Homeopathy Explained

Homeopathy is not an easy concept to explain in a few words. The phrase Homoeopaths use is “Simila similibus curentur” or “like cures like”.

When a person becomes unwell, the symptoms they produce are the sign of the person’s own energy or vitality trying to deal with the disease or restore equilibrium. We attempt to work with this natural defensive mechanism by prescribing a medicine, which is capable of producing the same kind of symptoms in a healthy person.

This may seem to be a strange idea but the concept behind it is that by slightly stimulating or exaggerating the symptoms that the person’s defences have produced, it will encourage the defence mechanism to react more strongly against the problem. In some respects, this is like a vaccine in as much as it is triggering the body’s own defence mechanism. However, with a vaccine the substance that caused the disease is used, whereas with Homeopathy any substance that can produce the same kind of symptoms in a healthy person is used. Thus, a Homeopathic medicine is perhaps best described as a catalyst. It does not act directly on the body as a drug or herb might do but stimulates the person’s ability to heal themselves.

The medicines are largely drawn from nature, many of them are plants but they can also be minerals, metals etc. Before a medicine can be used as a Homeopathic prescription we carry out what is known as a “proving”. This involves testing the medicine on healthy individuals to see what kind of symptoms it will produce in them. This information is then statistically analysed and becomes the basis for prescribing the particular substance. For example; if the medicine being tested produces a particular type of headache, anxiety or joint pains these are the type of complaints that this medicine can be used to treat.

The medicine is also has different potencies which means that the medicine is diluted often hundreds or even thousands of times and each time it is diluted it is also “succused” or “shaken up”. This results in there only being an infinitesimal amount of the original substance in the medicine, which the patient takes. This the part of Homeopathy people find most difficult to grasp. Particularly that the substance is so dilute and yet it apparently becomes more powerful. However, it is important to remember that the medicine is only acting as a trigger or stimulus for the persons own energy it is not acting in a chemical sense as a drug would do. The medicine is influencing the person’s energy on a very subtle level this will in turn effect the person’s symptoms. The process of potentising the medicine, while making it more dilute, is in fact increasing its energy content. The energy field or pattern of the substance is then being used to influence the person’s energy.

On a practical level, the extreme dilution of the medicine means there is no possibility of toxicity from the medicines. It is also very safe because if there is no similarity between the patients symptoms and the symptoms the medicine can produce in a healthy person there is no reaction. There are approximately three and a half thousand medicines currently in use.

The Homeopaths’ role is to find the correct medicine for the person they are treating. It is a holistic therapy. Which means it looks at the patients in total. Mental, emotional and physical characteristics are analysed in order to find the prescription. This is a key thing to understand. The medicine has to suit the patient as an individual rather than their complaint. This is essentially how Homeopathy works.