I recommend you to read Perceptional Homeopathy first. But you may do it afterwards as well.
Our path to clear perception of remedies leads through certain phases that mark certain major revolutions (i.e. radical changes of our own paradigm) in building and then purifying our relationship with the remedies.
The idea of this article is to give a universal map of this process:
This circle reflects our journey to the deepest, clearest, most transparent perceptual (not conceptual!) relationship with remedies.
Actually, we seek ultimate PERCEPTUAL RELATIONSHIP with our remedies that is perfect and finite.
That “perfection” happens in a very peculiar way which is just the opposite to what homeopaths expect.
- At first with the Yang wave we try to build and establish that perceptual relationship by discovering, learning to sense and recognize different aspects of our remedies. I mean we learn to experience these rather than reading and thinking about them. We go get acquainted with all these energies and vibrations that express in various kinds of peculiar sensations. Eventually we pass through these and get to the most intimate and sophisticated phase where remedies become our actual leaders and teachers in the healing process.
- But then we start to descend with the Yin wave and everything we’ve achieved becomes too much. So we give away everything. Remedies start losing their sophisticated image up until they become mirrors for us to glimpse into ourselves. And then our relationship with the remedies becomes even more simple – up until they become transparent and do not stand between us and our patients anymore. Perception becomes transparent and we clearly see ourselves, our patients and the whole process of Healing as well.
Such journey is very different from what homeopaths think it should be. At the end we lose everything including the remedies, our skills and control of the healing process. But we also gain… the Totality that is beyond the perception. Again – it’s not intellectual. It does not depend on knowledge as it can’t be achieved intellectually. It also cannot be attained perceptively as perception itself appears to be a part of the Totelity.
Perceptual relationship with remedies is the way we experience and perceive our remedies by senses.
It may become finite! It really may reach the point where nothing more could be added or taken away. It is not about reaching something, it’s about arriving at 360° and closing the circle.
The map is here to show you the way from the very beginning to the very end. But actually, this circle defines much more than the relationship with the remedies. All the possible means used in healing are perceived according to the same phases and principles. This circle also reflects how deeply and clearly we engage with Life, how deeply we are aware of our Self. It’s also about the Totality perceived.
Each phase represents completely different world view (paradigm) that includes perception of remedies, healing, life and ourselves.
It’s amazing how radically different the same remedy may be perceived as we enter different phases of perception.
Smooth transitions between phases glue them into one circle – one continuous Journey we are going to perceive travelling from 0° to 360°.
In each phase the same remedies seem to work on different principles – according to the paradigm of that phase. That means Homeopathy is extremely diverse in its very nature and therefore can’t be limited to just one single paradigm…
Search for Universal Model
This map explains and locates literally all the phenomena you meet in Homeopathy and all other holistic healing practices. Also that explains various phenomena that stand beyond the idea of placebo. And nevertheless it does not provide any hypothesis and models.
Please, understand: elaborating one model for defining homeopathic and similar remedies as well as similar methods of healing makes no sense:
- It is essentially impossible to have a scientifically valid model that explains homeopathic remedies.
- The same can be said about philosophical or metaphysical models that try to define our remedies.
It’s impossible to define a potential, i.e. something that is not-yet-manifested, that exists prior to the form.
Potentiality, potential, dynamis, information – we covered those terms in the previous article devoted to Perceptional Homeopathy. You may check the link if you haven’t read that before. Again, that’s radically different from what many homeopaths declare…
Every model that tries to explain Homeopathy and many similar systems of healing is different from the reality! If such models appear, they appear in our minds, like some kind of imagination, like some particular distortion of reality we perceive. That distortion may seem to apply to some aspects/situations/practitioners, but makes no sense to others. Therefore all the existing models that try to explain healing are far from being universal.
The more sophisticated model we create, the more we distort the reality.
Again – such sophisticated model may work for you, but not necessarily for others. It’s not universal. That’s why we do not have any consensus among different trends and schools in Homeopathy!
I’m sorry, this is exactly why we are not going to create another distortion. All that circular path is for gradually getting rid of the ones that we have – up until only transparent perception prevails.
Also, this map is universal, i.e. it applies to absolutely every method of healing you may think of.
Look, every mean or method used in healing contains that passive (Yin) information component (or you may call it potential if you like). Information has nothing to do with quantitative values, so it can’t be measured in any way. It can’t be less or more. It’s only about quality.
Can you imagine that this potency is equally present both in Homeopathy and allopathy? It’s the same in Homeopathy as it is in surgery!
The only difference is that in modern surgery, chemotherapy and other scientific approaches they use pretty harsh forms of treatment and this information component (Yin, potential) is overshadowed by active (Yang) side: prescribing active substances, performing surgery, physiotherapy, radiotherapy, etc.
Having focused on active doing and performing scientifically minded doctors neglect that passive (Yin) side and call it placebo. Quite paradoxically, science finds it impossible to explain placebo – in the same way it can’t explain Homeopathy.
Look, intellect and science (they always come together) are perfect tools for exploring active Yang side. But they are the worst tools to approach Yin.
The beauty of homeopathic remedies is that their active Yang side is kind of filtered out by series of dilutions. They become a perfect tool to explore the pure Yin. And yes, it sounds exactly like exploring placebo!
It’s even hard to call that “exploring” as it is… passive. Imagine both academic scientific medicine and classical Homeopathy(!) are like climbing the mountain that is infinite – without any top to reach.
In our Yin case it happens in just the opposite way. It is like slowly submerging into that deep Ocean of Yin – without any efforts, strength, knowledge, etc. It’s like climbing a mountain with a “-” sign. It is opposite to all the qualities you need while climbing. It is simply submerging into the dark abyss. Peculiarly, any move or effort we make prevents the process and lifts us up to the surface. But actually, it is not peculiar at all when your goal is reaching the bottom of the Ocean. But then we understand that thinking there is bottom and the goal (being Yang in its nature) itself are obstacles here. Having no goals to reach and no meaning in Life is cool, isn’t it?
As we submerge, knowledge diminishes, thinking slows down until it almost stops, but perception becomes clearer and clearer. We become passive, but our spontaneity in life increases, reactions become faster, moves – more accurate, attention – much sharper.
Anyway, dealing with the Yin side it is very very different from the idea of “placebo” where they say we must believe in it, etc. Here we must forget everything we know and become open to simple sensory perception.
That submerging comes in phases that follow the same circular pattern.
SPOILER ALERT! As we submerge we go deeper and deeper into Yin – into passiveness, calmness, stillness – up until we loose the idea of performing the healing. Here we join other healers, who have experienced the divinity of Healing. There were lots of them in the history of medicine and no one of them had a feeling of performing and controlling the Healing process. And that’s what the Art of Healing is all about.
That what Galen or one of James Jealous’ teachers Rollin Becker, D.O. speak about is not some sort of understanding or knowledge or philosophy. It is about actual perception that is much more real than anything else. It is about direct transpersonal experience of that divinity/Totality, it’s about “doing by non-doing” (Laozi).
But there are no shortcuts or cheats here. Non-doing is about 100% of sincerity, effort and attention we put into our work with the patients. Only together with these there is a deep understanding that True Healing does not depend on the practitioner. And actually, as we submerge deep enough into stillness we literally loose the sense of being a practitioner.
Once my teacher seeing me at my working place in a new naturopathic clinic told me: “You should work as if your chair is empty!” That was one of the best advices I ever got. And that’s not about simply letting it go, but about hard everyday practice. Look, how beautifully James Jealous describes it:
Knowing the mechanism of life is not a willy-nilly going with the flow … not at all; it is the result of long and disciplined experience.
James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p. 39
And that’s exactly what Present Homeopathy is for. It’s a living tradition, targeted to a systematic and disciplined training (sorry, reading or listening to lectures is of no help here) for reaching that.
Symbolically, our practice is like making a homeopathic remedy out of practitioner, dissolving him/her in Life.
Imagine everyday day you go into a higher potency. It may seem cool at first. It really seems to free all these energies and then wisdom. Dilution creates expansion into space that has been never explored by us. We become so absorbed onto outer limits that we forget the centre. And when we remember, it’s already too late. There is no centre left – it has dissolved, diffused. There is nobody left here. Only Solution of Life that is ONE. That also happens through these 4 phases and goes in the same universal circular pattern. Remember that.
This circle although equally present in surgery, especially applies to all means of healing that apparently make no sense by being too weak to induce some significant dynamics in body. These may be homeopathic or any other information remedies or just plants, gems and crystals, colours, sounds or any other “outer means” used for healing (spoken word or touch including).
Such approaches are usually discarded by modern scientists as not working. And they are absolutely right!
Тhat’s exactly the point – information is not working by its very definition. It’s all in it’s potency that belongs to the not-yet-manifested Yin realm and not to the active Yang side.
