COVID-19 – The Pharmacy Perspective

Originally published in Homeopathy in Practice – Journal of the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths – Autumn / Winter 2020  -Courtesy Tony Pincus  https://www.homeopathyinpractice.org/

In part two of this article, I discuss homeoprophylaxis, nosodes, provings and higher potencies; and offer some revelations from the employment of a specific COVID nosode regarding the wider subject of susceptibility and the how these are affected by free will choices.

Part one of this article approached the treatment of COVID19 from a traditional homoeopathic approach culminating with a phased plan of treatment stages and accompanying remedies. The concluding part of my article focuses more on homoeoprophylaxis and novel remedies to meet the current demand

Homeoprophylaxis (HP)

From part one of this article it should be clear how difficult it would be to identify, let alone rely upon, one genus epidemicus. Arsenicum album and Camphor were suggested and tested in India for both prophylaxis and treatment with variable success. Data is still sketchy as to how well these performed in the pandemic.

Personally I believed a nosode would be more valuable as it would be far more specific for HP. Decades of advising livestock farmers about the value of nosodes for HP allowed me to invest time in this approach with the pandemic, and here the journey began.

At Ainsworths we had an authenticated coronavirus nosode derived from a bovine source. Knowing that coronaviruses tend to infect the intestines and lungs, it occurred to me that this sample might prove valuable, as reports of acute respiratory problems and occasional intestinal complaints surfaced. We started to use this remedy for HP in March when requested to provide a remedy. It’s important to clarify the role of a nosode in both prevention and treatment.

Rules for prescribing nosodes

• As a constitutional medicine, when the mental, physical generals and particulars are characteristics.

• When well-chosen remedies fail to give relief.

• When there is a lack of symptoms, to clear up the case.

• ‘Never been well since’ symptoms.

• As ‘miasmatic intercurrent’ medicine.

• When there is a partial portrait of the disease and no medicine completely fits the case.

• As ‘homeopathic prophylaxis’.

• As ‘genus epidemicus’.

• As ‘auto-nosode’.

Contra-indications for prescribing nosodes

• In the active phase of the disease.

• During the incubation period of the disease.

• In the acute explosive stage of the disease.

• During the active phase of a recurrent attack.

• As auto-nosode, during the acute infectious disease.

• Below 200c or 30x potency; and should be administered in infrequent repetition.

(Patel & Mashru 2017)

The key elements here are: first, the value of a nosode for HP; second, its benefit for treatment of residual symptoms lingering after recovery from the acute stage; and third, not to use it for acute treatment of the active infection, as isopathy is deemed too aggressive for the patient.

Accuracy of the nosode was my greatest concern as this would be key to the success of HP. My sense was that the bovine coronavirus remedy was too far from the mark and we required a remedy made from COVID-19 material.

Needless to say this was controversial, and it was complicated to obtain an authenticated source. At the time testing was unavailable and authenticated viral material was tucked away in biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratories, somewhat off-limits to your average homeopathic pharmacy.

At this point Dr Yubraj Sharma contacted me to offer an electronic potency of COVID-19 he’d made in accordance with the methods of Dr Jacques Benveniste and Professor Luc Montagnier. Scientists at Wuhan had published the genome for COVID-19 and Yubraj had downloaded the code from the Internet.

The wav.file was then passed through a coil in an amplification circuit with a blank receiving cell placed inside the coil. Theory dictates that the sample picks up the vibration of the material from the amplified signal and imprints it in the solution which can then be potentised.

Now we had a more accurate remedy, although it was devoid of contact with the originating source material. This bothered me as I had a real sense of responsibility for not putting out an inaccurate remedy (Aphorisms 264, 265), and so continued to search for a material source.

I checked many potential avenues but came up empty-handed. I was about to abandon my quest when serendipity struck. My daughter contacted me to say she had come down with COVID-19, and I rushed over to get a sputum sample.

At this point the task was to neutralise the virus and run the sample up as a potency. However, as I embarked on this task I was guided to make two versions of the same remedy. One would be a standard run to 30c; the second would embrace what I would best describe as the guiding intelligence behind the vital force (Aphorisms 9, 10).

This novel approach required me to convey a vibration to the mother tincture from the guiding intelligence. I stress this process took the guidance in Aphorism 269 as a basis for going further. What I describe here is how I worked with the same vital forces on a very conscious level in order to imbue the remedy with a certain vibration.

It was a tuning-in and feeling process, but to describe it further would be too lengthy and esoteric for this article. It is sufficient to state a healing vibration was introduced into the nosode. The healing effect came from the etheric body, a place I can describe as being consistent with the vital force or prana.

After making the remedy I was guided to test both versions of the nosode above on myself before releasing this for anyone else to use. This seemed too small a sample so I enlisted a colleague and we both took a single dose of the Standard JPV 30c  and sat quietly for 30 minutes whilst monitoring ourselves very carefully. Later the same day we both took JPV healed 30c and again sat with it for 30 minutes.

