G: This led us to explore the role of the remedy and the model of the healing setting.
AV: Which led to the conclusion that there are three participants; the patient, the healer and the remedy and that an experience of healing only takes place when they meet certain conditions. The remedy is the carrier, the medium that makes the experience possible.
G: … and therefore not negligible…
AV:… because, in order to bring about an experience of healing, the remedy must conform to the law of similarity. It is not the only therapeutic law, but it is a very potent one. That is why the word homeopathic potency is better chosen than people usually realize.
G: Right. It is not for nothing that homeopaths place so much emphasis on the remedy, so much so that sometimes other aspects of the healing setting are somewhat overlooked: we will come back to them later.
AV: The strange thing about homeopathy is that you can’t explore it step by step. When I teach, I have the feeling that the student must grasp everything at once. That’s why I sometimes compare it to art: the aspiring artist also must learn everything at once, knowledge of materials, colors, perspective, projection, control.
G: Homeopathy is an art.
AV: I’m glad you said that, coming from my mouth it sounds presumptuous.
G: Nonetheless true. Homeopathy is art. And magic. And a few more things.
AV: I’m on the edge of my seat.
G: Then sit back and relax, we’re not there yet. First, we will explore the remedy further.
More about the remedy
AV: We have discussed the fact that every therapy is based on a methodology, has a set of rules and applications. They all work, and the more belief in the method by both the therapist and the patient, the better chance of success. Homeopaths believe in the power of their potentized remedies. In general, these are thought forms, except for the low potencies, which are commonly used in some countries. Substance is still present there in very small quantities. Those low potencies seem to work just as well as the high ones, which many homeopaths swear by. 10MK is a potency 1 with 20,000 zeros behind it. I don’t know of any theoretical model that can explain how e.g. a Belladonna 5C works in one case and requires a potency equivalent to 20,000 times in another.
Water holds the pattern of the substance (for a while) so that it can be registered, even when the substance is potentized.
G: You said ‘for a while’?
AV: I can’t imagine that this water stores the pattern of the remedy forever in the memory, because then all the water in the world would be homeopathic potencies. I imagine all those homeopathic firms with their machines, working day and night, where all unused water is washed away. Or the remedies that are shaken with human hands and all the unused intermediate potencies that are poured away and the vials rinsed out, all the homeopathic patients who have not fully drunk their remedy dissolved in water and washed away the excess.
I suspect that the Memory of Water was discovered more or less by accident by Benveniste, who was researching the efficacy of low-dose drugs. Although it represented advances in the understanding of water, the most mysterious substance on earth, it is not an explanatory model for homeopathy. Of course, this has been done jubilantly, but the observation that radionic, noetic and intentional remedies also work undermines that evidence.
G: Maybe it’s not either/or, but and/and….
AV: More than one explanatory model? That makes my logical mind crack! Oh, God! Can’t we finish the ‘middle ground chapter’ first?
G: Whatever you want. First, let’s see how far you’ve come.
AV: The substance represents a substance or phenomenon from our reality. That can be just about anything: rocks, elements, chemicals, plants, medicines, planets, waters, animals, fungi, colors, plants, human artifacts. The similarity consists in the fact that the perspective from which one perceives oneself and the world has a pattern similar to the pattern of one of those phenomena. Whereas in the earlier years of homeopathy we studied individual symptoms without mutual coherence, today we can see similarities between the remedies that belong to the same group, e.g. plants, animals, minerals. This is a great help because we can now first determine the characteristics of the group and then look for an appropriate remedy. We no longer have to consider every homeopathic remedy as a possible candidate, but can search within a certain kingdom. I rather like the word ‘family’: it conjures up the image of both family traits and diversity within that resemblance. So we can say that all plants in the Solanaceae have family traits that are specific to that family and we only need to find the most suitable family member. Could it be that “family traits” is another word for pattern?
G: Yes. And for ‘code’.
AV: When you say code, I think of a numerical code, which on radionic devices represent the remedy. In fact, also on the naming of the phenomenon is a code, it is a letter code, even in different languages, all of which are symbolic representations of reality.
We said that homeopathy can be compared to an app on our dashboard. As a result, we can explore and interpret reality with a homeopathic set of tools, use homeopathic symbolism and apply homeopathic remedies in a healing setting.
G: We’re getting on with it.
AV: Do you think? I was just about to ask: why? Why? Why? Why does everyone show similarity with a certain phenomenon from the outside world? Why is a person’s perspective, the way he perceives the world and others, similar to a lizard, a cornflower, a rock crystal, or a sex hormone?
G: Are you asking me why someone is the way he/she is? Apparently, you have less difficulty with large categories: the 12 signs of the zodiac, the 9 Enneagram types, or the division according to skin color and race, for example.
AV: Those are objective, immutable facts.
G: What exactly is the difference with homeopathic remedies?
AV: A horoscope of the same person drawn up by different astrologers should be identically the same. After all, his time and place of birth are fixed data. But it has never been possible to get different homeopaths to come to the same conclusion about the best remedy for a patient. Why is it so hard? So subjective? So dependent on interpretation? And does one really have a remedy that can be called one’s best remedy, one’s similimum?
G: Weren’t you the biggest publisher of that yourself? Wasn’t your argument that you can only be one human being at a time, with only one set of DNA, an unchanging personal fingerprint, one typical appearance that makes you recognizable and determines your uniqueness?
AV: Yes.
G: Well, then.
AV: The question if there is already one similimum is a bit of a sidetrack. But important enough!
The similimum
AV: It has always been my belief that logically, since we individualize as homeopaths, there can only be one best similimum. If a homeopath changes this remedy over time, it is not an indication that the patient has evolved into another remedy, I think it is just that the homeopath has learned. By gaining more experience and knowledge over the years, he is always able to see a bigger picture. Jan Scholten mentions the similimum as ‘the greatest totality that the homeopath is able to see in a patient’. An elegant definition that at the same time answers the question of whether someone remains the same similimum throughout their life. Logically, of course, from a practical point of view, it depends on the understanding, insight and knowledge of the homeopath.
Now I have to admit that Seth’s books, in the channeled ‘Seth’s Materials’, somewhat shake my thesis. He repeatedly emphasizes that we are constantly and almost unconsciously in contact with multiple versions of ourselves and that we have an exchange with them in our sleep. If, however, I limit myself to the dominant ‘I’ feeling of the patient and the perception of the outside world, which recognizes him even if he gains or loses weight, ages, becomes ill or disabled, then I cannot help but believe in one similimum. If a similimum is the remedy that is similar to one’s uniqueness, then there is only one. Perhaps there are unknown relatives of the drug we prescribe that would be a better fit for the patient, but we simply cannot know everything. In addition to the one remedy that is the best, there are also many good ones. Drugs that are similar to some of the patient’s characteristics, in other words: that have part of the pattern similar. There are multiple remedies, fitting different parts of the total picture and often they permanently remove symptoms.G: Part of the confusion and disagreement among homeopaths is that people talk about ‘homeopathy’ as if it were one indivisible block, whereas you yourself said earlier in our conversation that there are several types of homeopathy. Let us take a closer look at them first
