Re: Doubts - Homeopathy (was oils aint oils)
J Balbirnie wrote:
<<However, now having said that… I would like to raise the point that
there are an awful lot of snake oil "salespeople" here in the internet
and in the so called "outside world" too.>>
Hi Jeff,
This is true - it’s as hard to find a good homeopath as to find a good
person in any non-regulated profession - maybe harder. One has to do the
"buyer beware" thing. That’s not good in a health profession and those
of us who are well trained homeopaths would like nothing better than to
see a system in USA as there is in New Zealand: There, homeopaths have
the option of registering with the state after proving a certain level
of competency and training first. The qualification I have from BIH
(British Institute of Homeopathy) and the one at the NZ homeopathy
school (Bay of Plenty School of homeopathy) are two of the very few
accepted for registration there. Registration is optional but it gives
the client the option of going to someone with a known minimum
competency and it allows the homeopath to bill insurance companies for
services. Until we have something similar here - it is really hard to
make progress as a profession.
It’s not for want of trying. There is a huge movement underwritten by
by the drug companies to "get rid of the competition from alternative
health" by forcing them under the AMA or AVMA. This will not work any
better than plumbers can happily be managed by electricians or vice
versa so there is conflict and not progress yet in USA. In other
countries with large drug company influence, the same problem exists.
In the veterinary area where I am more active the pet food
manufacturers and vaccine manufacturers are also involved in trying to
"get rid of" alternative health systems as "competition for
profitability of veterinarians". Eight companies are involved with
heavy finances pledged in this effort and it is hard to fight against
such heavyweights to achieve progress. It’s like trying to swim upstream
in molasses.
<< I am confidant if you are as educated and experienced as you seem to
be… you can (one hopes) comprehend the scathing scepticism, the
occasional sarcasm and all other forms of massive concern a group of
folks with a serious life threatening disease (I.e. diabetes) might have
towards ~alternatives~ into which Homeopathy would clearly fall, at
least in the US (whatever implications that might have…)>>
I’m not sure I understand the scathing scepticism etc unless it is
objectively acquired as opposed to induced by the underground of
propaganda without any real consideration to look into fact. At least
intellectually that’s how I feel now as a mature person :-)))
As a younger less experienced one in the days when I "knew it all" I’d
have to indict myself in that I was brought up to be sceptical of
homeopathy to put it mildly. It is only by force of circumstance that I
was introduced to the effect on my gangrenous thigh, of homeopathy. My
leg was due for amputation but is alive and well and attached today
thanks to homeopathy - courtesy of my cousin who persuaded me I had
"nothing to lose" (but my leg) in trying the remedy she suggested. I
guess I was "converted" that way and not by logic initially. That got me
looking for logic. Indeed I found it.
<<Being one whose interest is that of a professional…. someone who
deals with less invasive,, less instantaneous methods, perhaps you can
share with us (sic. carefully, gently, slowly) so that you do not
encounter the hefty shields of doubt/skepticism many of us possess?>>
It is indeed a challenge to gently, slowly introduce a subject which in
its most condensed form occupies over 300 subsections in the textbook of
homeopathy - and to do so merely in an email. I could not explain and
teach the profession of medicine in an email either. I can make some
general statements about homeopathy but to understand and take them on
fully, would likely need reading in some depth so as to follow the
thinking during the development of homeopathy.
I’ll start the same place orthodox medicine started - with Hippocrates
in around 500 BC. As you know doctors swear the "Hippocratic" oath - to
"first do no harm". (I’ll leave you to judge whether that maxim is used
today in allopathy.) The point is Hippocrates was respected for his
clarity of thinking about disease and health. He was a most observant
fellow and noticed and recorded how nature effected disease cures:
A sick person with a serious disease, could be exposed to a second
quite similar and also serious disease, and he noticed that instead of
getting sicker when this was done as would seem logical for someone
getting TWO serious diseases - they got better right away instead.
