One hundred years ago Homeopathy could boast the world’s largest hospital and allegiance by a good percentage of lay people, physicians and luminaries of the day. After being eclipsed for the last 60 years by the advent of modern medicine and its allied pharmaceutical industry, homeopathic medicine is experiencing a renaissance. It is growing at a rate of 25% per year and turning up in the same pharmacies that stock aspirin and cortisone. Its ease of use, simplicity, safety and excellent results make it a an attractive choice for home care, and it is becoming better known that professional homeopaths can treat a wide range of serious or chronic illness. Are we really on to something or—as skeptics say—is this all just wishful thinking? Is homeopathy really a scientific and effective system of medicine, even though its minute doses defy accepted facts about chemistry and drugs?
Critics often accuse homeopathy of having only a “placebo effect,” a psychological reaction due to increased patient confidence and hope—a kind of self-healing that can enter into any type of therapy.
Before seeing what modern research has to say on the subject, some basic, common sense observations can be made.
1. Homeopathy produces some of its most dramatic results in small infants and animals. Veterinary homeopathy is in fact an important branch of homeopathic medicine. Good effects can also improve the health and growth rates of plants. No placebo effect can be involved in any of these instances.
2. If homeopathy were just a myth, the well known healing crisis would never occur. But in practice people can develop skin rashes, fevers and sometimes strong symptoms of detoxification. Millions of average people who are not particularly impressionable or gullible have experienced these effects.
3. A single dose of a professionally administered homeopathic medicine can sometimes work for weeks and months. Traditionally, when a homeopath feels that the individual needs the security of “taking something,” they will use placebos or blanks, allowing the first medicine to keep working without interference. This clearly shows that while placebo offers psychological support and promotes confidence, this effect is quite different from the deep action of remedies.
4. Historical records document the use of homeopathy in the fatal influenza, typhus and cholera epidemics of the late 19th and early 20th century. Homeopathy’s results were striking, with homeopathic hospitals showing 4% mortality rates, while mainstream (allopathic) mortality rates were up to 90%.
5. Lastly there is a remarkable consistency to homeopathic remedies. Worldwide the same results have been seen in the same conditions, with the same medicines for 200 hundreds of years in millions of patients — a consistent record that is hard to ignore.

Science and Paradigm
In spite of this, there are problems with “proving” homeopathy to the scientific community. Homeopathy is, after all, quite a different paradigm. It is based on different perceptions and understandings about nature, health, illness and cure. Homeopathy extracts the essential energy pattern and information from natural substances, and uses this essence to stimulate the body’s own self-healing processes. It regards symptoms as an intricate and accurate language that expresses how the body and mind are stuck—and what it is trying to do to heal itself. This is vastly different from the medical view which sees the body as a chemical factory or mechanism, and disease as a break down of some kind. On the one hand, homeopathy stimulates optimal function and promotes healing, while medicine suppresses symptoms and shuts down the body’s reactions and functions. From its own world view and methodology, homeopathy is a rigorous and scientific discipline with a reproducible method of investigation and treatment. It would be more accurate to say that it uses a an energetic/physics model, rather than a chemical model of how biology works. But a truth is a truth and homeopathy should be able to prove itself using currently accepted methods, even if they do not take into account its central principles. In the past there have been restrictions to homeopathic research such as a lack of funding or access to large institutions. But the biggest problem is that homeopathy uses different remedies in the same condition—individualized to the person. Testing a single drug for a single disease, as if done in medical research, can be misleading. Nevertheless, there is far more scientific research on homeopathy than realized. A sampling of these tests follows.

Tissue and Animal Research
A large number of tests have been done in the laboratory setting using blood cells and tissue cultures. Several books have now appeared just to summarize the effects of “ultra-low doses”. As far as animal studies, over 135 studies have been done to measure the effects of homeopathy in helping excrete various toxins, such as arsenic, mercury and medical drugs. Laboratory mice were given arsenic or mercury followed by treatment with homeopathic doses of the same substance. The treated mice excreted these toxins from their body much more effectively and quickly than untreated mice. These tests shows definite effects at doses that are so small that by “ordinary standards” nothing should happen.
Studies done in 1990—in both test tubes and human subjects— showed that aspirin, in a homeopathic dose of 5c, effects blood clotting mechanisms, and in a way opposite to taking normal aspirin. This validates the a basic principle of homeopathy; that large doses of a substance suppress function, while small doses stimulate that function.
Another fascinating study used thyroid 30x (a dose containing absolutely no substance) to increase the growth and development of tadpoles. Even more remarkable, the remedy had the same positive effect even when it was submerged in the water, but left in its a glass tube. Homeopathy is truly an energy medicine, and energy radiates!