Books about cooking do not prepare meals.
They are not strong at all. They do not possess any power to turn the readers into chefs, gourmets or vegans. But potentially that may happen… if only the reader’s inherent interest for the topic is strong enough.
Books, like any other kinds of information (our remedies included) may help us in two different ways:
- We may use cooking books as a reference to solve everyday tasks we encounter in the kitchen: finding recipes, ingredients, etc. (that’s classical Homeopathy)
- But reading these books we may discover, reveal our own aspects that we’ve been not aware before. E.g. reading about veganism may become a revelation: “That’s what I always wanted, but I could not put in into words!” Such book may become a life-changing for you.
Have you ever noticed, that this interest comes from the totality of Life itself? It does not depend on our will or efforts. We can’t induce it or control it by any means.
Interests are discovered, not created or induced.
Understanding such a simple principle gives an opportunity for the homeopath to become transparent, not to intervene the process, so that Healing may happen by itself, naturally. That’s the beauty and main mystery of the Art of Healing.
Look, how strange our Journey is:
- As we start at 0°, we are total beginners. Teaching a beginner not to intervene and not to disturb the natural and divine Healing process makes no sense. So we start with the opposite: we look for the softer ways to intervene, to perform healing and naturally – to find the closest relationship with the remedies that we use for that purpose. Such relationship is available only through experiencing the remedies directly by senses and it is not different from perception.
- As we begin to perform the healing we start climbing a mountain that is higher than clouds hoping to reach the summit one day. If we have the determination and we do not stop, we climb beyond the clouds and we find out the mountain is infinite. It has no summit! We can spend thousands of lives climbing it and we are not going to get any closer. Of course, that’s a huge disappointment for the seeker. Whenever we understand this simple truth, we find ourselves at 180°. I mean 180° is not a mark on the mountain, it is a mark in our understanding.
- At 180° we stop and stall for a while. Maybe it takes quite a long time. It makes no sense to put our efforts to advance any higher. Descending also appears to be both pointless and impossible. In my case – I spent at least a couple of years at this point.
- But then attention finds a cave and we get inside the mountain. We find a lake inside that cave and that’s where this submerging begins. Homeopaths rarely speak about submerging, it hasn’t been in tradition. It took me years to start writing about it – so unusual it is and so difficult it is to find “homeopathic” words for it. That’s a very very different way of getting down.
- If we have the patience and we submerge in stillness, there is still one more challenge waiting for us. We find out that abyss has no bottom. The subtlety of levels of stillness (just like homeopathic potencies!) have no end. So no matter how many years/lives we submerge, it leads nowhere, but becomes more and more subtle instead. We completely abandon the idea of escaping through submerging.
- Both Yin and Yang start making no sense for us anymore. We clearly see in no way we can escape them. And for the first time we clearly see Life as being an interplay between these. And then we find out we experience Life neither from Yang nor from Yin. Experience appears to be happening from Emptiness that is beyond Yang and Yin. Perception becomes transparent.
- What happens is that eventually we arrive at 360°. It appears to be the exact spot we have started climbing the mountain. Ridiculously the beginning and the end of the journey appear to be at exactly the same point. Not a single personal achievement here. Just perception that is transparent.
The beauty of such journey is that we do not reach anything, but return Home instead. The circle also reflects our overall relationship with Life, healing and also with our Self.
This map has been inspired by Zen Master’s Seung Sanh’s teaching about zen circle. You may open the whole book “Dropping Ashes on the Buddha” here as pdf and “Zen Circle” is on page 5. It’s only a couple of pages long, but it covers all the essence of our life-long journey. By the way Seung Sanh has been the Teacher of my Teacher and bjj trainer Renardas Gustainis.
I discovered this “Zen Circle” quite long ago. Then I had forgotten it for a while. It took me 20 years of daily practice to rediscover it and find out how it translates to our homeopathic journey. You can do it now in several hours by exploring this text and other resources you find on this website. It’s that simple intellectually. Nevertheless it may take years of sitting and listening together to fully implement that into practice.
I know, homeopaths and many other holistic practitioners have been looking for universal model that would explain the “mode of action” of homeopathic remedies. So here it is in all its depth and beauty. It equally applies to flower essences, crystals and minerals, colours, scents, sounds, touch, words, places of power, etc. But beware! It is very very different from what is expected!
It’s also amazing how astonishingly complicated that simple journey may become! It reminds travelling around the globe just to find out how good it is to be at home. Just imagine – the purpose of the whole journey (real Odyssey as James Jealous, D.O. called it naming his book) is to eventually arrive Home! Or to be more exact – become aware of It as we have never left it!
Our Journey has two parts:
1. Yang
The first half of that journey is dedicated to explore the outer and manifested Yang side of remedies – building our relationship with them up until they are become our close friends and teachers, recognized and perceived as living entities who enter the consultation process in very peculiar ways. It is pretty fancy part of the journey and it reaches it’s peak at 180°.
2. Yin
Then at 180° our path turns inwards – into the inner, hidden and not-yet-manifested Yin side. It is purifying as it leads into ourselves up until… nothing is left except that clear and transparent perception. Well, purifying is not fancy at all. It is destructive in it’s nature. It’s like our own world is collapsing – up until there is nothing left at all.
You may also read YIN & YANG of Homeopathy to see how it translates to homeopathic practice.
This Journey is really very much like the one of Odysseus’. It’s definitely not for the fainthearted. It’s full of amazing adventures and discoveries, visiting worlds that seem to exist only in legends. But it’s long, it may take many years to accomplish. And not so funny after all as you experience the wrath of gods, you are seduced and spend years having forgotten about Home, you face different sorts of dangers, you lose your friends, etc. You lose everything at the end – even what you have always considered to be “yourself”. It’s pricey to say the least. No one travels here just for fun. It’s like jumping into the abyss – you have to be pretty desperate seeking for an answer to dive into unknown.
Nevertheless that’s by far the most beautiful and rewarding journey we can make here on Earth.
Arriving at 360° does not add anything, but only takes away the distortions and we perceive everything as it is.
The beauty is also in the fact that we’ve never left our Home. But we can’t perceive Home if we haven’t left it. So we “travel” away to return back. All these phases are inevitable, but also transitory and kind of virtual. So discussing them makes almost no point.
All the phases themselves are ephemeral. And yet they feel like they are real – up until the perception becomes clear.
Perception vs. Thinking
Perceptional journey is radically different from intellectual one. Homeopaths are so much used to the latter. Here we discover a huge paradox:
We have no control over perception of the present moment!
We can’t regulate or manipulate perception! We have no will over it. Our mind has no direct access to perception – actually thoughts appear to be a part of perception itself!
Look, direct experience of what’s happening now, always precedes intellect which is always late and limited with its ideas, comments and opinions. Actually, intellect is included into that direct experience.
Our thinking and perception differ radically. Actually, thinking appears to be just one of many phenomena in the field of perception. We perceive thinking (thoughts) in the same way we see birds in the sky or hear cars passing by in the street, don’t we?
Intellect being always late simply has no access to the perception of present moment, but serves merely as a filter that distorts, shapes and colours perception according to our faiths and beliefs.
When Masters say we are attached to thinking, they mean our perception becomes kind of glued to these faiths, beliefs and ideas, as well as to the very process of thinking, i.e. it becomes clouded and far from reality. We can’t discern the truth from imagination then.
What happens if we train hard and eventually manage to bypass that filter? What if we turn it off completely during the whole processes if consultation? What if we don’t think at all while consulting our patients?
Well, nothing happens really. We just discover the staggering truth that thinking has nothing to do with the very process of perception that’s happening in the present moment:
it is as it is.
Such transparent perception (these James Jealous’ words served as a lighthouse to me for years) belongs to the true nature of our Self. It’s everything that matters. It’s that clarity we seek in Present Homeopathy.
That clarity kills the healer instantly. We do not perceive a healer involved in healing anymore. We discover Healing is happening spontaneously. James Jealous calls It the Tide. It comes as grace, it never repeats itself and we become witness of that mystery.
But at some point there is even no witness left. Witness appears to be a little too much as it disrupts the Totality into two pieces. So at the end only One is left. Only one Absolute Reality. Everything else appears to be not existent. That’s Health.
Nevertheless, our journey starts with simple perception of remedies. And again – that perception of remedies is very very different from what homeopaths usually think it is. It is a bit paradoxical: if we perceive remedies, we feel them, experience them – it’s already a distortion of reality.
But if we have no perception of remedies at all, we don’t feel them in real time as real sensations (that always come unexpected and surprise us greatly), we depend on assumptions, i.e. on thinking about them. If that’s the case, we are not even in the path, we haven’t started our journey yet, we are not travelling, we are sleeping and dreaming.
