Minutus

on 11/12/03 11:48 PM, Julian Winston at jwinston@actrix.gen.nz wrote:
But wild animals get illnesses too. They as a group tend to get fewer,
simply because susceptible individuals leave fewer offspring, blah blah,
"survival of the fittest"/"strenthening of the gene pool". *But* that has
changed now that wild animals are exposed to some of the same toxic issues
as humans. In this case I'd think it's a *toxic* problem, not a problem of
"wrong thinking". Granted that their toxin intake is caused by our "wrong
thinking", but that's different.

Same must be true of some cases of disease in humans (physical cause rather
than "wrong thinking").
This must be another "spectrum" issue -- either physical or mental *may*
lead in producing disease...

Shannon

Dear Wendy, as Homeopaths we are quite well versed in individualisation and
susceptibility but perhaps less well versed in the collective
susceptibility, i.e. epidemics where sx are similar or the same from one
individual to another.

Of course individual susceptibility still prevails during epidemics,
otherwise world populations would be extremely small, most having succumbed
to the various diseases such as bubonic plague, syphilis etc.

But if individual susceptibility prevails and is uppermost in our
consideration, we have to ask when, where and how the collective
susceptibility is born and how it differs from the individual. There has to
be something that is commonly shared and not individual for epidemics to
affect so many people at once. This collective susceptibility is easily seen
in the well known frogs eggs story - they develop and remain free from
invasion in a pond swarming with bacteria and protozoa but then a frost
comes along and kills them all! This event they had no vital resistance to.

I suppose this is why there is a tendency to make analogies with the
epidemic, its common symptoms and prevailing social and political conditions
- it is these that become the collective diseased state - external forces
which there is no vital resistance to.

With your example of Cholera, being all about unable to hang on to anything
of value, losing? that which is of value - which of the prominent cholera
remedies do you think fit your analogy? Veratrum and Camphor are all about
loss; the Cuprums, hmm, possibly; Gratiola and Podophyllum, definitely. I
would like to hear your views re this.

But what if the collective susceptibility is NOT brought about by external
forces. What if it is an internal force, an internal and inherited inability
to which there is no vital resistance to. Isn't this what Julian is
referring to - the already deranged vital force (stanza 11 of the organon)
which 'allows' an epidemic (as well as other diseases) to take hold. "It is
the vital force alone that produces disease."

Hahnemann tells us that it serves no practical utility to know HOW the vital
force produces disease. But, of course, we want to know. Someone, please
tell us. The human species has developed an intelligence that is eager to
uncover mysteries. We have so many questions but few answers. The more we
discover the greater is our hopelessness of truly knowing the how, why and
wherefore'. But we continue to want answers.

The cholera analogy is fascinating and insightful but I was wondering what
would be the various analogies for other epidemics - measles, typhus, AIDS
and HIV, the plague, yellow fever, syphilis, malaria, meningitis etc. They
might help us understand a bit more about the how, why and wherefore but it
is this vis the connection to the remedies that heal that really interests
me and without that I think the analogies can distract us from the healing.
Most of the time we cannot heal the external forces and this alludes to the
notion that therefore we cannot heal the people within the epidemic radius.
My conclusion then is that the emphasis has to be on the internal vital
force, that is where the healing has to be.

Interesting discussion.

Best wishes, Joy

www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
edited
edited

Regards Wendy

Shannon wrote:
of
rather

This "wrong thinking" thing seems to be side-tracking people. I did say that
"unhelpful" might have been a better word, but perhaps the analogy itself
was unhelpful! I only included it as a supportive assertion from another
philosophy for the idea that illness originates in an energetic state which
is at odds to the fundamental direction of the life force -- which is what
Hahnemann says anyway -- and that the dynamis REFLECTS that state, with
perfection, and that intelligence is also evident in the reflection.

The "wrong thinking" idea CAN be helpful in turning around the perspective
of the "faulty" dynamis, and highlighting the fact that it's holding onto
certain energy states that creates physical expressions of them, whether
that's drawing them in from the outside by virtue of susceptibility, or
creating them endogenously by holding certain thought patterns.

Regards
Wendy
http://www.smeddum.net/

Wow, Wendy --

That's the clearest exposition of that tricky question I've ever seen. I'll
remember "response-ability" vs. responsibility next time I try to explain
this to someone. I was in this very discussion with a psychologist just the
other day, and her reaction to my holistic model of illness that included
the patient's emotions and behaviors was that she didn't want to go there
and blame the sick person -- I was surprised, because that wasn't at all
what I was doing, but I don't think I managed to get that across to her.
Thanks for modeling a clear way of explaining it.

Rosemary

Dear Rosemary, I also think that part of 'not blaming the sick person' is to
not refer to them as 'patients' - I always think this title disables someone
from the outset and I try never to use it.

Just an extra thought a long way from the subject of these later posts

Best, Joy

www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
on 11/13/03 5:21 PM, Rosemary C. Hyde, Ph.D. at rosemaryhyde@mindspring.com
wrote:

I was in this very discussion with a psychologist just the
other day, and her reaction to my holistic model of illness that included
the patient's emotions and behaviors was that she didn't want to go there
and blame the sick person -- I was surprised, because that wasn't at all
what I was doing, but I don't think I managed to get that across to her.
Thanks for modeling a clear way of explaining it.

Rosemary
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks,Joy -- never thought of it in quite that way, and it's a point well
taken.