Clinical Research
In three studies performed between 1986 and 1994 at the University of Glasgow, 200 patients were given a potentized dose of the substance to which they were allergic. In all the tests twice as many homeopathic patients improved than those on placebo.

A 1989 study used over 500 flu patients to evaluate the effects of a single remedy in reducing symptoms. Over the next 48 hours, 7% improved faster than with a placebo. This test points out the problems with testing homeopathy according to medical logic. In homeopathy it is necessary to use a remedy that matches the exact symptoms of the patient. Since in this case the same remedy was used for everyone, it was just hit and miss.

An better study tested arthritis patients who were given the remedy that matched their symptoms according to normal homeopathic practice, about 20 different remedies being chosen over all. One group was treated with homeopathy and anti-inflammatory drugs, while another group was treated only with medical drugs. In two studies over a one year period, patients with homeopathic treatment showed significant improvement using standard tests for muscle strength, pain and stiffness and 42% were able to stop their medical drugs altogether. None of the patients taking a placebo showed improvement. Additionally, while 40% of patients had to stop their medical drugs due to side effects, the homeopathic medicines had no such reactions.

Meta-analysis is a form of investigation that reviews, combines and analyzes the results of a large number of scientific tests. Two large studies of this kind have now been done in homeopathy. A 1991 study published in the prestigious British Medical Journal, considered 107 controlled trials, of which 81 showed homeopathy to be effective, with 24 showing no benefit. Of the 22 highest caliber studies, 15 demonstrated the efficacy of the medicines. A larger study was done in 1997 and published in the medical journal, the Lancet, with similar results, proving that homeopathy indeed seems to work, even if its mechanism of action eludes biology’s current limited understanding.

Meanwhile how does mainstream medicine measures up to the scientific yardstick? Several studies, including one by the Office of Technology Assessment, show that only 10 to 20% of medical treatments have a scientific basis. Medical drugs used today are based on toxicological studies conducted on animals, with the results of these tests extrapolated to humans. Yet animal physiology, metabolism and biochemistry are vastly different than human, and there is actually no basis for such comparisons. They have completely different diseases and are subject to entirely different bacteria and toxins. This is one reason why over 12,000 drugs taken off the market annually due to toxic effects, while at least 180,000 people die annually from prescription drugs, 8,000 from anti-inflammatory medications alone.

How much proof is enough? Homeopathy had been shown to be valid from its own perspective and according to the current scientific thought. Though prejudices need to be overcome, the facts will eventually speak for themselves. Homeopathy is a safe, gentle and natural way to create and maintain health. As we truly enter a scientific era, homeopathy will assume its rightful place as a form of medicine to always keep in mind—and on hand.

Further Reading
The Consumer’s Guide to Homeopathy, Dana Ullman, Jeremy Tarcher, New York, 1995.
Homeopathy: A Frontier in Medical Science, Paolo Buenavente, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 1996.

Healing Traditions
Healing and medicine are as old as humankind itself, with recorded evidence of already sophisticated systems of therapeutics in ancient China, Africa, India, Europe and the Americas. Many of these systems were not only appropriate for their culture, time or place, but continue to be useful today. What are the standards or basis on which a system of medicine may be judged or considered valid? Better still, what are the essential elements that must be factored into any equation about systems of health and the science on which they are based? “Science,” we are told, “is a method of investigating nature and discovering reliable knowledge about it.” Yet what really defines a system of medicine is a set of values, ideologies, philosophy and theory about health, disease and cure, and a body of methods and experiences that conforms to these ideas and and confirms them. Which comes first—the ideas or the methods—and how they evolve together is complex, but in any case this whole set of axioms is called, in science, a paradigm.

Whether stated or merely implied, the paradigms that govern a system of thought or a system of medicine are the source from which all else flows: We have different perceptions, make different observations, use different methods, and expect rather different results. Then, in the ultimate crucible of clinical practice, confronting and struggling with the complexities of the human health and disease, a system of healing may adapt and modify its paradigmatic truth, possibly reaching a point of high refinement. However, the longevity of a system is not necessarily the most valid criteria for its value and effectiveness. Bloodletting held sway in orthodox medical treatment for 400 years—right up until this century—with scores of scientific tomes justifying its complete scientific validity. During the same period, the most widespread medical drug was mercury. It certainly “worked” according to the theories of disease that were then current. It should also be pointed out that mainstream medicine has some serious “paradigmatic” problems.

