Aside from actually being able to answer your three year old’s questions, I provided this as an illustration of the more general pattern of holistic thinking in health and science, which always finds the living polarity of any phenomenon, rather than conceptually killing everything through a one-sided abstraction, like the proverbial butterfly collector.
If you like, I can also help you with the other famous question of three year olds, of “where do babies come from?”

Although the three historical figures never met, a great deal of fruitful research can be produced by creating imaginary “conversations” between them, thus cross-pollinating, and clarifying the therapeutic concepts that each put forward. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and such an exercise of bringing these three geniuses together produces a form of knowledge which is more penetrating and therapeutically effective than any one of them produced on their own.

I’ll let Hahnemann speak first, and explain why he published his method for anyone to use, when he could have profited much more if he kept it to himself:

Did I not know to what intent I was here on earth–”to become better myself as far as possible and to make everything around me better that is within my power” — I should have to consider myself as lacking very much in worldly prudence to make known for the common good, even before my death, an art which I alone possessed, and from which it was within my power to eventually profit from as much as possible by keeping it secret.

Steiner understands this very well, and goes on to explain to us the purpose of ethically-based deeds in the world:

On the other side, we evolve by permeating our deeds and actions, our will-nature, with thoughts; deeds are performed in love. Such deeds detach themselves from us. Our deeds do not remain confined to ourselves, they become world-happenings. If they are permeated by love, then love goes with them. As far as the cosmos is concerned, an egotistical action is different from an action permeated by love. When, out of semblance, through fructification by the will, we unfold that which proceeds from our inmost being, then what streams forth into the world from our head encounters our thought-permeated deeds.

And we can always count on Reich to point out where everything in nature is grounded, in terms of our healthy biological structure. [Note: his term "the genital character" was a product of his early studies with Freud, as he struggled to overcome the errors in Freud's thinking, and find a real, grounded energy to explain health vs. neurosis, as opposed to Freud's abstract notions such as "libido". At this early phase in Reich's thinking, "the genital character" was his representation of the state of a person unfettered by neurotic conflicts, where all of the life energy flowed freely through its natural pathway.]

In the genital character, motive, goal, and action are in harmony with one another. The goals and motives are rational, i.e., socially oriented. In accordance with the natural character of his motives and goals, i.e., on the basis of their primary biological foundation, the genital character strives for an improvement in his own conditions of life and in the conditions of life of others. This is what we call ‘social accomplishment’.

Putting these three in a room together actually leads to many hundreds of hours of conversations, but for now I’ll leave you to mediate on these opening remarks. The practice of Heilkunst involves not only a dedication to update the highest professional standards, but a grounding in a deeper ethical love impulse towards doing good in the world.

 

There are many aspects of the healthcare industry which get turned on their head by this concept. Everything from drugs or herbal products which are packaged for specific conditions, such as “antidepressant meds”, or “PMS herbal formula”, are all built around the upside-down concept of putting the symptoms first, and marketing products for their elimination (read ‘suppression’). There are billions of dollars of annual revenue reinforcing this model of producing and marketing these kinds of healthcare products.

The well-known “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” TV ads are actually quite clever from a marketing point of view, in terms of emphasizing the difference in the state of mind between the two operating system, and largely de-emphasizing the technical specs (ie the ‘symptoms’, so to speak), which are usually how electronics are marketed and sold.

Take a look at the original commercials here, and allow your mind to sit back from any mention of tech specs, and instead take in the overarching state of mind being portrayed of each system. The old “hip vs. square” polarity is the guiding principle differentiating the two states of mind.

First of all, we need to distinguish between a person’s “ambient”, and their “environment”. If you and I are sitting together in the same room, we co-exist within the same environment. Each one of us, however, has a unique ambient, which is the subset of the environment which is composed of our individual resonance, both positive and negative. Everything in the environment which has some relationship to your desire function, is “lit up” before you. Two people walking into the same room will likely notice entirely different details for this reason.

It’s akin to the type of experience where you have just bought a new car of a particular make and model, and suddenly everywhere you go you see that same model.

As I mentioned, our ambient is composed of both positive and negative resonance, meaning that not only will our ambient display things which we desire, but also objects or events which are mirrors of where our desire function is suppressed or blocked. This is the meaning of all forms of “accidents”, which are aspects of our negative resonance coming at us in progressively increasing intensities until we “get” their intended lesson. A complete case-taking of a patient’s state of disease must include this whole picture of occurents (all of the things which “happen to” the patient), accidents, as well as the positive events which come into their life.

