Celebrating 20 Years of Homeopathic LINKS

This homeopathic journal in the English language was founded in 1987 by Dr. Beat Spring and has now developed into a fixture in the world of homeopathy. It connects homeopaths in more than 50 countries and promotes the exchange between differing directions and movements.

Rajan Sankaran (India), Nandita Shah (India), Alfons Geukens (Belgium), Jan Scholten (Netherlands), Alize Timmerman (Netherlands), Didier Grandgeorge (France), Nancy Herrick (USA), Linda Johnston (USA), Jeremy Sherr (UK), Deborah Collins (New Zealand) and many others wrote for HL.

The experienced and engaged editorial team Harry van der Zee and Corrie Hiwat always compile the correct mixture of topics relevant to your practice, philosophical and historical musings as well as service offers.

Current research results, drugs testing, case studies, different materia medica, exciting discussions, book reviews and a survey about seminars and events for further training courses are published four times a year.

The target group of the magazine is homeopathic doctors and alternative practitioners worldwide.

Dr. Beat Springs writes in his greeting adress to the congress on the occasion of the 20th year of HL about the magazine that ‚LINKS’ stands for connection, for staying in touch. Thus a platform developed rapidly where homeopaths share ideas and experiences and exchange them with other honoeopaths. Exponents of various schools thus met for the first time in one place, disputing different insights. New ways and findings could be published without being smothered directly with quotations of the old masters. Springs also writes that the homeopathic landscape resembles a lush mountain meadow with a unique biodiverstity. New prescription strategies and materia medica lead to great enthusiasm but also to uncertainty. The enthusiasm about the New couples itself with the thoroughness of the old school. New knowledge gets validated by well documented long-term case studies.

Ton Nicolai of ECH (European Committee for Homeopathy) on this: 'the fact that innovators exist is definitely a sound argument for a healthy system. It is evidence for the further development of homeopathy, that homeopathy is a science where the clinical experiences bears new ideas which are tested and are then accepted, rejected or modified according to actual theories and opinions. Some groups of homeopaths, however, represent rather more traditional views and some mistrust, discard or even criticise these innovative ideas. The fact is that all innovators first closely imitated Hahnemann, but then they decided that his methods could be developed further. Innovators and traditionalists are to be found in each branch of science. And when creation and preservation are kept at a balance and when all parties are willing to engage in regardful and intelligent dialogue with each other, then our discipline will keep its effectivity and liveliness.’

Homeopathy has, during the last years, been very much imprinted by new approaches and methods. The goal of the international Homeopathy Congress is to demonstrate these developments and link them with the solid foundations of classical homeopathy.

There was a seminar on each of the mornings where the contributors introduced their ideas for the further development of homeopathy. 14 more contributors showed the commonalities of the various approaches during the afternoons and they clarified how the different development strains can be woven into good treatment results in the code of practice.

Numerous authors of LINKS and about 900 doctors, alternative practitioners and scientists from all over the world met in the Kongresshaus Stadthalle in Heidelberg from 19. to 21. of October to celebrate the birthday together. An industrial exhibition of approx. 100 exhibitors supplemented the information platform. Altogether, more than 1000 participants from 43 countries attended the congress. The international Homeopathy Congress Celebrating LINKS was held by the Sonntag publisher in MVS Medizinverlage Stuttgart, who publishes the trade magazine Homeopathic LINKS, in cooperation with the two European governing bodies ECCH European Council for Classical Homeopathy and the ECH European Commmittee for Homeopathy.

The topics were arranged in such a way that Friday dealt with the role of minerals, Saturday dealt with the plant kingdom and Sunday with the animal kingdom. At the conclusion of the conference the main speakers gave a summary of their insights from the congress and also answered questions of the participants to the congress.

to At the opening of the congress, Dr. Albrecht Hauff(managing director of the Thieme publications group), Harry van der Zee (editor of Homeopathic Links), Stephen Gordon (General secretary of the ECCH)and Beat Springs (co-founder of Homeopathic Links) welcomed the congregation.

The speakers praised the magazine and prepared the listeners on what to expect in the three days of conference. Here some excerpts from the speeches:

From the beginning, homeopathic LINKS got a great reception from homeopaths. In the following year HL was always a step ahead and we also experienced the downside of success. The infrastructure around the journal was simply not sufficient and we could not keep up with the demands. At one stage we had 1,500 subscribers in more than 40 countries worldwide. Later Rajan Sankaran from India joined us and we contemplated how we could publish something collectively and we wanted then to deal with various topics in various countries.

Rajan was the first to start an Indian distribution, then other countries joined up. Then something was becoming disturbing: the LINKS were only ever a forum, an arena for new thoughts, often of a sort that would not find availability in the traditional trade magazines. New ideas and philosophies thus always came to HL, which was a challenge. Many interesting cases were submitted, but often the way to the simillimum was not described and the follow-up not well documented. And that was the dilemma. Here were ideas, but we did not have details about the quality. Quite often therefore, interesting casuistics - the recording and study of cases of disease - could not be used.

