Minutus

on 1/28/06 10:46 PM, hahnemannian2002 at hahnemannian2002@yahoo.com wrote:
((( Hi Man, thanks.
IMHO we have a different scene than the masters in the Victorian world in
the sense that miasmatic illnesses are compounded, the psychology profession
was invented in the interim, and we have many hundreds more possible
remedies that are possible to find by new methods. The idea of the
"bullseye" without zig-zag is more accessible now as a result. R.
Morrison/Nancy Herrick said in a seminar not long ago that "the masters were
great at treating frank physical disease and acutes, but not as good with
chronic prescribing as we actually are today and have the potential to be"
(paraphrase). I think they are correct. Except in India and a few other
places, we are on aggregate not as good gross pathological prescribers by a
long shot. But our attunement to psychology which may be associated with
functional, pre-pathology cases is higher than it was in the 1880s for
example. Is that a fair assumption...?
is something I do not agree with- we need to talk to relatives,

((( The meaning of that statement (to me) is that almost everyone (chronic
case) is compensating for what is the heart of their case -- which is a
truth they cannot see or they would not be living the curriculum which
represents their remedy state. Some are more "healthy" and aware of their
state. Others completely unaware. The point is that the pt may "tell" you
the remedy, but it will almost always be "between the lines" and below their
consciousness. For this reason the "liar" idea is a prompt. A prompt to
prevent one from (taking the pt at face value while assuming there is not
something more that is not being said). One must think kind of "askew" and
listen and watch figuratively as well as literally. I feel like I am
speaking to someone who is probably a far more experienced clinician than
myself, so will stop there.
((( I dont know that every remedy that "works" is working at the deepest
level. There are great prescribers. There is prescribing on different
levels of the being in different situations. Functional psychological
cases. Gross pathology. Mixture of the two. If Pulsatilla for example
"works" on the chief complaint but the person is not moved to something
groundbreaking and it was supposed to be a "gestalt" prescription, then it
may have been "adequate" but not the "bullseye". Most clients cannot zigzag
for long unless they are wealthy or know that homeopathy is their only way
out of the torture of some illness. In many chronic cases only the
"bullseye" will do anything to make the whole exercise, time, and expense
worthwhile.
and so - if the patient lied

((( Sure, the visit may be useful simply for the evocation with the
practitioner. But the aim of most modern homeopathy is resonance with the
heart of the case and this requires more than Boenninghausen's 150 or so rx.
And when it takes a decade or more it is too long.
And even those patients who lie will tell the truth once a good

((( Vega's statement was, to my interpretation, meant more to be a
metaphor than a literal statement of premeditated "lie". The type of
"coverup" it discusses is more like what is unconscious to even the pt. And
not just in super-sycotic clients or thuja cases...
((( This is also a laissez faire approach of many homeopaths. If you have
the "remedy" from that approach, then the homeopath is either very good or
presumptuous. If the latter, the remedy will fail, and what has been
accomplished? I see no problem with probing, (if this is what you are
referring to above). It is how to do it with high ratio of fruitful
answers/practitioner intervention that is a challenge. And to know what one
is looking for or that the object yet unknown will be central to the case.
Homeopathy is difficult. Materia medica is vast with details and clues.
Finding the heart of a case is not a given IMO.
((( Sounds like retail But this is not an even playing field. In most
client/professional relations, the product is well known to the client. But
in homeopathy, the pt does not know the entity within them that is what we
are treating, really. Homeopathy must often turn over many stones seemingly
irrelevant to the chief complaint before elucidating what pattern match will
in fact work in a case. We are looking for an entity in materia medica
which transcends the basic knowledge of anyone that is not also a homeopath.
Because the language of the facsimile of a undiagnosed pattern is the
language of remedy patterns -- not conventional nosology. This is the task
we are hired for -- to find what is most resonant. So the pt cannot be "in
charge" really. We must work with them and be in rapport with them so we
will receive the info we need. And every pt is different. But is not what
runs through the case often something which is not stark to the pt, but only
to the practitioner? And is easily missed?

