Homeopathy Tips for 5/29/12 Another Note about Systems

It seems there is great interest in what kind of system we are teaching at Resonance School of Homeopathy. I have written about this before but it seems there needs to be further comment about the educational aspects of present day homeopathy and systems for doing homeopathy.

Hahnemann was a great visionary in his time. He was also a very good and unprejudiced observer. In his day the prejudice of the medicine of the day said that medicine should be taught in a certain way and to treat dis-ease was to give the drugs that were accepted as treatment. In reality not much has changed since then. In allopathic medicine, despite such technological advances as we have today, the mode of thinking is still about the same. The treatment of disease is based on protocol and not on the individual.

Hahnemann turned this paradigm upside down when he wrote the Organon and defined the basics for homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy is based on the individual and the clear expression of the vital force. The client will always tell the homeopath what to do, that is if he/she is clear and unprejudiced enough to see it. (In Aphorism 3 he begins to describe this.)

To be a homeopath and do homeopathy requires that the homeopath be an unprejudiced observer. Hahnemann warned about asking questions inappropriately during the interview so as not to interfere with the direction that the vital force is expressing. He trusted that by being patient and without prejudice the homeopath would eventually be able to observe all that is necessary to prescribe accurately. I have found this to be true.

I think one of the greatest challenges of homeopaths is impatience in the “need to know the remedy”. This is apparent in students as well a practicing homeopaths. This extends from the beginning student to advanced. Yet it is the one place that will create the greatest opportunity for us to enter into our prejudice. If we are impatient, we will not allow the time to absorb the case and let it settle inside us so we can be clear about what is asking to be healed. Our need to know will force us to ask more questions and influence the case. Rather than allowing, we will try to push the case to force it to tell us what we think we want to know. I see this in many systems of homeopathy now.

The student, in his need to know how to do homeopathy, is always very hungry to learn how to do it. This is natural. What I see happening in many schools are systems  being developed to obtain a response or limited observation of the patient. Many times this happens with particular lines of questions that are performed to get to the “essence” of the case. Others require limited physical observations that force the homeopath to put the patient into a category. Once these occur the individual expression of the vital force is lost. Now the patient is in a category or a miasm or a particular way of being seen that will influence the rest of the case. I find that many new students who learn these systems will not be good observers at all. They will enter into every case with a prejudiced based on their system training. They will be following protocol just like in the allopathic profession. This in my opinion is not what Hahnemann intended in sharing his observations in the Organon. This is why he specifically directs the homeopathic observer to be unprejudiced.

No two individuals are the same and  no two cases are the same. This is the challenge of individualised medicine. In this challenge no two cases will be approached in the same way. Hahnemann warns us to not bring a previously seen case to the present one no matter how similar. This would only prejudice it. To let each case stand on its own requires patience to see it for what it is. Some cases are delivered on a silver platter and with others it becomes very difficult to see the essence of what is asking to be healed. This is not the fault of the patient. It is the challenge of the homeopath. Learning the process of finding our way through such cases is part of the growth of the homeopath. It is directly equivalent to each of our spiritual growth and evolution. Not all cases are to be successful every time and this is sometimes difficult to accept as the homeopath. Having a system will only narrow our ability to see. It creates prejudice.

If there is a name for the system we teach at Resonance School of Homeopathy it is called “Letting go”.  I tell all of my students that until they are very sure and settled with what is asking to be healed to let go all ideas for remedies. And until he/she is very settled and sure of what is asking to be healed, to let go of the ideas about this. Until the one that becomes so very certain in their mind comes forth they do not have a case. This process can not be hurried by questioning the patient. Any line of questioning will only lead the patient down the road of the homeopath not the individuals vital force.

I find when I feel stuck and the movement of the cases slows down, it is up to me to change something inside myself, not influence the patient. If I were to embark in a line of questioning that leads the patient I would be influencing the case. When I’m stuck I silently ask for help from Higher powers and invariably the client will start another line of delivery that will lead to much greater understanding. Eventually I ALWAYS get to the place inside myself where I am settled about what is asking to be healed. Only then do I start to look for remedies.

Looking at remedies before this time ALWAYS brings prejudice. The homeopath will want to see the case through the eyes of the remedy and fit the person to the remedy, instead of matching the remedy to the person. It is the greatest challenge and I see my students do it all of the time. This is what I work on with them most often. They have a great need to know. But until they do know, they simply do not know. And this is okay. It is okay to not know until we do. Patience is a virtue in doing homeopathy.

Most new systems being taught  now are focused on understanding the case in a particular/prejudiced way. Each time we intervene in the case we are influencing it. Those new systems that establish a protocol for “doing” homeopathy are influencing the case. Being a homeopath is about “not doing”. It is about letting go so we can be clear unprejudiced observers.

One of the problems I see in homeopathic education is that new, fresh students are being taught systems and not being cultivated to being the unprejudiced observer. They are being taught to observe with prejudice. They are being taught to intervene in the case with intense lines of questioning. They are being taught to observe physical aspects of the patient to the detriment of missing the simple and subtle ways that the patient is expressing their disease. And it seems that eventually the new systems require the homeopath to determine a miasm or other classification that limits the remedies to choose from. These protocols create prejudice and the true brilliance of homeopathy is a bit lost.

Becoming a homeopath is not an easy endeavor. It asks the student to grow in ways they can not even imagine. If the educational system that the student learns in is not asking this of the student then becoming a very good homeopath is compromised. I think that too many schools have lost focus of this and are teaching “short cut to the remedy” systems. These systems are not true homeopathy in its essence.

Homeopathy is done by the homeopath. It is an individual journey with the patient each time a case is received. Too often we refer to this as case-taking. No case should ever be “taken”. The journey is NEVER the same and the method for getting to the destination is NEVER the same either. Learn the art of letting go and the journey becomes much easier. Learn the art of asking for help from Higher powers and it becomes a great joy when not knowing transforms into true knowing. Doing homeopathy then becomes a spiritual experience. We homeopaths, as well as our clients, will benefit greatly.