Bach Flower Essences are a sort of homeopathic flower essence made with brandy. As such, what you buy is just pure (cheap) brandy. Their medicinal quality is limited to what a few drops of brandy can do for you.
But bachflower.com have just issued a press release telling us how Naomi Klein, prominent critic of our globalised brand-oriented consumer culture, appears to be a big fan of Bach Flower remedies.
Via the New York Times, she tells us that,
“It’s very, very mild, especially if you dilute it,” she said. “I use it if I’m having trouble sleeping, or before a speech if I’m tense.”
But the contents of the bottle (a blend of flower essences, according to a spokesman for Nelsons, the British company that makes the Bach line) are not its real charm.
“I have no real sense that it works,” Ms. Klein said. “I think of it like a kind of talisman. I like the old-fashioned country-doctor packaging.”
I am not the first to notice the irony of her belief here. Bach Remedies are nothing but packaging. Their logo is the cure. Starting off in a little cottage in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell in Oxfordshire, these little bottles are now a major globalised quack industry.
Naomi Klein is the 11th top global intellectual as declared by Prospect magazine.
Interesting. I recently spoke to someone who claimed that they cured their temperamental cat using some of this stuff. Apparently it’s ‘well known’ amongst certain cat-owning circles. I wondered how a cat could be calmed by a few drops of nothing. Presumably it just got better by itself? Of course not. It was pissed!
I can’t quite see why everyone thinks this is so irrational. She doesn’t believe in homeopathy, she believes in the power of the placebo effect. Well, don’t we all believe in that?
“It’s very, very mild, especially if you dilute it,” she said.
But…according to homeopathic principles, shouldn’t you get a less mild effect if you dilute it?
Oh wait.
I used to deliver papers to the house in brightwell- the mirror and the daily hate. and no tip at xmas.
Paul Crowley; but the irony is that the placebo effect is being created by the “brand awareness”, the very thing Ms Klein abhors.