Learning Techniques Rather Than Remedies

You may find some information about schools in “about” page, but let’s take Imedis center (Moscow) alone as an example:

• More than 7000 doctors have graduated their courses and many continue using their methods and equipment.
• Each year a huge conference is held in Moscow in Scientists’ Palace with two pretty thick volumes of abstracts published in both paper and electronic formats. And these are pretty high quality studies.

Learning techniques has many advantages over learning remedies by reading Materia Medicas or playing with repertory extractions: not only they provide us with a way more effective approach to remedies, but together with listening they may radically transform the way you perceive Homeopathy as a whole.

To put it briefly – most of my teachers (except classical ones, of course) don’t even bother to teach about remedies. They share the techniques instead and only briefly introduce student to certain remedy sets.

Techniques are the keys into the practice: returning home from a seminar we start implementing them into our practice. We travel on our own and we use techniques for exploring different aspects of our remedies (and patients! – but this understanding comes later).

Techniques

Most of you, especially those limited to a classical tradition have no idea about the techniques I’m writing about. But here for me and my colleagues they’ve been bread and butter of daily practice for many years.

It’s tricky to explain what techniques really are. Practice is hard to explain intellectually. Yes, techniques are somewhat… primitive. Some of you will even find them kind of mechanical. But the depth they may potentially lead us to is literally abysmal: much deeper than your mind can imagine.

Yes, some knowledge and understanding and perhaps equipment is required to get started – but then it is all about practice and skills that grow with experience.

Potentiated (information) remedies are somewhat imperceptible unless we possess some listening skills or at least use techniques to interact with remedies.

• Listening skills are still pretty rare among homeopaths. Why? Listening (Yin) is too passive to learn it or to pass it to students. Perception is passive. We do nothing to perceive life as it is. Well, perception may be trained, but that takes many years (countless hours) with a good teacher to achieve. And we rarely can afford that. That’s an excuse.
• But techniques (Yang) are extremely down to earth and practical. They are easy to learn and to teach.
  • They are sort of algorithms we perform with our remedies.
  • Techniques (classical potentiation is a technique!) are meant to be performed with our hands and are not intellectual at all. There is very little sense to learn potentiation by reading books, isn’t it?
  • They are pretty easy to teach and learn.
  • They are perceptible – and with constant daily practice with a proper attention that sensory perception evolves into something pretty amazing.

Let’s take knife sharpening skills as an example. Some basic theoretical knowledge is required (starting with local – at least how the burr is formed during the process, and finishing with understanding of structure and composition of different kinds of steel) as well as some basic equipment (sharpening stone and knife itself). But then it is about numerous hours of practicing with attention. It is about devoting ourselves to that craft sharpening hundreds of knives until real mastery is reached.

1. Despite your knowledge it definitely feels pretty awkward at first.
2. Little by little we teach our hands to perform the job by repeating a certain algorithm numerous times.
3. We start to feel the process: how different kinds of steel and different forms of blades react to the stone.
4. Our hands start knowing what to do and do not require our mind intervening the process anymore.
5. Eventually we take a knife with Attention and witness our hands finding the safest and most effective way of completing the job. It really seems hands know what to do and we are just witnessing the process.

In Present Homeopathy it is very similar. Techniques are what we do with our remedies: testing, adapting, targeting, involving a response, utilizing various bioresonance strategies, reprinting, summing, sealing, etc.

Again, with a certain level of mastery these techniques start happening on their own – instinctively, in accordance with patient’s reactions.

For beginners it is easier to explain that –

Techniques address different aspects of our remedies.

Potentiation

For classical guys – the most understandable technique is potentiation. You take the raw material and through series of dilutions you deprive it of its active part – so that only its inner potential remains untouched. You may use succusions or triturations (or you may not – like B. Fincke), but remember: these are for getting rid of the energy leaving, not adding it. You may apply force – but do it… gently! Don’t add any force to the remedy. On the contrary – remove it!

