Perceptual Homeopathy

Have you ever wondered why don’t we have a unified model explaining how our remedies work?

Isn’t that strange that despite of more than 200 years of homeopathic practice even homeopaths themselves still can’t agree on what the nature of their remedies is?

Also, despite all the technological advance of modern science we still don’t have any irrefutable arguments in favor of Homeopathy. We simply do not have consistent results. Well, homeopaths think scientists are biased and stuck in their old paradigm on how things work. But anyway, there is another and very different reason for that inconsistency.

Look, science deals with objective, measurable and reproducible things.

But potentiated remedies are exactly the opposite! Consider potentiation to be a special technique, meant to free the remedies from a scientific determinism and to transform them into amazingly dynamic, creative and transparent tools for exploring both ourselves and our patients in a very special way that is based on our direct experience – an extremely simple and very human way of perception.

POTENTIALITY : the ability to develop or come into existence

DYNAMIS : the state of that which is not yet fully realized — contrasted with energeia

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

By their definition such potentized /dynamized remedies are meant for exploration and awakening of that hidden, sleeping and not-yet-manifested potential that’s in each of us.

All that leads not only to understanding the true causes of illness, but also to realizing our true nature and invoking Health.

Our homeopathic journey starts with gradual revealing that hidden potency in our remedies and ends in discovering that it has always been inside ourselves.

It is an inner journey after all.

Sure, it is personal and subjective. But in Present Homeopathy it also becomes shareable like never before!

But from a scientific point of view that means that even if we manage to get impressive results in both clinical and fundamental research, they are not necessarily reproducible by others, especially sceptics. Why? That’s a tricky question: answers appear to come from several different layers that lead us deeper and deeper:

1. At first it may seem these results depend on our knowledge about the remedies. Well, if that is case we should be able to create certain algorithms, make some fancy software, maybe add some AI and that should replace the practitioner. We could handle these algorithms to sceptics so that they get the same results and become true believers in Homeopathy. We all know that does not work.
2. Then we go one step further and decide it’s all about our patient managing skills: ability to listen, feeling the whole process of consultation, perceiving the patient’s situation and needs, getting to the roots of disease, etc. Well, these appear to depend on our own set of skills, that can’t be measured nor reproduced by our colleagues not to mention the software. So we proudly call it individualization and attribute our success to it. Here is the caveat: if we become really skillful at understanding what is behind the disease using different non-homeopathic techniques, that may trigger healing process by itself and we may even need no homeopathic remedies anymore.
3. But in Homeopathy there is still one more layer that is very special. It’s about developing some kind of feel of the remedies. We can say it’s all in our relationship with the remedies.

Relationship is all about direct experience, i.e. about how we perceive and feel our remedies when we get in touch with them.

Well, that relationship is not what we think or know about remedies. I mean it has really nothing to do with theoretical knowledge or philosophies and even with methodology used.

If we concentrate on exploring the remedies intellectually we get a very sad outcome as our homeopathic career becomes full of prejudices, compromises and questionable shortcuts. These are mostly rational attempts to systematize and categorize our remedies so that we get a little more confident in what we do.

Imagine we apply such intellectual and rational approach to poems, paintings, music compositions, food tastes, movies, books, etc. – so we do not strive experiencing them ourselves, but spend all the time reading books about them. Does it make any sense?

Therefore we are not going to seek for an intellectual understanding. Instead we are going to look for the deepest available personal & perceptual (not conceptual at all!) relationship with the remedies.

Present Homeopathy is not theoretical at all, but based on senses, i.e. direct live experience of remedies.

Present Homeopathy leads to an ultimate relationship with remedies that appears to be finite.

That should definitely sound weird for homeopaths, but if we reach this point we close the circle and there is really nowhere to proceed further. It’s the end of the journey. And beginning of true practice.

But beware! That ultimate relationship is not at all different from ultimate relationship with our Self and Life in general. They are One, actually.

Present Homeopathy means Totality is present now. So we are neither bothered by past anymore, nor postpone anything to the future. It’s about fully engaging into perceiving what is happening during consultation as we travel through hundreds of remedies experiencing them live.

