Placebo and Homeopathy as Synchronicities

Both placebo effect and potentiated remedies are very much like C. Jung’s synchronicities we’ve been discussing recently. All three of them, actually, “work” on the same similia similibus principle.

All three share the same mechanism of action. They happen when similar outer and inner meet and something is revealed .

That something has been already here, but hidden from our sensory perception. How does it happen? What is revealed?

“The Essence”

Well, homeopaths often relate to it as some “essence of the case” or “meaning of the illness” that hides behind the diseases symptoms. Discovering it appears to be the modern key to solving the chronic case — much more effective than miasmatic approach.

Today’s modern classical approach consists of two aspects:

Addressing the totality of symptoms with symptoms of a remedy in acute cases. Matching the vivid picture of acute illness with remedy symptoms is pretty straightforward process – of course, requiring outstanding clinical skills and experience.
Addressing the essence of the cases with the essence of a remedy in chronic cases. Here is the territory where things start getting out of control.

What’s wrong with a chronic case management in modern homeopathy?

First of all, homeopaths have to use non-homeopathic techniques to get to that essence of the case. Homeopaths borrow different tools from clinical or holistic disciplines and use them to reveal the hidden aspects of the case. Such an interdisciplinary approach would be nice and welcome, but here homeopaths start getting into troubles:
- Many of these approaches require specific skills that may take a lifetime to master. So we either stay superficial and pretty primitive with these or we seek the depth getting involved in seminars and practices while scarifying our own homeopathic training.
- Even if everything is getting well – as a profession we run into various sorts of problems. It becomes hard to communicate with each other. Some guys prefer clinical approach, some specialize in psychoterapy looking for traumas and suppressed emotions, others look at family interrelationships using Hellinger’s constellations, some swear traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) gives the answers, some even incorporate shamanic practices, dream work, etc. All that is legit and may enrich our understanding, but unless we translate this into our homeopathic language (remedies) it weakens the profession as a whole.
Another huge problem is that we get involved into searching for those “remedy essences”. The goal itself is pretty nice, but the direction is essentially wrong.

Look, it gets us into exploring our remedies in an extremely wrong way. It takes us into books and repertory extractions! And as you get involved with these you get lost into these numerous volumes and rubrics — our remedies start to seem real and it actually defies the potentiation!

In a similar way our allopathic colleagues approach diseases: they start exploring the diseases and looking for cures to them. They create these strange creatures and do not need real patients anymore! They deal with a disease symptoms!

So whenever you engage with the remedy symptoms, a new illusionary creature is born and starts living on its own. Just like an allopathic disease, a remedy becomes real.

All these numerous symptoms like LEGO cubes start to aggregate into types, portraits, personalities, life situations, miasms, etc. We may sit down at a computer with powerful homeopathic software, use our imagination and construct whatever we think of.

But Present Homeopathy suggests just the opposite way – finding a real relationship with the remedies by experiencing them together with our colleagues and patients. Yes, these present provings are always mutual and shared.

With a proper training and practice at some point our remedies become 100% perceptual. They stop existing in books as “symptoms” and start manifesting different aspects of Life in the present moment instead.

They become transparent and literally teach us to see the Llife as it is. In each chronic case they take a different form. With each new patient the same remedy is experienced in a different way. Consider in each patient’s world the same remedy takes a different form. Or to be more precise, transparent remedies only highlight similar aspects of our patients — without intervening. They help us to see…

Seeing the meaning

In our homeopathic case that “meaning” has nothing to do with intellectual understanding though. It’s more about what our classical colleague S. Cartwright calls “shaman’s seeing“, which is about sudden spontaneous change in perception or body reactions.

Such “seeing” actually happens before we even understand it, i.e. our intellectual understanding is always more like a late comment to what has already begun happening in bodies. We “see” with our bodies, with our whole perception, actually.

What must be emphasized here is that ‘seeing’ is about feeling, perceiving, ‘knowing’, and that often cannot be put into words – in fact usually it cannot, it can only be expressed in terms of symbols and images. ‘Seeing’ is felt with one’s being; it is a ‘knowing’. ‘Seeing’ is not intellectual and it cannot be worked out; it is a moment of grace. There are techniques and practices that can help one to ‘see’ but it is essentially a moment of revelation.

