How Homeopathy Works

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead Instructor]

I think I finally figured out how homeopathy works. It came to me all the sudden in a flash of insight and understanding.

Hanneman said “Like cures like”. That is the premise of homeopathy. You put a microscopic amount of something that would cause the same symptom into the body and the body decides it should do something about it and gets better. This, of course, makes no sense. If a million E. coli bacteria causing diarrhea in the gut don’t cause the body to notice it has a problem, why would a microscopic amount change its paradigm? Also, if microscopic amounts of stuff can have such a huge impact on the body, why aren’t we noticibly impacted constantly by trace amounts of the countless substances we encounter in our environments through daily living?

The answer is, I believe, that homeopathic remedies have nothing to do with the body.

To create a homeopathic remedy, you take a small amount of the symptom-causing substance and dilute it. Then you shake it vigorously. Then you dilute it again and shake it and repeat this process a number of times. It isn’t long until you have literally nothing left of the original substance, only the water that the substance was shaken in.

We are dualistic beings. We have a physical body, but we also have an energetic, spiritual body. That spiritual body has all the same organs and structures as the physical body but in a spiritual form. The process of diluting and shaking the homeopathic remedy reduces it to its spiritual, energetic form…its vital essence if you will. This vital essence or spiritual signature of the substance, along with the vital intent of the shaker, impact not the physical body (which would be completely oblivious to their presence) but rather the spiritual body.

Perhaps the root of dis-ease is really a fault in the connection and harmony of the body and the spirit. Perhaps a homeopathic remedy somehow stimulates the spiritual body and causes it to respond. When the spiritual body responds to the stimulus (which it does instantly and perfectly because it never has disease) maybe the physical body resonates with that spiritual/energetic response and mounts a physical response of it own which eliminates the symptom from its physical self.

Patrick

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

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Sandy Young

[Technomagus]

I have never tried it, but it sounds a bit woo-woo to me. This doesn’t mean it does not work for people for precisely the reasons you say, or perhaps even a very good placebo effect. I just find it hard to grasp.

I understand herbs and essential oils because I understand they are essentially chemical compounds that react with the body in different ways, stimulating certain organs or allowing various reactions within our complex living engine we call a body. This makes a little more sense to me.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead InstructorTopic Author]

Technomagus wrote: I have never tried it, but it sounds a bit woo-woo to me. This doesn’t mean it does not work for people for precisely the reasons you say, or perhaps even a very good placebo effect. I just find it hard to grasp.

I understand herbs and essential oils because I understand they are essentially chemical compounds that react with the body in different ways, stimulating certain organs or allowing various reactions within our complex living engine we call a body. This makes a little more sense to me.

The thing about homeopathy that I can’t dismiss is that it works in veterinary applications. Dogs and cows don’t experience any placebo effect. If it weren’t for that, I’d have to be on the woo-woo wagon with you.

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[ComfreyStudent]

I have tried homeopathy several times. Maybe it wasn’t the right formula, but I never felt it work that well for me. Herbs on the other hand are often very effective.

That being said, I’ve used homeopathy with my children on a few occasions with incredible results. Particularly my six year old son who had asthma so bad, he was on a nebulizer inhaler several times a day, and had just spent an eventful week in the hospital. In desperation I went to a nearby health food herb shop. The woman there muscle tested him, and found he was allergic to milk. She sold us some homeopathy drops and had us take dairy from his diet. Within three days he was cured! It was amazing. That was 15 years ago. He’s all grown up now, still doesn’t drink milk, and has the occasional allergy, but nothing more. I credit the homeopathy for his quick recovery, and not drinking milk to his continuing health.

P.S. He was too little for it to have been a placebo effect.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead InstructorTopic Author]

I find it ironic and humerous that scoffers insists that

nothing can do something (the placebo effect)

but on the other hand insist that

something can’t do something (homeopathy) .

Patrick

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[Nanny]

I have about a 30 plus year experience with homeopathy. I have to say at first I was a little skeptical to say the least. You have to get to know the personalities of the homeopathics just like you do the herbs. As time goes on I get better and better at it, and have had a great deal of success. One thing that helped me understand in the beginning is a friend took me to their piano, they hit a C tuning fork and all the c’s on the piano began to vibrate, not the a’s, d’s, or b flats, just the c’s because they had the same frequency pattern. The light bulb went off. Yes it is a support to our vital essence if you will but also to our electrical current which is much more tangible with the physical senses. You start at the very beginning with a 30c single remedy kit and get very familiar with them, them move to homo-cords and then to combinations and series therapies. It is quite a nice adjunct to use with herbs. Just start at the beginning and learn step by step. I wouldn’t be without them now.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sandy Young

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead InstructorTopic Author]

Thanks for the input Nanny. It’s something I’ve been meaning to explore….even bought a little starter set from Butterfly Express at the last Expo I did. I’m going to see if I can straighten out some placebo-free dogs.