Likewise, as a patient walks through their time line treament, the healing and release from the remedies will often be accompanied by specific events or “chance” meetings with significant people (or archetypal representatives of those people), as the patient finally integrates and then lets go of the original meaning of the trauma in question.

An aspect of Hollywood films which is often criticized, is how unrealistic certain plots or turn of events unfold on the screen. The fact is, that these “only in Hollywood” scenarios are usually only slightly exaggerated versions of real-life occurents, “accidents”, and other strokes of luck which are not based on a rational logic, but on the force field which draws a person to confront whatever they need to within their ambient.

It becomes a sobering thought on the path to greater health that everything which unfolds in our life is a function of a part of our mind and consciousness, whether or not we have fully realized the source of any given part of our ambient. A definition of healing, from this perspective then, would be an increasing level of consciousness, and command of both the waking conscious mind, as well as all aspects of the sub- and un-conscious parts of the mind.

• Arnica — This is the first aid remedy. Applicable for shocks of any kind, as well as all forms of over-exertion. After we were rescued, and helped back into our re-set kayak, my muscles started to contract from the shock and exertion of continuing to paddle for another 30 to 45 minutes in order to reach the point in the river where we could exit to the pick up shuttles, to return us to our dry changes of clothes at our car.
• Cocculus — This remedy isn’t specific to my experience on the river, but along with Arnica, is a very helpful remedy for exhaustion, which was necessary from having slept at a campsite the previous night adjacent to some very enthusiastic partiers (until 4am!).
• Aconite with Ignatia — For the emotional aspect of shock. Quick alternations between emotions, such as tears and laughter are a sure sign for needing the combination of Aconite and Ignatia. Hysterical outbursts fuelled by adrenaline is a possible more extreme side of this picture.
• Rescue Remedy — This isn’t a homeopathic remedy, but a great adjunct during such first aid or shock situations. It helps to keep presence of mind for either the shock victim, or the caretaker during a trying situation.

• Agaricus — This remedy can be used for frostbite, or for symptoms of hypothermia. The 30 or 45 minute stretch of paddling we still had ahead of ourselves after being restored into our kayak wasn’t enough to warm me up, and I continued to shiver until I finally had the opportunity to change into dry clothes.

I say hidden for good reason, as it not only is very difficult for the patient to see them in themselves, but it can be equally difficult for the practitioner to diagnose them if they are not properly trained and attuned to being able to see at that level at all. The obvious pathic dimension, with all the overt aches, pains, and dysfunctions, tends to steal the show, if the practitioner doesn’t have their eye on the ball of tonic disease.

Some doorways into the tonic dimension include:

• “The Physician’s Reaction” : This is a concept originally introduced by a homeopath named Dr. Rajan Sankaran. He described this process as a way of determining what the unique, objective feeling is of the patient’s disease state. The physician must learn to separate within themself their own subjective feelings about the patient (plural, variable), from THE objective feeling (singular, constant) behind all of the patients words and actions. A patient, for example, may be describing all of the details of their day-to-day life, when a closely observing physician may suddenly point out “It feels like there’s a profound sadness about your life”, even though there was nothing the patient overtly said or did to indicate this. This is one of those types of cognitive capacities which may take a while to develop, but when it’s “on”, it is as clear as day, and one wonders how one didn’t “see” this dimension earlier.

• Contradictions in the Character : The character, being the sum total of conflicts and blocked natural impulses, can be observed in terms of its overall form, as another objective doorway into diagnosis of the tonic realm of disease. An overt incongruence between a patient’s words and their tone of voice is a big clue to such a conflicted character structure. A patient who claims that everything is going well in their life, yet who sits in an obviously tense posture, is displaying such a character contradiction. Over time, the progressive dissolution of these character conflicts are part of the measure of the patient’s improvement in health, and forward direction attained from the remedies.
• NBWS : This is a very direct and obvious doorway into the tonic realm – as soon as a patient says the words “I’ve never been well since…”, or “My health problems began after that car accident”, I know exactly which remedy or remedies will be required to remove that particular disease root from them, and to directly remove the cause of the symptoms in question.

