Elaine Lewis

Elaine!  What better way to start off our 8th season than by interviewing you!

Yes, it just screams “Happy New Year!”  Alan, actually, now that I think about it, this is the perfect time to have me as “Homeopath in the Hot Seat” because– like an idiot– I signed up for Career Day at school!!!!!!

OMG! At your alma mater?

Yes!  What was I thinking?  I have to give a brief talk on homeopathy!  (That is my career, isn’t it? I’m not sure.)

Why don’t you say you started out by playing guitar, writing music, traveling with a famous band….

Yes, because that leads into homeopathy so well!

OK, forget I said that.

Actually, Alan, to be accurate, The Silhouettes weren’t a band, they were a Doo-wop group from the ’50’s

and they had a number-1 hit record called “Get A Job” in 1958! Here it is now:

That’s my husband Rick Lewis on the right. When they were touring on the Oldies Circuit in the ’80’s, I was their bass player; and I didn’t really write anything but I did write the lead sheets out for the band.

I stand corrected. We wouldn’t want to be inaccurate here at hpathy.com!

We have journalistic integrity! Here I am tuning up backstage at a theater near Boston:

Here we are in Rhode Island in 1989, I’m on the far right next to Rick:

Wow!

Do you want to see the sax solo I wrote out for “Get A Job”?

You wrote the sax solo?

No, I wrote it out! You see, it was like this, Alan; everywhere we played, there was a house band–it was quite pathetic, really! They never rehearsed our songs–they were just lazy; I think they thought they could wing it, play it by ear! The sax player would never bother to learn the horn solo, he’d just make something up– insisting that if the “real” sax player were there, that’s what he would do– and I was getting tired of this nonsense so I wrote out the sax solos to all the songs!  (I was listening to a tape of one of our shows recently, and the horn solo sounded like a cat was being attacked on stage!)

You wrote that? Did the band members appreciate it, all your work?

“The saxaphone isn’t written in the treble clef,” I was told!

Ouch!

Exactly! “Could you transpose what I’ve done into whatever clef it’s supposed to be in?!” I asked?   Reluctantly, and acting put-upon, the saxophonist did exactly that.  It was the first time our songs ever sounded like they were supposed to!

Back in those days, it was a “men’s club” (I guess it probably still is, maybe) and I, being female, was viewed as a curiosity and a pain in the ____!

Alan, are you going to help me come up with a speech for Career Day?

OK.   So what was it like?

What was what like?

Being female and touring with a famous group?

A lot of it was about finding a place to change!  There were no dressing rooms for women, so, I changed in the car once, the bathroom another time… and about having to get up early and go to bed early, neither of which I was good at!  I finally discovered Valium.  Does no one want to talk about homeopathy?  Oh!  You know what Alan?  It’s time for my snack.

Your snack???  It’s just as well because it’s time for me to go to bed!

I like the way the interview is kicking off, don’t you Alan?

***

Hello Elaine, where were we?

If you were Andre Saine, you’d have said, “Where were’s we?”

I would?

He’s French Canadian!

Yes, I know, he’s the director of the Canadian Academy of  Homeopathy!

I’ve decided to start talking like him in the hopes it will catch on. I say things like, “How’s are you?”

Really? Is it catching on with anyone?

Yes. Shana.

Well, best of luck in making Andre Sainese the latest craze.

You’re going to have to talk louder, Alan, I’m in the kitchen!

ARE YOU READY FOR THE INTERVIEW TO START YET?!

Alan, you don’t have to yell, I’m right here!

Good grief!…never mind.  Are you still playing?

At what?

Musically.

I just produced a CD, a double CD actually, of all the Silhouettes’ songs. 

Are you kidding?!  Why didn’t you say something sooner?  Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?  How did you do that?

Well, Alan, it took me a year! And in the middle of the whole thing, I got a brilliant idea!

What was it?

Down through the years, I saved everything the Silhouettes ever said!

Everything?

Practically, I always had a tape recorder going, I used to record phone conversations, I saved their voice mails and phone messages, I have radio interviews; they rehearsed at my house!  That’s Rick playing guitar on the left.

So I said to myself, “Elaine, you know what would be a good idea?” And I said, “What?” And I said, “Doing something that no one’s ever done before.” And I said, “What would that be?” And I said, “Drop these things you’ve saved in between the songs!” “What things?” I said. “You know, the funny things they said that you saved!” And so, after finally understanding myself….

Why do I have the feeling I’m reading Winnie The Pooh?  So, how can we buy it?

Buy it, good idea.  Just write to me at [email protected] and say, “Elaine, if it’s not tooooo much trouble, could you please send me your one-of-a-kind CD?”  As a matter of fact, Alan, I need a good advertising campaign, something like, “Buy my CD, send Shana to college!”  What do you think?