Rosemary

At 9:12 AM +0000 11/13/03, Eleana Needham wrote:

You're welcome!
The only thing I can think of is that it was not prepared under
careful conditions and properly sterilized. Working up a potency in
water, rather than alcohol is a possible reason.
I would, when working with blood, use the same guidelines as
preparing venoms, and not use them OTC until an 8X.

JW

Joy wrote:
succumbed
to

Exactly. We are, after all, open systems, "cells" within a larger "body",
and it's at that level, the societal level, that the nature of what the
combined dynamis is saying about the collective disharmony becomes clearer.
Because we conceptualise ourselves as individuals with autonomy, an
awareness of just how much we're a part of the collective frequently escapes
us. That the collective is thinking us as much as we're thinking it.
Individual susceptibility only prevails when it comes to the degree of
expression of the dynamic. Those who take on that energy to a greater
extent, who resonate with it most, will express it to a higher degree.

anything

My example of cholera is simply a reading of the dynamis-language of the
example Julian gave -- the person literally shits themselves to death. ie.
they're unable to retain any nourishment they take in which is of value to
sustain the body, it turns to shit and they lose it. But this is by no means
the full extent and depth of the cholera energy. It's just a part of it,
albeit a keynote. You'll find its other elements in its other common
symptoms and the reflections of those in the remedies that successfully
treat it.

inability
is

It's a two-way process. The collective susceptibility is, on one hand, the
sum total of all the individual susceptibilities comprising it, and on the
other, an influence affecting each individual's susceptibility. So our
individual vital forces both contribute to, and are influenced by, the
collective.

vital

In the model I'm trying to describe here, dis-ease is produced when all the
vital energies are not flowing in the same direction, are out of tune with
one another, in discord, disharmony. So, although the dis-ease originates
within the vital force, I think it's a mistake to say that the vital force
"produces" dis-ease. Dis-ease is a product of the disharmony and/or
dissipation of vital energies, not of the vital force itself. The difference
is subtle but important. Disharmony can have any number of causes --
anything that results in an energy stream that's out of alignment with the
fundamental nature of being. But it IS energetic in origin, and to prevent
the continued precipitation of that energy into material form, it's
necessary to change the nature of the energy.
Well! That little lot would take me more time than I presently have
available, particularly to do them justice. As I already said with the
cholera example, there's more to it than just a single generalisation based
on a single prime symptom. But I'm planning to develop this more and get
some articles up onto my website at some point. I'll be taking it one
condition at a time though!

it
healing.
the
radius.

If the external force is powerful and pervasive, you can only remove
individuals from the influence of it, either physically, or by giving them
greater resistance by addressing their own susceptibility to it. And every
individual you treat feeds back into the collective dynamic and contributes
to an eventual change in it. Or you could stage a revolution in
consciousness! Give people awareness and hence response-ability.

Regards
Wendy
http://www.smeddum.net/

Dear Joy and Wendy
I have been following Wendy's discussion and can t help but agree with
her, it seems that Wendy's persepctive is a spiritual one I can relate to.
I may have a bit of a suggestion as to what you wrote when you asked,
what if it is not brought about by external circumstances?
So by this you mean inherited..this is also a group consciousness, when
we are from the same family or the same roots we share inherited traits.
I frequently imagine what we inherit as rain and we as the receptacle
and depending on the size of our receptacle, we get more or less of the
inheritence ..
Then again we can see this in the emotions that we get.
The emotions we have may be real, or they may be inherited, like when a
child gets the emotions of the mum or dad while still in utero, and then
there are emotions we copy, like when in a group and we take on the
emotions of the group, and then there is the emotions that learn to use
to manilpulate.
So here it is again:
real, acquired, copied, manipulative.

So when we take into acount the group reasons as what Wendy suggests ,
we also have to bear in mind the individual reaction to the group in
selecting a remedy.

regards

Suriya

Joy Lucas wrote:
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Actually this was just a mock lament. Of course we know 'why' disease
develops but my question was 'how'. I still think that the deranged vital
force has to be the carrier, vehicle (or whatever) that 'produces' the
disease, this is how it takes a hold. Without it disease would dissipate.

Your last paragraph is very optimistic, perhaps at some time you would care
to say how it fits in with the other points you were making.

Regards, Joy

www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
on 11/13/03 5:33 PM, Wendy Howard at wendy@rachan.worldonline.co.uk wrote:
Joy wrote

vital

Wendy wrote

In the model I'm trying to describe here, dis-ease is produced when all the
vital energies are not flowing in the same direction, are out of tune with
one another, in discord, disharmony. So, although the dis-ease originates
within the vital force, I think it's a mistake to say that the vital force
"produces" dis-ease. Dis-ease is a product of the disharmony and/or
dissipation of vital energies, not of the vital force itself. The difference
is subtle but important. Disharmony can have any number of causes --
anything that results in an energy stream that's out of alignment with the
fundamental nature of being. But it IS energetic in origin, and to prevent
the continued precipitation of that energy into material form, it's
necessary to change the nature of the energy.

If the external force is powerful and pervasive, you can only remove
individuals from the influence of it, either physically, or by giving them
greater resistance by addressing their own susceptibility to it. And every
individual you treat feeds back into the collective dynamic and contributes
to an eventual change in it. Or you could stage a revolution in
consciousness! Give people awareness and hence response-ability.

Regards
Wendy
http://www.smeddum.net/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]