The “Generative Power” of Heilkunst medicine

Video Transcription

Jeff Korentayer:

This video is part of a series on the broad question of “how diagnosis works in Heilkunst medicine”. And the topic of this video is on the particular concept of the Generative Power. So I will just turn to my slideshow in just a second. And I’ll just remind you that you can type your question in the comment box below – whether directly about what I’m talking about in this video, or if it’s a question you’d like answered in a future video.

Just getting up my slideshow here. Pardon the pause, just pressing the right button here. There we go.

So as I said, this video is part of our series on the concept of how diagnosis works in Heilkunst medicine. And particularly, today, I want to focus in on Dr. Hahnemann’s very unique concept of the Generative Power. So as I say in my subtitle here, it’s “the unique insight that sets Heilkunst apart from the rest of healthcare.” So what makes Heilkunst medicine unique? Normally, people would consider that maybe it has a unique role in the world of natural medicine. But the fact that it is part of the world of natural medicine is actually not the most interesting distinction to make. The Generative Power is Hahnemann’s powerful insight, which sets it apart – both from natural healthcare, as well as conventional. So as you’ll see in a moment, the definition of the generative power is something that you’re not going to find either in the world of natural healthcare or in conventional medicine.

As you may recall from an earlier video, the whole system of Heilkunst medicine is built on all kinds of different dualities or polarities. And just a couple of examples here on this slide to get our minds back into this. The one polarity is diseases of constant nature versus diseases of variable nature. Or, another example would be the use of the intellectual mind (what’s called the “Sinn” in German) versus the emotional mind (or “Gemüt”). And also, human physiology is based on the duality of the human spirits (or the German word “Geist”) versus the instinctual pole (or the “Wesen”).

Now, within the Living Power, every human being is alive and running on the basis of this activity of the living power. And more specifically, it’s not just that. I mean, a lot of people would agree or have a sense of something like that. But what Hahnemann brings to that is a very unique duality within the living power. And that is two German words: Erhaltungskraft and Erzeugungskraft, or we translate as the Sustentive Power and the Generative Power. Now, if you’ve ever heard a homeopath refer to the “vital force” of the human being, then you know that their practice is missing this powerful duality.

So let’s give a little bit more of a definition of the Sustentive Power through some examples.

The first example, “all of the innate processes in the body which strive towards balance, such as temperature regulation” (when you shiver when you’re cold and you’re trying to generate some warmth, or when you start to sweat when you’re hot). That’s the mechanism the body uses to try to cool you down. Second example is “our hormonal rhythms which respond to the changing levels of light in summer versus winter, and which affect our basic patterns of sleep and metabolism”. And the third example of the sustentive power is “natural cravings for foods that are high in the nutrient we are lacking, such as craving citrus fruits when we are lacking in vitamin C”.

Now to give a bit of definition to the Generative Power through some examples.

First, we have “any process in the body which involves the creation of a new cell”, such as “cell division and reproduction”. For example, “the body produces 200 Billion new red blood cells every day!” So every one of those is courtesy of our generative power. Second example is “sexual procreation”. When we make a baby for example, it “isn’t a simple ‘rearrangement’ of existing cells, but the creation of a brand new human being”. And the third example I have here, “thinking a [brand] new, creative thought. The seed of ‘genius’ which everyone possesses and uses whenever we gain a fresh insight into something. [This is] the basis of artistic creation.”

Now to take this a little further, when we look at the generative power, it really helps us further clarify our definition of health. So within our definition of health, we do have a duality. Yet again, another duality. And one side of health is the more well-known term of “homeostasis”. And that’s “the concept for health of the Sustentive Power, [which is] based on the idea of balance or stability. [And] this relates to the idea of ‘Healing’, which is what our innate healing power does when properly supported, and left to its own devices.” The other side of the definition of health, getting more strictly into our concept we’re talking about today, the concept of the generative power, leads us into the idea of “palingenesis”. Now the concept for health based on on palingenesis is the idea of “rebirth” or “regeneration”. And this relates specifically to the concept of ‘Cure’, which belongs to the action of the homeopathic medicine.

So to recap this slide, we have healing which is really an innate part of our life force or healing power. And then the idea of cure, which relates more to this generative power. And that being that when we get a disease, it impregnates into our generative power. And then the homeopathic medicine also kind of reaches into that generative power and helps enact that curative activity.

Now, the difference between “imbalance” or “disease” is another key dimension of diagnosis. And again, having this this nuance between the Sustentive Power and the Generative Power, when you look at the activity of the sustentive power, it is the side of our living power which is prone to imbalance. So like those examples I gave earlier, like vitamin C imbalance or something like that (that’s an example of an imbalance). Versus the Generative Power which is susceptible to actual disease. And as I say here, a disease impregnates into the generative power. So it’s very much like the way we make a baby, you know, through our generative power. Of course, making a baby is a healthy thing, but that generative power may also be susceptible to disease. So when we have a disease in the Heilkunst sense, it’s something more like an impregnation has taken place. Now to give a counter example, I talked here about the example of the allopathic label of “rheumatoid arthritis.” And this is merely “an abstraction”. It “answers neither to identifying the underlying imbalance(s) of the substantive power, nor to the underlying disease(s) of the generative power.” It’s giving us neither of those. So “it is a false diagnosis that gives no insight into how to treat a given case.”

So that’s just a very quick definition and summary of the generative power. If you have any questions, please type them in the comment box below. And if they relate to this particular question, I will answer it right away. Or I will put it into a future video.

And let me just go back to my camera. I’m sorry, I have to find the right button here. Yep, there I am. So, thank you. Thank you for for joining me on this video. And I will see you in the next one.

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