Personal Experience
Before I became a homeopath I was a ‘sceptic’. Back in 1980 I walked out of talk on homeopathy because it sounded stupid.
A year or two later I had a sick cow, and the vet could do nothing. The cow’s kneecap was repeatedly dislocating, and she couldn’t stand up. Lying down all the time has a terrible effect on a cow’s digestion and they can eventually die.
An eccentric friend came over with a packet of little white pills and told me to give one to Bessie the cow. Just to please her I did so. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen.
The next morning I looked out of the window and saw Bessie slowly working her way across the field, grazing contentedly. This was a surprise, and it lead me on to treating my children and then becoming a homeopath. I stopped wondering how it works, and got busy with learning how to make it work more effectively.
But since homeopathy has come under attack the question of how it works is foremost again. We now have to convince a sceptical audience that it works. We have to pull together whatever science is currently available.
Explanation, Evidence, Experience
How do people get “converted” to homeopathy? How do you show a sceptic or denier of homeopathy that it is a genuine system of medicine? There are three possible ways - the three E’s - explanation, evidence, experience.
Evidence: There is good evidence for homeopathy, and we need to say this loud and clear and repeatedly. But here are filters between you and the truth - not just about homeopathy but about many of the things that really matter in the world. The rise of fake news confirms this. In the case of homeopathy there are at least six filters.
1. Your own belief that it is implausible is the closest - it is in your mind!
2. Then there is media bias.
3. Then comes a generalised bias in our whole culture.
4. There is bias against homeopathy in drug companies and scientific research.
5. Fifthly, there is the problem of the trials themselves. A hundred people with a certain disease will need a range of different homeopathic remedies, because the treatment is individualised to each patient. Much of the research does not take account of this. Research which does is specialised and expensive, and more of it is needed.
6. Finally there is homeopathy itself. It can get wonderful results. These come from individualised prescriptions based on an understanding of the whole person. This is difficult to achieve, so these results are not entirely predictable (depending on the skill of the homeopath), and trials have to be properly designed to measure them.
So the truth about homeopathy is hard to get to.
Explanation: It is often assumed that there is no scientific explanation for how it works. But this is not so. Science is always changing, and it has changed radically in the last few decades. Surprisingly, this applies to the science of water. Scientific examination of water itself, rather than the effects of what is dissolved in it, has only just begun! So the science of water is a young science, and its discoveries show that the tenets of homeopathy are not ‘impossible’ after all. The molecular structure of water can be permanently affected by what is dissolved in it even when there are no molecules left. This what the homeopathic process of potentisation does. Molecules aren't everything. Who knows what new scientific discoveries will be made in the next hundred years? Who knows what discoveries will affirm homeopathy?
It was assumed that water was an inert medium and that only the things dissolved in it are active. Now we know better. In response to the substance dissolved, the molecules of water form into liquid crystal structures. A lot of research into this phenomenon is being done, and effects on human physiology have been observed. DNA works in our bodies when highly diluted in water, so the biological effects of high dilutions are known outside the field of homeopathy. [Ref]
Many new discoveries about water are coming from scientists who have no connection with homeopathy. They are showing that water does have a memory. An explanation of how homeopathy works is emerging from modern science. Once again the criticisms of homeopathy do not survive proper scrutiny.
Another thing that helps to make homeopathy real is this. When someone reads a description of a certain homeopathic constitutional type, and sees his or herself in it, then a realisation takes place. The person gets a sense of the depth of homeopathy, and gets as sense of recognition. This opens a doorway to acceptance of homeopathy.
Experience. Which of these three Es is the best introduction to homeopathy? It is experience, by far. It is rare for anyone to accept homeopathy on the basis of evidence or explanation. It is nearly always experience. Experience goes deeper into our souls than ideas. This quote concerning doctors trying to give up smoking illustrates this point:
‘…Doctors working in specialities like chest medicine and oncology – where they witnessed patients dying of lung cancer with their own eyes – were proportionately more likely to give up cigarettes…’ (Ben Goldacre, Bad Science, Fourth Estate London 2009 P. 252.
When you see a child’s fever start to fall minutes after a little white pill hits its tongue, or when you feel the pain of a hammer blow to the finger fade seconds after taking arnica then rumours become reality. Then science becomes experience. Then sceptics become believers, and converts are made. But a closed mind will never give it a try.
