Shamanic Homeopathy

180° is half of the way only, it’s a transitional phase, but it is a very important and almost essential aspect of Homeopathy. It’s actually impossible to truly understand Homeopathy without it.

I named this stage “shamanic” here, because it all started with amazing article “On the Nature of Homeopathy” written by our colleague Stephen Cartwright. I hope he doesn’t mind if I give you an excerpt from it:

Reading it more than 10 years ago altogether with H. Walach’s “Magic of Signs: A Nonlocal Interpretation of Homeopathy” has become a turning point in my understanding of homeopathic remedies.

However, it is somewhat tricky. Both authors of these amazing articles were seeking for understanding themselves. Both tried to approach that rationally – like most homeopaths do.

My situation at that point was very different. I had already been listening to the remedies (as we used to call it here at the beginning – we really thought we were listening to the remedies!) for years daily. I could recognize the remedies as actual sensations that I experienced with my patients. Remedies had already been perceptible for me at that time.

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’s “On the Nature of Homeopathy”

I’ve been reading numerous homeopathic articles at that time and these two were the closest to my real life experience, i.e. how I actually perceived remedies in everyday practice.

Both authors remained on a classical side though. And both felt they can’t fully implement their insights into common homeopathic practice. Shamanic and non-local experiences did not seem to translate to everyday homeopathic practice well.

Seeing in Homeopathy

S. Cartwright saw the shortcomings of symptomatic approach and tried to overcome these by seeking the meaning of illness as he called it. Here is how he describes “seeing”:

That’s a nice explanation… if only you understand clearly what seeing is! If you do not, it becomes misleading instead.

Do you really understand seeing???

• Is seeing as essential to your daily practice as the air you breathe?
• Or does it sound exotic, exciting, unreal and truly “shamanic”?

I must confess, all my homeopathic practice (100% of time spent with the patient) is about that seeing (even if we call it listening here). With every single patient numerous moments of seeing are experienced at different depths (levels as we call them).

Shaman usually has a handful of spirits he’s comfortable with and who help him to see. We have at least hundreds of such helpers in the form of our remedies. If we practice at 180°, remedies show us everything we need to know – all the details about patient. We do nothing, but listen to remedies. It’s not a metaphor – we literally listen, only we do not limit ourselves to ears, but we observe all kinds of perception instead.

Symptomatic prescriptions

In acute cases happening on the YANG side classical symptomatic prescriptions are almost perfect. Well, they actually become perfect when we consider the deep Well of dark cold water (Yin) that represents true hidden causes of these diseases on different levels as well.

But chronic cases are radically different. They happen on the YIN side, that is about deep dark Ocean (unmanifested) and a little tip of the iceberg (manifested symptoms) in it.

We almost never use symptomatic prescriptions in chronic cases.

My teachers always taught me symptomatic approach here leads to temporal results at best and therefore should be avoided. Chronic complaint even in exacerbation phase should be addressed with the remedy, that has apparently nothing in common with it. That means we might address some physical complaint with a Bach flower or whatever remedy that contains not a hint of that illness in its description.

Yes, such prescriptions are completely illogical and cannot be arrived at by intellectual efforts! Any reference materials, software or any kind of knowledge make almost no sense here.

How can we prescribe a Bach flower for a headache? (Of course, not every headache needs Bach flower.)

The simple answer is by listening. If patients situation with headache has that specific emotional tint, Bach flower might be an answer. So we listen to these 39 bottles one by one and stop at one that makes the difference on headache.

Of course that’s possible only when listening has become your second nature. But what if you are just a beginner and you haven’t been listening to remedies for years already?

Well, that’s why we have testing.

Testing

• If you are just a normal guy like most of us and you still want to feel the remedies in the same way you perceive, e.g., music or scents or food flavours – testing is the only way to go. Sorry, there is no other way.
• If you already have that perception as a gift/talent – that’s nice. Testing is going to take it to completely another level. It will bloom like you have never imagined about.

Through more than 20 years I’m in Homeopathy I have met lots of practitioners. There is a night and day difference in those who use testing and those who do not.

Those who do usually remain silent about their achievements. They know the cost (attention, energy, time needed) and they understand it’s about their skills they have trained for years. They can’t share it as a knowledge during “scientific” conferences. And sharing skills appears to be restricted to a pretty close circle of colleagues with whom we may practice together.

Yes, I know, sometimes these operators as we call them seem to be a bit on mechanical side. That’s the problem of education in this field. Institutes who develop the techniques and methodologies usually belong to technically oriented guys.

But nevertheless majority of these operators after many years of work exhibit amazing sensitivities very rarely found in classical realm. What’s even more beautiful they attribute these not to themselves, but to methods, techniques and appliances they use!

Operators and classical homeopaths can’t meet because both lack understanding about listening.

I learnt testing in several schools, Imedis being the most important. Imedis is a developer and manufacturer and eduacator of vegetative resonance test appliances in Moscow. Having continued that for about 20 years and having about 7000 of graduates they have created a huge and successful ecosystem of medical doctors using their approach.

Each year on April they organize a big conference in Moscow for several days followed by seminar program. Usually they have 2 rather thick volumes of abstracts published each time on both paper and electronic formats. Through these years several schools emerged out of it, but they still meet under one roof.

Once visiting them in Moscow, I met A.E. Kudaev. I had an opportunity to watch him testing one of staff members. The doors were open and I could stand and listen to the process.

Well, I had been all into listening for about 10 years already, I thought I have enough sensitivity to discern organs. meridians, chakras, emotions, mental structures, etc. But this time it was all different. It was nothing to do with anything I knew. It was on a completely different level, nothing to do with energies, chakras, etc. It was subtle, deep and strong, full of light and completely unexplainable to me.