The edifice of mainstream therapy is based on animal experimentation, yet numerous researchers have pointed out that animal physiology differs radically from human physiology, and there is little relevance to drug tests carried out on mice or rabbits. One interesting study even demonstrated that groups of mice treated with a certain drug in the morning did well, if treated in the afternoon a few died, but if treated at night, all died! Another problem is that these poor creatures have to have a disease “induced” in them in order to test a particular drug. This has only the remotest relationship to how real disease develops over time and due to multiple causes. A third significant problem is that modern double-blind studies on humans are all based on a the theoretical existence of an “average” test subject. Though grouping people by disease, age, sex and other variables provides some commonalities, the actual differences between subjects is immense. This is clearly demonstrated by homeopathy were any one of 2,000 different medicines may be required to cure the same disease condition. Thus the indications of medical drugs as tested often have little relevance to the actual sick patient who confronts the doctor. This is part of the reason why over 12,000 approved drugs are taken off the market each year, when they are found to be ineffective or toxic in ways not previously recognized.

Homeopathic Paradigms.
The paradigm of homeopathy is closely allied to Hippocratean medicine; Symptoms of disease are recognized as positive reactions and biological attempts as self-healing. Thus the function of the physician is to assist these natural forces. In homeopathy this is done by using a substance which accentuates and emulates the body’s own healing process. This paradigm is in striking contrast to the mechanistic view of disease as a something which overtakes the body, a toxic force which must be removed by external means, and where symptoms are to be suppressed as a token of disease eradication. But homeopathy also entails paradigms which appreciate the patterns of energy and information that pervade all living things. Though the theory and practice of homeopathy is completely in accord with the concepts involved with the cutting edge physics and ecology (the works of Bohm, Sheldrake, Lovelock, etc), modern day biology has unfortunately not yet integrated these discoveries. Another action that flows form the paradigm of homeopathy is to use only. Intrinsic to both Hippocratic and homeopathic medicine is the paradigmatic concept of doing no harm, of curing with the least disruption to the person as possible, and thus using non-toxic medicine that do not produce side effects. If this be taken as a measure of validity, homeopathy may be the most reasonable system of healing ever devised, while modern medicine is in trouble, with upwards of 200,000 deaths caused annually due to prescription drugs, as published in the Journal of the Amercian Medical Association in the early 90’s.

The Scientific Test
If homeopathy is valid, even though operating on a different paradigmatic basis, it should be able to be proved according to contemporary scientific methods. After all, a truth is a truth. However, there are significant problems with having such tests be meaningful from a homeopathic standpoint. It is difficult to test a specific substance for a particular disease when homeopathy may choose from hundreds of medicines for that conditions, according to individual needs. Additionally there is the very practical problem of severe underfunding and limited availability of research populations and facilities. Nevertheless, a number of homeopathic research studies have been conducted, both on the theory of ultra low doses in cell cultures, and in clinical situations. A well known study published in the British Medical Journal in 1991 did a meta-analysis of 107 controlled clinical trials of homeopathy, with the result that 81 valid trials showed positive results. A very recent study published in the Lancet (September, 1997) analyzed 186 placebo-controlled trials of homeopathic medicine came to the conclusion that homeopathy cannot be explained on the basis of the placebo effect.
So how much scientific validation is required before homeopathy can be considered a valid system of medicine? In the words of the researchers, homeopathy works, but it is difficult to recommend it, because its effectiveness can not be explained—by the limited views of current biology. Homeopathy is in the sad state that electricity and magnetism were a hundred years ago. They could be demonstrated or observed, but no technology existed to explain or verify them. Einstein had to wait 25 years before his theory of relativity could actually be verified by technology, while Galileo’s theory of the earth rotating the sun and Newton’s discovery of gravity had to wait centuries. Homeopathy is based on a technology that is still, 200 years after its inception, ahead of its time. Until there exist sensing devices that can detect bioenergies within both people and remedies, the real basis of homeopathy will remain hidden. Once such devices are available, the effectiveness of homeopathy (or modern medicine) in increasing physical and mental vitality can be put to a very scientific test. In this same regard another paradox exists. Six different medical studies, including one by the Office of Technology Assessment (a branch of Congress), conclude that only 10 to 20% of medical practice is based on solid science!

Strangely, while homeopathy is proving itself according to the paradigms of mainstream medicine, its own unique paradigm remains unexplored. Homeopathy has a highly systematic, rigorous method of investigating its medicine, using human sensitivity as the sounding board to understand the healing direction of various plant, mineral and animal substances. This method exposes startling and unique facts about the nature of healing substances and their relationship to human beings. If fully investigated, homeopathy could play an important part in reshaping the edifice of scientific thought in the coming century.

