Homeopathy Offers Hope: Health or Hoax
Homeopathy is a non-toxic system of medicine used to treat illness and relieve the symptoms of a wide variety of health conditions.
Homeopathy has been around for hundreds of years, healed millions, been studied and is used around the world. Homeopathic practitioners have collected information on the use of several hundred remedies for nearly two centuries. Research studies through experimentation known as “provings,” and documented clinical cases have provided a great deal of knowledge to modern day healers. Licensed doctors, physicians and qualified prescribers have used homeopathic remedies.
Homeopathy was founded in 1796 by a German physician, Samuel Hahnemann. He coined the term homeopathy, which is derived from the Greek homos meaning similar and pathos meaning suffering.
Homeopathic medicine is a natural energetic science in which a practitioner seeks to find a substance, when taken to extreme, would cause similar symptoms to those a sick person is experiencing. When the match is made, that substance is then administered in very small, safe doses, often with dramatic effects.
The Law of Similars and Potentization
Two important ideas on which the science of homeopathy is based are the “Law of Similars” and “potentization”. In very simplified terms, the Law of Similars states that since exposure to
a substance can cause specific symptoms in a healthy person, that substance — when correctly prepared as a homeopathic remedy — can stimulate the body’s curative powers to overcome similar symptoms during illness.
It’s a bit tough to grasp, but here’s a good example: A person who chops an onion can develop watery eyes, a runny nose, sneezing, coughing and throat irritation from exposure to the onion’s active substances. The homeopathic remedy, Allium cepa, made of potentized red onion, can help the body overcome a cold or allergy attack in which the person has similar symptoms (watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, coughing, or throat irritation.) The actual symptoms of the illness were not caused by exposure to an onion, but the remedy for those symptoms, made from the onion, can help the body overcome them, because the symptoms are similar.
Immunizations are based on the same principle of similars. Dr. Emil Adolph Von Behring, the “father of immunology”, recognized the link between immunizations and homeopathy when he started using small doses of allergens in order to create an antibody response. In fact, conventional Western medicine relies on this “law of similars” in other ways too. Radiation to treat people with cancer (radiation causes cancer), and Ritalin for hyperactive children (ritalin is an amphetamine-like drug which normally causes hyperactivity). Other examples are the use of nitroglycerine for heart conditions and gold salts for arthritic conditions. In fact, it was a homeopathic physician who first utilized nitroglycerine as a medicine.
Homeopathy and the “Law of Similars” not only heals but it also inherently teaches a respect for natural healing capabilities of our body. It teaches us to avoid therapies that suppress symptoms and to seek treatments that truly cure.
Potentization is a preparatory process that involves a series of very precise dilutions and succussions. Succussion is a vigorous shaking action. All homeopathic remedies
go through this process giving the substance a deeper curative effect.
The Amazing Dilution Path
When a substance is repeatedly diluted all toxicity is removed. This allows substances that would normally be unsafe to be used as healing medicine.
• For the first dilution - 100 drops of alcohol.
• For the second dilution - 10,000 drops, or about a pint.
• For the third dilution it would take 100 pints.
• For the fourth dilution it would take 10,000 pints, or more than 4,000 litres.
• For the ninth dilution, it would take more than 30 billion litres… the equivalent of a lake four kilometres in circumference.
• The twelfth dilution would fill a million such lakes.
Homeopathic remedies are not selected simply to treat an isolated symptom or a named disease. To work correctly, they must be chosen to “match the way an individual’s system expresses its unique response to the current stress and illness”. Even within the same diagnosis, different people respond to different remedies.
Homeopathic research has focused on two areas: 1) investigation of specific remedies called a “proving” and 2) attempts to determine whether the effects of homeopathy are significantly different from a placebo effect. The majority of evidence for specific remedies comes from “provings”. “Provings” involve the ingestion of substances by healthy individuals and the recording of their symptoms. The symptoms make up the substance’s “symptom picture”. The classical homeopath attempts to best match the patient’s symptoms with this remedy “symptom picture”.
A recent meta-analysis of double blind or randomized placebo controlled clinical trials in homeopathy concluded that there is evidence that the effects of homeopathy are not just due to the placebo effect.
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