Tatwa Scientific Reference Repository

By the Tatwa team, under the direction of Laurent Gheller, founder

For more than ten years, Laurent Gheller has developed the Tatwa approach by bringing the ancestral knowledge of the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and Andes into dialogue with modern scientific research, with the same exacting standards that guide the making of every floral essence. This scientific reference brings together the sources that inform this approach: validated research, founding figures, and lines of inquiry explored with due caution.

Why this transparency

At Tatwa, we distinguish between three levels of sources, and we prefer to say so clearly rather than present them as equals: traditional knowledge passed down by the peoples who have welcomed us, scientific research validated by the academic community, and exploratory lines of inquiry that inform our thinking without having reached a consensus. These three categories are not equivalent, and we never seek to blur this hierarchy to give our message more weight.

This transparency is not a legal precaution tucked away at the bottom of the page: in our view, it's what builds a lasting relationship of trust with those who read our content before buying. We'd rather have a reader who understands exactly what they're getting than one who is simply reassured by clever wording.

With this in mind, we want to make the following clear:

The information presented on this page is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment recommendation. Products developed by Tatwa are not a substitute for a consultation, diagnosis, or medical treatment prescribed by a qualified healthcare professional.

What tradition passes down, and what science says about it

Before becoming a bibliography, this resource is rooted in hands-on fieldwork. Laurent Gheller travels to Indigenous territories in the Amazon himself to gather plants, always in the presence of the community leaders who safeguard the knowledge associated with each plant. This demanding, painstaking approach is at the heart of Tatwa's work.

Scientific research comes next, not to establish this knowledge, but to document it, place it in a broader context, and help us better understand what we work with. As early as 1994, botanist Richard Evans Schultes demonstrated the central role of Amazonian ethnobotany in identifying plants of medicinal interest and the urgent need to preserve Indigenous peoples’ botanical knowledge (Amazonian Ethnobotany and the Search for New Drugs): this is precisely the field of knowledge, and often the same communities, in which our own harvesting work is rooted. A more recent review, published in 2024 by De Farias and co-authors, provides a broader mapping of the traditional therapeutic resources used by communities in the Brazilian Amazon (read the study) - a confirmation, across a wider continuum, that this knowledge continues to be documented and taken seriously by contemporary research. A 2023 study published in Plants documents the traditional ritual and therapeutic use of tobacco (Nicotiana rustica, mapacho) by Amazonian healers in Peru (read the study): it illustrates how a specific traditional use can be rigorously described without ever being reduced to evidence of efficacy - exactly the approach we seek to take with each of our own essences.

The scientific research that informs our work

Our work is not limited to bringing together existing sources: Tatwa is actively participating in a preclinical study conducted with the Faculty of Naturopathy and Orthomolecular Medicine in Rome, under the direction of Professor Panfili. This collaboration is a concrete example of what we mean by an integrative approach: combining our hands-on experience with university methodology, rather than simply claiming to be rigorous.

Our method of dilution and potentization is also directly inspired by homeopathy - the most direct technical link between our manufacturing process and a documented medical tradition. On this subject, the academic review A Critical Overview of Homeopathy, published by Jonas, Kaptchuk, and Linde in 2003 in Annals of Internal Medicine, remains the reference we cite: it reviews the history, proposed mechanisms, and state of the clinical evidence for homeopathy, without concluding that clinical efficacy has been demonstrated (read the study).

Transparency note. The scientific and regulatory consensus has become clearer since 2003. In France, the national health insurance system stopped reimbursing homeopathic preparations in 2021, citing insufficient evidence of clinical efficacy.

We choose to cite this development rather than remain silent about it: it obliges us to be honest about what our dilution method borrows from homeopathy — a technique, not a promise of results. A more recent review, published by Rice and Tinney in 2023, surveys research on homeopathy applied to midwifery practice (Homeopathy: A State of the Science Review With Recommendations for Practical Therapies in Midwifery Practice): it confirms that this field of research remains active and documented, without, however, concluding that efficacy has been proven.

