The Pharmacy Perspective – Part II

Originally published in Homeopathy in Practice – Journal of the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths -Courtesy Tony Pinkus

https://www.homeopathyinpractice.org/

In the previous article I recounted the experience gained in our pharmacy during the first wave of the pandemic. This article charts the experience gained since the second wave of Covid19 and explains how a new and advanced method of prescribing Bach Flower remedies has come to the fore.

The first article focused on remedies that surfaced, very much in the eye of the storm, in response to an avalanche of public demand for both prevention and treatment. I discussed the different approach to prescribing required in COVID19 compared to a typical flu epidemic.

An epidemic generally presents with characteristic pattern of symptoms and its not unusual to assign a remedy we refer to as a genus epidemicus to the common symptom picture.

Hence we refer to the Rhus tox-, Gelsemium-, Eupatorium- or Bryonia-flu season and I anticipated a genus epidemicus would arise to characterize the pandemic. However, this proved not to be the case as Covid19 presents in a series of sequential phases with significant change in the progression of the symptom picture.

Remedies for each phase were suggested based on the shifts of typical symptom pictures reported. During the first wave it became apparent that successful treatment of an earlier phase did not preclude the next successive phase arising, at which point a change in remedy to address the new symptom picture was required. The nosode invariably improved or completed treatment alongside a well chosen remedy.

The second part of the first article described the application of  homoeoprophylaxis (HP) and was largely based on forty years of experience working with commercial farmers. In a previous article for this organ (Homeopathy in Practice) published twelve years ago I described practical methods for employing HP for common bovine and ovine disease in herds and flocks.

Over 5000 livestock farms have used nosodes to great benefit and, from their perspective homoeopathy is an economic imperative. It’s not a question of whether they should consider using homoeopathy but a fact they cannot afford to ignore.

Homoeopathy on the farm is both effective and simply a money saver. Feedback is essential and invaluable in understanding how HP with nosodes works. Over four decades this empirical approach afforded me a better understanding of the practical application of nosodes for prevention and treatment of common bacterial and viral diseases in cattle.

New Nosode LOU

In the same issue I discussed the production of a COVID19 nosode prepared according to an esoteric method. This introduced a healing vibration into the remedy and in turn effected an immune support. I discussed some extraordinary revelations from employing this method of immunity support with the remedy JPV.

Anecdotal reports from practitioners and patients have been very encouraging. More recently I made a second remedy according to the same esoteric method, in this case from a sample taken from a positive testing patient in January.

The virus has undergone thousands of mutations since last year prompting the need for a new nosode. The second remedy was called LOU and the advice is to use this alongside JPV rather than as a replacement.

The esoteric approach by which both JPV and LOU were made appeared to initiate a patient response far beyond that anticipated from a nosode alone. Patients and practitioners who used it made unusual comments and reported a sense of peace and calm immediately after taking a dose, to the extent that one frontline nurse referred to it as her ‘happy pill’. 

The process of preparation imbued the remedy with quality that initiated a flow of life-force. Much as acupuncturists discuss unblocking chi/ki/prana so JPV and LOU appear to achieve something of a similar ilk. A more sensitive person will perceive and describe this experience in greater depth than someone who is not in touch with their body and feeling capacity to the same extent.

Typically, the report is of an external sensation soaking into the physical body and evoking a sense of calmness in its wake.  I advise anyone taking this remedy to sit quietly for thirty minutes after the first dose and simply observe any subtle changes in being.

I described how this process of healing occurs under the supervision of the patient’s guiding intelligence. This is bound to be a challenging statement for some but there is no better way to describe the event. This description allows me the opportunity to discuss the sequences that follow the prescription and place them in context.

It requires one to broaden one’s perspective and consider the role of symptoms in a wider view. Why do we get sick? Do our symptoms have meaning beyond coincidence? Are they connected to our purpose for being?

