Product Description

In the 1920s, the physician and homeopath Dr Edward Bach made his great discovery of the healing effects of various flower essences, which resulted in thirty-eight 'flower remedies'. Bach described them as 'bringing courage to the fearful, peace to the anguished, and strength to the weak', but the therapeutic effects of the remedies go beyond emotional states. They are equally effective in the treatment of physical disorders. Julian Barnard describes how Bach made his discoveries. He examines the living qualities of the plants in their context, and looks at how the remedies are actually produced. The result is remarkable. Barnard recounts his observations so that readers can experience for themselves the complex ways in which the remedy plants grow -- their gestures and qualities, ecology, botany, and behaviour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42050 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 349 pages

Review
'Do we really need another book about the Bach Flower Remedies? The answer has to be a resounding affirmative, since this book takes you on a journey. You follow Edward Bach, see the way his ideas evolved. And you learn how to utilise this remarkable group of remedies to maximum benefit. [...] This really is an excellent book which methodically leads you through the 38 remedies in a manner which makes you appreciate the full value and beauty of this remarkably simple system.' -- Keith Souter, Health and Homeopathy, January 2005 'The general reader will find this book illuminating and instructive. Line drawings adorn the text and provide another avenue of understanding.' -- Scientific and Medical Network Review, January 2005

About the Author
Julian Barnard has lived and worked in Walterstone on the Welsh border for the past twenty years. Born in the Thames Valley in 1947 to a family with connections to the great English botanists John Henslow and Joseph Hooker, he was brought up with a love of plants. He went to school at Oxford and trained at the Architectural Association in London. Finding a copy of The Twelve Healers led to a training in herbal medicine with Dorothy Hall in Australia. The author of a series of books about Dr Bach's flower remedies, including The Healing Herbs of Edward Bach: An Illustrated Guide to the Flower Remedies, he has also edited and published the Collected Writings of Edward Bach, the first complete edition of Bach's works. In 1986 he was instrumental in establishing the Bach Educational Program to bring flower remedies to a wider public. Still actively engaged in education, he has given talks and workshops in more than a dozen countries in Europe and the Americas.

Customer Reviews

Julian Barnard needs 6 stars
The synopsis is accurate. In addition the book clarifies the relationship between homeopathy and the Bach flower remedies. There isn't one. Julian has single mindedly pursued this issue through to the highest courts in the land (UK) until this has been settled. In the book it is now explained how the Bach method is not the same as homeopathy and how they differ. Homeopathic pharmacies cannot hijack any trademark for these remedies. The overlap is that both healing methods stimulate the human vitality to healing. But Bach remedies are not 'proved' they have been created by Edward Bach. Just how close is the relationship between Bach's troubled life and the uses of the remedies I never realised before. Missing is a bibliography, which has to be inferred from the references. And missing is a statement about how the many other flower remedies from around the world fit into the Bach system. How can the Bach system be complete if Bach died tragically at the age of 50 at a time when he was creating remedies in fast succession?

This is a well written literary work, the clearest most humane account of the Bach remedies ever written, much better than some of the railway timetable books which repeat half digested psychobabble.

Bringing it back to the plants
This is a wonderful book, thoughtful and full of insight, but what makes it stand out from other equally useful books about the Bach Flower Essences is that Barnard moves the focus away from those little bottles, and from descriptions of character types and applications, and returns to the source of the remedies - plants.

After all, it was through close observation, communication and listening to the flowers and their gestures that Dr Bach evolved the remedies.

Barnard encourages us to look anew at the remedy giving plants themselves, and thereby to repeat Bach's own journey of discovery, so that we see in the morphology of each individual plant, and its growing habitat where its energetic activity comes from. Then we can really begin to understand the remedies and their application

New Insight into Bach Remedies
Julian Barnard's book provides a different approach to Bach Flower Remedies.
He gives detailed information about each Remedy with some emphasis on the plant from which it is derived. He also provides extensive detail about Dr Bach and his life.
Perhaps not for the novice, but a useful addition to the experienced Bach Remedy user's collection.