This strange and wonderful phenomenon in nature was recorded by many
other medical scientists of their time subsequently over the years (to
make a long story short), including especially during the years of the
great epidemics. For example if a person sick with smallpox was given
cowpox, they got well from both. Those are two very similar (but not
identical) diseases. The phenomenon does not work with two identical
diseases, only two similar ones. You can’t make someone with smallpox
well by putting someone else’s smallpox disease product into them.
Nor does it work to use a VERY different disease. It has to be a
similar one. This is the "principle of similars" developed and used in
homeopathy. It was not till 1780 to 1883, that this phenomenon of cure
in nature by a similar disease, was harnessed and developed into a
system of healing by one physician in Germany, Dr Samuel Hahnemann. He
coined the word "homeopathy" to describe the system he developed.
The Organon describes in detail what is required and how remedies are
developed, prove, selected and used so as to harness and control the
power of the principle copied from nature and to make "artificial
similar diseases" to cancel out the real diseases, but essentially the
following key aspects are relevant. You may find them as surprising to
wrap your thinking about as the fact of nature just described - but they
are just as solid factually.
By the way this principle in homeopathy - and the specific example
using cowpox to cure smallpox - is behind the first allopathic
vaccination - which uses a cowpox vaccine (still today) to immunize
against smallpox.
There is more to a homeopathic remedy than playing about with two
dangerous diseases though. The "first do no harm" aspect was what
Hahnemann developed and please bear in mind I am skimming the material
for time and space reasons - details being in the Organon :-))
Hahnemann was translating a book to make extra money to fund his
research - it was about malaria and the use of cinchona bark (from the
quina quina tree from which we now have quinine) to treat malaria. He
decided to take some China bark himself though he did not have malaria
and he discovered (as he suspected) that he got symptoms from taking the
bark, that were much like malaria symptoms. They lasted about 4 hours.
He took more bark and got more malaria like symptoms for another 4
hours. Basically he discovered that China bark would cause malaria-like
symptoms in a healthy person but would cure them in a person with
malaria. The same applies to many medicinal substances. It’s that
principle of similar diseases again.
So his next challenge was to make *safe* remedies. He tried diluting
medicines to reduce the bad side effects. Sure it reduced the side
effects but it also reduced the medicinal effect.
However he found that if when diluting the medicinal substance, he also
"succussed" it a lot - banging it on a leather bound book many times -
then the dilution did not lose its medicinal value as the side effect
danger was diluted out. On the contrary - the more he succussed it with
each dilution - the stronger the medicinal value became. If he then too
some of this "dynamized" (by succussion) remedy he would get much
stronger symptoms than if he took the original medicinal substance.
These revelations led to Hahnemann developing the entire system of
homeopathy - involving the proving of all remedies on human healthy
volunteers to determine what kinds of symptoms each remedy could produce
in a healthy person - that they therefore could remove and cure in a
sick one. Large numbers of people are used in these provings and the
symptoms are meticulously documented. There are today about 4500 prove
remedies - each with lists of documented symptoms. Any disease that has
*similar* symptoms can then be treated and cured by that remedy.
Remedies are made in many different strengths or "potencies". It turns
out that to cure a serious illness you need a more highly diluted and
dynamized remedy - succussed a lot more than needed for a mild illness.
So another principe in homeopathy is that for a serious disease or
condition you will need a higher potency remedy than for a mild one.
Case studies have been added to the "materia medica" books which
document what symptoms each remedy is capable of handling. The remedies
are quite amazing as they are indeed not working at a chemical level at
all, but at an energy level. The chemical aspects are diluted out along
with any potential for side effects from those chemical aspects. When
the remedy is succussed, the energy signature of the original medicinal
substance is transferred to the dilution water which then can be used as
dynamized remedy. It can also be used to dilute it and succuss it
further to even more increase the potency.
The remedy that I needed to cure my leg of gangrene for example was
a potency of "200C" The C is Roman numeral for 100. A 200C has been
diluted and succussed 200 separate times, at a dilution of 1 in 100,
plus 100 bangs or succussions to add energy, at each dilution. It’s the
energy that heals. If you tried to make such a remedy by hand your arm
would be really tired long before you got to 200C. The most I managed to
do to put energy into a home-made remedy was to take a 30C remedy and
get it up to 100C. So succussion machines help with the process these
days in manufacture.