The confirmatory system is a modern quality control device. Not essential
to practice, but except for the most skilled, probably essential for
*quality* practice. For people who want to hit the button early and
accurately. Because even Mangialavori claims about 66% success max -- and
33% bullseye.

My opinion is that homeopathy on aggregate accepts failure too easily and is
thus less of a health system than it could be. The more methods and proving
and clinical info added the better. An independent check on the remedy
found by signs and symptoms is to me a great advance and is to be used so
optimal result is achieved.
Namaste,
Andy

Andy- I agree with you that we should accept any truly scientific
process of validation ( by which I mean there is a clear correlation
and repeatability and not necessarily being capable of explanations)-
at the same time what I would want to happen when the repertorial
remedy is something else and the remedy worked out using all these
modern machines are different to go back and find out why that is
happening... why the repertories are not getting it right-

much as I admit that modern experience is coming across more
psychological cases than before- I would rather give more weightage
to the methods of people who saved loss of life in emergencies-

At the same time we cannot say that people 100 years back did not
have psychological problems or did not come with such conditions...
not all bodily symptoms were purely physical- most were
psychosomatic- and truthfully many of the symptoms in MM are the
cover-ups that you are mentioning and there would have been many
more such cases in the Victorian age than now... ( heard of
hysteria - right?)

Any way a good discussion, thanks
-- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, AH wrote:
wrote:
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The repertories are not to blame, the repertories don't get it wrong,
it is the choices we make for rubrics that can be wrong. You cannot
always take a client's sx at face value, else you end up with
polycrests that are not the simillimum. This is tantamount to taking a
case and prescribing whatever rx scores the most points through repping
and generally that doesn't work. What is happening is that we are not
asking the right questions of our clients so that we can be more
accurate in our rubric choice. This is what Shannon was referring to in
her original question?

And personally I do not see what the difference is between the methods
one might choose for an emergency or dangerous acute to a long standing
chronic and profoundly emotional case, except less time to think about
it. Joy
http://www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
http://www.homeopathicmateriamedica.blogspot.com
http://homepage.mac.com/joylucas/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

on 1/29/06 2:55 PM, hahnemannian2002 at hahnemannian2002@yahoo.com wrote:

=====

((( Hi H202, Cool.
======
and not necessarily being capable of explanations)

((( Biolumanetics is a proprietary tool but how it works is pretty well
known. The problem in "science" and medicine in general is that they ARE
still back in 1880 because Maxwell's quantum electrodynamics has not been
incorporated into the mainstream nor into biology. We go around timid about
speaking about what makes the difference between a corpse and a living
human.

============

((( If you mean update the reps using clinical confirms backed by the
independent research tool which shows cure -- absolutely.

Otherwise I must ask why would one assume that it was a mistake/omission in
the rep that necessarily is the error in any given prescrip that does not
work?

What leads to a prescrip that does not show clarity in a biolumanetic photo
and which would not work in the case? Many possibilities --

---lack of info from client (like in earlier post about Shannon's nux-v)
---incomplete case (eg location, sensation, radiation/alternation,
modality, concomitant, etiology, psychologicalissue) etc
---mistake in case analysis or rep
---missing rx from rep
---poorly characterized rx
---methods overlooked
---trying to fit a well-known rx to a case which needs an rx not known to
the practitioner
---I am sure there are more, such as the limitations of semiology itself to
differentiate.

I already gave an example from Linnane at that clinic by a case which showed
that Puls -- though any homeopathy would swear it was the rx based on
semiology -- was not the remedy. Kauri (Agathis-australis) was the remedy
which clarified the aura picture and worked in the case. Other similar
examples were given which showed that --

needed prompting to the differential with a similar remedy.

This shows how powerful a research tool biolumanetics or another reliable
objective confirmatory system is -- in addition to being an indispensable
quality control.