The concluding part of the article described how the remedy was being used by the patient’s guiding intelligence to promote awareness of a particular lesson in line with their true purpose. Where the patient accepts the message, they have an opportunity to grow from the realization gained. But when the message is rejected, one encounters reports of new symptoms arising.

I reached some radical conclusions about susceptibility to disease being directly linked to the abuse of free will in ignoring one’s life path.  We all have a unique purpose and the free will choice to follow or ignore the individual lessons we attract. What you resist persists and the lesson, being particular to your growth returns.

If you continue to ignore or reject it this message must surely get louder to attract attention. Eventually it will start to matter, to move from the mental/emotional domain to the physical body where symptoms will arise in direct correlation to the ignored or rejected lesson. Hence refusal to see or hear something could result in an eye or ear condition, whereas other forms of denial may evoke back or joint issues.

Those of you who have read Heal Your Body by Louise L Hay will be familiar with this correlation between physical ailments and mental/emotional etiology. Whereas Hay uses affirmations to cure the problem we use homoeopathic remedies.

Consider how your patient responds to the well chosen remedy, their physical symptoms are relieved and they report an epiphany with life-changing consequences. These are one and the same. If the purpose of life is to learn who you are through a sequence of individually crafted opportunities surely it would be wise to listen to one’s guidance and follow it?

As a practitioner, how often do you listen patiently to a story that has an incredibly simple answer yet the patient remains oblivious and gives every reason under the sun not to follow? Moreover, they invite you to collude and justify their right to continue a pattern of self-destructive action.

What they seek is actually the removal of the consequences of their action. This is the human condition, to perpetrate action and avoid or evade its consequence, to choose actions with unappealing consequences and complain bitterly about them being unfair.

Life is simple but we human beings love to complicate it with our dramas.  Reality is simply a matter of cause and effect and taking responsibility for your choices. Ultimately, facing up to the fact that what arrives at your door is an opportunity from which you can learn.

The issue here is then about choice and free will. We incarnate with a purpose and learn who we are through bespoke lessons. The backdrop against which this play is set on Planet Earth has definite rules of engagement.

These are duality and free will. Earth is a free will planet, meaning you always have a choice even when you think or state you don’t. How you choose is fundamental to learning and you only learn when you elect to do so, free will is the basis for all our choices.

Consider all the trials and tribulations of your life and how you as an individual have chosen to learn. If the lesson made you look good in the eyes of your ego mind then its easy to accept the lesson and learn what you need to know about yourself.

However, if the lesson requires you to look bad in order to learn an important aspect of yourself how quick are you to accept the challenge? The exercise of free will is designed to offer you the opportunity to choose of your own volition. The reason is that you can only learn when you choose to do so and this is the inherent perfection of freedom. By contrast the animal kingdom is guided by Nature and operates largely by flock or herd mentality.

Awareness

Free will is as vitally important as it is invaluable. Taking responsibility for making a choice and enacting it in physicality is essential to learning. If you don’t know what you are choosing you will disassociate from the consequences of the choice. This requires being aware of making the choice in the moment. Now this seems like child’s play but it isn’t and if you don’t believe me check how present you really are in this moment.

The Mindfulness industry is based on this simple premise and trains people to be fully consciously aware in the moment. In this case by focusing on something physical like your breathing you are obliged to be conscious in the moment.

Why is this so important? Because, only in the moment are you creating and in order to know and choose what you want rather than what you might otherwise be influenced to create you have to be present and aware. To Be or not to Be that is the question.

The illusion of separation

Duality provides the illusion of separation and division into polar opposites; good and bad, up and down, black and white.  As a soul we experience a connectedness to the whole but as an incarnated being we lose this sense of awareness and perforce have to acquire it through choice.

In this case the choice to move from feeling an isolated, fearful drop in the ocean to an awareness of being a drop and the ocean simultaneously. The rules of duality inflict an inevitable conflict as we shuttle from one polarity or extreme to the other.

