Words: Dr Misha NORLAND
Empirically-based research is relied upon as being the soundest scientific method for testing out theories and for distinguishing between conjecture and reality. In the case of demonstrating homeopathy’s efficacy, this is upheld as the gold standard, and it does reveal both the ‘like cures like’ principle and the potentised dose’s effectiveness.
In the case of statistically-based analysis of chronic conditions, in order to be a fair trial, it must be founded upon two prerequisites. The first is that the patient’s reactivity should not be unduly suppressed. The second is that a match between the homeopathic remedy and disease should be established; it should comprise of idiosyncratic elements that are relevant to both the patient’s vital sensation and the vital signature of the source material. These provisos point against routine prescribing methodologies.
A Question In Point
Much of current research has been simplified to basic uses of homeopathy that fall short of these preconditions and, therefore, cannot demonstrate its full effectiveness. For instance, arthritis treated with placebo [dummy pill] vs Rhus toxicodendron in a clinical trial will not deliver results much above the statistical average. While in the treatment of acute conditions, such as the Leptospirosis epidemic in Cuba in 2007, homeopathy, utilising the potentised dose, proved to be a legend and provided the largest mass demonstration of its success to date. The researchers concluded that the treatment was “strongly associated with a drastic reduction of disease incidence resulting in complete control of the epidemic.” But, to do this, both implementation by medical agencies and government funding is required. Not our state of affairs in Britain.
One of the ways to overcome the reluctance of the public to give homeopathy a chance is to practice it so effectively that it consistently delivers outstanding results. Then the recipient, despite a lack of technical understanding, will pass on a recommendation. Who actually cares whether the memory of water accounts for it, or whether it is a wave phenomenon, or is due to angelic influence? As we know, 10M potencies are capable of producing results that may be profound and of long duration, if they are similimum prescriptions, even though, and perhaps because, they are an awful lot of no-thing. The safest plan may be to give up the struggle of trying to find a plausible mechanism, but rather to admit to the fact that we do not know how the influence of the similimum gets from the pill to the patient. Or, to borrow a simile out of ever-day experience, how the gravity of the planet influences the apple causing it to fall rather than levitate. Well, even though this may be the safest plan, it leaves us with unanswered questions. How does the potentised remedy get into the bottle, let alone leave it?
Medium Of Tranfer
I like to think of the transfer being like receiving a long-awaited love letter. When you are in need of an assurance of love [susceptible to the influence of love] you are ready to be bowled over by it. The letter contains words on paper, as does any correspondence, but what is of importance is the specific information that love is being offered. While some may think of the medium of transfer as energy, with which I have no quarrel, I prefer the analogy of the transfer of information. That this letter informs that John loves Jane.
In this analogy, as in the patient-practitioner relationship, all elements are there for communication to occur: there is a receiver, a sender and the information that is being conveyed. We could hypothesise that the homeopathic information [like the love in the letter] is the modulator of an energy field that extends beyond the pharmacy, the pill, or, indeed, the thoughts of the practitioner.
We are not able to measure this field because [unlike the paper upon which the message is written] it has nothing tangible to show for itself, it cannot make a device move, or an instrument record an impulse, but it can and does profoundly influence susceptible living beings. In a sense, it behaves in a similar way to gravity, it exerts influence over great distances. Or, might it propagate like vibrating waves of electromagnetic radiation modulated by sound as in a radio transmitter, or as digital messages by light?
The Field. The Code
Okay, we have the idea that there are two elements to it. The first is the field, while the second is the information that is encoded within. What is this vital field? It certainly appears to be both ubiquitous in living organisms and instantaneous in its transmission. It carries the term ‘telepathy,’ meaning sensitivity and suffering apprehended at a distance. Telepathy refers to the phenomenon of two, or more, individuals sharing experiences. Laboratory experiments attempting to validate this have consistently failed. Like many, I have asked myself ‘why’ a thousand times.
I guess that this faculty in living organisms fulfils survival needs. It is most obviously observable in shoaling fish and birds where huge numbers of individuals behave as one when they are enchained in common patterns of movement. Explanations for this behaviour are that shoaling herring, for instance, feed much more effectively this way, while flocking starlings confound predators. True, or false, both species give spectacular demonstrations of individuals operating within a co-ordinating field that is not yet understood by science.
When it comes to recreating a telepathy effect in the lab, the experiment goes awry. Perhaps, this is related to lack of interest, or boredom. There is no survival imperative attached to carrying out a test for telepathy. I believe, telepathy occurs automatically where there is need and urgency, such as the need of the patient for their cure. This allows the patient to open-up to receiving the influence of the remedy. A phenomenon often noted by practitioners, is that healing commences before the pill is delivered and has landed on the floor on the inside of the letter-box.
My family [father born in 1895] were believers in the scientific method. It stood in the place of a priori belief systems. My two aunts, who lived under the same roof, were chemists. I followed the trend, was fascinated by and studied science subjects, and began my professional life in laboratories in biochemical research with the MRC annexed to Hammersmith Hospital. But, my love affair with medical research was short lived because I smelt a rat.
The simile is apt, rats being the primary animals upon which experiments are performed. The scientific debate did not concern ethics, or the moral implications of the quasi-religious rituals of shedding blood, rather it centred upon the validity of carrying out experiments with parts, cell fragments in vitro, and then extrapolating that the results would hold true in vivo.
