Homeopathy Tips Newsletter

The primary goal of any homeopath is to have a clear understanding of the case before us and find the best remedy to inspire a person's healing. This may sound easy but it is the one place every homeopath and most people struggle. The questions of doubt that come up in our minds like, ”Will I ever find the right remedy?” or “I don’t have a case” or “I’m running out of time” can be tamed and even overcome. It does take practice though.

These hindrances are created out of our own mind and insecurities. If we could approach every case with a clear understanding and confidence, then it would make our jobs much easier. We would be better homeopaths. In essence, we get in our own way.

Here are some tips that I have found that can help with getting out of one's own way.

• Set your intention – Before I come to any case, I take a moment to set my intention. This means letting go of any extraneous thoughts I have and visualizing how it will...

When doing homeopathy, it is very helpful to have a complete knowledge of the repertory, especially the mind section. Obviously, it is so large it would probably be impossible to memorize it all. But there are a few rubrics that come up often that are good to be familiar with. These rubrics can often be seen in case-taking and could help lead to the best remedy.

Study these rubrics and get to know the remedies they contain. Having these as one of the tools in your toolbox will help you immensely.

• Ennui – When there is a weary sense of dissatisfaction.
• Superstitious – When a person trusts in something; saying or action, a fetish, habit, amulet, ie. “knock on wood”
• Weeping; with sympathy for others – When they are easily moved to tears by the suffering of others.
• Stupefaction – A state where the person is unable to react or respond to a situation or life; either through shock and amazement or groggy and insensible.
• Sensitive; to noise...

Winter is approaching for many around the world and with that often comes the season of the common cold. Here are some tips and remedies to keep in mind for helping a cough with homeopathy!

The cough is a natural way for the body to remove phlegm. It should not be suppressed. Each person has their particular expression of their body’s attempts to heal. Giving allopathic cough suppressants will not help their healing process and should be avoided. If some relief for minor throat irritation is needed, try equal parts lemon juice, honey, and warm water. Take a teaspoon at a time and hold in the mouth and swallow to coat the throat. It can be very soothing. Avoid medicated cough drops that have camphor, menthol, and eucalyptus. They can interfere with the healing response to the well-selected homeopathic remedy.

In the case of any infectious disease, watch closely that the cough does not develop into a more serious condition. Cough due to the common cold is...

As homeopathy has evolved since Hahnemann, there have been many new ideas about how to use energetic medicines. I hesitate to use the word "homeopathic" medicine since this would be in direct conflict with what Hahnemann has described. I use "homeopathic" in the sense of why we are giving the medicine and not the medicine itself.

In the classic Hahnemannian system of prescribing, we are searching for the simillimum; the single best homeopathic remedy, that single remedy that is homeopathic to the case. Homeopathic means similar – suffering.

Hahnemann described his system for prescribing very well in the Organon and it is still the "bible" for homeopathic treatment. Because it was written in German and has been translated into many languages, there is room for interpretation right from the start. And as homeopathy has evolved over time, others have added their observations and made changes to Hahnemann's original system. Indeed times have changed in the last 180 years...

Imagination. Now, what could that possibly have to do with homeopathy? Plenty, if you are guiding and inspiring your client to a better state of health.

Let's look at the role of imagination in healing. First, let's read what Webster’s New World Dictionary has to say about it.

Imagination:

• 1a. The act or power of forming mental images of what is not actually present.
• 1b. The act or power of creating mental images of what has never been actually experienced, or of creating new images or ideas by combining previous experiences; creative power. Imagination is often regarded as the more seriously and deeply creative faculty, which perceives the basic resemblances between things, as distinguished from fancy, the lighter more decorative faculty, which perceives superficial resemblances.
• 2. Anything imagined; mental image; creation of the mind; fancy.
• 3. a foolish notion; empty fancy.
• 4. The ability to understand and appreciate imaginative creations of others, especially...

When you are receiving a case and have a list of well-selected rubrics that has led to a list of remedies that are being considered for the case, how do you quickly learn about so many remedies that may have come up in the repertization?

It can be overwhelming to have 50 remedies to consider and you might only know a little about 20 of them. How do you quickly learn about the remaining 30 remedies that should be considered? This is where Materia Medica knowledge helps a lot. But honestly, you will never quit learning about remedies. There is simply too much to remember about thousands of remedies. So being able to evaluate a remedy to consider and put in your basket of possible remedy choices is a good skill to have.

First and foremost is knowing what is asking to be healed in the case. Without this, you do not have a case. This will determine the rubrics that are most important and influence your entire case. When you have chosen rubrics that best reflect what is asking to be...

There are many different ways to administer the remedy and potencies to choose from. One way that I have found very useful is low potency prescribing. Low potencies are any potency from the mother tincture to the 30C potency. The most common low potencies are in the X and C potencies. They usually start with the 3C or X and proceed in increments of threes ie., 3C, 6C, 9C, 12C, 15C, 18C, 21C, 24C.

The X potencies are cruder and are very good to use when there is a gross pathology. The X potencies are diluted 1 part of the original substance to 9 parts alcohol and water, then succussed. Because gross pathology usually involves inflammation or infection, the remedy may need to be given more often than one time per day. When the person is quite sick, it may be necessary to give the remedy hourly. If the remedy is given and there is a noticeable response, then it is best to wait until the symptom picture changes again and shows that the vital force has stopped...

How the homeopath perceives the case before them will ultimately influence the prescription. If our perception is wrong, even with all of the tools available to us with the repertory and Materia Medica, our prescription will fail. I find that at the very most fundamental level even a prescription made from well-selected remedies of a good repertization is rarely good enough to prescribe the best remedy in the most elegant manner. For this, we need different levels of perception to really see what is asking to be healed.

During case receiving, it is good to keep these ideas about what we are seeing and experiencing in the front of our minds. By this, I do not mean actively thinking about them but being willing and ready to perceive them as they unfold in the case. These levels will all be occurring simultaneously and if we come to the case with a crowded mind, then we will surely miss them. Let the different levels of perception paint a picture for us and we can then translate the...

Last week, I gave a quick overview of the kingdoms. Today I will share with you a bit more about the animal kingdom. The animal kingdom is all about survival. It is eat or be eaten at its basic level. So we find some of the most basic emotions in the animal kingdom. How we relate to another and compete for our existence is a basic theme of the animal kingdom. Because we have many species within the animal kingdom, there are equally as many different behaviors. Only a small fraction of the number of species within the animal kingdom have been homeopathically proven.

How an animal behaves in regards to its survival can be an open window into understanding the remedy. Because all animals behave similarly within their own species, knowing the themes of each is necessary to understanding the remedy.  Also knowing about the different behaviors of the sexes within the animal family can be a great insight into how the remedy can be applicable to our human condition.

• Mammals...

When we listen to a case, everything a person says, every gesture they make, including what they wear, will be an expression of the vital force. If we are unprejudiced observers, we can then see the language of a person's dis-ease. This language will many times tell us quickly from which kingdom their dis-ease resides. We can sometimes quickly discern whether the best remedy will be from the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, or the mineral kingdom. If we are clear about seeing the metaphor of the dis-ease within the appropriate kingdom, we can often make our remedy selection much easier by eliminating the kingdoms that the dis-ease does not belong to.

There are some general guidelines for understanding the kingdoms. I will give a few here but really each kingdom needs a book on its own. I will give a brief overview of each and a more in-depth look into them in later blog posts.

• The animal kingdom is all about survival. Animals are either killing or being killed. It is the threat...