Calibrating the dowsing protocol

An article submitted to 'Essence' magazine.

I write of dowsing because that is my way of selecting essences through my intuition. And I accept that kinesiology and other methods of getting to one's intuition work very well for others. However, to rely on intellect alone seems questionable to me as a way of putting together the ideal remedy for the person on the day. And really that is all we are striving to do. Many of us no longer work with Dr Bach's remedies alone - remedies which have been beautifully described in their actions by many writers over the years. Nowadays there are thousands of essences that we can make use of, and I know that I am not alone in working with hundreds of them. To try to discern their comparative values only by intellect seems too onerous.

Furthermore, spirit is our constant companion in any healing venture. We are part of it. It is part of us. And intuition connects us directly to spirit. Recognising this and acting upon this knowledge to select appropriate essences ensures that spirit is directly involved in the healing process. After all we are doing something presumptuous, determining somebody's difficulties, often from the very earliest months of life, and selecting helpful remedies to roll back those difficulties and get on with living. If we do this work by dowsing (through intuition) we can be sure that spirit is brought to the party and that our client gets the very best attention.

The process of determining what is wrong with our client before choosing the right essences for him may be quite a detailed process. We may wish to ask our pendulum quite a number of questions. To ensure that we miss as little as possible, many of us who regularly make use of essences also resort to a protocol, a set of guidelines which enable us to work in a consistent manner, thus not forgetting to ask crucial questions which are best considered in the case of most clients. Questions such as 'does this person truly wish to get well at all levels?' or 'is this person carrying an excess of anger or hatred?' For listening to the person's story is frequently not a sufficient guide to finding the most helpful remedies for him. So a protocol can be of great help to both us and spirit in bringing our clients into wellness.

A protocol in this context is no more than a simple piece of paper, a checklist, which enables me to be sure that I ask my dowsing questions consistently. All the questions I need to pose are there on the page, and there may be quite a lot of them, but if I can go through them in order each time the risk of missing out something crucial for a client is minimised.

So far, so good. Using a protocol helps to clarify our own minds as healers, and we thereby clarify any communication we may receive through spirit - our intuition - in the selection of essences. However, if we add measurement to our protocols then our clarity and our healing ability increase again. For example, we can determine more accurately our client's state during a session. If he arrives with a vital force (chi, prana) of 0% we know that he is disconnected from spirit to all intents and purposes, disconnected by the huge expenditure of energy he is investing in keeping his emotional blockages in place. If we drill down into where the energy is being lost we find that there is excessive anger or hatred present, that he is trying to control his world to an impractical degree or that he is in the grip of grief or fear. Probably all of these if his energy is so low.

We can measure how extreme these negative emotions are, perhaps at 6 out of 6 in the beginning. And we can compare the measurements we take then with the measurements we take at our next session. If 0% energy has now become 20%, say, we know that we are on the right track. And if we see anger and fear drop from 6 to 5 or even 4 between sessions we can see where the improvement is coming from and select the next batch of essences accordingly.

In my own experience anger and hatred, anxiety and fear, excessive criticality and the need to control the world, grief and guilt, a lack of self-love and low self-esteem are the most dangerous emotions. There are many others and you will probably have listed them for yourselves, but those I mention lead, in due course, directly to severe pathology - which, of course, you can also list and measure.

Measuring pathology may be unlikely to give the same answers as doctors would obtain by measuring in their way. My own dowsing gives me a more impressionistic view, taking into account how the ailment is dispersed among the subtle bodies as well as the physical. But if cancer or heart pathology show up at 6/6 I have had fair warning. Choosing essences that affect those diseases becomes of paramount importance. If I can lower the measurements of the negative emotions I mentioned above then I have a reasonable chance of improving the person's condition.

Chris is an advanced practitioner of the BFVEA. He works in Tufnell Park, North London, and at Ainsworths, the homeopathic pharmacy in the West End. The author of 'Treating Depression Naturally: How Flower Essences can Rebalance your Life', he teaches an introductory course in essences and dowsing. Website flower-therapy.co.uk, and on Facebook: Chris Phillips Flower Therapy