Both remedies provoked a rapid, transient feeling of my daughter’s physical symptoms but the difference between the two was palpable. The standard remedy exerted a physical effect alone whereas the healed version acted on the etheric, subtle levels of the physical form just above the skin surface, the effect of which soaked in through the skin further into the body, evoking a physical sense of peace and calm that persisted well beyond the 30-minute test.

I named this remedy JPV in gratitude to my daughter Jessica and her virus and it was potentised up to 200c and later 10M with our bespoke potentiser. The less effective ‘standard’ remedy was discarded after the proving.

Proving of standard JPV 30c potency

Me, sequential experience

•        Immediately a physical sensation of warmth in my throat followed rapidly by a sense of warmth in my back in area of my upper torso.

•        Then a mild pressure from one temple to the other.

Colleague, sequential experience

•        A cramp in her right hand.

•        Followed by a general feeling of calm, with lots of random pictures coming into her mind.

•        Then her nostrils felt clearer, less congested as if she was breathing in fresh air. Her nose felt a bit cold as if she was inhaling cold fresh air.

•        Then a sense of lightness in frontal area of her face from nose up to her forehead. As if pressure had been alleviated, as if something had gone.

•        Nose feels cold, but air passages feel clear.

•        Then a sense of inward pressure on her left temple, as if someone was pushing against it.

Proving of JPV 30c healed remedy

Me, sequential experience

•        Sense of mild pressure pushing inwards around my whole body.

•        Pressure inwards smoothed out and became more a sense of peace and calm mostly experienced around and inside my head and neck area, then spreading to around my torso.

•        Sense of peacefulness and calm continues and feels nourishing.

Colleague, sequential experience

•        Immediately she said ‘this is odd, I feel I’m travelling through space’; no mental pictures as she experienced with the standard remedy above.

•        My mind is racing, as if I’m in a time tunnel.

•        Pain above left ear between ear and temple.

•        Mind slows down and she now feels a sense of calm.

Crowd funder and V-Hawk audit

The JPV remedy was subsequently released for use in the 30c and around 3,000 people began using it, initially in the UK but then globally. In addition, it was made available to frontline NHS staff through a crowd funder initiated by naturopath Charlotte Pulver.

Charlotte had approached Ainsworths for donations of remedies for immune support of NHS staff most exposed to COVID-19 and this seemed an opportune moment to make the nosode available to those most at risk. As the numbers of frontline staff increased it became obvious we should record the outcome of their experiences.

By happenstance Dr Clare Relton had contacted me to encourage homeopathic practitioners to audit their patients’ experiences with COVID-19 in a sophisticated survey named V-Hawk that she had set up at her own expense on the Weecudos platform.

Once enlisted, the patient is automatically surveyed to track changes in their health on a regular basis for a year. I introduced Clare to Charlotte and encouraged the applicants for immune support from the Frontline campaign to consider accepting JPV 30c as a remedy.

Clare then introduced Philippa Filbert to run a secondary campaign to offer one-to-one support for the frontline staff after their initial foray with the nosode. This project continues and my thanks go to Margaret Kincade, Rowena Doble and Bev Nicholls who stepped in to support the project.

Venturing to higher potencies

I must thank Dr Subrata Banerjea of the Allen College for encouraging me to follow Grimmer and Foubister and shift to a higher potency regime. Dr Donald Foubister used to give 200c followed by 10M in prophylactic prescribing. At the time we had 30c and 200c and, therefore, instead of using JPV 30c alone, I began to advise five days of the 30c followed by five days of JPV 200c.

The feedback from this is quite revealing in light of the accentuated action of the healing vibration incorporated into the nosode. Whereas the 30c brings a sense of peace and calm, the guiding intelligence of the individual can use the opportunity of the higher potency to ‘nudge’ the person to deal with their neglected lessons; by which I mean issues that have been suppressed can arise to be resolved.

Susceptibility and the mind

What appears to be happening in these cases prompted me to consider a new way of understanding susceptibility to symptoms. Higher potencies of JPV may occasionally bring out mental issues consistent with the underlying behaviour of the individual, especially when they are resistant to accepting issues they genuinely need to learn.

With JPV 30c they may feel calm and relaxed, and one nurse referred to it as her ‘happy pill’. But increasing the potency takes those people (who need it) to a place where opportunity calls. If the person is willing, and desires to accept their issues, the remedy encourages this epiphany. But a stubborn resistance creates a block and may require a different approach.

In these cases I resort to using Bach Flower remedies in a radically new way to release the block and facilitate acceptance of the lessons. Thus, susceptibility can be considered to be the degree to which the ego mind resists such learning before giving in.

