To see more videos visit the Bach Educational Resource.

Rock Rose – Form and Function

We might wonder how terror can be one of the ‘twelve primary types of personality’. Indeed, among the majority of people using Bach’s remedies today Rock Rose is seen as only a treatment for acute fear, panic or distress (he called it ‘the rescue remedy’). While it does work in that way it also has a deeper resonance with a certain type of person: one who lives life mutely under the intense pressure of fear. It is a particular kind of fear, however, not the nervous fear of Mimulus but rather a deeply hidden fear of life itself. Being hidden it is perhaps hard for others to recognise. Like the secrets of the twelfth house in astrology the Rock Rose secret is not apparent to the outer world. Only those who resonate with the blind panic of the Rock Rose soul will recognise its quality.

Rock Rose has had a variety of Latin names but is now generally called Helianthemum nummularium, the flower of the sun, like gold coins. The golden-yellow flowers are round and flat, lying on the ground like scattered gold pieces that have fallen among the grass. The five-petalled flowers are notably frail with an appearance like that of creased silk or crumpled tissue paper. They last only for a day and the petals quickly fall. It is the extreme delicacy of the petals that shows the tenuous, febrile nature of the type who have such a loose grip upon life – Bach says that this is the remedy to use when there is an accident, emergency or intense fear in both the patient and the people around. The soul type lives with such a fear throughout the life. The strength and hope comes from the golden light of the sun, which is reflected in the golden light of the flowers, they brings courage, fortitude and the brave will to win.