COMMENTS BY GABY:
Hahnemann himself summons it up quite clearly in his table of contents:"12. Durch das Verschwinden des Symptomen-Inbegriffs mittels Heilung ist auch das Leiden der Lebenskraft, das ist, der ganze innere und aeussere Krankheitszustand, gehoben. Anm. Das Wie? die Lebenskraft die Symptome zuwege bringe, ist zum Heilen unnoethig zu wissen."

My translation: "12. By disappearance of the essence of symptoms by means of cure, the suffering of the vital force, that is, the whole internal and external state of disease is removed, too. Note: HOW the vital force is able to produce the symptoms , is unnecessary to know for healing."

When we follow Hahnemann, a disease can't exist by itself. What we see or perceive as disease are the expressions, the manifestations of a mistuned vital force. Of course - as always - it depends from our senses, how and what we perceive of this external state of disease, if we are able to collect all the subjective and objective symptoms that show up. So, if these expressions of disease disappear as a result of healing, then nothing of the internal mistunement is left.

So - two questions come up: (1) If there are no symptoms - can there be disease in spite of that? (2) If there are symptoms, does that imply there is a disease?

Ad 1. There may be diseases or complaints, and the patient shows only isolated or very few symptoms. This is the case in what Hahnemann calls one-sided diseases, that are mainly of chronic character. In Aphs. 172 - 184 we find the explanations about it. But still there are symptoms to be found, perhaps not many subjective symptoms (symptoms uttered by the patient) but objective symptoms perceived by the homoeopath.

Ad 2. From Hahnemanns point of view, when there ARE symptoms - that is alterations in the state of health - the vital force is mistuned. Yes , there is something that needs to be cured.

From this point of view we should be extremely grateful for any symptom - cause without symptoms no cure would be possible. Now I can imagine, everybody with e.g. rheumatic arthritis is definitely not grateful for the pains he is experiencing. But the desciption of his pains, the modalities (what makes them better or worse), the accompanying sensations - all those subjective symptoms may be necessary to find the right homoeopathic remedy. Of course, all the other strange , rare and peculiar symptoms need to be taken into account as well. But perhaps it's just a peculiar sensation, that has to be uttered by the patient himself, that could lead to the simillimum.

Perhaps , especially nowadays, it's quite difficult to make friends with these _unloved_ symptoms. But when you try to understand that these symptoms are the mere language of your vital force - it being the possibility to shout for help - then you could get another angle of regarding them.

Sounds quite theoretical, you think? To see pains as helpful symptoms is not easy to grasp. But just think it over: when a woman is in labour, the sensations can be quite painful - but they have an aim! So, if you happen to experience recurring symptoms, see it like a friend calling over and over again - he wants to tell you something. And the better you listen (perhaps you try to keep a diary - and focus on your sensations , on the accompanying symptoms, on whatever seems interesting in combination with this symptom) to this expressions - the easier it will be for your homoeopath to find the remedy that gets your vital force in tune again.

Once the mistunement is removed - the vital force is balanced again.

Hahnemann says we don't need to research the how? and the why?, the means of the vital force by which it produces the symptoms, because this knowledge is not necessary to find the simillimum. We get all what we need for effecting a cure from the symptoms.

The characteristic symptoms are like a route description to the state of health - and the less of them we miss, the more straight this path is - and the more easier it is to find.

Best wishes,
Gaby
Gaby Rottler Germany GRottler@mfr.de  

COMMENTS BY EILEEN
I'd like to take an energy medicine and metaphysical look at one of Hahnemann's statements and look at it more close from another angle:

Note: HOW the vital force is able to produce the symptoms , is unnecessary to know for healing.

