BIODYNAMICS -- The Homeopathy of the Soil                                  

Regarding the strange ways of biodynamic agriculture. The most logical explanation I've ever heard about the why of BD techniques called it "homeopathy of the soil."
If you understand homeopathy and how it functions so splendidly in human and veterinary medicine, you will immediately see the connects to BD preps, their mixing, their application.
In essence, it is vibrational healing; sending the vibrational fingerprint from these organic substances out into the soil, itself a living organism.
Found on the internet

Homeopathy & Biodynamics
Abstracted from Biodynamic Agriculture & Homeopathy by Dr. Lucas Dengel

From the years 1920 to 1924 Steiner gave lectures on medicine, therapeutic and pharmaceutical practice. His remedies often implied the use of homeopathic principles, in particular of minimal dosage and potentization technique. In 1920 Lili Kolisko joined the anthroposophic circle and later was asked by Steiner to study the effect of smallest dosages. In his agriculture lectures, Steiner refers several times to homeopathy and to the studies of Lili Kolisko.

It is further evident that the use of minute dosages – e.g. one gram of “horn silica” diluted in 15 litres of water and administered over an acre of land – can be associated with homeopathy. It should be noted that all these minimal doses are not applied without some specific processing such as stirring over one hour, alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise thus creating with each stirring cycle a deep vortex in the fluid. Homeopathic principles come to application also in the use of so-called “peppers” made from the ashes of burnt pests or weeds which then undergo classical “potentizing” up to D8 through rhythmic succussion and then are used as pest control measures.

The name “homoeo-pathy” derives from the Greek words homoios for similar and pathos for suffering or illness.

Samuel Hahnemann, the developer of the modern homeopathic method of medicine, discovered in 1827 that when he diluted a remedial substance and then shook it or knocked it and repeated the process of dilution and shaking or knocking several times, the end result was a remedy which had lost its toxicity and simultaneously had acquired a stronger medicinal property, a greater curing effect. That is why he called this processing “potentizing”.

The dilution was either in alcohol-water or in milk sugar/lactose. One part substance (mother tincture or trituration powder) against 99 parts neutral base (alcohol water or milk sugar) is called C1 for centesimal 1, i.e. is a 10 power minus 2 dilution.

According to the law of Avogadro, in all probability no molecule remains when a substance is diluted beyond 6x20 power minus 23. So-called high potency homeopathic preparations (dilutions) always reach the point of no-substance-anymore.

Hahnemann realized this and concluded that when no substance is left, something else must be at work. This seems to have puzzled him as much as it would puzzle most of us today, but the findings of the provers and the success in clinical use of the remedies proved that, after all, something was at work. This something Hahnemann called a non-material life force.

Features of Classical Homeopathy
Classical homeopathy is based on the following main features:
       On the similar drug – the law of similarity;
       On the single drug – provings i.e. the experience base of homeopathy, are done only with single drug remedies, not with drug combinations;
      On the small dose – according to the principle and ideal of the least potential harm; and
       On the single dose – after administering one dose no other remedy will be given until the first dose or remedy has exhausted its effects.

To find the remedy and remedial picture that matches with a patient’s illness, the whole clinical picture is considered on an individual basis. Disease in general is regarded as an imbalance in the life force of the individual patient. All drugs are tested on healthy human subjects.

Homeopathy in anthroposophical medicine
Besides classical homeopathy as defined above, there are various other approaches, e.g. homeopathy as taught by anthroposophical medicine. Steiner pointed out many correlations between plants and metals and planets and between bodily organs and planets. For example, the capability of stinging nettle to deal particularly well with iron is not only used in BD farming, but also in medicine.

In anthroposophical medicine remedies have been developed based on these correlations e.g. Melissa and copper, urtica and iron, equisetum and silica, bryophyllum and mercury, and thuja and silver etc. The remedies do not just contain a metal and a plant extract, but a metal having gone through a plant, having been processed by the plant.

Finally all these remedies are being made into homeopathic remedies, in the sense that they are being potentized. Thus anthroposophical homeopathic remedies not only may contain more than one substance, but represent processes and functions, or rather formative powers of life-force.

TABLE OF CORRESPONDENCES

Present Day Research
Present-day homeopathy is vibrantly alive with serious research and new approaches, and the internal discussions on the values of new remedies and new concepts is often controversial, but intellectually thrilling.

Rajan Sankaran in Mumbai tries to understand all signs and symptoms of a remedy from an essential inner truth of the remedy, which has as much to do with mind and with the psychological facets of a remedy or patient, e.g. with expressions of his subconscious through dreams, as with physical signs and symptoms.

Sankaran has developed the concept of a situational Materia Medica. This means that each remedy represents a particular critical and essential situation in a patient’s life from which the disease originates. Sankaran tries to find the common inner truth of all remedies made from a group of elements e.g. all cations, or all anions, all rare earth elements, all heavy metals, halogens etc. or of all remedies made from plants of one family, or made from families of animal substances.

Similar work is being done by Jan Scholten of the Netherlands who aims at examining all elements of the periodical table.

BD Homeopathy
Looking again at the homeopathic practices within BD farming: some BD preparations undergo stirring, and BD pest “peppers” undergo classical homeopathic processing. Experience in New Zealand has shown that the positive effect which is derived from the vortex method of stirring, can also be obtained by passing the dissolved preparations through a series of so-called flow forms. Flow forms are artistically designed shapes – mostly made from concrete – in which the inflowing water is directed to create two vortices forming a figure of eight before the water flows out. Flow forms can be arranged in a serial way so that a cascade of rhythmical waterfalls develops.

Steiner comments upon his prescriptions in the agricultural lectures of 1924 by stressing the fact that with BD practices we are to “stay within the realm of the living”. Maybe some simple observations on flowing water can lead us to an idea of what Steiner was talking about.

We have been told that rivulets and rivers meander during their course from the sources to the sea because they are forced to evade rocks and stones and hills. But we can observe that water which is channeled through a perfectly straight and rectangular bed, will meander in between the walls of its concrete channel as if there were rocks and stones. And that a constant stream of water will develop a certain rhythm and pulse within its flow. As, sometimes, do the waves of the ocean on the shore. Water seems to have inherent properties which cannot be explained by the formulas and laws of chemistry and physics. The formulas of science actually seem not to be existent in nature.

It would seem that the common denominator of homeopathy and BD practices and these new water treatment technologies has to do with “staying within the realm of the living” that Steiner advocates. Maybe such technologies derived from a more phenomenological scientific approach have their mechanisms on pranic qualities of the world, not only the material.

Amongst the BD preparations there is one made from processed yarrow which is said to attract and make available trace elements. It has been observed that this yarrow preparation is able to produce a liquid manure containing selenium even if the yarrow itself is grown from soil which has been tested as devoid of selenium. A scientifically acceptable explanation for this phenomenon is yet unknown.

In his 5th agricultural lecture Steiner, fully aware of the fact that this will not be acceptable to mainstream science, mentions “transmutation”, i.e. the possibility that in nature elements are formed or created from other elements. The French researcher Louis Kervran has elaborated on the subject of transmutation. Perhaps our minds have to be open to many more surprising and unexpected findings that modern science will have to integrate into its systems of knowledge and paradigms. It might serve science well to have a close look at insights derived from occult clairvoyance. It might not only save the global community of scientists a lot of time, but lead to a science and a technology which will prove to be more complete and true.

Steiner stated that as a result of the concentration and subsequent dilution of the preps, it was what he called the radiant effect that was doing the work. No longer the substance itself.