Paradigm and Prejudice
So why not embrace homeopathy, and other alternative healing methods, with open arms, with their safety and apparent effectiveness? The medical establishment is notoriously slow to integrate new findings. The teachings of Galen, primitive by today’s knowledge, held sway for over a thousand years. It took over 50 years before the knowledge about the cause of scurvy was adopted by orthodoxy, while the discovery and introduction of antiseptic techniques were strongly opposed for over 30 years. For over 150 years no American medical journal would publish any homeopathy research or clinical findings. Progress is being made; as of 1998, one article has been published! Today conventional medicine and law-makers makes the simple distinction that what constitutes a valid practice of medicine is what is taught in medical schools and what is done by the majority of practitioners. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In reality what defines validity? Not simple majority opinion, or bias, or convention. From a narrow perspective, a pesticide will kill an insect feeding on an apple. It works. From a broader perspective, this pesticide destroys both the environment and the apple eater. If one values life, rather then expediency, it is no longer valid. Our question becomes not just one of efficiency, but of paradigm, of value.

In 1820, an obscure physician burst on European scene, promoting his healing art as a radically different way of perceiving and treating human health. Yet Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathic science, also recognized that his new therapy was part of a long tradition of vitalism, of what we today call holistic, complementary or natural medicine. This ancient and modern approach to healing has its own world view, its own methodology, its own truth, and a remarkably consistent and reproducible system of disease cure and prevention. Today, we are trying to validate this homeopathic heritage on the alter of modern medicine, and justify natural therapy according to the prevailing theories of pharmaceutical medicine. Homeopathy is in the position of a stranger in a new land, trying to justify his cultural knowledge, understanding and actions according to his adopted country. But the deficiencies and one-sidedness of current medical thought and practice are becoming all too obvious.

Medical therapy is not designed to improve the actual health of the individual, but merely to remove offending symptoms, such as high cholesterol, a runny nose, or high blood pressure. Causative factors are generally ignored. At a time when the economic and institutional shortcomings of the medical delivery system are being hotly debated, far more important are the short and long-term negative effects of pharmaceutical medicines, and the inherent weakness of this symptomatic approach. Homeopathy promotes the body’s ability to eliminate the causes of disease and strengthen and repair damaged tissues and structures. Though the effectiveness and clinical success of homeopathy is a matter of record, the great stumbling block has been explaining why it works in this way. Clearly the action of homeopathic remedies is radically different than that of regular chemical drugs, and even contradicts some of the current limited understandings of medical theory.

Illness as Fixation
Homeopathy works because of the natural correspondence of things. It works because illness is caused by fixation; fixation of function, perception, understanding, being. Fixation means a limited window of response, wether on a biochemical, cellular, physical, emotional, or spiritual level. Homeopathic medicines are designed to do nothing other than release these blocks or fixations, allowing our full potential to be accessed. And how does this happen? How do tiny energized doses of medicine derived from a plant, animal or mineral substance work? Not simply through chemical effects on tissues, but through what Hahnemann and modern masters of homeopathy called the vital force or dynamis, the intelligent guidance systems which manage the organism. These inherent biological programs and patterns are the basis of all natural healing and the essential substrate on which health depends. How does one then match the ‘fixation’ which manifests as illness, with a natural substance that will remove this fixed mode of being and functioning. This is the real magic of homeopathy, its open secret. All natural forms and substances possess a pattern, a pattern which may correspond to the fixation which we bear.

Finding the Pattern
Homeopathy has investigated, and continues to research and observe the patterns inherent in natural substances, be they a mineralic rock or a spring blossom. Each substance has an essential pattern which is as specific as its color, odor, form, chemistry and ecological relationships. This pattern is indeed what gives the flower or metal its qualities. But how can we observe such a subtle, and invisible force? Through its action on the healthy human organism. By giving substances to healthy people and gauging their reactions, homeopathic research has given use detailed pictures of thousands of natural substances and their relationship to the human psyche and soma. The person is allowed to become a ‘sounding-board’ for the pattern or template which stands behind a living thing. This encoded and unfolded template is what is extracted during the homeopathic pharmaceutical process.

Fixed patterns are proper to a tree or earthy salt, since natural things are limited by nature, expressing a simple and direct essence. A rose is a rose, and has no ambition or possibility to be anything other than what it is. But a human possess the possibility of being much more, and should not be limited to a small sphere of function, like other natural objects. When a person is stuck in a limited pattern, this is synonymous with disease, is the disease process itself. To be fully human—or fully healthy—we should have access to many patterns, many possibilities. The carefully chosen remedy, prepared from a natural substance (a natural fixation) corresponds to our unnatural fixation! By receiving a mirror image of our locked-in pattern, our system will take the initiative and begin self-correcting, accessing its inherent capacity to adapt and respond.

