Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Joe Lillard of Washington Homeopathics. Joe, you are really quite well-known, one of the original Millersville, Pennsylvania students, along with Julian Winston, am I right, who got this whole ball rolling again in the United States? Would you like to tell our readers what the significance of that was?
Well there were several people there and nearly all of them stayed in homeopathy – Mitch and Nancy Shapiro, Sylvia Faddis, etc. so from that perspective it was very important – I didn’t just go back home. We all continued to work in homeopathy and with each other. The NCH taught one weekend course – we lobbied for more and got it – the summer school today is a result of our bugging the NCH Board. I was first taught by Henry Williams who got the idea – we were serious and he taught us at a serious level. That might have been ’82 or ’83 – WOW!
So, you were pretty much responsible then for the NCH Summer School! Also, you own Washington Homeopathics, which is a famous homeopathic pharmacy, and you’ll be happy to know that I have some of your remedies right here, and I love the “emergency kit” you sell in 1/2 dram bottles, so small and compact, very convenient to carry in a back pack or pocket book, and, the other thing people should know about you–you are in that wonderful video recently aired on PBS called “Homeopathy: Mystery of Healing”. (See my review in this issue.) Here’s a question for you if I can change the subject: Why do we say that antibiotics “suppress” a disease? Not that I’m a fan of these things because they have horrible side effects, it’s just the concept of them suppressing that I’m not sure about. We hear the phrase, “This patient has suppressed gonorrhea,” by which we mean, he’s been treated with antibiotics. Why should this be a problem? It suggests that when the bacteria are destroyed, the patient hasn’t been helped, which is hard to believe! Can you make sense out of this?
Well, Elaine, I think that many cases are “cured” with antibiotics, but often enough they are simply beat back where they are picked up as “miasms”.
I think the question is one of degrees rather than absolutes. A clearer example would be talking to a psychiatrist – he/she talks you out of your illness, but when a major stress comes along – bang – you’re right back where you were.
Here’s a possible explanation, Joe; tell me if it makes any sense: The purpose of the antibiotics would be to stop the discharge. It must be that the bacteria are involved in this disease only insofar as they create a discharge. Hahnemann would say that by the time the discharge appears, gonorrhea has already taken over the whole body and that to protect the internal organs, the vital force consigns the illness to a discharge, and that as long as the discharge is there, there is no internal damage. But, if the antibiotics come along, curing the discharge, it then signals a flare-up of the whole disease in all parts of the body–possibly taking the form of arthritis, or a sinusitis, or warts, or asthma, or a combination of these; so, I think the answer must be that the bacteria are only involved in a small part of this disease and that killing the bacteria really does not address the disease as a whole. What do you think?
Reasonable.
Joe…? This interview is taking on an eerie Shirley Reischmanesque quality; because last month, Shirley was our ‘Homeopath in the Hot Seat’, and she answered all my questions with one word until I finally explained the “Interview Format” to her, and come to think of it, this is the very same Shirley Reischman who spent a week with you at Berkeley Springs in April! It’s all coming together now! [Did I mention that Shirley called me right in the middle of “Motown 45” last night? And I said, “Shirley, The Supremes are on TV, for God’s sake! Mary Wilson,Cindy Birdsong, Diana Ross! 
Why aren’t you watching? Call me back!” So she did, she called me back right in the middle of The Temptations singing “My Girl”, and Shana was furiously writing me messages–in pencil–and holding them up, and me without my glasses– but Shirley had an important cat case to tell me about, and then Shana started to cry because she couldn’t hear the TV, and I said, “Shirley, Shana’s crying because The Temptations are on and she can’t hear them!” and Shirley said, “Oh, I meant to put that on my calendar.” (Aaaah!)] And I say all this to point out that in homeopathy, we can’t accept one-word answers.
Ahem! So, let’s try something different. Perhaps you can tell me what your first experience with homeopathy was all about, and how did you hear of it? (Try to be expansive, if at all possible.)
Elaine, my answers are rushed, and therefore I would only be long if you want long. For instance: I could simply tell you that Linda Arnold introduced homeopathy to me in 1977 or ’78.
And I could call out the Hpathy firing squad!
Hpathy has its own firing squad? I’ll go on then.
Here’s the “go on” – She smeared something on a chain-saw wound I had and not another thing, and it didn’t get infected – hmmm, it was probably Calendula. A few weeks later I was leading a crew of Xmas tree cutters and got my back stuck, bent over. Bad timing – I struggled back home and Linda was there – she asked what happened and went to her remedies and came back and gave me a dose – I went right back to work – no more problems for years.
It was probably Bryonia.
She used the pendulum to find which remedy she wanted to use – quite a mystery and one I didn’t have time to figure out. Instead, I believe it was the next summer before I looked further into homeopathy – I was looking for a way to treat animals going to DC…
Why were they going to DC? Probably Animal Rights…
…No, I was going to D.C.! And, looking in the Yellow Pages – the only thing listed was the National Center, so I went there and bought the last kit they had – they had no books for sale. Then I went to the only alternative book store I knew about and bought the two books they had – Boericke’s and a Cowperthwaite. The first “case” I recall was with Jane Doyle’s goat – we fiddled around with the question of whether it was smellier than tender and I believe we voted for tender – gave the goat Hepar Sulph 6x – a few times and the abscess she had been to the vet for several times just went away. Jane went on to be a Veterinarian (in Berkeley Springs regularly using homeopathy) and I became whatever I am.
A cliff-hanger! What a great way to end the interview – Who IS Joe Lillard, really!? You decide! Thanks for coming, Joe!
Joe Lillard Washington Homeopathic Products 33 Fairfax St.,
Berkeley Springs, WV 25411 304-258-2541 http://homeopathyworks.com