For the shaman, meaning is seen directly in feelings and images shown to him by the spirits in an altered state of consciousness. […]

For the shaman it is the spirits who help him to ‘see’. The homeopath has only symptoms to help him or her to ‘see’. And intuition.
Stephen Cartwright “On the Nature of Homeopathy”

Well, that’s exactly what starts happening in Present Homeopathy as we test & listen to the remedies. Just like “shaman’s spirits” they show us what has been hiding behind the disease symptoms: they reveal the true causes of a (chronic) disease and bring them from deep within to the surface. And that happens instantly, in the present moment as we sit with the patient!

Actually, it took me about 10.000 of such “seeing” experiences until the principles of Present Homeopathy started to emerge. Then it took almost twice as much until the whole picture was revealed. I mean “seeing” (or listening as my teachers used to call it) has to become our natural relationship with Life.

Oh, “What about an altered state of consciousness?” – you may ask. Well, it’s not altered at all. It’s the most natural state of open and transparent perception! It is about perceiving the world with the open eyes and beginner’s mind as we’ve been doing it in our early childhoods. It about giving all our attention to observing what’s happening as we sit with the patient.

METHODOLOGY
Look for something you’ve never seen before.
Clear observation of new material requires that one look for something one has never seen before. This is not easy. Try this when you walk outside your home. There is the familiar, but what do you notice when you look for something new, something you’ve never appreciated before.
Try this at the end of a treatment when you are just observing.
James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p.16

It is about looking and finding what we haven’t seen before rather than trying to repeat past experiences (no matter how successful they’ve been). So that all the consultation process is happening in great surprise: its a unique experience, something we’ve never been involved into and are never going to repeat in future! It’s Present!

Also, most of us are accustomed to cause-effect scenarios. We try and often succeed to explain the mechanisms of how things happen here and there. But synchronicities mean the acausal connection of two or more psychic and physical phenomena. ACAUSAL!!! They are events that coincide in time and appear “meaningfully” related, yet lack a discoverable causal connection (“mechanism of action”).

Yes, they inherently lack “a mechanism of action”! Or we may say — each time that mechanism is created in a different manner. And that’s exactly why this work is so enjoyable –

in each consultation we become witness and co-creators of these unique mechanisms. No one ever is capable of repeating them!

Well, that sounds exactly like a placebo effect, isn’t it? The main difference is that C. Jung acknowledged it was impossible to define the “causal” connection in advance. But the guys who explore placebo still think they can figure out and define its mechanism of action!

Please note, it all happens spontaneously – as if by itself. So ultimately, nothing really “works” here:

Neither homeopathic remedy nor placebo do anything for that revelation to happen.
Our patients usually do not take active role either — remaining more of a surprised witnesses.
The same happens with us as practitioners – we experience that happening together with our patients and usually we are even more surprised.

Look, patients tend to accept the healing pretty naturally: they come for it, they pay for it, so naturally they expect the result. But we get deeply surprised: when such deep healing is happening. each time it kind of defies the understanding we have, it happens in a different (almost the opposite!) manner than we expect.

James Jealous, D.O. tells our true learning is happening at such endpoints as he call them — when everything appears to be in dynamic balance and nothing is left “diseased”. Well, such learning is really ridiculous – these are the deepest learning experiences we can get in the field of healing, but nevertheless they are unique and are not going to be repeated any time in the future!

BECOMING A BEGINNER

The Tide never does the same thing, the same way, twice; neither does a master

It is tempting to try and repeat the steps from a successful treatment.
We see the results, then reflect back on the nature of the treatment and try to reproduce the process. The process, if one looks closely, was dispensed by the Tide. The Tide never repeats a procedure exactly in the same manner — never. We must be honest enough to see who gave the treatment and correct our center stage rewrites where we play a central role.
Commit to a new beginning with each patient. Then the Teacher will demostrate a fresh teaching.
Essentially there are no techniques, only Principles. You will have great joy from seeing the ever-changing vistas under your hands and the service to humanity that the Tide orchestrates everywhere.
James Jealous, D.O. “An Osteopathic Odyssey” p.16

You may replace J. Jealous’ beloved Tide with Placebo. Yes, the one from a capital P. Sometimes we refer to it as Potential. We also may call It Attention.

