Homeopathy Papers

The Future of Homeopathy – A Perspective View

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Written by George Vithoulkas

The eminent George Vithoulkas shares his views on the current state and future of homeopathy.

There is an overall impression that homeopathy is used today by millions of people and practiced by hundreds of thousands of practitioners all over the  world … which is true!  Whether the practitioners are capable of using this new force in medicine in an appropriate way is a totally different story.  The homeopathic field of medicine is so open to all kind of interventions, distortions and bad practice that its original form is almost totally masked or lost and its effectiveness reduced to a mere 10% of its capabilities.  This minimal10% derives mainly from a small group of practitioners that have followed the original teachings of S. Hahnemann and the right lines of applications. The effect of those practitioners in their private practice is near 70-80% of success. These practitioners were recognised as classical homeopaths, but soon a lot of intruders attached to their name this qualification in order to confuse the public and get a portion of the clientele.

Though Homeopathy’s overall effectiveness is low due to its bad application by most of its practitioners, in the minds of the people it has been established as a form of medicine that is better and more effective than conventional medicine with its side-effects and complications. The main reason for this impression is that it has been proven effective in conditions of chronic diseases that have no solution in conventional medicine.  Many successful cases have been reported primarily by classical homeopaths who knew how to use this new force in medicine in an appropriate way.

It is therefore an easily predictable fact that what will follow is an expansion of the use of homeopathy. What form this expanding trend will take, is something we have yet to see. What is certain, is that from now on, homeopathy will progress to a new status within the medical arena. The reason is simple – it is a form of medicine that is needed badly by a certain percentage of global  humanity which is already deeply sick with chronic conditions. Sick and suffering people have discovered its potential and nothing can stop a useful medical system which is so much superior to its existant counterpart.

In 1915, with the death of the famous American homeopath James Tyler Kent, homeopathy declined  suddenly and steeply. Maybe today, 100 years later, the the tide will turn in the opposite direction.

Who is practicing?

The world situation, looked upon from the side of practitioners is a bizarre one. Realising the demand from the public, a lot of practitioners who were connected with medicine, even loosely, are trying to apply it either professionally or in some form of self help. On the other hand,  some new methods and ideas as to how it could be made easier and used more simply, have arisen, in order to fill a tremendous gap in education that exists today. In their ignorance practitioners of all types have fallen for these easier ways but have been soon disappointed. They then try another way until they are again disappointed and so on. By the time such practitioners have found out the correct way of applying this science, they have lost a lot of years, a lot of effort and a lot of money.

Actually the correct studying of this methodology is a rigorous one and requires all the strength and enthusiasm on the part of the student, in order to overcome the difficulties in learning it. Students in the past used to always be in the periphery of medicine but of late most practitioners who approach serious institutions of learning are medical doctors and many of them with a speciality already. But such brains are already tired as they are overloaded with information and the space in their memory capacity is seriously reduced.

Another issue that MD’s are facing is, that as soon as they learn homeopathy’s rudimentary elements, they rush to practice and soon find themselves inundated with patients.  Two years of learning that signals the completion of the basic education seems all they need in order to start practicing, but actually the real time needed for expertise should have been 5-7 years and this under supervision.  The physician cannot unfold all the tremendous possibilities that exist with this more thorough learning.

In these efforts of properly educating doctors, I include several medical universities (Russia), Colleges (India, Pakistan, South America), institutions (Europe) and Academies that provide such solid knowledge like that provided by the International Academy of Classical Homeopathy from Greece in its “E-Learning Program in Classical Homeopathy”, which is considered perhaps the best of its kind according to the evaluation of its students. This program is the most complete and the most professional and has prepared very many excellent practitioners.

The ideal education of medical doctors still remains the major challenge for all Medical Schools, Universities, institutions and Academies. So far it is established beyond any doubt that homeopathy is needed for better health in the world. What remains now is to find a way of educating correctly and thoroughly all prospective practitioners. The problem is that governments will not rush in support of such an idea.

Education of doctors

If we need a better state of health, society has to take care of the education of the doctors. The system as it stands today forbids such a development. Medical institutions of course are out of the questions. They will never undertake such an initiative as they are usually run financially with the support of the pharmaceutical industry which sponsors all their research. Those who really have an interest in promoting higher education for medical doctors in such a low cost medical system like homeopathy, are the public sectors of the insurance institutions and of course the private insurance companies. The insurance systems are at this moment on the point of collapse due to huge  expenses, so a change will be forced upon them soon.

In a practical manner this is my proposal :

One, or even better a few private insurance companies together should organise a congress to which will be invited to present evidence:

  1. the CEO’s of insurance companies
  1. the directors of hospitals, public and private
  1. Representatives from the ministries of health from all over Europe, Russia and USA

The insurance companies are the only institutions that care about the mounting cost of medical coverage and if they do not do something soon, it will be threatened with bankruptcy.  We gather the best of our cases recorded on videos and present to them thousands of impressive cures from all kinds of pathology, from severe gangrene cases before amputation to sever neurodermatitis, to gingivitis, to psoriasis, to asthmatic conditions, to neuromuscular cases, mental diseases, ulcerative colitis etc. etc.

