Flower Remedies Can Help Hasten
Our Purification and Enlightenment
Theosophy Magazine
Edward Bach, and his Office
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Reproduced from “Theosophy”
magazine,
Los Angeles, April 1951
edition, pp. 245-251.
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“Disease is a
kind of consolidation of a mental
attitude and it
is only necessary to treat the
mood of a
patient and the disease will disappear.
The remedies of
the meadow and of Nature,
when potentised,
are of positive polarity; whereas
those which
have been associated with disease
[such as bacterial
remedies] are of the reverse type…”
(Edward Bach)
One early
morning in May, 1930, his biographer relates, as Bach “was walking through a field
upon which the dew still lay heavy, the thought flashed into his mind that each
dewdrop must contain some of the properties of the plant upon which it rested;
for the heat of the sun, acting through the fluid, would serve to draw out
these properties until each drop was magnetised with power.”
The thought-flash had come to a physician amply qualified to make
practical use of the principle involved. It may well have been a reminiscence
brought through from former lives, for even as a child Edward Bach [1] had been motivated by the
conviction that there must be a simple form of healing which would cure all
kinds of disease. He early and all during his life manifested that love of
nature and of his fellow men, which was to culminate in his discovery of the
healing faculties of the common herbs, flowers and trees so abundantly provided
for man by Nature. As a boy in school, it is said, “He would also dream that
healing power flowed from his hand and that all whom he touched were healed;
and these were no schoolboy flights of imagination, but the inner knowledge of
what was to come to pass, for ….. in after years he came to know he did indeed
possess the power to heal, and many were the sick folk who were cured by his
touch.”
The years between the dream and its accomplishment are briefly and
simply recounted in the book from which these passages are taken: The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach,
Physician, by Nora Weeks. Born in an English village in 1886, Edward Bach
enrolled in Birmingham University at the age of twenty, and by 1914 had
completed his medical training. He had decided to study all known methods of
cure, but while practising, in turn, as a pathologist, bacteriologist, and
homeopath, he never relinquished his aim of finding pure remedies to replace
the complicated form of treatment which, for all their scientific validity,
could offer no certainty of cure. Spending hours in hospital wards, he “saw how
the process of healing was often painful, sometimes almost more painful than
the disease itself, and this served to strengthen in him his conviction that
true healing should be gentle, painless and benign.”
From the commencement of his career, Bach was searching for a more
accurate and precise approach to diagnosis and treatment than ordinary medical
methods afforded:
“As a medical
student Edward Bach spent little time with his books; even then he felt that
theoretical knowledge was not the best equipment for a physician, nor the
perfect method of dealing with human beings who differed so greatly in their
reactions to the diseases which affected their physical bodies.”
“To him the
true study of disease lay in watching every patient, observing the way in which
each one was affected by his complaint, and seeing how these different
reactions influenced the course, severity and duration of the disease.”
“Through his
observations he learnt that the same treatment did not always cure the same
disease in all patients; for although perhaps five hundred persons, affected by
a similar complaint, would react much the same way, yet there were thousands
who reacted in a different manner, and the same remedy which would apparently
cure some had no effect upon others.”
“Thus early in
his search he had gained the knowledge that the personality of the
individual was of even more importance than the body in the treatment of his
disease.”
This perception recalls the philosophy of Paracelsus, who taught that
“there is a great difference between the power that removes the invisible causes of disease, and
which is Magic, and that which causes merely external effects to disappear, and
which is Psychic [2], Sorcery, and
Quackery.” (An interesting reversal of positions, for Paracelsus to consider
that form of medicine which works solely with “external effects” as simply a
form of Quackery!)
Bach had been serving as Casualty Medical Officer at University College
Hospital, but he left his position and ventured into the field of bacteriology.
