More from the biodynamic stable
At about the same time as Glen Atkinson began his practical experimentation with biodynamic preparations in New Zealand, Enzo Nastati began his own work in Italy. He worked with these preparations pretty much as had been directed and was traditional. However, in 1986 Chernobyl changed things. He estimates that Chernobyl made these traditional agricultural preparations about 50% less effective than hitherto. However, he bought himself a Geiger counter and potentised some mushrooms (which accumulate certain radio-nucleotides) and spread them around his garden. The count went down 40% in less than a week. This is perhaps remarkable enough but it galvanized Nastati into trying to understand the potential of the discipline. Due to ruffling feathers in biodynamic circles and the ‘innovation’ of Hahnemannian potentisation of the preps, he gave the name ‘Homeodynamics’ to his work and moved on from his role as president of the Italian biodynamic certification body ‘Demeter’.
Since that start, Nastati and his team have removed diesel from subsoils with the sole use of potentised preparations. They have reduced the level of heavy metals on the roads between his native Trieste and neighbouring Slovenia by up to 75%. He has removed rats from a municipal waste tip. He has treated horse chestnut trees for their bleeding canker. He has revived the majority of a chicory crop after a -13°C frost. He has rebuffed GM pollens from a corn crop. There is much more.
You would not be alone if your response, in whole or part, is one of disbelief. These are miracles or delusions, surely! We will not find out unless we try these things. They are publicly available to those who have studied his general approach and joined his l’Albero della Vita association. For those who I imagine will be reading this homeopaths, Randi and Ben Goldacre perhaps the publication which is most appropriate, (he has written over 70 of which half a dozen are currently translated into English) is called ‘Le Basi per una Nuova Omeopatia’. I have translated this as ‘Foundations for a Development of Potentisation’, because the law of similars is only briefly touched upon. However, the subject of Hahnemannian potentisation is discussed in detail and is expanded upon to outline other methods such as those that he himself uses in order to achieve the list above.
It is with a certain trepidation that I present a glimpse of this 75 page book. First of all, because I have been out of the homeopathic loop for 20 years or so, I am not sure what the state of the debate is on such questions as the mechanism of homeopathic potentisation. A brief Google seems to suggest that sub-microscopic investigation of ‘clathrates’ and ‘liquid crystals’ and other ‘nano-phase’ structures in water are sought as the means that water can have a ‘memory’. However, it is clear even from the popular press that homeopathy continues to struggle for scientific legitimacy. It is because of this that I am a little nervous, since the understanding that I have gleaned from Enzo’s work may be counter-productive to this impulse. But hey ho let’s go!
Steiner wrote a book called ‘An Outline of Occult Science’ [xxi]. In this book a very different version of the history of the Earth is presented from that which features big bangs, replicators, DNA and so forth. However, since homeopathy cannot fit comfortably in our cultural model of life, the universe and everything, I assume we are in the market for a better one. Enzo takes this basic work of Steiner’s and applies potentisation’s enigmas to it. After a detailed analysis, an alchemical answer is offered. Alchemy is suggested to emerge from the realization that one cannot change outside of oneself what one has not transformed within oneself. Steiner says that homeopathy is the new form of alchemy and that the scientist of the future must approach the lab bench like a priest approaching the altar! In particular it is important that the process of potentisation or dynamisation is undertaken with the right attitude. For agriculture one must proceed on the understanding that Nature is a being and not a physico-chemical mechanism. Our current approach is of maximizing the output of this mechanism, which as an industrial model and all other things being equal, is all well and good. But when one realizes that Nature is a being, this monomaniacal rush for efficiency becomes exploitation or rape, and if Nature withdraws her cooperation we should not be surprised.
Whilst this could all be mystical nonsense each must decide I am very happy with the detail and rigorous approach which has produced this conclusion. Dr Steiner called his work Spiritual Science, an oxymoron to some, but for me, I prefer to see it as a very securely founded science, liberated from the discredited dogma that material is, in the final analysis, the one true reality. I don’t want to advocate that everyone goes and studies this, because leaving people free is much more important than having anyone agree with me. However, I will ask readers to consider from where Hahnemann first got his own epoch-forming counter-intuitive ideas. It is Enzo’s conviction that he honors Hahnemann’s undoubted genius, not by imitating him, but by going to the same springs and drawing afresh. From these springs we can receive an answer to the question above about the healing mechanism of plants and even slurry pits and understand that repelling GM pollen is not a miracle!
