Non-certified biodynamic approaches

The main 'new' development of Biodynamic agriculture has been in the use of homeopathic techniques for preparing and applying the preparations. This work is developed from initial work by Drs. Eugen and Lily Kolisko based upon Dr. Rudolf Steiner's instructions.

The principle certifying organization for biodynamic agriculture is called Demeter International, and they as yet are to come to a full acceptance of this methodology.

In the U.S. therefore, an opposing movement led by Hugh Lovel and Greg Willis have opted out of the Demeter system.

Glen Atkinson who has been researching homeopathic Biodynamics since 1980, has had his homeopathic preparations allowed in New Zealand Demeter system, and they are presently being assessed by Demeter UK for the UK /EU market.

Willis and Lovel use the terms 'Steiner's Agriculture' and 'Quantum Agriculture', respectively, rather than 'biodynamics'. Atkinson's approach is known as Garuda Biodynamics. In these systems the farmer uses appropriate homeopathic dilutions to treat and heal the farm organism.

Greg Willis has developed new Steiner-like preparations including four versions of Horn Clay, Horn Basalt, Horn Sulfur, Horn Copper and the Comfrey Preparation. They are prepared in the same manner as Horn Manure (now Horn Humus) and Horn Silica (now called Horn Quartz). The Comfrey Preparation is made in the same manner as the Stinging Nettle Preparation. Greg Willis and Hugh Lovel have advocated including Horn Clay as one of the essential preparations. The other new preps are used to treat various imbalances and guide the growth of plants and crops. Greg Willis has now created 44 variations of Dr. Steiner's remedies. He claims this now gives the grower nearly complete control over diseases, insects, yield, quality, cost and profit.

The remedies created by Glen Atkinson contain the original Steiner preparations, and are then diluted in the traditional homeopathic manner with alcohol. The Atkinson remedies, focus mainly on plant growth control and large pest control eg cats, possums and birds. The Atkinson BD remedies are the only remedies of the three, to have gained third party verification of their action, through replicated trials done by HortResearch in New Zealand.

Those advocated by Hugh Lovel are prepared radionically on paper or sugar tablets. Greg Willis' preparations are made in purified spring water solutions which he believes are more compatible with plants than alcohol, sugar or paper.

An Opposition Viewpoint to Radionics, Field Broadcasters or Cosmic Pipes

Field Broadcasters or "Cosmic Pipes" have been described as: These are static units in which BD preparations are placed. Their beneficial effects are supposedly "broadcast" over the property. The Biodynamic preparations (apart from the concentration of "life forces" which researchers have suggested as a partial explanation of their unique effectiveness), are very concentrated sources of microbes. These microbes are a significant part of their ability to transform soils. Not one of these microbes touches the soil when "field broadcasters" are used. Nor does the so-crucial activation of stirring take place. (SOURCE: "Biodynamic Growing" No. 2, June 2004, The Biodynamic Farming Association of Australia, p. 4)

"Alex Podolinsky describes three levels in nature: the super-physical (the etheric or life-forces realm), the physical (eg lightning, water), and the sub-physical (electricity, magnetism and atomic fission). He places field broadcasters in the sub-physical level, between electricity and magnetism and states, "The use of any type of electricity, magnetism or "radionics" is of deadly opposition to Nature and the etheric forms used in Biodynamics. 'Results', "changes" can be achieved but to an experienced Biodynamic observer or to testing with suitable methods, these differ essentially to Biodynamic "building"." (Ad Humanitatem, p. 10)" As quoted in "Biodynamic Growing" No. 2, June 2004, The Biodynamic Farming Association of Australia, p. 4

A Response by Hugh Lovel to the "Opposition Viewpoint" above Regarding Radionics, etc.

