The Homeopathic Medicine
The remedies are non-toxic and although very gentle, they have a profound effect on the organism. There is a lot of controversy around homeopathic remedies, how they work, their preparation and the source they have been extracted from.
Homeopathic remedies work on the principle of Likes Cures Like. Rather than going against the symptoms and the expressions of the body, homeopathy recognises the disease state and takes us through it with the help of the remedy.
If we are to imagine the dis-eased state as the mistuned song of the person and the symptoms the unpleasant noise this mis-attunement creates; rather than singing the healthy human song, the patient is ‘out of sorts’, disconnected from the ease. What the homeopathic remedy does is to encourage the organism to tune back in and bring back the ease, a healthy state of creativity and freedom to be ourselves.
Simply put, the homeopathic remedy resonates with the ailment of the patients and like already mentioned, rather than going against and ‘anti-state’, the remedy goes with it and helps it shift.
For example, if a patient suffers from loss of sleep, is tossing about with anguish, and has an excited and active mind, the homeopathic remedy Coffea might help ameliorate the symptoms which very much remind us of a state of mind provoked from an over indulgence on coffee.
Likewise, if a child is presenting the following symptoms, red and hot, fever, diluted pupils, some anger or rage, a homeopathic belladonna is prescribed, to meet that state. For that state is no less similar to the state of belladonna poisoning, and the presenting symptoms are pretty much the symptoms one would get if poisoned.
However, taking crude belladonna is very dangerous and poisonous, and that takes us to the next point, the preparation of the homeopathic medicine.
When the founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) came across a cure of malaria with the Peruvian bark (Cinchona), he became curious as to what exactly caused this cure and decided to experiment with it. He took the bark himself in a healthy state. He was amazed to notice that he produced the exact symptoms of malaria. Therefore, he came to the conclusion that, the substance that produces the symptoms has the power to cure them.
Soon after he was faced with the problem of dosage. If given in crude form, he noticed, the medicine caused unwanted and very much unpleasant side effects.
Hahnemann then began diluting the remedies and vigorously shaking up the dilution in between each stage. He did this to the point where nothing material or traceable in crude form, from the source he was preparing the remedy from, was left behind. What he was left with was the dynamic energy and essence of the substance and of course, its curative effects.
To this day, as it was then, some 300 years ago, that is how the curative properties of a remedy are discovered. Healthy and willing people take the remedies until they produce symptoms and reveal the effects of the homeopathic medicine.
The remedies are then prepared, extracting the dynamic essence by vigorous shakes and multiple dilutions.