Minutus

Just for the record please.

I do not know what has gotten into Ellen, but the views she calls mine are HER views.
Please ignore them accordingly as I have no wish to be associated with her inventions.

Thank you,
Irene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

Hi Irene,

I am not saying that you are intending to include these methods in your wide definition. But if your definition is what cures and uses the similum, then these are possible from some points of view. All of the users of these methods will claim that they achieve robust health. We don't agree, but your definition gives no basis for a counter argument.
So, that is not what you mean. If so, perhaps you need a more narrow definition.

What will exclude these intruders from your definition of homeopathy?

Best,
Ellen

Dear Ellen and Irene,

PLEASE follow this type of communication privately.

Thank you in advance,

Ardavan
Sent from my iPad

Ellen wrote:
Af first I thought the branding was termed by John but actually the first use of Irenopathy was provided by now dear departed (from list) Dave Hartley in a 2009 round of what is classical, etc.
As Whitney Houston sang, "It's not right, but it's okay"
Susan
Re: [Minutus] Homeopathic pharmacist reponsibilities
david hartley to minutusshow details
From david hartley david@holistiq.comhide details
To minutus minutus@yahoogroups.com
Fri, May 29, 2009 9:06 pm

more like you've loosed a pack of rats in the kitchen
(yawn)

Homeopathy & provings on humans have a really neat correspondence.
For humans.
Like most of us here on this list who are mainly practicing
homeopathy (classical or Hahnemannian which is why we joined and
contribute to this list, since that is its stated purpose...)
Vivisection & animal experimentation is pretty unsavory, and in fact
that practice of "culturing" vaccines in animals / animal tissue and
then injecting them into humans might be describe in some "black magic
mad science" horror film ... and what a horror it is !

So, forgive me for not wanting to bother with responding to your
argument other than to say-
"classical or Hahnemannian homeopathy"
..the healing art & science which was the brainchild of Hahnemann
and which has been practiced in general accord with the principles he
illuminated
and which has been built upon in similar accord in terms of myriad provings
Is not broken. I does not need fixing.
It needs people to be capable of and dedicated in grounding themselves in it,
such that they become (duh) successful practitioners of it...
and thus able to fulfill its mission: safe, reasonably rapid CURE of
suffering in human dis-ease

(which anyone is certainly free to use on cacti or cattus, or whatever)
Provings, NEEDLESS TO SAY, are an integral part of the system
(which is not wanting of permutation into Irenopathy, where there are
not provings)
(this is the point at which I normally suggest that you establish the
school of Irenopathy, and form your own email list, where you'll
surely be too busy to bother us here with the idea that provings are
an inherently bad idea.)

persons with ten degrees or none may certainly do whatever they like
with potentized medicinal substance.
at some point, that stops being "homeopathy" ... let alone
"classical" or "Hahemannian" homeopathy

At that point, even someone who failed high school should be able to figure out:
This is not only not-on-topic for this list, it is also antagonistic,
and was even stated as pugnacious challenge.

For whatever value you may provide here, you certainly come with a lot
of baggage.
(are you sure you wouldn't like to toddle along and start up that
Irenopathy Institute ?)

warm wishes,
david 510.776.5914 fax: 510.336.6671
www.holistiq .com
www.DavidHartley .com
I.T. support: www.cafegratitude .com
co-founder: www.GratefulMindand Body.com
web developer: www.iamResourceful .com