Attention is not intellectual at all. All our intellect – no matter how smart or subtle it is – is happening in the Attention. All our perception is happening in the Attention (in the Consciousness).

If something’s not in the Attention – it does not really exist. We remember (“past”) or anticipate (“future”) it in our minds, but it’s not here & now. Everything comes into existence only when it gets in light of our Attention. Otherwise it remains only as potential (not-yet-manifested).

All the outer world is perceptual, i.e. perceived by senses. Isn’t it strange that our natural human perception is not that natural – it is learnt. We are aware only of what we’ve been taught to perceive.

What if you would never been shown the blue colour? Do you think you would equally be aware of it? Take a look at the experiment one researcher has performed on his daughter. Yes, there has been much discussion on whether it is ethical.

Most of the discoveries we make about ourselves happen through what C. Jung used to call synchronicities. They are events that kind of happen outside, but actually guide our attention inside. Things, phenomena that happen outside suddenly appear to be pointing to our interests, problems or solutions that are contained inside as a potential.

Synchronicities function because of similia principle. Similar reveals similar.
Homeopaths have been utilizing that principle for more than 200 years already. Similia similibus curentur.
The real placebo also happens because of that. In its essence it does not differ from a truly homeopathic remedy – it points to some missing part (unresolved problem or it’s solution) or reveals the totality that has been overshadowed by some part.

Revealing

Just like synchronicities our remedies reveal something for us:

In ACUTE cases a similar remedy reveals a totality that fuses a bunch of symptoms into one recognizable piece. Revealing a totality when we are stuck on particulars brings up the healing — just like in everyday life situations seeing the whole picture instantly fixes our confusion.
In CHRONIC cases remedies reveal the missing details that are hiding behind the symptoms of an illness. Here we start with a totality in the form of a misty landscape. Remedies actually reveal the causes of disease bringing them to the surface so the healing may start.

In both cases the nature of information (remedies) is about revealing. Information is about revealing. Information never performs the work for us. So our potentiated (information) remedies don’t work as such. They don’t remove symptoms, they don’t “cause artificial diseases” as our old masters thought – they do absolutely nothing!

Remember: books about cooking do not prepare meals. Period. And our strategy on choosing the book depends on whether our case is acute or chronic:

ACUTE means we have a particular problem that is clearly manifested, very vivid and requires direct approach. Here we look for a book that offers us an instant solution to a problem. Choosing such a book is a pretty logical and straightforward process. If we have our books catalogued neatly, classical homeopathic techniques like repertorization may be employed here. We find a book that covers our present needs and offers the solution of an acute problem.
CHRONIC case also seems to contain “a problem”, e.g. some symptoms that are not as vivid, lack details or maybe are almost absent like in а remission stage of а chronic disease. The difference is that the System (that’s much bigger than body and actually represents the Life itself) does not consider them as important! So body isn’t eager to solve these symptoms. On the contrary, it uses symptoms as finger pointing to the Moon, i.e. to the real problem, the hidden causes of chronic illness. Body/Life is interested you look into the Moon, not finger.

Trying to get rid of that finger by addressing it with a similar remedy makes very little sense here. It’s not even about pealing the case layer by layer. Symptomatic approach is always a mistake in chronic cases. In the best case scenario it changes one finger (pointing to the Moon) to another – and usually, to a less convenient one. Homeopaths call it suppression – and yes, it’s achievable even with homeopathic remedies!

We should start a chronic case without any understanding or knowledge. It is impossible to see where the symptoms are pointing to. So we start literally playing with the books (remedies). We do not try to solve a problem: we do not know it yet. We just follow our interest, we look for the book that just makes the deepest impression on us.

We start with a misty landscape that limits our choice for books to that particular shelf (the certain set of remedies in our case scenario). Then we test and listen (both processes happening simultaneously as one) to each remedy in that kit looking for one that engages us into the deepest therapeutic process!

Sometimes it appears to address the problem we’ve been unaware of before. It kind of shows us the real problem by revealing it, bringing it to the surface from deep within!
Sometimes it stands for solution we’ve been looking for many years and then kind of forgotten it. It shows a path to a positive transformation, that brings health. Or we might say, it shows us the healthy side of an illness.

