# Flower essences

Source: https://spiritfold.com/Flower_essences  
Published by the Australian Spiritual Alliance on Spiritfold, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

**Flower essences**, also called flower remedies, are preparations made by dropping fresh flowers into water and then adding brandy as a preservative. The best known are the Bach flower remedies, devised by the British doctor Edward Bach.[1] Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the national regulator of medicines, describes flower, shell and gem essences as highly diluted extracts of substances.[2]

This page describes the practice and how flower essences are regulated. Flower essences are products, and this page makes no claims for them or for any brand.

## Description

### Preparation

To make a flower remedy, fresh flowers are dropped into water to produce a "mother tincture" (the starting preparation), and brandy is added as a preservative. Because of the way they are made, the remedies don't contain pharmacologically relevant amounts of the substances in the flowers they come from; in other words, not enough of any plant substance to act on the body as a drug would. They have some similarities with homeopathic medicines, but the two systems are distinct.[1]

### How practitioners explain it

Edward Bach came to believe that most human illness is caused by negative states of mind, such as fear, jealousy or despair. He identified 38 remedies, each made from one native flower, which he believed would ease such feelings and so restore health. He described his approach as treating the whole person individually, so two people with the same medical diagnosis might be given different remedies.[1]

Proponents say that flower remedies act not through any chemical or pharmacological effect but through a subtle "energy" passed from the flowers to the remedy. This energy has not been measured.[1]

## Scope

### What it includes

- Remedies prepared from flowers steeped in water and preserved with brandy[1]
- Choosing remedies for the individual person rather than for a diagnosis[1]

### What it is not

- Flower essences are not generally regulated as medicines in Australia (see below).[3]
- Controlled trials haven't shown flower remedies to be more effective than placebo (a dummy preparation with no active content). A 2010 systematic review found seven randomised clinical trials, six of them placebo-controlled; none of the placebo-controlled trials showed that flower remedies were effective. The author noted limits to his review, including possible unpublished trials and the fact that he extracted the data alone.[1] A later randomised, triple-blind trial in Brazil gave 101 nursing students either a flower essence formula or a placebo for 60 days. Stress scores fell in both groups, but there was no significant difference between them.[4]
- Flower remedies are not a substitute for effective treatment of serious illness (see Safety).[1]

## Traditions and lineage

Edward Bach (1886–1936) was a British physician and microbiologist who devised his flower remedies about 80 years before 2010. His followers have since added further remedies to his original 38.[1]

## Context

### Within Spiritualism

Spiritfold has found no published source linking flower essences with Spiritualism.

### In Australian Spiritualism

Spiritfold has found no published source linking flower essences with Spiritualism in Australia.

### A Spiritualist perspective

Flower essences sit outside Spiritualism, and the sources above find no link between the two. Even so, a Spiritualist might feel some sympathy with an approach that pays attention to fear, despair and other states of mind, since our own teaching cares for the spirit as well as the body. That sympathy does not make the essences part of the religion.

A Spiritualist teacher would ask healers not to offer essences during spiritual healing, which needs no products, remedies or props; keeping the two apart means the person receiving healing is never unsure about what they have been given. A member who chooses to use essences in their own life is free to do so. Anyone who sells or recommends them should be honest about what is and is not claimed, take care with the rules described below, and never let them stand in for proper treatment of illness. If someone is struggling in mind or body, the kind thing is to encourage them to see their doctor.

## Flower essences in Australia

### Regulation

The TGA regulates medicines both before and after they reach the market, so that the public can have confidence in their safety, their benefits and the way their risks are managed.[2] Essences, such as flower, shell and gem or crystal essences, are not generally regulated as medicines in Australia unless they have therapeutic indications, that is, therapeutic health claims made for them.[3]

The line between the two is drawn by what is said about the product. In general, indications about spiritual or emotional states are not treated as therapeutic indications, except those that state or imply depression or another mental illness. Unless a product is exempt, any product for which its sponsor makes therapeutic indications must be entered in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) before it can be legally imported, exported, made or supplied in Australia.[3][2] This is why the wording used to describe or sell an essence matters: a statement that implies depression or another mental illness counts as a therapeutic indication, while one about a spiritual or emotional state generally does not.

### Use

In a nationally representative online survey of 2,019 Australian adults, published in 2019, 151 people (7.5%) reported using flower essences in the previous 12 months. Their average spending on flower essences was the lowest of all the types of complementary medicine product in the survey.[5]

## Safety and good practice

The 2010 review noted that flower remedies are so dilute that they have no toxic effects. The danger it identified lies elsewhere: the remedies may be used in severe illness as an "alternative" to effective treatment, and this could become life-threatening.[1] Flower remedies are preserved with brandy, so they contain alcohol.[1]

## Related modalities

- [Aromatherapy](https://spiritfold.com/Aromatherapy)
- [Homeopathy](https://spiritfold.com/Homeopathy)
- [Naturopathy](https://spiritfold.com/Naturopathy)
- [Western herbal medicine](https://spiritfold.com/Western_herbal_medicine)

## References

1. Ernst, Edzard. ["Bach flower remedies: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials"](https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2010.13079). *Swiss Medical Weekly* 140 (24 August 2010): w13079 (accessed 11 October 2026).
2. ["Understanding listed and registered complementary medicine regulation"](https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/guidance/understanding-listed-and-registered-complementary-medicine-regulation). Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australian Government Department of Health. Last updated 16 December 2025 (accessed 11 October 2026).
3. ["Understanding the different types of complementary medicines"](https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/guidance/understanding-different-types-complementary-medicines). Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australian Government Department of Health. Last updated 3 May 2018 (accessed 11 October 2026).
4. de Albuquerque, L. M. N. F. and R. N. T. Turrini. ["Effects of flower essences on nursing students' stress symptoms: a randomized clinical trial"](https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-220x-reeusp-2021-0307). *Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP* 56 (2022): e20210307. Abstract read via [Europe PMC](https://europepmc.org/article/MED/34989759) (accessed 11 October 2026).
5. Harnett, J. E., E. McIntyre, A. Steel, H. Foley, D. Sibbritt and J. Adams. ["Use of complementary medicine products: a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of 2019 Australian adults"](https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-024198). *BMJ Open* 9, no. 7 (2019): e024198. Full text read via [PubMed Central](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6661602/) (accessed 11 October 2026).

## Further reading

- de Albuquerque, L. M. N. F. and R. N. T. Turrini. ["Effects of flower essences on nursing students' stress symptoms: a randomized clinical trial"](https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-220x-reeusp-2021-0307). *Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP*, 2022.
- Ernst, Edzard. ["Bach flower remedies: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials"](https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2010.13079). *Swiss Medical Weekly*, 2010.
- Harnett, J. E. and others. ["Use of complementary medicine products: a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of 2019 Australian adults"](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6661602/). *BMJ Open*, 2019.
- Therapeutic Goods Administration. ["Understanding the different types of complementary medicines"](https://www.tga.gov.au/resources/guidance/understanding-different-types-complementary-medicines). Australian Government, 2018.