Direct transparent perception is our path. That perception happens live each time we get in real contact with the remedies: listening to them, testing, prescribing, manufacturing, etc.

Perception is actually what defines Present Homeopathy.

Perception always happens exceptionally in a present moment: it’s never in the past or future. Seeing, hearing, smelling, touching (kinesthetic senses including), tasting and thinking (let’s consider thoughts to be 6^th kind of sensations) happen exclusively now. In no way you can see in the past or hear in the future! Well, we may remember past and sometimes kind of foresee the future, but nevertheless all that appears to be happening now, doesn’t it?

Perception of remedies also happens exclusively NOW. Each time and each moment it is surprisingly fresh and unique and it never repeats itself.

It may seem strange and sound not scientific at all, but if we really listen, each time we perceive remedies differently. I mean even the same remedy cannot be perceived in the same way twice. That’s one of the beauties of our remedies – and we are going to explore it soon in this article.

Anyway, perception does not repeat itself twice. As Heraclitus said, “You cannot step into the same river twice.” It’s an awesome indicator. If it happens that we step twice – it’s déjà vu. If you’ve seen the “Matrix” movie, you may remember, it means that “someone has changed the code”, i.e. you are being tricked. Here your own mind is playing tricks with you.

We can’t repeat the same remedy experience twice no matter how weird it may sound for homeopaths. That also means the perception of remedies is not fixed at all undergoes a certain evolution as we practice.

The way we perceive our remedies defines our relationship with them that also evolves until it becomes ultimate.

All that depends upon and translates into how we perceive ourselves, our patients and healing process as a whole. Knowing ourselves and perceiving the remedies eventually become so interrelated, they completely merge into one at the end of our journey. So that our homeopathic practice becomes 24/7 whatever we do. Homeopathy and Life become one.

Training and Practicing

I would also like to skip this chapter as well. I’m sorry, I can’t, because usually homeopaths tend to ignore training while relying on reading instead! That has some historical roots.

But in Present Homeopathy we start to understand the true nature of such remedies. We start to understand they do nothing, instead it’s simply we who react.

That makes our remedies no different from any other kind of information we deal with every day. Books, music, visual arts, tastes, scents, all the internet resources (this text including) – appear to rely on the same principles as our remedies. All of them do not work, they have no power to influence us unless we are interested in them personally (we do not control the present interest by any means though!) and we react accordingly. That interest is the main mystery.

Naturally, exploring such remedies becomes the journey into ourselves, into our own actual perception of these. We get rid of the idea about “remedy symptoms”, but instead we opt for observing ourselves: 1) our own reactions, 2) then reactions of our close colleagues and 3) eventually of our patients.

That all happens live, in real time. That brings true Liveliness into our practice.

We simply engage into direct observation of what’s happening, how we’re reacting to the remedies in real time, but we do not try to arrive to any conclusions. We do not write down anything, but follow the sensations, perceive the dynamics and look where it leads us.

Please, understand – putting these sensations into words and writing them down disconnects us from direct perception. It’s like stopping the movie or the song in order to think and write down something. Pausing the movie some 50 times in order to write down some remarks disrupts the totality of watching the movie. So we end up with lots of details written down, but we lose something very essential.

Anyway, here we start to clearly understand that all the experiences we get with the remedies belong exceptionally to us, they are personal rather than remedial. So we do not add our own stories to repertories anymore. We do not cling onto these sensations, onto details. Eventually we arrive to a point where we lose interest in details.

On the contrary – we defocus our ATTENTION as we observe so that we do not miss the totality. We just continue observing without making any conclusions: day after day, year after year – up until that observation of totality (James Jealous, D.O. calls it Listening from a capital “L”) becomes a natural perception of reality.

Inevitably, with such observation practice and at least a dozen of daily proving experiences (quite often amazingly deep ones) we develop sensitivities that enormously increase our abilities to recognize and follow the subtlest sensations of ourselves, our colleagues during mutual or group provings and of course, of our patients during a consultation.