As long as remedies stay outside our own perception, they belong to intellectual realm, they are built of ideas, i.e. they are… imaginary!
Imaginary remedies force us to create strict rules and build really rigid models in our minds. These make such imaginary remedies to seem more real. But the price we pay is that we lock ourselves in our own illusion then, we continue dreaming and prevent ourselves from awakening.
The only way to break that illusion of our mind, to awake from a dream is to return to the simple sensual perception. To simple senses. In our homeopathic practice that means to perceive the remedies as transparently as we can – up until that transparency becomes absolute, 100% non-personal and uncoloured.
So all our path appears to be about 1) learning to perceive the remedies and then 2) getting rid of what is extra, of what appears to cloud the perception. We speak about phases, but neither of them is real. Degrees and phases are just signs on our map that mark the most prominent shifts in our way of perception.
360° may seem to mark the ultimate relationship with the remedies. But actually what happens is just the opposite. We get beyond “personal” perception.
Before and beyond appears to be the same place.
It’s still the “ultimate” as it contains all the circle, all the possible depths of perception. It also means we have nowhere to advance further. We’re Home at last.
Nevertheless, getting back to where we started may seem like a nightmare for an established homeopath. That definitely takes time to comprehend and get used to. Anyway, that’s the ultimate point one can reach in perceiving the remedies and building the relationship with them – there is nothing beyond that at all.
Zen is reaching 360°. When you reach 360° all degrees
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn
on the circle disappear. The circle is just a Zen teaching device. It doesn’t really exist. We use it to simplify thinking and to test a student’s understanding.
Without degrees it appears there is actually no journey. No phases. No traveling. No travelers. Only the Totality. But there are no words to speak about That either. When we eventually arrive Home, we perceive the ultimate Reality, we understand the simple truth: all that long path we’ve travelled along the circle and what we’ve thought to be perceptual journey has actually been a dream. We awake in that dream as the Dreamer.
Simply imagine we begin dreaming from 0°.
0° – No perception of remedies
Naturally, sceptics can’t even imagine it’s possible to perceive these remedies. Even more – for them such remedies do not exist at all, they are fiction – placebo to say the least. Having not a single molecule of an active substance left – how can we call that a remedy?
But it does not matter if we are sceptics, total beginners or seasoned homeopaths. It does not matter what we think and how many books we’ve read. The knowledge we have and philosophy we follow does not matter either. If we do not perceive homeopathic remedies (or whatever) by our senses, we start at 0°.
90° – Energy, vibrations, etc.
Nevertheless, most of us who read this text have already begun to encounter such remedies in real life: we try them, get into personal and perceptual relationship with them and even start getting reliable results in clinical practice. So very naturally we start looking for plausible explanations about what they are and how they work.
In this phase that begins at 1° and ends at 179° (reaching its peak at 90°) we are less and less attached to the body and start identifying ourselves with energies: crude or subtle, high or low, etc. Here we may also speak of morphogenetic field that precedes and rules the matter, etc. We perceive the world as energetic phenomenon. Everything seems to be made of energy: body and thoughts including. So here even our thoughts appear to have the power.
Here we become concerned about both quantity and quality of energy. We engage into different activities and techniques, we train in order to perceive and accumulate larger quantities of energy. Or restore the depleted one. We also care of increasing our vibrations to access more and more subtle ones.
We seem to be dealing with both energies of our patients and the ones of remedies. We feel kind of standing in the middle of interaction between these, so we have to be strong and stable.
I. We start with perceiving remedies as little globules of energies that do their job when taken.
Here the effect of the well selected remedy is usually perceived as a sudden change in our energy. Also, as we learn how to listen, different subtle energies may be felt and recognized as we take the remedy and healing begins. There is a great temptation to attribute these to the remedy itself – and that’s exactly what happens in this phase.
Everything seems neat and logical: remedy gets in contact with the body, gives some spark of energy and we get the result.
We clearly experience the results and naturally we attribute them to the remedies. Sometimes their action may seem to extend for weeks and even months. Sometimes they seem to be interrupted earlier by something else (coffee and camphor are classical examples).
We understand how subtle these energies or vibrations are so we take care, we store remedies in special place and maybe special container to avoid interference with other energies like electromagnetic fields. We also use dark glass bottles for them not to interfere with each other. We even think of different rules like not touching globules with metal instruments (we definitely apply our experience with electricity here, similar to what S. Hahnemann has written about galvanism in the last chapters of his “Organon“) or even not taking globules with fingers and using plastic(!) spoons instead. There are so many different myths regarding our remedies – I hope someone writes a thick book on these someday!
There are also many different explanations of that power of our remedies. Some homeopaths atribute it to vigorous succussions applied during a manufacturing process (even if that contradicts to experiences and works of B. Fincke, R.T. Cooper, E. Bach and also many modern practitioners). Others imagine this “energy” belongs to the raw material (something almost like a nuclear power) – then through a potentiation process that power is somehow unleashed.
It is funny how the true meaning of potentiation and dynamisation (both terms widely used by S. Hahnemann) is ignored and misunderstood here and applied in exactly the opposite manner. It seems we don’t even bother looking into a dictionary (sometimes a simple dictionary is more revealing than many articles and books on the subject).
Nevertheless, here “energy” is the closest idea of how we perceive ourselves and the process of healing in this phase. No matter if this healing happens through remedies, plants and minerals or simply through our hands – it seems to be based on energy work.
And it seems pretty logical. If it’s not the matter, not active substances, there definitely have to be some energies involved, haven’t they? Also, subtle energies look nice in pictures and are pretty amusing when experienced.
Such explanation is pretty satisfying for a while. But as we advance in listening and prescribing, these remedies appear to not only alter our bodies and minds, but appear to trigger some life events as well. That blows our minds off. Can you imagine the power needed to alter not only body functions and emotions, but also the life events? Sometimes pretty global ones.
At first we attribute that to ultra-high potency remedies, that we think should possess huge power. But as we get more and more such effects, we explore them better, we perceive the very process clearer, we realize something is definitely wrong with such explanations.
Little by little we discover “outer sources” of energies are involved here. Somehow at these special occasions we appear to get access to these. We find out the world is abundant with energy/energies. Our task becomes to access these and use them for healing.
Sooner or later we abandon the idea of healing with our own energy. So we care less and less about building up our own power-plant and begin more and more relying on so-called channeling. We cease using our own energy and as healers we become a channel for the ones present in the Universe.
II. We access these energies by the means of our remedies that start working as keys that open doors to different sources of energies.
So here we pass through a 90° mark and the first big revolution happens. Our remedies do not need to contain any energy in them anymore! Here we get rid of idea of charging globules with energy. But anyway, energies seems to remain at the core of our practice, only now we care more about clarity and width of the channel.
Provings in this phase seem to be about entering in contact with these powerful energies present in the Earth or scattered through the Universe. These may become really hard and devastating, “hell-like experiences” when we touch not so friendly ones. Homeopaths have an interesting justification to these:
Why would I want to inflict such a proving on them [friends and colleagues]? And the answer of course comes immediately – the greatest poisons make the most marvelous remedies! And the more destructive the energy in the substance, the greater it would be able to deal with horrible human situations.
Misha Norland, transcript from the 1st Quintessence forum conference
Again, that’s a perfectly valid approach in this phase:
- Such provings are like hard training camps with all the risk of getting injured, etc. But that’s the price we pay eagerly as we know with each such proving we become stronger and tougher – not to mention gaining a deeper experience with the remedy. Remember S. Hahnemann attributing his health to multiple provings he has performed on himself.
- It is also pretty compliant with the early classical period of using highly toxic substances to combat deadly acute diseases like typhoid fever and cholera.
And here at some 135° degrees one more revolution happens. We start perceiving our remedies are not necessarily about destruction and pathos.
IV. Remedies may also be relatively positive and open doors to sources of harmonious and good energies.
We start getting into amazingly beautiful experiences with our remedies. These appear to represent the Health instead of pathos lead us into different levels of stillness and bliss. I now, for many true homeopaths these non-destructive and non-poisonous remedies do not sound like Homeopathy anymore.
But if that happens with us it becomes a part of our perceptional experience with the remedies. These “relatively positive” energies also enter the consultation process and become astonishing live experiences for our patients. We simply can’t ignore that anymore and we naturally begin approaching our next revolution that is waiting for us at 180°.
Nevertheless, today many homeopaths still try to rely on energy, vibrations, water memory and similar ideas.
They consider higher remedy potencies to have more energy, higher vibrations, deeper and longer lasting effect, etc. They also think a plausible scientific explanation of these is about to come in the nearest future with advance in modern physics leaving Homeopathy triumphant.