Field Broadcasters, Quantum Towers, radionic instruments and the like are frequently misidentified as electromagnetic gear by those who see wire, copper or other metal plates and such components as resistors and coils that are used in making electronic devices and assume this makes the radionic instrument an electromagnetic device. While I (Hugh Lovel) concur with the Podolinsky view that electricity, magnetism and atomic radiation are dis-organizational (i.e. dead) energies of sub-nature, and can have a detrimental effect to greater or lessor degree on living organisms, it has been my observation that this is not how the electricity (for example) in the human body works and is not how radionic instruments and related gear work. As Nobel Prize winning physicist Erwin Shroedinger noted, "Living organisms have the remarkable ability to concentrate a stream of organization on themselves, thus (seemingly, or that is, locally) to defy the second law of thermodynamics (entropy)." That is to say they run up instead of running down, or an embryo would never develop into a child, or a seed into a tree. Organization is the very basis of life, and organizational energy, as demonstrated by Wilhelm Reich, et al., flows from lower concentration to higher concentration. This, indeed, is what makes biodynamic agriculture, weather systems (e.g. the build-up of clouds and precipitation of moisture), homeopathy, radionics and many other things that work in the realm of the living, work.

Rudolf Steiner, whose insights into agriculture, medicine and into life in general formed the foundation of biodynamic agriculture, was very clear that this organizational energy (which at a most basic, plant-like level he called ether) flowed from lower concentration to higher concentration, and he termed the levels of this organizational energy by names related to the elements (of western cultural philosophy) in nature that they permeated with their organization. Thus the fire element he identified as being organized and permeated with warmth ether, the air element as organized and permeated with light ether, the water element organized and permeated by the tone ether and the earth element organized and permeated with the life ether. A discussion of this can be found in the first part of Peter Proctor's book "Grasp the Nettle". Oriental cultural philosophy takes this a step further, as did Wilhelm Reich's research. In China the elements are identified as fire, air, water, wood and metal, with the fifth element, metal, being the most densely permeated with organizational energy. Thus Reich's orgone accumulators and related devices made use of the fact that carbon based materials such as wood and other organic materials serve as strong attractors of life energy, while metal serves as a conductor of it, as for example the iron in our blood conducts our life energy while the carbon in our skin and the food we eat attracts and draws it in. This then is the basis of using metal plates, wires, coils, etc. in the construction of radionic gear and field broadcasters, as it makes these instruments, if constructed properly, strong life force (or organizational energy) accumulating/conducting devices.

There is another principle at work here, because another thing that both Steiner and Reich, et al., understood is that organization arises at boundaries (created by patterns such as fractals and organic forms in general), and organization is the basis of life. If we had no skin or cell walls our bodies and our cells would leak their organization away and it would disperse. Thus Steiner advised to treat each entire farm, within its boundaries, as a living organism. Also to create most of his agricultural remedies he used things such as cow horns, stag bladders, cow intestines, stirring in vortices, etc. to gather in and build up organization within the boundaries so created so that when these agricultural medicines were used they would be much richer than their surroundings in organization and would draw organizational energy from the greater cosmos beyond the farm into the farm organism. Always it was the organizational patterns of these preparations--rather than their chemistry or their microbes--that made them the potent tools that they were for bringing a farm to vibrant life.

This is not the traditional view of biodynamics stated above in an opposition viewpoint (which correctly states that none of the microbes present in raw (physical) biodynamic preparations actually reach the soil when a field broadcaster, radionics, or even high potency homeopathy is used). So use of radionics and field broadcasting need to be distinguished from traditional biodynamic agriculture, especially since people like myself (Hugh Lovel, Lloyd Charles, Cheryl Kemp, Des Whatley, et al.,) who have used these techniques enough to have some experience with them, have observed them to work as well or better than traditional methods, as well as being far cheaper and easier to apply, especially when large areas are involved. Understandably we do not have agreement on the part of traditional practitioners, such as Demeter BD Certifiers, on this, and it would be unfair to say the use of radionics, field broadcasting, etc. are standard or traditional biodynamic practices. Rather, they are a further development in the use of biodynamic preparation patterns that allows the frequent, easy and inexpensive use of these patterns (not the substances themselves) on large areas and in widespread applications (such as in making rain) in agriculture. Do they work with life forces and in the realm of the living? Absolutely, yes. --Hugh Lovel