Positive Health Online

Einstein concluded that the idea of separateness is but an illusion; we are all one thing in this universe. Somehow our job is to widen our circle of compassion until it surrounds everything in the universe.

As alternative practitioners, we need to reach for our potential within all aspects of life, not only as people but also as healers. We need to expand our belief systems and practices, so that it incorporates as wide and diverse a range of prescribing skills as possible to safely meet our patients' needs.

I am sometimes asked if I am a classical homeopath. This question, or rather my answer, has evolved as I have. Initially my answer was yes, later no, and now I am comfortable with yes and no. I still practise classical homeopathy, but certainly not exclusively so. I practise classically when it is appropriate to do so. What I am discussing in this article is what I do when I don't prescribe classically.

One definition of health is the ability to adapt. A healthy practitioner likewise has the ability to adapt the prescribing technique to the patient.

To prescribe non-classically does not mean non-holistically. For example, does a good, accurate prescription of nat-mur or pulsatilla make a thirstless person drink? Instinct and experience tell me not. If a person is chronically dehydrated and presents with headaches and constipation, a remedy may well not reach its potential in its curative action without looking at basic hydration and/or nutrition issues. We have to drink more water, and some people have to learn to drink water. Compared with even 50 years ago, our intake of salt has now increased dramatically. To ignore this and believe a remedy covering the case will cure the headache and constipation manifesting from a chronically dehydrated, crisp-munching, processed food-eating patient somehow misses the point.

We can only describe ourselves in terms of the language we have been given. This is also true of homeopathy. With over 33 known factors that significantly contribute to cancer we are far more polluted, medicated, toxic, travelled and psychologically complex than we were 200 years ago (the time credited with the arrival of homeopathy in Europe). Homeopathy must take this into consideration as it emerges as a 21st century medical system. New developments in quantum physics and biology give homeopathy greater language in which to describe itself. Quantum theory carries with it some important consideration for medicine and biology. For example, in a book called The Memory of Water by Michel Schiff, he describes how Jacques Benveniste performed experiments demonstrating the ability of water to retain the memory of the molecules it once contained. Solutions of antibodies were diluted until no molecular structure of the antibody was present, yet they still produced a response from immune cells. This has important effects on the laws of biochemistry and further validates homeopathy. (See also Issue 49, page 27)

Similarly, in Vibrational Medicine, Dr Gerber states that homeopathic energy theory suggests that humans are somewhat like the electrons of an atom. Electrons within an atom occupy energy shells known as orbitals. Each orbital possesses certain frequency and energetic characteristics depending on the type of atom. In order to excite or move an electron into the next orbital, one needs to deliver to it energy of specific frequencies. Homoeopathy and acupuncture use the diverse frequency spectrum of nature to discharge the toxicity of illness, and allow equilibrium to be restored.

One device that I frequently use is a bioresonance medical system. Information is taken from the patient by measuring electrophysiological reactivity to literally thousands of substances including homeopathic remedies, acupuncture meridians, herbs, organ function, allopathic and recreational drugs, gem and flower remedies, nutritional deficiencies or excesses, infections, parasites, hydration and oxygenation levels, craniosacral points and many other health determining issues. The more information available from your patient, the greater an holistic picture emerges.

I will once again reiterate my belief that to prescribe non-classically does not mean non-holistically.

Medico-scientific research has for too long been dominated by Newtonian reductionist thought models. It is an inward-looking perspective that lends itself more to crisis than prevention. All alternative practitioners are aware of the limitations of this model of medicine; however I would also urge those who use homoeopathy to pay heed to this reductionist model as we scan through our remedies, and not to reduce our patients necessarily to one remedy type that fits most of the presenting symptoms. Otherwise we ourselves may run the risk of applying that same reductionist model to our patients.

To be effective, we practitioners require a constant evaluation of ourselves as practitioners and as human beings, to look beyond our remedy kits and to start looking at our relationship with all of life.

Further Reading

Dr Richard Gerber. Vibrational Medicine. Bear & Co. 1988.
Michel Schiff. The Memory Of Water. Thorsons. 1997.
Dr Sandra Cabot. The Liver Cleansing Diet. SBC International. 1999. (available from Positive Health: see pages 52-55.)