So of course I stayed with A. E. Kudaev. That continued for maybe 5 years. During these a lot happened. Then I met my biodynamic osteopathic colleagues and was introduced to James Jealous work. And little by little Present Homeopathy started to emerge.

So it all began with listening as I met my first teacher being a second year student at medical university. Listening lead me through lots of different teachings and methods. Listening made all of them equal, it translated them into the language of sensations. Listening translated all the seemingly different information remedies into the language of sensations as well!

The journey ended with Listening following James Jealous’ words “Perception is transparent.”

Testing is a Yang form of listening.

And testing is incomplete without listening in the same way as Homeopathy is incomplete without its not-yet-manifested Yin half.

Testing performed together with listening (Yang together with Yin) is about implementing remedies as our leaders and teachers. It’s about learning from remedies rather than using them for our needs.

Testing (no matter what method you choose) is listening in its manifested Yang form. You may say, you are ok with Yin half and you do not need Yang. Or the opposite. Well, ok then. Good luck!

Yang is not complete without Yin and vice versa. Period.

Listening without testing no mater how cool this idea may seem is neither safe nor transparent. It is influenced by mind/ideas too much. You may succeed though – if only you are free from the latter.

Biodynamic osteopaths use their hands for the same reason. Hands have nothing to do with healing in true Osteopathy. But they provide transparency to the listening process. They prevent compression as they call it – i.e. imparting our opinions to a patient. Whenever we start applying effort in healing, patient’s body switches defense mechanisms. Having a physical contact with the patient we notice that instantly so we may stop the offence and return to transparency.

So even if we experience some exacerbation of chronic disease, e.g. patient comes with a manifested migraine, we do not look for symptomatic remedies in the repertory. We look for everything, but migraine remedies.

Remedy Sets vs. Families

Testing and listening drives us to some particular set of remedies. We never look for a particular remedy. We look for a set. (Similarly, modern homeopaths start with looking for a family and not the particular remedy.) Each set has it’s own landscapes (totalities) we learn to recognize.

Looking for a family or a set of remedies at least makes the remedy selection less biased.

Then we test the remedies from that set and with some particular remedy relief starts instantly and resolves the suffering in some 5-10 minutes, e.g. in our case of migraine the pain should be relieved by some 80-100% at that time.

We do not think, do not analyze, we just recognize the sensations, then rely on our instincts and open the corresponding set.

If we listen, we have no choice. It is not even a topic for discussion. Working in the realm of sensations (as opposed to ideas) makes the difference – e.g., if patient comes with migraine and we truly listen we… get an instant headache! I know, it sounds funny. But in practice that means we can’t move on without getting rid of that pain. It dominates the attention and everything else becomes kind of invisible.

But getting rid of pain (it’s not a big problem if some 10% of it remains in the background) is just a first step. It’s because if we listen, we usually experience the shift in levels sometimes called translocation.

So maybe the pain is gone, as are all other physical sensations, but. e.g., some vague heaviness on an emotional level is now beginning to dominate. We call it the landscape: an overall vague sense of emotional level as a totality, but without any parts exposed.

It definitely had been there before, but it was overshadowed by physical pain. It may be some old emotion that has been suppressed some 10-20 years ago. Patient usually can’t say anything about it: they’ve put too much effort in ignoring it through all these years, they’ve been hiding it not only from others, but also from themselves. It feels as if hidden in the mist: still too vague to be recognized.

So we switch to remedies that address that particular emotional level. These may be Bach Flowers or maybe some modern essences or, e.g., Flowerplexes by Roy Martina that are a blend of homeopathic remedies and potentiated(!) flower essences. You choose whatever is closest to the patient’s state – to that vagueness in our case. Bach flowers are usually softer and Flowerplexess very precise, almost too harsh in some cases; modern essences depend on the manufacturer and region they are made.

Consider each set to have its style. And that style makes the difference between usual family analysis in modern classical Homeopathy.

Look, families have their themes. But learning to recognize these themes by sensations we experience with patients is very very difficult. I mean theme can have very different sensory expressions in each of us. That’s why there are so few Masters and so many seekers in Homeopathy.

I must admit I neither can, nor I want to discern some specific theme as I welcome my patient.

Theme is not a sensation, it’s an idea that belongs to mind. And mind performs different acrobatic tricks with these ideas. As a result all that family analysis stuff works for homeopaths who have specific mindset and who feel themselves comfortable with ideas.

But such practice is definitely not for everyone. Many of us do not have such cataloguing mind. Well, I could say I do. But I can’t see this stuff in my patients. I can’t see… details! Details, like particular organ problem or particular fear taken alone make no sense for me! They never did!

So at first I was reading homeopathic books like those by R. Sankaran or D. Grandgeorge and I was envying these guys for their abilities to pick up essential details from a patient and build the whole case on it. I tried mimic them in my work, but I’ve never succeeded.

I remember having almost phenomenal memory as a student, but I’ve found I can’t remember homeopathic remedy descriptions! No matter how many Materia Medicas I had been reading, these remedy pathogeneses seemed to mock at my attempts to memorize them.

I still felt some special relationship with Homeopathy though. But couldn’t see myself practicing as my other colleagues. Today I consider my inability to memorize remedy descriptions to be one of my main skills.

Details still make no sense for me. Patient’s symptoms, remedy symptoms… These are all details that are not too much worth attention to me.

The surprise and deeper process appears to be the Totality itself. Forget the details! Look at the Totality! It like saying forget the trees, perceive the forest! Do not focus anywhere, except on Totality!

We have to barriers that prevent us from Totality:

1. Thoughts and ideas that seem to happen in our heads
2. Perception that seems like “intuitive perception” happening without any thinking in our Hearts.

Totality is just beyond these two.