With proper training and special sets of remedies we speed this process many times. So that in relatively short period we may experience more than we could ever imagine.

Again, that happens in a different way than you may imagine. First we engage into a world of sensations. We learn to recognize the most subtle sensations. All our consultation with a patient becomes like diving into the sea of sensations. I bet, if you work like that and advance in listening, each month while practicing with your patients you are going to experience more sensations than a “normal” homeopath does in his lifetime (even if he takes part in provings periodically).

Strangely enough you are going to experience your patients’ worlds and their sensations as if they are yours. That gives a completely new dimensions to our daily experiences.

In some 10 years of daily practice we’ll experience so many sensations (including incredibly subtle ones – too subtle, actually to be included into repertories) and from so many different angles that we’ll get kind of sick and tired of them and eventually we’ll lose interest in them completely.

We’ll begin to feel there is something beyond that world of sensations. And we’ll open so called levels of stillness for us. They are the hidden Yin part of our experiences. To put it simple, stillness is opposite to sensations. The deeper we immerse into stillness, the less sensations and words we have to express it. In deeper levels of stillness everything stops: no sense of anything moving or happening. At some point not even thoughts, but perception itself starts to freeze.

Can you imagine getting into these experiences with almost every patient of yours?

Stillness as a direct “remedy experience” is very unusual for homeopaths. Well, as homeopath I used to be very sensations-orientated. All these fancy sensations and perceptions used to be my priorities. It was a big surprise when my biodynamic osteopathic colleague showed me the levels of stillness and then Silence that comes afterwards.

But at some point even the Stillness is no longer enough. As we descend deeper and deeper into the levels of stillness we find out the realm of Stillness has no end. We can’t find perfection in stillness in the same way we can’t find perfection in sensations. Both of these are in constant change, movement. Look at the Yin/Yang picture: these two waves (black and white) are constantly going one into another.

And yet there is Something that never changes. James Jealous calls it the Tide. You may call it Totality or Silence (it’s absolute, it has no levels at all) or whatever you like. It has no name actually.

If THAT becomes a priority, then we start to Listen to the listening itself. We start to observe the very process of observation. Again, we do not engage into details, but we defocus on the Totality instead. Strangely enough that does not give any knowledge. But eventually that leads to an ultimate clarity of perception and ultimate relationship not only with our remedies, but with the Life itself.

Sensations are just a prelude. Stillness is the gates to Health. Silence is the true Healing.

Nevertheless, everything starts with shift from sophisticated ideas to actual body sensations. “Remedy sensations” (it’s funny, but they really seem to be such at the beginning of our journey) appear to be not different from any other sensations we experience.

Such simple and almost primitive (not sophisticated at all) sensory perception may and should be trained. But then gradually you yourself and not the remedies appear in the centre of attention.

Please, examine the gifted perfumer’s abilities to deal with different scents. Or look how a good painter perceives the nuances of different tones of colours. Or how an extraordinary chef perceives and plays with the nuances of tastes. Or how a dedicated musician hears and plays music. Or even how experienced car mechanic listens to an engine working. Or you may observe a sensitive osteopath laying his hands on a patient. Or simply watch the best athletes competing in sports events.

All these are special extraordinary skills that are trained and improved during lifetime. Homeopath’s perception of remedies is no different from these. It takes thousands of hours to refine this type of skill. But it is as real as the examples given above. The subtlety of perception here has no end (only the relationship has!).

Perception of remedies is a skill that may be trained up to insane levels. And then even beyond these – in order to achieve true mastery.

Again, please note, that has very little to do with knowledge… Skills are completely different from knowledge.

Imagine our remedies are like music instruments or some kind of martial art. Building the relationship with playing or fighting techniques starts with us getting engaged into training and practice instead of reading and “knowing”. And that happens not in concerts and championships, but it’s all about many hours of daily training sessions.

