Focusing on Flower Essences

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"Behind all disease lie our fears, our anxieties, our greed, our likes and dislikes," wrote Edward Bach (1886 – 1936), a respected English physician and homeopath. His dissatisfaction with orthodox medicine’s focus on diseases rather than on the people suffering from them led him to create flower remedies, a subtle form of energy medicine Bach was convinced could help people heal themselves, working within the patterns of nature. Proponents believe flower remedies restore balance to the psyche and spirit, removing emotional barriers to health and well-being.

What are Flower Essences?

Like herbal remedies, flower ess-ences are made from plants. However, while herbs contain measurable compounds that stimulate physical healing, flower essences are highly dilute substances chosen for their vibrational energy rather than their physiological effects. (It’s interesting to note that in shamanic healing, plants also are valued for their vibrational energies.)

To make flower essences, fresh flowers are picked in the early morning and steeped in a crystal bowl of spring water in full sunlight for three hours. The flowers are then removed from the water with a twig from the same plant or tree. After being further diluted, the essence is preserved with brandy.

Technically, the term “flower remedy” refers to one of the original 38 remedies developed by Bach, which strict Bach practitioners believe can address any emotional or spiritual problem. The term “flower essence” is given to the hundreds of additional flower remedies that have been created by other practitioners since Bach completed his work. Many practitioners believe that because the world has changed significantly since Bach’s death in 1936, a greater variety of flower remedies is needed.

Bach’s Flower Fascination

Bach’s disenchantment with conventional medicine inspired him to investigate what we now call vibrational medicine — a form that encourages healing by restoring balance to what practitioners believe is the subtle energy field of the body. Homeopathy, acupuncture and psychic healing are well-known examples of energy medicine.

Bach was fascinated by the effect of flowers on the human psyche and noted that specific plants had an observable influence on emotional states.

In the 1930s, Bach explored the wildflowers native to the English countryside and used intuition and experimentation to develop 38 different remedies that addressed the negative emotional states he believed were the underlying causes of all emotional and physical illnesses. In Bach’s words, flower remedies “flood our natures with the particular virtue we need, and wash out from us the fault which is causing harm.”

“We can use common sense to understand how flowers affect us,” says Patricia Kaminski, executive director of the Flower Essence Society in Nevada City, California. “Flowers are the language of emotions. We give flowers when we want to express a feeling — for example, joy at a wedding or grief at a funeral. It’s an innate response in human beings to look at flowers and respond through emotions — flowers provide us with an immediate connection into our soul.”

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