An Introduction to Bach Flowers

Bach Flower Remedies are the gift of the Spirit to mankind through Dr. Edward Bach, an English physician who lived from 1886 to 1936. They are considered as 'Alternative Therapy', 'Herbal Supplementation' and 'Energy Essences'. Together with Herbal Supplements, Schussler Tissue Remedies and where necessary allopathic medication, they form an effective and safe healing system.

Bach Flower Remedies are Flower Essences (with one exception of Rock Water, which is a specific natural spring water, but is clubbed with the others) derived from the flowers and some other parts of wild plants and trees of English countryside. Introduced between 1931 and 1935 by Dr. Edward Bach of England, the remedies or essences are 38 in number and have proved themselves over the years all over the world. They are called Bach Flower Remedies in England and Bach Flower Essences in USA.

Dr.Edward Bach (originally pronounced as Back, but later pronounced as Batch by his colleagues and that stuck) was born in 1886. He was of delicate health and destiny chose him to discover a system which heals others! His father wanted him to continue in the family business of foundry, but Edward chose to become a doctor. As was the usual practice, he studied in the regular orthodox medical system and worked in various hospitals. Like other path-breakers, he too was not satisfied with the system of treatment prevailing in his days. Thus he was always looking for better ways. In the course of his work, he became a bacteriologist and became acquainted with the work of Samuel Hahnemann, the brilliant German doctor who discovered the homeopathic principle of 'like cures like' about 150 years earlier.

Dr.Bach was happy to realise that his ideas of mind influencing the matter were not new and that Homeopathy recognised this long ago. However, he also felt that it should be possible to classify the basic human nature and the mental/emotional aberrations into a fairly limited number of classes or groups and thus simplify the method of treatment. He felt that once the mind is OK, body will become OK. Treat the person, not the physical symptom was his motto.

Dr.Bach prepared 7 nosodes from the intestinal flora of his patients and found excellent results in terms of restoration of health. But he was averse to administer to his patients, disease products, however minute be the quantity, orally or by injection. He was convinced that the same God/Nature, which produced a problem also provided a solution and thus was inspired to abandon his practice in London and move to the countryside. There in the course of a few years, he discovered some wild flowers whose essences (not aromatic, by essence it is meant its healing properties) could help the person recover from negative emotions. He found that these essences work as efficiently or even more efficiently as the nosodes.

Bach discovered 38 of them and also found that a compound or mixture of 5 of them as being of invaluable service in emergencies and which he called appropriately as Rescue Remedy. Rescue Remedy is a combination of Impatiens, Star of Bethlehem, Cherry Plum, Rock Rose and Clematis. Rescue Cream with added Crab Apple is available and useful for multi-purpose skin salve.

Bach Flower Remedies are prepared from the flowers by 'Sun Method' and 'Boiling Method', each of which is briefly explained below. Note that each Flower Remedy is prepared using one of the two methods, depending on its nature. The same flower will not be prepared using both the methods. Which Remedy is prepared which way is detailed in Bach Literature. In the Sun Method, flowers are placed in a bowl of water and are exposed to the sunlight for about an hour. The essence of the flowers is absorbed by the water and the energised water is preserved as a standardised mother tincture by dilution with 40% pure brandy. The stock remedies are prepared by further dilution with 27% grape alcohol. In the Boiling Method, flowers, twigs etc. of the plant are put in a kettle and are boiled. The distillate is collected and processed further as above.

The treatment bottle is prepared by taking two drops of the stock remedy and adding mineral water to a 30 ml bottle. More than one Bach Flower Remedy can be added to the same bottle and thus a mixture individualised can be prepared. For Rescue Remedy, the dosage is double strength, i.e. 4 drops to each bottle.

