Relationship of Homeopathy and Spiritual Healing Paul Bahder, MD

This article has been inspired by a letter written by Dr. Henry Williams in the 1996 Spring issue of Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy. The question of relationship of Homeopathy to spirituality is often asked by both homeopathic practitioners and patients. Misunderstanding of this relationship may lead to confusion and even include fanatical treatment of
homeopathy like a religious dogma without understanding its underlying principles, as well as it may mislead in the area of one’s own spiritual practice. First let us focus on fundamental peculiarities of homeopathy and its differences from conventional, allopathic medicine. Homeopathy differs in its understanding as to the goal of treatment. It does not address or seek to eliminate physical signs and symptoms but understands them to be expressions of the vital force. In homeopathy we are not trying to manipulate physiology, change high fever to low, eliminate pain, swelling or redness. We are not even trying to eliminate anger, anxiety or sadness.
Our ideal is "to restore health rapidly, gently, permanently." And as to what health is, we can look to the brilliant definition of health given by George Vithoulkas: "Health is freedom.. freedom from pain in the physical body, having attained a state of well-being; freedom from passion on the emotional level, having as a result a dynamic state of serenity and calm; and freedom from selfishness in the mental sphere, having as a result total unification with the Truth."
In other words, health in homeopathy in its highest aspect is understood as a process of opening up to the spiritual, that is supramental realm, in ever greater submission to It and toward eventual "unification with It". This can take place and the patient is thus elevated unto a higher level of health, into the realm of higher freedom, where he or she is released from material sense of limitation when the homeopath himself functions at this level. In this sense the homeopathic practitioner has a duty not only to study the tools of his craft, such as materia medica, methods of case analysis, repertorization, etc. but also to maintain himself or herself at the highest possible level of integrity, health, wisdom and compassionate love.
Homeopathy thus understands that, just like the findings of quantum physics affirm, the observer, the homeopath himself, influences the observed, the patient. In homeopathy there is no such thing as an objective interaction with patient. We know that what we observe is affected by the observer. Modern physics has shown this to be true in the subatomic realm as well as on the level of macrocosm. Homeopathy affirms this principle in the human sphere. The homeopath himself or herself must demonstrate the health, the harmony, wisdom, love and transcendent stillness that represents the real and whole in patient.
The fundamental goal, what homeopathy is trying to accomplish, is therefore different from conventional medicine. Allopathic medicine is not "traditional" in that roots of homeopathic medicine reach further than allopathic, but it is "conventional" in that it is based solely upon current social agreement or convention. Since about the sixteenth century and the religious reformation and the following acceptance of the mechanical vision of the world, convention has turned to observe and manipulate surface phenomena. In its aim to simply eliminate the observable "disease", forgetting that healing is not getting rid of disease but coming to a greater
level of health, "conventional medicine" has eliminated the soul of man and the sanctity of life. Instead, the human body, the material substance of which it is composed, was understood to be the source of mind, intelligence and life itself. This is the predominant belief to this day. This is a common fallacy analogous to believing that works of Shakespeare can be understood by studying composition of ink and paper on which they are written. This is a flat understanding of reality believing that "the higher can be deduced from the lower", that studying matter can explain life, that studying life can explain mind, that studying mind can explain spirit. Such a convention eliminates depth, understanding and meaning and substitutes habit, pattern and superficiality.
Homeopathy then understands that man can not be reduced to the sum of its parts and attempts to express this insight by recognizing that we should focus on the level of vital force and that only by coming into harmony with this higher level of being can man be healthy and fulfilled. This difference in seeing the function of homeopathy as something other than elimination
of symptoms often makes people think that "homeopathy is spiritual" and in this sense it certainly is. It breaks out of conventional mold and recognizes the depth of man. It accepts that all is not what we see and it encourages us to search for our destiny in and through the harmonious development along this invisible "vital force". As Julian Winston has once summarized the 9th Paragraph of the Organon, "The physician wants to make people healthy so they can use their bodies to get on with the higher purposes of
their existence." "In the state of health the spirit-like vital force (dynamis) animating the material human organism reigns in supreme sovereignty. It maintains sensations and activities of all the part of the living organism in a harmony that obliges wonderment. The reasoning spirit (the soul of man - author’s addition) who inhabits the organism (the individual body, life and
mind - author’s addition) can thus freely use this healthy living instrument to reach the lofty goal of human existence."
