Flower essences are part of an emerging field of life-enhancing subtle therapies that work through human energy fields to address issues of emotional health and mind-body well-being. Even though it’s new in America, the healing art of flower essences has struck a responsive chord in almost every healing discipline – medical and health practitioners, homeopaths, massage therapists, chiropractors, psychotherapists, counselors, dentists and veterinarians.
Like homeopathy and acupuncture, flower essences are exceptions to western type science. Also like homeopathic remedies, flower essences are highly diluted from a physical point of view. Yet they are powerful healers, potentiated vibrational tinctures from patterns of biomagnetic energies discharged by flowers.
Flowers are the highest concentration of the life force in a plant, the crowning experience of its growth. Flower essences are captured at the highest moment of the plant unfolding in blossom. The essence is generally prepared from a sun infusion of blossoms in a bowl of water, which is potentiated, then preserved with brandy.
The application of flower essences for specific emotions and attitudes was developed by Dr. Edward Bach, an English physician and homeopath in the 1930’s. Bach’s research showed that flowers discharged indentifiable patterns of biomagnetic energies that can be harnessed for healing power through emotional balance. Bach’s work on the relationship of stress to disease showed that the link between the mind and body is the most evident during stressful times. He also showed the significance of destructive emotions like depression, hate and fear.
Bach was one of the first modern healers to realize that true healing means the manifestation of one’s higher spiritual force. He saw that emotional balance strengthened the body’s ability to resist disease and he used flower essences as a healing tool to assist in that balance. In the last decade, modern medicine is also beginning to see the connection between negative emotions and lower disease resistance.
“What Bach was doing with his vibrational essences was working to increase his patients’ resistance by creating internal harmony and an amplification of the higher energetic systems that connect human beings to their higher selves.”
-Richard Gerber, MD, Vibrational Medicine
Bach was able to document scientifically the clinical criteria that is still used today in flower essence research. His compound, Rescue Remedy, is the most widely used flower essence – a gentle, effective remedy which restores emotional balance during stress or anxiety. It can also be used in emergency situations or at any time of upset, shock or trauma, like impending events which product anxiety. Rescue Remedy contains essence of cherry plum for fear of losing control, clematis for resignation and fatalism, impatiens for anxiousness, rock rose for panic, and Star of Bethlehem for fright.