That training is never linear. As in every training it goes in sort of a spiral. As we advance and master more and more sophisticated techniques (yes, these are going to be techniques and not the remedies that we learn – learning remedies happens almost exclusively in practice!) and we start recognizing more and more subtle sensations, from time to time we naturally return to the very basics, to the abc. But this time we appear to be on another whorl of that spiral. And we find our perception of these seemingly elementary things has changed immensely. That always comes as a revelation and we again and again discover simple things to be the deepest and most important ones. They say, basic techniques are simple, but you have to become a master to understand that.

Techniques are ways to approach the remedies, manufacture them and introduce them to our patient.

For example, communication in human world is about techniques that are learnt and trained. It ranges from saying hello in the street as we are passing by and may develop into the most intimate relationship when any kind of borders cease to exist between us.

Techniques mean different kinds of communication: walking in a street, sitting on the park bench or café, getting involved in carious activities or “passivities” together. Spending some time in a silent retreat together is a radically different mutual experience than having a talk in a café. But after it you may discover the same Silence while walking in street or sitting in café.

That’s why we talk about techniques. Without them we have no chance to experience different aspects of the same remedy. Without techniques remedy experience remains… flat.

In Present Homeopathy we start with learning to recognize the remedy and saying hello. We end up with becoming the remedy, i.e. discovering and recognizing it as part of ourselves. And yes, when that happens, the remedy ceases to exist as something separate (see Phases of Sensory Perception of Remedies).

And it is all about daily training. First we get confidence in training with our friends and colleagues having multiple listening sessions together.

Don’t even think of practicing alone. That does not work as we get locked into our own world of imagination very quickly. And then we become afraid to meet the real world as our imaginary one gets into risk of collapsing completely.

That’s quite a big problem with many homeopaths. Well, when we can’t rely on senses we tend to rely on dogmas. I see many homeopathic colleagues feeling insecure when dealing with remedies that seem to work, but have no explanation of their modus operandi. Such homeopaths tend to build their confidence by building some belief system (be it belief in S. Hahnemann’s writings or “water memory”) and that becomes a weak point they feel they have to defend when communicating with others.

Present Homeopathy emerged from numerous listening sessions with many different experienced practitioners belonging to different holistic schools and methods. That continued until Present Homeopathy felt itself extremely comfortable at whatever company. That’s why we call it interdisciplinary.

Only after such training we start “giving guitar concerts” and “taking part in martial arts championships”, i.e. start working with patients. Patients take training to a completely new level then as they challenge and refine our skills. But basic set of skills has to be present here in us already.

Our remedies are perceptible. Or may become such. That’s the key.

This perceptibility depends not on our “sensitivity”, but on our awareness and listening skills that are all about ATTENTION, actually. When trained properly ATTENTION can increase our sensitivities enormously so that remedies become evident by senses just like everything else.

Teacher’s job in Present Homeopathy is to become a pathfinder and lead you into the forest of sensations. It’s about showing you sensations just like a pathfinder directs your attention showing the footprints you should have missed walking alone. “Remedy sensations” like these footprints are… just the sensations. They are… simple. Only we do not pay attention to these up until someone shows them. At the moment we perceive that footprint/sensation it becomes our own. Being showed one time or another we learn to recognize it ourselves. That’s it.

I must confess, I learnt from remedies more than from my actual teachers… That happens very homeopathically – through provings and listening practice (please, follow the link to explore what Listening is all about). That’s actually the most important aspect of Homeopathy itself – even if it is kind of ignored by majority of homeopaths.

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Perceptual Homeopathy

Imagine we step out of our rational minds, we stop thinking about the remedies, but we listen to and rely on our actual sensations instead — we engage into perceptual relationship with our remedies.

True perception of the present moment is never rigid, it is never the same, it can’t be written down and locked in books, it is always fresh, it takes us to the very essence of Life and reveals our true nature. It happens prior to thinking, prior to any thought and never manifests in the same manner twice.

Making shift from remedies that exist as rigid ideas and concepts in our head to the ones that are perceived live in our Hearts is the most natural thing that may happen in our homeopathic career.

But nevertheless, such shift appears to be a pretty complicated and almost painful process that takes much time, lots training and devotion. It appears, the habit of creating our own realities is very deep-rooted.

