If you are here, you have almost certainly heard of homeopathy, and you probably have a basic understanding of what it is.
You may also have noticed that there is quite a controversy around homeopathy.
Why is this? Of course, money is involved. Homeopathy, when practiced properly, costs almost nothing in actual medication, and Big Pharma — well. You know how it is.
But there is another reason: the principles that underlie homeopathy fly in the face of conventional medicine. If homeopathy is correct about how health and healing actually work — the entire system of medicine as we know it today would crumble.
So I’d like to give you an overview of this science and art that goes beyond simple definitions and principles.
I’ll also share the implications of these definitions and principles, because once we really wrap our heads around the implications, our understanding of health and healing starts to crack open.
When we really understand what healing is about, we shift our relationship to our bodies. We shift our relationship to ourselves, to our thoughts and emotions. These shifts in turn start to impact our relationship to nature, and to life.
Yeah, that’s where we’re headed. I’m not a person who is satisfied with surface level explanations, and if you’re in that camp as well, this is for you.
what is homeopathy?
Let’s start with the basics.
Homeopathy translates from the Greek as “same suffering.”
The word homeopathy refers to the Law of Similars, or the principle of “like cures like,” Similia similibus curentur. What we mean by this, is that a substance that will cause a set of symptoms in a healthy person, will alleviate those same symptoms in a sick person.
like cures like
For instance, a bee sting causes local swelling, heat, and redness around the site, symptoms very similar to hives. Bee stings often cause hives as well. The homeopathic remedy Apis mellifica, made from the honeybee, is one of the primary remedies we think of for hives with local swelling and heat. This is what we mean by like cures like.
So the very foundational principle of homeopathy stands in direct opposition to the assumptions of mainstream medicine in general, and pharmaceuticals in particular. Pharmaceuticals are generally given because they have an action opposite to the symptom picture. Homeopathy works with the symptoms. Pharmaceuticals work against the symptoms.
working with symptoms, rather than against them
We’ll circle back to this, but for now, you could consider the question: what difference does it make, whether we work with symptoms, or against them?
Samuel Hahnemann developed what we know as homeopathy in the early 1800s by observed the principle of like cures like in himself, while experimenting with taking quinine. He began testing, or proving, substances on healthy people. At first his experiments served to verify the principle of like cures like. The provings also provided the information he needed to understand which substances to use when.
Most of the substances he was testing are toxic in large doses — in fact, most homeopathic remedies today are toxins as well — because those are the substances that will cause a disturbance in the organism.
When these toxic substances were given according to the Law of Similars, they alleviated many symptoms; however, they were also causing some uncomfortable side effects. Hahnemann wondered, how little of the substance can I give? Can I avoid the side effects but still support the healing process?
the development of homeopathic remedies
By asking the question: how little can I give, and still have a healing effect? — Hahnemann was able to minimizing the amount of substance he was giving his patients. He called this principle the Law of the Minimum Dose. His inquiry and experimentation with the idea of minimum dose led to the development of what we call homeopathic remedies today.
So note: what we call homeopathic remedies are simply everyday substances that have been diluted and succussed (shaken). Really, the preparation is not what makes them homeopathic.
A remedy is only homeopathic when we give it according to the principles. Like cures like is one of those principles, as is minimum dose. To understand another key principle, totality of symptoms, we need to first look at the idea of vital force.
the vital force
Homeopaths use the term vital force to mean something similar to prana, chi, or life force. It is the intelligence of the organism, the “spirit-like life force that enlivens the material organism as dynamis, governs without restriction and keeps all parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation, as regards both feelings and functions.”1
We believe that when we give the minimum dose, we are impacting the organism on the level of the vital force. No one is sure exactly how this works — we only know that if we assume that the vital force “governs without restriction and keeps all parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation,” we see people feel better. 2
But what exactly are we assuming about the vital force? When Hahnemann says that the vital force keeps the organism operating harmoniously, he means that the vital force always attempting to establish balance in our bodies and minds. As practitioners, we must respect whatever is happening in the organism as intelligent and useful — and we support it.
And how can we know what the vital force is doing? By observing symptoms.
homeopathy’s view of symptoms
What are symptoms? Symptoms are the outward, observable signs that something is amiss. Symptoms tell us exactly how the vital force is attempting to reestablish balance.
So let’s come back to our question from above: what difference does it make, whether we work with symptoms, or against them?
If we understand the vital force to be intelligent, and acting to establish balance, then it makes a world of difference whether we work with, or against, symptoms.
Working with symptoms supports what the organism is already doing. We are saying, we trust our body, and we trust the process.
We don’t interfere with or suppress the process.
Instead,we observe the process, and we support it.
Working against symptoms is working against your nature.
the problem with suppression
Take birth, for example. Contractions are very uncomfortable — but they serve a purpose. If we stop the contractions, simply because they are uncomfortable, we stop the process of birth. Now what? We are more comfortable — for the time being. But what about the baby? What about the reason that the contractions were there in the first place?
It sounds absurd when we apply the idea of suppression to birth — but it’s exactly the same principle and result when we suppress a runny nose, a fever, or our arthritis pain, without a plan for addressing the underlying reason that those symptoms have appeared.
Homeopathy views EVERY process of the body as an attempt, however uncomfortable, to bring about an appropriate resolution to a challenge the system is facing — whether that challenge is releasing a new baby into the world, or managing an overgrowth of bacteria.
