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| Hpathy Ezine - January 2006 | ||||
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II. The Homeopathic Process
"Every science has certain fundamental principles which guide the whole system. Homeopathy as a science of medical treatment has a philosophy of its own and its therapeutics is based on certain fundamental principles. These are:
When a patient comes to me for treatment, I often spend a considerable amount of time explaining to them the "homeopathic process". Many develop misconceptions from previous experiences with homeopathy and with how remedies have been used. Complicating this problem, is an abundant exposure to a diametrically different approach to disease and its treatment (which can be alarmist and fatalistic) propagated by the dominant system of medicine. I have found it necessary to create an educated awareness so that my patients experience truly effective homeopathic treatment for long-term health. Part of this learning includes developing a confidence in one's God given, inherent ability to fight disease through enhancing one's own, well equipped, well developed, sophisticated Immune System. The first misconception people have, is that homeopathy can be used like allopathy ie: a specific remedy indicated for a specific disease diagnosis. This unfortunately continues to be upheld by some homeopaths who still think "allopathically" and use homeopathic remedies in an allopathic way. For example: Arsenic for food poisoning, Nux Vomica for constipation, Allium Cepa for colds, Arnica for injuries, Belladonna for fever, etc. While this may work in first-aid emergencies or at a very basic level for some acute and temporary problems due to partial similarity, it can be a disastrous line of thinking for treating chronic disease with homeopathy. One cardinal principle in homeopathic treatment is that each person is individual and hence requires a remedy as well as case management which is individually tailored to the development of disease and hence the process of cure, in that person. The second most common problem I encounter, is a patients' (mis)conception of his/her state of disease. The disappearance of a symptom that may be disturbing or troubling is not necessarily a sign of cure, however satisfactory it appears, because it may be only temporary and will recur again in one form or another at a later time. For example: If someone has a bad eczematous patch on the arm which is oozing and itching, disturbing sleep. After some treatment (homeopathic or allopathic), this patch disappears. S/he feels better and is relieved. But a few months later the person has begun to have the first few attacks of wheezing bronchitis that develops in a year or so, into Chronic Asthma. What has happened here? The common interpretation is that the eczema is apparently "cured", but now there is a new problem, Asthma. NO, from the homeopathic perspective, the disease expression is NOT cured has only been shifted, and pushed to a deeper organ of expression, from the superficial skin to the lungs. The disease has in fact progressed! The correct homeopathic treatment subsequent to this will relieve the asthma, but the previously suppressed eczema will recur in a mild form again. This too will be CURED in time, as the person continues with committed follow-up for homeopathic treatment. Sometimes this process can take 1 year, but at the end of it, there will be no asthma and no eczema as well. The person persists in stable health for quite a few years after. Hence, correlation with the history of development of disease is the only way to know whether the disappearance of symptoms has been truly curative or is simply a form of suppression. Suppression means that the disease process continues unabated and is only taking a slightly deviated route. So if this happens under the influence of a homeopathic remedy without a general improvement in the disease condition, we consider that the remedy may have only palliated or suppressed a condition, but has not cured. This is not true homeopathic treatment. What is it a true homeopathic physician seeks to do in the homeopathic treatment process? The instructions below form the basis of my own developement as
a homeopath. Becoming a true homeopath is a continious learning
process through one's lifetime. Here is a basic guideline from the
Organon: Disease development and its Cure You see, an expression of disease described as a 'diagnosis' by the dominant school of medicine, is not an isolated phenomenon of illness. It represents a continuing process of deteriorating health and imbalance, that initially starts with more simple ailments like skin allergies or common colds, but later in life moves to deeper organ disturbances like asthma, heart disease or brain diseases. In most people, serious health problems do not manifest themselves right at the start of ill-health. They only develop once the more simple problems have not been effectively treated. An initial imbalance produces these simple, superficial illnesses. But when these problems have been suppressed by symptomatic superficial medication, the initial imbalance that caused these symptoms in less life-threatening areas of the body remains uncorrected. They persist and may get worse under stressful conditions. It is now forced, in time, to express itself in more important and deeper organs. This is the phenomenon of disease progression and has been observed over and over again in nature and in human beings. It is a natural progression of deteriorating health, one that each of us can easily perceive with a little common sense, because it is simply so obvious! This natural phenomenon is similar to the process of aging. It is a slow continuous deterioration that can progress faster if greater suppression (deviation) of superficial disease occurs. Hahnemann gives us various examples of these disease conditions and their subsequent progressions, in the Organon (eg: Aphorisms 35-51) as well as the Chronic Diseases, with appropriate case references which he collected from various Medical Journals and Papers. These were educated and scientific observations made by senior physicians of good repute. Hahnemann had access to all these works and studied them in detail. He knew many languages and was involved with the translation of some of these writings. The process of cure of disease under homeopathic treatment, thus, is in the reverse order of its development. This means that the more serious disease symptoms especially those that have appeared last, will be the first to respond to a correctly chosen homeopathic similimum remedy, while symptoms that have been present for a longer time and are in more superficial organs will respond later. Only once the more recent and serious disease symptoms have been cured, can the older and more chronic problems be resolved. This occurs repeatedly in nature and was more closely observed by Dr. Hering. For homeopaths, this Natural "Law of Direction of Cure" (Aphorim 28) as it is termed, appropriately attributed to Hering's observations (which I will talk more about in the next article), is one of the important guidelines to whether the homeopathic treatment course is correct and is following the right direction towards cure. Every effort should be made to educate a patient to be part of understanding this process of disease development, as well as observing the process of cure in one's own case. One then realises that though one experiences substantial relief when one begins treatment, the treatment remains incomplete if it is not followed through over a significant period of time i.e. at least 1 year. I have observed over this time period, that most patients experience adequate improvement of health in mind and body. They fall sick less often, and they develop a healthy immune response to infections (miasmas) from which they recover quickly and easily. So much so, that they HARDLY EVER become seriously sick with any major illness. Thankfully, this has been my clinical experience with most committed patients, and gives me the confidence to say that sticking to the true homeopathic principles propounded by Hahnemann is a great investment in ones future health. Problems facing Homeopathy today One of the aims of this Web Portal, www.hpathy.com, is to educate people for free, towards a better awareness of what the System of Homeopathy is capable of. In addition my aim in these articles has been to explain how this process is compatible with Christian philosophy. The latter, because of various recent allegations against the principles of homeopathy which I believe have arisen due to a lack of sufficient Christian information and interpretation of the homeopathic process readily available. One can identify some general problems that contribute to the confusion and lack of unity in homeopathy today.