Anybody know where I can get a few more hours in my days?

One of the points favoring homeopathy in my mind is that the remedies can be made without much technology or equipment.

Doc

Nanny wrote: I have about a 30 plus year experience with homeopathy. I have to say at first I was a little skeptical to say the least. You have to get to know the personalities of the homeopathics just like you do the herbs. As time goes on I get better and better at it, and have had a great deal of success. One thing that helped me understand in the beginning is a friend took me to their piano, they hit a C tuning fork and all the c’s on the piano began to vibrate, not the a’s, d’s, or b flats, just the c’s because they had the same frequency pattern. The light bulb went off. Yes it is a support to our vital essence if you will but also to our electrical current which is much more tangible with the physical senses. You start at the very beginning with a 30c single remedy kit and get very familiar with them, them move to homo-cords and then to combinations and series therapies. It is quite a nice adjunct to use with herbs. Just start at the beginning and learn step by step. I wouldn’t be without them now.

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[Laura L. BergesonStudent]

Maybe not much technology or equipment, but lots of knowledge! It’s on my list of things to learn before a collapse of civilization.

[Dorothea]

Homeopathy was developed single-handedly by Samuel Christian Hahnemann (1755-1843), a German physician. I grew up in Germany and “everybody” is using it there. The nice part about it is that you will never run out of any medicine. In case it is not available to you anymore, or you can’t afford it, make it homeopathic. All you have to do is put a little bit of your leftover medicine in a half full water bottle, so you have about a dilution of 1:99. Succuss 40x by slamming the bottle into the palm of your hand. Empty the water bottle except for a little bit, about the same amount you started out with. Fill again half full with water and succuss 40x. Keep repeating that process six times. The last one, dump most of it out, fill into a little glass bottle with a dropper and add Vodka. There is your medicine. Take 5-10 drops 3x a day. When it gets low, add water or Vodka. Success a couple times and now your medicine is stronger, which is good. You can repeat that process to the end of your days. You will never run out. You body will get tired of a homeopathic medicine if you keep taking the same strength. So refreshing it will do it some good.

[stfiacresfarm]

We use to use homeopathy, myself for 13 years and my husband 30 some years. In the last couple of years we dived into it deeply on how it works. This article is a great explanation of how there i nothing in it:

At best it is a placebo and worst a superstition, which for us is a religious issue that I won’t go into but as Doc says it basically works on the soul and as Catholics that doesn’t work for us. We now just use tinctures and herbs in teas ect where there is proof there are herbs in it.

[Dorothea]

It sure works for me for all kinds of stuff and it works for others. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. I make my own homeopathic remedies and they work better than taking the herbs or chemicals directly.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead InstructorTopic Author]

Dorothea wrote: It sure works for me for all kinds of stuff and it works for others. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. I make my own homeopathic remedies and they work better than taking the herbs or chemicals directly.

I know quite a few people that swear by them. Some of those are veterinarians well-trained to think otherwise…and dogs don’t know anything about the placebo effect.

I don’t use them simply because there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to connect with yet another modality.

My work is herbs, acupuncture (with tuning forks) and cupping. Those three seem to fix most stuff I see.

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[Dorothea]

>My work is herbs, acupuncture (with tuning forks) and cupping. Those three seem to fix most stuff I see.

Doc

When you run out of the herbs and cannot get any of the ones you need, cannot afford them or run out of other meds you just can’t get anymore for any reason at all, make homeopathic stuff out of the last bit of it and you will have the stuff forever, you will never run out of it then. It is also great for herbs where the effective dose and the deadly dose are close together, such as digitalis and belladonna. Both highly effective and they work like a charm as homeopathic preparation.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead InstructorTopic Author]

Doc wrote: >My work is herbs, acupuncture (with tuning forks) and cupping. Those three seem to fix most stuff I see.

Doc

Dorothea wrote: When you run out of the herbs and cannot get any of the ones you need, cannot afford them or run out of other meds you just can’t get anymore for any reason at all, make homeopathic stuff out of the last bit of it and you will have the stuff forever, you will never run out of it then. It is also great for herbs where the effective dose and the deadly dose are close together, such as digitalis and belladonna. Both highly effective and they work like a charm as homeopathic preparation.