The instrumented quality control of a truly objective confirmatory does not
*just* back up any mistake in the rep; or missing elicited symptoms; or
simply a "bad hair day" on the part of the practitioner. It provides
another means besides Hahnemannian semiology to confirm or eliminate a
prescrip -- before administration and before 6 weeks and the fee for the
first visit and that much of the clients patience have been wasted.

Yes, a machine can break, is expensive (I cannot afford the biolum -- but
would have one if I went back into practice large-scale). Each client's
life is in our hands when we prescribe. Priceless responsibility.

Homeopathy has disappointed me both as a prac and a client. Not good enough
for prime time reliability -- even as in a small practice I did and do well
by standards of most practitioners. The fault is not all in myself or those
available to treat me. It is not just due to the fault or limitation of
practitioners. We are playing a guessing game. We cannot dismiss quality
control in something as important as medicine.
========
((( No "weightage" has been removed. Only a backup added (regarding use of
instrumented confirmatory). I agree expertise crosses over because
homeopathic methodology applies to all spheres -- but still there are
psychologically-based cases and organic pathology based cases.

And more importantly does expertise transferable from book to the practice
of any given practitioner automatically redound to the benefit of the
client? Or does that transfer of expertise take a decade? Two decades?
For how many practitioners will that transfer ultimately be only 60% for
example?

How many misses do we have and how do we know when we have missed a
bullseye? We dont, really. We rely on semiology, Herings rule, patient
subjectivity, and sometimes objective lab tests. But we have no measurement
of what we are actually impacting -- the nonphysical being which is what
biolumanetic photography is depicting -- its coherence which is directly
proportionaate to health and harmonious control of the physical vehicle.

Do you think the "masters" could find bullseyes using their materia medica
and their methods today in urban areas of the "developed" industrialized
countries after 60 years of antibiotics? They would be missing many
hundreds of new remedies like Agathis, and a large portion of the periodic
chart for example. Zig-zag would no longer "cut it". Clients would not
live that long.
=========
((( Of course not. Talcott practiced at Middletown homeopathic asylum in
New york state with famous great results treating frank psychiatric
pathology. Kent said the mental hospitals could be emptied.

But it still is 100+ years later, we have the overlays of many decades of
mass medication compounding miasmatic complaints. We have many more
remedies and additional tools to find them. No one said the "Masters" had
cure rates better than Mangialavoris in chronic mostly functional cases--
and his is a gold standard. Masters by statistics were far better in the
organic path we never see in the west until people have given up on
everything else. (In India I know the situation is much different in that
regard but still there is a bell curve of abilities and knowing how far
homeopathy can go even in India where the homeopathic educational and all
other infrastructure did not virtually disappear for some 60 years).
=========

((( Of course, homeopathy presaged psychology just as it did microbiology
and epidemiology. And psychosomatic medicine is what is really happening in
triggering of miasmatic susceptibility as for example Hamer has proved
conclusively and scientifically with some 20,000 cases or more. Do we know
any more about psychology now than was known in 1880? Do we have many
hundreds more remedies and additional methods to find remedies that werent
conceivable in 1880? About 110 lanthanide compounds alone?
=========

((( Thanks,
Best,
A

And that is what I mean- case taking and thinking of the possibilities
in case taking is much more important- when good homeopathic practice
was possible a 100 years ago where most of even the diagnosis had to
be based on clinical acumen and not even on lab studies, if we combine
both in present day, can't we do good work without changing the basic
homeopathic approach?
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, Joy Lucas wrote:

on 1/31/06 7:51 AM, hahnemannian2002 at hahnemannian2002@yahoo.com wrote:
((( H202 -- No one doubts that we can do good work. No one doubts that
before widespread antibiotics as available crutch there were physicians of
clinical acumen which generally surpasses any today outside of some
practitioners here and there -- particularly in India. I agree that it is a
beauty of Hahnemann's extensive semiological approach (psychology, somatic,
circumstantial/environmental, etc) -- and the absolute mechanism of the law
of similars -- that we can do tremendous work with a few hundred medicinal
substances each in a range of 9 or 10 levels of dynamization. The nature of
medicinal pathogenesis remains constant over time. The system of collecting
symptoms goes beyond what is used in the rest of medicine and is can
adequately if not perfectly inform us for law of similars application.