This work also draws on leading international institutions: the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), and the World Health Organization, whose Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025-2034 is now authoritative on the subject. We cite them not because they endorse our products — that is not their role — but because they provide the international scientific context for our thinking on integrative approaches to health.

The figures who inspire our approach

Laurent Gheller's approach is rooted in a lineage he fully embraces: that of doctors, researchers and explorers who, in their own time, each broadened our understanding of living things and medicinal plants. These are not decorative references: each of these figures laid a foundation on which a concrete part of our method still rests today.

This lineage tells a story about ideas and methods, not proof of the clinical effectiveness of their work or of our own products.

Ideas that inform our thinking

Some studies that have informed our theoretical thinking fall outside the current scientific consensus. We choose to cite them anyway, in the interest of full transparency about what has influenced our thinking - while explicitly and unequivocally acknowledging their non-consensual nature. Most of these studies converge on the same theoretical question, one that directly concerns our own manufacturing method: can a diluted solution, dynamized water, retain and transmit a form of information? This is an open question, not an answer we claim to have.

• Professor Luc Montagnier, awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of HIV, became interested late in his career in the electromagnetic properties of diluted aqueous solutions. This research, which directly addresses the question of water memory, was published outside the field of medical biology. View publication
• The Memory of Water: An Overview, by Martin Chaplin, explores this same theoretical hypothesis of lasting structuring of water—a debated hypothesis, not experimentally validated according to current scientific standards, but one that raises the theoretical question at the heart of our own dynamization process. View publication
• Professor Fritz-Albert Popp, a German biophysicist, conducted pioneering research on biophotons, the ultra-weak emission of photons by biological systems. The physical measurement of the phenomenon is documented; the therapeutic extrapolations sometimes drawn from it are not accepted by consensus, but, like us, they raise questions about the possibility of information transfer at the scale of living systems. Learn more
• Professor Marc Henry, a French physical chemist, has conducted theoretical research on the structure of water that directly relates to the question raised by our dynamization method. Learn more
• Studies on high dilutions, conducted notably by Bellavite, Bonamin, Endler and their co-authors, have been published in specialist homeopathic medicine journals, exploring animal models of high-dilution effects—the same dilution principle that underpins our own manufacturing method. Study 1 · Study 2
• The Double-Edged Nature of Nicotine: Toxicities and Therapeutic Potentials, published by Cao and co-authors in 2024 in Frontiers in Pharmacology, explores nicotine’s dual effects, both toxic and therapeutic. This paper follows a different line from the previous ones: it documents current scientific interest in a plant—tobacco—traditionally used by the Amazonian peoples who inspire us. View the publication

A special note. One final note, deliberately set apart from the previous ones in the interest of complete honesty: Masaru Emoto’s (1943-2014) research on the crystallization of water was never conducted using a controlled scientific protocol, nor published in a peer-reviewed journal. We mention it only because it helped popularize public interest in these questions—not as a scientific source.

Manufacturing and certifications

The first manufacturing steps for each essence take place in Colombia, in a laboratory recognized by the Colombian health authorities and operating according to GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standards. The tinctures and preparations are then transferred to Switzerland for finishing in a GMP-certified laboratory under the Swiss Made label.

This two-step process ensures a high level of traceability and compliance, from harvesting to bottling: every flower essence undergoes both checks before being offered for sale. This manufacturing method, combined with the dilution and dynamization method inherited from homeopathy, defines the Tatwa process.

Today, Tatwa products are distributed through Switzerland’s largest pharmacy network, Amavita—a tangible mark of regulatory recognition, in addition to the certifications obtained in the laboratory.

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This scientific framework and our ancestral heritage are two facets of the same approach: rigorous processes on one hand, fidelity to knowledge passed down on the other. Neither carries more weight than the other in our daily work.