It’s very original, I’m sure no one else has thought of it!  How much does it cost?

College?  Believe me, you don’t want to know!  Thousands of dollars!!!!

No, the CD!

Oh!  $20.00.

That is cheaper than college!  Are you on it?

On the CD? Yes, I’m on it!

Wow! What’s your favorite “insert”, if I can call it that?

Well, there’s the one where Rick and I are arguing over a paragraph from The Prophet.

Are you going to elaborate on that, I hope?

We were stoned.

Oh, say no more, say no more.

Basically the problem was that we kept forgetting what we were reading, and there were too many “it’s”, and we started disagreeing over what noun they referred back to.

It makes perfect sense!  Give me another “insert” that you like.

You can hear Bill Horton apologizing to Larry–my dog.

Your dog?

Yes, my German Shepherd.  Larry insisted on rehearsals being conducted in an orderly and dignified manner.

 

Bill, Rick, Earl and Raymond-1987

Well, if they can keep sheep in line….

Exactly!  Alan, it’s time for my snack again.

Again?????   Well, take five, everybody.

***

Alan, where are you?  It’s a done deal, it’s over, it’s history!

What is?

Career Day!  It’s all over!

You’ve given your speech?  They seem to have the wrong date up there!

They sure do!  But you know what, Alan?  More importantly, why are teenagers so stupid?!!!!!

By the way, that’s me in the background on the right, bravely holding up the wall, averting catastrophe!

In that case, here’s your Argent-nit.  Now, tell me what you said!

Well, first of all, you should probably explain that Argent-nit. (or Argentum nitricum) “people” have a fear that the walls of buildings are going to collapse on them; but, as to your question, I took a look at the seats filled with teenagers in blue jeans, sneakers, sweatshirts and backpacks and said, “Well, finally everybody looks like me!”

Ha-ha! Did they think that was funny?

No.  It was a tough room, Alan!  “Hey!” I said.  “It’s my generation you can thank for what you’re allowed to wear to school today!”  Then I told everyone it would be appropriate at this moment if they could raise their fists in the air and shout,  “Power to the People!”

They were hesitant. I don’t think they knew what it meant!  So I decided to move on and say, “Who’s on drugs?”

An unorthodox beginning to a speech if ever I’ve heard one!

Some of them stirred and looked around quizzically. “What drugs are you on?” I repeated. They couldn’t think of any so another panel member suggested that “Advil” was a drug. (You know what, Alan? We need better teenagers!)  OK, so at this point, I stood up, pulled a Boiron tube out of my pocket

and said, “You see this? These are MY drugs! They’re homeopathic remedies and they’re totally natural, no side effects, and you know what else? They work like magic! I go through life like Superman — illnesses and accidents bounce right off of me, I keep right on going! Now let me tell you why that is. If you’ve got a symptom, you have two choices: You can either call out a firing squad or a cheerleading squad! I prefer to call out a cheerleading squad!  You know why?  If you cheer your body on in what it’s trying to do, it stops doing it!!!!  Homeopathic remedies agree with your symptoms–in this respect:  In over-dose, the remedy would cause what you have!  So, if you’re having bouts of sneezing, the correctly chosen remedy would say, “Sneezing, yes!  More sneezing!”  It seems to make the body say, “Whoa!  OK, I’ve done enough of that!”  It’s kind of like “reverse psychology” taken to a new level!

Interesting!  You know, you’re right–it is like “reverse psychology”, only used against your immune system!  Did you explain to them what a symptom is?

I tried! I asked, “What IS a symptom, anyway?  It’s a sign that something is wrong. Your symptoms are NOT the disease, they’re an indication that a malfunctioning is taking place internally and your body is attempting to set it right through discharging or inflaming or narcotizing, or walling off, etc.  But we’ve got a whole medical and pharmaceutical industry aimed only at stopping this self-protective response of the body!

That’s something you have to think about for a minute–is it really appropriate to aim your pharmaceuticals at this self-protective response?  Every drug on the market is dedicated to one thing:  symptom management; not at what’s causing the symptom in the first place!  It’s kind of like re-arranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship.   But you know what?  It’s a futile effort.  It is simply not possible to turn off a symptom without angering the immune system and challenging it to put the symptom out again!  You may think you have succeeded but all you’ve done is rerouted the symptom or suppressed the immune system with consequences as yet unknown; or stopped the symptom for a time, only to have it return again, stronger than before.”

Did you explain how homeopathic remedies work in counter-distinction to drugs?

Yes, I said the following:  “Instead of opposing symptoms by force (which is what drugs do), our remedies send the message, ‘You’re doing the right thing, keep on doing it!’ And you know what? Do you know what happens when you give an organism positive reinforcement? It stops complaining!  (Again, reverse psychology.)  It becomes docile, relaxed and congenial; it says, ‘OK, I think I’m done with that,’ and voila! the symptom is gone!  Our medicines are in ‘sympathy’ with your immune system.  Isn’t that better?  Doesn’t that make more sense?  