Yes, homeopathy can do well -- and does extremely well in rural cases
uncomplicated by many etiologies. In acute infectious ailments efficacy can
be very high as it was statistically for the Victorian era "masters" with
only the medicines they used -- near 100% in the best practices.

But--
the population of clients is also getting sicker from iatrogenic causes.
More medicines to choose from (Hahnemanns 100 or so to our 3000? or so when
Scholtens additions included) means sharper resolution to any one of the 6
billion individuals who come to be treated is possible. But also makes the
task of optimum matching more difficult.

And ability to match a medicine on signs and symptoms alone has its limits.
The Pulsatilla example from the London Classical Homeopathy clinic which
uses Biolumanetics as a quality control was intended to illustrate that
semiology alone does have a practical limit. A case of Pulsatilla as any
practitioner would swear was *not* Pulsatilla but Agathis australis. And
the practitioner in that clinic or anywhere else would not have any
practical way of catching that by semiology alone at this point in our
knowledge of Agathis a. The biolumanetic device prevented that error and 6
weeks or more of delay or possibly the loss of the client without result.

Semiology alone can do "good work". Does this preclude advance in aggregate
efficacy?

Does it preclude increase in number of available medicines or improvement in
their characterization -- whether that is by proving by dissimilarity or by
use of inference and clinical result.

Does it preclude development of other methods (eg. Sankaran, Scholten
extensions) to match remedy to client for new rx -- and the ones we already
have -- in an attempt to optimize success? Because homeopathy as a
medicinal system can (*at its best*) be more complete, *actually*
"curative", and less injurious than what the culture uses as a whole -- does
that mean that we cannot add independent quality control to prescriptions?
(I know you do not oppose this H202 -- not arguing with you, but presenting
for the benefit of the discussion ).

We know that we do not have all the medicines we need yet -- because every
new proving finds clients that needed that remedy.

We know that logic and semiology are subject to some percentage of failure
not just due to failure to take a complete case -- but just because
differentials in some cases are almost impossible to practically know based
only on symptoms and signs and indications of medicines in the books with
clinical laurels but little characterization. We use the client as guinea
pig and test subject, which the client finances and must endure. For this
problem an independent measure --even if technological -- provides quality
control and saves time, money, and patient suffering and helps the
practitioner as well as it is a teaching tool as well.

Our record in chronic prescribing is probably an *aggregate* efficacy
somewhere in the range of 50% according to some of our best teachers,
provers, and practitioners (e.g. Mangialavori, Sherr). In Mangialavori's
practice he achieves *optimal* result 33% of the time in chronic prescribing
by his admission. And that is by one of the best practitioners with the
highest standard of litmus test. In organic pathology cases of certain
diseases we can at present only palliate -- if that -- (motor neuron
diseases, alzheimers, many cancer cases etc).

Some iatrogenic causations probably cannot be surmounted. Some cases are
truly "incurable" to any degree for one reason or another.

But still there are advances to be made. And not all of them are dependent
only on skill in casetaking and knowledge of materia medica and repertory --
though improvement there always has benefit.

Yes, we can do good work. But there is a tendency among homeopaths to feel
that homeopathy is omnipotent, and then see any additions to it as
undesirable. Homeopathy becomes for some people almost like a religious
sect, and this is unscientific and close-minded.

I personally have been through the "phase" of considering homeopathy to be
an already complete and efficient system. But 21 years of experience as both
client of very good homeopaths and being a professional homeopath for 10 of
those years tells me that it is far from it. Yes, homeopathy can do "good
work" -- unquestionably. Sometimes (in cases we publish because they are
such good result) -- miraculous work. But how to make these successes
more uniform and efficient?