This leap was one of faith, for sure, confirming that experimental medical science is apt to be an approximation.
Beyond Telepathy
With this in mind, let me turn back to the experiments with telepathy. In trials, such as that involving pattern recognition between telepathists, I hold that excitement and focus wears thin as boredom sets in. How many times can you stare into space looking for a shape to appear, and then draw it, without succumbing to fatigue? Or, perhaps even more tiring, spend sessions attempting to telepathise the hidden pictogram of Zenner cards?
This style of testing using inappropriate methodology is a waste of time. It is as awkward, it seems to me, as the efforts to place the chemistry of in vitro experiments within the in vivo context.
With regard to living things, it has been long postulated that there are levels of being within a totality, sometimes referred to as a hierarchy of consciousness.
- Spirit — wave effects without matter, outside of time
- Vital level — mental, emotional/astral, etheric
- Material — chemical organisation of molecules, atoms, particles bound in time.
It is within the middle, vital level of this organisation that we find what is specific to living things. Above us are angels, below us the earth. Living organisms interact with both, bridging them. In current Western science, the vital level is considered to be a mythical realm belonging to a pre-scientific worldview, as indeed are angels. But, it is within the vital level and also within the level of spirit and wave that we should look if we wish to understand potency.
What is the relationship between telepathy and potency? Is one the carrier for the other? Could the telepathy effect be a wave phenomenon that is modulated by the information provided by the remedy? In setting up an experiment to ascertain this, it would be great to replicate a context that carries the vital charge of survival. A situation, where danger drives the excitement in the experiment. Nothing cool and collected, though. The closer we model an acute situation the better; a situation resembling the Leptospirosis epidemic in Cuba. But, I am getting carried away, for clearly that would be impossible. What I am advocating though is that the experiment should call the survival instinct of the experimenters into play.
We have noticed that telepathy accounts for some, if not all, of the experiences we encounter when we carry out annual ‘provings’ in our School of Homeopathy’s third year classroom, namely that those who opt out of the proving get drawn in, providing their susceptibility is open to it. In the proving experiment the right conditions are certainly met, in that the influencing substance is proffered [without being identified] in an atmosphere that is highly charged with expectation. A field is generated that draws people in whether they wish it to be so, or not. Our careful record keeping provides an annual account of it.
I find it unreasonable that humans believe themselves to be in control of their subconscious activity. We are not, and we are susceptible to telepathic influences that permeate though the psychic field.
A moment for definitions. Telepathy, as I use the term, describes non-verbal, non-signalled communication between individuals that may, or may not, have affinity. However, in the case of there being no affinity, the effect of telepathy will not have a context and will, therefore, pass unnoticed.
Between individuals, or groups, sharing an affinity it may easily be recognised. Psyche, on the other hand, is a function of life itself and its animator. It refers to the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious. The concept is the same as the vital force that Dr Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopath, refers to in paragraph # 9 of the Organon, as “that which rules with unbounded sway.”
Dr Hahnemann’s Foresight
The specific methodology of pharmacy developed by Dr Hahnemann is a means of creating the right conditions for a psychic, or vital, transformation to occur. The source substance provides the information, the message that the pill shall deliver. When the pill is taken it is obviously not anything material that is received. I suggest that the succussion and dilution methodology provides the ritual, whereby the information is carried into the water, lactose, or sucrose in the bottle.
The more processes the pharmacist subjects the potencies to, the more powerfully it is impressed. This is because the psychic action field is involved at each stage of the process. The Malcom Rae potentiser, rates, name on paper are all ways of remedy making that do not employ mechanical processes; they do not mechanically manipulate substance. They certainly do not require a hypothesis, such as the memory of water to explain their activity. Remedies produced in this manner have been demonstrated to act in exactly the same way as those made according to Dr Hahnemann’s instruction. Hundreds of thousands of cases attest to this. It may be disturbing to witness and acknowledge, and necessitate that we revise basic precepts about the nature of influence. Indeed, it is probably easier for some to deny the evidence.
To one who had never seen, and did not know how a mobile phone worked, it would certainly appear to be under the influence of magic. According to definition, magic is the manipulation of events by unseen powers, and this is exactly what we are describing, and, indeed, doing here. No wonder we are hauled over the coals because of it.
I will end with a plea to get the research right, and not to try to prove the wrong aspects of an invisible process. Evidence-based medicine is the right part, it seems to me, while telepathy and potency are decidedly dodgy parts. However, proving experiences [another dodgy part] do show that the psyche is alive and kicking, whether we consider her to be in the realm of material science, or not. Taking the psyche into account has led us to extend our ‘Proving Protocol’ document with the following paragraph:
“The proving of a [homeopathic] remedy by members of a coherent group appears to cause an amplification of the effect of that remedy. There appears to be a teletherapeutic effect produced by the field generated by the assembled provers, their experiences being in resonance. The whole group is involved and those members who have not taken the remedy may be as affected as those that have. This means that the use of control provers, who are given placebo, is not possible as they are also likely to prove the remedy. Because of the group’s field effect, it also means there is no need to repeat the dose, if symptoms do not occur immediately. This is because the field appears to extend the amplitude and duration of the effect.”
