Dear Editor:
Isaac Golden has asserted in a letter in your August issue that the immunisation effect from a dynamic medicine is not due to the proving effect on the following basis: namely that the proving effect is only temporary. He claims that I have stated in my articles on terminology two, apparently contradictory statements in this regard, namely that the immunisation effect is due to a proving but then have also stated that the effect of a dynamic medicine is short lived, thus, the longer-term effects needed for a true immunisation cannot be due to a proving.
I very much respect Isaac Golden’s empirical work on immunization with dynamic agents, but I have to take issue with his explanations as they are not grounded in Hahnemann’s principles.
First, as I have set out in detail in previous articles on terminology, particularly in the August issue, the use of Morbillinum, for example, to treat for or prevent against measles is not homeopathy, but the use of a different aspect of the law of similars. This involves treating for a constant wesen disease, which has a specific remedial agent or medicine that is not linked to the symptoms (pathology or suffering) but to the causal link between the disease and the disease agent. We have suggested that this application of the law of similars should be termed “homotonic” prescribing for the reasons set out in the article on terminology. Thus, I would object to Mr. Golden’s attempts to link his use of such homotonic agents for immunisation to “classical homeopathy.” If that term means anything, it can only refer to the giving of a remedy based on the symptoms of a sick patient. Mr. Vithoulkhas is correct to reject the incorporation of either epidemic prescribing or homotonic prescribing (of the sort used by Mr. Golden in his protocol) for prevention as being in any way part of homeopathy.
Second, my statements as quoted by Mr. Golden only appear contradictory because of the failure to distinguish, as Hahnemann indeed does, between the initial action and the counter-action of a medicine (Aphorism 64), on the one hand, and between the action of the medicine generally with the impact on the human wesen or life force. My articles on terminology attempt to set out these two distinctions as clearly as possible, but the distinctions are essentially missing in the secondary literature, as no one seems to have really understood it.
Rudi Verspoor was similarly correct in stating that “the principle of dynamic immunization is that of the use of an artificial disease agent (dynamic medicine) to temporarily engender an artificial disease in an otherwise healthy person so that they are then fortified in their defence against the disease agent should they be exposed to it.”
However a short-term proving effect cannot explain longer-term HP effects. As Rudi also said, “Dr. Hahnemann also made clear that the medicinal wesen does not last very long in the organism, which is what makes the artificial disease agent or medicine safe (when prescribed in the optimum, that is dynamic, dose).”
What does not last long very long at all is the initial action of the medicine, which lasts only from minutes to seconds. The counter-action of the life force against the wesen or essence of the medicinal agent does last much longer, but it also eventually dissipates, usually in weeks or months. However, once the life force of the human being has been challenged, it retains a body memory of the invasion of the medicinal wesen, one that lasts, as is the case in natural immunity, essentially for a lifetime. The fact remains that the principle of immunisation is the proving effect.
I hope that this helps in the discussion.
Sincerely,
Rudi Verspoor
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Rudi Verspoor is Dean and Chair Department of Philosophy Hahnemann College for Heilkunst, Ottawa. He served as the Director of the British Institute of Homeopathy Canada from 1993 to early 2001 and helped to found and is still active in the National United Professional Association of Trained Homeopaths (NUPATH) and the Canadian/International Heilkunst Association (C/IHA).
Part of his time is spent advising the Canadian government on health-care policy and in working for greater acceptance of and access to homeopathy. His publications include:
Homeopathy Renewed, A Sequential Approach to the Treatment of Chronic Illness (with Patty Smith);
A Time for Healing; Homeopathy Re-examined: Beyond the Classical Paradigm (with Steven Decker);
The Dynamic Legacy: Hahnemann from Homeopathy to Heilkunst (with Steven Decker).
Visit his website at http://www.heilkunst.com/
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