Flowers in general have a long history of being used in various ways for human healing by different cultures of the world, including the Chinese, the Egyptians, and the Australian Aborigines. The modern-day form of flower essences we see today, emerged in the early 1930’s from the work of the late English physician, Dr Bach. Through years of trial and error, hard work and personal sacrifice, Dr Bach developed 38 flower remedies from wild plants in England for the purpose of treating a person holistically.

Flower essences are liquid extracts taken medicinally, most often as drops under the tongue. They support mental and emotional wellbeing while also fostering one’s soul-level growth. Known for their gentle yet deeply transformative effects, flower essences are part of the broader field of subtle energy medicine – similar to practices like acupuncture – that work on the body’s energetic system to restore balance and harmony. 

Based on the understanding that everything is energy at its most fundamental level, flower essences are water-based solutions that hold the energetic imprint of a flower and its parent plant. Unlike herbal extracts or essential oils, flower essences contain no physical components of the plant – only its vibrational essence remains.

Each flower essence is unique, capturing the distinct qualities of the plant from which it is derived. Core energetic patterns – expressed physically through the appearance of the flowers and their parent plant, as well as the plant’s growth habits, and behaviour – are referred to as the plant’s doctrine of signatures. This concept represents the plant’s individual ‘signature’.

Dr. Edward Bach specifically chose flowers for making essences because they are the most evolved and expressive part of a plant. Flowers act as powerful messengers, offering deep insight into the nature and healing potential of the plant they belong to.

To create flower essences, flowers are placed in pure water and left to infuse under sunlight for several hours. The resulting solution is typically preserved with brandy to maintain its stability.  Water is the chosen medium because of water’s unique ability to absorb and store information. Through this process, the energetic blueprint of the flower – the information the plant holds about itself – is imprinted onto the water, which retains this information as memory for extended periods of time. Flower essences are nature’s intelligence encapsulated. They are essentially ‘information in a bottle’.

When taken internally, water-based flower essences further transmit their energetic information to the water within the human (or animal) body – of which humans are approximately 70% water. This allows for an energetic transference between the flower essence and the individual.

The “doctrine of signatures” is what’s used to guide the selection of a flower essence. It operates on the principle of “like heals like”, where the physical characteristics and behaviours of a flower and its plant are thought to reflect or resonate with the traits, tendencies, or emotional patterns of a person – then used for those very aspects they wish to heal.

The interaction between the flower essence and the individual creates a kind of energetic recalibration of sorts, promoting greater wellbeing through improved mental and emotional balance. Because flower essences are energy based and work on an energetic level, they have a greater effect on the more subtle aspects of a person – such as thoughts and emotions – rather than the dense, physical body.

It’s important to understand that flower essences do not add anything to a person, nor do they force change or influence behaviour. Instead, they help to gently dissolve mental and emotional blockages gathered throughout one’s life, making room for one’s true nature to emerge more clearly with authentic transformation. As part of the greater web of nature – of which humans are inherently a part of – this process reflects the quiet yet profound intelligence of Mother Nature herself.

For more information about flower essences and the connection they have with Chinese medicine, read more here