He took with him his faith in his own intuitions, even when they conflicted
with orthodox dicta, and he maintained his conviction that the personality of
the patient was at least as important, if not more important, than the specific
disease he suffered from. Concentrating on those chronic diseases which had
hitherto defied the best efforts of the medical profession, Bach felt that he
was on the track of a fundamental line of treatment when he discovered that
persons suffering from chronic diseases had also a greatly increased number of
certain bacteria present in the intestines.
After considerable investigation, Bach became convinced that a vaccine
made from these intestinal bacteria and injected into the patient’s blood
stream would cleanse the system of the poisons causing the chronic disease.
While the results he obtained were “beyond all expectations”, he himself was
dissatisfied with the injection method. Contacting Hahnemann’s Organon a few years later, however, he
found himself in harmony with the homeopathic philosophy, and thereafter used
the homeopathic system of preparation, administering his medicines orally.
Bach also succeeded in isolating seven distinct classes of intestinal
bacteria and found, by working out the personality type in which certain
bacteria predominated, that the bacterial
groups corresponded to seven different and definite human personalities.
This discovery naturally changed his method of diagnosis from one of physical
examination of the disease, to a “mental” examination to determine the
personality pattern of the patient. Miss Weeks remarks that “even at that time
he was not at all pleased if he could not recognise the remedy a patient
required in the time it took that patient to walk from the consulting room door
to his desk.” Paracelsus, we will remember, made the same point, saying that if
a physician knows nothing more about his patient than the patient himself tells
him, he knows very little indeed. (We are informed by Miss Weeks that Bach had
read Paracelsus with interest and profit.)
Although increasingly good results were obtained from his oral vaccines,
named the Seven Bach Nosodes (which were enthusiastically received and used by
allopaths and homeopaths alike), Bach himself desired more than a system of
curing which employed the products of disease. In 1928 he began his studies in
natural remedies, and put his whole faith in the healing powers of common herbs
and flowers. At the age of 43, he resigned his profitable and highly- reputed
work with the vaccines and devoted himself to devising a pure and effective
method of potentizing herbs, committing himself utterly to his intuition that
this was the right course to follow. Miss Weeks relates that he made a large
bonfire of all the pamphlets and papers he had written on his former work,
“smashed his syringes and vaccine bottles, throwing their contents down the
laboratory sink.” Hereafter, Bach was to make no charge for his healing work,
for he felt that what Nature gave so freely, he should likewise dispense
without charge. This was his practice, henceforward, no matter what hardships
it occasioned him personally.
Impelled by his own intuition, Bach joined the ranks of the mystics of
all ages, among whom has ever prevailed a sense - when not a knowledge - of the unknown potencies of
plants and stones. This knowledge is termed by H.P. Blavatsky a branch of
Magic, and she wrote in Isis Unveiled
(Theosophy Co., vol. II, p. 589):
“There are occult properties in many other minerals, equally strange
with that in the lodestone, which all practitioners of magic must know, and of which so-called exact
science is wholly ignorant. Plants also have like mystical properties in a most
wonderful degree, and the secrets of the herbs of dreams and enchantments are
only lost to European science, and useless to say, too, are unknown to it,
except in a few marked instances, such as opium and hashish.”
The first three herbal remedies (Mimulus, Impatiens and Clematis) that
Bach discovered, however, were incapable of producing as good a result as his
vaccines did, and this he attributed to a difference in polarity, the vaccines
possessing the required negative polarity, while the herbs were undesirably
positive. That he considered polarity as an important factor is evident from
his definition of disease: “Science is tending to show that life is harmony - a
state of being in tune - and that disease is discord or a condition when a part
of the whole is not vibrating in unison.” Theosophical students will recall
that the subject of plant and mineral polarity is referred to in Isis Unveiled (vol. I, p. 137), where
H.P.B. speaks of the varying susceptibility of both plants and animals to
different rays of the spectrum, and terms these “differently modified
electro-magnetic phenomena.” Space is given also (vol. I, pp. 264-265) to the
polarity of precious stones.
How Bach finally discovered in a “flash” the secret of reversing the
polarity of his remedies suggests his almost magical rapport with Nature. He
collected from flowers sun-magnetized dewdrops, and so delicate were his sense
perceptions that he was able to feel the vibrations and power emitted by any
plant he wished to test, and his body reacted instantaneously. Miss Weeks tells
us that “If he held the petal or bloom of some plant in the palm of his hand or
placed it upon his tongue, he would feel in his body the effects of the
properties within that flower. Some would have a strengthening, vitalising
effect on mind and body; others would give him pains, vomitings, fevers, rashes
and the like.” Toward the end of his life, he gained his last group of remedies
in an entirely different way:
“For some days before the discovery of each one he suffered himself from
the state of mind for which that particular remedy was required, and suffered
it to such an intensified degree that those with him marvelled that it was
possible for a human being to suffer so and retain his sanity; and not only did
he pass through terrible mental agonies, but certain states of mind were
accompanied by a physical malady in its most severe form.”
Since the laborious collection of individual dewdrops would be
impractical, Bach evolved a new method of potentizing. He chose the best and
brightest flowers of a field and floated them in a glass bowl filled with water
(preferably from a clear stream nearby). When the flowers had stood in full
sunlight for several hours of the morning, the water was impregnated with the
power of the plant. Since the tincture thus obtained is prescribed in drops, one supply may last a life-time. A
suggestive illustration of the absorptive powers of water is found in H.P.
Blavatsky’s book Transactions of the
Blavatsky Lodge (Theosophy Co., pp. 143-144), where she describes ice as a
“great magician, whose occult properties are as little known as those of
Ether.”
Bach’s final philosophy, as summed up by Miss Weeks, deserves to be
quoted at some length, for the truly phenomenal success of his Remedies in
curing disease is squarely based on these premises:
“A small worry
passing through the mind will cause a look of strain to appear upon the face,
so a continued large worry will have a correspondingly greater effect upon the
body; but in both cases so soon as the worrying thought has been removed and
the peace and happiness of the mind restored, all the ill effects upon the body
will go also.”
“Physical
disease, being merely the results of the disorganisation of the function of the
brain caused by such moods as worry, fear, shock, strain, was but a symptom
itself, and therefore was no indication for the treatment a patient required.
(…) ”
“Recognition of
the fact that moods and states of mind were alone responsible for ill health
would do much to dispel the fear of disease and of the dreaded names given to
certain of them, so prevalent amongst both the sick and the healthy. Then, with
the patient’s cooperation, his earnest desire to get well, there could be no
incurable or chronic diseases, for fear of disease is one of the chief
obstacles to be overcome in sickness, and the greatest hindrance to recovery.”
“The property
of the new remedies would be that of so revitalising the whole personality that
the patient would easily shake off his fears and worries, and with them the
disease from which his body suffered.”
“The remedies
used in medicine relieved the physical symptoms of disease, but they did not
remove the underlying cause - the mood - and the patient was left without help
to rise above his mental troubles. For most this was not easy, and for some
almost impossible; hence the long-continued suffering of so many.”
“In acute
disease, the result of violent or quickly passing moods, the disorganising
effect upon the body was soon over; but when the mood was not so rapidly
dispelled the disorganisation continued, gaining a stronger hold upon the
organs and tissues, and the after-effects might become permanent, resulting in
‘chronic’ disease.”
“Yet even the
so-called chronic and incurable diseases would clear up once the mind and
brain regained their normal and wise control of the body.”
Edward Bach’s life was considerably shortened by his work, and so
rigorous had been the demands on his final laboratory - his own body - that he
died in 1936 at the age of fifty. In all, he had sought and found thirty-eight
healing herbs, and he did not leave before fulfilling his aim of providing the
layman with a simple method of preparing pure natural remedies for his own use.