Flat vs. dimensional remedies

The other problem with homeopathic families (and that applies to homeopathic remedies as a whole) is that they are kind of… flat. Homeopaths will opose me fiercely. But all homeopathic remedies are made by the same unified method, aren’t they?

Let’s compare these with photography. Imagine you use a specific camera and specific film. (We try to avoid digital in Homeopathy, don’t we?) So we find out we may photograph literally everything. We can do the Moon. Or even the Lightning. And that’s cool.

But if we do hundreds and thousands of photographs of different objects and we retain some critical thinking, we may notice such approach is on the flat side. It works, but also there is something that kind of unifies the objects that are photographed.

Sometimes for a particular object another different style of photograph (e.g. black and white) may appear to be more appropriate. Or maybe painting works even better. What about filming a video, making a sculpture, etc.?

Similarly homeopathic remedies (and different families as well) are flat on a sensory aspect.

If homeopath invests much attention into some remedy, it blooms into many dimensions. Or maybe in one single dimension – but it starts working for that particular practitioner. That’s magic of Homeopathy.

But the problem of such magic is that

• we feel comfortable only with a limited amount of remedies. It takes so much time to induce that blooming.
• we become limited to some kind of sensory perception. We develop some kind of style we feel, experience and perceive remedies.
• On the other hand such style on its own starts shaping our perception of remedies.

Imagine Homeopathy becomes interdisciplinary and we are introduced to many different kinds of information remedies (containing no or only traces of active materials) and work on the same principles.

• A set of spagyric remedies made by Soluna
• A set of R. Steiner’s anhroposophic remedies by Wala or Weleda
• A set of Bach flowers by Nelson or Ainsworths
• A set of Living Tree orchids
• A set of Aura Soma pomanders/ quinteseences by Vicky Wall
• Different sets of formula remedies by different manufacturers
• Numerous sets of amazingly strange remedies made by outstanding modern and past day practitioners.

As a result we get what we call sets of remedies. Each set is made by a particular practitioner, with different approach, method, mindset, etc., etc. All that makes huge sensory difference.

You know, this sensory difference is kind of encoded in such remedies themselves, influenced by their creators, time and situation they emerged from, their usage, etc.

I know the opinion of classical colleagues – such remedies can’t exist together as they stand for different approaches, philosophies, methodologies, they are manufactured differently, they come in different forms, their descriptions differ in both structure and language, etc., etc.

But you know what? They all are perceived as sensations!

Each of them is perceived by senses – but in amazingly different manner. Some of them lead us to sensations we haven’t even imagined may be experienced.

And then a very personal approach to every of these is possible. They are made by people who also may share their intentions, their approach, sensations, expectations. So we may read the transcriptions of Steiner’s lectures, we may find much information on Vicky Wall and her Aura Soma, we may read E. Bach’s books, we may attend the seminars of modern masters, etc.

Present Homeopathy is not a method for your patients. It is for your own growth – both personal and professional.

It is for diving into the realm of sensations. It is about leaving your knowledge aside and perceiving the Life to the full extent. It is about you living your life 100%. Then it starts translating into your work with your patients. The difference is astounding.

It’s for training!!! It’s for much more intensive training than you are used in classics. It’s about proceeding in your sensitivity and perception tens and hundreds times faster that in normal homeopathic practice!

There is a cost to all that. Your attention and devotion are required. You are going to train from the very moment you open your eyes till the moment you get asleep. Then the time will come you will be training 24 hours a day.

If you do not need sensory perception and you are not interested in Totality – Present Homeopathy is not for you. Forget it.

Precision vs. Style

When the patient comes to us, he always brings some kind of sensation with him. Always! But often we start to experience them pretty vaguely. Especially if we are beginners.

Such lack of preciseness usually prevents us from engaging into the work with sensations. We think it is reserved for some special guys who have the gift of some “extrasensory perception”. The truth is most of you are perfectly capable of that!

Having these sets of remedies you do not need to be precise with sensations!

You simply recognize the level first. Consider it is about style.

Imagine you listen to music. Do not try to recognize the precise name of the song. Recognize the style and it will lead you to the artist!

The style is not about details. It is about overall feel! It’s about the totality! I mean real totality, not imaginable one, not in your mind, but in actual sensations you experience together with your patient and colleague if he/she is present together in your consultations.

We often do listening sessions during seminars. Even beginners find out they are perfectly capable in differenting a colourful Aura Soma essence from e.g. isopathic nosode. These are completely different realms of sensations. The texture of sensations is absolutely different! And that’s a very good place to start.

we may find a set that corresponds (is similar speaking on homeopathic terms) this sensation the best.

Remedies lead us through different sensations – just like in usual homeopathic provings. Only here that happens during consultation.

Our jobs here becomes to:

1. To guide the patient’s attention through sensations he’s experiencing by asking questions and inviting to compare the sensations here and there. By doing that patients quickly learn the language of sensations and after several consultations may become pretty good listeners.
2. To communicate the message we get from remedies to the patient in the language he/she understands.

I mean here we work mainly as interpreters between remedies that manifest as sensations in patient’s body and the patient himself. Please note, that by saying “body” I actually mean all the possible “subtle bodies” up to the very depths of Soul – each of them has it’s own distinct sensations that may be recognized.

All that is very important. And nevertheless, this is not true Healing yet. That’s meant only for “beginning of the treatment”. We could say for it’s for “removing the main obstacles for the true Healing to come” but even that would be a little too much. I’m sorry, it’s hard to explain. I must confess, I lost understanding of “my” role in the process of Healing…

You know, there comes a time when seeing ceases to excite us.