We really started late in becoming professional. And, actually, we were quite relieved to be able to hand HL to the Dutch group. We were sure that the Dutch would carry on the magazine with the same spirit, and they followed up at full tilt.

I wish for HL that it will always present an open forum where new ideas, where the evolution can be discussed. And I wish for us that this new knowledge will be thoroughly examined again and again, so that we can grow with it and open our hearts to each other.

From the very first HL was s platform where innovative ideas could be shown and discussed. These innovative ideas are the leading topic of this conference. This situation regularly leads to criticism and traditional homeopaths don’t necessarily like new developments. But it is absolutely necessary to have innovative people to show that homeopathy is alive and developing further as an independent science. Clinical experiences lead to new ideas and they will then lead to acceptance or rejection of current theories. We are, after all, searching for the truth to be able to serve the patient. Innovative homeopaths like Jan Scholten, Rajan Sankaran and Massimo Mangialavori did not only deepen our understanding of homeopathic remedies, they also conducted a systematic classification of the remedies which can be adducted for differential diagnoses. The fact that more than 1000 people registered for this conference shows the widely spread interest of homeopaths in these topics. Homeopathy has grown very strongly during the last one or two decades, and this conference is meant to inspire them all.

Links, that is Your magazine – you write what will be read. For the last few years, I headed this magazine together with Corrie Hiwat and we were happy when a publishing company took us over, all the difficult subjects like advertising, and, since 2005, the Sonntag publishing house carries the responsibility. The excellent result is that, every three months, you receive an excellent copy and that shows that things are alright the way they are. Since the take-over, the magazine looks really professional. Gabrielle Mueller and her team of ten are doing this for us. But, deep down, it is all of us who carry the responsibility for LINKS. Because we bring in our experiences, our thoughts and we get inspiration through the questions and answers coming from our colleagues. Most of HL’s articles during the last few years dealt with the materia medica and case studies.

We are now meeting in Heidelberg to integrate our concept strategies. Homeopathy has been highly successful, so now we can further develop the possibilities of materia medica and hone our case taking and case analysis. This congress is only the next step and that will join the strands with which we will weave the future of homeopathy. We are all rooted in Hahnemann’s legacy and we integrate all these strands in our daily practices. That is the goal of the conference. LINKS stands for an interconnectedness of people. LINKS is of major importance for the bettering of our healing and our healing science. LINKING involves an energy similar to the similarity principle, the basic concept of homeopathy. Like attracts like, like heals like. In homeopathy we work with the law of attraction, with love, with the dissolution of delusions or feelings, with the detachment of being. The spirit of LINKS connects us and this spirit is always stronger than the spirit of separation.

10:00 – 11:30 a.m., 12:00 noon-13:00 p.m. Jan Scholten, MD:
The Concept of the 18 Stages: The 18 Stages in the Mineral Kingdom and other Kingdoms

In the "Element Theory", as explained in Jan Scholten's "Homeopathy and the Elements", the idea of the stages is central. The 18 stages are the 18 columns of the periodic table. They turn out to reflect a process of life, with a start, fulfilment and decline. This basic idea is not limited to the mineral kingdom. Processes of life seem even more suitable to living creatures of the plant and animal kingdom than to the so-called "dead" minerals. It turns out that the application of the stages to the plant and animal kingdom is very fruitful. Sankaran has proposed the idea of miasms to differentiate the plants in a family. It seems that the idea of stages gives more precise descriptions and better differentiation. In Jan Scholten's presentation the stages of the Lanthanides, a group of elements "hidden" in the table of elements, were discussed in more detail with case examples.

3:00 – 3:45 p.m. Alize Timmerman, N.D.:
Enhancing physical Awareness as a Function of the Carbon Group

Usage of the carbon group is essential in the stage of growth and development. Thanks to Jan Scholten's work we are now able to see the carbon group within a larger context. The periodic table can be used as a scheme for processes of growth and development. Alize Timmerman has worked on this with regard to development in children and highlighted in her presentation the importance of the carbon group.

From the proving of Hydrogen by Sherr and from Scholten's work on minerals and elements, the search for unity comes forward as a core theme of acids. Using this theme Patricia LeRoux has explored 27 acids and has prescribed them successfully in a variety of acute and chronic disorders in children. After a short introduction on Hydrogen she discussed the materia medica, keynotes and cases of some acids, like Acetic acid, Butyric acid, Gallic acid, Chromic acid and Muriatic acid.

3:45 – 4:30 p.m. Jayesh Shah, LCEH (BOM):
‘Vital Sensation’ Approach in Mineral Cases

In his presentation Jayesh Shah intended to further the understanding of mineral remedies by presenting a new dimension to many ideas on minerals already known. By bringing the repertorial approach together with the approaches of Scholten and Sankaran he aimed to present a synthesis of the old and the new.