1. First of all we have to abandon the realm of knowledge and prejudices (these appear to be almost synonyms). We have to attain that beginner’s mind which is about emptying our minds and becoming open to actual experience perceived by senses. Here Homo sapiens kind of degrades to Homo sensuale…
2. Then authentic relationship based on direct perception has to be built from scratch. We learn how to listen, we learn to be open and to share our actual experiences with one another. We refine our skills so that remedies are not hidden from us anymore, e.g. we clearly perceive the effect of the remedy as well as differences between the same remedy made by different manufacturers.
3. Then everything we’ve learned, all our skills (not to mention knowledge), all our intuition we gained through years of daily practice have to be purified, i.e. renounced, given away completely. That’s really weird, but don’t worry, that happens by itself if you follow the path sincerely. At the end of this phase we approach something that is called the dark night of the Soul in spiritual traditions.
4. When the night is over, the morning comes and we eventually awake from a deep long sleep. We stop dreaming and start to clearly perceive everything just as it is: remedies, patients and the whole world including our Self.

This scenario is very much like that of an Odyssey: it’s a long, pretty hard journey, full of adventures, gains and losses, but eventually we arrive Home. Everything becomes our Home.

At the end there is nothing left that is separate from us. All kinds of separation like You&Homeopathy or you&patient, etc. cease to exist. The World becomes One.

But no one can make this journey for you. And even if we travel together, at the end you are left alone. That dark night (others see it as desert you have to travel alone) means you have to fail and surrender completely. It’s like dying. It’s agony. In no way you can finish this Journey by your own efforts. Surrendering is the key.

And nevertheless its the most beautiful journey you can make in myriads of lives. Why should you postpone it? Do you really have anything to lose anyway?

We can’t choose this Journey. It chooses us instead. We have nothing left to do then. We just follow the path wherever it takes us.

If you think you have choice – it’s ok. Make it! If you say no, please, do your best to avoid travelling. Forget everything you’ve read, close this website, delete it from your browser’s history, forget it and never come back… Here it is really unsafe. It is actually meant to completely destroy the homeopathic practice you’ve built over the years.

What if you are ready for the Journey?

Well, the good news are that we are travelling light. The only tool that is needed is Attention. Neither knowledge nor “sensitivity” (the latter appears to be just another empty concept that has nothing beyond it) are required. Both of them come when needed in the process of training, practicing and working. All that makes this path very accessible for all “normal” guys like you and me.

The bad news – intellect is not going to abandon its positions easily. It will fight till the end altering the perception of reality in very peculiar ways creating what we call phases of perception.

As we start Attention appears to be glued to thinking. Perception appears to be glued to ideas about ourselves and the world (remedies including) . Everything appears to be clouded by our faith and beliefs. S. Hahnemann called all that “prejudices“. These are tenets we build ourselves, get proud of and become attached to – therefore these are extremely challenging to overcome.

Let’s start with an obvious truth – every idea about homeopathic remedies we have is a belief. Every idea we have about ourselves is either.

Also, everything we know about world, healing or “holism” is nothing but ideas we’ve heard or read somewhere.

Imagine all these ideas, all the “philosophies” collapse one day. I know, for most of homeopaths that means an end of Homeopathy. Well, in some sense it is. It’s the end of Homeopathy we’ve created in our minds.

But then what is left is Present Homeopathy – and it’s absolutely amazing. It’s purity and liveliness is beyond anything we can imagine.

I enjoy working with other sensitive holistic practitioners so much. They come to a consultation and they usually already have some experience with homeopathic remedies. But when they get in touch with Present Homeopathy they are astonished, they ask, why they haven’t experienced remedies in such beauty and effectiveness before…

The simple answer is that homeopaths themselves tend to limit Homeopathy by creating rules and doing their best to keep Homeopathy restricted by these.

Our journey is about freeing Homeopathy from these rules and knowledge, leaving only the universal principles, that belong to the Life itself. And then we do nothing, but observe those principles manifesting during the consultation process. Any our intervention into healing process is not needed at all. So actually, all we learn is transparency and neutrality.