For example, the element Silica, as granite, makes up the stony mantle of the earth. It is also known to us as sand, as glass, as radiant quartz crystals. In the body, its greatest concentration is in the lungs and skin, which have the greatest surface areas in the body, and is involved with giving substance and stability to connective tissue, the structural framework of our entire organism. Homeopaths know that its essential pattern (not its chemical activity) is involved with providing strong boundaries and structure on all levels. It strengthens and detoxifies skin, lungs, ligaments and bone. It helps the immune system delineate its boundaries properly, acting to eliminate pus, foreign substances, and bacteria, even promoting scarring. It is an important remedy for increasing confidence and self-esteem, and overcoming shyness and timidity. In all this, and in its many other healing aspects, there is a recurrent theme or meaning, which is its characteristic pattern or essence. Interface, boundary— and communication across the interface—is the archetypal pattern epitomized by Silica.

The intelligence, responsive organizing principle behind natural objects is nothing mysterious, occult, or obscure. It is the basis of coherent life on this planet. To deny it a reality is to deny life itself. A society which ignores it, produces the kind of pollution and contamination of earth and sky that we see today. A medical system which ignores it runs the great risk of doing as much harm as good. To respect and work with it produces a powerful system of therapeutics which is both effective and safe; it is congruent with the purpose and direction of the body, and of all of biological life. Such is homeopathy.

Homeopathy is a vast undiscovered country. In the center of this land is a city with well paved streets and nicely manicured lawns. There’s lots of action here, with doctors, healers, scholars—and the curious—coming and going, lecturing, sharing, inventing, arguing, listening. They are a heterogeneous lot of every cast and creed, background and persuasion, but all sharing a passion and dedication to truly understanding the depths of their fair city and expanding its known boundaries. And the cityscape itself is in motion, undergoing constant renovations, additions and reconstructions. Sometimes old edifices are torn down, but the most venerable of these heritage buildings are important historical and cultural landmarks, containing rich archives and maintaining a vibrancy that feeds the energetic pulse of the whole place. Healing happens here, with the help of the another class of denizens, a wide range of divergent allies for the healing process. Here is everything from respectable, primly dressed Arsenicum to wild, half-naked Stramonium, raging Mercurials and withdrawn Natrums. While in other worlds these plants, minerals and animals exist, here they truly live, in the fullness of their being.

Some ways from the outskirts of the city, there have grown smaller towns and hamlets, places where the inhabitants have slightly different customs and culture, differing views or interpretations of the Grand Plan; or they have chosen one aspect of their former city to build heavily upon.Yet good work is still done here. In yet other outlying villages, visitors are few and life is lived on the interesting fringe. Further afield there are abandoned ruins of several once thriving metropolis’, schools of thought and practice now abandoned and all but forgotten, passed over by the vicissitudes of progress. Beyond the few well worn highways and byways there are small footpaths and trails, only trodden by the few: some bold mavericks; some eccentrics; some mumbling incoherently to themselves; and some advanced explorers, following an inner vision that drives them to the edges of the unknown. These too are part of the ecology of the land, enriching the city with stories of distant journeys and possibly one day becoming an important part of the central community. Beyond this there in the wild and vast wilderness areas, untouched and unknown. In this virgin territory live untold treasures of healing: several hundred thousand species of plants thrusting towards the sun in a thousand shades of green; tens of thousands of chemical salts, rocks and gems glittering on the earth; and millions of insects, birds and animals foraging and striving over sea and land. And here too are the understandings, insights and perceptions of the future..........

Homeopathic Principles
Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, made some remarkable discoveries, revealing starling biological truths and objective, scientific facts about how medicines really act to stimulate curative response in living systems. Based on a hunch and on some fascinating leads, he undertook a simple self-experiment, whose results opened up a whole new field of inquiry and therapy. It was with further experiments and observations in a clinical setting that he began to gradually codify, explain and justify his new system. As things progressed, he was able to organize his methodology and eventually develop concepts and explanations about how this new treatment of homeopathy worked, as well as the nature of health, disease and cure.
Yet he did not create these ideas in a vacuum, nor without precedent. Hahnemann was a scholarly and educated man, well versed in the classical and current traditions of both science and philosophy in the West and these influences helped shape and mold his homeopathic worldview.. From Hahnemann on, homeopathy has entailed a coherent and congruent set of detailed principles and practice which have evolved organically, branching, changing direction, having winters and summers—and this evolutionary process continues today.
In the space of this short article we can merely take an architectural tour, strolling through the city with a critical eye to see the different forms and features which make up this remarkable place.

Elements of the City of Homeopathy

The Similia Principle
The central “hall of justice” in our fabled city of homeopathy (and familiar to all its denizens) is the Principle of Similars, expressing. the remarkable fact that a substance which experimentally induces a set of symptoms in a well person, can cure these same symptoms in a sick individual. From this empirical fact, all else in homeopathy flows. Expressed more scientifically as the Arndt-Shulz Law or hormesis, this phenomena it is the subject of intense scientific study (by non-homeopaths) who are quite baffled by its biological implications. Meanwhile, homeopathy uses the principle for its sole objective: to assist the inherent healing capacity of the individual, galvanize the body/mind into healing action, help the organism to access deep intrinsic resources and mechanisms which are currently unavailable or blocked. The way homeopathy accomplishes this is by the matching the symptoms of the patients with the symptoms produced by a remedy in normal individuals—but more of this later in our tour.

