What is Homeopathy?

By Becky Chambers
Published by Alternative Medicine Magazine

Homeopathy is a form of energy medicine, which is based in profound truths about the nature of the universe, which we are only now beginning to understand. Like the life-giving sun that is always there, regardless of clouds, homeopathy is a path to true healing, and the time has come for it to shine brightly again.

Often maligned and misunderstood, homeopathy was once so popular in the United States that along with the existence of twenty-plus homeopathic medical schools, eleven American presidents have used it, and a statue of its founder, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, was erected in our nation's capital. By the mid-1900s, though, homeopathy had nearly disappeared due to a combination of the lucrative nature of allopathic medicine—with its quick fix, high price tag, never-ending spiral of increasing drugs and surgery—and a lack of understanding of the scientific phenomena underlying homeopathy.

Homeopaths use extremely diluted doses of various plants, minerals, animals, or even chemicals, chosen with great care and prepared in a complex method. Rather than prescribing one medicine for everyone with the same disease as is done in conventional medicine, homeopaths individualize a specific medicine to a patient based not only on the disease they have but also on the unique mix of characteristics and symptoms of which the disease is a part. This method capitalizes on a phenomenon in which people become hypersensitive to a substance that will cause (in an undiluted, non-homeopathic dose) symptoms similar to those that the sick person is experiencing.

It is these extreme dilutions used in homeopathy, to the point at which—according to the current laws of physics—there should be no substantial amount of the original remedy material left, that has led to disbelief by many scientists and doctors. The latest science, however, has found that nanodoses (extremely small amounts) of the original substance remain in at least the lower dilutions used in homeopathy—and at levels that are biologically active; similar to levels at which hormones, for example, exert their profound effects.

However, many people involved with homeopathy feel that the true healing agent is the electromagnetic energy signature of the original substance, transferred and augmented in the complex process of multiple dilutions and shaking that creates homeopathic remedies. Today, science is beginning to support this principle. Dr. Luc Montagnier, winner of the 2008 Nobel prize for his discovery of the AIDS virus, announced his support for the dilution system used in homeopathy. In a 2010 interview with Science magazine, he stated, "High dilutions of something are not nothing. They are water structures which mimic the original molecules." ¹

In fact, there is research to indicate that each remedy substance creates its own fractal²to form snowflake-like structures of water molecules around each remedy molecule.³These structures are unique for each starting substance, theoretically emanating the same unique energy frequency as the original substance.

The energetic phenomena that are theorized to underlie the effects of a homeopathic remedy are actually well accepted in Western science. Every substance is made of molecules that vibrate at a particular frequency, creating specific wavelengths of energy. If another resonating wavelength is added, and the peaks or valleys of the two match up, they amplify each other, creating greater peaks and valleys. An example of this interaction of wavelengths can be seen with waves in the ocean—waves with coinciding peaks multiply in height, while others may pass through each other relatively unchanged.

Energy wavelengths interact in the same way, leading to dramatic effects in the physical world. For example, when a singer hits a note with the proper resonating wavelengths, a glass will shatter. Correspondingly, if the correct homeopathic remedy is administered to a patient, one with resonating electromagnetic waves that amplify the already existing frequencies in the patient, dramatic results can be seen on the physical plane.

Wave resonance is thought to lead to healing because it amplifies the body's own ability to heal itself—an innate ability that should not be underestimated. In homeopathy, symptoms are seen as the body's attempt to heal itself, as exemplified by a fever, now also well understood by physiologists and conventional medicine to be an important part of the body's defense against infections.

Interestingly, one sometimes experiences an "aggravation" after taking a homeopathic remedy—a brief increase in a symptom's severity before the desired alleviation of that symptom and the person's overall disease. This short-term aggravation, or "healing crisis," seems likely to be the result of the amplification that results from resonating waves.

Aggravations also provide evidence that the effects of a homeopathic medicine are not a placebo response. The vast majority of people who respond to a placebo experience only the relief of symptoms, not a short-term aggravation of these symptoms followed by a long-term relief.

This idea of similar substances leading to healing, known in homeopathy as the Law of Similars (or "like cures like"), is not new. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, as well as Paracelsus, the alchemical genius of the Middle Ages and the inventor of toxicology, agreed with this principle. In fact, the word "homeopathy" is derived from the Greek homo, meaning "similar," and pathy, "disease," and is the basis of conventional medicine's current use of vaccines and allergy desensitization.

Following the Law of Similars, a substance is found that, in its undiluted form, would cause the same symptoms that the ill person is experiencing. The critical resonating energetic information, carried in unique snowflake-like fractals that form in the water of homeopathic dilutions, transmits this information to the patient. The beauty of the homeopathic method is that one can utilize, with safety, substances that would normally be toxic, because there is such a miniscule amount of the original ingredient in the final dose.

This model of resonating energy accounts for the dramatic results experienced when a homeopathic remedy is correct and the lack of any results if the remedy is not correct—if the energy resonates with the disease, then the person's immune and defense system is augmented to elicit the curative process. If the energy does not resonate, then nothing happens.

One of the great benefits of homeopathy is that, in a demonstration of the mind-body connection, our mental and emotional symptoms will improve along with our physical symptoms. Long held, deeply entrenched negative thoughts and emotions can suddenly let go. This sort of effect more frequently happens with high potency homeopathics (created with more dilutions and shaking), but they should only be used with the guidance of a highly trained professional homeopath. Low potency remedies, on the other hand, are gentle, act mostly on the physical level, and are sold in retail stores. These remedies are safe for people to try on their own.

Using homeopathy is a transformative experience during which one can personally experience the power of energy; a force we cannot see but that guides us in profound ways. The world suddenly becomes a bigger, more wondrous place where homeopathy helps us, each a beautiful spark of energy, to reach our unlimited potential.

¹ M. Enserink, "Newsmaker Interview: Luc Montagnier, French Nobelist Escapes 'Intellectual Terror' to Pursue Radical Ideas in China," Science 24 (December 2010): 1732, doi:10.1126/science.330.6012.1732.

² "A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop" (fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-are-fractals). If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern.

³ Paolo Bellavite and Signorini, Emerging Science of Homeopathy: Complexity, Biodynamics, and Nanopharmacology (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2002), 170.