Then Seeing comes spontaneously as a tidal wave at 0/360° and transmutes everything that needs to be transmuted. It’s true Healing that comes as a grace and leave us silent. It’s the most beautiful experience here on Earth. It’s the reason why many of us choose this profession.

seeing and Seeing

So here we speak about seeing and Seeing (or listening and Listening):

I. seeing is about details and it’s personal.

It’s about our own skills and attention that we train in numerous everyday provings and simple practice of awareness. Here we learn to recognize the subtlest sensations, we perceive those “images”, etc. The beauty (and also Sisyphus curse!) is that such training has no end, there are no limits for perfection here. It’s like we’re chasing the horizon: there is no way we can touch it. And nevertheless we train: much more methodically than guys in classical Homeopathy. We have sets of remedies that represent different levels and we have various techniques to deal with them.

I know it may sound strange for my homeopathic colleagues, but training and perfecting techniques is much more important than studying remedies. I’ve been taught in such tradition and I find it to be way superior to classical remedy studies.

Techniques are extremely important for us in the beginning. Yes, they start losing their importance as we go past 180°.

• Techniques enhance seeing.
• Techniques help to reveal and experience the aspects of remedies and patients that otherwise would be left unnoticed.
• Techniques cover many ways of presenting the same remedy to the patient.
• Techniques are also about finding the optimal strategy for making a remedy so that patient may take it home with him/her.
• Techniques we use are simple. and quick to learn externally. But they have almost no limits internally. They take years of everyday practice to master.
• Techniques let us present the same remedy to patient at different levels, e.g. we may take some nosode and present it on causal rather than physical level – sometimes that makes a huge difference.

Please, understand: shamanic Homeopathy is actually about techniques. Consider shaman’s drum or incense or whatever to be examples of techniques. Look, it makes no sense for shaman to study “spirits” reading the books. So he learns techniques, e.g. he needs to master the drum to get in contact with them.

Actually he gets into the states of specific spirits – just like we experience the states of specific remedies during the consultation. And this is the way spirits become shaman’s teachers. Or remedies become our teachers. It’s simple as that. And it’s extremely homeopathic. It’s all about bringing the proving experience into clinical practice.

Look, it is impossible for shaman to teach you about spirits. It makes no sense. He can’t present you these spirits. Speaking about them makes no sense either. But he can show and teach you techniques. And then guide your attention through these to let you experience these spirits in your own way.

I always find teaching exciting as with each of you I experience the same remedy from a different point of view! Teaching is always mutual.

Also, in learning how to see our teachers and colleagues become of the utter importance. Much, much more important than in classics where you may study remedies by reading the books or listening to video/audio material.

Studying Present Homeopathy alone is a disaster. So you do it with your colleagues. You kind of calibrate your senses so that they get synchronized. We learn to practice with an open Heart, so we begin to feel what our colleague feels. So that if we work in pair or in group with more experienced colleagues our sensory perception is increased immensely.

Then the same happens with our patients. And they take our training to another level. Having a demanding patient in front of us is different than having a friendly colleague who’s eager to help. Working with patients the only help we may rely on is our remedies… and Seeing.

II. Seeing is all about the Totality.

It’s not personal, it has nothing to do with our knowledge and skills. It’s “Listening from capital L” as James Jealous calls it. It’s that “moment of grace”, it’s “revelation”. It’s 0/360° in our circle of perception. It has nothing to do with images or any other forms of perception. Images and perception actually are happening in It. They are like different aspects of a movie and Totality is like the screen.

When you see the movie and you are not aware of the screen, the movie seems to contain many details that move and change. Things in the movie seem to be real. But when the screen becomes evident, the movie becomes a continuos interplay of the light from a projector. The details are still there, but their illusionary and temporal nature is evident. The movie is always on the move, it is transitory. It has nothing stationary in it. Sometimes a picture seems to freeze, but that’s for a short time only.

It appears there is only one Reality, that never changes (the Screen). The trick is that whenever we call it “Reality” or “the Screen” or “Emptiness”, etc. – it instantly becomes a part of a movie and becomes a mistake. Our Reality/Totality has no form and no name.

When It manifests during a consultation, It comes and wipes details away. Only 1 remains. It’s space (again, if you take it literally, it becomes one of the elements in the “movie”) in which all these details happen.

But even if it is not personal, Seeing is also trained! That is done not directly, but nevertheless extremely systematically. Such training happens in just the opposite manner than learning how to see. It’s about getting into the silent Yin side. Step by step we learn to descend into deeper and deeper levels of Stillness. It’s not about adding something, like developing new skills, etc., but about a subtraction, about getting rid of what is extra. At the end literally everything appears to be extra.

Again, in my practice remedies take me and my patient into the these levels of stillness. We do nothing to find our selves there. Usually that happens with what we call “relatively positive remedies”. They reveal Silence in us. Just imagine – not sensations like with usual homeopathic remedies. It’s more like taking away our body sensations, all these energies, emotions, thoughts, etc. Well, that’s exactly how it is experienced: suddenly body sensations and thoughts are wiped away. What is left? Well, that depends on what level of stillness we find ourselves at that moment.

Levels of Stillness

I know, for most homeopaths levels of stillness seem as exotic as shaman’s spirits. Homeopaths have never been overly interested in stillness as it is almost the opposite to sensations. Therefore you can’t actually put stillness into repertories! And it has nothing to do with pathos either. It belongs to Health. And homeopaths do not consider Health to be homeopathic. So it makes no sense to them.

Well, more superficial levels of stillness are experienced as… stillness. You may experience it everyday simply observing the nature – even if you do it through a window. But it also has hints of “sensations”. Sometimes it may happen that body seems like having stopped. Or the whole world suddenly stops. There is no sense of moving even if everything continues to move around in usual tempo.

In my case Mescalite (Anhalonium levinii D6) was the first teacher to show it clearly. Then my osteopathic colleagues showed it in much finer details.