Think about what gardeners do when a tree has become “thin”, they cut off the branches!  It’s called “pruning”.  It makes the tree mad!  The tree says, “Hey!  I’m supposed to have branches, I’ll show you!!!!” and it grows twice as many branches back as it had before!  “So there!!” says the tree.  But of course, that’s what you wanted; you fooled the tree into doing what you wanted it to do.  When you use force against an organism, it retialiates and does just the opposite.  Knowing this, doctors ought to realize that their suppressive drugs are antagonizing the patient’s body and bringing about just the opposite of what was intended. 

On the other hand, the homeopathic remedy makes the immune system think that we WANT constipation, or not just a headache, but an even bigger headache!  And just as the gardener fools the tree, we have now fooled the immune system!  “No!  I don’t think I will have a headache,” your immune system says, ” thank you very much!  So there!  You can’t make me!  I’m dropping it, OK? Take that!”  Of course, this was what you wanted!  Homeopaths have learned to use the “retaliation response” to their own advantage, and hence, to the patient’s advantage! 

Do you think anybody learned anything from your talk?

No. But the lunch afterwards was fantastic!

Nothing like finding the silver lining.

Alan, never pass up a chance to do something off the beaten path.  You know what Robert Frost says about taking the road less traveled?  For example, in my case? I got a school T-shirt!

As an award?

No, I asked for one!

Ahem!  Well, I’m sure there is a lesson in this for all of us–somewhere.  Elaine, let me ask you, though.  You say symptoms should be honored because they’re trying to eliminate some germ that’s sneaked in without a backstage pass; but, what about those symptoms that are not “self-resolving”?  I mean, someone who’s got asthma or colitis, these things never seem to go away!  How can you explain that this is an example of the body trying to heal itself?

That’s a good question, Alan; and I would answer it but it’s time for my snack again!

Take five, everyone!

*****

Alan, I’m back!  I just had a bowl of oat bran cereal with real blueberries and raw milk.  Do you know why I emphasize “real” blueberries?

No, why?!

Because, the “blueberries” in processed food?  They’re fake!  OK, so now in answer to your question…which I believe was, How are any of us “helped” by asthma or colitis or any number of other things our immune systems are doing to torture us?  That’s a very good question Alan.  Well, if you keep damaging your body with toxic drugs, junk food and other errors in living, your immune system is going to go kaflooey!  It may not be able to mount a significant defense against invaders, it may not even try!  Then again, people are actually eating “food” that damages the digestive tract, like “milk” for example!  I’m talking about supermarket milk, which is NOT a natural food!  You’d be surprised how processed foods are damaging your bodies.  If you want to get well, there’s no drug for that; you have to start cooking from scratch, eliminate “convenience” food, donuts–yes, donuts!  Make a salad, bake a sweet potato, make a stew with real vegetables, buy eggs from free-ranging chickens….

How much do they charge?

Ha-ha!  Alan!!!!  OK, if you buy eggs directly from chickens it does cost more!  But let’s not lose sight of my point, which is–I think–that people are damaging their health severely through three practices:

1.  Not cooking from scratch, eating fast food, eating packaged food, drinking bottled juices (real juice goes bad shortly after juicing and can’t be bottled; so, you have to ask yourself, “What have they done to this juice so it can sit in this bottle indefinitely, not separate, and not go bad?”), eating white flour and white sugar products and drinking supermarket milk, soda, snack food, candy, etc., AND, waiting too long between meals to eat which causes your blood sugar to drop.  You know, if you’re poisoning yourself, the poison’s going to win!  You have to stop doing that! 

Now, what do all these phony foods have in common?  SUGAR!  Food manufacturers are ADDING sugar to foods where it doesn’t belong, deliberately to addict you to it!  Just read the labels!  You’ll see not only “sugar” added, but several KINDS of sugar–high fructose corn syrup, honey (which, if it’s not raw, might just as well be sugar) and so on–and don’t forget that white flour turns to sugar in your stomach, so, anything made of white flour is just more sugar!

Now, what’s wrong with that?  I can safely tell you that pretty much any health problem your average person is presenting with is caused by this diet of sugar, sugar and more sugar!  Sugar actually suppresses the immune system!  It depletes the level of phagocytes, the white blood cells that eat up infection; it upsets the acid/alkaline balance, making the body acidic.

Since the body does not like being acidic, it pulls minerals out of the bones to try to act as a buffer; so, sugar leeches minerals out of the body.  The endocrine system, digestive system and the immune system all need these minerals to function.