When these classical ideas get transformed into modern “quantum” approaches, we get something like that “8 dial remedy maker” with a “power function”:
Power Function
To give you an idea of what is meant by power units, homeopathic remedies bought at a pharmacy have been dowsed and have been found to always contain around 30 power units. You can think of this power unit as being something like Watts, (it is the amount of actual energy in the remedy). Our machine can increase this to as much as 250 units.
http://www.vibrationalmedicinedevices.com/about.html
Please note, I’m not saying any bad word about this machine. I haven’t tried it, but I’m pretty sure it can find its place in almost every homeopath’s arsenal. By using such tools we can learn so much about manufacturing of the remedies – more than you can ever imagine! But here I’m just pointing at how ridiculous and sharlatan-like the explanations are.
At some point, sooner or later we start to understand that all these pseudo-scientific theories do not lead anywhere. I mean they neither explain anything nor help us in our everyday practice. Actually, this “energy” stuff does not take us any further than mesmerism and galvanism that S. Hahnemann has hoped could provide with some answers (see his “Organon” §286-290).
Little by little we understand we’ve been using “energies”, “vibrations”, “frequencies” and “fields” as means to explain and justify our practices. We’ve thought this should give confidence for both us and our patients. To say the truth, that confidence appears to be a little fake. Why?
To put it simple, it’s a bit too much and too harsh. Trying to manufacture a powerful homeopathic remedy is an oxymoron, to say the least. They say, “potentiation machines make harsh remedies” – but actually, that harshness appears to originate solely in our own minds…
This energy phase is universal and applies to almost every holistic tradition. If we work with plants, crystals, sound, touch – we usually go through this phase as well.
In this phase it is common to speak about powerful crystals, plants of Power, places of Power, etc. All that really seem to work in practice up to some extent.
Also, the quality of the remedies and all the means used for healing (e.g. crystals) seems to be of utter importance in this phase. We look for the best sources, best manufacturers, acknowledged sellers, etc. We tend to rely on these. We also try to find best schools and teachers, we implement their methods and follow their rules faithfully. We think that’s the right and only way to do things.
We also get a long list of things incompatible with our remedies: mobile phones and coffee including. So we avoid these at all costs.
All that is very appropriate at this phase.
But relying on energy has weird side-effects as well.
While being very powerful and working on deep and subtle levels it can be overdosed, it can be channeled into the wrong place so that we alter compensation mechanisms and get suppression instead of healing or engage into other types of iatrogenic problems. The latter are also pretty common in provings, but again, that is considered to be normal at this phase.
What’s the most important, dealing with these energies restricts us to that active Yang side (see YIN & YANG of Homeopathy). That’s not necessarily always bad, but it prevents us from discovering the inner Yin side of Homeopathy and making it whole.
Accentuating that Yang side also prevents us from revealing our own true nature (our Self) and perceiving Life as it is. It becomes very limiting to our personal and professional growth.
The idea about energy also appears to be alienating. It isolates homeopaths not only from their rational colleagues in both allopathic and holistic realms, but also from many simple and normal guys.
For example, it should be hard for an experienced barista and coffee lover to accept the idea that coffee diluted to insane 10-60 (30C) or 10-400 (200C) levels becomes way more powerful than original double espresso. Or that it still contains the “vibrations” of coffee. Such ideas sound so dumb they cut off crowds of intelligent people from Homeopathy.
Nevertheless, no matter how limiting or incomplete, in this phase energy and vibrations are the best explanations we can give for ourselves, our patients and our holistic colleagues.
But what if our remedies have nothing to do with “energy” or “vibrations” at all? Just as they have nothing in common with active substances! What if there are other approaches that might please even our barista?
180° – Leaders & Teachers
As our listening skills and transparency increase we start to perceive the complexity and interconnectedness of Life deeper and deeper. The energies we’ve been channeling become more and more subtle – up until they transform into a completely different kind of perception.
We start to perceive Higher Intelligence in Healing that appears to be beyond our own understanding. Remedies seem to address different sources of that Intelligence.
Healing in this phase appears to have little to do with energy or quantitative values (vibrations including), but is something to do with quality. We perceive that as wisdom. And we start seeking it. We start perceiving Life as opportunity to gain wisdom. Everything – our friends, colleagues, patients, life situations, remedies including – become our teachers.
The revolution takes place when we start looking not at the remedies themselves, but at what they point to.
At this stage remedies are no longer perceived as something that is in globules or alcohol solutions or whatever. The remedy becomes pure information, i.e. a sign that points to its source. Imagine the remedy being a portrait or a business card that points to an actual person.
So here we start perceiving the real remedy being something that stands beyond the actual globules! You may ask, what. Well, it depends. I’ll try giving you several examples that are not necessarily strictly homeopathic, but I hope bring some light onto the subject.
You may read a lot about Rose Quartz‘s energetic and vibrational properties. At 90° you may even experience these as attributes of that mineral. But at 180° degrees you are taught that Rose Quartz represents the centre of our galaxy that appears to be Unconditional Love itself. They say other galaxies have different centers, but ours is about that Unconditional Love. If it becomes an actual perception, Rose Quartz becomes a sign, a pointer, a “business card” that helps to connect with that Love.
Those who work with colors – Aura Soma in particular – may find this 180° phase is represented by the set of 15 quintessences perfectly. Please, compare Turquoise pomander (pretty bright, vibrant and working) and quintessence (pale color, more like diluted/ potentiated, stands for a Teacher named Maha Chohan). Please, use the links and explore these. You may also want to explore other colors as well.
- Pomanders being bright and vibrant and pretty straightforward are supposed to work, to provide us with the colour we lack, fill our gaps and protect.
- Quintessences being the pale and almost indistinguishable colours are definitely not as intense, they do not provide us with colors, but they stand and are named after the Teachers who help us to discover these colors in ourselves. They are meant for exploring ourselves, for “prayer and meditation” (V. Wall).
That difference between pomanders and quitessences may teach homeopaths a lot about the role of potentiation process: diluted, pale, hardly recognizable colors do not seem to be stronger at all! And they are way more subtle and deeper…
Then in anthroposophic medicine main metals stand for the planets they represent. Well, for that purpose metal remedies are prepared in a special way: metals are heated until they vaporize, then scraped from the walls and potentiated. Such remedies are called “praeparatum”, e.g. Stannum metallicum praeparatum D6. Here tin stands for Jupiter. That’s why you may often find tin in hepatic formulas in spagyrics as well as in anthroposophic or even homeopathic preparations (if the latter are made according the same principles). Here you do not potentize Jupiter, but take Stannum as it’s representative according to old alchemical traditions.
Such remedies also teach us something about relativity of potencies. I mean D6 is a pretty low potency in classical Homeopathy. But here it kind of stands for “Jupiter D6“. Is Jupiter D6 still too low for you?
That’s a weird question, isn’t it? The topic on potency becomes quite funny as we arrive at 180°. And yet, high and low potencies are perceived differently, sensations might be a bit different… The number of globules feels different as well.
Then we have many plants that are pretty special. Anhalonium Levinii stands for Mescalite and I hope does not need any introduction. So we may explore Anhalonium‘s pathos in a classical way of homeopathic provings and try to apply knowledge of Materia Medica in clinical practice. But we may approach Mescalite in a spiritual and almost religious way – and have amazing difference in depth of perception. Once we had a walk with reprinted Anhalonium 6D here in an old town of Kaunas – that became one these life changing experiences.
St. Nicola’s relics in Bari (Italy) as well as some of his icons are known for producing Myrrh – a special scented oil. Italians even sell it diluted in water in their St. Nicolas basilica – very much like a homeopathic remedy. I’ve been there and brought several nice bottles as gifts for my closest friends and colleagues.
By the way, one of my colleagues A.E. Kudaev once had a chance as a researcher to explore one of such icons and he also made a remedy from it. It’s indeed a very special remedy. Actually, it is hard to call it “remedy”. I’ve never perceived it as such. It has that real presence of a Teacher/ Master. I learned from St. Nicola so much – perhaps more than from many of my real world teachers.
Such learning is pretty mystical, but also very natural and homeopathic. We simply listen to what’s happening with us and our patients during the contact with such remedies. We perceive such Teachers in real time during the consultation. Again – some basic listening skills are necessary. Then these Teachers let us experience sensations and different styles of healing we’ve never encountered before and have never been taught by any living teacher.
Again, look how funny it is. When such things happen, we naturally attribute them to these Teachers! Who else could perform such miracles? We even learn to recognize them by their style: each has it’s own sensations and mode of entering the consultation process.
Perception of these Teachers is so clear and natural at this phase – we do not even question it. That’s the beauty and miracle and illusion of these phases of perception.
