About Homeopathy
Homeopathy is a way of looking at individual people - of understanding their stresses and strains in life and how they react to them, thus enabling them to increase their well being and become more at one with themselves and the outside world.
It does not reject the wonders of modern medical science. It does recognise that different approaches to health work for different people and different conditions. There is a choice ; not necessarily an "either/or", sometimes an "and".
"Homeo" is Greek and translates as "like". Homeopathy is the medical practice of treating like with like.
Historical Context
The principle of treating like with like was known to Hippocrates (460BC - 370 BC) and Paracelsus (1493 - 1541), but much is credited to Samuel Hahnemann (1755 - 1843), as the "founder" of homeopathy.
Hahnemann was motivated by dissatisfaction with the harm often caused by the orthodox medical practices of his time. He believed that human beings have a capacity to heal themselves and that the physician's aim was to discover the cause of disease and stimulate the individual's healing vital force to achieve a rapid, gentle and permanent restoration of health.
Health
The World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".
Our state of health is dynamic - we have a constant need to adapt to the changing environment around us to maintain a healthy condition. This adaptation is the role of our vital force.
The vital force
The vital force is the invisible but dynamic energy that animates the human body. Without it, the body would be dead.
In a state of health, it keeps every part of us, including feelings as well as functions, in harmony.
In a state of disease, it is "mistuned" and makes this known through symptoms of disease in feelings and/or functions.
To restore health and harmony, curative medicine must also have a dynamic action on the vital force - this is the role of homeopathic medicine.
Treating like with like
In a state of disease, the vital force has failed to adapt appropriately to changes in our physical or emotional environment - it is "mistuned" and symptoms have arisen as a result.
The aim of homeopathic medicine is to restore the adaptability of the vital force, thus removing the symptoms of disease.
This is achieved by giving a dynamic medicine that can produce an artificial disease state most similar to (but not the same as), and slightly stronger than the natural disease.
This artificial disease, being stronger than the natural disease, extinguishes it. The artificial disease has a short duration and is soon extinguished by the vital force, restoring a state of health.
Proving homeopathic remedies
Homeopathic medicines are therefore artificial dynamic diseases, similar to the natural diseases they seek to cure.
To understand and observe the symptoms of these artificial diseases, homeopathic medicine is taken by healthy people. Through close observation of changes in their feelings and functions, the symptoms of the artificial disease are ascertained. This process is called a "proving" and usually takes place with a group of "provers" taking the homeopathic medicine over a period of time.
Once the symptoms of the artificial disease are known, they can be compared with the symptoms of individual cases of natural disease to treat like with like.