I beg to differ with Old Sam on this point. The more we are educated on the unseen, the more we understand it and therefore, can catalytically affect it and its outcome. Ignorance does not serve us well in the field of homeopathy and precisely because it IS an energy medicine in every respect, the human energy system (the aura and chakras) must be understood, also. And until homeopaths embrace this knowledge, which is thousands of years old, compared to the new "baby", homeopathy, which is only 250 years old, we are missing a very important part of the entire "formula" if you will. Here's the rest of the formula from the unseen/metaphysical side of the equation:

From an energy medicine concept, we have many electro-magnetic fields that look like, from a 2-dimensional concept, like an oval-shaped onion with layers. Each layer is a field. Each field plays a vital part in what is known collectively, as the Vital Force. In metaphysical language, this is known as the "aura". And without an aura, the physical body cannot surive; it will die and wither. Similarly, an aura cannot exist without a spirit inhabiting the physical body,either. So, each part of this concept, the physical as well as the meta (unseen) physical is an integral part of one another. One cannot exist without the other.

I find it interesting that homeopaths have chosen to use the "onion" and it's layer concept to try and explain the healing process--they are unconsciously moving into the realm of the layers of one's auric fields.

Let's look at what happens when we recieve "trauma" to ourselves in this world we live within. Trauma is defined by the individual. What may be trauma to you may be nothing to me, and vice-versa. It is a highly personal thing as to how we relate, act or react to external and internal earthquakes within and with out ourselves.

I want to use an example of a physical trauma. Let's say you are six years old and you are riding on your bike (without a helmet) and you fall and strike the back of your head in the fall. It renders you unconscious for a few moments. Luckily, your mother realizes the possible injury you sustained may be a lot worse than what she can see or suspect, so she takes you to the emergency room of a hospital. There, the doctor who examins you tells your mother that yes, you sustained a fracture of your skull, in the occiput area (back of head). And, of course, you have all the classic symptoms of a head injury: dizziness, nausea, vomiting and lack of balance. The doc can tell you what to do to work through this trauma and survive it--which you do.

However, what most people do not realize (or accept), but metaphysicans certainly do--is that your tissue, muscles and bone RETAIN this trauma, this shock to the physical body. This involves your physical form. In your etheric field, the first field out from your physical body, there is trauma trapped in the area of where you were injured, too. And, because it scared you so badly, there is a block of energy, like a dark ball, lodged in your solar plexus chakra, and its stuck in your astral field (the 2nd field out from the physical body and the field that holds and displays all our emotions).

Until the shock and trauma of the retained blow, in this case, is removed, it can STILL haunt us the rest of our lives; usually as a chronic headache. It is, quite literally, lodged no only in our physical body, but one or more fields of our aura, as well.

A well chosen homeopathic remedy will catalyze with the work and efforts of one's Vital Force, to completely irrigate these held areas of energy. For a metaphysician, we call them blocks. To a clairvoyant, they appear as a lurid, dirty color in a person's aura. If you were to run your hands about 6 to 12 inches above the person's body, with palms open and flat and toward the person, you will detect "hot" or "cold" spots in their etheric and perhaps, their astral fields.

A homeopathic remedy will catalyze and the Vital Force stimulates in a one-two punch, to "kick out" this stopped/jammed block of energy. When it is moved and forced to begin dissolving, then the patient moves into Hering's Law of Cure, which is the retracing of any old sickness or injury, on any level (spiritual, mental, emotional or physical) and the cells, bones, and tissue are purged of the trauma, as well as any and all fields of the aura over time. This is WHY Hering's Law of Cure works. This is the other half of the story--the unseen side.

When homeopaths begin to understand, embrace and accept that we have energy fields, that we all own a set of chakras (front and back) and get into what these chakra's functions are and how they are directly tied into our endocrine system, as well as specific organs and specific anatomical systems of our body, then they will be able to help their patient 50% more than they are currently. What you know can help them. What you do not know, does not.

COMMENTS BY PAUL:
I normal states of health with our correct bodily functions and rhythms, our higher conscious in full wisdom has mastery over our lower components. In times of cold or heat it is through our ego that body temperature is maintained (via the blood). In times of hunger it is our ego organization that will enable the extraction of the correct nutrients from our digested food. In times of strife it our ego that can bring understanding and healing through enabling us to find our place in the situation and to understand the path forward. Let me emphasize again that by ego I do not mean we should have a "big ego". that term refers to an ego which directed towards self and to the lower pleasures of man. It is not in tune with the higher path. ("they became animalistic men, lacking in spirituality, given over to pleasures of the flesh".