As an example of these I’ll try to describe the so-called Meeting Point they taught me to recognize. We recognize that level by the sensation of a starry sky. Imagine you sit with your patient, you play with the remedies, and suddenly both of you perceive a deep starry sky around/above you. I mean you do not see it, but it is felt like that. Context may vary, but there is that sensation of a starry sky and special stillness you can’t miss. What does it mean? Some say by getting here we get back to the last stop before our incarnation. It contains the information about the potential we bring here with us to the Earth. Being taken by this special stillness, the patient gets in touch with his original life mission. During consultation it’s just that special stillness that is experienced. But usually after a day or two the patient starts to remember something essential about his life. It may take longer. But anyway, getting to this Meeting Point usually means that at least some changes in his/her life are going to happen. Pretty often these are quite radical ones.

Again, as always some 90% of work is done during the consultation: finding a remedy that takes us into this stillness and then finding another remedy/way to integrate it into body experience is our job. We do it by testing the remedies and listening to patient’s reactions. Remedies do all the work for us. They perform it live as we sit with the patient and listen.

Yes, usually we give remedies to patients to be taken home after a consultation. But they have already done their work! What patients take with them are just reminders of the journey we’ve performed during the consultation. Usually we need these as we face quite a big inertia from our surroundings and reminders help us to overcome it.

I’ve tried to share one of the numerous aspects of practicing Homeopathy on the Yin side. That’s why we speak about the Yang and Yin in Homeopathy. I hope you find some answers if you follow the link. But, please, do not cling onto intellectual stuff.

Role of Intention

True healing comes as a grace that involves all the Totality…

It’s true that it may come spontaneously at any moment of consultation. It always does. But then it sounds like S. Cartwright’s description of shaman’s practice: it looks nice, but homeopaths have no clues how to get there.

Again, the answer is in the circle.

1. We welcome our patient and we experience the sensations. we find the appropriate remedy and it leads us deeper into the realm of sensations. We explore the Yang side.
2. Then other remedy starts leading us inwards into the levels of stillness up until no sensations are left. That’s our job as homeopaths. And we should take it seriously and perform that as sincerely and thoroughly as we can.
3. And nevertheless, every moment we should be aware of our limits. We should have deep understanding that our knowledge is not enough and the true Heling does not depend on our efforts. We should trust the Tide as James Jealous call It. And then one moment it takes us over. It never happens according to our own intentions. It happens when it happens at 0/360° in our circle of perception.

But yes, our intentions play some role as well. When we are hungry for details, peculiar sensations and magic, and we ignore (or overstate) the levels of stillness – we kind of limit chances for the true Healing to come. We do not wait for It. We do not leave the doors open. We do not want to surrender to It. Our ego wants to become an extraordinary healer. We want to perform the healing ourselves, we want to be magicians.

There was a time homeopaths strived to be scientific. We call it classical Homeopathy, but actually it was clinical in it’s essence. Dealing with diseases like typhoid fever and cholera demanded extremely good clinical skills and detailed knowledge of remedies and methodology.

But todays Homeopathy (call it classical or whatever) is very different. Dealing with mostly chronic cases opened up numerous different new approaches. Today homeopaths are very exited about stepping from that scientific realm into a magical one. They seek for and they eagerly share cases or proving experiences with magical effects they get from remedies. Or experiences they get during trituration practices, etc. It’s true Perceptional Homeopathy in its early childhood.

When you grow up and you reach some 33 years of age you may turn inwards into the silent and hidden Yin side, into working in these Levels of stillness. Or not-working to be more precise.

When you pass these, you may arrive at Present Homeopathy.

Shaman vs. Homeopath

Comparing these two approaches may reveal certain discrepancies. Becoming aware of them may lead to some essential changes in our homeopathic practice. Let’s start with a shaman:

1. Shaman’s goal is to See. Seeing = Healing.
2. Shaman remains passive, but aware. Seeing (be it seeing or Seeing) does not require any effort. Just like we don’t have to apply any effort in order to hear, see, smell, etc. in our everyday life – that just happens naturally with awareness.
3. Shaman even does not have to dig deeper, e.g. to ask about the past events. analyze them and make decisions. All that work is performed by “spirits” who show shaman all that he needs to see. Spirits reveal those past events if needed so that these pop out as sensations and memories and are perceived as if happening in the present moment. Look, we never use a time machine to travel back – we remember and re-experience these “past events” in the present moment!
4. Shaman’s only job is to remain in “altered state of consciousness”, i.e. in awareness, open to perception. Well, in Present Homeopathy and Biodynamic Osteopathy we simply call that “state” Listening (you’ll find quite detailed text on it if you follow the link) and it isn’t altered by any means – it is the most natural state of all. Actually, we spent all our childhood in it. Conversely, it’s our “thinking mind” that is altered and distorted!

Now homeopaths try to approach that in just the opposite way:

1. Homeopath’s goal is the remedy. One remedy. It’s ok in acutes. But in chronic cases it appears there is no homeopathic way to get to it: symptoms are vague and scarce, the causes of the illness are hidden somewhere deep.
2. Homeopaths are not usually involved into listening not to mention Listening – these are not taught in schools. And everyone knows that rational symptomatic approach isn’t valid in chronic cases, too. So homeopaths study and try hard to employ different non-homeopathic techniques for “seeing”: e.g., S. Cartwright himself mentions “I use certain symbolic systems” for that. Almost each homeopath uses his/her own non-homeopathic approach for “seeing” and approaching the totality. That makes learning and communication between colleagues almost impossible as each comes with his/her own set of tools.
3. Seeing and totality are considered to be just steps to mythical similimum. Actually, all the attention goes to the remedy. So much work is required: analysis, thinking, differentiating until homeopaths comes to a remedy.

Don’t you see an absurdity here?

