Post 3

[John Harvey]

Hi, Joe --

You're right: it's the ability and the right to practise that's at stake, not the existence of the method. In the U.S., in the U.K., and in Australia, the right to practise is increasingly hemmed in by regulators more concerned with who should be allowed to do what than with who is killing whom through perfectly legal, regulated practice.

What makes it all the easier for regulators to focus on forbidding access (via purchase or via dispensation) to medicines that are not only generally recognised as safe but are demonstrably non-toxic is the utter confusion that trolls sow as to what homoeopathy does, what it uses, and its practice basis. That confusion is not at all dispelled by well-meaning but misguided attempts to include everything under the sun in the term "homoeopathy" (even including 18th-century allopathic guidelines, 21st-century meditation mumbo-jumbo, and polypharmacy!), but I appreciate that the temptation to attain peace at all costs is a strong one, particularly when those warring on homoeopathy declare the homoeopaths themselves to be the source of contention and the polypaths and dream remediators to be, somehow, practising homoeopathy too.

In sorting the fictions from the truth lies in large part, I think, the value of the discussion over what is and what is not homoeopathy, so it's been a valuable discussion, particularly if we've ended with no disagreement.

Sorry I took so long to see your note; I was away for a bit.

Cheers!

John

[Ellen Madono]

Right John, but also we people who practice need to know what the simple limits of the definition of homeopathy are so that when we see innovations, we can see if they fit within those limitations. Does not help us to decide what is useful, but helps us to decide other principles what follows the same guidelines.

[John Harvey]

Righto, yes, I can appreciate that, Ellen. And do you think we sufficiently clarified that between us? We seemed to end up with no disagreement as to what falls within and what falls without -- as you'd hope we would, since Hahnemann made it pretty plain…
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In consigning its regulatory powers to its subject corporations, a government surrenders its electoral right to govern.

[Ellen Madono]

Sorry John, I have not been able to keep up with all these long discussions. Has the mutually agreeable definition covered the Hahnemann's book titled Chronic Diseases? As you see in Dr. Shahrdar's last few posts, at least his mind is going in that direction.
Best,
Ellen

[John Harvey]

Hi, Ellen --

No, the discussion was addressing the topic of Ardavan's original post and the underlying topic of what homoeopathy is, rather than getting into any matters of how it may be practised. Certainly such matters count for a great deal in the question of successful outcomes. But what we were working on concerned the identification, or definition, of homoeopathy: what it is that tells us whether something is or is not homoeopathy. That is, of course, something that nearly all of us on this list have encountered and understood at one time or another; but it is surprising how often I've seen that a knowledgeable, experienced practitioner can forget for a time what is essential to homoeopathy and begin to accept that "clinical symptoms" (i.e. the experience of apparent cure) or dreams or meditations or even the doctrine of signatures may substitute for provings; to accept that an arbitrary mixture may have a pathogenesis predictable from its components; or to accept that a patient's single symptom may substitute for her entire case.

The simple definition we discussed (in its various forms) is one that nobody can rationally disagree with (and nobody did), since it's what Hahnemann defined homoeopathy to be; and it has the beauty not only of simplicity and inclusiveness of all forms of homoeopathy but also of utter clarity in its implicit exclusion of those practices that merely pretend to be homoeopathy of some stripe. And that, of course, is why some do their best to skirt around it.

Cheers!

John

[Ellen Madono]

Practices others and Homeopathy are fine with me . They just shouldn't be called Homeopathy.
Ellen

[John Harvey]

Tanya, in trying to work out what these recent definition posts are about, I've just discovered that I overlooked your contribution below to the discussion. My apologies.

And you're perfectly correct: this version of the definition (along with the earlier versions Joe and I discussed, adapted from his description) is so brief that it ends up being merely a definition of the correct application of the process of arriving at the homoeopathic remedy, and not of the process preceding that application.

It may not matter too much: (1) because the listener or reader understands that this is not the result of an accident but is the application of a medical procedure, or principle; and (2) because, on that basis, it probably sufficiently addresses what counts in order to convey what homoeopathy is and what it is not.

Nonetheless, we may, as you suggest, want to make quite explicit the intention to arrive at a medicine bearing that relationship to the patient.

In that case, maybe we can simply add a short phrase to convey that. If we begin with something of the form…
"medical use of a remedy made of a substance that, given to a healthy person, could create the same symptoms and signs presented by the patient"
and precede it with "deliberate", it conveys the intent (though "medical use" may perhaps sufficiently convey the intent too); something like this:
"deliberate use, as a remedy, of a substance that, given to a healthy person, could create the same symptoms and signs presented by the patient".
Again, it doesn't go explicitly into such details as (a) that provings had been conducted and (b) that the practitioner uses the results of those to choose the symptoms resembling those symptoms that (c) the practitioner has elicited from the patient. But does it need to? In my opinion it's sufficiently implicit in these words. And certainly it's left implicit in every dictionary definition I've ever seen.
Any thoughts? Cheers --
John
--
In consigning its regulatory powers to its subject corporations, a government surrenders its electoral right to govern.

[Ellen Madono]

Dear John and All,

I am filled with admiration for your steadfastness in working on this definition. When you feel satisfied with it, please post it with a new heading. I just can't follow this level of detail at the moment, but I do admire you for your perservernce.

Best,
Ellen