I’ve been working with dozens of remedies as my Teachers in this phase. For about 10 years period they comprised perhaps the most significant part of both my learning and daily clinical practice. They radically changed the way I perceived Homeopathy:
They led me through a causal level – the one that stands between mental and the levels of calmness. We perceive it simply as life situations. No matter how weird it may sound, but these Teachers (and many remedies perceived in this phase) are mostly felt “outside”, i.e. as triggering some life events. It shouldn’t be strange, as 180° marks the peak of Yang! But perceiving the remedies “outside” is very strange nevertheless.
During consultation (if we listen, of course) that feels like altered perception of surroundings: the overall clarity, colours, depth, width, lightness and transparency of the consultation room and surroundings. All that comes in great stillness (although in this phase we usually miss it as we concentrate more on fireworks, i.e. distorsions) . It also becomes almost impossible to locate ourselves as our imaginable “borders” melt. The flow of thoughts stops. Sometimes it feels like awakening from a long long sleep.
It is spectacular how fast that manifests with remedies – it usually takes seconds or couple of minutes to bloom into full experience. It is a bit funny how naturally “normal” guys perceive these changes. And how “spiritual” guys are astonished at that – I remember one healer responding “It took me a couple of weeks of retreat to get here!”.
As a rule these “outer” sensations during consultation translate into certain changes in patient’s life afterwards. It is not uncommon that people change their jobs, careers, partners, interests in one or several days after these experiences.
Differently from energies most of these Teachers are not concerned about body and its sensations too much. They usually deal with two topics instead:
I. They help to overcome certain life situations by changing and balancing these.
That’s why we call them Teachers. We usually get out of our common life rhythm with these remedies. Sometimes it is very simple, e.g. my colleague has been thinking of ending her “normal” medical career and devoting her to homeopathy and naturopathic practice for several years. After a remedy she had such an awfully intense week in clinic that on Friday she made her mind and left her ‘official” work.
There were instances guys got divorced another day after the consultation. Well, that happens a bit later more often.
My teacher and colleague A.E. Kudaev himself became “a victim” of such 180° work – he left physics, went into exploring bioresonance and healing techniques and revolutionized the field eventually.
II. The only thing such Teachers are concerned about is our own self realization, i.e. living our own lives creatively.
Each of these Teachers leading us into these states and revelations has it’s own style that we learn to recognize. Just like our normal teachers in schools. Rose quartz, meteorite, Mescalite, St. Nicolas, Laughing Buddha (some of my colleagues made in the place of pilgrimage in Kathmandu, Nepal) – all have very different teaching styles.
Consider the purpose of such remedies to be kind of simulation of a pilgrimage journey.
So during the consultation if we get into certain level of patient’s Labirynth, we may find such remedies to be the most appropriate/ similar. So we test them, listen to them and… the pilgrimage begins spontaneously and instantly.
Again, as with any other remedies, with such Teachers and Leaders it takes up to 20 minutes to finish this sacred journey into… ourselves! It happens live during consultation, it is not postponed for tomorrow.
I’ve been witnessing that numerous times and we could have a pretty long talk about this topic, but 180° is only a half way of our mutual Journey in search for an ultimate relationship with the remedies, so let’s proceed further.
By the way, no matter how strange it may sound to you, but I haven’t invented all that. I learned that from my teachers and colleagues who had amazing sensitivities, testing skills and huge clinical experience. I’ve been introduced into a pretty large collection of such “remedies” they’ve made. I’ve been taught all that in a very precise and systematic way. Much more systematic than my classical homeopathic studies.
I’ve been introduced into different ways/ techniques of using such “remedies” together with other ones: nosodes, organ remedies, formulas, flower and crystal essences, different kinds of bioresonance remedies, etc.
Each kind of remedies addresses different levels: starting with the physical and ending up with the very depth of our souls. All together they teach us about the Totality of Life.
It’s not just about synergy, it’s about anchoring and arriving to all these “spiritual” remedies by simply relying on patient’s body reactions. We just test the remedies and listen. So we may start with these “small” or isopathic remedies and follow the sensations that takes us to some particular “Teachers”, i.e.
we start with a “disease” sensation and the remedies show us how it translates to different levels.
Actually, everything appears to be very simple in practice. I tried to share some tips and insights in the article devoted to Shamanic Homeopathy: we are going to take amazing works by our classical colleagues (St. Cartwright and H. Walach) and elaborate on these a little.
Perceiving remedies as our guides, leaders, pathfinders is not a metaphor. They really seem to behave and be felt/experienced as such in this phase.
I want to remind you that we do not prescribe remedies in Present Homeopathy.
We call for their help, we experience, recognize them and rely on their leadership as we travel through patient’s Labyrinth.
Isopathic and small or even formula remedies mark an entrance point and serve as Ariadne’s thread as we go deeper and deeper into a Labyrinth.
Here remedies become real living entities we make friends with and receive help when needed.
Perceiving them as living entities has nothing to with constitutional types that J.T. Kent used to amuse his students. These are more like shaman’s “spirits” described by S. Cartwright in his amazing article.
For the shaman, meaning is seen directly in feelings and images shown to him by the spirits in an altered state of consciousness.
Stephen Cartwright “On the Nature of Homeopathy”
Actually, this interdisciplinary article, exploring parallels between classical homeopathy and shamanism based on authors personal experience was one of revelations that led for this phase to appear in my practice.
Looking from a classical point of view S. Cartwright saw these two approaches to be essentially similar (both targeted to “seeing the meaning of disease”), but he also pointed several methodological differences. Well, these differences disappear completely as we enter this 180° phase!
I’d like to invite you to take a tour on how such shamanic homeopathic practice looks like on this phase. But it’s also similar to 270° as both of these phases also belong to the Yin Homeopathy. So here is the link, but you may follow it later.
Leaders and teachers show us the way and open new perspectives.
At this phase all the remedies, including these small ones become such. Even isopathic organ remedies and nosodes become guides and pathfinders that help us to explore body sensations.
So if we need to learn something about pterygoid sinuses, we do not read anatomy books or Materia Medica, but we simply listen to an organ remedy, e.g. Sinus pterygoideus D3, D6, D30, D200. Yes, in my case it was potency accord, but whatever you have might work. Such remedy shows where and how these sinuses feel. We remember the sensation. Then we listen how it feels in our patients: that’s a bit different each time, but location is almost the same. So with some practice we get a multi-faceted view of pterygoid sinuses. That’s how we learn them in Present Homeopathy.
That’s how we learn everything in Present Homeopathy – including the subtlest degrees of calmness that reach the depths of our souls.
We learn both pathos and Health, actually.
Such Shamanic Homeopathy may sound strange and even unacceptable for some colleagues (especially those scientifically orientated) but nevertheless that’s a huge step further in finding proper relationship with the remedies.
Don’t get afraid, it is a transitory stage though. It’s just a half of the way. We are not going to stay here for too long. Well, going through it took more than ten years of daily practice for me. I hope you pass it faster. But of course, you may stay here for decades if you like.
Anyway, getting into such a deep relationship with whatever/whoever standing beyond the remedy is an awesome gift.
We start discovering them as Teachers, but slowly we end up communicating with them like friends.
But then little by little we enter into transition to another phase and everything starts getting more and more simple:
When we get to know the Unconditional Love Rose Quartz is pointing to, we do not need the best quality specimen anymore in order to experience it. Just a simple 1 euro priced mineral found at supermarket does the job perfectly.
We do not need sophisticated Aura-Soma quintessences to engage with colorful Beams of Light anymore. So simple Bioptron lamp (the one of polarized light) with 7 colored glass filters is more than enough. Or maybe even some colorful paper or crayons will do the job. We just learn to work with what’s at a hand in present moment.
We do not need actual Myrrh or miraculous icon anymore. Every small picture of St. Nicolas works perfectly.
In Homeopathy we encounter phenomena like paper remedies. They also belong to this phase. Again – it’s neither the remedy, nor the paper that do the job. It is the relationship, the perception of the source of the remedy.
Again, we do not think about the remedies. We just perceive and recognize their presence by actual sensations as we work with patients. We perceive them as if our close colleagues coming into consultation room and giving us a good advice.
Entities and teachers may sound weird. But for normal guys like our barista such approach is much more natural than “energies”. He understands that his own relationship with Coffee (something that stands beyond different sorts of coffee) plays a very significant role in making a cup of quality espresso.
At 180° we enter the mythology realm that is as old as humanity. It is present in legends, fairy tales, folk medicine, shamanic practices, etc. Some call these spirits, some refer to egregors, etc. Nowadays all that information is included into the remedy descriptions and is used to understand the context better. But it also may become your actual experience!
270° – Mirrors
I remember once my teacher and colleague A.E. Kudaev told these special and spiritual remedies being “nothing more than our own aspects“. These words became the seed of this new phase. It took almost 10 years of daily practice to fully comprehend that.