When we interfere with, or suppress that process — we have taken away the organism’s first and best attempt to resolve a challenge. Now what?
Chances are, when you work against the vital force, sooner or later you will end up sicker.
totality of symptoms
So. If we assume that the vital force is intelligent, and that symptoms are its best effort to balance the system, we start to see that symptoms are not random, or disconnected. Instead, they are part of a complex orchestration of the vital force to establish and maintain health.
When you get sick, a runny nose, fever, cough and fatigue are all part of the SAME response to an imbalance in the immune system. If these symptoms are all part of the same response, why not try to give a remedy that addresses all the symptoms?
This is exactly what we do in classical homeopathy. We look at all the symptoms on every level — mental, emotional and physical — and we pick a remedy that reflects that totality to the greatest extent possible.
ask the right question
You see, here is another instance where classical homeopathy and conventional medicine part ways.
Because the question is not only: can we give a remedy that addresses the totality of symptoms? The question is also: what happens if we give medication (or a remedy for that matter) that only addresses a single, or a couple, of symptoms?
When we try to pick off one symptom at a time, we create confusion in the organism. The vital force has orchestrated an organized response, and medication for single symptoms is interfering with the totality, and therefore disorganizing the response.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a time and a place for suppression. Confusion is better than death, or permanent tissue damage. Sometimes, we need something that will act immediately, and predictably to stop a destructive process.
But that is, in my experience, less frequent that most of us assume. It is certainly less frequent than the medical establishment would have you believe.
But back to totality. When we give a homeopathic remedy according to totality, we are respecting the organization of the system, and we are supporting the overall process. We are supporting nature’s highly evolved strategies for keeping us alive and healthy.
the transformational impact of homeopathy
Okay. But what do all of these principles have to do with transformation?
When we examine the foundational principles of homeopathy, we find that they reflect spiritual principles that many of us understand on other levels.
We live in a culture where the importance of concepts such as oneness, self-trust, and self-love are taken for granted.
But perhaps we have not fully appreciated how these concepts apply to all aspects of our experience, not just our “spiritual” life.
This was certainly true for me when I started to study homeopathy.
I wasn’t even aware of how my underlying assumptions about healing contradicted my understanding of how life works on a deeper level.
trust and self-love
When we start to see the organism as intelligent, to see symptoms as an organized, perfectly orchestrated response to a stress, we develop a kind of trust in ourselves.
When we change our perspective on symptoms, we learn to trust our body, our emotions, and our minds. We don’t always believe our minds, or act on our emotions, or indulge our physical impulses — but we trust that whatever is there, has a purpose.
We trust that our symptoms — which are the expression of our mind, heart and body — contain valuable information.
And so we learn to really listen to ourselves — even the parts that we judge as “malfunctioning.”
We start to switch our perspective around our symptoms. Just as we would approach a child who is acting out with the question — what need is not being met? — we learn to bring this generosity to ourselves, to our thoughts, to our actions and reactions, to our feelings, to our bodies. We start to see symptoms not as uncomfortable and useless side effects of some other problem, but as a communication and a call for help.
Do you see how medicating symptoms away is like forcing a child to stop her tantrum, at any cost, without addressing the issue of WHY the tantrum was happening in the first place?
Do you see how, when we medicate symptoms away, the implication is that something is wrong with us?
Nothing is wrong with us.
Everything is perfect.
Sometimes we need a little help, true.
But what kind of help?
everything is connected
When we adopt the approach of homeopathy, we become aware of the perfection of the process. As a result, we stop pushing things away. We learn to notice, and even admire the genius of our symptoms. We start seeing, experiencing, and appreciating how everything is connected.
Everything is connected. We all talk about oneness, but do we really grok the implications?
We are not separate from each other, and the parts of ourselves are also not separated.
Mainstream medicine is failing us, because we are not a discrete collection of cogs and wheels that can be ever more precisely reduced to its chemical, electrical and mechanical processes. Even functional medicine, with all its advantages, still views the organism this way.
When we base research and treatment on the assumption that humans are basically complex machines, we miss the connectivity. We miss the oneness.
Homeopathy sees the whole.
Homeopathy views the organism as a gestalt, as the embodiment of consciousness, as a complex and intelligent set of relationships, both internal and external, that cannot — and should not — be reduced to a sum of parts.
In conclusion…
The principles of homeopathy describe the complex relationships between our energetic being, our physical being, and the world around us. The Law of Similars, the concept of vital force, the Law of the Minimum Dose, selecting a remedy on totality of symptoms — when we put the foundations of homeopathy together, we find that homeopathy is a system of medicine which reflects the biggest perspective on human life and healing.
Whatever arises in us, is a result of an underlying intelligence that seeks to create balance and harmony.
When we trust in the perfection of our own process of creating and resolving symptoms, and support that process, we build strength and vitality on every level — mental, emotional and physical.
That is health.
Not simply an absence of symptoms, but the presence of well being, freedom, and flexibility.
And, when we base our system of medicine on health, we will revolutionize healing.
What do you think? Has homeopathy changed your understanding of health and healing? If so, how?
- From Organon of the Medical Art by Samuel Hahnemann, edited by Wenda Brewster O’Reilly. ↩︎
- One theory is that we can observe the vital force through electromagnetic fields — and that homeopathic remedies are impacting these fields. If you are interested, this article, for instance, describes the theory in more detail. ↩︎
0 Comments