Hahnemann understood well that these are energy remedies not chemical
ones. He likens it to manufacture of a magnet. A magnet has no force of
attraction of magnetism when manufactured. That has to be added by
rubbing the piece of steel - to introduce the energy - and the magnetic
field so generated is permanent, it does not go away when you stop
rubbing (or filing) the magnet. Similarly, when you make a remedy you
succuss it - to add energy an the original substance is what determines
the symptoms for which the remedy will be active.
Most remedies are "proved" at several potencies. That means at
several potencies, at least up to 30C, many volunteers take the remedy
till they get symptoms and they record the (temporary) symptoms. There
may be thousands of symptoms recorded for a single remedy. some better
used ones have 8000 known symptoms they can remove.
Now when the homeopath is presented with an individual in poor health,
the challenge is to find a remedy which is "similar" to the situation of
the individual. If it is well selected, and sufficiently similar, then
just as the cowpox given to a person with smallpox makes them well, so
also the similar homeopathic remedy will remove the similar symptoms in
the individual - causing the health to be restored. The remedy must be a
high enough potency to match the individual’s strength of disease.
If a remedy is chosen with say 8000 known symptoms it can help - known
because it can induce those in at least some volunteers during its
proving - then as long as the majority of salient symptoms of the
patient fit *within* those of the remedy - the remedy will be similar
enough and will effect healing.
Gee what I have said is so skimmed over the top - but I have tried to
present the major points to give a broad idea of what homeopathy can do.
I want to add that Hahnemann was as thorough a researcher as I have ever
had the pleasure to study - and that his meticulous checking and
rechecking of everything is most impressive.
Would that modern science would be a quarter as rigorous in their
methods. I can not do justice to that in an email. I thought however it
was worth mentioning at least.
You might also wonder what happens to all the provers after they have
done the research on what a remedy can achieve. The symptoms leave when
they stop using the remedy - however they develop a resistance to
getting those symptoms from a disease. So basically they got themselves
a homeopathic vaccination to prevent those symptoms from any source.
One can use any remedy in homeopathy to develop resistance to the
symptoms associated with that remedy. Homeopathic treatment not only
removes the disease symptoms - it leaves the individual resistant to a
recurrence of those symptoms.
So for example when I cured my own breast cancer in 2000 using a single
homeopathic remedy (Phytolacca 200C - which would not necessarily help
someone else - the remedy symptoms had to suit me and be very similar to
the ones I had), I used a remedy which not only removed the symptoms,
but it left me resistant to recurrence of the breast cancer. Knowing it
won’t come back is a nice extra.
If I had not chosen a remedy that was similar enough it would have done
nothing. So in homeopathy, the skill of the homeopath to select a
similar "matching" remedy is of the greatest significance. It takes a
lot of training and a lot of practice. I do not feel anyone can be an
effective homeopath other than as a full time homeopath, because of the
intensity of the work involved. I would not expect someone in the
conventional medical profession with "a course in homeopathy" to know
nearly enough to be proficient in remedy selection - potency selection -
dose frequency selection - etc.
Homeopathy will not always cure. Even a correctly selected remedy
requiress that there be some life force in the individual who is ill. It
can’t bring the dead back to life so to speak. Nutrition is also a
factor. You can’t heal a mineral deficiency with enery - it needs the
mineral present. The energy can direct its good use - but not provide
the missing nutrient. It is also hard to regenerate something that is
totally missing. There is a better chance of success if there is a
starting place, for example if some pancreas function remains, it might
be enhanced by a good remedy - but if there is none there to multiply or
improve, then I am not so sure homeopathy can regenerate it from
scratch. (I’m not totally sure it can’t either. I sure plan to try in my
own case, to effect a healthy pancreas in a few years.)