Hi, Fran!
I’m certain we’re not really at odds here at all, as you’re agreeing that homoeopathy requires knowledge of both patient symptoms and pathogenesis. But the most useful thing I can think to do at this point is to ask you to tie down what you mean by homoeoprophylaxis. Can you have a stab at that for us?
Ellen, sorry not to have been clearer: by “pathogenesis” and “pathogenetic symptoms”, I was referring not to pathogens but to the symptoms caused in a pathogenetic trial -- that which we otherwise call a proving. (I’ve tended to favour “pathogenetic trial” because outsiders to homoeopathy will rarely appreciate that the word “proving” was translated not from a German word conveying not proof but a trial.)
Irene, Ellen was not misquoting you; she was referring to the words you suggested would define homoeopathy: “Homeopathy is the art of choosing and using a remedy, such that it's choice to match the individual situation, invokes The Law of Similars to cause robustness of health”.
Unless you intended the choosing and using of the remedy to suffice, I’d suggest that you didn’t intend to leave it unrestricted and that therefore your first comma was unintentional. Is that so?
I’d further suggest that your apostrophe in “it’s”, creating the phrase “that it is choice to match”, was unintentional, and that you instead intended the possessive “its”: "that its choice to match". But please correct me if I’m wrong. And of course your final comma is plainly there by accident, as no clause takes a comma between its subject ("its choice") and its main verb "invokes" except in parenthetic or appositional pairs.
So I understand that what you intended to say was: “Homeopathy is the art of choosing and using a remedy such that its choice to match the individual situation invokes The Law of Similars to cause robustness of health”. If that doesn't represent your actual intent, I trust that you won’t hesitate to let me know. For the moment I’ll proceed on the basis that it does.
Now, given that that’s so, Ellen’s criticism -- and my own earlier concern -- seems to me completely to the point. If we remove some of the detail of your definition, we are left with: “Homeopathy is the art of choosing and using a remedy [in such a way as to] cause robustness of health”
-- in other words, a definition that relies utterly on the outcome of the action it’s attempting to define, isn’t that so? Let me ask this another way: if the outcome of the action you’re defining here were not robustness of health, then the action would fail to meet your definition, wouldn't it? Was it your intent that the practice of anybody using a diligently obtained patient history, materia medica pura, and skill in using them to prescribe the most homoeopathic possible match, but failing to obtain the outcome of robustness of health, should be understood to not be practising homoeopathy? I don't believe that that was what you intended.
And that was, I think, largely Ellen’s point.
Your definition (as I've amended it here) unfortunately falls foul of another of Ellen’s points: that it not only excludes anything that happens to fail, but may also include anything, even polypharmacy, that appears (according to somebody's lights) to have succeeded.
Relevant to both of these points is, of course, the fact that the prescription is not the only thing potentially affecting for better or for worse the health of the patient/individual for whom the prescription was made. That's precisely why any definition reliant on outcome is bound to fail to include what it should and to fail to exclude what it should.
Your most recent definition -- “Homeopathy is a health system involving the Law of Similars” -- is better, I think, in the sense that it directly goes to the thing you’re trying to define, rather than via its outcomes. It remains unfortunately vague, of course, and doesn’t help anybody who doesn’t already know what the law of similars is. I think it’s better than the outcome-based one, though, for obvious reasons. But why not make it clearer: “Homoeopathy is the practice of the law of similars”? If there’s no good reason to beat around a bush of possible "involvements" of that law, why invite polypharmacy etc. to stake a claim in “involving” the law of similars?
Of course, even once we have an understanding that's clear to those already in the know, the task remains to communicate what exactly is intended by "the Law of Similars": whether it's to be Hahnemann's Law of Similars, an exacting requirement of medical practice, or anybody else's vaguely cosmic law of anything appearing to correspond with anything else. If it's to be the latter, and therefore to include, say, the allopathic "doctrine of signatures", then we might as well have done with it and define homoeopathy as being allopathy; so I trust that by "the Law of Similars" you'd intend just what Hahnemann intended: use of the medicine known (not surmised) to be capable of most closely mimicking in the healthy the patient's state of ill-health.
Cheers --
John

Hi John,
I like this: closely mimicking in the healthy the patient's state of ill-health.

We need a definition that outsiders can understand. But, I still you would need a detailed explanation for "mimicking" to make any sense to an outsider.
I am always amazed when I say something abstract like "micking" to the rare thinker and they immediately grasp what I am saying. Nevertheless, perhaps there is one statement for outsiders. And another statement for those who should know better but don't (eg. polypharmacists).
Best,
Ellen

Hi, Ellen --

Is "mimicking" a term going out of use, perhaps? We can always replace it, in explaining to outsiders what homoeopathy is, with something else: "resembling" would serve.

I'm not sure I catch your meaning about another statement for those who should know better. Do you mean that for them "mimicking" probably is good enough? Or perhaps that they require something that shows how it is that polypharmacy cannot possibly meet the requirements of a practice that depends utterly on a stable, reproducible pathogenesis (which right away excludes polypharmacy)?

Cheers!

John

Hi John,
Sorry to be confusing. I am thinking that we make definitions for different levels of understanding. So we need to be clear about to whom we are defining our practice to.
Best,
Ellen

Hi, Ellen --

Yes, fair enough. I wonder what level we should be pitching this discussion at. It seems to me that if we all get the basic terms and can come to agreement that a definition, even one using terms outsiders may not be all that familiar with, does indeed sum up what Hahnemann meant by the word, then we can always replace any technical terms by synonymous words or phrases for those unused to them. But you raise a potential problem: maybe not all of us can agree on the meanings of all of the terms we'd use. So maybe it should be in the plainest possible language, with the fewest possible assumptions built into it, to begin with.

Cheers --

John

Dear John,
I agree with you. Maybe the first statement of the concept should be abstract, general and at least understandable to people reading Minutus　(Not everyone is a homeopath, but most everyone appreciates homeopathy). The second should be the complex statement that outsiders might not easily understand. This statement is for the professional.

Along similar lines, I know many perfectly valid methods which are not pure mainstream homeopathy, Many of these practices are however, common place in daily practice. From my point of view, they are refinements of my practice and very helpful. Similarly, I might choose to study a method, but I am wondering about its standing as homeopathy. In these cases, I want to test my study or research interests against the proposed definition.

I short, a narrow definition of homeopathy is not always a fighting line for declaring "holier than thou" positions.

I personally do not feel that everything I do in my practice needs to conform to our definition. Clarity is however essential. Clarity for my own inner peace and clarity for the inquiring public. Also, clarity to exclude certain practices that I feel justified in rejecting as homeopathy and also rejecting as a healing practice. At that point, I become "holier than thou." or at least negative. The value of an objective definition is that instead of taking these angry postures, I can simply and objectively state where the center of my practice lies. Anything outside of those boundaries needs to be evaluated based on my central definition of my practice, but not necessarily as the enemy.

Best,
Ellen Madono