This is the only way that we could impress them and persuade them to spare perhaps a small portion of the available money for research in order to educate properly young medical doctors, fresh from graduation willing to learn this science. Such an investment would definitely pay tremendously in the long run and perhaps will save the companies enormous amounts of money while at the same time improving the overall health of the population.  It is interesting that at least in Greece, patients are paying from their own pockets for homeopathic treatment. This has been going on since I introduced homeopathy to Greece 50 years ago. It is a proof actually that the patients are willing to pay from their own pocket if they feel that the treatment is effective.

What are the distortions

At this moment the distortions about the application of this methodology are so many and so outrageous that one can never go over them one by one and show the fallacies and the confusion. The correct way of applying homeopathy and the difficulties in treating diseases are made more complex today by untargeted chemical drugs and multiple vaccines hammering the immune system of the human organism, leaving it deeply compromised[1].

The basic idea in homeopathy is that a remedy has in its potential the ability to treat diseases similar to the ones this substance can produce. Therefore it is a matter of synchronicity, between the energy of the sick person and the energy of the remedy. If the correct remedy is found then the miracle of a reset of the whole defence mechanism is affected. In order to find the symptomatology which is needed to guide you to the indicated remedy, you need to have an in-depth knowledge of the homeo-therapeutics. This is a difficult task especially for the already overloaded minds of the medical doctors of the West that have  learned all information required in contemporary medicine. The inherent difficulty in learning how to handle cases properly with classical homeopathy is the reason for the distortions in the original system of Hahnemann. Practitioners have tried to find short cuts. I will give an example: if a practitioner does not know or is not sure which is the correct remedy that is needed in a specific case, he may mix three, four or even more remedies together hoping that the correct one will be within these groups of remedies. Many times with this system, especially in the population of the East (Indian- Pakistan and South Americans), there is an initial effect that pleases the patient but in continuation, when there is a relapse, there may be a confusion as to how they should continue and therefore, finally, disappointment. But in deep chronic conditions especially of those patiens of the West, this system of multiple remedies seldom gives results and therefore other easyways are sought which have the benefit only of a placebo effect. Since such patients suffering with a chronic condition are almost always affected in their mental/ emotional part, a mild treatment from a sympathetic practitioner may have a better result in their psyche than the aggressive chemical drugs proposed by conventional medicine . But the real effect that homeopathy can have is seldom if ever realised. So homeopaths of this kind, with half-knowledge, live with the delusion they are applying a science which they think they know well, when in reality they do not. Neither do their patients suspect that they could have been cured within a short time if they had come in contact with a knowledgable homeopath.  All criticism from the Media in the West was and is based on these above facts[2].

The stance of the Medical Schools in theWest

In spite of mounting evidence that homeopathy could cover a substantial part of treating chronic conditions, Medical Schools in the West, Europe and USA, have remained somewhere from hostile to indifferent, offering no help whatever to a system of medicine from which big pharma could have but little dividend. The only exception are the Russian and Ukranian Medical Schools that seem to care more about the health of their citizens than the finances of the pharmaceutical industry.

This hostile attitude is due mainly to the fact that the Medical Schools in the West and especially their research projects, remained tightly connected to the financial inflow from big pharma[3].  Either the system has to collapse completely before there is a deep change in the philosophy and strategy of Health policy in the West, or pharma by its own volition may will grab the homeopathic market and take advantage of the gains. In the mean time the benefits of better health will go automatically to those countries who first became aware of the advantage of this new force in medicine. Such countries appear to be at this moment, Greece, Israel,  Russia and the countries of the ex-soviet union whose medical institutions are not at this moment under the total control of pharma.

The need for research

There is no question that homeopathy needs more clinical research in order to project with undeniable evidence its point of view to the medical profession. It is true that at this moment nobody knows exactly where the possibilities are and where are the limits of this real healing methodology. The reason is that conventional medicine accepts only one model for research: that of a ‘uniform’ effect of a chemical drug upon a specific pathology on all animal or human organisms, whereas homeopathy is an individualised medicine that searches for a specific remedy to fit a unique sick organism. How this point of difference could be overcome nobody, so far, has given a final answer. However this weakness in the research methodologies that do not fit the homeopathic requirements, has been used by conventional medicine and their supporters  claiming that they cannot accept the therapeutic results unless these are presented in doubble- blind controlled trials like the ones for conventional drugs.

The big difference is that Homeopathy cannot claim that it has in its armamentarium remedies for specific pathologies, therefore the paradigm of conventional research of RCT cannot be applied to homeopathy at least in the same way and in the same manner that is valid for conventional drugs, that claim to cure specific pathologies.

