Because flower essences are usually made by floating freshly picked flowers in water at the height of their blooming power and letting their essence, their energetic imprint, to be infused into the water using the power of the sun, you could say that flower essences are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. At this first stage of essence making—the mother tincture stage—they are at least a type of flower sun tea!
But then a few drops of this flower solution is added to brandy and water and shaken gently to create a stock essence which can be used as is. Or a few drops of stock is added to brandy and water one more time to create a dosage bottle. The end result is extremely dilute—almost no plant material is detectable—and only 3-5 drops are taken at one time. That is similar to homeopathy.
But are they homeopathy?
Well, that’s quite the controversial topic!
While flower essences are used similarly to homeopathic remedies—only a little bit is used to inspire your mind/body to create what it needs for specific healing effects—Dr. Edward Bach considered them to be an entirely new system of healing and stated so in an address he gave to his homeopath colleagues. First, they are made somewhat differently than homeopathic remedies (as described above), but the flowers used are also chosen in a different manner. In homeopathy, substances used as remedies are selected using the Law of Similars—the substances in raw undiluted form produce symptoms that match (are similar to) the symptoms expressed by the client until they are diluted down to homeopathic dosages where they have no harmful effect. But Bach said his products were not made using the Law of Similars and don’t work in exactly the same way.
In his flowery early last century way, Bach said that flower essences work by allowing the Spiritual Self to flood a person’s nature with the particular ‘virtue’ they need while washing out the ‘fault’ that is causing harm. That sounds like a very spiritual process and, honestly, modern practitioners are no less spiritual in the way they speak of them. But we are more likely to speak of the vibrational resonance between the person and the flower, and say the essences balance and integrate certain polarities that have gone out of balance.
As a long time Reiki Master who is used to working with subtle energies, I feel like my experiences with flower essences are similar to Bach’s perception in that I feel an energetic clearing out of negative states that are simultaneously replaced with the opposite. I think of flower essences as a cross between a traditional herbal extract—typically chosen via the Law of Contraries (finding a plant that provides the opposite—what is needed to balance—a person’s unbalanced state)—and homeopathic-inspired theories of dilution and action. However, I have also studied a bit about how the form of the plant and the way it grows and interacts with its environment seems to match how the human being who needs it seems to be in the world. The Law of Similars? Or something more complex?
Plant / Human Archetypes
You could call a plant’s way of being a type of archetype or a plant personality. And if you really want to go down an interesting rabbit hole we could talk about how every living thing—including the planet itself—is in a constant state of flux between Yin and Yang expressions of those ways of being that tend to balance through the seasons and through other natural processes. Yin and Yang are the polarities I spoke of before. Yin is receptive and quiet; Yang is active and loud. Yin is cold; Yang is hot. And the interplay of Yin and Yang is always changing. We’re meant to be flexible and adapt and respond to outer and inner forces in order to keep a type of balance that is not based on keeping things the same all the time. It’s balance that works with whatever is happening.
Unfortunately, we humans do tend to get stuck in far less flexible stances because of past and current traumas. We adopt defensive patterns of behavior that might have worked at one point in our development but hold us back now. We get taught inflexible ways of being in our families or via the greater cultures we live in. And we lose track of who we are and our connection to nature and the spiritual aspects of ourselves and sources of support. That means we lose track of how to stay flexibly balanced and, therefore, sometimes get stuck in the more extreme (and ultimately, negative) expressions of our nature. To put it bluntly, a person who gets stuck in a Yin expression of self becomes too still, weak, and cold. A person who gets stuck in the Yang expression becomes too forceful, hot, and angry. And both extremes, when engaged in long enough, can lead to illness and undesirable ways of interacting with other people and the world.
Plants hold the different aspects of its nature in dynamic (changing) balance. I like to use the Dandelion as an example because most people are very familiar with them. In one part of its life cycle Dandelions aggressively put down roots that make them hard to eradicate from a yard. They have jagged tooth-like leaves (like the teeth of a lion—dent-de-lion) and bright yellow sunny Yang-like flowers. But in another part of its life cycle that flower turns into an airy white puff ball of seeds that float away on any breeze and gently land wherever they fall. You could think of that as its receptive restful Yin cycle where it “makes a wish” to be somewhere else and just lets go and allows what happens. Then, when the time is right it puts down roots and takes over that section of your yard!
The person who needs Dandelion tends to be stuck in the Yang expression of working too hard and too aggressively and never relaxes. Dandelion flower essence helps such a person to let go, let God, and get some rest. The person who needs Dandelion will resonate with that flower because the plant embodies a similar archetype in a dynamically balanced state. So in other words, it is Similar to the person who needs it but also provides the antidote for that person’s unbalanced stuck state at the same time by helping them tap into the opposite polarity or Contrary. So my belief is that, in effect, the flower essences operate by BOTH the Law of Similars and the Law of Contraries. So it would, indeed, be a new modality.
So it’s not homeopathy?
Well, that’s where the controversy comes in. In 1991, homeopathic pharmaceutical company A. Nelson & Company Ltd took on the making of Bach Flower Remedies in the United Kingdom and markets what they label as “Bach Original Flower Remedies” in the United States as homeopathic products. Nelson is registered with the Food and Drug Administration (the FDA) in the United States as a pharmaceutical facility. Most other flower essence makers label their products as herbal supplements—including the companies I use to source my ingredients. These companies see their products as mostly vibrational in nature and believe that is one of the things they have in common with homeopathic remedies. But they don’t see them as homeopathic remedies—because they are not made in the same way using the same principles—and certainly do not think of them as pharmaceuticals.
Some homeopathic practitioners recommend flower essences to their clients because they are a related modality. Other more classical homeopaths prefer that their clients not use flower essences at the same time as homeopathic remedies because they see them as a separate modality.
My Opinion
Nelson did what they did, most likely, because they wanted a way to secure a place to sell these products in a climate where natural healing methods come under attack by those who want to regulate them in the name of “keeping the public safe.” Unfortunately, regulators currently use the pharmaceutical drug model of evaluation that 1) tries to divide a whole plant into single “active ingredient” constituents that they can test in a lab and through drug trials and 2) does not take into consideration how all the myriad aspects of a plant interrelate to actually create the effects an herbal product is used for. Herbalists have fought against this mindset forever it seems, but here we still are. Nelson made the choice to enable their flower essences to slip into a category the FDA currently allows under a homeopathic drug designation while most other flower essence makers protested. But in recent years homeopathy has come under attack in the EU and, more recently, in the United States. So how long this choice will be workable for Nelson, and whether that will affect the rest of us making and using flower essences, is anyone’s guess.
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A Legal Note because I have to comply with FDA regulations and also care about your health:
Mama Love products are intended to add to a person’s sense of well-being. They all have worked for me and many of my customers. But nothing I make is a one size fits all magic pill; neither are they, in my opinion, drugs of any sort. In other words, flower essences may not be effective for everyone. Individual results may vary. Claims made by me are based on the evidence of years of case notes by Dr. Edward Bach as well as Healing Herbs and Flower Essence Services (the companies who make the ingredients I use in my products). This is not, however, accepted “medical” evidence. Statements made have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information provided on my blog, websites or by this company are not a substitute for a face-to-face consultation with a health care provider, and should not be construed as individual medical or mental health advice. Consulting with a health care provider is a must for anyone taking medications or working with a medical or mental health condition, and highly recommended before using any herbal product. Please consult your doctor or health care provider for any possible contraindications and/or interactions with current medications. I trust you to seek the medical guidance you need to use my products healthily at your own risk.