.” [Weeks, 49]
Original sin?
A useful link exists in Bach’s thinking can be seen
regarding homeopathy and the miasms. Bach realised with Bowel nosodes
that when a case becomes stuck in homeopathic treatment, the bowel flora
then becomes pathological and that when this is potentised to make a
remedy then it unblocks the stuck case for normal homeopathic remedies
to then resume their good work.
He then identified this state in two ways—an
emotional profile of the patient as a reliable guide to the nosode [and
later to the flower remedy] and that this blocked state was indicative
of latent Psora, or the fundamentally psoric state first described
by Hahnemann. Thus, Bach clearly forms conceptual bridges from nosodes
to vexation, which Hahnemann saw as a fundamental cause of sickness,
then to the bowel flora, to emotional symptoms and thus to the flower
remedies and miasms all apparently in one leap.
This also suggests that Bach, like Hahnemann, thought
sickness to primarily stem from a deeper and invisible predisposing
cause of a universal character, just as the miasms of Hahnemann are seen
by most homeopaths. Perhaps Bach, like Hahnemann and Paracelsus, felt we
are all sick in the same primary or fundamental sense of Milton: “man’s
first disobedience…[that] brought death into the world and all our
woe.” [Milton] This sense that we are all ‘fallen beings’
is what Kent implied in some of his moralising remarks about religion,
sin and Psora. Considering that Bach worked closely with the homeopath,
Dr Charles E Wheeler, that they published a book together in 1925, and
that Bach even “suggested that intestinal toxaemia was identical
with Hahnemann’s Psora,” [van Haselen, 122; see also E Bach,
1928, and Jan 1929] this appears to be an important point.
When Kent said, “Psora is the beginning of
all physical sickness…is the underlying cause and is the primitive or
primary disorder of the human race,” [Kent, 1980, 126] he meant
to say that “it goes to the very primitive wrong of the human
race, the very first sickness of the human race that is the spiritual
sickness…which in turn laid the foundation for other diseases.”
[Kent, 1980, 126] He called Psora, “this outgrowth, which has
come upon man from living a life of evil willing.” [Kent, 1926,
654] He clearly echoes earlier medical writers where “the fallen
condition of mankind was blamed for the ubiquity of sickness, suffering
and the empire of the Grim Reaper. Through their original sin, Adam and
Eve had brought disease and death into the world as punishments for
disobedience.” [Porter, 1986, 27] Certain diseases have long
been “associated with the Almighty’s punishment of sin…” [Porter,
1998, 84] Sufferings of all kinds “could be a godsend and a
trial.’Blessed is the man, whom God correcteth,’ declared Job, singled
out by the Lord to undergo great suffering…” [Porter, 1998,
85]
In many times and cultures, sickness was “regarded
as part of God’s design for the individual [bringing training and a
sense of God’s mercy] then the intervention of the physician is
incompatible with the notion of God’s purpose. That is medicine is seen
to interfere with a religious plan. In any case, the Christian
theologians often regarded human maladies…as charged with spiritual
powers….by stressing the educative aspect of sickness; the Church was
able to accept the role of the physician as compatible with these
Christian principles.” [Turner, 27]
Kent unambiguously declares that “had Psora
never been established as a miasm upon the human race…susceptibility
to acute diseases would have been impossible…it is the foundation of
all sickness,” [Kent, 1980, 126] and that “the human
race today walking the face of the earth, is but little better than a
moral leper. Such is the state of the human mind at the present day. To
put it another way everyone is Psoric.” [Kent, 1980, 135] It is
clear from these quotes that Kent took a very puritanical and moral line
about the origins of disease within the human race and he apparently
felt that Psora was equivalent to Original Sin or the Fall of Man. It
seems to me that Bach held similar views both in his interpretation of
Psora as a primary sickness and in his view that Love was the panacea.