• You may potentiate by hand in a traditional “hahnemanian” way using multiple vials.
• You may use Korsakoff’s approach and get along with a single vial (I’ve made numerous autonosodes using this technique).
• You may also use different kinds of machinery for that:
  • mechanical (please, read Julian Winston’s article on these) or…
  • I’d like to write “electronic”, but that would be not true – usually they work without any electric power, they do not use mains or batteries.

Once during a workshop my colleague asked about “handmade” (I’m sorry, they aren’t really handmade after all) remedies being superior to machine-made ones. I said it is like comparing pictures drawn by hand with photographs seemingly taken by a camera. I said I really liked his photos (he used to include them into his presentations and we enjoyed them much) and I prefer them to many hand-drawn pictures. Anyway, it’s a photographer and not a camera that takes pictures.

It is completely up to you what medium you choose. Pencil, acrylics, oil or camera – it doesn’t matter. Image you end up with is everything. Speaking about the remedies – I do not care how you make them. I care only about your relationship with 1) the source of the remedy and 2) the very process of manufacturing it.

Imagine your job is to make a portrait of your friend and present it to me. I do not care about the technique. If you’re a talented painter – paint it. If you are better at photographing, make a photo: b&w or colourful, analog or digital – you choose what you feel portrays the character in the most precise way.

It’s also about your ability to express and share your states with others through the remedies.

Techniques are more like a craft than intelligent work. No thinking is required, but the attention. Again – while potentiating a remedy it is more than enough to be attentive to a process that’s unfolding. You do not have to think at all! And with a proper attention we might reach the depth of perception that’s way beyond any intellectual understanding.

There is one requirement though – you have to feel/perceive the changes you make to a remedy. A musician must hear the notes he plays (I’ve inserte Evelyn Glennie’s video “How to truly listen” into an article dedicated to Listening, but you may start watching it right here). Chef tastes his meal. Painter observes his work. If you can’t perceive what you’re doing – you can’t make any adjustments.

So if you potentiate, but you do not feel the difference – this process makes no sense:

• you can’t enjoy it,
• you can’t be surprised by it,
• you can’t be attentive to it.

If you do not feel the dynamics, for example, while potentiating the remedy, you get bored by the process pretty quickly. If you feel the dynamics, you stay aware (if not excited): you are constantly surprised by the process unfolding, you perceive the ever changing depth and quality of sensations.

You also feel the whole journey as a circle each time you manufacture the remedy. You feel when the process starts and you are more than aware when and how it ends.

Yes, there are certain stages of the manufacturing process. Let’s mark them 0°, 90°, 180°, 270° and 360°. Each time we go through the same phases, but their intensities differ. Sometimes we may almost skip some phase and accentuate another.

Information remedies are “manufactured” by the attention. Not by “doing” or “understanding”, but by being aware of the process unfolding – by simply perceiving it with our inner senses.

Techniques are about mangling, modifying our remedies while observing (“listening”) the changes in perception.

We soon discover it is not exactly the remedy, but techniques that do the job, e.g. we may take the same remedy and with the help of different techniques address different levels in patient: getting response of physical body, emotions or maybe life situations.

Here the depth of therapeutic process seems to depend on techniques rather than remedies.

And again, techniques altogether with listening enable us to monitor all that live: being fully aware and making precise corrections to the process.

A Photographic Example

(you may skip it, if you hate examples)

Do you need photo editing software? Not at all! You may tweak contrast in camera before shooting. Or you may change the lighting or seek that “golden hour” and contrast will be different.

But nevertheless the most effective way of learning different technical aspects of photograph is a big monitor and powerful software.

These aspects are perceptual. We have to train in order to truly see them. We can’t learn them intellectually. That’s exactly why I’m inviting you to train Homeopathy together. Neither reading nor even watching videos are going to help you getting here.

Also, these aspects like contrast are not limited to photography. Learning to see those contrast, hues, etc. literally changes the way we see the world.

