A
popular, holistic healing alternative, flower essences are sun-infused
solutions that possess flowers’ subtle vibrational energy imprint.
Unlike herbal remedies or aromatherapy’s
essential oils, flower essences mediate their healing without
pharmacologically active molecules. Representing a higher vibrational
octave of the plant’s herbal or molecular properties, flower essences
energetically restore balance on physical, emotional, and spiritual
levels. Because physical disability has so many nonphysical components
at the deepest soul level, flower essences greatly expand the healing
armamentarium available to individuals with physical disability, such as
spinal cord injury (SCI) and
multiple sclerosis (MS).
Because no biologically active molecules
essentially exist in a flower-essence solution, it can be difficult for
a biochemist like me, trained to explain biological phenomena through
molecular interactions (e.g., neurotransmitter interacting with a
receptor on the neuronal cell surface), to understand how essences can
possibly work. It requires that we revisit a concept inherent to most
ancient and indigenous healing traditions - that our body’s physiology
and biochemistry is a function of us being, first and foremost, beings
of energy.
Flower essences were developed based on intuitive
observation, and, until recently, have lacked scientific scrutiny.
However, to put this lacking into better context, the Congressional
Office of Technology Assessment concluded that only 10-20% of medical
interventions physicians practice are scientifically proven. Most
conventional, as well as alternative, medicine is based on a history of
use and experience. The results of modern science’s carefully designed
clinical trials are only a small fraction of our healthcare reality.
Flower
Essences = Energy Medicine
Flower essences’ mind-body-and-spirit healing is
difficult to explain with traditional biomedical precepts. To help us
understand it, we need to briefly review some key principles that
distinguish conventional, allopathic medicine from energy-based healing
traditions.
Mind-body-and-spirit perspectives have, in fact,
been integral to most healing traditions throughout history. In Western
medicine, however, a philosophical schism grew between spirituality and
healing as church authorities deemed spirituality off limits to
scientists. As a result, a medical system evolved in which mind and
spirit had no relevance to health.
Reflecting Isaac Newton’s seventeenth century
physical laws and Rene Descartes’ philosophy of mind-body duality, a
mechanistic medical approach was adopted that saw the body as a machine
composed of parts. Fix the parts, and you fix the machine.
In contrast, the energy approach to healing
believes that our mind, body and spirit are holistically integrated
because we are beings of energy. The emphasis is on the whole not the
parts. Over the ages, our energy system has been described in many ways,
such as qi circulating through acupuncture meridians, prana flowing
through chakras, vital force, or electromagnetic energy fields by modern
physicists. Because mind-body-and spirit healing sounds too intangible
for scientific scrutiny, scientists had to invent a new,
intimidating-sounding discipline called psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
to help explain the mechanisms by which emotions and attitudes can
affect physical health.
The differences between the mechanistic and
energy-healing perspectives have profound implications when it comes to
disability. For example, conventional medicine assumes that physical
health produces happiness and, therefore, considers that emotional
reactions, meaning of life, and belief systems to be irrelevant to
medical practice. In the energy model, happiness leads to physical
health, and, consequently, our beliefs, the meaning we attach to routine
events, and our emotional reaction to these events are crucial to health
promotion and maintenance (see Trieschmann, R.B., Rehabilitation
Education Vol. 9, No. 2, pp.217-227).
Some people speculate that our attitudes and
emotions are transformed into our biochemistry and physiology through
subtle electromagnetic fields that permeate and surround our bodies. It
is through these fields that flower essences are said to exert their
effects. Specifically, the flower’s electromagnetic patterns that have
been released into the solution interact with the body’s
electromagnetic fields, restoring energetic balance and, in turn,
physical health.
People have compared flower essences’ subtle
energetic influences to the uplifting effects we experience listening to
music or seeing majestic views. For
me, the problems of the world disappear when I hear Beethoven’s “Ode
to Joy” or watch the sky fade into subtle lavender hues as the sun
recedes over Colorado’s snow-capped Indian Peaks. The contour and
arrangement of light and sound energy, including aspects that are not
consciously perceived, evokes profound feelings. Through a cascade of
PNI mechanisms, these feelings manifest into beneficial and measurable
physical changes.