Summary
I do not wish to force the issue about influences
upon Bach because we simply do not know much with great certainty; we
can only point to various probabilities. It is perfectly possible that
Bach, like many empirics before him, simply discovered his remedies and
their mode of preparation for himself, in his own way, in isolation from
any prior knowledge of Cooper, Paracelsus or Lorber. This can be true of
all empirics and pioneers in any field. However, it is also possible
that, like Hahnemann, he did recognise these influences of predecessors,
but chose not to reveal the more obvious links to the pioneers in his
own field. And if he did do that, again, no shame is attached because we
can only guess at the possible motives that led him to adopt such a
path. Regardless of such influences, if they exist, he was still an
original pioneer of a new medical system distinctive in its own way,
though with obvious connections to the other systems.
In summary, this detailed survey shows that there are
infinitely more similarities between homeopathy and BFR than
differences. Most objections to this view of a common underpinning
rationale seem both feeble and to stem from pedantic hairsplitting by
parties on both sides who probably wish to keep the two systems separate
for solely commercial purposes. For example, Bach first launched his
remedies “through the homeopathic pharmacies,”
[Barnard, 299] even though he himself “made clear that the
flower remedies were not homeopathic,” [Barnard, 299] and that
they are not prepared “by homeopathic methods.”
[Barnard, 299]
Although one might justifiably say the BFR are based
upon “a pseudo-homeopathic dilution,” [Barnard, 300]
system and “based more upon quality and not a quantity,”
[Barnard, 301] but exactly the same can be said for homeopathic remedies
and so the ‘score’ remains tilted in favour of similarity rather
than difference. Many different types of dilution are employed by
homeopaths and they are clearly based more upon quality than quantity.
Indeed, numerous homeopaths have said that they contain none of the
original substance molecules.
In a letter of 1982, Richard Katz, President of the
Flower Essence Society, claims that BFR and homeopathic remedies “are
distinctly different,” [Katz, 1] from each other and that
because “unlike homeopathic remedies…[their preparation]
involves the action of the sun,” [Katz, 1] so “they are
not homeopathic remedies.” [Katz, 1] Indeed, as he points out,
the Bach centre “was adamant in insisting,” [Katz, 1]
on such a difference for years. Although Katz quite rightly insists, the
“properties attributed to flower essences have not been derived
from standard homeopathic provings,” [Katz, 1] yet nor have
certain remedies and views of homeopaths like Cooper, Scholten and
Whitmont. Even some of Kent’s ‘new remedies’ were unproven
remedies whose properties he had fabricated based upon probabilities.
Although Katz claims that “flower essences
are a form of ‘alchemical’ transformation of consciousness and are
essentially a method of spiritual healing,” [Katz, 2] yet
exactly the same claim can be made for the medical systems of
Paracelsus, van Helmont, Cooper and Hahnemann and for exactly the same
reasons.
It is not strictly true that “the Bach method
of preparation is not in any way similar to the homeopathic method,”
[Bach Remedy Newsletter, Sept 1979, 178] for, as we have seen, there are
indeed at least as many similarities as differences. Nor, therefore,
does it necessarily follow from this that “a different force is
set free by the trituration and succussion used in preparing homeopathic
remedies.” [Bach Remedy Newsletter, Dec 1977, 118] That is
merely an opinion, for no-one knows with any certainty what the
underlying ethereal basis of homeopathic remedies or Bach essences is.
Therefore, it is not possible to say definitively that “their
higher radiations still cannot be obtained that way,” [Bach
Remedy Newsletter, Dec 1977, 118] or that the BFR “obtain the
highest form of radiation…which is the ultimate potency…[which]
cannot be increased.” [Bach Remedy Newsletter, Sept 1979, 178]
The claim that there are no “higher potencies of the Bach
Remedies—for life force cannot be increased,” [Bach Remedy
Newsletter, Dec 1977, 118] is therefore another meaningless statement
that cannot be corroborated and so must be seen as a mere statement of
opinion.
As I said at the outset, any classification scheme is
ultimately an arbitrary human construct designed for convenience. For
convenience, I can see good clear reasons to regard BFR as a form of
homeopathy, even though it deviates from pure homeopathy in a number of
key respects: no provings, no succussion, no trituration, no use of
physical symptoms and use of sunlight.
