History
Homeopathy was discovered in Germany by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann in the late 18th century. It is widely used in Europe, India, South America, and Israel to this day. Over 30 million Europeans use homeopathy as part of their health care program, either exclusively, or as a complement to other modalities, including mainstream medicine. Homeopathy is much less known in North America, although there was a strong homeopathic tradition here that did not survive the advent of organized empirical medicine and corporate pharmaceuticals. Homeopathy has persisted for so long due to its effectiveness and tremendous success during epidemics such as that of the Spanish Flu. While the basic scientific principles of homeopathy have not changed since its inception, there have been major developments in homeopathic thinking as well as the creation of new medicines to address the health requirements of the 21st century.
“Like Cures Like”
Homeopathy recognizes symptoms as the body’s expression of disharmony or ‘dis-ease’, and the job of a healing remedy is to subtly, gently, and effectively redress the disturbance. A patient’s symptoms are treated, not the disease itself, as they are understood to be the body’s most intelligent attempt to find a healing response to internal distress. If one understands that symptoms are the body’s attempt to self-regulate, than there is exquisite logic in using a medicine that creates symptoms quite similar to the one the body self-generates. The idea of “like cures like” is a central tenet of homeopathic thinking. This is in marked contrast to the conventional idea of treating symptoms by eradicating them with an oppositional effect. Take, for example, insomnia. Conventional medicine prescribes drugs that cause sleepiness for this condition. In many instances these drugs are addictive and often require increasingly larger doses. There are many homeopathic medicines for insomnia, but coffea (made from coffee) is an excellent example of the “like cures like” theory. Coffee causes sleeplessness, restlessness, headaches, and a degree of anxiety in many people. Used in a homeopathic preparation, coffea can cure insomnia when it is accompanied by restlessness, headaches, and low-grade anxiety.
Homeopathic Remedies and the Minimum Dose
Homeopathic remedies are made from a wide range of natural materials – plants, animals, and minerals primarily. The notion of the minimum dose is central to understanding the safety of these remedies. The founder of homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, discovered that a process of dilution and succussion (shaking) of remedies rendered materials that would otherwise be toxic or dangerous in large doses safe and effective, with no side effects and capable of exacting excellent results. This idea of a minimum dose is one of the most baffling aspects of homeopathy to the uninitiated. Homeopathic remedies must be understood in the scientific tradition of physics, rather than that of chemistry. There is little, or no chemical trace of the original material in most remedies, but there is an energy trace that is highly potentized, or strengthened, by the process of production. The energy of these safe medicines stimulates the body’s self-healing, self-harmonizing mechanism. Because of the absence of any chemical material, the remedies are safe for even the frailest of patients, including the elderly, pregnant women and infants. In addition to the minimum material in the remedies, classical homeopathy uses a single remedy approach to most chronic disorders, and a minimal remedy approach in other cases. Often, one well-chosen remedy is all that is needed to effect an enormous change in the functioning of an individual. In most cases, after a remedy is given, there is a period of waiting, reassessment, and then either a repetition of the remedy, a new remedy is selected, or the cure is deemed complete.
