The Homeopathic Promise
The Deepest Medicine
Dr. Cyrus Thomas, DC, MDH, DNBHE
It is absolutely certain, and every visionary man or woman is sensing it, that medicine today stands on the threshold of a deep and radical change and that soon it will embrace the new and unique possibilities that Homeopathy is offering to it. It is also certain that people of today more than anything else want to gain back their lost health. They are not concerned about empty speculations. One can say that contemporary people are demanding a way to regain their lost psychosomatic equilibrium in order to face the challenges that technological civilization has imposed on them. It is my strong belief and my experience that Homeopathy can effectively help ailing humanity in this endeavor and be an invaluable asset for a speedy spiritual evolution of mankind.
–George Vithoulkas March 1979 The Science of Homeopathy
Introduction – A Brief introduction to Homeopathy
Homeopathy was discovered and developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, one of the great geniuses in the history of medicine. Dr. Hahnemann learned fourteen languages in order to read every medical text available in Germany in the late 1700's. His discovery of the fundamental principles of Homeopathic Medicine occurred when he was in his forties in the 1790's. He continued to practice, write, and teach until his death in 1843 at the age of 88 years.
Being exasperated with the way 'medicine' was practiced in his day, Hahnemann, a chemist and medical doctor by profession, resorted to translating medical books from many languages into many other languages, to make a living. In doing so he was the most well read person on medicine at the time. In his readings he remarked on many occasions that small dosages of substances had been giving to people, usually by error, which resulted in cure. He made note of these odd findings. For example, once a man had ingested a small amount of hydrochloric acid, the naturally occurring substance in our stomachs, and had subsequently experienced a cure of his stomach ulcers. He began to wonder just how small amounts of substances might act as medicines.
The principles, which Dr. Hahnemann discovered, are still the basis of Homeopathic Medicine today. Over 250,000 doctors around the world use Homeopathic medicines to treat their patients effectively, relieving their suffering, and removing disabilities. The fundamental principles of Homeopathy are, first, that in order to cure a person's symptoms, the doctor should give a medicine, which will cause, in healthy people, the same set of symptoms, which the patient is suffering from. This is called the 'Law of Similars'. For example, to treat a person who is unable to fall asleep because their mind is racing and feels "wired" a homeopath would prescribe a homeopathic remedy made from coffee. Coffee causes some people to have insomnia characterized by a racing mind and a "wired" feeling. Therefore, Homeopathically produced coffea is the correct homeopathic prescription for the person described. However, and HERE IS A MAJOR WARNING: homeopathic coffee will not treat all cases of insomnia. Many people have tried to over-simplify homeopathy and have always failed! A good homeopathic doctor knows that there are over 100 medicines to treat insomnia. In fact, there are over 100 homeopathic medicines which will treat any dis-ease, but only one correct medicine for each patient. For this reason many Homeopaths do not like Homeopathics being sold in health food stores. Shoppers begin to think that Homeopathy has one remedy for one ailment and that is far from the truth. The shopper can easily become disillusioned if the remedy fails.
Homeopaths are famous for treating migraine headaches. If you ask everyone with migraines, ten yes or no questions about their symptoms, such as, does the pain get worse from applying pressure to the head, or, is the pain worse upon rising from a sitting position, etc. The answers you receive would generate thousands of combinations of possibilities. How could one remedy, bought in a health food store, hope to match that particular combination of answers?
This is the first principle of Homeopathy: you must treat the sick patient with a medicine that will cause the same symptoms in healthy people, as the symptoms the sick person is suffering from.
Many homeopathic doctors spend one to two hours talking with patients on their first visit to discover the exact symptoms they suffer from. It takes many years of study to gain the skill and knowledge necessary to treat patients with serious illness successfully. Of course, homeopathic doctors take into account the same diagnostic considerations which non-homeopathic doctors use, such as laboratory tests. However the homeopathic doctor will usually prescribe a gentle, non-toxic homeopathic medicine rather than a drug to treat the patient.
Homeopathic medicines are prepared by special Homeopathic Laboratories and Pharmacies that are inspected and licensed by the FDA. In addition to the FDA's requirements, Homeopathic manufacturers must also meet the strict controls of the United States Homeopathic Pharmacopea which is defined by U.S. law as the official manual setting the standards for the production of Homeopathic medicines. Because Homeopathic medicines are so safe, the FDA regulates almost all of them as OTC, or over-the-counter medicines, as opposed to prescription only medicines.
In Hahnemann's day some 103 remedies had been tested on healthy volunteers.