Andreas Bjørndal, MNHL:
Selecting the Simillimum through the Quantum Physics of the Periodic System

Andreas Bjørndal showed how quantum physics can confirm and contribute to the classification of the periodic system in the way Scholten, Sherr, Shah and Sankaran work. The quantum leap will make the importance of this kind of work even clearer and also provide a new key to continuing the improvement of system-thinking or themes in the periodic system. Sherr and Scholten have shown how the mathematics of the periodic system reflects in the themes or qualities in the remedies. Andreas Bjørndal showed how this is beautifully confirmed in the quantum physics of the periodic system.

Throughout the years Jeremy Sherr has made an impressive contribution to the expansion of the materia medica by conducting top-quality provings. In his presentation he discussed the proving of one of the elements from the mineral kingdom. Which one? That was the first riddle.

George Loukas, MD:
Spiral Classification of the Periodic System: A new Model for understanding the Essence of the Elements

In the early 90s Sankaran helped George Loukas to understand that delusions are not restricted to psychopaths but underlie the way each person perceives reality. Inspired by this insight he studied the materia medica and started to look in his patients for the personal way they meet reality. Being a psychiatrist helped him to enhance the theoretical model with the principles of cognitive psychology into "Cognitive Homeopathy". The major part of his work concerns the study of the periodic table of elements, for which the systematic approach of Scholten was inspirational. Using the principle of synthesis he created many new triple salts, complex combinations containing three chemical elements besides hydrogen and oxygen. In October 2001, going through a phase of introspection in trying to heal himself from a very serious immobilising disease, he had the inspiration to create a spiral model for the periodic table. Using existing information for each of the elements he managed to define the characteristics of every circle of the spiral and that of every element in it. Using this model he started to create and use new remedies with success.

9:00 – 10:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon Rajan Sankaran, MD:
'The Significance of Sensation

A symptom and a case can be perceived at several levels. The fifth level, lying beyond the levels of Diagnosis, Fact, Emotion and Delusion levels is the Sensation level. In his presentation Rajan Sankaran discussed how to get to the deeper levels and to the Sensation of the case in order to identify the kingdom and within that the family, and how to establish the miasm to find the specific remedy in the selected family.

12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m. Frans Vermeulen :
The Kingdoms of Monera and Fungi: An Exploration of System, Symptoms and Signature

Aristotle recognised two kingdoms: Animals and Plants. Contemporary homoeopathy recognises three: Animals, Plants, and Minerals. In Vermeulen's opinion there are at least five: Animals, Plants, Minerals, Fungi and Monera. Frans Vermeulen shared his recent work on the latter two, thus complementing the presentations on the other three.

3:00 – 3:45 p.m. Irene Schlingensiepen-Brysch, MD:
The Symptom, the Subconscious and the Source

In her presentation Irene Schlingensiepen-Brysch evaluated the prescriptions she has made in her practice based on vital sensations, and shared where six years of validating this new methodology has led her. By taking plant sensations as an example she illustrated how the symptom as an expression of the subconscious can direct us to the source - the exact simillimum.

Nandita Shah, LCEH:
“I am afraid something will happen to him” – A Case of Taxus baccata

This is a case of a patient where a less used remedy that came up through a repertorisation could easily be identified, thanks to Rajan Sankaran's idea of sensations, and confirmed through a proving of Jean Pierre Jansen published by Jeremy Sherr. The talk included a video case, a short discussion of the family and the miasm and follow ups.

3:45 – 4:30 p.m. Uta Santos-König, MD:
Homeopathic Paradigma and Paradogma on Blueberry Hill

A good XX-case of Mangialavori has absolutely nothing to do with a good XX-case of Sankaran, even if both cases have a 10-year follow-up showing profound changes using this and only this remedy in an acute and chronic condition. Sankaran would certainly have prescribed something else for Mangialavori´s case and vice versa. Evidently, as both are very good prescribers, they would both be successful in a high percentage of cases using different remedies and very different reasons for the respective prescriptions. Apart from contradicting the fundamentalist idea of "there is only one correct remedy, and if there are two, one of them is not as deep as the other" - what could this indicate? Is there a meta-theory that could embrace both (and more) models, going beyond a simple respectful co-existence like "there are many ways to Rome"?

In the Liliales we see the theme of being included or excluded (a theme suggested by Sankaran for the family of Liliiflorae to which the liliales belong). This theme can be expressed in a different way in the different remedies of this plant family. In this lecture Resie Moonen explained how the theme is expressed in some smaller remedies and what the sensations and reactions mentioned by the patient are.

5:00 – 5:45 p.m. Will Taylor, MD:
Integration of Approaches into Practice with Regard to the Plant Kingdom

A remedy from a plant that has not yet been part of the materia medica is much more difficult to identify and prescribe accurately than one from an animal source. Generally, the characteristics and qualities of animals are well known to us and often in the interview an animal source is even mentioned by name. Plants don't enjoy these advantages. Using techniques from Sankaran and Chhabra and the general concepts of plant families, Linda Johnston demonstrated how to identify an unknown plant remedy.