The core principle in the medical jurisdiction is the law of similars, or like cures like. When correctly applied, a given symptom will follow the direction of cure, meaning that it moves from a more vital organ or system to one of lesser importance. I like Dr. Hahnemann’s language to describe this, when he refers to organs which have “greater or lesser nobility”.

The metaphor is apt, as our body functions as a kingdom, and not as a democracy. In a kingdom, there are clearly some figures more important than others, with the king and queen sitting at the centre of importance, and the peasants being the least important. Our heart and brain are like the king and queen, in this sense, and the body always works to keep disease as far from these organs as possible. A disease appearing on the skin is actually the sign of a relative state of health, meaning that there are sufficient healthy defences to keep it from penetrating to the more important (noble) organs.

The typical approach to this skin disease in conventional medicine, unfortunately, is suppressive, such as in the use of cortisone cream, which appears to do good (make the rash disappear), but which actually drives the disease into a deeper, more vital organ. The classic example is to find that such a suppressed rash actually comes back as asthma (the lungs having more nobility than the skin), which the doctor unwisely prescribes a cortisone puffer for, thus further driving the disease to an even deeper organ, say the kidneys in the form of an infection.

The correct approach to treatment, in contrast, needs to be curative rather than suppressive, and in my Heilkunst office I’ll be watching for this pattern to systematically reverse itself. Using the example above, the first order of business is to treat the kidney infection, and by the proper direction of cure, it will reverse direction and move back into the asthma conditions of the lungs. The following treatment of the lungs in addition to removing the iatrogenic effect of the cortisone puffer will reverse the condition one more step back to the skin, where it can finally be treated correctly, and truly eliminated for good.

The nature of chronic illness, in general, when left to its own devices follows this same path of deepening — that is, without correct medical intervention, all chronic disease is trying to burrow its way deeper and deeper into our more noble organs over time, which we can witness over the course of a single lifetime, or from one generation to the next in terms of inherited disease patterns (such as the chronic miasms).

When it comes to your health, it is a good idea to leave behind your modern ideas of democracy, and respect the direction of cure (eschewing the direction of suppression), choosing medicine and therapeutics which push things out, rather than in. The disappearance of a symptom isn’t necessarily something to celebrate, if you’re not sure which principle was applied, and which direction it went in. I’ve often seen “health conscious” individuals even suppress their deeper tendency to chronic illness using mega doses of vitamins and supplements. They may appear “healthy”, but it can often be a very shiny veneer covering over deeply suppressed layers of illness. This is also the reason why many cancers “come back” after conventional treatment of chemotherapy or radiation, as those modalities push the root of the disease deeper, while making the more superficial tumor (temporarily) disappear. This reference to the principle and direction of cure should be the gold standard for every modality of treatment. Any modality, even using natural means, which makes symptoms disappear this way (through suppression) is also ‘allopathic’. Principles should always precede the specifics of how a modality is conducted.

This same logic is also true for our own health – inflammation has a positive purpose for our health and development. Fever, for example, is not only a powerful part of our immune response, but it is also a trigger for the stages of childhood development. It has been widely observed that a child will go through a growth spurt after resolving a childhood illness, such as measles or chicken pox. If fever is suppressed with drugs or herbs, then the toxins and microbes are stored in the cells, rather than burned off. Also, a lack of fevers in childhood sets the stage for cancer later in life, as the unexpressed energy of the fever needs to manifest in another form. Nature balances the equation here as well.
The question of what to do for a child in the face of infection and fever puts many parents into a dilemma. On the one hand, the impulse to protect the child from the assumed dangers of fever is unfortunately translated into a suppressive medical approach, which takes its toll on long-term health. Oh the other hand, sitting back and doing nothing can also raise a great deal of anxiety – letting nature take its course may be a risk in certain cases. So the question shouldn’t be to intervene or not, but how to do so in accordance with nature and without risking unnecessary damage. Like the forestry example above, Homeopathy imitates nature, and “fights fire with fire”, with speedy results, and no side-effects.
Childhood fevers can be safely and easily treated with homeopathic remedies, which act to resolve the fever process more quickly, rather than suppress it. The Law of Similars, or “like cures like”, means that the correct homeopathic remedy will move the fever forward in the direction it is already going, rather than stall it. The result is a quicker resolution of the fever, with less pain and suffering, and without the toxic by-products of the fever being stored in the cellular memory. A number of parents are also choosing to use equivalent Homeopathic remedies in place of the standard vaccine program.
Fever is only one example of a healthy life function that can be suppressed. Certain physical traumas and emotional shocks can also create a blockage in the life force. These become the kindling which eventually ignites the latent diseases that have been passed down through the family tree, such as cancer and heart disease, which first start to manifest in “minor” symptoms, such as migraines, or chronic infections. By systematically removing these blockages, any symptoms or tendency towards illness will no longer find anywhere to root, and the life force will be able to function in full radiant health.

