About Dr Bach

Why doesn’t the Bach Centre talk more about Edward Bach’s personal life, his marriages and family?

There are two reasons:

  1. We don’t know a great deal, because Dr Bach didn’t leave many personal papers and Nora Weeks never talked about his personal life precisely because it was personal
  2. His personal life had nothing to do with the remedy system, and that has always been our main concern

For the record, though, Dr Bach was married twice. His first wife died. He had a daughter by his second wife, but the marriage failed some time before he left London in 1930.

I have been taught that Edward Bach pronounced his name ‘Batch’? What is the correct pronunciation of his last name, and how does the Centre pronounce his name and the name of the remedies?

There are three possible pronunciations. Most people probably pronounce the name ‘Bark’, the same as J S Bach the famous composer.

However, the Bach family originally pronounced their name ‘Baytch’ (to rhyme with the letter ‘h’). When he was a medical student his fellow-students mispronounced his name as ‘Batch’, and the mistake stuck. He was known as ‘Batch’ throughout his medical career, and we still say ‘Batch’ at the Centre to this day.

What did Dr. Bach die of, and why did he die so young?

He died of cancer, but in fact died of exhaustion rather than because of the disease itself.

Because he was only 50 when he died people have sometimes asked why he wasn’t able to cure himself. What this question ignores is that in 1917 when the cancer was first diagnosed he was given just 3 months to live. From then until his death in 1936 he was curing himself, every day, for nineteen years – all the time it took for him to complete his work.

Did Dr Bach meet Rudolph Steiner, who predicted that flowers would become a great tool of healing?

There are parallels between Bach’s beliefs and those of Steiner. But as far as we know they never met.

Doesn’t the Bach Centre make Dr Bach out to be some kind of god, as if he were the object of a cult?

Absolutely not! Dr. Bach was no more (and no less) divine than the rest of us. He was human, with human faults (a workaholic, a failed marriage, short tempered sometimes) and human qualities (courage, persistence, selflessness).

He was a great teacher and found a precious gift that he shared with others, but that doesn’t make him more than human. We tend to think that ‘just human’ is more than enough!