[3]
It is not much to say that Nora Weeks’ brief volume will be gratefully
received by many students of H.P. Blavatsky and William Q. Judge, especially by
those who wish to understand the laws of man’s connection with Nature and the
powers exercised by human thought and feeling. Merely to read of the wholesome
experiments carried out by Bach and continued by many who have benefitted from
his discoveries, does much to restore one’s faith in man’s kinship with the
greater universe. Bach was undoubtedly a mystic and a magnetic healer, for on
numerous occasions he cured diseases by the laying on of hands, and Miss Weeks
records many instances of the clairvoyant powers that seemed to blossom in him
after he left his orthodox medical practice and retired to live and work with
Nature. It is significant - and fortunate - that Bach did not rest with powers
which were peculiarly his own and non-transmittable, but persevered in his
attempt to uncover a system whereby each man could be his own physician and
cure self-imposed sufferings.
The essentially philosophic approach of the Bach method is evident in
the emphasis on the patient’s mental outlook as the determining factor in
physical disturbance or disease. It is impossible to read The Medical Discoveries without realizing more deeply that a
fundamental philosophy - a science of life - is the foremost remedy for human
ills of whatever nature. All else may temporarily alleviate, the best of
medicine will restore the patient “to himself” simply, naturally, and directly,
but self-knowledge alone can cure. The Bach Remedy News Letter reiterates Dr.
Bach’s central thesis that it is the patient
who has the disease, and not the disease which has the patient. From this it
follows, and experience has shown Dr. Bach and his “Team”, that “the time taken
for a patient to show improvement depends upon the patient and not upon the nature of his complaint.” There is no
attempt to invade the integrity of another, for Bach declared: “Flower healing
demands no delving into the patient’s sub-conscious in an endeavour to drag to
the surface the object of his fears. People fear many different things, but it
is the fear that counts….. The patient’s mood is usually indicated by his
reaction to his physical complaint; work on that and administer the appropriate
Remedy.” The Bach theory of health may be epitomized in his own words:
“Illness and disease, if we can only look at it aright, is a healing
process of refinement and purification. If we can look at it in this light, it
loses its terror. The Herbs are given to hasten our purification, our
enlightenment, and hence, the work of illness being done, we can return to
health.”
NOTES:
[1] A Welsh name,
pronounced baych. (Note by
“Theosophy” magazine)
[2] A 2017 NOTE:
“Psychic” and not “Physic” as Franz Hartmann wrongly has it, in a book from
which Theosophy magazine seems to have taken the quotation. We follow Alexander
Wilder, instead of Hartmann. See Wilder’s article “Animistic Medicine”, in “Metaphysical
Magazine”, vol. 21, no. 7, November, 1907, pp. 385-394. The quotation will be
found at p. 387. The magazine is available online. (CCA)
[3] The two short
works entitled Heal Thyself and The Twelve Healers are concise herbal
manuals and have been kept in print by C. W. Daniel Co., Ltd., which is also
the publisher of The Medical Discoveries
of Edward Bach, Physician. “Dr. Bach’s Team”, located at Mount Vernon,
Sotwell, Wallingford, Berks, England, carries on his work, and began issuing,
in March 1950, The Bach Remedy News
Letter. This small periodical - a quarterly - contains amplifications of
Dr. Bach’s theory and practice, together with reports of the work being done
with his remedies in all parts of the world. The editors of the News Letter state, for example, that the
Bach remedies “have been proved instrumentally to carry definite and measurable
radiations. (All things are in a constant state of vibration, each with its specific
vibratory rate.) There are some Practitioners who prescribe the Remedies
radionically, others by means of radiesthesia.” (Note by “Theosophy” magazine)
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On Paracelsus,
who is mentioned several times in the above article, see in our associated
websites the article “Paracelsus and the
Book of Nature” (by Carlos Cardoso Aveline) and the short story “The Rose of Paracelsus” (by Jorge Luis
Borges).
Read in our
associated websites the booklet “Health
and Therapy”, of various authors, and the articles “Food as Sacrifice”, “Mahatma
Gandhi’s View of Food” and “The
Meals of the Pilgrim”.
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