These are all situations, that can make the use of homeopathy to be "potentially dangerous" as alluded to in my previous article. All this requires serious attention for change in the future, if the Homeopathic System of Healing has to gain the respect that is required for its capacity to heal. It requires that we homeopaths become honest with ourselves and follow our conscience more closely when we seek to take on the responsibility of healing of the sick. First and foremost, as Hahnemann stated in Aphorism 1 in the Organon: "The physician's highest and only calling is to make the sick healthy, to cure, as it is called". If this mission does not remain the corner-stone of one's homeopathic practice, the possibility remains that this system of healing can be undermined with confusion and poor methodology. We have reached the computer age, where the world is wire-connected and has become a global village. Homeopaths from across the world are able to exchange experiences and seek guidance from each other. It is a time when we homeopaths need to formulate and stick to the basic guidelines that will situate the Homeopathic System of Healing on a strong foundation throughout this new Millennium. Proper homeopathic management requires a great deal of vigilance by a homeopath, to be alert about response to dosages as well as an accurate analysis of these responses in each individual patient. This is very demanding on one person. My answer to this is that we promote the capacity of like-minded homeopaths to develop a mature team work approach to provide high quality homeopathic service. But, it is as important for each patient seeking homeopathic treatment to become well versed in the process of disease and cure outlined above, in order to make a choice of homeopath wisely when seeking homeopathic treatment.
What is the explanation for all this? How does a correctly chosen, diluted and potentized homeopathic remedy, effect and stimulate a change in a person towards cure? How can such a minuscule quantity of energy have any effect at all in some apparently incurable and serious illnesses? No one else has come up with a better explanation than Hahnemann himself, whom I believe was truly inspired to visualize this process based on his abundant scientific reading as well as keen sense of scientific observation. One of the fundamental concepts that explains this process is that of the energy of life, the Vital Force. Let me try and offer a deeper insight into this concept. Hahnemann's Vital Force:
I have come to understand the Vital force as a "biological intelligence" that every living creature possesses. It is an energy that is present in ALL living things; plants, animals and humans. It necessarily involves the effect on the genetic coding in every living creature, as every biological instruction for development and function is coded into our genes. This vital force acts through, what is well known today as the PNEI Axis (Psycho-Neuro-Endocrino-Immuno Axis) that appears to coordinate all the processes in the body in a balanced fashion. It is slowly being understood that the early start of disease is reflected initially in the imbalances in this axis. Homeopathic remedies are considered to act at a level prior to this axis, which is the all encompassing vital force, an organic energy that influences the PNEI axis, and is common to all living creatures; plants, animals and humans. This vital energy has a resonance which can be measured with crude instruments of today in remedies up to a certain (low) homeopathic potency. Specific remedies have been recorded as having a specific wavelength. These wavelengths of resonance have also been recorded from various organs and tissues of the human body and can be found to match with specific remedies. E.g.: The energy wavelength of the prostate and the energy wavelength of the remedy Sabal Serrulata are apparently similar. So, this energy is not occult, but will be more easily demonstrated to exist and be measured as instruments become more sophisticated. It is obvious that the Homeopathic System of Medicine requires serious foray into advanced research work. Hopefully in the future, futuristic research of homeopathy and its concepts will become a priority for those with the means, the talents, the inspiration and the learning to do so. Identifying the Vital Force One way to begin this research work is to first have a clear basic idea of what we're referring to when we use the term Vital Force. There is some historical basis, both scientific and philosophical, to the various choice of words made by Hahnemann more than 200 years ago. David Little has a detailed article on his website that can be found here: http://www.simillimum.com/ I chose to quote as I think I'd need to acquire much more experience and insight before I wrote about these concepts as intelligently! He says:
The Vital Force in Health: The next step, lets understand and perceive the functioning of the vital force in a healthy body, as distinct from the human spirit. This is a process of scientific observation and repeated experimentation. Here is a good explanation offered in the same article:
The vital force does not express many symptoms when it is in balance and is healthy. It responds to external stimuli, stress, infection in a balanced manner and can easily bring the body back to homeostasis or health without too many disturbing symptoms.
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