Transformational homeopathy

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, April, 2007 by Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, Robert Ullman

Transformational homeopathy is the application of homeopathic medicine not just to cure physical disease, or even emotional or mental disease, but to allow the person to use his or her natural state of health as a base for spiritual transformation. Illness, in all its varied manifestations often distracts us from what Samuel Hahnemann in his Organon of Medicine called "the higher purposes of our existence."

In the Organon, Hahnemann said, "... In the healthy human state, the spirit-like life force that enlivens the material organism ... governs without restriction and keeps all parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation, as regards both feelings and functions, so that our indwelling, rational spirit can freely avail itself of this living, healthy instrument for the higher purposes of our existence." Homeopathy was Hahnemann's method of tuning the life force for the removal of disease and the restoration of optimal functioning.

When our body, mind, and emotions are not functioning properly, we become preoccupied with finding relief from our illness and lose sight of the more transcendent goals of human life. While homeopathy may not be able to completely provide us with spiritual illumination or enlightenment per se, it can certainly substantially free us from our preoccupation with disease and dysfunction and help clear the way for freedom from suffering on all levels.

That is not to say that disease and suffering are not useful goads to spiritual progress, providing motivation to seek an end to the pain, suffering, and unhappiness that are often the constant companions of those who are ill. Many people have used illness and the prospect of death as important opportunities to get serious about spirituality. Disease definitely has its downsides, though, and being sick can surely make it difficult to focus on much more than the incessant whining and complaining of the body, mind, and emotions seeking relief. It is difficult to meditate, pray, or engage in other spiritual practices when the mind and body are not cooperating with one's good intentions. As Hahnemann suggests, wouldn't it be better to have a fully functioning body and mind as a base for achieving one's ultimate purpose in life?

That purpose, though it varies with each individual and is fundamentally ineffable, is often summarized using words and concepts such as knowing oneself or finding peace, happiness, fulfillment, self-realization, union, enlightenment, and oneness with God and/or the universe. Though such words are usually spoken more in the context of religion and mysticism than in homeopathy, homeopathy can be a door through which these states may be more easily realized in one's life.

What can homeopathy do to set the stage for peace, happiness, and enlightenment? When homeopathy works well, the results are nothing short of remarkable in a wide range of both acute and chronic diseases. It can bring harmony and balance to body, mind, emotions, and spirit, curing disease and dysfunction and disability in the process, as well as substantially freeing one from pain and suffering on many levels. That claim may seem overblown, but when homeopathy is applied at the highest levels of its art and science, with the correct medicine, proper dosing, and adequate time for healing, that is most often the result. Homeopathy does have its limits, though, and even with the best efforts of well-trained homeopaths, it cannot cure everything or help in every case.

When it comes to spiritual growth, realization, and enlightenment, homeopathy can remove many of the physical, mental, and emotional blocks to spiritual progress. As a result of our life experience, attitudes, beliefs, traumas, diseases, pain, and suffering, we all have limitations from which we would like to be free. These limitations form what in homeopathy we call the "state" of mind and body that is composed of sensations, mental and emotional patterns, and physical pathology.

Homeopaths use observation and the verbal report of the patient during an extensive interview to determine the state and its pattern of symptoms. This interview, or case-taking, leads to an analysis of the case, often with some additional study of the symptoms and possible homeopathic medicines that match them. The analysis yields a prescription for the constitutional homeopathic remedy that is designed to treat the whole person, inside and out, top to bottom.

By treating a person to enhance spiritual progress, the question arises: what are we indeed trying to cure, eliminate, or change? In homeopathic theory, patients are considered to have acquired a state that mimics the toxicity of a specific substances in nature, such as gold, table salt, the Tarantula spider, dog's milk, cuttlefish, club moss spores, deadly nightshade, or the windflower. When they receive a dilution of the natural substance that matches their illness, healing occurs, by the principle of the Law of Similars, or "like cures like," over a period of time ranging from hours to years. In the many homeopathic cases we have treated and reported in these pages, we have seen patients make substantial changes in and restoration of their lives, health, and happiness after taking homeopathic medicines. Patients often say, "I feel like myself again," as though they have been returned to an earlier state in which they had experienced a higher level of health, balance, youthfulness, and vitality from which they had seemingly strayed. These homeopathic patients experience a profound sense of reintegration and restoration of the wholeness of body, mind, emotions, and spirit. This is the base from which they may proceed to greater levels of transcendence.