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A CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE OF THE INTRODUCTION of new remedies in natural medicine in the modern era is excessive promotion. Great waves of popularity for new products sweep the Western world, while the accumulated knowledge and understanding of thousands of valuable natural remedies is seemingly forgotten for the sake of novelty. Perhaps there exists within the human psyche an unsatisfied quest for the universal remedy, the cure-all that is both the fountain of youth and the Holy Grail. As we may infer from the flurries of advertising that promote this ongoing crusade, it appears that the universal panacea should be capable not only of curing all health problems, but also of delivering joy, happiness, and abundant energy on an indefinite basis. It appears that people tend to want to believe in wonder drugs that will fulfill their unmet physical and emotional needs regardless of the actual effects of those substances on their health and well-being. For decades, cigarettes were promoted on a "they'll make you feel good" basis similar to that used today for modern natural health potions.
An observer of this process might well conclude that promotion and understanding are inversely related. That is, the more imbalanced or deficient the understanding of a particular remedy, the greater the promotion required to overcome this deficit.
In reality, the full spectrum of natural remedies, including aloe vera, ginseng, evening primrose oil, shark cartilage, homeopathics, and noni juice, to mention but a few, are all good products, but each has strengths and weaknesses. Using any such substance or group of substances as a cure-all is bound ultimately to generate disillusionment, because it is an illusion from the outset to believe that any substance is best for everything. A more mature approach, which exists, I hope, at least at the practitioner level, is to integrate new substances into a broader therapeutic picture that recognizes areas of strength and areas of weakness inherent in each prescriptive option.
This book explores falling leaf essences, a group of essences that is fundamentally different from those commonly available today. It is an incredibly exciting discovery to find that in the falling leaf essences there is a majestic healing power around the theme of releasing the old and letting go of the past. Those very aspects of your own past, mentally, emotionally, and physically, that you never seemed able to quite overcome or to effectively release, now can be addressed. These new essences are so subtle, yet so incredibly powerful. At times, you will feel them at work on your physical body, encouraging detoxification and release. At other times, they will make themselves known to you in your dreams, with a collage of people and events from the recent and distant past. The emotions and memories of days gone by will again fill your consciousness with a powerful awareness that this is indeed a final letting go, a potent cleansing. In all of this, the falling leaf essences will thwart your best efforts to resist them, and you will move toward becoming the person you always dreamed of being. falling leaf essences. But as impressed as I am with their capacity for healing, I would not naively claim that these essences are a cure-all?this being the type of notion that we have just discredited. I seek instead to help you develop an understanding of their particular strengths and weaknesses. When will falling leaf essences be most appropriate, and when will a homeopathic or flower essence be more relevant or suitable? What are the guiding principles for the selection of different types of essences? Do these principles lead us only to falling leaf essences or to other new types of essence? How do we make and store these new essences, and what can they accomplish in practice?
These questions presuppose an understanding of other types of essences. This understanding is essential and forms the context or landscape within which falling leaf essences can be placed. This chapter seeks to develop a basic understanding of the different types of essences, which is a fascinating subject in its own right.