Interviewed by Edward De Beukelaer
E.D.B: In this edition we are also in the company of Mark Moodie. Mark is the driving force
behind the web site Considera.org, which we recommend all of you to check out. Before all
the readers dash to your web site, can you explain briefly what its purpose is?
M.M. The primary purpose of the site is to collect and make information available on the
treatment of plants with dynamised remedies. It started from the 'biodynamic' agricultural
work of Rudolf Steiner and Lilly Kolisko and then grew with cooperation from the likes of
Glen Atkinson, Enzo Nastati, and Vaikunthanath Das Kaviraj. I was trying to find out if the
positive reports that were around could be trusted. I did some of my own trials and realized
that it would take a highly focused and dedicated lifetime to approach a secure answer to
that question and build a discipline upon it. However, I thought that if many people were
interested in compiling their experiences, there was a chance to get some really worthwhile
indications.
Glen's unsolicited testimonial for his frost protection was the report that really galvanized
me into action and got me excited about the use of dynamised substances to treat plants,
pests and even soils. The possibility of creating an effective tool for productive farming, and
one that is not harmful to the environment, is something that needed to be tested,
documented and shared.
Glen Atkinson has already convinced the market down-under of the efficacy of diluted
substances and many of his prepara?ons are used by those who don't care about its creation
– they just want something effective. Enzo Nastati in Italy is also working hard to clarify the
theore?cal aspect of the preparations and building upon this to induce some really
remarkable effects on plants and soils. V.D. Kaviraj has found his inspiration within the pure
Hahnemannian or classical homeopathic tradition and I’ve published his book- Homeopathy
for Farm and Garden. I now am working with Glen to get his preparations available in the
UK. We have them certified as 'permitied inputs' to organic and biodynamic and land. I also
help with making his preparations in the UK and working to get the test information that
clarifies their capacity. Glen is coming to the UK in 2009 and if people are around he is giving
a public weekend course in Sussex from the 20th to 22nd February entitled "A Unified View
of the Agriculture Course". I am also studying with Enzo and have been translating his works
into English. The big one on the desk is his commentary on Steiner's original Agriculture
Course. There are several books in English now and about 80 in Italian, but the main one
Hpathy might be interested in is his 'New Basis for Potentisation'. His preparations are only
available to members of his Albero della Vita organisation and I’m helping get these from
Italy to the UK. He works at cost with these, as it’s an ethical issue in the Steiner world of
making what you need available at cost, and what is not necessary can be sold for profit -
like the publications and a few other gadgets.
My website, Considera, is there to invite people from all over the world to share their
experiences, whether they are posiitve or negative. I feel it may be very important that we
bring all this knowledge together. This would then eventually constitute a database for
dynamised substances for plants like the materia medica for homeopaths. You have 200
years of advance on us agro-'homeopaths'. I hope that the web, with its ability to reach so
many people, will make catching up go faster.
E.D.B. If you make a materia medica based on 'cured symptoms', this is very different from a
materia medica based on proving symptoms. That makes me wonder whether the
applications of 'Belladonna' for rust is more an 'herbalist' recipe than a homeopathic
prescription for a plant, which should be by nature 'individual'.
M.M. I was taught homeopathy by Misha Norland in the 1980’s, and was a med student for
three years before that, so I have some exposure to the differences between a prescription
based on the isolated symptoms and a prescription aimed at the context in which these
manifest themselves. To really answer your question goes rather deeper than I would really
like to go in a public space. The common ground of homeopathy and biodynamics and more
orthodox scientific endeavour is, "Does it work on the ground?" That question is the one I
am happy to work on in public and is Considera's raison d'etre.
Considera is like a big experiment to find out what works and what doesn't work, where we
should direct our research and what directions appear fruitless. We may find out that
Belladonna only effects plant rusts in certain cases. It seems that there are differences in
plant reaction between the different continents: what works in one continent does not
always work in another. It is a data accumulating project.
The more interesting side for me is to answer the ques?on – how can an ultramolecular bit
of water effect a farm? I am not happy with some quasi-material answer about the 'nanophase'
or 'water clathrates' etc. Coming to peace with this question and finding answers that
are potentially satisfying is what needs to accompany the trials and data crunching, because
it can feed back to improve the discipline and not abandon it to trial and error – but it really
does cut one off from ones more orthodox materialist scientifically-trained colleagues. So I do that
elsewhere.
However, coming back to your question, it is from these other studies that one comes to
some model of plants and the difference between them and humans, and then one can test
the implications of this difference for treating a person in a different way from plants and
soils. Sorry to be a little vague, but I guess I am a little protective of what is culturally
publishable and what just brings more heat than light upon oneself. I'm sure most
homeopaths know this dynamic.
