Is natural healing possible?

A Chinese proverb reads, “Nature heals, the physician assists.” Hippocrates, the father of western medicine and the physician’s oath, along with wise physicians today, confirm this astute observation.

Is there a relation between healing and the appearance of symptoms?

The appearance of symptoms are indications both of a healing response and an exteriorizing of the disturbance. However uncomfortable and inconvenient, symptoms of disorder are not our enemy, but our best defenders: they are a sign that something is wrong, how it is wrong, and where it is wrong; a call to take notice and stop what we are doing; an adaptation to stress and infection; a measure of our suffering; and our organism’s best effort at healing itself given it’s current state of health and vitality. Indeed, healing can best be realized by focusing on the way that health is already manifesting rather than attempting to fight disease symptoms.

How do symptoms help us maintain our balance?

Hans Selye, the father of modern stress theory, affirms, “Disease is not merely surrender to attack, but also the fight for health; unless there is a fight, there is no disease. Disease is not just suffering, but a fight to maintain the homeostatic balance of our tissues.” To be more precise, this should read “homeodynamic balance”, because our organism is continually in flux (not static), moving between relative health (energetic, dynamic, and free) and relative disorder (weak, stuck, and limited).

 

How does the wise physician assist when nature’s healing gets “stuck?”

As the proverb asserts, “nature heals”. However, although doing its best, when we are relatively weak, stuck, and limited, assistance is required by the wise physician. I say wise because what is required for healing is to go with, not against, this natural symptom response. That is, if a therapy worked against the body’s expression of a disorder, the disorder would manifest in a more pernicious manner. Though paradoxical, healing requires the physician assist by mimicking this organic response, to find the similar to our suffering.

For example, say your child accidentally ingests some non-caustic poison. Your child gags, but--weakened by disorder, cannot vomit up the poison. The natural healing response is stuck! You may be advised to administer Syrup of Ipecac to induce vomiting. Ipecac is derived from the root of a South American plant called Ipecacuhana. The name, in the native language, means “the plant by the road which makes you throw up.” Eating the plant causes vomiting. Knowledge of this root’s effects on native South Americans has been passed down by tradition.

 

How are cures achieved through utilizing the Principal of Similars and the Minimum Dose?

After vomiting up the toxin, you delight in discovering that all your child’s symptoms are relieved without the appearance of any new symptoms. Ipacachuana is the simillimum, or most indicated remedy, as it helped support a healing response in your child because it’s effects produced a similar artificial suffering to your child’s natural suffering. Treating with similars, not contraries, was the preferred mode of medical treatment by Hippocrates.

It can be visualized to function like two magnets of the same pole which repel each other. Symptoms we may induce via homeopathic remedies are always stronger than the natural disorder-- NO MATTER HOW SMALL THE DOSE. If correctly similar to the natural disorder, they will rapidly, gently and permanently repel the disorder, allowing a restoration of health and harmony in the person. This is the case whether the disorder is on the physical, mental, or emotional plane.

 

Technically speaking, what is the relationship between the remedy dose and the organic response?

A substance, if given on the basis of the simillimum rule, will effect the organism in such a way that the organism is forced to counteract the effect of that substance by creating a reverse response. The primary effect of the remedy is followed by a secondary response of the organism to that action.

If there is an over-stimulation of a certain kind and Coffea (the remedy made from coffee) is the simillimum, the primary effect of that remedy will be over-stimulation, followed by the counteractive secondary response of the organism, which is calmness. That secondary action is the cure. That secondary response is the beautiful co-operation between the vital force and the substance. Full understanding of this process allows us to leave the organism in peace and let it do its work.

A repetition of a dose is only wanted when the action of the response is exhausted. In conventional medicine, the exact same process takes place only with one difference; the simillimum rule is not applied! If the person is dull and sleepy, a stimulant is given to awaken the spirit. The organism will respond to that with a secondary reaction and creates dullness and sleepiness. Then another, stronger stimulant is needed, and the process repeats itself. Therefore in conventional medicine a frequent repetition of the medicine is needed, while in homeopathy we can utilize a minimum and infrequent dose.

 

How does the wise physician study substances for their healing properties?

Ipecacuhana’s effects have also been reproduced in healthy volunteers who took minute quantities of this substance in order to confirm traditional practices. Interestingly this substance induced thousands of other symptoms as well. Here are four: the mouth retained much saliva; the tongue was very clean; severe coughing led to gagging and vomiting; there was incessant nausea that, unexpectedly, was not relieved by vomiting.

Such experiments are called homeopathic provings, and have been conducted on human volunteers for 200 years on thousands of substances as they are the homeopath’s best source of information about all their effects. Ipecacuhana would be most appropriate especially if your child expressed symptoms similar to those observed in the proving.

It is important to note that homeopathic provings are a first in the history of healing: The systematic taking of substances by healthy volunteers in order to elicit their medicinal effects. What would the practice of medicine be like today if all practicioners were required to engage in such studies ?

 

How treating with similars is more common than we think.

Treating with similars has proven its reliability over the centuries such that it has taken on the status of a principal or law of nature. Coined in Latin by Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of Homeopathy, as “Similia Similibus Curentur” (like cures like), it states that any substance can help cure symptoms which it is capable of producing when administered to healthy volunteers. In Greek, homœos pathos means similar suffering.

Quite unintentionally, conventional medicine sometimes treats in accordance with this principal. Examples include allergy shots consisting of administering dilute, similar antigens: gold, which can cause arthritis, itself is used in its treatment; radiation, which causes cancer, is used in treating many forms of cancer; digitalis, used for congestive heart failure, induces precisely the same heart weakness when given in overdose.

However, conventional medicine does not recognize the law of similars or treat the totality of symptoms, and conventional physicians routinely administer toxic doses of medicines, all of which can have both direct and side effects adversely affecting health and vitality.

 

How can homeopathy realize cures that are rapid, gentle, and permanent?

Hahnemann systematized treating with similars by addressing the totality of symptoms with the most similar remedy in minute, non-toxic doses. By so doing, Hahnemann advanced the use of similiars to cure specific disease symptoms to curing the whole person. An additional benefit is the absence of both side effects and addiction.

While many other drugs might produce partial, temporary or suppressive relief of your child’s symptoms, Ipacachuana is the simillimum, because it matched the totality of symptoms expressed by your child, resulting in rapid, gentle and permanent healing of the acute disorder. Therefore, whether a person is suffering a gagging cough after a cold or a woman is experiencing morning sickness with incessant nausea not relieved by vomiting, Ipecacuhana, administered in a minute dose, especially prepared by a homeopathic pharmacy in accordance with FDA approved guidelines, can soothe the similar suffering.

This today, is the art and science of homeopathy.