So What is Homeopathy?


ome of the following information is taken from Yasgur's Homeopathic Dictionary (2004) and from the brochure What is Homeopathy? by the Canadian Society of Homeopaths (2005).

"Homeopathy is a therapeutic medical science" (Yasgur) or "a natural system of medicine that uses highly diluted doses of substances to stimulate the body's own healing mechanism" (CSH).


The Remedies


 homeopathic medicine is a minute dose of a substance from the plant, animal, or mineral kingdoms. The term "substance" is a bit misleading because almost all potencies are so highly diluted that they do not contain a single molecule of the mother tincture of the original substance. For instance, if you take one drop of a tincture from a plant, say Arnica, and dilute it with 99 drops of water, you get a ratio of 1:100, or 1C. Take one drop of 1C and add 99 drops of water and the result is a dilution ratio of 1:10,000, or 2C. If one continues this dilution process up to 12C, one reaches Avogadro's number (6.023 x 10 to the 23rd power), where not a single molecule of the original substance or material can be found in the homeopathic remedy. A 30C is considered to be a low potency, a 200C a mid-potency, and a 1M ("M" designating that the C dilution process has been repeated 1000 times) is a mid-to-high potency.

At each step in the dilution process, a remedy is succussed (shaken vigorously). "As this standardized process of dilution and succussion continues, the remedy becomes more powerful. This method is called potentization and it is the hallmark of all homeopathic remedies" (CSH).

"Homeopathic remedies are non-toxic, have no known side-effects, and are most commonly administered by dissolution in the mouth. The practitioner uses his/her expertise to select the proper remedy [there are thousands available]. He selects the proper potency and frequency of administration depending of the vitality of the patient and the disease being treated. During the course of treatment several remedies may be needed, yet just one is administered at a time" (Yasgur).

How Do the Remedies Work?
here is no current scientific explanation for how these remedies work" (CSH). "How do homeopathic remedies work, and if they are prepared in such tiny, tiny amounts, how could they possibly do anything in the body? There is no concrete answer to this question" (Yasgur).

My own take on this question is that homeopathy is a form of vibrational medicine. Quantum physics tells us that the human body is not just like an energy field; does not just possess an energy field: It an energy field. Homeopathic remedies are diluted in water and ordinary water is one of the most mysterious substances on this earth. It has the unique ability to take on the vibrational characteristics of whatever it is exposed to. This has been proven experimentally in the work of Drs. Jacques Benveniste and Masaru Emoto. To quote an article on Dr. Benveniste in the Encyclopedia Britannica (2006):

"His brilliant career was diminished in later years by his controversial ideas on homeopathy, a form of alternative medical treatment based on the belief that a substance that causes certain symptoms can relieve those symptoms when administered in doses minute enough to stimulate the immune system but not to produce side effects. His hypothesis (published in the journal Nature in 1988) was that dissolved in water, a substance acts like a template, altering the electromagnetic properties of the water. In subsequent dilutions these properties would be transferred to newly added water, the water would thus retain a 'memory' of the substance dissolved in the initial solution."

There is a compelling portrayal of Dr. Emoto's work in the film What the Bleep Do We Know?. The human body is composed or roughly 70% water. The implications of this information are quite thought provoking.

I know that this does not clearly answer the question as to how homeopathic remedies work. The above information simply mirrors my own thoughts on the subject. I have been a Recognized Practitioner with the Therapeutic Touch Network of Ontario since 1997 and I view TT and homeopathy in the same light. Homeopathy and TT are not really the active agents in a healing. They both are more like sparks that rally and ignite a patient's own vital energy to initiate a deep curative response. Vibrational medicine is safe, gentle and effective, and when it kicks in it is a beautiful thing to behold.

Homeopathy and Modern Medicine

 personally do not subscribe to the view that homeopathy is an alternative to modern medicine. It is complimentary to modern medicine rather than some new-age alternative. "It is now an accepted form of medicine in many European and Latin American countries, the UK, and India" (CSH). The primary health care for the British Royal Family is homeopathy and the Queen's Physician is a homeopath.

Our health care system excels at certain things. What can now be routinely accomplished in the area of trauma, for example, is nothing short of miraculous. If I am lying on the highway after being hit by a car, I do not want to see the local homeopath running up to me with his case of remedies. I want the paramedics and a quick transit to the ER. Once the doctors have put me back together, however, remedies like Arnica, Symphytum, Calendula, etc., can also effect results that seem miraculous in accelerating healing tremendously and in minimizing or eliminating the need for powerful pain-killing drugs. Other remedies will alleviate the emotional shock and grief that are the sequelae of trauma.

There is some acrimony between homeopathy and allopathy (i.e., modern medicine). Some medical-care practitioners identify themselves with one camp or the other and waste their potential and energy on empty disputations. Many of these people seem to feel that they must undermine other forms of medicine in order to promote their own. The suffering patient, sadly, is sometimes forgotten in this theoretical bickering.

I would like to take this opportunity to share a story about a personal hospital experience. About 20 years ago my father and I were cutting some fence stakes when his hand was drawn into a running bench saw blade. The hand was badly mangled and the question was could the entire hand be saved and how many fingers could be saved. Could the thumb be saved? This was in the early evening and the specialist on call was Dr. Fultz. She talked to him, which had a calming effect, and then did a nice job putting as much of his hand back together as possible. Later my father told us that, after the surgery, she had sat and talked with him into the early hours of the morning. He worked with his hands, and the thought of losing the function of one of them was devastating. I remember this doctor as a rather rotund, no-nonsense type, with a straightforward and kindly manner. She understood that his emotional state was an important element in his recovery. She must have had a full day ahead of her but she did not prescribe drugs to knock my father out -- she stayed and chatted with him. I did not realize at the time how profound an effect the example set by this woman was to have on me. I heard later that she had left the Moncton Hospital to practice elsewhere. So where ever you are Dr. Fultz, God bless you.

So, would I presume to be an alternative to such a doctor? It would be an honor to collaborate with a person with such high professional standards.

"The physician who is the most successful is he who will first heal for the love of healing; who will practice first for the purpose of verifying his knowledge and performing his use for the love of it" (James Tyler Kent, 1849-1916, MD and Homeopath).