Look, Mirrors have nothing to do with active substances, energies or vibrations. And they do not teach either. Mirrors do nothing except reflecting what’s in front of them.
Mirrors open us a possibility to know ourselves better – to glimpse into our parts/aspects we can’t normally see.
Here at this stage we find our remedies to be means exclusively for exploring and knowing ourselves.
In this phase we leave the idea of gaining wisdom from these Teachers. We find out that wisdom is not in understanding and ability to control things, but in unity with the Life itself. We start to feel that our every effort comes from ego and interferes with life too much. So we start looking for transparency and clarity. These are characteristic to mirrors, aren’t they?
EFFORT
How much willpower?
Very little, or none. Measuring your willpower is fun. It is very subtle. Try this, a story I got from a Steiner teacher. Sit down in the garden next to a carrot. Wait until you are centered, then compare your willpower or effort to the effort of the carrot. As silly as it sounds it really helped me see how intense I was.
James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p. 39
That also simplifies our practice with patients. We stop doing things. We stop performing as healers. We simply sit and listen. We perceive and we react spontaneously according to actual perception. We stop creating stuff in our minds and eventually teachers leave us alone. But skills we gained from them are here. Perception also is here and it even becomes more acute as before.
Here remedies lose their own form and image.
Look, the mirror itself has no form. It simply reflects – it takes form of what’s in front of it. Here remedies borrow our own image in order to manifest. Here we understand, why it is impossible to repeat the remedy experience. Remedies appear to never be static: image in the mirror is never the same, because neither we, nor our patients are the same each moment.
Well, Mirror might be the same, but who cares? We can’t see the mirror itself anyway! It’s always only a reflection that we see.
Here we find that Rose Quartz is simply meant for discovering that Unconditional Love in ourselves. It’s “outer” location, be it in the centre of galaxy or anywhere else makes no sense anymore. We find out it has always been inside, not outside.
Colours are also our inner ones. Perception of colours is always our own. Colours can’t exist outside our perception anyway. Imagine someone informs you there is a colour that does not belong our “normal” spectrum and you have never seen it. Does it make any sense (other than intellectual)?
Stannum metallicum praeparatum D6 may still stand for Jupiter. But it doesn’t matter so much as Jupiter is not a distant planet anymore – it can’t be perceived as planet. I mean the planet itself is real and I enjoy finding it and viewing it in one of my telescopes: locating the Red Spot, belts, etc. And that appears to be the only possible direct perception of Jupiter – unless we possess a spaceship, of course.
But the astrological, esoteric, inner Jupiter can’t be observed as something different from us. So we take that remedy and we observe ourselves and we get surprised as we recognize these Jupiter qualities as our own.
Different kinds of Teachers presented by special remedies also appear to live inside as Wisdom that comes from Life itself and is not based on our own past experiences.
Here in this phase Teachers lose their face. St. Nicolas can’t be defined by any image here. He appears to be about each one of us. Just a certain kind of mirror. Let me try to give you an example (I know, that’s really primitive one).
One of our western images of St. Nicolas is Santa Claus. Each of us have utilized this aspect giving presents to kids during Christmas Eve. It’s an act of St. Nicolas, he started that, he’s the author, but as we perform that role, we use him as a mirror. Each of us give presents in our own style/way. Not exactly in his way, but similar. And also by doing that we reveal something about us – we reveal that present giver inside, which has it’s own (not exactly St. Nicola’s) style, we learn something about ourselves.
Here we discover it is impossible to experience the remedy as something separate from ourselves. Think of it for a while. I know, it may be hard to accept, but you can’t experience real Santa Claus!!! You can only become one when Christmas comes. Ands that’s the miracle!
Most of us remember there was a time when we certainly could meet him. Well, we almost could. We perceived the result (perhaps that was the toy you dreamed about) and we believed it was Santa’s gift. That was nice at 180°, but now you’re adult and it’s time for you to see things a little bit different.
Remedies do not exist as separate entities/realities!
There is no remedy (or anything that stands beyond it) present outside our perception. I’m sorry, childish imagination that has been bringing so much excitement on 180° does not count here… We’ve grown up already.
Speaking about Rose Quartz, we can’t perceive Love other than we experience. We may think/imagine somewhere some kind of ideal unconditional Love exists, but all the ideas about it appear to be… empty! They are just ideas, concepts, a play of imagination and nothing else. So we end up with the love we experience. And that’s the real one. If we give all our attention to it, it has a potential to grow and become unconditional…
The problem is we do not know where it is hidden inside ourselves. If that’s the case, we need a mirror. Like we need a mirror to see… our ears! Or we need Sinus pterygoideus as a remedy to locate and explore it in ourselves.
The differences between Mirrors and Teachers is subtle and huge at the same time.
In this phase “small” remedies like isopathic or formula ones become extremely interesting. They become mirrors that enable us to explore structures that are hidden much deeper than our ears. So we may see, e.g., our inner ear. Or we may explore where and how sinus pterygoideus feels. We may even explore organelles of a cell if we need to.
We may take Bach flower remedies and explore our own emotions. We can take remedies that show us our thought patterns – these are perhps best represented by mineral remedies. Also we have special remedies that correspond to different life situations. And there are remedies that represent different levels of stillness that appear to belong to our Self.
Colors that we do not perceive simply do not exist outside. There is a hypothesis that ancient Greeks had no blue color at all. Again – we perceive only the colors that we perceive… Hypothetical colors are out of our perception, therefore not existing in our realities.
I’m sorry to say, but neither Mescalite nor St. Nicolas exist anywhere if we reach 270° phase.
In this phase not only remedies, but also our ideas, imaginations and understandings lose their ground.
Having arrived here I came to my Teacher and told him that “it feels like perceiving the truth that Santa Claus does not exist for the first time”. And my Teacher only nodded his head.
In this phase our reality we have built in our minds starts to scatter. Even more – we have a presentiment the whole world is about to collapse soon…
It concerns every aspect of our lives. For example, we spoke that our remedies are like movies that we watch. Does the movie exist as a separate reality? We usually think a particular movie is real. It exists objectively, by itself somewhere and each of us is watching it subjectively. But is there anyone who has watched that movie objectively? And if nobody has, how can we say that it exists?
Consider our remedies being specific mirrors, each showing specific aspects of ourselves.
These aspects manifest quite differently in each of us. Therefore it is impossible to guess the impact the remedy makes upon us by its description. Only by direct experience! And of course, we can’t see a remedy/mirror itself!
Transparent remedies radically change our practice.
270° mark the radical shift in our homeopathic careers. To put it simple, from now on we stop being remedy-orientated. We do not think about remedies anymore. Mirrors open us new clear way of perception. Thinking and ideas about the remedies do not cloud our direct perception anymore.
We start to perceive the reality instead. For the first time we really start to experience ourselves, our colleagues and patients as well as the very process of consultation with awareness. Even if it still happens not directly, but with the help of mirrors. We start experiencing the real world and Life for the first time.
Mirrors/remedies become a way of sharing our perception of different aspects of Life.
That sharing is one of the most beautiful aspects of Homeopathy that is still not completely understood by homeopaths.
Imagine you see something in a new way, in a new angle that no one has looked from before. So you photograph the world from that angle and share your photos with others. And these photos teach others to find that same point of view in their own ways. So your photograph kind of blooms into many different flowers.
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
American portraitist Dorothea Lange. quoted in: Los Angeles Times (13 Aug. 1978)
You do not have to photograph. You may film video. Or compose music. Or express that through dance. Or maybe paint. There are thousands of ways of sharing your perception. Making remedies is one of them.
When homeopaths or their similar colleagues discover new approaches to human beings, their diseases and Health, they make remedies that reflect these approaches and experiences. They share their perception with us through the remedies!
When these remedies become transparent, like mirrors, that perception starts to shine through and becomes our own. Such remedies appear to be a legacy left for us by incredible masters and brightest practitioners.
On the other hand, paraphrasing Dorothea Lange quoted above –
Remedies are instruments that teach us how to sense without remedies.
You do not have to make new remedies. You can play with existing ones creating formulas that reflect your own unique perception. I must confess I adore formula remedies. I know, homeopaths usually have different opinion. But beautiful formula remedies have nothing to do with taking a buch of remedies from a repertory rubric and putting them together into one bottle. When approached with listening, formula remedies become masterpieces. They feel like masterpieces. They stun us with almost impossible combinations. Formula remedies are where the true mastery of real remedy makers shine.
Look at remedies R. Steiner made. Or Vicky Wall’s colourful essences that she made after she became blind. Or Roy Martina’s Flowerplexes that combine Bach flowers with homeopathic potencies.
Creating a formula remedy is like creating a perfume. You can’t create an amazing perfume if you do not have the ability to smell, if you do not perceive scents with all their changing notes, but try to read them in books instead.
