I’ve been ‘button-holed’ a couple of times by people promoting a ‘new and better way’ to choose remedies.  This method involves the client picking 3 remedies out the box and that’s it.  It is taught and actively promoted and is claimed to benefit from the removal of practitioner influence from the process.  Leaving aside the issues with the method, I set out to investigate.

The experiment:

To test the method, myself and a friend selected remedies by the new method.  I then mixed up the remedies in the box and we selected again.  Finally, we recorded how we were feeling then and any remedies this suggested.  By repeating the selection twice with the remedies in different positions, this should remove any bias towards selecting from the same section(s).  The ‘experiment’ was repeated once a day for 9 days

Results are shown in the table below.

The first two columns for each person involve selection by this new method, with the difference being that for the first column, the remedies were presented in standard (alphabetical) order, whereas before the second set of choices were made (shown in the second column) the positions of the bottles were mixed-up.  If the new method is valid, we would expect a close correspondence of the choices in columns 1 and 2 for both participants, as choices were made within 5 minutes of each other and no more than minor differences in emotional states would be expected.

However, as shown in the table, for person#1, selection of remedies unmixed and mixed (columns 1 and 2) produced only 1 repeat (where on the same day, the same remedy was picked for the unmixed and mixed sets) – bold underlined in the table. For person#2 there were repeats on two days.  On day 2 there were 2 repeats which also occurred at the same position of choice (there is significance in the new method given to first choice, second choice and third choice).

Looking at the results statistically, the chances of having zero repeats in an experiment (where an experiment is defined as 2 sets of 3 picks and a repeat is when the same remedy is chosen in set 1 and set 2) is 37/40 x 36/39 x 35/38 = 0.786 and so the chances of having at least 1 repeat is 1-0.786 (= 0.214).  In the 18 experiments, three produced repeats (2 with one repeat and one with 2 repeats) so repeats were observed 17 % of the time – i.e. no more often than if picks were random (which would be expected to give repeats 21.4% of the time).

Comparing the remedy selection by discussion (Dr Bach’s method, column 3) compared to columns 1 and 2, there was one repeat (bold italicised in the table) for person#1 and two for person#2.  So again, 3 experiments out of 18 showed repeats, about what would be expected if choices were random.  In this case, column 3 was compared with 1 and 2, so the chances of repeats should be even better.

Assuming that using Dr Bach’s method would produce valid remedy choices (which I think we can agree on) there is no evidence from these results to suggest that this new method offers a reliable alternative to the conventional selection method.

Some other observations.

The method assumes that a client needs 3 remedies each time.  However, as seen in column 3 of the table for each person, this was not the case – often no remedies were selected by Dr Bach’s method (and in some cases, more than 3 might be needed).

One of the repeats observed is recovery remedy – as there are 2 bottles in the set, the chances of repeat selection of this remedy are increased.  This wasn’t taken into account in the calculations for simplicity.

In one experiment (person#2, day#2) two repeat remedies were chosen (both new method selections) and in the same order (first and third positions).  Looking at the likelihood of repeats occurring at positions 1 and 3, where the first set of choices are represented by x, y and z, the chances of x being selected first in the second set is 1/40 and the chances of z being selected third is 1/38.  Therefore the chances of both is 1/40 x 1/38 = 1/1520 or 0.07 % – so pretty unlikely.  The observed results may be coincidencal but shouldn’t be ignored.  However, if this method is to be widely used, it would have to work in (almost) every case and that clearly was not shown.

It may be that some people are more energetically ‘tuned-in’ to the remedies so their choices by the new method might be better.  Those who feel negative towards the method (or the remedies) may do less well (this was why I asked an unbiased friend to take part in the experiment as well as me!)

This method doesn’t offer any emotional support to clients or promote sharing of their issues, both of which can be hugely beneficial.

Conclusion:  While the suggested new way of choosing remedies is clearly not compatible with Dr Bach’s method and not permitted for use by BFRPs, I thought it was worth trying in order to facilitate discussion with those promoting it.

The small-scale experiment carried out should not be described as proof that the method doesn’t work.  However, it provided no evidence that this method does work.

To be an alternative to Dr Bach’s method, the remedy choices would need to be reliable – being successful for a few people is not enough.

As it stands, the method feels more like a fairground card trick rather than an attempt to help people back to good health and therefore, could potentially damage the credibility of the remedy system.

Thanks to Tracey van den Ban for her statistical expertise and my unbiased friend for taking part in the experiments.

TABLE: Results of experiments to test new method of remedy choice

Key: #1,#2 – person 1 and person 2; Standard remedy order = alphabetical with 2 bottles Recovery remedy in positions 39 and 40; Mixed – same 40 remedies but order mixed up; Remedy selection by discussion = asked to say how feeling and remedy/ies suggested by answer recorded.