Bach Flower Remedies are unlike homeopathic medicines in that they are not potentised. They could be called dilutions at the most. And the dilution is fixed, as described above. They are prescribed purely based on mental / emotional symptoms, without reference to the physical symptoms, modalities etc., which form a crucial part in homeopathy. Bach Flower Remedies are selected many times with the active participation of the patient in the treatment process. Since there are only 38 remedies, it may be necessary and it is permitted to mix two or more remedies at a time in the treatment bottle. To that extent, they are similar to Schussler's Twelve Tissue Remedies. Rescue Remedy, if selected is counted as one remedy. Up to 6 or 7 remedies can be mixed at a time, though Dr. Bach used up to even 9 remedies at some time. Bach Flower Remedies are safe and are used for treatment of Children, Pets and Plants too. No adverse reactions are reported from use of a wrongly selected Remedy or from over dosage.

Bach Flower Remedies can be taken directly from the treatment bottle or mixed with food, tea, coffee, cool drinks, juices etc.

In India, Bach Flower Remedies are also available in the form of sugar pills wetted with the liquid. In India, they are available from homeopathic shops. In UK and USA, Nelson Bach is the main supplier, but there are others too and a search on the internet will be helpful in locating a shop nearby. It is also possible to order the Remedies through Mail order.

Distance learning programs and other courses are available from Bach Centre, UK, Nelson Bach etc. It is of course, not really needed to get certified to use Bach Flower Remedies. Dr.Bach meant that his system should be simple enough so that a layman could select his flower remedy. A number of books are available. I will give a list of recommended books in the next installment of this article. Apart from books, Yahoo has a good group where you ca learn and discuss the modalities of various Bach Flower Remedies. Pl. join

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/talkbach/

for information and advice about the Remedies.
www.gemmamonter.com is another site maintained by my friend Gemma Monter, BFRP. She has started compiling an International Directory of Bach Flower Therapists. Especially for Spanish speaking readers of this article, I recommend Gemma.

Note: A slightly different form of this article was originally published at: http://www.hpathy.com/bachflower/swamy-bach-flower.asp where you will also find a table listing the 38 Flower Remedies and their principal indications. I propose to cover those aspects in a little more detail here in the coming weeks or if that is not possible, share with you the URLs of some good resources for learning more about their indications and selection criteria.

Additional Material: In the last few months, I have come across Essences from Australia, USA and Canada and yes, India too. While the Australian essences are flower essences, the essences from USA are not of any material but are called Wild Animal Essences (they are definitely not animal in origin) and the Canadian Essences are from Trees. There is a good ezine on Flower Essences called Vibration. There is a company offering flower essences of India. I will cover about these aspects in the next issue. Keep checking this column.

Introduction to Holistic Health

Introduction to Holistic Health

Health is the concern of all. “Health is Wealth” goes the saying. Everyone wants to be happy. Health is the first and foremost condition to happiness. And, yes, happiness is a pre-condition for health! Thus, it is a nice merry go-around! I don't want to call it a vicious circle, since that connotes a very negative image. Thus health and happiness go together. Unfulfilled desires lead to unhappiness and unhappiness leads to disease, ill-health, a feeling of being unwell. Efforts to either fulfill the desires (which can and should be fulfilled) or to understand the undesirability of fulfilling the desires (illegal, unethical and immoral) and/or the futility of pursuing desires which are beyond one's reach, will quickly restore the health, since the unhappiness, which was causing the derangement in health has been removed.

Purely physical causes which cause temporaray dislocation in one's health are generally, easy to correct. For example, a sprained ligament may give discomfort for some time and restrict one's activities but once it is repaired, the person can lead a normal life. But, psychological aspects of one's ill-health, especially in chronic cases, are difficult to correct, since it is difficult to remain optimistic in the face of chronic ill-health. It is also difficult to understand and accept the role of the psychological factors that are contributing to one's physical ill health. For example, poor relationship, dwelling too much on the past wrongs (of oneself or others) and chronic anger etc. cause many physical symptoms, which are confused with disease. However, with proper understanding, and with Divine Grace (Grace of God and Guru), it is possible to change one's outlook on various aspects of life and thus to achieve a better state of health. Even coping with some chronic physical health problems becomes easy when one realises that disease or ill-health has a clear and definite role to play in one's learning process, called life.