Because homeopathy recognizes that man is not simply a physiological bundle of biochemical processes and that what we see of man, not only his body but also his esthetic, moral and scientific expressions, are signs of the relative health of his vitality, we may believe that homeopathy reaches as far as the soul of man and the Spirit of the Universe. But homeopathy is a transitional form of healing. It rests on the juncture between the conventional, mechanistic, chemical understanding of life, and the spiritual.
It recognizes that reality is not flat, that man is not his body, but it still uses remedies even though they are not grossly material. In this way it still reaches toward "a method" of affecting the patient "from below up".
Spiritual healing, on the other hand, is not directed at a goal of improving symptoms or patient’s condition. In the realm of spiritual life we do not attempt to tell God what to do, we do not outline how healing is to take place. As Joel Goldsmith, a renowned spiritual teacher and healer said, "God is not a servant." In spiritual healing we submit ourselves to the activity of the Spirit, this Suprasensible Reality of Being. We may yearn to be given to understand another way of seeing what is going on, to be
removed from inner turmoil of fear or desire, but we do not have a method of doing this ourselves. We submit ourselves for the healing to be given to us "from above". In spiritual healing we recognize that an individual is not a healer, that healing is an activity of Spirit and that it is ultimately not an accomplishment but a gift.
In his book The Art of Spiritual Healing Joel Goldsmith clearly defines spiritual healing. It is: "finding an inner communion with something greater, far greater than anything in the world; it is finding ourselves in God, finding ourselves in spiritual peace, an inner peace, an inner glow, all of which comes to us with the realization of God with us… Resting in that peace, the body resumes its normal functions, and those functions are carried on by a power not our own. The body, then, begins to show forth perfect,
complete health, youth, vitality, and strength, all the gift from the Lord… man is then lifted into a new dimension of consciousness, one in which his physical limitations did not operate." Spiritual healing then is not so much our activity as a submission to the activity of the Supramental Realm and a resting in the recognition that perfect health already exists at that plane of consciousness.
There are experiences, and I have had a number of them in my practice, that the process of working on the case brings on the cure before the actual homeopathic remedy is administered. What was curative in such cases? Clarification of this phenomenon has come to me while watching an intake homeopathic interview conducted by George Vithoulkas, a master homeopath, known all over the world for his therapeutic successes and most recently the recipient of the "Alternative Nobel Prize". I remember
sitting at a seminar among other homeopaths, each curious to see and understand his "method". "What is the secret recipe of his success? What is that which allows for finding the right remedy?"
At that time the realization came that while finding the right remedy is extremely important in homeopathy, it is not just "the right remedy" that cures the case. Believing that a remedy possesses the power to cure is like turning back to the physical-chemical understanding of man and thinking that a thing, a remedy, can cure. No, if what we are trying to affect is on the vital level then what affects it must also be at least on the same level. Changing the color of the ink will not affect Shakespeare’s play. It is the conventional allopathic view that believes that chemical substances are the way to cure an essentially material body. We are thus once again falling into a fallacy of flattening reality, believing that "the higher can be harmonized by the lower".
Universal ideas, appreciation of beauty, flights of inspiration, such could affect the outcome of Shakespeare’s work. Activity on the level of the work could affect a change. It is harder to imagine that material concerns, the color of his clothes for example, would make much difference. Finding the right remedy is a visible result of the healing activity that has already taken place. In observing Vithoulkas take a patient’s case I could see that he was totally focused, non-judgmental and attentive to the patient. He was not searching his mental catalog of symptoms but instead presented an open mind, loving and compassionate heart and stillness. In
that atmosphere of mental rest (the room was certainly full of noises but the patient was held in a still, non-judgmental consciousness of the homeopath) the patient was given a contact with the level of understanding and experience, in this case embodied by the homeopath, that included and recognized the depth of the patient. In that space of calmness, of lack of reactivity, lack of conceptualizing about the patient, his condition, his prognosis, lack of theorizing about the "whys" of his life, the patient found himself with something profoundly more than a remedy. His depth was touched by the homeopath’s depth. In such atmosphere of silent receptivity the homeopath himself becomes the instrument of healing. A recognition of who the patient was and an acceptance beyond the factual details of his or her disease, habits, or even morality, took place. Case analysis, discussions, repertorization, and finally remedy administration was the final outcome of this whole process. While all of the subsequent actions were necessary in homeopathic treatment, they represented the result of the healing that already took place in consciousness.