Mastering a certain technique kind of unlocks that certain perceptual level. I mean at first we really need a technique and/or equipment. But with lots of practice eventually it becomes a part of our natural perception. We learn to see without a camera.

It is not just a metaphor. In our job mastering a certain technique means we learn to listen, i.e. to perceive certain processes. And then they start happening by themselves. We simply perceive them by senses entering the healing process!

I remember my first testing teacher J. Volgin telling us the purpose of EAV is for us to learn to work without it! Does it always work in practice? Not at all. I took part in J. Volgin’s masterclass after some 20 years – and it was a sad experience…

Techniques are actually about exploring and utilizing various aspects of potentiation process.

You see, camera appears to be just an instrument for us to see. At first we may need special camera and sophisticated shooting and lighting techniques. But with experience we develop seeing that enables us to make impactful photos even with simple smartphone.

Techniques cover very wide range: from targeting specific symptoms (e.g., pain), pathogens (viruses, bacteria, toxins, etc.) to making a precise individual key out of a remedy for the deepest proving experiences.

Techniques also provide us with a very different understanding of the nature of our remedies. They give us sense of remedy information being a tool for our attention rather than something that works by itself.

That’s the purpose of both remedies and techniques. In Homeopathy as well as in Information Medicine as a whole both remedies and techniques are actually empty in their nature. I mean whenever we get to their essence – it’s literally nothing there. And yet they work!

The Old School Way

• You think Homeopathy is about the remedies. It seems to be remedy-based system, doesn’t it?
• And you think these remedies are very much like conventional ones pharmacists and doctors are used to. You know manufacturing and prescribing are different, but you think they work just as effectively even if their mechanism of action is still unknown.
• You think these remedies should be studied by reading their descriptions and memorizing some symptoms or their patterns.

We all start with reading Materia Medicas. Usually these long lists of symptoms make very little sense and very little impact on our understanding. So we look for some comprehensive “desktop guides” with fewer but more characteristic symptoms. Or try to switch to more friendly formats like “lectures on Materia Medica” with author’s comments, insights, practical hints and comparative analysis. Or maybe we stick with some “remedy essences” by modern masters.

Neither of these approaches really work in chronic cases where symptoms are vague and causes hidden. Chronic cases are not about prescribing anymore. You can’t prescribe on what’s hidden!

Chronic cases are about revealing what’s behind the symptoms. We use remedies in a proving mode to achieve that.

Instead of starting with parts (symptoms) and ending with totality (represented by the simillimum) as in acute case, treating chronic diseases we start with a totality (certain misty landscape) and we proceed up until the hidden/suppressed parts (causes of disease) are revealed by a similar remedy.

Case Taking

“Case taking” is the result of inability of classical homeopaths to deal with chronic cases. Let me explain that:

Case taking is natural and pretty straightforward in acute cases. These are Yang: well manifested with a vivid and characteristic symptoms. All that sophisticated classical symptomatology applies to acutes. Recording the symptoms is not a problem and it takes relatively little time. Matching these symptoms with a remedy (seeing a totality, actually) is what requires certain homeopathic skills, but again – its pretty manageable.

But chronic cases are just the opposite. Homeopaths face the problem here: there aren’t many symptoms to prescribe for. And the ones that are present are pretty vague and often not characteristic at all. Homeopaths have always knew there is something missing in these chronic cases.

Up until now there has been no way of revealing the missing parts of a case. There was no understanding of revealing properties of our remedies and how they work. Homeopaths have been relying on the experiences of material doses our old classical masters have been facing.

• In the beginning there were material (“weighted”) doses that really worked and caused remedy symptoms to healthy volunteers.
• But then when potencies came into use, remedies ceased causing remedy symptoms – they started revealing the ones, that already been hidden in volunteers, but somewhat hidden.

Being unaware of possibility to use provings of potencies to explore their patients (to reveal what’s hidden beneath chronic diseases) homeopaths started to invent case taking.