<<There are lots of "natural things" which work not because of some
blind-faith ~voodoo magic~ but purely because the chemistry and the bio
chemistry of the herbs,>>
Yes there is valid biochmistry in herbal medicine. The difficulty people
have with homeopathy stems from the lack of comfort as is felt with
something visible like biochemistry - compared with something invisible
like energy - especially energy applied in a way that is currently
unfamiliar. It has historically always been near to impossible to
introduce anything easily, which uses an invisible or intangible
component, whether it is flying aiplanes on "thin air" or running
electricity along wires or sending TV pictures (or emails) over the
airwaves. Until these things are forced into everyday life of the
average person, then any non-tangible new item is scoffed at, however
solid the scinetific evidence for it. Perhaps humans have an inherent
fear of unknowns they can not see :-))
One can not see the energy of a homeopathic remedy, nor measure it any
known way once the remedy is made (other than by taking it to get
symptoms or using it to cure symptoms). As with electricity and wiring -
you see the wiring not the energy. In homeopathy you see the sugar pill
or alcohol-preserved water - but not the energy and its signature
associated with a specific set of symptoms.
What it amounts to is that when narure uses simlar diseases to cure, it
is really a cure at an energy level and not at a biochemical level.
Homeopathy has copied that, harnessed it, and put it into an easily
managed and safe usable form. It’s great - but we still do not know how
nature cures with energy. We just know it does and use the knowledge.
As curious humans we abhor not knowing how something works. But how
cowpox cures smallpox - we still do not know. It doesn’t stop us copying
the principle and applying it elsewhere in the meantime. I’d also like
to know why and how similar diseases will cure. It bothers me that I
can’t figure that out after all my studies. But so it is. At least I am
now familiar with the *fact* that this does occur, and the usefulness of
the principle that similar diseases can not coxesist in an individual
and trying to force that to happen, causes cure.
This gives us ways to cure chronic diseases - which have no cures in
allopathy for example.
<< Be patient with us doubters, cynics, disbelievers and help us
understand if you will… some of us can be swayed.>>
I have tried:-))
I hope that you were able to reciprocate by reading open-mindedly. If
not please read again with an open mind in deference to my time writing
this :-))) It’s a very new idea when you first see it, and not that easy
to wrap oneself around however valid it is 
<< Many of us have had genuinely bizarre, and inane so called
"treatments" offered (sic. "….for an amazing low price of three
shipments of $19.99 plus shipping and handling every….") which in the
light of day examined even slightly are worthy of ridicule, scorn…. In
many cases such "snake oil" should end up at local district attorneys
office.>>
"LEt the buyer beware" is not the easiest advice to follow when one is
ill and in need of help and not necessarily in the mood for analysing
the situation :-))
<<How do we tell the difference between the "real" and the "quack", some
~treatment~ which has hypothetical value, from something which is 100%
worthless?>>
Think about how you would know someone is a medical doctor if there was
no licensing board?
You’d want a degree in a frame on the wall that says they are a doctor
(homeopath) - not just something on a letterhead.
You’d want to be able to google the school and find something other than
a webpage with nobody’s name on it and just a place to fil in your
credit card number.
It is fair to ask what qualifications a person has. I send out mine
automatically to clients and I tink it should be a rule. If anyone is
reluctant to answer fully - run a mile.
Look for someone who does nothing else. A person making a living at
homeopathy i s abetter bet than someone who dabbles in ten "modalities
including homeopathy". If they tell you to not go to a doctor or they
tell you to stop taking a medicine - run away. A homeopath respects the
medical profession and works in concert with its memebers.
Look for letters behind their name that are a degree in homeopathy.
For example D.I.Hom as I have.
No letters - no degree - no homeopath. Just as a doctor has MD - a
homeopath also nees a proper degree there.
The technique for matching a remedy to an individual’s symptoms is
called repertorizing. If they say reper-what - run!
<<And Namaste to you as well (Hindu phrase generically meaning "I greet
your soul"…),>>
Thank you.
Jeff
<<(PS Did I read correctly 3 masters degrees and 4 bachelor’s >8 O….
yikes…..)>>
Uh yes, I have spent far too many years in academic institutions and far
too few socially active!!! After a while academia becomes a comfort
zone. But in truth I did not find my niche in the world and kept trying
some other direction seeking my place and reason to be here. I found it
at last - but it took almost for ever.
Namaste,
Irene
Ps I am really overtired - I hope there are not too many typos I missed.