Enzymes need minerals.  Enzymes digest food.  If they can’t do their work due to mineral deficiencies… look out!  For example, Proteolytic enzymes from the pancreas digest protein.  If there’s a deficiency of these enzymes because of lack of minerals, undigested protein gets into the blood and is deposited in tissues in a partially digested form which causes the immune system to attack it because it’s abnormal and unrecognizable!  You can see how your immune system can start going haywire, or at least it can appear to be acting randomly!  Sugar also leeches the B vitamins out of the body, which we need for normally functioning nerves.  Undigested food can get deposited in the nervous system and cause MS.  It can get deposited in the joints and cause joint pain.  In the bloodstream it can cause a food allergy.  Ulcerative colitis can be caused by partially digested protein.  This is all to give you SOME idea of the havoc that added sugar in your diet can cause.  So, it’s not really, “Why is my body doing this to me?”  It’s more like, “Why am I doing this to my body?”  That’s the real question.  Now, take a look at just one soda–and how many of these do we drink in a day?  The average soda, 12 ounces of soda, contains 10 teaspoons of sugar!  That’s right, ten!  Now, how many teaspoons of sugar can we tolerate at one sitting for real?  Two.  That’s it, two!

2.  Getting vaccinated.  Injecting toxins directly into your bloodstream cannot possibly be a good idea!  A long time ago, Jenner observed that milk maids who got cowpox didn’t get the dreaded smallpox!  A very important observation that makes perfect sense to us homeopaths because our hypothesis is “similars repel”; but, how we got from there to injecting animal viruses and toxic metals and poisons like formaldehyde directly into babies’ bloodstreams, I couldn’t tell you; except that its a cash cow for pediatricians and the drug companies alike!  No, I mean, really, think about it!  You have to keep going back to the pediatrician to get your vaccinations!  It guarantees a constant flow of office visits and a constant sale of product!  Every time you turn around, it’s time for the MMR again!  

No scientist has ever even tested to see whether these things actually work!  We know that the incidence of Autism in children has sky-rocketed into something like 1 in 100 children, and what does every child in the world have in common?  They’re all getting vaccinated!  Now, again, there have never been any experiments in which half the subjects are vaccinated and the other half are not and then after so-many years their health status is compared.  That’s never happened.  So, this is all sheer belief; it’s a medical ritual with no science behind any of it!

But I know, there are those who will say, “Look, it’s so obvious!  All the dread diseases went away after the vaccinations got started!”  Really?  I’m not aware that measles has gone away or German Measles.  Why are they still here?  Oh, you mean Polio?  The truth is, Polio was already in decline before the vaccination program was begun and it went away in Europe in countries that never even had a vaccination program!  How do you explain that?  How did Yellow Fever go away without a vaccination program?  (For a more detailed look at this, see my article Vaccinations: Just Say No:  https://hpathy.com/homeopathy-papers/vaccinations-just-say-no/ .)

This assault on the immune systems of innocent children–and adults–is indefensible!  People really believe they’re taking part in the best that medicine has to offer!

 …and the anguish parents go through when they sort-of know that something is wrong with the vaccinations, but they’re so afraid of dread disease too that they become paralyzed with indecision and unable to think or even investigate; but, even just scratching the surface of this controversy would put their minds at ease; for example, the Hepatitis B shot given at birth: the only way the baby can get Hepatitis B is from unprotected sex and needle-sharing!  Did you know that?  Parents need to simply start reading, it’s all there, there’s no need to be confused about this.

Now, where were we?  Oh yes, Number 3.  DRUGS!  People, drugs are bad. Just watch the commercials.  They tell you how bad they are so you won’t be able to sue them!  I just picked a drug at random:   Avandia (type-II diabetes drug).  Side effects are listed as follows:  Heart attack, stroke, swelling, rapid weight gain, nausea, stomach pain, jaundice, increased thirst or hunger, easy bruising or bleeding, weakness, headache, sneezing, coughing, diarrhea and back pain.  Charming.  I mean, why would you take this?  For type II diabetes?  This is a junk food disease!  You’re supposed to stop eating junk food, that’s the idea here, not to take a drug that is actually much worse than diabetes!

In conclusion Alan, if you can possibly remember your original question, your immune system can’t function normally under an onslaught of processed food, drugs, and toxic ingredients in vaccines.  Have I answered your question now?

What question?  I don’t remember asking a question!  Which can mean only one thing:  time for your snack, and time for me to go to bed!  Thanks for helping us start off the new year right, Elaine; and hey everybody, don’t forget:  buy Elaine’s CD and help Shana go to college; it’s a worthy cause.  Shana, where’s are you?

Here’s I am, Alan!

________________________________

Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.

Elaine is a graduate of Robin Murphy’s Hahnemann Academy of North America.

Elaine takes online cases, contact her at [email protected] and visit her website at elaineLewis.hpathy.com  and TheSilhouettes.org