Conventional medicine offers a drug for a specific disease; homeopathy offers a remedy for a  sick individual.  The conventional  system of medicine will force the symptoms to disappear, in many cases suppress the symptoms[4], but homeopathy will restore the patient to health, but not easily in a routine way and not always!  The conventional method will be fast in its effect, the second slower and tedious. To find out the parameters that define these limits is a matter of repeated and tedious experiments that require a wealth of finances that are difficult to generate for private practitioners who are the only ones interested to present these experiments.

There is such a deep difference in the approach to research in clinical trials that there is no compromise between the two. The first kills the bacteria instantly, the second strengthen the organism in order for the organsim to fight the bacteria itself.  I believe that in the not to distant future tools will develop for research on individual remedies that may be will be able to show the desired effects and the superiority of the homeopathic system. In these efforts a tool that is going to help tremendously is a computer system that will analyse and evaluate the symptoms of each patient and choose the correct remedy automatically.  Such a tool is the computer program by Choes Company, the VithoulkasCompass, which is refined every day by a genius feedback system.

But all this dicussion about clinical trials is only one side of the research required in order to present the effectiveness of the system to the public.  Essential research is needed on another front.  The means, the main tools we are using in order to bring about a cure are the remedies that have been proven upon healthy individuals according to the instructions of Hahnemann. So far these provings were collected in an encyclopedia of Meteria Medica and constituted a great tool that allowed us to cure most of our cases.

But diseases have changed since the time of Hahnemann and Kent and new  pathological conditions manifested, especially on mental and emotionl aspects of the human organsim after the interventions of deep chemical and hormonal agents plus the multiple vaccinations that were used over the last decades. Disturbances shifted to the interior of the human mind and today we have a multiplicity of psychiatric diseases plus a lot of neuromuscular diseases like multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons etc.  This is why we now need to examine the possibilities of these remedies to touch this deeper part of the brain, the most central one. Today we know quite a lot of the possibilities of certain remedies but we have hundreds of others of which we know very little concerning their deeper action upon the human brain. In order to get such information, we have to devise experiments in such a way as to understand the symptomatology of the remedies in their different levels of pathology.

When for instance we have somatic pathology, the keynotes of the remedy are different then when we have mental pathology of the same remedy. This is the experience. In order gather this deeper information from the remedies, it requires a concerted effort of a lot of dedicated individuals and a structured  research that is much more demanding than any other similar experiments so far. What I am implying is that our science is still in its infancy in comparison with the depth and the possibilities that exist as potentials for cure through Homeopathy.

Homeopathy is a never ending discovery as long as one follows the right lines, in which case the new discoveries will add strength to the science where irelevant ideas, fantasies and delusions will destroy it.

[1] The “Continuum” of Unified Theory of Diseases

[2] “British media attacks on homeopathy: Are they justified?”

[3] Arabian nights-1001 tales of how pharmaceutical companies cater to the medical material needs of doctors:case report http://www.bmj.com/content/321/7276/1563 , Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongerning Commentary: Medicalisation of risk factors  http://www.bmj.com/content/324/7342/886.1

 

[4] The “Continuum” of Unified Theory of Diseases

About the author

George Vithoulkas

George Vithoulkas is an Honorary Professor of the Moscow Medical Academy, Professor in the Kiev Medical Academy, Honorary Professor at the University of the Aegean, Greece, Collaborating Professor in Basque Medical University (2001-2004) and Doctor Honoris Causa of "Doctor ViktorBabes" University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Timisoara in Romania. In 1995, he established International Academy of Classical Homeopathy in Alonissos, of which he is the director. In 1996, he was honored with the Right Livelihood Award (also known as Alternative Nobel Prize) "for his outstanding contribution to the revival of homeopathic knowledge and the training of homeopaths to the highest standards".

3 Comments

  • This points to the fact, the methods of teaching and the techniques taught to students of homeopathy is far from being satisfactory.
    Not because there’s neglect on the part of the teachers or students, I must say that there’s still confusion about the plausible mechanism the knowledge of which alone would enable such a correct methodology that would prepare the doctors /practitioners for developing their individual skills in the article of case taking and prescribing.
    even such a basic thing like whether single dose or repeated doses is still a disputed one bcoz of this lacuna. when stalwarts have advised admissibility of single dose only, we have homeopaths contradicting this.
    A scale invariant intervention like homeopathy has to be a single dose system, but no one cares. wrong remedies afford only perverted notions which in turn promote wrong practices and this becomes a vicious circle.
    The answer is – if I am permitted – is very simple. construct or compile a scientific model of homeopathy incorporating every behavior of homeopathic cures and present this model to the scientists for finding the appropriate scientific theory to which this perfected model conforms to. then apply this rule to every aspect of homeopathy which is still speculative in nature, and derive correct notions and ideas. Such theories should solve every problem usually encountered by practitioners, the more serious ones.

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