If we look at nature we find that everywhere, things occur because of permission. By this I mean, a plant grows because the conditions of weather, soil and water are suitable to allow growth. In addition the co-existence with pollinators allows survival of the species. You do not find sunflowers at the south pole (I hope). The same with animals. With Man we can step out of the natural plan and adapt accordingly. When cold we build a fire, for food we can plant crops and make use of the knowledge we attain about nature. We improvise, we create and because we have this ability to work out of the natural plan we have the greatest possibility to pollute. But that is another issue.

Any process of nature must occur outside our system. The bottom line is that our ego must overcome any forces of nature and then utilize the gain by making it part of ourselves. Proteins must become amino acids first and then they can become part of our protein. To absorb protein in is full form will lead to allergies and so forth. When we allow the imprinting of the environment to attach itself to us, we become "a little bit Bryonia" (big root, therefore not wanting motion and taking in of large quantities of water and food) or a "little bit Lachesis" (feeling as if the environment is hot, and waking into an aggravation when sleeping and then stood upon - an occurrence which most snake-handlers will warn about as being the common way inwhich snakes will need to strike out). We find ourselves in the same circumstance as these remedies and experience life as if we were these remedies. This is not healthy.

When we take in these remedies, to the extent that they become too much for our ego organization, we experience a set of symptoms which we call a proving. We then become like the remedy because in a way it lives on in us. This set of symptoms is the expression of the remedy state and in a way we seem to be in the same situation as the remedy and therefore under the same control by nature. We are not able to follow our destiny because we have become subject to the dominance of the Earth, instead of the dominance of the Heaven.

"(1) How the vital force causes the organism to display morbid phenomena, that is, how it produces disease, it would be of no practical utility to the physician to know, and will forever remain concealed from him; only what it is necessary for him to know of the disease and what is fully sufficient for enabling him to cure it, has the Lord of life revealed to his senses"

Now often we hear talk about "the lessons of life" and for some this makes sense and for others it seems to be poppycock. the question is why must we experience adversity and what role can illnes possibly have in our "spiritual education". Well, we have been born on Earth, in Earthly form because this whole environment is conducive to helping us to understand that which we need to understand. From the rocks to the plants to the animals to the people. We interact and we learn. When we digest and understand, then we maintain our individuality and our health. When we don't digest food we suffer. When we don't digest a traumatic experience or personal interaction, we suffer. When we suffer we experience symptoms. These symptoms will point to a particular substance, plant or animal which is also under the influence. At that stage the influence will be similar. Through administering the remedy homoepathically we gain understanding of the situation. Through this our inner disease state can be resolved. Then the symptoms will resolve.

So by choosing a remedy based on the totality of symptoms, we aim not suppress each symptom, rather we aim to present the clearest lecture to educate our higher ego. When we are behaving like the king of the jungle and everyone around us lives in fear, we take a dose of Lac leoni (lions milk) and then perhaps we understand a little better why the lion behaves the way it does and more importantly we understand why we are behaving like a lion. Our higher ego can put this in perspective and thus we learn a great deal about who, why and what we are.

It is certainly not possible up front to see the situation for ourselves and understand it, or else we would need no remedy as the situation would resolve itself. We can have it explained to us by a therapist and that can sometimes produce healing, but this understanding is often difficult with the conscious mind, for various reasons. A homoepathically prepared remedy will deliver the message despite the "mental blocks" we have constructed as a means of compensation.

It is thankful that the Lord of life has made provision by revealing of what is sufficient for cure, through our senses. It is in fact through our senses that we interact with our environment.

Now when we give a remedy that is only particular to certain of our symptoms, it is from a different situation. Compare the following conversations " Well Tony, it is like this..." (similar) to "Well, Tony let me tell you something else ...." (dissimilar). In the first instance we see the situation. In the second instance we are told something different. We are not told what our reality is.

In conclusion, the common denominator between our situation (inner disease state) and the situation of our remedy (existing in response to the situation, is the symptoms of the disease state and the symptoms of the proving of the remedy. Healing takes place because of the selection based on similarity.

Best regards,
Paul