9:00 – 10:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon Massimo Mangialavori:
Animals: The Final Synthesis of Evolution

Although Massimo Mangialavori has worked on all kingdoms, it was especially his work on animal remedies that impressed the fraternity when many years ago his star rose as an international teacher. Animals are probably the only creatures on earth that are able to observe themselves. The animal kingdom is a complex and sophisticated kingdom and only very partially investigated in homoeopathic medicine. In his presentation Massimo Mangialavori discussed the 'vertical relationships' between members of the animal kingdom with substances from other kingdoms.

1:00 – 1:45 p.m. Annette Sneevliet, MD:
A guided Tour through the Zoo: How to spot the Animals

Annette Sneevliet has studied the methods of all three key speakers and has integrated their ways of case-taking and case-analysis. In daily practice she lets the individual patient guide her regarding the best way how to proceed. To illustrate this process she showed cases of animal remedies.

Each patient has his individual way of reaction to life, to what happens to him, to the environment and everything that is connected to it. What is the expression, the sensation of a patient who needs a remedy from the animal kingdom? Which gestures, phrases, life situations give us hints to the most appropriate remedy? Anne Schadde showed video clips of patients where the gestures played an important role in finding the remedy. Sankarans altered strategy in case-taking, his understanding of the plant-, animal- and mineral kingdom, as well as Mangialavori's and Scholten's ideas have influenced Anne Schadde's work during the past 20 years.

The conference ended with a resumee by Jeremy Sherr followed by a finale where Sherr, Sankaran, Mangialavori and Scholten were all on stage together.

What I learned during this congress is how much I love all my friends here. It is lovely to be with friends. I met Massiomo in person for the first time yesterday, but I could not imagine that it was the first time, I feel as if I knew him forever. The other thing I learned was that there is so much that I do not yet know, that I still have to learn and I will put a lot of effort into that. On this journey, not all teachers have the same opinions, the same methods, but we all have the same intentions, we all love homeopathy, we want to heal the people, want to heal mankind. And the principle of similarity is also a law for respecting individuality. That’s the beauty of it. We, all together, form an entity.

To formulate a synthesis on all that happened here is really impossible for me, it is a lot too early for that. It will take quite some time. We have only started on this journey, with all the new methods, new ideas, and to form it all into a synopsis is quite an art in itself. Homeopathy always works toward a synthesis to enable us to see the whole picture. And, to join the pieces for the big picture needs lots of work, many hours in your practice rooms, a lot of time, a lot of thought. I think that a synthesis is linked to the clinical experience. Also, we need more conferences like this.

This was the celebration of 20years of LINKS, and I am very happy that I was with this magazine and wrote articles for it. It is a big success story. This is now the 20th birthday and I was pondering what will happen from now on, from the 21st birthday. With 21, one is an adult, and I am wondering what exactly constitutes adulthood and maturity? One has to be healthy. For that, one needs a healthy base in a healthy childhood, rounded in itself and concluding with a rounded, integrated personality partnered with the responsibility that comes with ‚coming of age’ to allow a dynamic move forwards.

I have looked at all the facets of progress in homeopathy and contemplated them, because with this conference we want to gather what the basis is nowadays. All the lectures come down to find THE remedy and HOW to find the best way to find it. That is one facet of homeopathy, but not the only one. There’s more to the wholeness of homeopathy, not only the remedy. We have seen live cases here, but there is no such thing as the one true simillimum.

During the next conferences we will maybe see what’s happening with homeopathy. We spoke about new methods, called neoclassical homeopathy by Rajan for the fun of it. It is, in itself, quite a good name, an important facet – if we don’t develop, we will stagnate. There are fantastic new methods, we heard a lot about them during the conference. New paradigms arrive.We have to develop things further. But, on the other hand, we also have to verify these theses and theories and, as adults, leave behind us that which did not work and improve what does work, so that we finally find a synthesis. I am fond of saying that, in Homeopathy, your head should be in the clouds, but your feet have to stay firmly on the ground. And then we hope that these two parts will eventually find each other.

There are the old, classical methods. Many homeopaths are rediscovering these old methods. Many find their way back. We do have the experience of200 years of homeopathy at our disposal! We also have to work on the roots. Astonishing healing has been achieved in these 200 years. And, to have strong tree growing well, it needs strong roots.

This morning I went for a walk with Rajan and he told me about a homeopath in India who heals cancer. It is extraordinary how he does it and we agreed that it is a very difficult thing to do. And he does not even have a methodology. He just has a few formula and knows how he does it and he heals difficult cases with metastases where we have huge problems. And for him, it is not a problem at all. It is a different methology.

All this has to have very strong foundations and a quotation from Rajan’s book states that students of homeopathy are attracted by distinct homeopatic practices taught by charismatic teachers. I previously thought that the students were taught the same background of homeopathy. That they were taught systematically, like I was taught by my father. But that is not the case in many schools in many countries. They use shortcuts found by past masters. Quite often the knowlegde about these past masters is not sufficient, the basics are simply missing. And if one has not got a solid foundation, one tends to think in other directions, allows oneself to drift here and there. I think it is important to take this into account.