Always good to have options. 🙂

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[Lady Solidago]

I recognize homeopathy as one of those “bio-individual” things. It has not worked for me, but I accept that it does work for others. Let me explain further…

I think it is similar to how people who have experienced severe trauma react to stimuli that others would casually dismiss, their emotional/spiritual/psychological “bodies” processing things differently than others. For example, if you were to be unexpectedly delivered flowers, you might think, “wow, someone loves me”, and be happy… triggering all those little happy processors and chemical reactions in your body that do good. If I were to be delivered flowers, something very different occurs… not only did a whole trail of people participate in this abortion of life but someone is obviously casing my house to see if someone is home.. to hurt.. to steal.. to damage. This triggers a completely different set of processing, functions, and reactions. And some people are like, “flowers, great”.. and nothing.

“Holistic”, right!?! This is why we help to guide the WHOLE person.. why the same herb does not work for every person despite the fact that we all generally start life hard-wired the same way. Ultimately, through our parents and then our life choices, experiences, and then perceptions, we are working with very UNIQUE beings, each one different from the rest.. which is why, I believe, modern traditional medicine fails chronic maladies, because they’re not even asking the right questions.

The placebo effect assumes that someone makes a conscious decision… the doctor gave me this pill, the doctor is educated, this pill will work, I will be “healed” (whatever that means, managing expectations). The trauma response is something different. My mind KNOWS that the little noise in the backyard is a raccoon shuttling around to dig up my carrots and not a “bad guy” breaking in, but that does not stop my body from tensing, my hearing from becoming more acute, my stomach from doing flip-flops, and my carpel tunnel from flaring.

I posit that for some, their body recognizes that “little noise” or tiny bit of medicine and reacts the way IT believes it should, no conscious thinking required. Because our bodies have a tremendous capacity to heal themselves, all else being equal, I think God’s plan would support ‘only a teeny-tiny bit of medicine’, even only the essence. BUT for most of us, we probably have too much garbage in our systems (GMO’s, chemical additives, environmental toxins) for homeopathy to be of any real use or to be counted on by a wellness practitioner. That said, I would never discount that it does indeed work for some, and I am glad for it. ~Jeni

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead InstructorTopic Author]

I think you’re right on the money Jeni. I learned long ago not to solicit clients for herbal/holistic work. I let them find me and come to me. Folks that have to be persuaded or convinced to use herbs, acupuncture, cupping etc… don’t have nearly as good of results as those that seek them out on their own.

Even Jesus couldn’t do any miracles in Nazareth (his home town) because no one had any faith in “the carpenter’s son“.

The mind and spirit are amazing things.

Doc

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[LuisaWargo]

True, I agree!

[pharmer1]

What do you all think of the idea that even animals exhibit some kind of placebo effect, or placebo by proxy (transmitted from the caregivers)? There are some studies suggesting that this could be going on, such as . I consider this and related phenomena to fall under the heading of “touchy feely” medicine, and we should take full advantage of the salutary effects.

[Dr. Patrick JonesHomestead InstructorTopic Author]

There are a lot of things we don’t understand…lots of variables we don’t recognize.

Many years ago I was once de-horning some calves for an Amish fellow. He was carefully picking up all the removed horns and putting them in a bucket.

After a while, he asked if I knew why he was putting all the horns in a bucket.

I said I didn’t.

He said “They say if you keep the horns in a bucket in the corner of the barn, the calves don’t get infections after you dehorn them.”

I chuckled and asked “Do you really think that helps?”

He thought for a long minute then said “I don’t think it hurts“

In retrospect, a stinky bucket of horns in a barn would likely be more attractive to flies than a fresh wound so it may very well decrease infection rates.

Like I said…lots of difficult-to-measure variables in this world.

Don't use herbs or combine herbs with medications or use them during lactation or pregnancy without talking with your healthcare provider.

[pharmer1]

Maybe the horn fly attractant hypothesis could be tested by seeing if fly tape over the bucket potentiates it.

In our neck of the woods, there’s an Amish herbalist who has gained huge respect and trust among the outsiders.

The FDA wants to clamp down further on herbalists who produce remedies. They’re protecting an industry which has lost a lot of public trust.

So much of healing success is based on trust.

[Bembry]

Agree with you

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Sandy Young

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