• Homeopaths mistake the goal with the means that help reaching it. They want to use totality to get to prescription! Who needs remedies if we have already “seen”?
• Homeopaths do not perceive prescription as something that leads to totality. They refuse help from their remedies in a process of seeing, they rely on non-homeopathic techniques instead: anamnesis, typology, therapeutic techniques, etc.
• Refusing help from their remedies homeopaths are left alone with their “intuition”. But what if I do not have that intuition? I mean nobody has in the beginning! The only way to gain intuition is to practice in the right way and proceed with that for quite a long time… And what is the right way to practice (considering symptoms are not helpful at all)? So we have a real circulus vitiosus here.
• And of course, nobody differentiates seeing from Seeing in Homeopathy.

Look, shaman is not alone, he has “spirits”. “Spirits” do the job for him, they “help him to see”. They teach him! He’s actually not looking for the meaning or understanding himself. He does not need analysis!

What if Homeopathy in its essence is not different from her sister Osteopathy? What if Homeopathy is equally perceptible. I compare my work as homeopath’s with my fellows biodynamic osteopaths. The only difference I can find is that they use their hands and I use the remedies.

Actually, “seeing” is simply about recognizing that happens by itself – simply “waiting in neutrality” with no our effort and will involved.

I must confess I’ve been using our remedies exactly in the same way as this shaman does with his “spirits”. Remedies do the job perfectly. They lead from locals to general, from parts to Totality (Health). They not only help us to relieve with the problems that bother us, but they also reveal what has been hidden. Therefore we speak about this Journey and also about the hidden Yin side of Homeopathy.

What if shaman’s spirits and our homeopathic remedies are of the same nature?

Look, I don’t mean our remedies are spirits. Nor I mean that shaman’s spirits are remedies. I mean that what shaman calls “spirits” might be not spirits at all. And what homeopaths call “remedies” may happen to be not exactly remedies. I bet they aren’t!

Ah, there is that “altered state of consciousness” mentioned in this article. Well, we simply call it Listening. We learn it, teach it, train it with our colleagues and friends. Some of my patients having undergo through a series of consultations have become good enough at listening to give masterclass seminars for experienced homeopaths…

How do remedies help us to “see”?

Well, “seeing” appears to be quite opposite to prescribing. “Seeing” actually comes from a proving experience that is implemented into the consultation process and perceived happening live with the patient.

Imagine we take our patient to an exhibition of paintings remedies. We walk together and observe the patient reacting. The majority of remedies make no or only slight impression on him. But when he approaches his remedy (the one that is important to him at a present moment) he’s absorbed into it immediately. He stands still, he stares and he can’t say a word – so deep the impression is.

All that It happens spontaneously, involuntary and is not controlled by anyone. Attention stops at some particular picture/remedy by itself. No will is involved here.

Walking the exhibition (or a bookstore, library, etc.) is essentially the most natural proving experience.

• Imagine you walk the exhibition and naturally stop at paintings that spontaneously catch your attention.
• And now imagine you are tied to a chair standing in front of one and only painting I’ve selected for proving.

Yes, that’s how huge the difference is in practice.

You may think patient has free will to choose the paintings he likes. And you think that makes him vulnerable in choosing not the right one. But actually, no one has free will while walking in the exhibition. The true reactions to paintings come up spontaneously, we can’t control them. We can’t choose what captures our attention and what does not. We can’t choose to enjoy that particular painting or not. As we observe patient walking, we observe his/her body reactions. Body never lies!

Admiration, disgust, surprise – all these happen spontaneously depending on what we have already got inside. So seeing a particular painting some memories, desires or insights may arise being triggered by painting’s theme, colour palette, interplay of shadows and colors, etc. Again, that’s very very subjective and situation dependent. It’s the same similia similibus.

Homeopaths think there is something objective and scientific in the remedy that works according to similarity.

Based on our highly structured Materia Medica or repertories some colleagues even say Homeopathy is as precise as math. Or say it is predictable.

Well, working on Yang side and dealing with acute cases it is rather predictable. But dealing with chronic cases and working on Yin side, sitting on that tip of the iceberg and staring at the vast and dark ocean… Nothing’s predictable there.

Well, its like saying there is something objective in a painting, i.e. seen by each of us who’s watching. Such idea is valid intellectually, but it does not work in practice.

In practice there is nothing, but attention…

It is always we ourselves who create that similarity !

Or we may call it synchronicity speaking in K. Jung’s terms. Similarity is never in paintings or remedies, it is in ourselves, sometimes hidden deep inside.

I have a question for you. If I look at the painting and it suddenly reminds me my grandmother’s apron’s colours – should we include “grandmother” into that painting’s description?

I know, such proposition seems absurd. But so does the majority of additions to homeopathic repertories!

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Reading the Remedies

Nevertheless, in Present Homeopathy we really enjoy reading remedy descriptions a lot. Only here that also happens now, i.e. live, while experiencing them. It is like reading the description of that painting we are looking at in an exhibition. Or reading about the scent we are smelling. Or reading about the music we are hearing. Or reading gourmet’s remarks about the food we are tasting.

We immediately compare the text with our actual live experience. We instantly see that some words resonate with it and some do not. The words that make sense, that drive our attention usually are hints or explanations of our own experiences. They support our insights and actually deepen our own experience.

Such reading becomes a part of the consultation process. Reading may help to understand what is going on, what these sensations or levels of stillness we are experiencing now are about. Usually by reading we get a hint and then we know how to formulate the questions for the patient.

Listening to the actual sensations and reading remedy descriptions enables us to ask patient very precise questions. Sometimes I ask only 1-2 questions during all consultations process. But these appear to be essential ones and make huge impact on a patient. These are the questions that remedies have shown me.

Reading the remedy without experiencing it live makes no sense anymore.

