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The Law of Similars and Dissimilars and Its Consequences

by Luc De Schepper, MD, PhD, DI Hom., CHom., Lic.Ac
Reprinted by permission. March 17, 2007

It is important for the reader and homeopath alike to understand these two basic laws of homeopathy in order to judge the choice of the chosen remedy but also in the case of needing to change the chosen remedy (simillimum). The simillimum or the rightfully chosen remedy for the patient is the right remedy, the right potency (strength) and the right dose (amount). All three of these parameters must be fulfilled. More about dose and potency will be addressed in the next lectures. This lecture focuses primarily on some of the laws that the homeopath must apply to find the simillimum. Other lectures in the future will add pertinent information regarding Laws and Principles of Homeopathy. Sometimes I quote an Aphorism from the Organon, the master work of Hahnemann. For the public, the best Organon (and cheapest) can be obtained at www.mimimum.com (Organon of Medicine, Jost Kunzli Edition).

THE LAW OF SIMILARS OR "LIKE CURES LIKE"

What does this mean? How does the homeopathic remedy cure? This is answered in A12-27 of the Organon and I have expressed it here in common terms:

"The curative power of our homeopathic remedy is based on symptom similarity, not the same symptoms, of the chosen remedy and the presenting picture of the patient. The chosen remedy creates a similar "disease" state stronger than the presenting patient's natural disease."

In other words we create a similar and stronger disease than what the patient present. Does this mean we must make the patient sicker before he gets better? This is an unfortunate thinking of many patients and present homeopaths. As you will learn further, this aggravation of your existing symptoms (called similar aggravation) can be totally avoided by selecting the right potency, frequency of repetition and dose (see further lectures). Your homeopath must be familiar with the 5th and 6th edition of the Organon and at this point at least 90% of homeopaths in the world are not!

This Law of Similars reminds the reader of the basis of vaccinations and allergy shots that allopathic Western medicine uses in the practice. Alas, although allopathy practices "unconscious" homeopathy in this instance, by mixing many vaccinations, giving too much of a dose and repeating them too often, allopathy sins against the rest of the homeopathic principles. In other words, vaccinations would be much safer and provide real prevention if they would be administered on the right time (who needs on the first day of his life Hepatitis vaccinations; through breast feeding infants have a natural immunity for first seven months), only one at the time and in homeopathic (non material) doses. There are of course many vaccinations that are not necessary: the child is much better off to go through childhood diseases as this is an exercise for the child's immune system. Adults who never had childhood diseases (or on the contrary had one of them in excessive form) fit the homeopathic profile of more severe diseases later, even cancer. For more info regarding vaccinations consult Sheri Nakken's excellent web site: Vaccination Information & Choice Network:
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
homeopathycures@tesco.net

Let's give a simple acute example of this first Law of Similars. Assume you get travelers' diarrhea touring beautiful Mexico (usually this is not advertised in the brochures). I actually had it in India: I had greenish diarrhea, every 5 minutes, with bloating of the whole abdomen, after eating contaminated food, plus nausea. Worst time was between midnight and 2 am. As you can see I want to know a little more than the complaint, "I have diarrhea" and no I am not anally fixated. This diarrhea is a natural reaction of your immune system to expel the toxins of the bad food so it is incomprehensible that regular medicine (allopathy) will advise you to take something that stops this natural process of evacuation, in other words, go against Nature's defense mechanism. By giving homeopathic China in this case, chosen on the similar symptoms to be found in this remedy, I created a stronger similar medicinal (caused by the remedy) disease and Nature's Law always says that "the weaker natural (patient's) disease will disappear through the creation of a stronger medicinal disease (my China disease). We will learn further how we know when to discontinue this acute remedy because we are cured! The same principle is in force for chronic diseases. This homeopathic principle was discovered by Hahnemann in 1793 when he was experimenting on himself with exactly this remedy (China: bark of the tree contains Quinine) to provoke symptoms of malaria in himself. However when he stopped the doses, his normal health returned and he had no bad consequences from the proving of this remedy. This became the beginning of all his experiments. Allopathy stumbled on the same principle when Edward Jenner, an English country doctor, who discovered by coincidence that a farmer's woman infected by cow pox was immune to the small pox epidemic that was raging. Cowpox inoculation has been shown to prevent or greatly diminish small pox and is till used now! This finding was the basis for the first vaccination and later was found that the cow pox virus and the small pox were very similar, not the same, in nature. It reflects again the first homeopathic law as I stated before. Alas, allopathy has not learned anything from the further findings of Homeopathy.

Now regarding a chronic disease. Let's take the example of an autistic child. The patient's symptoms (and this means a lot more than expressed symptoms) are as much as possible matched to the proving symptoms of one of the 3,000 and more remedies we have. A lecture in the future will exactly state how you can assist your homeopath in providing the symptoms that will lead to a cure of your case.

To further understand the action of the homeopathic remedy, one has to analyze the laws of dissimilar diseases.

THE LAW OF DISSIMILAR DISEASES

The creation of a dissimilar disease (not a similar one like Homeopathy) is the goal of allopathy. Not often is the word "cure" used anymore but rather, allopathy tries to "control" the natural chronic disease. Remark that I speak here of chronic diseases, not acute. Chronic diseases are those that are at least 6 months and more old. Regarding acute disease, Voltaire said rightfully, "Nature cures while the physician amuses the patient." While this is correct for many acute illnesses, I will in a future lecture show what kind of acute diseases do need an intervention.

