homeopathy, science and new age
Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:30 am
Having seen recent postings, I wanted to say the following. First of all, I believe that being or seeming scientific is not the be-all and end-all of homeopathic philosophy or practice. This is because the expression *scientific* implies a purely objective reality - something that both scientific failures and quantum physicists have been quietly undermining for decades. The holy *scientific* brainwashing has a lot in common with the allopathic brainwashing (he who doth not vaccinate sins). Neither allopathic doctors nor scientists have the ownership of truth - at best they (and we) are all seekers, at worst they (and we...) are closed minded and unable to use simple subjective observation to understand what is going on around them.
At the other end of the scale - dream provings etc. imply that giving fuller structure to investigation is unnecessary, that the most important thing is to meld with the cosmos and go with the flow. However, many ideas within new age are actually very ancient and have often proved themselves, incredible though it may seem. And there are those who would say - is there really much difference between the belief that rubies can help women giving birth and the belief that if you take a substance, dilute it to nothingness, shake the hell out of it, and hey presto, a medicine is born?
Hahnemann's most important discovery, in my opinion, is that homeopathy works. Without this minor detail all the homeopathic philosophy would have gone the way of many other theories and philosophies before and since. The suffering patient is not interested in whether he is psoric, tuberculinic or connected to the planet Saturn - he wants to go to a doctor who will give him something to take away his suffering and restore him to health. By the same token, the most important question facing homeopaths today is why did it work better then and why is the track record poorer now? Some would say - we're not scientific enough, we need clearer methods. Others would say - it's all these dream provings and meditative prescribing.
Kent states somewhere that the only way to avoid prejudice is to study materia medica as extensively as possible. It seems that the best combination is to bring to treatment of the patient both an intensive background in materia medica and knowledge of disease, together with our own simple subjective abilities of observation and, yes, intuition in understanding who the patient sitting opposite us really is. Both the scientific (and to some extent apologist) extremes, and the new age extremes are in themselves a form of prejudice and pull us away from the matter in hand: here is the patient. He is sick. Heal him.
Vera
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At the other end of the scale - dream provings etc. imply that giving fuller structure to investigation is unnecessary, that the most important thing is to meld with the cosmos and go with the flow. However, many ideas within new age are actually very ancient and have often proved themselves, incredible though it may seem. And there are those who would say - is there really much difference between the belief that rubies can help women giving birth and the belief that if you take a substance, dilute it to nothingness, shake the hell out of it, and hey presto, a medicine is born?
Hahnemann's most important discovery, in my opinion, is that homeopathy works. Without this minor detail all the homeopathic philosophy would have gone the way of many other theories and philosophies before and since. The suffering patient is not interested in whether he is psoric, tuberculinic or connected to the planet Saturn - he wants to go to a doctor who will give him something to take away his suffering and restore him to health. By the same token, the most important question facing homeopaths today is why did it work better then and why is the track record poorer now? Some would say - we're not scientific enough, we need clearer methods. Others would say - it's all these dream provings and meditative prescribing.
Kent states somewhere that the only way to avoid prejudice is to study materia medica as extensively as possible. It seems that the best combination is to bring to treatment of the patient both an intensive background in materia medica and knowledge of disease, together with our own simple subjective abilities of observation and, yes, intuition in understanding who the patient sitting opposite us really is. Both the scientific (and to some extent apologist) extremes, and the new age extremes are in themselves a form of prejudice and pull us away from the matter in hand: here is the patient. He is sick. Heal him.
Vera
_____________________________________________________________
Free email on the Net's premier homeopathy site ---> http://www.homeopathyhome.net