Anything can cause ill-health. And anything can cure the ill-health. Acupressure, Acupuncture, Aromatherapy, Ayurveda, Bach Flower Essences, Chiropractic, Color Therapy, Crystal Healing, EFT, Feng Shui, Herbal Remedies, Homeopathy, Magnetotherapy, Naturopathy, Pranic Healing, Reflexology, Reiki, Unani, Yoga ... are some of the alternative health systems that complement the modern medical system, also called Allopathy. Some of the systems are also called holistic health systems. Let us understand the differences between alternative, complementary and holistic systems.

As the name suggests, holistic health involves an integrated approach to all aspects of health, spiritual, mental and physical. "Treat the patient and not the disease" is the basic approach in this system. Since spirit expresses itself through the mind (esp. the emotions, desires, aversions etc.), holistic healing involves an integrated approach to the mind-body connection. On the other hand, some of the health sytems mentioned above may deal only with the emotional, psychological aspects, without taking into account the physical symptoms. Bach Flower Remedies and EFT are examples of such totally mental-emotional healing systems. They may not be holistic in the strict sense of the term, but since it is now understood that 90% of the health problems are psychosomatic in nature, any health system that tries to restore the emotional health (since it is the emotions that affect the mind, the intellect normally not being affected), can be considered holistic. Some systems may complement the allopathic system and some may supplement the system. Thus a holistic health professional may use one or all of them or work with other professionals so that the patient is restored to a state of good health at the earliest. Integrated Medicine, where teams of doctors and healers from various systems work together is the latest to use this approach.

This intrduction and the subsequent articles in this are not meant to make you a professional healer (some simple systems like Bach Flower Remedies, Tissue Remedies, EFT and Reiki are easy to learn and practice but local laws may prevent you from taking up healing as a profession), but are meant to be educational and may help you and your friends, relatives etc. to understand the various risks and benefits of using different healing systems and thus make a better informed decision. Since the holistic aspects of health including the preventive aspects, alternative practices, non-medicinal energy-based systems for healing etc. are proposed to be discussed in a series of articles, the same may be of interest to one and all.

Modern medicine (also called ALLOPATHY) has its rightful place too and especially the modern diagnostic procedures, the surgical intervention and reconstruction are definitely not to be ignored. However, when only the medicinal aspects are required to be used, the gross side-effects of most of modern drugs make us look for better alternatives. Alternative systems like what I mentioned above come into the picture in such situations. Psychosomatic complaints (that means disorders of the physical body caused by disorders of the mind - most of the disease conditions!) are better treated using non-medicinal Energy Systems like Acupuncture, Acupressure, EFT, Quantum Touch Healing, REIKI etc., or with Holistic Systems like Ayurveda, Flower Essences, Homeopathy, Tissue Remedies, etc. Some of these systems like Quantum Touch, Reiki are also useful when modern medical treatment is being employed.

One statutory warning: No advice, except that given by a qualified and registered health professional, is to be taken as a prescription. And it is up to you, to act on any advice and the consequences of that action are solely your responsibility. The person who has given the advice can not accept any legal responsibility for the consequences of following the advice. This is common sense, but bears repetition.

About myself: Though I am a metallurgist by education and have no formal medical training, I studied HOMEOPATHY, SCHUSSLER'S TISSUE REMEDIES, BACH FLOWER REMEDIES, became a REIKI healer, a Crystal healer and of late found that SPIRITUAL HEALING is the most powerful. Pl. see www.freewebs.com/svswamy for my profile.

Note: This and the series of articles proposed are offered as a FREE public service by me. A slightly edited version of this article was published at

http://living.oneindia.in/health/wellbeing/holistic-health.html

with some photos and a few hyperlinked advertisements. This blog is created to hold all such articles at one place so that you can periodically visit the blog to see all the articles. You are free to share these articles with your friends and relatives etc. with the same caveat that neither you nor I are responsible legally and morally for the consequences of following the advice given here. Sai Ram.