In presenting a detailed study of the myriad
connections between homeopathy and BFR, I find that there are many more
similarities than differences, both at the conceptual level and in
methodology. I see no reason, therefore, why these similarities cannot
be justly used as the basis for legal and regulatory purposes of
classifying the BFR system as a form of homeopathy, distinctive in its
own ways, but nevertheless sufficiently similar for this approach to
inflict no lasting harm to either system. It is the only other natural
therapy that stands anywhere near close to it and with which it has
clear historical links. Thus, for the convenience of legal and
regulatory purposes there is little to be lost by placing them in the
same category side by side as very similar systems of therapy.
Acknowledgement
I acknowledge my grateful thanks to Mike Price and
Gregory Vlamis for supplying some invaluable source material without
which writing this essay would have been rendered much more difficult.
Sources
Wilhelm Ameke, History of Homoeopathy: Its Origins,
its Conflicts (trans A. Drysdale, Edited by R E Dudgeon), London: E
Gould & Sons, 1885
E Bach, The Relation of Vaccine Therapy to
Homeopathy, BHJ 9, April 1920
E Bach, The Re-Discovery of Psora, BHS Nov 1 1928,
publ. BHJ 19, Jan 1929, 29-41 & 44-45
E Bach, Some Fundamental Considerations of Disease
& Cure, The Homeopathic World, 64, 1930, 266-8 & 295-9
E Bach, Some New Remedies and New Uses, Homeopathic
World, Feb 1930, 33-37
E Bach & C E Wheeler, Chronic Disease a Working
Hypothesis, London, H K Lewis & Co, 1925
Bach Centre, Remedy Newsletter, 5:16, Dec 1977
Bach Centre, Remedy Newsletter, 5:23, Sept 1979
Arthur Bailey Flower Essences, home page
http://www.baileyessences.com/homepage1.htm
http://www.baileyessences.com/aboutessences.htm
http://www.baileyessences.com/companyhistory.htm
[accessed 9-3-04]
Julian Barnard, Bach Flower Remedies, Form and
Function, Hereford: Flower Remedy Programme, 2002
Isaiah Berlin, Georges Sorel, in Against the Current:
Essays in the History of Ideas, London: Pimlico, 1997
Jean Bonnard, Robert Thomas Cooper and Arborivital
Medicine, Student Homeopath 21, London, 10 Sept 1994, 22-24
A Bullock & S Trombley [Eds.], The New Fontana
Dictionary of Modern Thought, third edition, London: Harper Collins,
1999
Stuart Close, The genius of Homeopathy: Lectures and
Essays on Homeopathic Philosophy, Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafel,
1924
R T Cooper, Calcarea carbonica – a Warning,
Homeopathic World, 2 Jan 1893, 11-15
R T Cooper, One Dose – One Value, Homeopathic World, Feb 1 1893,
64-68
R T Cooper, Some Results of Single Doses, Homeopathic World, Sept 1
1894, 389-393
R T Cooper, Arborivital Medicine, The Doctrine of Signatures,
Homeopathic World, June 4 1898, 265-271
Robert T Cooper, Cancer and Cancer Symptoms, London,
1900
Harris L Coulter, Divided Legacy, Washington:
Wehawken Books, 1973, volume 1
T Dethlefsen, The Healing Power of Illness, Element
Books, 1990
W John Diamond, The Clinical Practice of
Complementary, Alternative and Western Medicine, Washington: CRC Press,
2001
Steven A. Feite, Notes on Tantric Alchemy and the Purification of
Mercury
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/feite.html
Accessed 9-03-04
John S Foley, Drugs never cured a thing, BMJ
e-letter, 14 June 2003
http://bmj.com/cgi/eletters/326/7388/518/c#33299
Angelika Franz, Bach-Blüten und Homöopathie,
Allgemeine Homöopathische Zeitung, 240-1, 1995, 28-34 [with English
translation]
Roger French, Medicine Before Science: the Business
of Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003
Samuel Hahnemann, Observations On The Three Current
Methods Of Treatment, From Hufeland’s Journal of Practical Medicine,
vol. xi, pt. 4. 1809