Today we have thousands and testing new remedies continues to flourish.
Remedies are dilutions. Many are made from plants, minerals, animals and everyday substances. In Homeopathy it is safe to use substances that were once toxic, poisonous or dis-ease producing. The reason for this is that by the time 13 dilutions have been made, the original substance can no longer be found in the 13th dilution. It has been diluted-out. Each time a dilution is performed, the new dilution is shaken very hard to a sudden stop. This is called succussion. It is believed that the process of succussion is what drives the energetic properties of the original substance into the liquid into which is being diluted. Without succussion remedies are only dilutions and cannot be called a 'potentized' remedy. Potentization is the actual healing property. The process of dilution is what makes every remedy safe for consumption. Hahnemann's goal was to find strong substances that were no longer toxic once made into a medicine. Dilution and succussion were the solution to the problem.
Hahnemann wondered what would happen if he diluted quinine, a common crude substance given for malaria in his day, and took it himself in repeated doses. Low and behold he developed the symptoms of malaria. He stopped taking the substance and his symptoms went away. He did not really have malaria but only a simulation of it. When he then gave it to a malaria patient they were cured. That was the start of Homeopathy.
The crux of the way potentized dilutions, Homeopathic remedies, work is this: it follows that since the remedy is capable of creating symptoms in healthy people who over-dose on the remedy, that the remedy is very similar to a dis-ease, energetically. But because, in the pharmacological process of making a remedy, the original substance has been diluted out through a series of dilutions, there is no longer any crude substance left in the liquid remedy. Only crude substances can produce long lasting dis-ease. Diluted substances can only produce symptoms that stay a short while…hours to days at most. Once the volunteer stops taking the remedy their symptoms will go away. So it really wasn't a dis-ease that they experienced, by having symptoms of dis-ease, but a simulation of the dis-ease instead. There is no danger in proving, or testing, remedies. When the same remedy is given to someone who already has the same symptoms that the remedy produces in volunteers, they are treated by the remedy because, since the remedy was potentized between each dilution, the energy of the remedy is now stronger than the dis-ease with which the patient enters. The strongest dis-ease always wins! Due to its potentized nature, the remedy will overpower the already existing dis-ease of the patient. The pre-existing dis-ease will be forced to disappear; the dis-ease of the remedy will have precedence, and since the remedy has no crude material in it, that state will disappear quickly just like when a prover (a person who volunteers to test a remedy) stops taking a remedy. Homeopaths have tested this millions of times and deem that this treatment is an actual cure. Homeopaths feel assured in knowing this because the dis-ease does not recur, it does not go deeper into the body, and there are no side effects. Time tells all. 200 years is a long time to test a method and Homeopathy has been here for that long.
The process by which Classical Homeopathy determines which remedy to give is what makes it unique. It is the way 99% of Homeopaths treat worldwide. Classical means that we determine the remedy to give by three processes: by listening and recording all of the symptoms of the patient, told to the Homeopath by the patient themselves. The symptoms are then compared to the body of knowledge we have amassed over 200 years of Homeopathic history. The comparing process involves the other two methods: one is cross referencing of all the symptoms, done in a computer with special software, which then suggests the most likely remedies for the group of symptoms reported by the patient. Thirdly we use our own book knowledge and intuition gained over years of practice.
The above method, the classical method, differs greatly from muscle testing and the use of electric devices to help determine the remedy. The electrical devices are called Vohl meters, after Dr. Vohl of Germany.
In muscle testing it is assumed that the body knows which remedy the patient needs. The patient holds the remedy and the strength of the arm is tested by the practitioner. If the arm is strong they need the remedy. Many questions remain unanswered regarding this method. The biggest question is whether one believes that the arm of a person who is ill will give a correct reading!
In the Vohl method, which now comes in many different names, depending who is selling the machinery, a weak current is run through the body and also through the remedy in question, at the same time. If the current is diminished, by the addition of the remedy to the circuit of current, then it is assumed this is the wrong remedy. Conversely, if the current is augmented then it is assumed this is the correct remedy. This is an over-simplification but the principle is the same. In every college of Homeopathy at which I have taught or visited, the methods of Vohl and muscle testing are greatly discouraged. The wisdom obtained in the process of listening to the patient and comparing their symptoms to reference sources that have been developed and confirmed for years, greatly out-weighs testing by such simple means as arm strength (it's actually arm reaction time) and, whether an electrical current experiences resistance or not when a remedy is added to the circuit; wisdom is the culmination of man's trial and error.