I am reminded of an interview I once heard with Lucciano Pavarotti, the world famous tenor. Pavarotti was saying that before he ever gives a concert he practices and practices in order to sharpen his voice, his instrument. Then when he walks out on stage and the music starts there is a suspenseful period of not knowing what will happen, if his voice will rise to the occasion. Then something takes over, his voice comes out, he listens and is relieved. He hears his voice as a gift and knows that "something" has once again taken over and is giving the performance. He is as much an beholder of the performance as any one in the audience. In
a similar fashion the homeopath after practicing and practicing his craft, walks out to meet the patient and he must be very still and very attentive, and then something happens, the Healing Depth takes over, and he becomes the instrument of healing. Many steps follow that are part of homeopathic art and craft, yet the healing movement as a change in consciousness, in "perception", has already taken place. Sometimes this process is repeated many times with a patient. Sometimes one such experience provides a complete healing.
In such a context homeopathy approaches spirituality. The level of understanding of the homeopath, his unconditional love for the patient sitting across from him, the attained degree of stillness and his submission to the Unknown, all these are ingredients of successful prescribing. And in the measure that these are in place, in exactly that measure we can say that homeopathy is spiritual. This of course does not dispense with the need for excellence in knowing materia medica, case analysis, etc. As long as we are working within the realm of homeopathic healing, thorough knowledge of the tools of homeopathy is a prerequisite. But good tools do not make for good results. Something more is necessary and our master teacher have stressed this point over and over. Vassilis Ghegas, one of George Vithoulkas’s premiere students and a wonderful teacher himself, has repeatedly reminded us that "the first remedy is Love." Homeopathy sees disease not as a physical phenomenon but as an attribute of perception. Homeopath see "disturbances of body and soul which are perceptible to the senses" (italics by author). Again, "disease is not an entity". Homeopathic understanding of disease thus raises the sense of what constitutes an illness from a material sense of disease, a
thing to be eliminated, to a derangement of perception.
Disease is understood to be not a misbehaving chemistry, not a changed tissue, not a malfunctioning organ, not even a deviated behavior. Disease is understood to be a discord in perception. "The totality to these perceptible signs represents the entire extent of the sickness" (italics by author). This being the case, it follows that healing in homeopathy has something to do with the area of healing our perception. And in this area homeopathy once again converges with spiritual understanding. In spiritual healing we are not attempting to affect matter. That would be magical thinking, believing in "mind overcoming matter", thinking, for example, that
if we only tried hard enough to visualize healing we would be healed. How many patient have walked away with a sense of guilt and frustration from this recently commonly advocated approach. Feeling like there is something wrong with them, feeling inadequate, believing that ultimately it’s their fault for being sick, many patients end up feeling isolated and with a profound sense of defeat. That is not a healing attitude. In homeopathy we are not fighting with matter. Homeopathy is not an adversary of disease. Its aim is to promote health. "Since diseases are only deviations from the healthy condition… and cure is equally only a change from the diseased condition back to the state of health. Enlarging on the sense of health and not being at war with disease, this is homeopathic aim.
Is Homeopathy spiritual? On principle nothing in and of itself is spiritual. What makes a person spiritual? What makes a book spiritual? an activity? Spirit is not enclosed in matter. A "thing" is not and can not be spiritual. Remedies are not spiritual. People are not spiritual Homeopathic methodology is not spiritual. Spirit can not be reduced to matter. Spirit forever remains at its own level. A great Master said about two thousand years ago, "My kingdom (the realm of the spiritual) is not of this world (the
material sense of life)." Confusion of the spiritual realm with material sense of life, reducing the height and the depth of our awareness, flattening our perception of reality, does not eliminate our need for the transcendent. It only leads to creating idol worship, the taking of material realm, limited concepts and representations, and mistaking them as the transcendental.
This confusion has been clearly described by Ken Wilber. In spiritual healing as well as in genuine, classical homeopathy, it is not so much that man will rise to the level of spiritual realm, as much as Spirit, the transcendent Supramental Realm, will reveal itself amidst our experience as healing.
(published in the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy)