The Reason That Some Homeopathic Healing Reactions Are So Large
The paradox of how homeopathic remedies are used within Heilkunst, is that their mode of action is extremely gentle, yet they can sometimes produce the most dramatic or even violent reactions in the patient as part of the complete process of curing and healing. How can something so gentle have such a powerful effect, and more importantly from the patient’s point of view, is the question of if it is possible to avoid such reactions entirely?
At a practical level, great care is taken to provide the patient with the most optimal dose and potency, in order to avoid any unnecessary aggravations from the remedy. However, this fundamental issue cannot be avoided, which is that even the most perfectly chosen dose and potency will still produce very large healing reactions sometimes. Why is this so?
Dr. Hahnemann explains it very well in the Orgonon, in the following 2 aphorism:
64. During the initial-action of the artificial disease Potences (medicines) upon our healthy body,
our Living Power appears (as seen from the following examples)
to comport itself purely conceptively (receptively, passively as it were)
and thus, as if forced, to allow the impressions of the artificial Potence
impinging from without to take place in itself,
thereby modifying its condition,
but then, as it were, to rally again
and a) to generate the exact opposite condition-state,
when there is such a one (counteraction, after-action),
to this impinging action (initial-action)
in equal degree to that which the impinging action (initial-action)
had on it by the artificial morbific or medicinal Potence,
and according to the measure of the Living Power’s own energy,
— or, b) when there is not an exact opposite state to the initial-action in nature,
the Living Power appears to strive to assert its superiority
by extinguishing the alteration actuated in itself from without (by the medicine),
in place of which it reinstates its norm (after-action, healing-action).
68. Experience shows us that in homeopathic cures
following the uncommonly small medicinal doses (§275-287)
which are necessary in this curative mode,
and which were just sufficient, by similarity of their symptoms,
to tune-over the similar natural disease
and to expel the natural disease from the Feeling of the Living Principle,
some small amount of medicinal disease still continues on alone initially
in the organism occasionally after extirpation of the natural disease,
but, because of the extraordinary minuteness of the dose
the medicinal disease disappears so transiently, so easily and so quickly by itself,
that the Living Power has no more considerable counteraction to take up
against this small artificial mistunement of its condition
than the counteraction of elevating the current condition up to the healthy station
(that is, the counteraction suitable for complete recovery),
to which end the Living Power requires but little effort
after extinguishment of the previous morbid mistunement.
(See §64 B)
What he is saying here, essentially, is that there are two different categories of diseases which each respond to the process of curing and healing differently. In the case of natural diseases, their removal (cure) is easily counterbalanced by the body’s natural healing power, which is able to draw on the opposite state of the disease from nature. In the other category of disease, however, (non-natural diseases), there is no opposite state existing in nature to draw upon in the healing process, and therefore the living power needs to take matters into its own hands and complete the healing process through brute force. This is where the dramatic and even violent healing reactions will be witnessed.
It is important to understand this, so that the patient’s health goals and means for getting there can be part of a congruent plan for their healthcare, where they fully realize why they may have to temporarily go through some discomfort if they wish to permanently rid themselves of their deeper diseases, rather than live with them continually deepening at the hands of suppressive or palliative means.
Ah, a very profound rendering and one I’d not heard termed exactly this way before. I love learning a new take on an idea I’ve witnessed and experienced countless times. Do you also feel that the magnitude of the reaction can do with the strength and fortitude of the ontic and it’s capacity to come to terms with the underlying reason for the engenderment of the disease wesen in the first place? I often find the balance of the healthy sense of one’s self can play into the life force feeling whip sawed by the HR. Also, I find that the degree of armoring in the patient can affect the four beat cycle of the full throttle nature of the counter action and its bevy of conciousness.
Thank you for your thoughts, my dear Ally! What you say is true in terms of entering into a “multi-axial” diagnosis and treatment approach, but to stick purely to what Hahnemann is saying within his own conceptual layer, the way that natural vs. non-natural disease goes through the curing/healing process is simply a fact of how disease is engendered, and what the inherent capacity is of our innate healing power to deal with it in one way or another. Even when the dose and potency is perfectly selected, and the patient’s regimen is perfect through all four of their bodily members, you still have to contend with this basic fact of disease, cure, and healing.
Jeff,
Interesting.
Your explanation is easier to follow for a layperson (e.g. somebody like me) than what Dr. Hahnemann wrote. Perhaps you could give some examples of natural diseases versus non-natural diseases (please) as I think that other people may also wonder what constitutes a non-natural disease?
Thanks, Doris – a simple example of a natural disease would be something like measles or chicken pox. A non-natural disease would include an iatrogenic disease, such as a prescription drug, as well as the strong emotional traumas which impact us to the point of generating a specific disease state.
Considering healing crisis I’ve gone through, I’ve have often wondered about this (gentle remedy and strong reaction), so I’m really glad to have found this article today and the specific examples. What I understand from it, flows intuitively and eases inner tensions.
To be very precise, Bruce – “schizophrenia” is not a disease (either natural or iatrogenic), but a “condition label” that will be different in every case. It will be made up of a mix of imbalances (regimen), diseases (medicine), and beliefs (education). That’s the shortest I can explain it short of writing a whole book in response!