---

Homeopathy’s detractors are still having a field day with the seeming impossibility of a high dilution medicine.  As I write, homeopathic hospitals in the UK are being defunded and Universities are dropping programs in homeopathy, largely based on this one issue.

The most vocal critics are often people who have an agenda. There’s no point in debating with them, because they already know homeopathy works. That’s exactly why they’re criticizing it. These people have ties to the pharmaceutical industry or other competing interests.  A. Shang, who presented an intentionally deceptive and flawed meta-analysis, almost certainly falls into this group. 

The Lancet, which published a headline worthy of a supermarket tabloid:  “The End of Homeopathy”, failed to check Shang’s research and may fall into this group as well. We’re still waiting for their apology, without which their credibility and integrity must remain questionable. 

But getting back to business, many of our critics are well meaning people, brought up in the allopathic tradition, who just don’t get it. How can something diluted beyond a certain point have any effect?  All their experience suggests that medicinal effect is dose related. Ludricrous analogies of homeopathy abound, such as , “It’s like one drop in the Pacific Ocean”.  With images like that, we can’t blame them for being skeptical. 

The homeopathic community has explained this mystery in many ways, but alas, without success.  Telling people that it’s “energy medicine” is a perceptual leap, and you either see it, or you don’t. 

We are often so intent on complex explanations, that we miss the obvious ones.  There is another way of looking at potentization, that we’ve failed to make clear. It is implicity understood by every homeopath, but needs to be made explicit.  Let’s have a look at the process.

When a substance in water is diluted and succussed, the water molecules form organized clusters*. Further, the pattern of these clusters is unique for each substance.^1,2,3,4,5  For instance, in a solution of common table salt, diluted beyond 10^-7 and succussed, the molecules will form clusters quite characteristic of salt.  

At the next stage of potentization, one drop of that solution is placed in 99 drops of water and succussed again.  That one drop has the “salt” configuration and acts as a template, conveying this pattern (information) to the next 99 drops of water.  That one drop thus creates a copy of the previous solution.  Since we’ve added kinetic energy by pounding the solution, it’s more accurate to call it a “modified copy”.  The potency has been raised, but the basic pattern is the same.

When we make a homeopathic remedy, we are not just making dilutions, we are making copies.  So when someone asks “How can something so dilute be a medicine?”, that’s the wrong question. The correct question is, “How many photocopies can you make of a document?”  Of course, there is no limit.

A homeopathic remedy is not, as some suggest, “One drop in the Pacific Ocean”.  Rather, it is like ”Two fish in the Pacific Ocean”.  They keep creating copies of themselves, ad infinitum. 

It’s important that we help honest sceptics understand homeopathy.  We need to focus on this concept of copies, and make it a part of the dialogue.  It will help counter the misconceptions and ridicule which came before. Let us keep repeating this idea of copies, to clear the muddy waters of that former ocean into which a mythical drop was placed.  

1.  Lo SY, LoA, Chong LW, Tianzhang L,Hua LH, Geng X. (1966)  Physical Properties of Water with I_E  Structures. Modern Physics Letters B10, B19 :921-930

2. Lo SY (1996)  Modern Physics Lett. B19:  909-919.

3. Ly SY and Bonavida B. (1998) Proceedings of the First International Symposium onPhysical, Chemical and Biological Properties of Stable Water [I_E] Clusters. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.

4. Lo SY. Talk to laceName w:st="on">National Center for Homeopathy, San Diego, CA. 1998

5. Shulte J and Endler PC (Eds.) (1998) Fundamental Research in Ultra High Dilution and Homeopathy. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

*The exact nature of these “organized clusters” is still not clear. Neutron diffraction experiments seem to rule out any significant spatial clustering.  Cyril Smith maintains that the clusters are regions in which the natural molecular oscillations have become synchronised in phase.)

—————————————————–

This is the first of our “College Issues” and is being produced by Grant Bentley, Louise Barton and students of the Victorian College of Classical Homœopathy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had some objective measure, aside from observable symptoms, to lead us to the simillimum? Through careful analysis of hundreds of photographs, Grant Bentley has been able to correlate facial features with specific miasms. Thus, facial features act as an eliminating symptom, allowing selection of the correct remedy. There are other revelations which stem from this discovery. In this issue we explore Homeopathic Facial Analysis, a pioneering work of the best kind.

Also in this issue, articles on dietary precautions in homeopathy and Hahnemann’s Lesser Writings, a Quiz, Tips & Secrets, a Cartoon and more.

Send your comments and questions to editor@hpathy.com

Alan V. Schmukler
Associate Editor
Homeopathy 4 Everyone