I would like to tell you a little story. It is about a synagogue where there was a lot of quarrelling going on. One half of the people said that you have to stand up for praying, the other half said that you have to stay seated. And so they quarrelled on and on, and finally the synague was closed. Now they decided to ask an old rabbi for his advice. They went to the hospital where he lay in his bed, half-dead already, and the delegation said: ’Rabbi, rabbi, please tell us, how was the praying done traditionally? Did one stand? And the rabbi answered: ’no, no, that was not the tradition.’ And some said: ’Yes, yes’, and the others said: ’rabbi, tell them, tell them that we sat down for praying.’ And the rabbi answered: ’no, no, that was not the tradition.’ Then they said: ’Ok, rabbi, you have to come to a decision! We are quarrelling the whole time. We will eventually even kill each other!’ And the rabbi said: ’Yes, yes, that was the tradition!’

I believe that we could find some constructive tension in these methods. A certain amount of tension is good. We can grow with it like we do in a relationship. On the one hand it is said that one tries to scientificate homeopathy and on the other hand there is a definite move away from our basics. In homeopathy we also have the old ones that we can ask, they have the knowledge and can hand us a lot of the roots and the foundations. We have to think about the fact that, very soon, we will be grandfathers ourselves.

I think it important that we have good schools to give us good foundations in philosophy, materia medica, case studies and offering supervision of the highest quality, where we learn everything about case analysis, case management, second prescription, sickness, naturopathic treatments etc.

For all this we need well qualified teachers. And for that, in the first case, we need universities that train doctors very well in homeopathy.

A further facet is popularity. It is understandably very important. And on that, I would like to quote from the WHO, that it is the fact that homeopathy is the second most frequently used form of medicine after orthodox medicine. And, they recommend to integrate the two forms.

I would say that our aim should be to make homeopathy the No.1 medicine for the 21st birthday, and then we may be able to integrate some of the allopathic medicine.

And then one sees movement in homeopathy. One also sees celebrities that like homeopathy, like David Beckham, Bill Clinton, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Paul McCartney, the Royal Family, Boris Becker, Jennifer Anniston, but not George Bush.... And these people are important, because they propagate homeopathy, and we need that. That is what we want.

And with this I would like to address the politics in homeopathy. We do have people that work day and night for the progress of homeopathy, for our survival, for us to take our legitimate place. The ECH, the ECCH, the ECHAMP – the e-types. They are all doing tremendous work. Shortly before the conference we had a big meeting, and even if it is not seen that way, they work an awful lot.

I would like to address research. I think, as do many others, that research is important for the progress of homeopathy. There are hundreds of homeopathic studies during the last twenty years. There are more coming and they are bringing us further along. Before research, there was an allopathic paradigm and there were these double blind studies, but now there are new researchers that have begun to work within homeopathic thought processes. They look at the memory of water, at methodology.

Within the homeopathic paradigms is an examination by Harald Walach and myself and it concerns the following: You take 20 homeopathic remedies and you choose one at random and do a drug study on it. The remedy was ozone. But we did not know that. We gave the remedy to a group of homeopaths and we asked them to find out, with help from the materia medica, what remedy they had taken. And the correct guesses were way above the significant probability for finding the correct remedy. There are well over two thousand remedies altogether. If this test gets reproduced, it will show that the drug testing works, that homeopathy works. This was only a pilot project but it gives one an idea as to what can be achieved by research. A lot has happened in that regard during the last two to three years. During this time, especially in England, there have been systematic attacks on homeopathy.

Two researchers in Germany found that homeopathy can reduce infectious illnesses by 50%.

My feeling is that we now have to carry on with this research to really copperfasten the position of homeopathy.

On to another topic: The research we are doing should also bring us into the Third World countries. Homeopathy in Europe is well integrated. We have clinics, 42% of doctors transfer patients to homeopaths, but in the Third World homeopathy is virtually unknown and, especially against a background of AIDS and other diseases, it is necessary for us to arrive there, too. Many are already trying in that direction, but if there were more of us going that way it would be far better. There are clinics in Egypt, Nepal, Botswana, Ghana. Peter Chapell works in Africa and a lot of others are now on their way. I personally cooperate with a homeopath in Tansania. We treat 25 000 patients annually and have a success rate of 100% with malaria, and malaria is still the biggest killer worldwide. That is brilliant in comparison to the new medications that are very destructive. The WHO declared that homeopathy is especially suited to rural areas, therefore homeopaths have to disperse to the rural areas of the world, in their simplest form. Moreover, we have to be concerned about epidemics. They have to be researched better. Andre Seine writes in his book, which is shortly to be released, about the history of homeopathy and about the cholera epidemic. Homeopathy had a mortality rate of 6% compared to 70% of conventional treatment and this is in the face of all the natural disasters that are happening nowadays, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricane Catherina in New Orleans and so on. There are a lot of epidemics coming our way as epidemics do not simply disappear. Tuberculosis is on the increase, and malaria, Ebola and severe influenza epidemics. All this is coming back and we have to be prepared for it, because this is where homeopathy can show what it can do. The philosophy about the epidemics is a message we have to spread.