Actually, homeopaths started borrowing techniques that are not essentially homeopathic. They use aspects of clinical approach, propaedeutic, typology, psychotherapy, etc.

So even if you know Materia Medica and repertory pretty well, you find case taking to be an art of its own:

• You need to be a good clinician. That’s a very important requirement.
• You might have at least some experience with body work: massage, chiropractics, osteopathy, whatever. These skills of contacting and sensing the patient’s body directly are invaluable.
• You also need to understand “energy medicine” (TCM meridians, R. Voll’s pathological contours, “chakras”, etc.) to have a broader view on body processes and interrelationships between different organs and systems.
• You actually have to possess good therapist’s skills in order to be able to work with emotions and mental sphere safely and effectively.
• It would be nice to have even broader vision involving interconnections between family members (B. Hellinger’s Systemic therapy), social life, etc.
• Sometimes our “past life” experience can be very helpful giving us some explanation or hint when we’re stuck (regression therapy)
• Engaging with our spiritual side, higher Self, inner Teacher (no matter how you name That) is also crucial for finding the true Health.

Each of these points may take a lifetime of intense learning and busy practice to master. Add the knowledge of hundreds of remedies and you have a system that’s definitely impossible to master.

But if we discover the revealing properties of our remedies and learn the techniques of dealing with these, we may find there is a truly homeopathic way of approaching chronic cases.

Can you imagine we may kind of simulate all these approaches listed above with just remedies and techniques?

Examples of Techniques

Let’s overview some of the techniques.

Testing

is about observing body’s reaction to any kind of information – potentiated remedies including. Consider testing to be a Yang counterpart of Listening which is absolutely passive (Yin). Together they form a basis for all other techniques.

It is very important to point out that testing is almost the opposite to diagnosing – just as potencies are opposite to “weighted doses”. Testing is inner and diagnosing is outer. Testing is about looking from inside and diagnosing is from outside. They do not necessarily match one another.

Testing may include numerous methods, techniques, equipment, but Listening that stands behind each of them is one. Testing may seem mechanical, but mastering its inner, spiritual part (Listening) is the real Mastery.

The learning curve for any kind of testing is pretty steep.

1. Learning the technique itself is easy and may be accomplished in several days.
2. Learning nuances takes some time: weeks and months depending on intensity of your practice.
3. Learning consistency is even harder.
4. But it takes years to start to really engage with the process through listening.
5. And true Listening is more like a Grace – we can’t lean it at all. It just happens on its own when we are ready.

The purpose of testing is to calm our analytic mind. But its much harder than you think. Much of testing remains “mental” nevertheless and getting rid of these remnants takes years of practice. Consider that “mental” aspect has many layers: from pretty crude to amazingly subtle. Becoming aware of these layer by layer makes our testing experience deeper and deeper.

For most of us testing a remedy bottle means testing our ideas about it. Transparency is pretty hard to achieve here. It is possible though, but it takes thousands hours of training and practicing.

Reprinting

is making a copy of a remedy information with or without changing its strength (decreasing the latter increases potency).

Today we have at least 6 different methods each using different kind of equipment. In my practice I use 3 kinds of devices. Consider these are 3 cameras I’m photographing daily. Each of them uses different technology and delivers different “photos” of remedies.

But the process itself is not exactly technological. Let’s start with the fact that most of these machines do not require batteries and technically they are not supposed to be working at all.

I’d go even further and say that they run on… your attention. That’s the secret of these little devices: despite the simple technological scheme (outer) they are driven by attention and therefore may offer very sophisticated functions.

I know, my classical colleagues have their own opinions regarding all that stuff. I also had these when I was classical practitioner and teacher. I was even ashamed of my colleagues relying on that stuff.

Today I’m not going to argue. The key is in listening. When you train yourself up to the level you perceive the remedy making process by senses – there is no need for arguing anymore. Period.

Of course, you may rely on classical potentiation alone. But what is classical? If you study homeopathic history you’ll fond countless non-classical approaches to remedy manufacturing that were adored by our most renowned classical masters. Jenihen’s, Korsakoff’s, Dunham’s potencies come to mind here, not to mention all that machinery by Skinner, Swan, Fincke and Kent himself.

