“This is much too deep for me.”
Leo Rosten: An epitaph he wrote for his tombstone
The concepts at the heart and soul of homeopathy are not grounded in science, or, at least not the science we know. Nevertheless, effective practice of homeopathy is impossible without a thorough understanding of them. With the help of this philosophy, a practitioner can properly evaluate a case, find the remedy, and know how not to be distracted. It is the result of two hundred years of thought and combines elements of religious philosophy with practical observation.
We start with the concept of Vital Force. It is probably that something whose edges we can photograph with the Kirlian process. It animates our physical body (hence, it is called animus in Latin). The Chinese call it Chi. It controls all of the body’s natural processes and preserves balance. When it becomes inactive, we die.
In homeopathic philosophy, the Vital Force is seen as elemental and indivisible, which means it reacts as a whole to any irritant. If an irritant is strong enough, it can produce a stable derangement of the Vital Force, which we call disease. Because the Vital Force is elemental, it can sustain only one kind of derangement (disease) at a time. Such a derangement may somehow dull the ability of the Vital Force to recognize what’s wrong and that, in turn, causes a chronic illness. Although the Vital Force may have the power to throw off such an illness, it may fail to do so because it lacks perception of the problem. Vital Force is essential to our being, so when it is not well, we feel the symptoms on all levels.
Homeopathic remedies directly affect the Vital Force. Because the Vital Force perceives a homeopathic remedy as a disease producing irritant, and because the irritant is strong enough, it stirs the Vital Force into action to repel it. If the disease state produced by the remedy is similar to the disease we’re trying to treat, the Vital Force recognizes the similarity and, in repelling the remedy irritant, it also repels the disease. In effect, we give the Vital Force a glimpse of itself in a mirror. Because only one disease can be active within the Vital Force at any given time, only one remedy is necessary to cure it.
Even patients who appear to have several diseases such as asthma, gastritis, headaches, rash and depression need only one remedy. All of these “diseases” are but symptoms of one central disturbance existing within the Vital Force.
In The Spirit of Homeopathy, Dr. Rajan Sankaran explains this with a metaphor of a pole that has several vines growing and wrapping around it. Even though we may not be able to see the pole itself, we know it is there because without it, the vines would fall to the ground. We can remove one vine, then another and yet another, until we think we’ve removed them all, but they’ll grow right back and will continue to grow back as long as the pole remains in place to support them.
Here the pole represents the central disturbance within the Vital Force, and the vines represent our “diseases.” By observing the shape of the vines on the pole (the minute individual characteristics of the patient’s symptoms), we can ascertain the shape of the pole itself (the general characteristics of the inner disturbance). We then find a remedy that causes a similar derangement in a healthy person. This remedy is administered in homeopathic form and triggers the Vital Force into action. The Vital Force then removes the disturbance (the pole), and all the individual “diseases” get cured.
For those of you who are scientifically minded, I like the analogy using Einsteinian physics. Einstein came up with a theory explaining the time disturbances that would happen during near light speed travel long before such travel could take place. Using this analogy, homeopathy is like near light speed travel, already happening. We can observe the effects but can’t explain them. We now need another Einstein to come up with the explanation. Of course, if such an explanation were to materialize, it would radically change our understanding of the universe and the newly evolved science would be to present day science as Einsteinian physics was to Newtonian physics of yesteryear.