Vital Force
One of the essential cornerstones of homeopathy, and one shared with a wide range of traditional and holistic systems of health care, is the concept of the vital principle or life force. This concept simply states that there is a meaningful pattern and process inherent in living things, and that chemistry and structure alone cannot explain the intricate form, organization, growth, evolution and intelligent functioning expressed by even the the most rudimentary entities. The already ancient struggle between materialism and vitalism is discussed at length in Harris Coulter’s four volume work, Divided Legacy. However, the insights of cutting-edge physics (Sheldrake, Bohm, Lipton, etc.) and biology (Lovelock, Davidson, Goodwin, etc.) have completely vindicated Hahnemann’s and homeopathy’s assertion that life is involved with intrinsic, energetic, formative forces. These most important scientific developments of the last 20 years have not, sadly, been integrated into mainstream science yet, much less medicine.

Disease
Disease is a disruption of the life force (lebenkraft)—the organizing, energetic principle that enlivens and maintains the organism in a balanced state of health. Disease is thus dynamic, existing initially and primarily on an energetic level. Physical and psychological disease are both secondary expressions of this internal disturbance. Thus it is never the hypothetical or generalized “disease” that is being treated, but the person who is experiencing the disorder. Mainstream medicine, on the other hand, mistakes outward symptoms as being the illness itself, and uses suppressive and toxic measures to remove them, leaving the real illness untouched.

Symptoms
Since we cannot directly perceive the disturbed life force or distorted energetic pattern within the person, we must rely on some external expression of this force. It turns out that symptoms are an articulate and eloquent language that accurately describes the body/mind attempts at self healing. Though symptoms can be considered part of a disease process, they also express subtle messages about what the body is trying to do to get well, and how it is stuck or fixated. Symptoms are a bridge that help us match a certain invisible “something” in the patient, with the corresponding “something” in the mineral, plant or animal substance. This something can be described as a specific quanta of information and energy encoded in all natural substance or phenomena. The mirror image of the persons internal fixated disease state is also expressed as an outward species or material, and is the ultimate tool for bringing the inherent healing forces back “on line.”

Cure
Cure consists of eradicating the core problem—the energetic pattern of disease—and freeing the individual from its restrictive effects. By effectively changing the person on the “blueprint” or “software” level, psychological and physical symptoms and pathology can be eradicated. Naturally, each unique individual requires their own corresponding medicine to accomplish this. Further, it is really the vital principle, the inherent and intrinsic drive and pattern towards wholeness that accomplishes the healing. Homeopathically applied medicines are catalysts the help access and augment the intrinsic capacities and “mechanisms” of healing.

Whole Person
It follows that all significant symptoms, signs and conditions are part of the same underlying core disturbance ie. logically the part cannot be sick without the whole. This applies to both conditions in different parts of the body, as well as those occurring over a long period of one’s life. This further implies that one must find a remedy that matches the whole person—the essence—rather than many remedies for the different sick parts of the individual.
Because of our limited understanding, the relationship between an individual’s symptoms may not always make anatomically or physiologically sense. But the biological fact of this connection is clearly demonstrated by both homeopathic research into medicines (provings) and successful homeopathic cures.

Hierarchy of Symptoms
Not all symptoms were created equal. Clearly they have different depths of importance and meaning in the body and mind. Basically, the crucial symptoms are the ones that portray or express most perfectly the central disturbance of the person, the core problem which is manifesting in diverse ways. Traditionally it has been felt that psychological symptoms (including dreams, attitudes and beliefs) and metabolic symptoms (temperature, sleep, perspiration, thirst, food cravings, etc.) are the most indicative of the person’s essential make-up and central illness. Another important differentiating factor is what makes person better or worse—both in a local body area and generally. Other clues are present in concomitant symptoms, symptoms which occur at the same time as the main complaint but seem to have no logical connection. Another yardstick of symptom value is how unusual, peculiar or frankly strange they are. The real point here is that symptoms must have something very unique and individual about them to make them worthy of consideration, and should not be explainable simply on the basis of the pathology:. We are treating an individual person, not a generic or averaged-out “disease-entity,” which is merely a hypothetical construct.

Medicines
Medicines work curatively because of their inherent life force, their subtle pattern of information and energy. It is this subtle force, extracted and disassociated from its physical or material form, that is used in homeopathy. Thus the sources of medicines include substances that have a healing effect (certain herbs, minerals), a neutral effect (mineral salts, many foods) or toxic effects (venoms, deadly plants, heavy metals, etc.). Since this covers just about everything we can conceive of in relation to its impact on the human body and mind, we can use remedies derived from the plant and animal kingdoms, the mineral realm, and non-material sources such as electricity, magnetic poles or starlight.