How to make them more accessible without severe learning curves which
"sacrifice" client time, money and life while the practitioner learns "in
situ"? In most cases zig-zag reduces prognosis and takes time. It is a
result which occurs because of lack of available medicine (less the case now
than in Hahnemann's time) or lack of independent confirmatory. Paragraph 182
situations can lead to cure, but inefficiently. Much of the time if we
give the medicine which is off the mark, nothing of note really happens. The
learning curve for most in homeopathy is decades because the medicinal
availability is vast yet to some extent poorly characterized for efficient
clinical application with no confirmatory.

How to minimize failures not really due to any fault of the practitioner?.

How to make homeopathy easier to practice -- not by "laziness" or cutting
corners -- but by methods which extend certainty (eg. independent
technological confirmatory); or increase similarity to what needs to be
cured in advanced pathology, or approach epidemics which massively outstrip
ability to take individual cases (e.g. Chappell technologically-produced
group totality remedies for chronic diseases when applicable).

All the above questions are good reasons IMHO to try potentially worthwhile
additions in medicines and methods to improve result for clients and for
ourselves. The law of similars resonant mechanism of action does not
change. The largest totality facsimile medicine is always the best and
ultimate medicine after smaller totality urgent and dissimilar and complex
organic diseases; true acutes; and etiological "layers" have been dealt with
or removed. But how to optimize and facilitate the reliable finding of that
medicine for the totality of miasmatic distortions which relate directly to
psychosomatic complaints and etiological susceptibilities?

Additions which *work* to improve efficacy of application could be seen to
have been supported by Hahnemann himself in Organon paragraph 1, footnote 1
-- especially the last sentence:

"...Of such learned reveries (to which the name of theoretic
medicine is given, and for which special professorships are instituted) we
have had quite enough, and it is now high time that all who call themselves
physicians should at length cease to deceive suffering mankind with mere
talk, and begin now, instead, for once to act, that is, really to help and
to cure."

There will always be those who claim that any deviation from "scripture" is
intolerable. But that paragraph and footnote is warning us not just about
how *other* medicinal systems convince themselves that they are the "best"
approach. To my interpretation, this also warns even homeopaths not to be
*static adherents*. To me, the message Hahnemann presents there applies to
worthwhile additions to homeopathy itself that improve curative efficacy --
even if technological. If a method congruent with true healing by law of
similars adds to rate of cure, then that addition must be useful. While
such additions are not in the original doctrine, we are not limited to that
original doctrine. Additions which do not contradict it do not abrogate or
change it.

I doubt Hahnemann would be against biolumanetics for example -- for the sake
of efficacy and quality control. That it may seem a "crutch" and take from
the "artistry" of homeopathy is not germain. The object is relieving
clients of suffering. The same is true with technologically-produced law of
similars remedies tailored directly to the list of symptoms (PC remedies).
If they are shown to *work*, and work by *law of similars* on easily
comprehensible principles -- and provide what we cannot otherwise
practically accomplish for cure -- then they are valid and have a niche in
modern homeopathy. Their addition does not make the original doctrine any
less pure. Their recognition and use is scientific and empirical toward the
goal of cure. To the client, without result, homeopathy is just another
theory.

Other methods (e.g biochemical, antibiotic) may be able to provide
short-term result with or without a cost -- but these methods do relieve
suffering at least on the short-term. Relieving suffering temporarily on
poor theory, with no removal of susceptibility, and with additional damage
or compounding of the overall disease, is what many people choose. Using
homeopathy with correct theory -- but no result in on aggregate 50% of
chronic cases needs to be improved if homeopathy is to keep growing in
impact. Homeopathy needs to transcend the limitation of 50% rate.

If that improvement means addition of technological tools -- then I hazard
that Hahnemann, fully informed about the nature of the additions, would not
have objected. That is probably a minority opinion among homeopaths. But
then I doubt most homeopaths have seriously examined (for example
Biolumanetics or PC remedies) to find out for themselves. That is theory
without experiment -- unscientific and prejudiced.

These latter methods will be too expensive or incompatible with many
practitioners. But for those who use them, they may help clients and thus
the practitioners as well.
Best,
Andy