The same rules of duality apply in the Spirit world and an acknowledged spiritual path is consequently polarized too. Hence there is no escape from duality on death, least until the Soul moves beyond the Spiirit world as in the case of reincarnation.

But polarization is not real, it is illusory and the middle path between the opposites is the only stable ground on which to stand. This can be exemplified with little effort if you examine a plant growing in your garden or even a houseplant if you’re feeling lazy.

The polarities are defined by the life force, the healthy shoots and the death force, the dying leaves. Now that plant is exhibiting more than these polarities and if you feel it you can become aware of a regulator between the opposites.

And that regulator exists within you too and when you shift the economy of your awareness to that stable place you will experience a difference in perception. This is important because living in polarity defies the opportunity to know thyself.

As human beings we err towards a preference and our ego mind dissociates from aspects that make us look unattractive to ourselves. But if you only accept the bits you like, you cannot know the whole picture. Worse still the parts you reject are now outside your orbit of control as you have disowned them and this leads to potentially pathological behavior or consequences.

The simple fact is that you cannot change something you don’t accept so in order to grow through change you have first to accept what is rather than suppress, reject or deny it.

Know thyself

In this paradigm symptoms are interpreted as the consequence of choice in the face of free will. And so I return to the action of the nosode JPV. The higher potency accelerates the speed at which the opportunity to change is delivered from the guiding intelligence. If there is resistance to change then the suddenness of that provocation may elicit a physical response. A metaphorical flinch in reaction to what is registered as an unwelcome challenge.

And here we have to introduce the subject of how we operate, how we receive and process information. On the one hand we have our mind and intellectual capacity to process information and the on the other a capacity to feel. In duality we separate these aspects of ourselves and may prioritize one or the other or more precisely one over the other.

In fact these abilities are designed to be used collaboratively. Receiving is associated with the feminine principle and action with the masculine principle. We receive information, discern what of it to trust and what to action.

As human beings we are permanently flooded with information and discernment is key to following our purpose. Sifting the wheat from the chaff we have to feel the resonance of the information that is pertinent and essential to us as individuals. Little by little, over a multitude of lifetime, we assemble piece by piece, lesson by lesson the opportunity to build a picture of who we really are and how we are connected to the whole.

The ABC of Bach

Now the problem of presenting this information to the patient is that they are prone to dig in and harden their resolve. If someone were to highlight what you perceive to be your faults would you roll over and acknowledge these or punch them on the nose? The fact is that a headlong confrontation is liable to be unsuccessful.

The concluding part of the previous article related how I employ Bach Flower remedies in order to resolve the patient’s intransigence and the remainder of this article is information about this ABC method. I call it ABC due to its simplicity and also because it abbreviates the wordy ‘Ainsworths Bach Choosing’ method.

Dr Edward Bach (1886-1936), was an interesting fellow, a doctor, bacteriologist, homoeopath, pioneer of the bowel nosodes and finally the creator of a new and gentle system of medicine.

Bach was an intriguing character and the snapshot of his life in the mind-map (Pic 1) flits between conventional scientist and esoteric pathfinder. An initial glimpse depicts a chaotic path until you look a little deeper. His life reveals a path of discovery that led irrevocably towards the delivery of remedies to treat mental and emotional wellbeing.

Bach expressed the opinion that Hahnemann had not gone far enough. Below you can see from his Collected Writings that he believes he has picked up from where Hahnemann left off and at the same time acquired some of Kent’s religious fervor in applying a spiritual approach to disease.

It is obviously fundamentally wrong to say that ‘like cures like’. Hahnemann had a conception of the truth right enough, but expressed it incompletely. Like may strengthen like, like may repel like, but in the true healing sense like cannot cure like.

If you listen to the teachings of Krishna, Buddha, or Christ, you will find always the teachings of good overcoming evil. Christ taught us not to resist evil, to love our enemies, to bless those who persecute us — there is no like curing like in this.

