Out on a limb cases we never would have gotten without the "new" homeopathic thinking - Healing with Homeopathy

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, May, 2002 by Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, Robert Ullman

As presented at the annual conference of the National Center for Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona on April 13, 2002 Audiotapes available through the National Center

What is New in Homeopathy?

Funny how things change. Several years ago we were being interviewed on a radio show by Gary Null. Never mind that he called Bob "Dana" (Dana Ullman is a homeopathic educator who has also written a number of books). Bob is used to being confused with Dana. So, Gary began, "Dana, tell me, what's new in homeopathy?" At that time, rather than sharing the new developments in homeopathic thinking and practice over the past five to ten years, we emphasized its consistency over the previous 200 years. Now, as irony has it, we are among those considered to be renegades or mavericks by some of our more conservative colleagues. We have been strongly influenced over the past decade by Rajan Sankaran, Divya Chhabra, Jan Scholten, and Massimo Mangialavori, all of whom are willing to tread where no homeopath has gone before.

New and old are, of course, relative. When we first began to study homeopathy in the late 70's, the most avant garde information was that of George Vithoulkas and his "essence prescribing." A wealth of new insights have been disseminated since that time which we have found invaluable in our practices. By no means does this evolution in understanding demean or minimize the wisdom of the homeopathic masters of the previous two centuries. To the contrary. In fact when we first went to Bombay to study with Rajan Sankaran in January, 1984, two of the most profound lessons were to return again and again to the original provings and source material in studying cases and to select precise rubrics from the literature.

But any science needs to develop, change, and grow with time. Such has been the case with classical homeopathy. Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the German genius who founded homeopathy, was the first to challenge the limited (he used the term "barbaric) medical thinking of his day -- to push the envelope of traditional medicine. So why should homeopaths today be any different? Why is it surprising that a number of those at the forefront of homeopathic teaching are also innovators with ideas that enrich, enhance, and possibly surpass, those that went before them? The so-called "new" thinking in homeopathic practice has allowed us to help many, many patients whom we don't feel we could have helped to the same degree previously.

The New Trends

What exactly are the innovations in homeopathic thinking today? Many of you who are relatively new to homeopathy may find it hard to imagine that any of us practiced without these insights. When we first started studying homeopathy there was no such thing as a homeopathic computer program. So, for us dinosaurs, the following concepts were learned in recent years.

1. New provings: We are talking primarily about carefully-conducted, supervised, single-blinded provings undertaken according to the methods of Jeremy Sherr. In fact many of the recent provings, both of new and previously proven remedies, are far more rigorous than those in the earlier homeopathic literature. Just a few of the newly proven remedies that we have prescribed successfully are Hydrogen, Chocolate, Lac deiphinum, Lao equinum, Lac felinum, and Polystyrenum.

2. An expanded understanding of the periodic table: We have effectively treated a large number of patients with remedies based originally on Jan Scholten's work on the minerals and elements and later elaborated on by Divya Chabbra. These are remedies that we would not have given before learning this material. They include Helium, Rubidium, Cobaltum nitricum, and Osmium. Another breakthrough in mineral remedies is synthetic prescribing. Whenever Phosphorus seems indicated, we now ask ourselves, "Is the best prescription Phosphorus or does another Phosphorus salt such as Baryta phosphorioum or Kali phosphoricum fit the case more precisely?" We have prescribed many mineral salts this way, which would have been infrequent in our practices ten to fifteen years ago.

3. The Kingdoms: The distinctions between the animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms have been extremely valuable to us. It is a misconception among those who have not applied the differentiation of the kingdoms to their practices, that this means prescribing zebra's milk because a patient comes into the office wearing a black and white striped dress. Such prescriptions need to be based on solid information from provings, if available. We do, by the way, have a patient who responded nicely to Lac equinum, then informed us that her true affinity was for zebras. In fact, she has zebra pictures displayed all over her walls and even on her body in the form of a tattoo. We have put Helios Pharmacy on notice that as soon as a proving is done on zebra's milk, we are waiting to prescribe it (no joke)!

4. An expanded understanding of the miasms: When we used to teach about the miasms to our students at the IFH (International Foundation for Homeopathy) Course, we felt somewhat at a loss until studying with Rajan. Sitting in one day with Dr. Ortega of Oaxaca, Mexico, one of the foremost experts on miasms worldwide, only served to further muddy the waters (or should we say "swamp" since that is one of the definitions of miasm). Sankaran's clear descriptions of the already recognized miasms in addition to those added, such as the cancer, ringworm, malarial, typhoid, and leprosy miasms, made them much more accessible and practically applicable in our cases and teaching.