Edward Bach - Healing Touch
Around the same time that Takata sought answers for her own health, and Hayashi had opened his Tokyo clinic & was teaching hands on & spiritual healing, Englishman, Edward Bach, had similar questions, a similar quest.
"Health is our heritage & right. It is the complete and full union between soul, mind & body.'
(Edward Bach, Collected Writings, P 91)
Bach was born in Mosley, England Sept 24, 1886. He studied medicine, graduating in 1912, & commented 'It will take me 5 years to forget all I've been taught.'
He had already begun to notice that different emotional states, worry, anxiety, anger, could affect the patient's health. He dreamed of a different kind of hospital, where patients could learn about themselves, & doctors would look more at the person than the symptoms. As an MD, he worked both as a general practitioner, bacteriologist & pathologist, developing vaccines made using a patient's own intestinal bacteria.
Then called to the Harley Street Homeopathic hospital (London), Bach developed 7 Homeopathic 'nosodes' which are still in use. These were based on his observations of personality types, & how health was influenced by these.
In his collected writings, he commented: ''Like may strengthen like, like may repel like, but, in the true healing sense like cannot cure like. ... and so in true healing, and so in spiritual advancement, we must always seek good to drive out evil, love to conquer hate, and light to dispel darkness. Thus must we avoid all poisons, all harmful things, and use only the beneficent and beautiful.''
His work with Homeopathy inspired him, but he still sought a 'lighter touch,' something empowering clients & patients in self treatment. In 1930, Bach left his busy London practice, going to rural Wales, determined to discover & offer a new system of healing.
In Nora Week's lovely biography, 'The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach, Physician,' she writes that he wished to rediscover hands-on healing (around the time Hayashi was operating his clinic across the seas in Japan.) Bach did, in fact, awaken this ability in himself: 'Dr. Bach had the gift of healing by laying on hands, but he understood that this gift was not universal. He felt that the remedies, and the simple methods of working with them, would place the same power of healing in the hands of all.'
(Diane M Cooper,article in 'Spirit of Maat')
By 1932, Bach had developed his first 12 Flower Essences, advertizing these herbal remedies (flowers placed in a bowl of water in the sunshine, the resulting liquid bottled & preserved with brandy) in the local newspaper, which invoked the ire of the General Medical Council! He would devote spring & summers to finding & making the remedies, then in the winter, treat whomever sought his services. At no charge. He often employed hands on healing - even impromptu sessions, suggesting the patient come to his office when convenient ... & later finding that after the brief encounter, their symptoms had abated.
After receiving the reprimand from the Medical council, Bach moved to Mt Vernon in Oxfordshire, & developed 19 more remedies. He would identify an emotional state, then suffer that state until he found the plant that would help - then he still needed to make the remedy before his symptoms abated. Sometimes skin would be sloughing off his hands, or he would suffer terrible pain in his joints ... which flower will help?
By 1936, at the age of 50, Bach died peacefully at home, November 27th. On the eve of this anniversary, I appreciate the work & life of Edward Bach, humanitarian & healer.
"Health is our heritage & right. It is the complete and full union between soul, mind & body.'
(Edward Bach, Collected Writings, P 91)
Bach was born in Mosley, England Sept 24, 1886. He studied medicine, graduating in 1912, & commented 'It will take me 5 years to forget all I've been taught.'He had already begun to notice that different emotional states, worry, anxiety, anger, could affect the patient's health. He dreamed of a different kind of hospital, where patients could learn about themselves, & doctors would look more at the person than the symptoms. As an MD, he worked both as a general practitioner, bacteriologist & pathologist, developing vaccines made using a patient's own intestinal bacteria.
Then called to the Harley Street Homeopathic hospital (London), Bach developed 7 Homeopathic 'nosodes' which are still in use. These were based on his observations of personality types, & how health was influenced by these.
In his collected writings, he commented: ''Like may strengthen like, like may repel like, but, in the true healing sense like cannot cure like. ... and so in true healing, and so in spiritual advancement, we must always seek good to drive out evil, love to conquer hate, and light to dispel darkness. Thus must we avoid all poisons, all harmful things, and use only the beneficent and beautiful.''
His work with Homeopathy inspired him, but he still sought a 'lighter touch,' something empowering clients & patients in self treatment. In 1930, Bach left his busy London practice, going to rural Wales, determined to discover & offer a new system of healing.
In Nora Week's lovely biography, 'The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach, Physician,' she writes that he wished to rediscover hands-on healing (around the time Hayashi was operating his clinic across the seas in Japan.) Bach did, in fact, awaken this ability in himself: 'Dr. Bach had the gift of healing by laying on hands, but he understood that this gift was not universal. He felt that the remedies, and the simple methods of working with them, would place the same power of healing in the hands of all.'
(Diane M Cooper,article in 'Spirit of Maat')
By 1932, Bach had developed his first 12 Flower Essences, advertizing these herbal remedies (flowers placed in a bowl of water in the sunshine, the resulting liquid bottled & preserved with brandy) in the local newspaper, which invoked the ire of the General Medical Council! He would devote spring & summers to finding & making the remedies, then in the winter, treat whomever sought his services. At no charge. He often employed hands on healing - even impromptu sessions, suggesting the patient come to his office when convenient ... & later finding that after the brief encounter, their symptoms had abated.
After receiving the reprimand from the Medical council, Bach moved to Mt Vernon in Oxfordshire, & developed 19 more remedies. He would identify an emotional state, then suffer that state until he found the plant that would help - then he still needed to make the remedy before his symptoms abated. Sometimes skin would be sloughing off his hands, or he would suffer terrible pain in his joints ... which flower will help?
By 1936, at the age of 50, Bach died peacefully at home, November 27th. On the eve of this anniversary, I appreciate the work & life of Edward Bach, humanitarian & healer.
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