Contents
Empirical science, based on paradoxical, sometimes counterintuitive principles, is one of the attempts to bring together the symptoms of the body and the soul and find a common remedy for their cure.
Small sugar balls, which for most of us embody the essence of homeopathic treatment, cause nothing but skepticism in many of the uninitiated. However, the results of their action fit well into the framework of a natural-science experiment: they are registered and reproducible, although they are still inexplicable from the point of view of science. Because modern science is only coming to an understanding of what homeopathy has always used in practice – to the perception of a person as a whole without trying to treat organs and their systems separately.
Alternative approach
“Unfortunately, our orthodox medicine detects a disease only when the phase of its development has reached tissue destruction,” explains the homeopathic doctor. Elena Tarayan. – Hence the specialization of doctors, each of which is responsible only for his part of the body. When treating an organ, and not the organism as a whole, there is a local suppression of the manifestations of the disease, while the disease itself begins to seek a way out in another organ. And it is almost impossible to get rid of this process going on at the molecular level, even by removing the organ itself.” Homeopathy offers a different approach. “Classical homeopathy treats a person as a whole, it does not and cannot have specializations,” continues the head of the Department of Classical Homeopathy of the Moscow Homeopathic Center Vera Morozova. – Classical homeopathy combines the symptoms of various diseases into a common picture. And this picture necessarily includes the psychological characteristics of the patient. In conventional medicine, only a few diseases are considered psychosomatic, that is, associated with the psyche. In homeopathy, only injuries are an exception!” In other words, not only asthma, ulcers and hypertension, but even a predisposition to certain infectious diseases is associated with the type of mental reactions of a person.
What does water remember?
The author of the “memory of water” theory is the French immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste (1935–2004), who published this hypothesis and the results of his research in 1988. The scientist tried to explain why extremely weak solutions of biological substances continue to initiate the same mechanisms of action as the substances themselves. However, Benveniste’s group was unable to repeat the experiment in the presence of representatives from the journal Nature. Today, there are many foreign and Russian theoretical models that try to bring the base under the action of ultra-low doses. In Russia, research on this topic is being conducted, in particular, at the Institute of Biochemical Physics. Emanuel. Academician Elena Burlakova, deputy director of this institute, describing the effect of ultra-low doses of biologically active substances and physical factors*, summarizes: “There are many models whose authors try to explain the reaction of biological objects to ultra-low doses of biologically active substances through the structural properties of water. However, the experimental evidence of these models is clearly insufficient, and, most importantly, there are no experimental data that would indicate the long-term existence of structural clusters. At the same time, it must be admitted that many paradoxes of ultra-low doses are quite logically resolved on the basis of ideas about changing the structure of water.
*Chemical Physics, 2003, Vol. 22, No. 2.
“Homeopathy has come to understand this in a purely empirical way,” explains the psychologist. Irina Shuvalova. – This is the only area of medicine in which people are immediately involved in drug trials. Because of this, the results of drug studies include both reports of bodily symptoms and psycho-emotional reactions. In fairness, it should be noted that, having established the connection between psychological portraits and bodily symptoms, homeopathy cannot answer the question of how this connection is carried out. Such subtle interactions are still a “black box” for science.
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In the image and likeness
Homeopathic method of treatment was discovered by a German doctor Samuel Hahnemann about 200 years ago. The main principle of homeopathy, which gave its name to the whole method, is the principle of the similarity of the action of medicine and suffering (Greek homoion pathos). While translating Cullen’s Medicine Science, Hahnemann noticed that the symptoms of poisoning with cinchona, which was used to treat malaria, coincided with the clinical picture of malaria itself. The fact itself is surprising: from the point of view of common sense, a symptom should be treated with a drug that relieves this symptom, and in this case the drug itself causes similar symptoms. Hahnemann decided to verify the phenomenon described by Cullen and undertook a series of experiments on himself to study the effects of various substances, including quinine. The principle of similarity turned out to be really effective. The finest hour of the homeopathic method was the application of it by Hahnemann and his students during the cholera epidemic in 1831. In the absence of antibiotics at that time, they managed to save the lives of many patients and not get sick themselves, working in the foci of the epidemic. Hahnemann certainly had an extraordinary gift for observing and drawing conclusions. Based solely on his own experience, he formulated the basic principles of homeopathy. Despite the fact that they were contrary to common sense and the ordinary consciousness of a doctor, homeopathy has gained authority throughout the world.
Aiming for zero
Another paradoxical principle underlies the manufacture of homeopathic medicines. The active substance is diluted in a very large amount of distilled water and shaken for a long time. For example, 1 gram of the active ingredient is diluted in 100 grams of water, then 1 gram of this solution is taken and diluted in another 100 grams of water, etc. If you repeat this operation 200 times, you get a homeopathic remedy of two hundred dilution. Moreover, the higher the degree of dilution, the stronger the effect of the drug. It is difficult for science to explain this fact. In the high dilutions used by classical homeopathy, the molecules of the active substance are practically absent. The most popular hypothesis today explaining the action of homeopathic medicines is the so-called memory of water. According to this hypothesis, water molecules, in contact with molecules of the active substance, undergo structural changes. As a result, the solution acquires medicinal properties, while the substance of the active substance itself practically does not enter the body. Thanks to this, homeopathic medicines can be made on the basis of any poisons.