Remedies made from human material are linked to the components of the physical body and its subtle bodies, all of which have sublevels in the physical body. Healing occurs from the subtle energy fields, in this case the innermost etheric double subtle body. But this is only part of the story.

As human beings we are also subject to electromagnetic fields, including those of Nature. The way we experience the world around us is dictated by how we choose to be. The beings that create what we describe as Nature respond to us in an ‘antagonistic’ manner by reflecting the way we respond to them. Such that we may learn how we are choosing to be and accept responsibility for this choice.

We can use the information and change who we are being, or not. The Bach Flower remedies are direct links to these vibrations from Nature and assist in both identifying and releasing the blocks we create and maintain. They essentially hold a mirror up to our way of being in the moment so we might better know ourselves.

I both make these remedies and teach a unique course in how to use them in a completely new way, guided by the internal intelligence and Nature. A diagnosis of the blocks and treating them can be effected in just under two minutes and this is why I resorted to using them following the nosode.

The two important elements of this are: first that the patient is empowered to heal themselves consciously and second, that the patient’s story forms a continuum or ‘narrative’ of how they are choosing to be and what consequences are inevitable from such choices.

Vital Force

I turn now to Hahnemann’s statements on the vital force, all of which essentially say it belongs to God. Leave it well alone and focus on the reflection its disturbance provides the physician with, in the form of a symptom picture.  It is the essence of life itself, and the untunement of the vital force creates the picture of dis-ease. Rectify the image reflected through the lens of physicality with a remedy and you cure the patient’s untunement – homeopathy is really that simple.

The journey with JPV and Bach Flower remedies has taken me past this impasse and taught some great lessons in its wake. I appreciate why Hahnemann discouraged discussion on the subject; for him the Organon was a textbook to initiate the standardised practice of homeopathy, not an esoteric work on the Divine Plan.

His dos and don’ts are designed to keep the physician on track and follow orders in order to obtain reproducible results in the safest manner possible for the patient. In his first Aphorism he expresses this unambiguously: ‘The physician’s highest calling, his only calling, is to make sick people healthy – to heal, as it is termed’. (1983).

This aside we must push the envelope and question what is behind the camera. What exactly is the vital force, who runs the show and how does susceptibility to disease fit into the picture?

Life is fundamentally simple but human beings complicate it with their dramas. Ultimately the meaning of life challenges us to consider the oldest, most obvious questions, those whose answers the soul yearns to hear: ‘Who am I and why am I here?’ But a person cannot ask these questions without a deep desire for self knowledge and their true purpose will not be revealed by trivial inquisitiveness.

This is perfect and as it should be, for life is an endless journey of discovery rather than a destination to reach. Each of us is unique and tasked with individual lessons to learn. These lessons show us who we are through the process of choice as this is a “Free will planet’.

Our free will is the tool through which we discover, from actual experience gained in the physical world, that actions have consequences and reflect the choices we make so that we can know who we are being in any moment. Ducking one’s lessons is therefore fraught with problems because it negates our true purpose and deludes our self-identity. If the mind perceives a lesson as good the ego has no resistance to learning it.

However, where the lesson makes us appear less than acceptable when judged by our ego, we react. We dodge the lesson and find all manner of reasons to suppress, reject, deny or excuse the opportunity to learn the benefit that accrues from its acceptance. But what you resist persists and the lesson will simply return to your door.

Resistance to learning who you truly are is therefore ignorance in the true sense of the word – ignoring what you could know if you so choose. It is also futile, as repeated ignorance results in that mental lesson becoming delivered in a more concrete manner.

The mental level starts to matter, it quite literally manifests on the physical level as symptoms, the expression of which is a concrete example of the lesson. This pattern of events is the predisposition to dis-ease we call susceptibility.

So, in the process of cure, is the practitioner one who relieves the patient of their inconvenient truths or a teacher who assists them to learn from them the lesson of who they are choosing to be? To be, or not to be, that is the question.

References

Bracho et al (2010) ‘Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for Leptospirosis epidemic control’ Homeopathy (2010) 99, 156e166

Gaier H (1991) Thorsons Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Homoeopathy. Thorsons

Hahnemann S (1983) The Organon of Medicine, 6th Edn. (1983 New Translation by Künzli J, Naude A and Pendleton P.) Victor Gollancz

Jacobs J (2018) ‘Homeopathic Prevention and Management of Epidemic Diseases’, Homeopathy;107:157–160

Patel B and Rajashree Mashru R (2017) ‘Viral Nosodes as an Alternative to Vaccination: An Update. Review Article’ Journal of Immunology and Vaccine Technology Volume 2, Issue 1

Saxena et al (2020) ‘Dark Classics in Chemical Neuroscience: An Evidence-Based Systematic Review of Belladonna’ ACS Chem. Neurosci. Publication Date: July 14, 2020

Saxena et al (2020) ‘Structural, glycosylation and antigenic variation between 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV)’ VirusDisease volume 31