E.D.B. From reading on the website Considera, it appears to me that the work of Glen
Atkinson and Enzo Nastati has a very holistic nature to it. In human and veterinary
homeopathy we know how important it is to know every little detail of the patient's
personal sensitivities in order to achieve a true homeopathic prescription. I suppose the
same is true in agro-homeopathy, so how do you achieve this? We can interview a client
when his animal is the pa?ent. Can you interrogate plants? Can you interrogate a farmer to
obtain information on his plants or land just as you would do this for the owner of an
animal?
M.M. Well there has been some real success just applying preparations to single, readily
identifiable syndromes. So we are having success with stinky slurry pits in the UK with the
same remedy – Glen's 'BdMax E7' for instance. We get much less smell and the pits lose
their crust accumulation and the grass does not 'burn' when the muck is irrigated. However,
this same remedy can also be used where there is a general lack of vitality in plants too.
Another of Glen's preparations – 'BdMax ZeroIn' has shown significant results bulking up
roots but has also been successful in stopping fruit from spliting at the final maturation
stage whilst allowing dry ma]er to increase and the Brix rating to climb too. So these are
along the line of a 'pill for an ill' but that is, as much as anything, a way of trying to get the
growers up and running without having to get too deep into non-standard science.
I guess another way is to try and accumulate the same amount of information for plant and
soil homeopathy as for human or animal homeopathy. Interviewing the farmer is part of
this. The information is gathered more from what might be called an alchemical point of
view. This can be used as a second line if the first shot is not successful.
That is where the work of Hahnemann and Steiner meet. I have taken a little flak for this
work not being 'real homeopathy' and, in a way, that is justified. However, I think it honours
Hahnemann's undoubted genius by not imitating him and assuming that he defined all the
parameters once and for all. Rather I think that Considera's work and its debt to Steiner
comes from drawing on the same sources of inspiration as did Hahnemann. This is not
something I can cover well in a brief interview - it would take us a long, long way down an
interesting sidetrack - but is very stimulating and satisfying for me. Just as you have to learn
a new language to understand and prac?ce human/animal homeopathy in a reliable way,
you can get further by learning a way of viewing Nature beyond a Linnean taxonomy, or
physical-chemical assumptions - and thus learn to use a different filter to view the world. I
would refer those interested to Goethe's work on plants and Wolfgang Schad's work on the
animal world. It can be learned but there's a little unlearning for most of us too.
I still expect a long battle ahead to win the hearts and - more so - the minds of those who
find it difficult to accept that there are other ways to see the world around us than the
reductionist, pure materialistic approach that has prevailed in the last centuries.
E.D.B. It was my impression that there must be another tool out there to enable good
quality agro-homeopathy and that there was maybe a key in anthroposophic science
according to Steiner.
M.M. Indeed, the work of Steiner is a secure place to start, but it's not so simple to digest. It
now works for me but I'm sure there must be other disciplines that would suit. And surely,
there are others who are more lucky and this work would come naturally with a kind of
green thumb. But yes, I would readily recommend Steiner's work to anyone with deeper
questions about this work.
E.D.B. Where would the homeopathy and agro-homeopathy communities benefit from each
other's work?
M.M. One connection point between the two is the fact that we work with some of the
same principles when preparing our remedies. Actually, there may be something for
homeopathic pharmacists to learn here. I know that Kaviraj has tried interesting varia?ons
and Enzo has written a booklet called 'A New Basis for Poten?sa?on', which suggests some
radical prac?ces and interpretations.
Of course agro-homeopathy might also be a reliable field to prove the existence of the
effects resulting from our remedy preparation techniques. It is difficult to conceive of
orthodox scientists insisting that changes in plants and slurry pits are due to the placebo
effect.
An important lesson that this new discipline can learn from homeopathy is that this should,
in my opinion, remain 'open source'. The benefit of this, is that this tool is not patented and
in the hands of a few businesses for their shareholders' gain. Actually that cuts two ways; it
also means that there is no huge commercial pot from which to pay for the research. It
means that it is done little by little, by amateurs, boffins and enthusiasts in between their
commercially productive activities.
E.D.B. Thank you very much Mark for sharing some of your thoughts with us. During our
interview you pointed out a number of exiting and successful uses of agro-homeopathy. I
will direct the readers to your website where they can find the details. There is also a forum
where they can discuss these issues with you. We hope your project will be successful. We
are also grateful for the contribution you are making to bring our dynamised remedies into
mainstream acceptance.
# # #Visit Mark Moodie at his website: h]p://www.considera.org/consintro.php
See Mark Moodie’s article Homeopathy for Plants in the July 08 issue of the ezine:
http://www.hpathy.com/papersnew/moodie- ... plants.asp