But as we read live a very interesting magic happens!

Reading while experiencing means each time we read it differently.

Accents are completely different. So for each patient even the same remedy is read differently. Such reading becomes a skill of its own.

As we read live we compare text with our actual experiences. It is very quick reading – we scan the text and we just ignore what does not reflect our present experience.

With some practice we learn defocus the text, look at it as a totality and simply observe the words emerging out of the blur. Usually these are several words out of whole description – and we ask the patient why this particular theme is so dominant?

That’s how remedies reveal various aspects of our patient – and each time it happens in a very unique way. More and more we are going to rely on listening to the remedies (like in proving) rather than prescribing them. Remedies will become our leaders and true helpers in the consultation process. Patients will become our teachers.

Here also very peculiar thing happens. Instead of feeling the remedies as sensations (or symptoms as they call it in common classical approach) we start to recognize the remedies as entities standing beyond these. We perceive them as leaders and teachers that do their job differently each time.

Even if the remedy is the same, sensations that are revealed are different in every patient.

Well, you may ask – what’s the point? How can we distinguish/ differentiate the remedies then? The answer is – “We don’t have to!”

Well, in acute cases we “read” patient’s symptoms and then we match them with the most similar remedy we can get. We have pronounced, manifested symptoms in patient. A good clinician has outstanding skills of observing the patient and taking even the tiniest details into consideration. So we get a pretty clear picture of the case and then we look into the remedy descriptions and find one that matches the case best. We differentiate the remedies and find the relieving one – the similimum.

But in chronic cases it is vice versa! There is so little information we can get from the patient: symptoms are vague and not so important (e.g. skin rash, long lasting joint problems, etc.) as the causes of illness and essence of the case are hidden. Therefore we start with the remedies, not the patient. It seems as if we are listening to the remedies. We present remedies for the patient, we test them and we listen: we find the one that provokes the deepest response, then we read it, i.e. we look what matches that remedy in the patient. It is the opposite approach, like YIN is opposite to YANG. It reveals what is hidden, what stands beyond the disease.

In the latter case we remain passive, We switch remedies and listen. It is the patient who “decides” which remedy is the most important at a moment given.

Many homeopaths think it takes time for the remedy to work. Well, it is not exactly the truth. How much time do you need to react to a painting as you walk the exhibition? A month? Of course not, it happens in less than a second. And the reaction itself is most pronounced in the first minutes. That’s why we speak of splash and ripples.

So here we really do not have to differentiate remedies. The patient does. Nevertheless we read the remedies that patient reacts to. Our job is simply to recognize the words in text that belong to the patient.

Reading shapes the remedies.

The totality usually happens as we read and suddenly understand the truth. We suddenly “see” speaking in shamanic terms. Then we can share that “seeing” with the patient. If he/she also sees, the Healing happens here and now. Otherwise it may take time, so they go home with the remedy.

You see, here remedies lose their individual face.

They become like unique distorted mirrors each reflecting different our aspects. So even if a hundred patients come to that same mirror, we never get the same image! Speaking in classical terms, the remedy has “theme” that is expressed in each of us quite differently.

So how do we know what remedies we should start with?

Well, I’ve been taught to differentiate the remedies according to the levels they address. We’ll get to levels pretty soon. For now, imagine each level having it’s own realm of sensations which may feel like subtleness. So you feel the subtleness of sensation that patient brings entering the consultation room. And you go to the appropriate set of remedies that are of similar softness. But that’s a separate topic, actually.

Consider each kind of remedies having a certain style.

Remedies become our pathfinders, leaders and teachers. You know, every good teacher finds individual approach to each new student. But nevertheless the teacher has certain style.

Subtleness, depth, intensity and not the particular sensations are what defines the remedies.

Reading the remedies compliments listening experience. So that we not only perceive something happening, but also understand its roots, causes and interrelationships.

There is always a peculiar chain of instant reactions that happen at each painting as we stop spontaneously (these usually do not happen when we are forced to stop by someone else, like in traditional homeopathic provings where remedy is selected by others):

1. First of all we perceive attention shifting. It goes two directions at once – to the painting and to myself. It’s because the painting is the mirror to see myself better. When we become aware of Attention, it’s the only thing we get devoted to while walking the exhibition (consultation).
2. Then some sensations may arise. Homeopaths call these “symptoms” and base their practice on that. But no matter how diverse sensations may be, they are the least important stage here. Of course, they are important – but only as signs.
3. These signs point to situations. It is always tricky to understand the meaning of these signs. Therefore we use reading. And reading the remedies becomes a skill of its own.
4. As we start to understand the meaning, immediately the scales start to move towards a perfect balance and end up in stillness. These scales are put on some particular zone in the body, called fulcrum in biodynamic osteopathy. Fulcrum takes the weight so that we may find a balance between some event in life and our own reactions to it. Stillness is the perfect balance at the moment given. Suddenly sensations and levels disappear and we into stillness.
5. It may lead us into dissolving in the Totality completely. That’s what James Jealous call the Tide. Or Healing. Here everything literally disappears. Oneness is all that remains.

It doesn’t matter how many remedies you are going to need to get there. Usually 3-4. If you make it with just one, like guys do in classical Homeopathy – please let me know. I’d like to become your student. Really.

Again, we are not speaking about some distant results. We are speaking about the perfect balance that is experienced by both you and your patient during the consultation – in the present moment.

“Small” remedies

Such approach leads to a very natural use and understanding of different kinds of so-called small remedies including isopathic, spagyric, gemmotherapic, lithoterapic and even formula ones. Homeopaths usually refer to these as inferior and complimentary to simillimum:

I can only wonder what “sickness of spirit” is, how it is diagnosed and “cured”. I know, classical homeopaths have their own philosophy. But I’ve been taught in a very different tradition…

I’ve been taught that body is… spiritual. Way more spiritual than e.g. mind. When most people are used to live in their minds thinking about life rather than perceiving it directly, body becomes the most spiritual tool available. Look, body is always here & now. Well, except when we sleep, of course – but then there is nothing at all. On the other hand thinking never happens here & now.