Dynamization
The subtle energetic principle is extracted by a specific pharmacological process, unique to homeopathy. this consists in a series of repeated dilutions, in a mathematical scale. Between dilutions the remedy is “shaken up” or percussed up to a 100 times. The whole result of this extraordinary process is not just a more dilute substance, but one that is “dynamized,” containing the quantum of homeopathic data. The further away form the original material substance that the medicine is, the more potent and deep-acting it becomes. The energy frequency is raised another octave, and the higher the pitch the more penetrating and long-lasting the effect in changing human bioenergetic patterns.

Research
In order to find out what disease a plant, mineral or animal substance will cure, research is necessary. Because it is the symptoms that are the key to perceiving and treating the illness of the patient, it is the symptoms produced by a remedy—in a healthy person—that lets us known their essence, their healing capacity, the direction in which they can move the life force of the sick person. The unique methodology for conducting this research is called a “proving,” While the word is rather outdated, the same method is still a foundation of homeopathic materia medica. Through this means, the homeopathic prescription is not generic, but rigorously scientific and focused.

The Ultra Low Dosage
Subtle medicines are transmitted to people via their sensitive nerve endings (or energy body-field), which can be accessed via the mouth, nose, skin, etc. A number of experiments (including on plants and animals) show that even close proximity to a sealed medicine can induce a deep change. Energy radiates.

Repetition of Dose
A dose is repeated only when the organism has really finished with the curative process initiated by the first dose. This requires waiting, watching and at times a lot of patience! The process is analogous to opening up a flood gate, or changing a key element of government—it takes some time for the effects to trickle down through all levels of the thirsty plain or the economy.

The Prescriber’s Task
The sometimes very difficult job of the practitioner is to truly perceive “what is to be cured,” what is the form and texture of the real internal disturbance, and which are the symptoms that accurately manifest this disturbance on a mental and physical level. In trying to find a remedy to match the person, the question arises, what is similar to what? In fact, with both narrow and liberal interpretations of the the basic principles of homeopathy, there have developed and continue to be different ways of coming to a correct prescription.

The One Remedy
Most homeopaths agree that only a small number of carefully selected remedies should be used in the treatment a person’s chronic illness. An extreme position is that only one single remedy is ever really required—even during a person’s entire lifetime. At the other end of the spectrum, some feel that illness exists as layers, required a long series of matching remedies. Logically, a middle view makes sense. Our lives and health are complex enough that it is unlikely that one remedy can untangle this entire skein, especially since we only have a few thousand remedies available to make the perfect match. Also as we evolve and change we will likely need different remedies in our lifetime to address a new set of factors and issues.

The Effect of Medicines
How exactly the similar medicine actually works to heal a person is still open to debate. Hahnemann himself described what one may call the “displacement theory” of homeopathy. By creating an artificial, medicinal disease, the actual disease will be displaced and removed, while the artificially similar disease fades out rapidly. A more current physiological view would see homeopathy as stimulating the body on a psychoneuroimmunological level, healing body and mind access currently unavailable resources. Finally, homeopathic cure can be viewed from the point of view of a physics model, a shamanistic or spiritual model, a process psychology level, and so on. In any case, even the scientific studies with ultra high dilutions (i.e. ultra low dose) are destined to radically disrupt the prevailing paradigm of a materialistic chemical model of life.

The Healing Process
Once the healing process is initiated by the appropriate homeopathic remedy, there are definite and well-described ways in which that process unfolds. The age-old observations of how the body heals itself go back to ancient China, Tibet, India and Greece, but were nicely codified by Constantine Hering, the father of American homeopathy. Simply put, the healing agenda and preference of the body is to heal the most important thing first! Often this means healing from the most vital to the least vital organ, form within outward, from above down, and in reverse chronological order of the progress of disease. These extraordinary principles can be observed in daily practice . And no matter what type of health care is being applied, they are constant indicators of whether healing—or mere suppression—is taking place.

Unity in Diversity
Mainstream reductionist medicine prides itself on being homogenous, standardized and tightly regulated (though research shows that in practice there is little consistency). A mechanistic approach is ideal for working with chemistry or mechanics, but when it comes to the highly variable world of biology, it falls short. So homeopathy is not one, homogenous practice but, like a plant family, has many related tribes, genus and species. The basic principles are so profound that they can be applied in many ways and homeopaths—being a fiercely independent lot—have developed different styles of perceiving and analyzing people and their symptoms. Though some today like to lay claim to the name of “classical” homeopathy, this label remains ill-defined at best. However, a bird’s eye view the whole City of Homeopathy shows that each style works for the user.