Bach to
Basics
Flower-essence healing was influenced by the
thinking of Paracelus (1493-1541), one of history’s most prominent
physicians, and the well-known German poet and nature scientist Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Called the “doctrine of
signatures,” Paracelus believed that plants’ physical forms revealed
their therapeutic potential by correspondence with human anatomy.
Goethe’s holistic approach to natural science, perhaps due to his
poetic insight, reflected the soulfulness of and connection to nature,
an approach that contrasted to the prevailing scientific method of
reductionistic analysis
Although a part of ancient healing traditions,
English physician Edward Bach (1886 – 1936) catalyzed flower
essences’ modern re-emergence.
A
conventionally trained physician, Bach (photo) specialized in
bacteriology and vaccine development. He later shifted to homeopathy,
philosophically a close relative to flower essences. In 1930, Bach quit
his practice and devoted the last six years of his life to developing
his now well-known 38 flower essences.
Bach’s holistic healing view was emphasized in
his writings. For example, in Heal
Thyself, he says: “Disease is in essence the result of a conflict
between soul and mind and will never be eradicated except by spiritual
and mental effort… No effort directed to the body alone can do more
than superficially repair damage and in this is no cure since the cause
is still operative and may at any moment again demonstrate its presence
in another form.”
Because each plant has the potential to be
transformed into a unique healing essence, many new flower essences have
been developed in response to the therapy’s popularity. Although a
miniscule amount compared to the $100-billion pharmaceutical industry,
the U.S. flower-essence market has grown to over $5 million.
Preparation
Flower essences are prepared by placing flower
petals - the plant part believed to have the most life force - into a
glass bowl of water. The bowl is placed under sunlight (photo), which
melds the flower’s energetic imprint into the water. Although nothing
physical gets transferred, using highly specialized photographic
procedures, the flower’s energy imprint has been observed on the
solution after removing the flowers. This sun infusion is called the mother
tincture, which, in turn, is often diluted and preserved with
brandy. You commonly administer essences by placing several drops under
the tongue.
Selecting
Flower Essences
Determining an essence’s healing properties is an
intuitive, observational process – so to speak, a communion with
nature that reflects Paracelus’ statement “If you wish to know the
book of nature, you must walk its pages with your feet.”
Patiently observing the plant and perceiving its
manifold characteristics results in insights that are translated into
healing attributes. These attributes are usually defined at the
emotional and mental level and often verified through user feedback.
Because of the plethora of available essences,
selecting the right ones can be difficult. Traditionally, you would
attempt to identify your underlying, health-affecting, emotional and
mental issues and then match these to essence healing attributes as
listed in various resources or repertories. For example, the Bach
Sweet Chestnut, Gorse, Wild Oat and Wild Rose essences are
indicated for depression or despair-related health issues.
Due to the difficulty in accurately identifying
health-affecting core issues, a muscle-testing procedure - called kinesiology
- can be used to select essences. You hold an essence in one hand while
another person attempts to gently force down the opposite outstretched
arm. If the remedy energetically resonates with you, it will
subconsciously increase your strength, and you will resist more force
than with an unneeded remedy.
Machelle Small Wright, Perelandra flower essences
creator, has simplified this procedure by developing a self-test
involving finger strength, as well as alternative procedures when
disability inhibits finger testing (see Flower
Essences: Reordering Our Understanding and Approach to Illness and
Health, Perelandra, Ltd., 1988).
Although kinesiology theoretically eliminates the
need to identify often complex and vague underlying mental and emotional
health determinants, it requires some skill gained through experience.
Without the skill, flower-essence selection can be a hit-or-miss
process.
Fortunately, several combination remedies are
available that provide wide-spectrum healing protection. For example,
the Bach Rescue Remedy, composed of five key flower essences, exerts a
stabilizing effect for many physical and mental stresses. This product
alone represents 43% of the U.S. flower-essence market. Based on nearly
70 years of case studies, the remedy is considered the emergency first
aid of flower essences because it prevents the disintegration of our
energy system after physical or emotional trauma, thereby, promoting
physical recovery.