Likewise you can’t create a formula remedy if you can’t listen, you can’t perceive remedies as sensations. But if you do – creating formulas becomes a form of the art. Different remedies representing different kinds of sensations/perceptions mix together and create new experiences.
Our job is to make that wisdom and sensibilities of our brightest remedy creators and makers to become accessible to others. It cannot be limited to homeopaths, Bach Flower or Aura-Soma practitioners, etc. It deserves much much wider audience.
I mean many of our remedies are like the best works of art created by amazing masters. They are like (big) symphonies or (small) songs created by amazing composers. Or paintings… Or whatever. The peculiarity of our remedies is that they are nor restricted for healing. They are for exploring ourselves, discovering Life and Self.
Imagine making a copy of such remedy is like playing a some composer’s work. Imagine you are a piano player. Even if you have notes and you know the technique or maybe you are the real virtuoso – you can’t take a new piece, sit down and play it straight in a gig. You train and practice a lot. You experience the mood. You even experience the composers state as he wrote this peace. You may need to refer to his books, interviews, other pieces, etc. – in order to perceive it clearly. That takes time.
The same applies to manufacturing such remedies. If you take time and attention and you perceive clearly what you’re doing by senses – the result is day and night difference.
Such remedies become mirrors that enhance our perception (Listening as we call it here). And differently from our normal mirrors it’s usually enough to perceive something once. I mean if we want to see our ears, each time we need a mirror. But if you’ve ever experienced sinus pterygoideus, you are able to recognize it in different situations even without a mirror.
As we train and practice, our relationship with Life becomes way deeper.
Such remedies as mirrors become revealing.
In our daily practice testing and taking a remedy unexpectedly opens up something that we or our patients been hiding for so long – at it suddenly comes from unconscious to the surface, i.e. to Consciousness.
Such transparent remedies do not stand in a way between the healer and the patient anymore. But we still sense their presence – even if it is only mirror-like.
Remedies in their physical form become less and less important as we advance into this stage. Look, as we are on the way approaching 270° remedies are mirrors. They are something that’s outside and that outside shows us what’s inside ourselves and our patients.
But then as we pass 270° mark and start moving towards 360° we become aware of a extremely weird trick:
It appears, we can’t really turn around and glimpse onto ourselves.
Whenever we look into ourselves and find something inside it instantly ceases being inner and becomes outer phenomenon. No matter if there is some kind of body sensation or maybe emotion, thought, life situation, some level of calmness or even Silence – I perceive myself observing one of these. Each of them becomes an “outer object” for Me. So even if I get to the very depths of soul and glimpse there – these depths instantly become an outer object to me.
I can’t find, locate and recognize “myself” anymore.
360° Transparent (= No Perception of Remedies)
Then one day it happens. Our Journey finishes in a very peculiar and simple way. We do not reach anything. But we get Home. Our start and finish points overlap and the circle closes into one Totality.
Here an absolutely strange thing happens – we still work with remedies as before. Nothing changes externally. But perception of remedies being separate… disappears altogether with the perception of healer/observer being separate.
Imagine we look straight onto the Totality of Life without any mirrors involved. No reflections – so we can’t see our selves anymore! All we see is Life everywhere.
LIFE IS WHOLENESS
Life is Wholeness
It is a mystery beyond our potential to understand. We must consider becoming comfortable with our ignorance, becoming a living organism in “The Sea Around Us”, nurtured and loved through an indwelling sense of direction. We move beyond being complete, content or fulfilled… into the Holy River of Life.
James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p. 15
I know, many of us who seek Awareness of the present moment hope that It gives instant access to wisdom and healing. Hmm… James Jealous says it’s all about “becoming comfortable with ignorance“…
When it seemed to happen for the first time I was eager to try it on my daily work with patients. I knew it would be special. Well, it appeared to be amazingly special, but in just the opposite way than I expected.
It was like sitting in homeopath’s chair for the first time! I completely lost the gift of intuition, the skill of listening to the process, the ability to feel the remedies. I lost any control of the healing process. It seemed like a joke as my most precious possession, my skills trained daily in the last 20 years were gone completely. But there was also a deep sense of stillness, so I continued working in a usual manner (I had no choice, actually) even if there was no feel of something happening. It was like pretending to be a homeopath. The Healing came in the last minutes of consultation. I had no sense I was involved in it anyhow.
Such practice continued for several weeks or maybe months. I kind of got used to that ignorance. I wasn’t bothered by lack of understanding and dull or almost no sensitivity anymore. I knew the Healing is about to happen anyway if needed and how needed, it did not depend on remedies, on knowledge and also on my limited perception anymore. I felt I simply had to do my job with all the sincerity and attention possible and Healing does its own.
Then little by little the whole circle with all its phases slowly came back as if from oblivion, emerged as if out of the fog. Of course, there is no circle and phases are just empty labels.
In practice that means we are no more attached to any phase as being special or superior. So remedies become free to emerge in whatever phase – the one that is the most adequate to patient’s situation. Sometimes remedies are energy, sometimes they come as teachers, sometimes they are used as mirrors. Everything counts and nothing is wrong.
Anyway, it’s evident that Healing has nothing to do with these phases of our perception, It has nothing to do neither with the remedies used, nor with the healer. But nevertheless, these two may become a predisposition for It to happen.
THERAPEUTIC FORCES
“All one does is begin a treatment.” Rollin Becker, D.O.
“I bind the wound, God heals it.” Galen, Greek physician AD 129 – c. 200/c. 216
Many of my teachers in Kirksville made the statement, “all you do is begin a treatment, then indwelling therapeutic forces finish it.”
The goal, of engaging an indwelling therapeutic process is the hallmark of our tradition.
Knowing the mechanism of life is not a willy-nilly going with the flow … not at all; it is the result of long and disciplined experience.
The idea of doing a treatment to the patient with your intelligence and intention eventually dies … in my case it was twenty years and 80,000 treatments … and then another two years of becoming neutral to the intuition which tried to preempt the Tide.
Then it began.
James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p. 2
Actually, that’s the purpose of our remedies and the whole homeopathic practice – making this 360° journey and perceiving the Life and our Self (these appear to be no separate at all) at the full extent. Getting rid of remedies and healer at 360° makes the Truth evident.
At 360° all things are just as they are; the truth is just
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn
like this. ‘Like this’ means that there is no attachment to
anything. This point is exactly the same as the zero point: we
arrive where we began, where we have always been. The
difference is that 0° is attachment thinking, while 360° is
no-attachment thinking.
0° is Small I. 90° is Karma I. 180° is Nothing I. 270° is
Freedom I. 360° is Big I. Big I is infinite time, infinite space.
So there is no life and no death. I only wish to save all people.
If people are happy, I am happy; if people are sad, I am sad.
Saving people and removing suffering is what should be our mission as a medical profession. Life itself chooses the method for realization of that mission according to our understanding about the roots of that suffering.
But then we become attached to that method and its rules. We start to shape our perception accordingly. We create our own world in our minds, we live and practice in that illusion. We even try to preserve its integrity by creating even more illusions. It’s not about saving people anymore, it’s about saving our own image!
All our journey through that circle from the very 0° to 360° appears to be… destructive! It’s about all these images collapsing one by one. It’s about detachment, getting beyond our ego and perceiving Life as it is, i.e. as Totality. When everything that we consider to be “I” collapses, all that is left is Totality. Everything is perceived from one point which is Totality.
THE POINT
Everything you perceive is from one point.
All motion is from one point. You can witness this, but to get to that place you must travel past many interior landscapes.
You must pass trough many losses.
Your expert must die over and over and over, then the Master will open your heart for you to see, through His eyes. He will show you what is occurring in the whole of Life.
Like Dante you travel, not alone, but with help always near.
James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p. 77
Homeopathic and other remedies do not take us to 360°. In no way we can arrive there. 0/360° is not the point on the circle. It is beyond. It has nothing to do with the circle. Circle is just a distortion. It’s a mirage. It’s a dream. It’s some kind of hypnosis if you like. It does not exist. Nothing exists except 0/360° which is the Ultimate and Absolute Reality.
That Ultimate Reality appears to be your True nature. It is You. But you… are not Ultimate Reality. This paradox cannot be understood.
What homeopathic remedies can do is to show us the suffering, i.e. the pathos. Relatively positive remedies as we call them here show the stillness that is direction towards Health. Stillness means less suffering, But separation still remains which is the root of suffering. All that journey helps to reveal our attachments. It is all about exploring ourselves and awakening from that dream/distortion.
The beauty of Homeopathy is that it addresses all the realms, all the levels of human existence: starting with physical body and ending up with the very depths of our souls.