Before I became a homeopath I was a ‘sceptic’. Back in 1980 I walked out of talk on homeopathy because it sounded stupid.
A year or two later I had a sick cow, and the vet could do nothing. The cow’s kneecap was repeatedly dislocating, and she couldn’t stand up. Lying down all the time has a terrible effect on a cow’s digestion and they can eventually die.
An eccentric friend came over with a packet of little white pills and told me to give one to Bessie the cow. Just to please her I did so. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen.
The next morning I looked out of the window and saw Bessie slowly working her way across the field, grazing contentedly. This was a surprise, and it lead me on to treating my children and then becoming a homeopath. I stopped wondering how it works, and got busy with learning how to make it work more effectively.
But since homeopathy has come under attack the question of how it works is foremost again. We now have to convince a sceptical audience that it works. We have to pull together whatever science is currently available.
Explanation, Evidence, Experience
How do people get “converted” to homeopathy? How do you show a sceptic or denier of homeopathy that it is a genuine system of medicine? There are three possible ways - the three E’s - explanation, evidence, experience.
Evidence: There is good evidence for homeopathy, and we need to say this loud and clear and repeatedly. But here are filters between you and the truth - not just about homeopathy but about many of the things that really matter in the world. The rise of fake news confirms this. In the case of homeopathy there are at least six filters.
1. Your own belief that it is implausible is the closest - it is in your mind!
2. Then there is media bias.
3. Then comes a generalised bias in our whole culture.
4. There is bias against homeopathy in drug companies and scientific research.
5. Fifthly, there is the problem of the trials themselves. A hundred people with a certain disease will need a range of different homeopathic remedies, because the treatment is individualised to each patient. Much of the research does not take account of this. Research which does is specialised and expensive, and more of it is needed.
6. Finally there is homeopathy itself. It can get wonderful results. These come from individualised prescriptions based on an understanding of the whole person. This is difficult to achieve, so these results are not entirely predictable (depending on the skill of the homeopath), and trials have to be properly designed to measure them.
So the truth about homeopathy is hard to get to.
Explanation: It is often assumed that there is no scientific explanation for how it works. But this is not so. Science is always changing, and it has changed radically in the last few decades. Surprisingly, this applies to the science of water. Scientific examination of water itself, rather than the effects of what is dissolved in it, has only just begun! So the science of water is a young science, and its discoveries show that the tenets of homeopathy are not ‘impossible’ after all. The molecular structure of water can be permanently affected by what is dissolved in it even when there are no molecules left. This what the homeopathic process of potentisation does. Molecules aren't everything. Who knows what new scientific discoveries will be made in the next hundred years? Who knows what discoveries will affirm homeopathy?
It was assumed that water was an inert medium and that only the things dissolved in it are active. Now we know better. In response to the substance dissolved, the molecules of water form into liquid crystal structures. A lot of research into this phenomenon is being done, and effects on human physiology have been observed. DNA works in our bodies when highly diluted in water, so the biological effects of high dilutions are known outside the field of homeopathy. [Ref]
Many new discoveries about water are coming from scientists who have no connection with homeopathy. They are showing that water does have a memory. An explanation of how homeopathy works is emerging from modern science. Once again the criticisms of homeopathy do not survive proper scrutiny.
Another thing that helps to make homeopathy real is this. When someone reads a description of a certain homeopathic constitutional type, and sees his or herself in it, then a realisation takes place. The person gets a sense of the depth of homeopathy, and gets as sense of recognition. This opens a doorway to acceptance of homeopathy.
Experience. Which of these three Es is the best introduction to homeopathy? It is experience, by far. It is rare for anyone to accept homeopathy on the basis of evidence or explanation. It is nearly always experience. Experience goes deeper into our souls than ideas. This quote concerning doctors trying to give up smoking illustrates this point:
‘…Doctors working in specialities like chest medicine and oncology – where they witnessed patients dying of lung cancer with their own eyes – were proportionately more likely to give up cigarettes…’ (Ben Goldacre, Bad Science, Fourth Estate London 2009 P. 252.
When you see a child’s fever start to fall minutes after a little white pill hits its tongue, or when you feel the pain of a hammer blow to the finger fade seconds after taking arnica then rumours become reality. Then science becomes experience. Then sceptics become believers, and converts are made. But a closed mind will never give it a try.