Another popular combination remedy is the Flower
Essence Society’s Yarrow Special Formula. Developed in response to the
1986 Chernobyl Nuclear plant disaster, the remedy protects your energy
field’s integrity from harmful environmental influences, especially
from all types of unnatural radiation that now ubiquitously affects
modern society (e.g., dental x-rays, airport detection devices, computer
monitors, cellular phones, etc.).
Flower-Essence
Science
Concepts of soul healing and molecule-independent
energy mechanisms are troublesome for most scientists. Nevertheless, Dr.
Jeffrey Cram, a clinical research psychologist with extensive scientific
credentials, has shown in several controlled studies that flower
essences can, indeed, exert measurable physiological effects.
Specifically, Cram’s studies show that the
aforementioned combination remedies can reduce the stress response
induced by various situations as measured by skin temperature and
conductance and various electrophysiological parameters, such as brain
waves and muscle electrical activity. Intriguingly, the flower-essence
responses were especially notable at locations corresponding to specific
chakra sites, which according to ancient wisdom are the points in
which the flow of life-force, pranic energy into the body is the
greatest.
Cram is also conducting a study examining the use
of flower essences to treat depression. Preliminary results indicate
that the essences have comparable effectiveness to many antidepressant
drugs.
Spinal Cord
Dysfunction
Flower essences expand the healing armamentarium
available to people with spinal cord dysfunction, enhancing health and
wellness and, therefore, potentially reducing the side effects
associated with a heavy medication burden. Unfortunately, little focus
has been placed on the therapy’s healing potential uniquely relevant
to spinal cord dysfunction.
Some people theorize that spinal cord dysfunction
profoundly disturbs the body’s energetic patterns, inhibiting
physiological healing. With this view, any therapy that stabilizes these
patterns has healing potential. Wright
speculates that flower essences are one of these therapies.
“I would love to get essences in on spinal cord
injuries,” she states. “This is the thing I think that would take
spinal cord injury right over the top because now you’ve got an
electrical pattern that’s going to be addressing the very base of your
electrical operation; the nerve center. And I think when you’re
talking about regeneration and you put that electrical system on, it
will regenerate.”
In one of her audio resources, Wright uses her
finger-test procedure to establish a flower-essence treatment regimen
for a woman with multiple sclerosis. The procedure revealed an intricate
regimen, suggesting that the woman’s multiple sclerosis was due to
numerous, interacting factors. As the woman continued her regimen over
time, her MS symptoms gradually and permanently disappeared.
The book Flower
Essences and Vibrational Healing (Gurudas, 1989, Cassandra Press)
briefly alludes to several essences that may have relevance to spinal
cord dysfunction. For example, bo (native to India), California
poppy, and chamomile flower essences are listed as useful for
multiple sclerosis; and comfrey and khat (native to
Africa) essences are indicated as potentially beneficial for
rejuvenating or regenerating damaged neurological tissue (all available
from Pegasus Products). The poppy and chamomile essences supposedly
enhance the body’s assimilation of gold, the lack of which according
to the medical intuitive Edgar Cayce is responsible for causing or
aggravating many neurological disorders, especially multiple sclerosis.
Conclusion
Because spinal cord dysfunction has so many
non-physical aspects at the deepest soul level, flower-essences’
mind-body-and-spirit approach may have the potential of expanding our
healing spectrum beyond therapies that are just directed to the
physical. Although flower essences’ underlying philosophy has, until
recently, fallen beyond the pale of orthodox scientific thinking, if
there is one scientific truth it is that today’s cutting-edge insights
are often tomorrow’s anachronisms.
As Paracelus stated, “That which is looked upon
by one generation as the apex of human knowledge is often considered an
absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as an superstition in
one century, may form the basis of science for the following one.”
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Jeanette Edwards of Perelandra
Center, Fred Rubenfeld of Pegasus Products, Jeffrey Cram of the Sierra
Health Institute, Janice Shade of Nelson Bach, USA, and Richard Katz and
Patricia Kaminsky of the Flower Essence Society.
FLOWER
ESSENCE REFERENCES & RESOURCES:
