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Subtle Agroecologies
technique involves a rhythmic play of more pressure (on the thump down) and less pressure (when
lifted up). This is done in order to create a remedy, which can have specifc healing effects on an
organism, usually human or animal. It can also be used for a crop or a whole farm or garden ecology.
According to homeopathic practice, this potentisation process provides a more time-stable remedy whose infuence can be brought into play in an organism many years after it has been made,
and for this reason, remedies are not usually given a shelf life. Homeopathy in agriculture is a
fast-developing area of research and practice in both India and South America (Sen et al., 2018), and
some dramatic results have been achieved with certain plant illnesses (Kaviraj, 2012).
CONCLUDING DISCUSSION: RESEARCH WITH THE LIFE-FORMING FORCES
When researching with living organisms and subtle infuences, one factor is seldom taken into
account: the infuence of the researcher on the research. In my experience over the last 30 years,
experiments in this feld that attempt to establish reproducibility and to prove a cause and effect
in a reductionist way invariably fail. Often then the work is not published. French immunologist
Jaques Benveniste was famously dogged by this issue of reproducibility after sceptics questioned
the results of his research into high dilution effects on living tissue which he had published in
the journal Nature (Davenas et  al., 1988). Eventually, Benveniste found that reproducible results
were possible for certain experimenters and not others. Experiments undertaken robotically also
failed, unless a connection with an effective experimenter was established, and this was undertaken
through using a sample of water (Personal Communication, J. Benveniste, December 1998).
Most subtle forming infuences in living things are not physical or chemical in origin, but they
can still be grasped clearly. These organising principles in life, these active ideas, can be considered
aspects of the spiritual working in the physical world. If the infuenced phenomena were predictable
in a mechanistic way, we would feel obliged to take up a subservient position in relationship to this
spiritual realm and become mechanistic in our own dealings with the living world. This would run
counter to our ability to be free and independent, to work out of our own sense of responsibility
in any given situation and to seek what we fnd to be true, beautiful and good. The more we get to
know the qualities of these active infuences at work in the natural world, the more these infuences
also become creative, artistic tendencies in us, and we willingly work in tune with them.
Many infuences in the environment are working on plants, yet overarching these are subtle
forming forces that may be mediated by the water in and around the organism. These work as a
whole on the whole plant and involve the surrounding rocks, plants, animals, humans and astronomical events. Based on my work with water, there seem to be forces working both from within
outward and from the periphery inward, and these work to achieve the time-variable but characteristic form of the organism.
The scientifc challenge is to be open to these subtle factors and also to become clearer as to what
is going on with both the sense-perceptible world and ideas working in the perceived phenomena
(i.e. natural laws and identifable gestures). We are looking for the satisfying marriage of percept
and concept, of phenomena and idea. If we can educate ourselves to read the ideas within what we
perceive, then the meaning of the workings of the natural world can increasingly unfold. One of
the roles of water claimed by Theodor Schwenk is that it can help us to read this world of living
beings. Through observation of its fuidity, ‘our way of thinking becomes changed and more suited
to the understanding of what is alive’ (2014: 11). This need is far greater now than when Schwenk
originally suggested this in 1961, and it may be an essential step if we wish to free ourselves from
trying to manipulate nature and learn to work and play responsibly with her.
REFERENCES
Barlow, P.W. (2012) Moon and cosmos: Plant growth and plant bioelectricity. In Volkov, A. (ed), Plant
Electrophysiology. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 249–280.