And so in true healing, and so in spiritual advancement, we must always seek good to drive out evil, love to conquer hate, and light to dispel darkness. Thus must we avoid all poisons, all harmful things, and use only the beneficent and beautiful.

No doubt Hahnemann, by his method of potentisation, endeavoured to turn wrong into right, poisons into virtues, but it is simpler to use the beauteous and virtuous remedies directly. Healing, being above all materialistic things, and materialistic laws, Divine in its origin, is not bound by any of our conventions or ordinary standards. In this we have to raise our ideals, our thoughts, our aspirations, to those glorious and lofty realms taught and shown to us by the Great Masters.

Do not think for one moment that one is detracting from Hahnemann’s work, on the contrary, he pointed out the great fundamental laws, the basis; but he had only one life; and had he continued his work longer, no doubt he would have progressed along these lines. We are merely advancing his work, and carrying it to the next natural stage.

Let us now consider why medicine must so inevitably change. The science of the last two thousand years has regarded disease as a material factor which can be eliminated by material means; such, of course, is entirely wrong.

Disease of the body, as we know it, is a result, an end product, a final stage of something much deeper. Disease originates above the physical plane, nearer to the mental. It is entirely the result of a conflict between our spiritual and mortal selves. So long as these two are in harmony, we are in perfect health; but when there is discord, there follows what we know as disease.

Disease is solely and purely corrective; it is neither vindictive nor cruel; but it is the means adopted by our own Souls to point out to us our faults; to prevent our making greater errors; to hinder us from doing more harm; and to bring us back to that path of Truth and Light from which we should never have strayed.

Disease is, in reality, for our good, and is beneficent, though we should avoid it if we had but the correct understanding, combined with the desire to do right.

Whatever errors we make, it re-acts upon ourselves, causing us unhappiness, discomfort, or suffering, according to its nature. The object being to teach us the harmful effect of wrong action or thought: and, by its producing similar results upon ourselves, shows us how it causes distress to others, and is hence contrary to the Great and Divine Law of Love and Unity.

We need to go beyond the pseudo-religious limitation employed by both Bach and Kent, beyond their constraint of duality and the notion of good and evil or sin being the cause of disease. Neither homoeopathy nor Bach Flower therapy are the religious doctrines these weighty figures would have us believe. Dis-ease is simply a matter of cause and effect and hopefully the preceding discussion will go some way to convince you of this idea.

Bach used his remedies as a means of balancing a negative trait with its positive virtue. Hence if you experience destructive emotional disturbance; hate, vengeance, jealousy or rage he would prescribe Holly that imbues a feeling of love that cancels out the imbalance.

The Bach Flower remedies work in a fundamentally different but nonetheless similar way to homoeopathic remedies. They reveal an underlying picture of disease and resole this by enabling a balanced acceptance of the true picture.

The disadvantage of Bach’s method is in the overlay of dualistic principles and the illusion of separation. Shunning evil and working exclusively with the virtuous principles results in a pseudo-religious polarization that obscures the dark side.

Unless this is accepted rather than suppressed it becomes, as mentioned earlier, a pathological and uncontrollable element of one’s personality. Furthermore, separating the aspects of the patient’s character into a range of 38 stereotypes leads to a separation of Self.

I evolved a method of working with Bach Flower remedies that embraces all the principles above and describes the chain of events that led to the present state. This path of causality is what I refer to as the Patient’s Narrative.

Rather than pinpointing individual aspects of the patient and mixing these together as a treatment bottle I use the remedies themselves as both a means of diagnosis and treatment in the moment. The remedy selection, in what I refer to as the ABC method, is wholly designed to empower the patient and lead them back to themselves. To show them that they are choosing their actions and to provide the opportunity, in the moment to make different choices that might benefit them more.

The ABC method uses all the 38 individual remedies of Edward Bach but is fundamentally different in practice than the traditional education given to Bach Flower practitioners.  Moreover, this method can be learned in a weekend and put into practice immediately. Course details are on our website www.ainsworths.com