April 15, 1999:  in the wee hours of the morning the physical heart stopped.  The physical body “died,” yet “I” continued.  Without going into the details of the “Near Life” sequences, “I” was free from timespace spacetime.  BEing.  ISness.  KnowingBeing BeingKnowing.

Resuscitated at 1:59 AM PDT, I now relate to Carl Jung’s words, “Now I must return to the ‘box system’ again.  For it seems to me as if behind the horizon of the cosmos a three-dimensional world has been artificially built up, in which each person sits by himself in a little box. And now I should have to convince myself all over again that this was important!  Life and the whole world struck me as a prison, and it bothered me beyond measure that I should again be finding all that quite in order. I had been so glad to shed it all, and now it had come about that I –  along with everyone else – would again be hung up in a box by a thread.”   Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

On this side, i.e., in the “box” of timespace spacetime, there is plenty of busy-ness and very little knowing-being.  There are lots of ideas and bookshelves filled knowledge; however, knowledge is different from knowingbeing beingknowing.

I especially like Robert Heinlein’s word “grok” in Stranger in a Strange Land:  “Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes the observed” … “to understand [something] so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you.”  Stranger in a Strange Land, p. 213

Did someone “merge with” Pulsatilla?  Did Hering “merge with” Lachesis?

There are different degrees of “knowing”, and different degrees of engagement with provings and other modes of knowing remedies. 

Dr. Edward Bach seems to have accomplished “merging with.”  “A great nature lover, Edward Bach was also extremely sensitive.  In his quest for new remedies he would go into the countryside, pick the petal of a single flower, and lay it on his tongue.  With the help of his immense sensitivity he was able to feel the effect of a plant on the human body and psyche.”

New Bach Flower Therapies:  Healing the Emotional and Spiritual Causes of Illness, Dietmar Krämer, p.1

Everyone has a specific pathway to their own inner knowing, or genius, and the trick is to activate it, so that we can each bring the special form of knowledge that we hold the key to – this initial act of genius by each individual takes a special kind of work, but then subsequently, that piece of knowledge can be appropriated by the full scientific mind (intellectual AND emotional mind), and it can become a common form of knowledge.

Thank you for taking the time to initiate a conversation about my blogs, Steven – it is a pleasure to engage with someone who is educated about these topics, and is able to get into a higher-level discussion.

I admit that one of my favorite subjects involves your question, “To what degree is the human being capable of knowing rather than believing?”

Many years ago while looking at The American Heritage dic·tion·ar·y I noticed that the word “belie” immediately precedes the word “belief.”  Notice the word “lie” in both words.  The significance of that discovery did not ripen until our son was born.  As he grew older, I noticed occasions when I was speaking with and acting toward Adam in the same way that my Dad had spoken with and acted toward me.  Then, one day when he was four years old, Adam said to his friend Jason, “It’s true.  My Dad said so.”

Authority is always a necessary, interim stop-gap measure in the case of ignorance.

Adam believed, unconditionally, the things which I had said.  Even when I was making up a story, Adam believed.  Why?  Trust and truth.  Both words are derived from the same ProtoIndoEuropean etymological root word, dru-.  Adam trusted me, therefore, he believed me.

Wow!  That realization was like a jack-hammer.  I began to examine and question the ideas that I accepted as true, including the “sciences” upon which my degrees were based.  I came to realize that many of my “truths” required acceptance of and trust in Professor X or Doctor Y or Guru Z.  “It’s true.  Doctor Y said so.”

That can be powerfully enticing, when one is disconnected from their own capacity for knowing. 

I also thought about the connection between plagiarism and belief.  A plagiarist copies another’s work, and pretends that it is her or his own work.  A believer accepts another’s ideas and opinions, and repeats them as though the ideas and opinions are her or his own.

“To what degree is the human being capable of knowing rather than believing?”

This question gets to the heart of every scientific method!