Body is way more spiritual than what we may think.

Observing/listening to sensations leads to direct perception that is happening in the Heart. It leads to stillness then Silence/ Emptiness / Totality. So it starts with body which serves as anchor in here&now. But if it starts with ideas… it’s a disaster, it leads nowhere.

That’s why in our “shamanic” practice we start with the body. We learn its language and how to listen to it. Even when listening turns into Listening (it is all about Totality), body remains our main instrument.

So we start with “small” remedies. They take a role of the anchor in the body or some kind of Ariadne’s thread. They prepare us for the journey. They mark the entrance to a Labyrinth (a multi-storey one). Then more and more “spiritual” remedies offer their help as we ascend to the upper levels – up until we get dissolved in Totality.

Each remedy no matter how big or “spiritual” and even how similar it is, has its own limits. It has its “specialization”, e.g. when we come to the dark forest we may find a pathfinder, who leads us through it. But then as we come out of the forest to the shore of a lake, like in fairy tales he says “I can’t take you any further.” So we have to look for a boatman.

And that’s exactly how the journey feels for both patient and practitioner: we get dynamics with the remedy at first we experience liveliness and movement, but after 5-10-15 minutes we feel stuck, we are not going anywhere. So we look for another leader/ pathfinder who can takes us further. As a rule we do not need more than one remedy for one level, e.g. we never address emotional level twice during a consultation.

And even when we get to the Totality (actually, we do not, it is impossible, it’s the Totality that gets us when we cease to resist It), we still need another small one – for getting back to the body that has already been transmuted, to get back to the entrance point. It’s a bit paradoxical.

Look, experiencing the “Totality” of a Labiryth/ Life usually makes a huge impression on a patient. It feels great. Having no feel of the body, (almost) no thoughts and losing the ability to show your own boundaries is pretty blissful.

But then we find another very simple remedy and with its help we return to that entrance point. Blissfulness is gone and we return to our natural state that is pretty… simple! But somehow everything feels perfectly balanced. Much more balanced than in that blissfulness! Both patient and practitioner feel the journey is over, and everything extra is about to ruin the experience.

So eventually after 1-2 hours of travelling through labyrinth, being lead by different remedies we get back to where we started. That’s why we ask practitioners to pay attention to the very beginning of consultation. Here at the end we get to the same theme, pattern, sensation, words – as in the very beginning. And also there is a feeling of overall balance and perfection. We feel that any extra remedy ruins that balance. The consultation is over.

I know, classical homeopaths think they need to prescribe on the totality. Some of them try to construct totality out of symptoms. That works in acute cases. And makes completely no sense in chronic ones.

Some colleagues go deeper than symptomatic prescribing and use various advanced approaches to get there. That’s nice and that’s why experienced homeopaths get good results in treating chronic cases. But… that’s not Homeopathy! Approaching Totality and Healing are synonyms. Totality eliminates the need for prescription! You can do nothing in Totality. There is no sense of practitioner not patient in Totality. If you can dissolve in It by other means, you do not need Homeopathy at all. If you use it anyway, you just mask your “shamanic” skills with it.

What I am trying to say is that we have our remedies who help to approach the Totality. There is no need for prescription.

Remedies show us the direction for cure, they take us where needed, they reveal what is hidden: not only the roots of disease, but also our potential that mat be locked up somewhere.

On the other hand Totality is not something we can reach. Totality does not belong to this world at all. Totality happens when YANG and YIN unite, when manifested and unmanifested become one in Love. There is nothing more beautiful than Totality.

Here we cease dividing our remedies into “spiritual” and “mechanistic” ones. They all work for the same Totality! They are stages for approaching It.

You know, having such an intimate relationship with remedies (plants, minerals, etc.) that we start to feel them as living beings is fascinating. That enables us to learn and get help from them. That promotes our personal and professional growth.

One of the sets of “spiritual” remedies I used to work with frequently contained information from different places of Power from all over the world, famous relics, etc. These were made for a very different applications than usual homeopathic prescriptions. And they did their job in a really spectacular manner. They didn’t feel like “remedies” – really more like Leaders. Nevertheless one day my colleague and teacher and maker of such remedies A.E. Kudaev said these were just different aspects of ourselves. This remark made me doubt in everything that I know about them.

I had already had hundreds of such journeys with my patients and colleagues. Nevertheless it became clear that something is too much and overly complicated here.

In Homeopathy it perhaps started with Dr. R.T. Cooper’s arborivital medicine. He is still one of the finest sources of Homeopathic wisdom even today. He has actually begun the transitioning from classical to Present Homeopathy.

But R.T. Cooper was too revolutionary for homeopaths at his time even if his works inspired J.H. Clarke, E. Bach and many others. Here are several articles by Peter Morell that may be worth your closer attention:

• ROBERT THOMAS COOPER [1844-1903],
• Doses and Signatures: Robert Cooper as Homeopathic Rebel and Innovator,
• FROM COOPER CLUB TO FLOWER ESSENCES: A PORTRAIT OF BRITISH HOMEOPATHY 1870-1930

Cooper’s approach was based on a very intimate relationship with plants. He literally made friends with plants. He took care of them, he contributed a lot to the forestry in Ireland preserving trees. Being a great plant lover and observer he could use doctrine of signatures in a very special way.

His successor E. Bach went even further employing his sensitivity, observing his own emotions at different plants or trees. Then A. Bailey made his essences that were targeted neither to the body nor to emotions. And so on.