New Directions
The Cityscape is changing. Firstly research into homeopathy along modern scientific lines is proceeding rapidly (the archeologists are trying to see if anyone really lives here!). Secondly, the research and development of new remedies has not been this active since the early heyday of homeopathy. Extremely important medicines like Hydrogen , Ozone and Scorpion have been investigated, while many existing medicines are being re-examined, defined and clarified. Further, one of the most developments is, for the first time, attempts to organize the wealth of medicines into a meaningful whole. Notable here are the works of Scholten13 and Hershoff14, working with minerals and plants respectively.

***

...It is still morning in the City. As Sulphurs stir slowly from their beds, the streets are already abustle with stressed Nux vomicas and conscientious Calcareas. In the distance the city spires shine, seen across fields of shimmering grass and through deep green glades. The palace rises slowly over the plain, like a crown jewel, but it is the territory beyond that beckons, the unknown plant species, the glistening dew on the spider’s web, the piercing look of the wheeling hawk ... the vast undiscovered country of homeopathy.

Educational Resources
For scores of years, the most important texts on the principles of homeopathy have been Hahnemann’s Organon1 and Kent’s Lectures2. Close’s12 text is also a “must read” for practitioners or students of the art and science.

Modern, up-to-date textbooks on homeopathy are, however, not plentiful. Robert’s3“Art and Cure of Homeopathy” is useful though somewhat outdated. Vithoulkas’ book, Science of Homeopathy,4 updated many traditional ways of looking at homeopathy and remains a valuable resource . Recently two Indian authors5 has somewhat filled the gap, with a wide-ranging treatment of the many aspects of homeopathic principles and practice. The highly popular books by Sankaran6 have also emphasized and expanded on many of the philosophical underpinnings of homeopathic practice. Jungian psychologist Edgar Whitmont’s7 work is some of the most important and cogent writings for a modern understanding of homeopathy as a healing art.

Nevertheless a truly comprehensive, scientific (and hard cover!) textbook as is standard in any science, has yet to arrive.

A discussion of the underlying tradition and history of homeopathy can be had in Coulter’s8 four volume work, Divided Legacy. Another excellent and lyrical overview comes form the Grossinger’s9 two volume Planet Medicine. A thorough discussion of the scientific basis of homeopathic medicine is embodies in Homeopathy: A Frontier in Medical Science by Benavitte10.
Beyond the strict confines of homeopathic literature, there are many peripheral works that have great impact. reading of the works of physicists Sheldrake and Bohr, theoretical biologists Kauffman and Goodwin, and literally scores of others.

Finally, for a solid and comprehensive introduction and overview, Dana Ullman’s Consumers Guide to Homeopathy 11 is the simply the best place to start. Happy exploring!
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1. Hahenemann, Samuel. trans. Wenda B. O’Reilly. The Organon of the Medical Art. Birdcage Books, 1996.
2. Kent, James T. Lecutres on Homeopathic Philosophy. Berkely: North Atlantic Books, 1996 (reprint).
3. Roberts, H. A. Principles and Art of Cure by Homeopathy. New Delhi, B. Jain Publishers. (reprint).
4. Vthoulkas, George. The Science of Homeopathy. New York: Grove Press, 1980.
5a. Dhawle, M.L Principles and Practice of Homeopathy. Bombay: Institute of Clinical Research, 1967.
5b. Gunavante, S.M. Introduction to Homeopathic Prescribing.Bombay: B. Jain Publishers, 1992.
6. Sankaran, Rajan. The Substacnce of Homeopathy. Bombay: Homeopathic Medical Publishers. 1994.
7. Whitmont, Edward C. The Alchemyof Healing: Psyche and Soma. Berkely: North Atlantic Books, 1993.
8. Coulter, Harris. Divided Legacy: History of the Schism in Medical Thought vols 1-4. Berkely: North Atlantic Books, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1994.
9. Grossinger, Richard. Planet Medicine, vols 1 & 2. Berkely: North Atlantic Books 1995.
10. Bellavite, Paolo. Homeopathy: Frontier in Medical Science. Berkely: North Atlantic Books.
11. Ullman, Dana. Consumer’s Guide to Homeoapathy. Berkely: North Atlantic Books, 1995.
12. Close, Stewart. The Genius of Homepathy. Delhi: B. Jain Publsihers. (Reprint).
13. Scholten, Jan. Homeopathy and the Elements. Utrecht: J. C. Scholten, 1996.
14. Hershoff, Asa.Umbelliferae: Healing and Meaning in the Hemlock Family. Los Angeles: Adamas Publishing, April 1998. and also Healing Plant Families: Supreorder, Orders, Families and their Themes. due Septmeber, 1998.