If we want to do all that, we need a philosophy. That, for me, is the base, because we can have a lot in materia medica, we can run around like a headless chicken, without knowing what we will have to do then. Without philosophy we are headless chickens. We also need new provings. www.provings.com has 700 provings listed, going back for 20 years, but I’m sure there are more. The big problem with provings is that there are many provers, but few publishers. I sometimes get provings with the comment that somebody else has some more. People somehow have this on their hard disk and don’t know how to access it. Publication can take as long as two years in preparation, and there are also problems with it after editing. We have to create premium rate quality for proving methods and publishings.

Repertories are becoming more and more inclusive. Kent's repertory: 90 000 categories, 10 000 of them had faults. People tested and discovered this. The new repertories have 500 000 categories and more are arriving. Naturally, mistakes sneak in and the problem with the repertories is that it is always easy to add something, but very difficult to get mistakes erased again, to clean up the whole thing. And I can tell you, it is very simple to make mistakes as I myself add provings to the repertories. We have to be watchful. Too many categories, too many duplicates are a risk. There are too many little symptoms that are simply not logical and are dissonant.

Publications: There is a lot happening here, too. Every day there are new books on the market. I spoke with a bookshop owner: In 1988 they had 200 titles and now they have 1 700 titles. This is all very nice and there is new stuff arriving all the time from internet articles and data bases. But we should observe Hahnemann, who wrote about chronic illnesses and waited 12 to 14 years before he published his findings, because he was not sure about the accuracy of his data. He wanted his information to be rock solid. We should learn from this, we should hold to this. Another problem with publications is that we also need time to read them.

Computers are naturally important in homeopathy, especially because so much information is available. We cannot do without them. I cannot remember 3000 remedies, there’s no way. And the computer companies are doing an excellent job. They are permanently writing new programmes, always have new ideas, and for that we are truly grateful.

Finances, the dear money. There are two different aspects to finance. Firstly, on a personal base. In some countries it is very difficult for homeopaths to make any money at all. There are not enough patients and it is exceedingly difficult to get started. It takes a long time to build up your practice, something like two years before one is really established. In acupuncture, you see people perhaps every two weeks but we see our patients only every four to six weeks. Looking at it from this angle, straight of we need three times as many patients. And then we heal them and they don’t come back. Yes! To counteract this would be very nice if homeopathy was more popular. It would also be good for us to be integrated in the mainstream health service, where we could work with big companies or with the health insurance funds. We need money for research and the epidemics in the Third World.

Now, at the end, onto the helpers. We need helpers in homeopathy, historians, scientists, computer gurus, bankers, filmmakers, journalists and politicians. All these people can help us with data collection to make our work available to other people. We need more of these helpers.

What I am trying to demonstrate with this picture is that all these facets create homeopathy, and there are certainly many more factors that I simply have forgotten about. But if we want to bring this into a big totality, a big complete picture that is moving forward, what has to be done? We all simply have to do as much as we can manage.

We have to make a big movement out of all this. Because, if WE don’t move it, who will? I think we can do it and I think we will manage. And we will do it in a beautiful way! Let’s go! Thank you all very much.

At the very last, there was a real sensation for the fans of actual live superhomeopaths. Sitting side by side in a row on stage were Jeremy Sherr, Massimo Mangialavori, Jan Scholten and Rajan Sankaran, the 'expert premium' of the congress attendants, bidding farewell to congress. They made their closing remarks and also answered some questions.

One question for Sankaran was: 'Is coffee an antidote in homeopathy?’ Sankaran: I’m really glad somebody asked THIS question. There’s a story behind this. My father had an aunt. And this aunt always consumed a lot of coffee. And then she fell ill and asked my father: ’Give me a remedy.’ And he answered: ’No, before I do that, you have to stop drinking coffee.’ Her answer: ’Then I prefer not to take a remedy, I like my coffee better than that.’ Some months later she said: ’I am now really suffering. And I am ready to give up coffee.’ And he gave her a remedy, and three months later she was quite well again and he said: ’I think you may have some coffee again now.’ And she said: ’ Boy, I think you do not know the power of your remedy. Because I went on drinking coffee all this time.’

He then did the study that was published in the British Homeopathic Journal on how coffee and spices act with homeopathy and he had 500 patients that were told that they cannot drink coffee. The other 500 were allowed to drink what they wanted. The end result was the same. Coffee has therefore not influenced the outcome.

Van der Zee: 'Well Massimo, I think you might have something to say to that. I myself cannot visualise an Italian who does not drink coffee.’ Mangaliavori: 'Do I seriously have to answer this? No. But I will try. The Italian coffee is something totally different than what you drink anywhere else. It is a technical question and not only a question of taste. Well, we use a different mixture, Arabica with very little coffee in the cup. The coffee then gets prepared under high pressure, and the result is a coffee completely different from the American coffee. When I travel to America, I hear over and over again that Italian coffee really wakes one up, but we only use very small amounts of coffee. You see, it depends entirely on the preparation of the coffee, and, in Italy, that’s a pleasure. And if you get pleasure out of something, that’s a good sign, because it means that one is quite healthy.’

Van der Zee: 'A question to all three of you: is there something you would like to contribute to what Jeremy just now reported on? Is there something you would like to add? And what did you learn? What are you taking with you from these three days? And how do you see the future?’

Scholten: 'I don’t have much to add. One of the most important aspects is meeting friends and having fun. And I had an opportunity to dance again. During the day you have to listen to other people, of course, but in the evening one could go dancing. And during this conference we had, thanks be to God, two nights when we could dance. I would call that a smashing conference!’

Scholten: 'But what I did observe – well, I have now heard the different attempts – Rajan, Massimo in comparison to me, well, for me there are really no big differences. I look at it as the same endeavour, searching for the essence of our remedies and to build up an understanding of them. One can look at it from different angles; the angle might be different, but deep down we all do the same thing. We three see classification as an important part of this endeavour. Rajan deals more with feelings, I engage more in life, spirit and purpose. But I also look at perception, feelings and I also work with what Massimo is doing. I don’t see a big difference there. It revolves around the same. And that is really what I detected here during the conference. It is a fabulous journey that we are on, a journey of discovery of the world.

Van der Zee: It always was such a capacity that impressed me by Jan. I always see how open you are. You absorb every information. Your first reaction is to be open, to let it in, and then to look to see where it fits in. And that is most likely the reason for your great success, while you explore and examine the huge universe of remedies

Mangialavori: ’What I liked best is something that I already mentioned earlier. I think that I am somebody thriving on enrichment by diversity. When the different approaches rest on a healthy foundation, when an interesting philosophy exists and when one has good clinical experiences, then that is always enrichment in itself. I think it is also obvious that each serious science has different perspectives. It just has to be like that. And I believe the task of people with more specific ideas or following independent models is for them to integrate these models, explore them for oneself and to embed the Other. It is a lot easier for the participants to conduct that integration for themselves as we already heard during some presentations.

When you look over the rim of the plate of homeopathy into different sciences, if you are interested in psychology or in what is happening in psychology, then one sees that they did something similar to us; they started with an impartial awareness, with a big thinker like Freud and quarrelled with each other. They are still doing that. They developed new directions and they know that there has to be coherence. There are different approaches, but they underline what is specific for each one and there is nothing wrong with that. It is scientifically accepted that these aspects represent something special.

I liked very much what Jeremy said. I would especially emphasise what he said about the computer industry. Because without the search facilities via computer our work would be very, very difficult. Yes, I support the thought that we should thank these computer specialists.

And I think that the ideas about helpers also are very important. I wish that we will be more open in future, not only within homeopathy but also towards the outside. If we cannot exchange experiences with the medical world, if we cannot talk with other scientists, if we cannot integrate with other information or fonts of knowledge, then our future will not be very rosy.

We have a great spirit here during the conference. But the conference is coming to an end. And all over the world there are many new colleagues in homeopathy and for many their practices are going downhill. So we have to ask ourselves why so many patients are not interested in homeopathy but in orthodox medicine. That really is a most important point. How can we export our thought system? What makes me sick is when I read something or visit a conference, I always think that the most important point is to discuss if a remedy works or not. That to me is of major importance. Honestly! But it is not my main concern. In homeopathy, it is not only about prescribing a remedy, it is about the process, how we think about the case, the analysis of the illness and how we talk with the patient. And there, in this process, in this therapeutic field you find the basics of the medical world since the existence of man. If we only concentrate on the remedies, then that is a very narrow concept, a blinkered concept.

Do homeopaths believe in what they are doing? We can of course believe that the remedies themselves function, that they function by themselves, but we should have a certain openness. We should integrate the different perspectives, that also goes for perspectives from the outside. Nowadays, for me, I often find it easier, unfortunately it is like this in many cases, to speak with doctors that are not homeopaths about the things I do than with homeopaths. And about that I am very sad.

Sankaran: ' I think that Jeremy, Jan and Massimo have said most of it now and I agree with them on all points. I would like to share another few experiences with you. Firstly, what they said about the experience of meeting friends that one met within ten or fifteen years, to see each other again, to meet friends from the past – one can feel the connectedness and it is as if one belongs to a big family, and that really, basically was what opened my heart. And that’s what I take away with me.

Also interesting and useful for me was to hear the other speakers and to see them working on the same truth and to look at this from a different angle. And as Jan already said, we all finally come to the same development, but we arrive there from different points of view, and that was nice to see from Jeremy. It also was the first time for me to hear Massimo and to see and to learn his point of view regarding the study of homeopathy. It was very useful to see this and I also take this with me from this conference.

Regarding the future of homeopathy, there are some things I would like to say about that. Firstly, I remember an interesting experience. I think it was twelve to fifteen years ago. Deborah Collins, she is not here now but in New Zealand, she was a very experienced teacher and she visited my practice in Mumbai. We spent two weeks together and she sat in during all the talks with patients. It was very nice and we tried to exchange experiences when we found that we did not agree on the remedy. That happened only once in one case during two weeks but it was really depressing. This was because when I explained what I would give she got depressed, and when she told me what she would give I was depressed. And two weeks later we had a patient, who was a homeopath himself, and he told his story and it was really wild. This was a wonderful case for this remedy and it was not possible for us to have different opinions now. And I looked at Deborah and said: ’Deborah, this is the last case that we have together.’ And she said: 'Yes, and we have the same remedy.’ We did not want to name the remedy in front of the homeopath. But I saw that her eyes gleamed and finally we had managed to choose the same remedy. But I still had my doubts. Are we speaking about the same remedy? To verify it I said: ’Deborah, the third letter is a’. ‚Yes, exactly’ And the patient is leaving and I said: ’Deborah, great, we have managed after two weeks! What a hot case for anacardium.’ She said: ’ I was of the opinion that it was platinum!’ We then left together and the homeopath followed us and said: ’I’m sure you have given me Staphisagria!’

Yes, that’s what it was like, fifteen years ago. And the reason for it was that we were simply thinking symptoms. And when one named three symptoms one would go for staphisagria, with three other symptoms one would go for platinum and we could not standardize like that. And we had to think more in terms of systems. And this way, thanks to Jan Scholten, we arrived at the Periodic System or the classification by Massimo or my own idea about kingdoms. And we decided to group things together, and that is where we are at this moment.

Now the important question is asked again and again. I think it should now be answered. People ask me shall we teach in our schools these new methods from the beginning, or should we start with the old method? Jeremy cited and described something about that. I think we have to know our foundations, in the repertorium, the philosophy, in the materia medica and in the provings, the foundation must be there.

The rootedness has to be very strong. All the knowledge is an abstraction of these foundations, this solid information. The question is, should we teach this for three years first and then say to them, ok, there is somebody by the name of Jan Scholten, or should we teach that already in the first year. I think that both should be taught in parallel. One should learn both, the foundations and the systemic ideas, because they complement each other. When somebody is learning about Tarantula and says, Tarantula – dancing and music, hiding and impulsiveness and so on, they should also be told that some of these qualities belong to the spiders.

Animals that attack each other- you then speak about spiders and tarantula in parallel. And, as of necessity, the two complement each other and this leads to an interest in the student and one then gets a more wholesome picture. Because one should not only look for a multitude of symptoms when choosing a remedy, if one does that, it becomes very difficult. You have to remember all that. That is not a concept. That is more a sort of memory feast. When Hahnemann wrote his Materia Medica Pura, it had to do with symptoms. And it ended then with more symptoms and somebody wrote that the Materia medica starts with dizziness and ends with confusion.

I think that not only one part should be taught, but on a parallel level there should be taught all the current methods of the different homeopathic schools because they complement each other. And that is something that was verified for me again with this conference. I think that is what this conference achieved for me, that is, if one method does not fit, then there is always the option to go onto a different path. And these different paths widen our horizon. One should not choose a path that hinders one, but one should see to have more in the repertory.

I think it would be very difficult to teach the gesture-method in England. The people there mostly sit motionless. I once asked how they do this? And I was told, well, you know, it is difficult, but occasionally for a fleeting moment they make such a gesture. But you really have to catch that. But I think that it would be as difficult to practise this method in Italy. The Italians never stop moving their hands. I know a little story about the sinking of the Titanic. Two survivors were both Italians. And they were asked what they did for fourteen days? – Well, we just talked (and made moves similar to swimming motions).

Therefore, if one cannot employ one method, then one should use another method. I heard Jan for instance say that.

About the question of what is old, what is new. If we try to separate that, then we have a problem. I think that the New is a development of the Old, is an integration, an abstraction. If we move forward with the Old we cannot stagnate. Hahnemann wrote six editions of the Organon and then he went and married a young French woman. He was very impulsive. Why, then, should we hold back? Professionally, that is. I think that the New gets integrated with the Old and that that is a very important aspect. We have seen this during this conference, this process of integration happened right here.

When I met Jan on the first day in the hotel I looked at him and said: 'Jan, every time I see you you look more and more like Hahnemann.’ And he said, and I don’t know if he meant it symbolically: 'You know, Hahnemann is looking more and more like me.’

The contributions that are reproduced here seem now and then be somewhat confused. The reason for this is that you have the script of the simultaneous translation in front of you. As the speakers were occasionally speaking very fast, mistakes are unavoidable. So please, dear reader, do not take every word too seriously, too literal.

If you are interested in the original speeches, they are available at the cost of €10.-at

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