The widespread opinion that homeopathy is herbal treatment is nothing more than a myth: it uses not only substances of plant and animal origin, but also almost all elements of the periodic table, including mercury and arsenic, their compounds and, finally, diseased human tissues. However, their extremely high dilutions completely exclude any destructive effect on the body. This solution is soaked in sugar balls, which are the most common form of homeopathic medicine.
Four types of mental constitution
From them and their combinations, the whole variety of human characters is formed – about three thousand variations are described in homeopathic reference books. To describe these basic psychotypes, the Indian homeopath Rajan Shankaran* came up with an allegory: “Imagine: you are driving a car along a desert mountain road. Suddenly, an explosion is heard, and the car begins to wobble. You stop her and immediately get out. You have a strong heartbeat, you are very frightened, you break out in sweat. But soon you see: it’s just a burst camera. Your fear disappears when you realize that nothing threatens you. You realize that all you need to do is change the wheel, and you set about it, wondering if you can handle it. After some effort, you feel unable to do so and light up, determined to wait for help. Finally you lose all hope; you know that you will not wait for anyone, there will be no help, and you yourself will not be able to cope. In a rage, you kick the car and lie down on the ground in complete apathy. Four types of reaction to the situation pass before us: first panic, then struggle, then a feeling of powerlessness and relying on outside help, and finally, complete despair. It is on these types of reaction that the psychological classification in homeopathy is based.
* R. Shankaran “The Substance of Homeopathy”. Similia, 1999.
Diagnosis of the soul
One of the most significant discoveries of Hahnemann, which laid the foundation for homeopathic diagnosis and treatment, was the correlation between the mental constitution of a person and the diseases to which he is subject. “While observing the action of homeopathic remedies, Hahnemann discovered that people of different psychological backgrounds react differently to medicines,” says psychologist Irina Shuvalova. “He discovered some connection between the bodily manifestations of diseases and character traits. Using exclusively empirical data and his own intuition, Hahnemann compiled a classification of human psychotypes, their corresponding diseases and recommended homeopathic remedies. For example, he noticed that one psychotype is characterized by tissue proliferation (from adenoids and warts to benign tumors) – these are, as a rule, people with low self-esteem, prone to self-abasement, a sense of their own imperfection, which they seek to hide at any cost. For another psychotype, tissue destruction is more likely – these people are distinguished by a high level of conscious or unconscious aggression.
Based on trust
In order to make a psychological portrait of the patient as accurately as possible, the homeopathic doctor asks many questions about relationships and constantly present subjective sensations of a person, called “delusions” in homeopathy. For example: “It always seems to me that I am not smart enough”, “… that my husband will leave me”, “… that there are only enemies around”. The patient must be prepared for strange questions and for frank answers concerning deeply personal experiences – trust is indispensable here. “In homeopathy, we always move together,” Vera Morozova tells her patients. – The patient during the treatment is forced to learn to track their emotional states and their changes. He will have to give up drinking coffee, chocolate, strong alcoholic beverages. In addition, each patient must be prepared to survive an exacerbation. The mechanism of an acute condition was invented by nature to increase the body’s resistance. If you are sick, for example, with the flu, you are not surprised that in the process of recovery, the temperature rises and the body goes through a crisis. It is also normal to experience an exacerbation on the path to recovery for any disease. The homeopathic remedy triggers this internal natural mechanism of recovery.”
“A homeopathic medicine acts not only on the bodily, but also on the psycho-emotional component,” adds Elena Tarayan. – However, each person has his own stereotypes of behavior. If he is unable to change his perception of the outside world, then with his usual reactions he will again and again return the internal blocks, and with them the disease! Therefore, some patients are advised to work with a psychotherapist along with homeopathic treatment. Our experience of joint management of patients with a psychologist has shown the high efficiency of such a scheme.”
“The reverse is also true,” says Irina Shuvalova. – Clients of a psychotherapist can go through therapy more easily if they follow homeopathic prescriptions every one and a half to two months. How it works? Suppose a therapist and a patient are working through a traumatic situation. During therapy, the patient learns to cope with his anxiety, realizing its origins. But the human body is inert, and if this situation repeats, bodily sensations and reactions will be the same. A properly selected homeopathic remedy helps to cope with these reactions and fix the results of psychotherapy at the level of the body.”
About it
- Katherine R. Coulter. Portraits of homeopathic medicines. Psychosomatic analysis of selected constitutional types. Homeopathic medicine, 2004.
- Philip Bailey. Homeopathic psychology. Personality profiles of the main constitutional remedies. Homeopathic Medicine, 2003.