Yes, Homeopathy is alive and growing at a rate that continues to surprise and shock many!
With every passing year and with every passing month, the change is becoming more and more evident. The number of homeopathy schools, the number of qualified homeopaths, the number of modern day allopaths using homeopathy, the number of patients, the number of people doing research in homeopathy, the number of governments supporting homeopathy, the number of books, articles and websites – everything seems to be increasing at a very good rate!
At the same time, the animosity of conventional medicine, its attempts to nullify positive research results, along with talk of enacting laws to restrict homeopathic practice and the sale of remedies, seems to be rising too. These are people who are antagonistic to the growth of homeopathy, just as they were at the time of Hahnemann, and it is a very good sign for us because people don’t fight with nothing! We apparently pose a challenge or a threat to people and institutions out there, which prompts them to write articles, editorials, create websites and even enact laws to restrict our growth.
So far their efforts have only failed. Times have changed for the better now. In the early 19th century, Hahnemann was alone with his handful of followers. Today homeopathy is a global phenomenon – more than half a million practices, millions of patients, dozens of big (enough) pharmaceutical companies, dozens of software, thousands of websites, and an ever increasing number of researchers. Anyone trying to go against this current tide is in for a very very long fight – which homeopathy will win on the basis of its clinical efficacy or when its modus operandi is scientifically understood.
But to be frank, the days of fighting and animosity are very much on their last run because there has been an increasing realization on both sides that all the systems have their own strengths and weaknesses and an integrative approach which includes conventional medicine, homeopathy and other alternative systems is in the best interest of the patients.
There has been a lot of new research in homeopathy that creates more ground for an open mind and an integrative approach towards medicine. When we decided to focus the last two issues of this year on scientific research, our aim was to gather all the relevant research and ideas in one place, to inform everyone about what’s going on. We did not set out to prove homeopathy in these two special issues but to generate ideas and stimulate thought processes which can contribute to future research in homeopathy. We have tried to present to you information about clinical research, physical research and many new ideas that need to be worked upon. I hope our effort will help in greater acceptance of homeopathy in scientific circles and will encourage more people to join the research effort.
For the whole hpathy team, it has been a very special experience to work on these two issues. When we started out we were not even sure if we will get enough material for these issues. But in the end we had to drop many articles and we still ended up creating the two most bulky issues of Homeopathy for Everyone. We have even started working on a third issue focusing on research that we will bring out sometime in 2007!
I hope you will enjoy reading the articles in this issue as much as we have enjoyed putting them together. Do send me your feedback at [email protected] about various articles in our November and December issue. With this issue of Homeopathy for Everyone, we complete three years of publishing this monthly journal. It has been a great journey so far and I hope we will continue to receive your love, support, encouragement and feedback in the next year too – in fact we need more of it!
I look forward to hearing from you.
Seasons Greetings & Best Wishes ,
Dr. Manish Bhatia
— Chief Editor —
Homeopathy for Everyone