But let's see what happens if we create a dissimilar disease, the goal of allopathic intervention? What happens to the patient's presenting natural disease? There are three possibilities!

1. The old stronger chronic disease repels the new weaker one (A36)

What does this mean? Any physician in his office and often the patient himself has seen this. For example, patients with CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue) would say: "I never get a cold." This is a form of negative immunization due to the fact that the patient's constitution is already suffering from a severe disease. The immune system is already fighting a mighty enemy and in this state of high alert, a small enemy patrol (a cold) has no chance to penetrate the defensive perimeter. So if such patient all of a sudden gets a cold, it is actually often a sign of recovery.

When the homeopathic remedy has not been chosen in the right potency and dose (too small), the medicinal similar disease we try to create, will not be stronger as we wish to do and the remedy, although perfectly selected homeopathically, will have no result. Homeopaths who claim, that the dose and potency is not as important as the rightly selected remedy should rethink what they are doing as it will lead to wrong decisions such as changing remedies where this should not have happened. All that was needed was a change in potency and/or dose and frequency of dosing (more about this in later lectures).

This same principle also explains the allopathic drug resistance one might encounter: if the natural disease remains stronger than the drug-induced illness, the medication will not have any immediate suppressive (not curing!) action. As a result higher amounts are given with even more side effects.

2. The new disease suspends the old one, but does not CURE them! (A38)

This is exactly what allopathy with its drugs tries to achieve. The stronger action of the dissimilar drug creates a dissimilar disease that suppresses the existing patient's presenting natural disease (let's assume chronic migraines) until the action of this medication runs out (half-life time of medications). Then of course repetition of the drug or as time goes on, larger amount of stronger suppression are necessary to obtain the same results, however with more side effects, but no cure of the migraine is achieved. Often the "cure" (read suppression) is worse than the original disease as an array of drug side effects takes place. That in allopathy we create a dissimilar disease is easily shown when in allopathy we always speak of anti-this or that; for diarrhea we give an anti diarrhea drug, anti-fever drugs, anti-arthritic drugs, etc, always the perfect dissimilar drug for the disease as it is a 100% the opposite; this is not the same as hormonal replacements like estrogen, insulin for diabetes, etc.). So the only thing we achieve with allopathic drugs is suspending, the chronic disease, not curing it. That's why your doctor always answers on the question, "How long do I need to take this drug," "For the rest of your life." This tells you right away that allopathy does not have a cure for your disease.

When we talk about a new disease suspending the old presenting one, this is also important for the homeopath. Assume you are in treatment for a chronic condition (arthritis for instance) and now you have a very severe cold or a severe emotional trauma. This is a NEW acute disease and needs an acute intercurrent remedy for that cold or emotional trauma, while suspending the chronic remedy you took (for arthritis) before this acute event happened!! What does the patient see? That most of the arthritis symptoms as by miracle disappeared or alleviated greatly while they have this flu. They might say: "My chronic arthritis was much better while I had this flu. But once the flu was cured, the arthritis came back just as much as before." So be aware of those homeopaths who say that they never need an acute or chronic intercurrent! They don't know the first principle of homeopathy and will ruin your case for the future. In a further lecture I will expand exactly for what acute diseases we need an acute intercurrent.

3. A complex disease forms

Two dissimilar diseases of the same strength can be active at the same time and will settle down in the area of the patient for which it has the most attraction or affinity. Therefore complex diseases exist to which the immune system needs to fight two or more diseases simultaneously, a mighty battle. Such complex disease creates of course different sets of symptoms making our selection of the homeopathic remedy more difficult. The most common cause of these complex diseases is the suppressive acts of allopathic medications. Some diseases become incurable by such measures. How many patients do we know that take 5 different medications for their ailments and five additional ones to suppress further the side effects of the first five? Everyone sees this in practice. It is a hard task for the homeopath to rectify such illness, but not impossible!

This is the end of Lecture One.

To answer an additional question from the public. Someone after listening to a lecture about finding THE remedy of the year for flu (called genus epidemicus) was all excited and thought, "maybe there is a genus epidemicus", in other words ONE remedy for all autistic children. Sounds logical yet it is totally wrong. When we talk about genus epidemicus we are talking about acute diseases that come up sporadically among the population like the yearly flu. In other words every year we have a different flu virus (that's why the old previous flu vaccinations are worthless and dangerous) but the homeopath after examining about ten flu victims can determine THE remedy for that year's flu. When we speak of ASD we speak of a chronic condition that is determined by many more individual factors: constitution, hereditary factors, causality, etc. We never treat a name of a disease, but a patient with a disease. It is the gravest mistake of allopathy to try to put diseases names on people. The goal of course is to apply a treatment protocol. However any person knows that he is a unique individual, with unique features, background, hereditary factors and as Carl Jung concluded, therefore will react on any situation in his own individual way. The law of individuality is just as much a sacred principle as the previous Laws. We might have ten ASD patients and need ten different remedies. I wish it was different as practicing homeopathy would be easier! Let's face it: when you go to the tailor, does he have one dress or suit for everyone? One size fits all?

Warmest regards! I am off to NJ, Holland and Dubai to teach. The garden state and other "exotic" places! May you all enjoy this first lecture and your comments are welcome. If I have to make things clearer, let me know. Look for the second lecture beginning of April when I am back from Dubai.

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