S. Hahnemann intuitively knew that. Here is the excerpt that has been hidden by the founder in the very heart (middle) of his Organon, as he speaks about the provings performed by physician onto himself:
None of the observations we make on others are nearly as interesting as those we make on ourselves. […]
By means of such remarkable observations, he will develop an understanding appreciation of his own sensibilities, of his mode of thinking and emotions which is the basis of all true wisdom, γνῶθι σεαυτόν [know thyself].
– footnote to §139 of “Organon”
The remedies literally show us our suffering and attachments. At 360° both we and Homeopathy become free and the true practice begins.
4 Seasons in Homeopathy
Our journey starts from absolute perceptional Emptiness: 0° means there is no circle yet. There is literally nothing – like in deep sleep without dreams. Then our path leads us outwards with the Yang wave creating the amazingly complex and sophisticated dream we call reality.
In Present Homeopathy we consciously take part in that process of creation. It’s not an intellectual path though: we do not think and accumulate knowledge, but we train our attention and calibrate our senses instead. We call it Listening.
By learning to sense realms that we haven’t been aware of before we actually create them in our own worlds.
Experiencing and exploring new realms together with our colleagues and patients is actually participating in the process of creation.
Creating and experiencing happen simultaneously and are perceived as one process happening here and now.
It really resembles a dream. Dreams are created and experienced/perceived simultaneously in the consciousness.
Becoming aware of all these new kinds of subtle sensations and Zones from A to D as they call them in biodynamic osteopathy makes your Universe much richer and worth sharing. Yes, with some openness we learn to share our sensations directly!
When we reach the peak of the Yang wave at 180° it’s like the mid of the summer when the green nature is in its peak: blooming, thriving,…
Then we start to slowly approach the autumn. Why? To say the truth, I do not know. In my own journey I was wondering why the summer had been so long. Despite my homeopathic background I went through all the healing schools and practitioners I could find and afford. Even today I can’t think of better teachers I’ve met on my way.
I know, it’s crazy, but I had kind of agreement with Homeopathy that It provides me with everything I need and I can take as much as I manage to carry with one condition – I share it with others. So I’ve started with enormous hunger for sensations and been absorbing everything maniacally. But no matter how hungry you are you can’t eat eternally and at some point you stop.
Can you imagine getting sick and tired of new kinds of sensations/ remedies you haven’t even known may exist? Or entering the realms that are hard to find mentioned in books?
And yet, eventually satiety comes. The speed of travelling and assimilating new worlds slows down and one day you… stop. That’s how you arrive at 180°. I remember stalling for about half a year or maybe more. Nothing new is happening. No interest in moving forward, looking for new remedies, methods, techniques or sensations.
Then you start to slowly collapse inwards taken by the Yin wave with it’s speed and power gradually increasing. Little by little the greens of the Summer fade and the Autumn comes. Well, you lose something, but you learn to trust the process and you even find advantages of travelling light, without all that luggage. You see colours changing, the fruits ripening.
You get into the Mirrors phase (270°) very naturally and you even enjoy that. It’s quiet there as no remedies bother you from “outside”. You cease experiencing remedies as something separate from you. The same happens with your patients. It’s a very beautiful season. You may even think you can base all your further career on that.
But then the winter comes. You start loosing your skills and intuition. That frightens you at first, but soon you understand you are dragging too much luggage with you. Losing perception of remedies is just a beginning. Perception is not just about remedies. Perception is about everything, ourselves including. So we start loosing… ourselves.
We loose the ability to think, to control our bodies, we can’t even make any choice and eventually we loose our will completely.
N.B.! Again, nothing changes with that in the external Yang side and even our close relatives may not notice any difference. Travelling inwards usually does not translate outwards. As one of my teachers has said – “It does not convert”.
At some point the perception becomes transparent and you realize the Truth. Consider that to be like premature death. The cycle is over, the winter ends and the spring comes as always.
All our life is like that.
It’s about gaining and loosing everything eventually. That’s so natural.
It is a bit hard to accept so we distort the reality – we create our history prior to birth, we create goals and missions to accomplish, we also think of life after death. All that creates our opinions that filter, shape and distort the experience of the present moment.
I’ve been thinking I also attain true Homeopathy. But what if it is no different from Life itself?
“How does it translate to Homeopathy and Healing?” – you may ask. Well, there are two answers, actually.
One answer is that nothing is different.
Another answer is that there is radical difference and nothing remains as before.
Health and Home appear to be at 0/360°, i.e. prior and beyond the circle. To put it simple, they do not belong to the manifested world.
It is impossible to become aware of being Home without leaving it – so we descend into the world pf perception. It is impossible to perceive Health while staying healthy – so we get into a disease.
Therefore we leave our Home and we start playing our personal roles until we get lose our Self in them completely. We leave Health and we dive into suffering, disease, pathos and start looking for the way to become Healthy/Home again.
Up to 180° life and disease seem to belong to the “outside“. So we explore the outer world. Allopaths explore diseases. Homeopaths explore remedies. Philosophers explore ideas. We are sure the answer is outside. But sooner or later we start doubting.
At 180° we turn inside. We start exploring ourselves. We find out inside there are worlds that are at least as rich in details as the outer one. We dive into all that energy work, we explore emotions and thinking process, we start to perceive different interrelations between subtle bodies and life situations (that’s what is called causal body). At about 270° we start to discern different degrees of calmness. We immerse into them and explore the very depths of the Soul. Even if we may feel extremely close, we can’t find the answer inside ourselves either!
And here we discover an extremely strange paradox.
- While exploring the outside world we seem to do it from the inside. I think am inside and the world is outside.
- But when we start exploring what is inside, that inside instantly becomes… outside. Whenever I locate something inside: sensations, emotions, thoughts, calmness or even “depths of Soul” they feel like outside! I am watching all that. They stand in front of me. They are like movie shown in the screen and I am the watcher.
In no way I can turn onto my Self – the one who observes.
The answer comes when we stop searching. There is no observer. No one watches the movie. The Self is the screen (if only we follow the analogy). Perception appears to belong to the movie, it’s happening in the movie. But the screen is not touched by it. The movie is ephemeral, ever changing. The screen is real, it’s what they call Absolute Reality.
It’s our half we forget in our early childhood. It our missing half we are searching all our lives and hoping we can find in the world. As my Teacher says, we are like fish who’s in search for Water.
That Water, Screen, Home, Health are too common and too essential for our existence to be found easily…
The Practice
When the patient comes, he seems to be looking for Health, but actually he’s clinging to the disease on a different levels: physical, emotional, mental, situational,… These levels may also be called bodies – they actually feel like separate bodies with their particular sets of sensations.
We speak about Totality a lot, but the paradox is that it is practically impossible to perceive more than one level/body at a moment given. So if emotions dominate, physical sensations retreat to background, it seems we almost have no physical body, so far away it seems. The same happens if we immerse into thinking or in some life situations. “So what is Totality?” – you may ask. Well, It is something that is left when there is nothing else.
Imagine the patient is hanging on the edge of the abyss holding onto everything he can.
To put it simple, our job is to use our remedies to reveal and address what he’s holding onto.
Sometimes we need several remedies in a row (all addressing different levels/bodies) as the patient always try to grab something else. He releases the physical, but then grip on emotions becomes evident, etc.
So we address these attachments one by one starting with the fulcrum in the body. Interestingly, we never come back to the same level/body/sensations. We proceed further. Eventually the patient runs out of these anchoring points and at the end of consultation he falls into the abyss. Here no sensations are experienced anymore, it’s total bliss. That abyss, Totality, Health, Home and 0/360° appear to be synonyms.
And then in the rebalancing phase we come back to the point it all started. That’s why it is recommended to pay attention to every single detail, every word or sensations that are happening in the beginning of consultation as we meet our patient. We are definitely about to return to some of these at the end of consultation. Some remedy will bring us back to where it all started but a a different angle. Here is the point we know the consultation is over. There is no bliss anymore, just the most natural feeling of ourselves. Paradoxically, it appears to be preferred to that bliss by most of patients. It’s perfect, actually.
For practical steps and hints, please, see How remedies lead to the Totality.
For us as practitioners this journey through all that circle is for attaining transparency and clear view of everything that is happening. So we can react accordingly.
Zen work is becoming empty mind. Becoming empty mind means having all your opinions fall away. Then you will experience true emptiness. When you experience true emptiness, you will attain your true situation, your true condition, and your true opinions.
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn
And then we also can perceive Homeopathy as it is – as a principle, as not a man-made one. Look, all the Life is Homeopathy in its pure form.
We have that interest inside that leads us. It’s the driving force. Everything that is happening in life is for discovering that interest. Similia similibus. All that circle of searching and discoveries has its beginning and the end. But there is one pure and clear thing that does not change and always remains clear. And it is out of reach even for Homeopathy.
The Human Route
Zen Master SEUNG SAHN, August 31, 1981
Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed — that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?