Samuel Hahnemann, Organon of Medicine, 1810,
translated and edited by W G Boericke & R E Dudgeon, Philadelphia:
Boericke & Tafel, 1922
Samuel Hahnemann, The Chronic Diseases-their Peculiar
Nature and their Homeopathic Cure. “Die chronischen
Krankheit…” Die chronischen Krankheiten ihre eigenthümliche
Natur und homöopathische Heilung; Dresden, Leipzig: Arnold, 1828
Rima Handley, In Search of the Later Hahnemann,
Beaconsfield: Beaconsfield Publishers, 1997
Richard Katz, Letter to the US Homeopathic
Pharmacopoeia Committee, 15 October, 1982
James T Kent, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, N Atlantic Books,
1980
James T Kent, New remedies, clinical cases, lesser
writings, aphorisms and precepts, Chicago: Ehrhart & Karl,
1926
Jakob Lorber, Book review of Lorber’s ‘Lord’s Book of Life and
Health’
http://merkurpublishing.com/jakob_lorber_new_revelation.htm
Accessed 09-03-04]
Jakob Lorber, The Fly, essay
http://www.j-lorber.com/English/Text/TheFly.htm
accessed 09-03-04
Jakob Lorber, Book review of The Healing Power of Sunlight, 1851,
trans Franco Gallo, 1997 at:
http://www.faulksbooks.co.uk/christian.htm
Accessed 09-03-04
Ian McLean, Logic Signs and Nature in the
Renaissance: the Case of Learned Medicine, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002
John Milton, Paradise Lost, verse 1, 1667
Peter Morrell, Regarding John Henry Clarke,
Homeopathic Links, Holland, April 1999 and The Homeopath, London in 1998
Peter Morrell, British Homeopathy during Two
Centuries, unpublished Staffordshire University MPhil Thesis, 1999
Roy Porter, Disease, Medicine and Society in England
1550-1860, London: Macmillan, 1986
Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind A Medical History of
Humanity, New York: Norton, 1998
Mike Price, Brief to Peter Morrell, January 29, 2004,
received by email
John Reid’s Course on Practical Alchemy – I. Chapter
2. The Three Essentials
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/reid1-2.html
[accessed 6-3-2004]
Cornelia Richardson-Boedler, Doctrine of Signatures:
a Historical, Philosophical and Scientific View [I], BHJ 88, 1999,
172-177
Cornelia Richardson-Boedler, Doctrine of Signatures:
a Historical, Philosophical and Scientific View [II], BHJ 89, 2000,
26-28
Jan Scholten, Homeopathy and Minerals. Utrecht
Holland: Stichting Alonissos, 1993
Jan Scholten, Homeopathy and the Elements, Utrecht,
Holland: Stichting Alonnissos, 1996
Non Shaw, Bach Flower Remedies a Step-by-Step Guide,
Shaftsbury: Element Books, 1998
Bryan S Turner, Medical Power and Social Knowledge, London: Sage,
1995
M Tyler & C E Wheeler, Appreciations of Dr
Clarke, April 1932, BHJ 21, London
R A van Haselen, The Relationship Between homeopathy
and the Dr Bach System of Flower Remedies: a Critical Appraisal, BHJ 88,
1999, 121-127
Rudi Verspoor & Steven Decker, Homeopathy
Re-Examined: Beyond the Classical Paradigm, Canada: Hahnemann Centre for
Heilkunst, 1999
Ian Watson, Book Review: Cancer and Cancer Symptoms:
Chiefly Arborivital Treatment by R. T. Cooper, and The Therapeutics of
Cancer: Transactions of the 9th Quinquennial International Homeopathic
Congress, 1927 by J. H. Clarke et al. published in Homeopathy Today, May
1991, USA, 11-12
Nora Weeks, The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach,
Physician, Ashingdon: C W Daniel Co, 1940
Sir John Weir, The Hahnemann Convalescent Home,
Bournemouth, BHJ 20, 1931, 200-201
E Whitmont, The use of Dreams in Homeopathic
Prescribing and Proving. The
Homeopath 1996; 62: 588-9
Julian Winston, The Faces of Homeopathy: an
Illustrated History of the First 200 years. Tawa, New Zealand: Great Auk
Publishing, 1999
H. Wulff, A. Pedersen, R. Rosenberg, Philosophy of
Medicine, an Introduction, London: Blackwell Scientific Publications,
1986