Reprinting is relatively easy and affordable way getting in touch with different approaches to remedy manufacturing and start feeling them as if from inside.

Targeting

is about aiming a remedy to precisely address some specific task or location. Usually, we increase its potency in tiny steps and test/monitor (also, listen to) a certain aspect: pain, infection, organ, infection agent, toxin, etc.

With targeting we start to experience the cyclic nature of potencies. We start to experience them being not linear, but more like a spiral that looks like this:

Yes, targeting is local. It has its applications nevertheless. If you’d like to target to totality – here is another technique:

Adapting

is kind of targeting for a systemic response. It is one of my favorite techniques. We take a remedy (or whatever signal) and we make it systemic. We look for a potency that makes the remedy understandable to a System.

Imagine it’s like translating or adapting the book: taking a foreign or overly complex one and rewriting it to the understandable language for a patient. We call making it systemic.

Well, it seems the whole concept requires some explanation. You see, in the realm of information “strong” or “weak” makes no sense anymore.

Malicious information (negative program as we call them here) is the one that gets inside our system’s, but is not recognized, so remains kind of hidden from our perception.

Imagine it like a ghost in the house: something unknown has entered your territory. It is not necessarily “bad”, but our system may trigger a pretty bizarre response, leading to various pathologies: autoimmune and oncological disorders including.

When this malicious information is out of perception, there are two ways to deal with it:

1. Widen the perception so that this malicious signal is detected by the system. Many forms of treatment fall into that category. Sometimes it is about dealing with the stress that compresses our perception. Sometimes it is about expanding and exploring new territories – it takers time though.
2. Bringing that particular signal into perception. In our case it means finding a potency that reveals that signal to the patient’s system radically changing the reaction.

The latter may be done with a big variety of signals:

• allergens
• pathogens, toxins, vaccines, infection agents,
• environmental aspects (electromagnetic fields, geopathogenic zones, etc.)
• books (textbooks for students), photographs (analog is better)
• people (making a parent remedy for children or mutual adaptation for pairs are amazing examples)
• homeopathic remedies – so that you can take high potencies several times a day without aggravations
• all types of negative influences people inflict to each other – diferent types of “curses” including.
• whatever you may think of.

Changing potency of that signal (or a similar nozode or remedy) is like turning the focus knob on a telescope: at some point that fuzzy light ball eventually comes into focus from and becomes recognizable.

Again, the process is never linear, it’s a spiral that has a specific shape. It gets more condensed towards its peak.

Adaptation is quite ecological, but it still requires certain resources.

Response

technics involve patients response (∆) to a remedy in one way or another. We apply a remedy signal and wait for a response to be formed. Usually it takes 5-10 minutes. It becomes evident through testing. And if we listen – it feels like some cycle is over and we get into the rippling (repeating pattern with increasing intervals and lowering amplitude). There are several strategies to make a remedy here: we may record either both remedy plus ∆, or we may record only the ∆ and get a much “softer” remedy (and that’s also a prophylaxis for aggravations).

Response is outstanding technique for combining several remedies (as a rule, each targeting a different level – we never use two remedies for the same level) into one. Patient’s ∆ is the perfect glue here.

Summing

is kind of layering similar signals. Let me use summed nosodes as an example: you take some 50-100 samples of, e.g. kidney stones and make a summed kidney stone nozode. The stone signal should be summed, while other personal/individual information forms what is called “white noise”. Technically such remedy should be very “stony”, but in practice it somehow addresses the causes – and that’s pretty spectacular.

Sealing

is making a remedy that’s proof to electromagnetic radiation, etc. Nicola Wolgemuth kind of showed me that. Some of my colleagues even tried to put her essences under x-ray machine – and nothing happened to them. It is amazingly simple and beautiful. It is not even “performed” – it just happens with a right intention.