We discover something in the book/remedy (external) and that appears to be similar and pointing to something that’s in our own lives (internal). That’s how synchronicities and similarities work.

You can’t control synchronicities!

But you can’t control synchronicities, can you? You can’t stage them. Can’t plan them in advance. And yet, they happen.

Consider, Homeopathy is about employing synchronicities into healing. But what can you do with them if you can’t control them? If our remedies stand for synchronicities – how can we approach all that? Well, listening and attention are the key.

I have a question for “control-freaks”. Why should you try to control these synchronicities instead of devoting yourself to serve them? Actually, not “them”, but the Life itself. Synchronicities are not different from the Life itself. We serve by providing all the attention we have to Life.

We start as Homo sapiens (smart guys). We think a lot – just as we’ve been taught at home, in kindergartens, schools and universities.
Our path into the present practice starts by returning our attention to senses, i.e. perception happening here and now. We stop thinking and devote ourselves to sensory perception.
And then we start looking at the perception itself. Our attention starts to dissolve in the perception. Eventually it reaches its highest potency – a point where it dissolves completely and no separate “my” attention is left.

When attention dissolves, it returns to its Home, it becomes ATTENTION. Just as the drop becomes the Ocean when it falls back into it. Nothing is different except your life starts happening as if under the exceptionally bright light. That Light appears to be Consciousness. Attention itself. No separation (“ego”) may survive under that light.

Synchronicities then start happening within that Attention. The latter works as a catalyst. We get at least several deep remedial synchronicities during each single consultation process – including deep healing and life-changing experiences.

Homeopathic Approach to Synchronicities

Homeopathic doctors still think these synchronicities can be entrapped into these little sugar pills and put into bottles (preferably made of of a dark glass).
They think synchronicities can prescribed, actually.
They even think past synchronistic experiences (records of provings and cured cases – all these numerous lists of “remedy symptoms” in Materia Medica and repertory) are still valid and may be applied in the present moment!

That’s ridiculous, funny and even tragic.

Look, synchronicities are not scientific in their very nature. They are not repeatable at all. We can’t even repeat our own synchronistic (“remedial” or whatever) experiences, not to speak about matching them with the ones belonging to others.

(Repeating the remedy is actually about reminding of our first encounter with it when the healing has happened. Sometimes repeating is about deepening our awareness of that healing experience. But it is never about repeating the experience!)

And still there is a decent systematic and methodological approach. Again, listening and attention are the key. That leads to real training & practicing together like never before through listening sessions at first and then while working with our patients.

In the present moment “before and after prescription” simply disappears and we perceive remedies without any lag – instantaneously, as happening in the present moment.

Going Beyond Homeopathy

The good old and kind of poetic “Similia similibus curentur” is beautiful, but nevertheless insufficient to understand the phenomenon of information to its very depths. We should go beyond the perception and see the world “before the human intervention” (prof. A. Mickunas’ words) for that to happen.

Paradoxically, whenever we become aware of the Self, the law of similars stops being a property of Homeopathy. It instantly starts being applied to Life itself. All the Life starts happening according to the same Law of Similars.

Similis similibus ~~curentur~~. I’m sorry, but “curentur” is optional and… limiting! Me writing, you reading – everything’s happening because of that Law. Why have you chosen this text out of a million of other ones? That’s similis similibus.

We need similar “external” to discover and realize something “internal”. Actually neither “external” nor “internal” exist. Both are equally valid objects in perception. There is no “external” and “internal” perception. Phenomena happening “outside” and inside or perceived in an equal way.

Similis similibus is the law for realizing and knowing your Self. And that’s the ultimate Healing and Health we’re all seeking – it’s “Curentur” (yes, capital “C”) after all. It is about the Totality of Life. It has nothing to do with local prescribing anymore.

Ultimately similia simillibus is “the law” the God (or Consciousness with a capital “C”) uses to explore the Self. One and Absolute God/ Consciousness being an Ultimate Potential (containing literally everything) can’t “see” itself. There is nothing to see in It. So It kind of emanates numerous worlds/lives for kind of exploring that potential.

N.B.! Placebo (potencies, information) is such an inconvenient topic, no one dares to explore it thoroughly. The truth would challenge not only the whole evidence-based medicine, but the homeopathic approach as well. The Truth appears to be hidden in between these two radically different approaches!