Homeopathic Philosophy is NOT Boring -Really!

CHAT BEGAN AT 21:03 EDT

 

Moderator: Welcome, Carol Boyce and Laurie Stemm. Carol will answer your questions about studying homeopathic philosophy. She has taught, practiced, and worked in homeopathy for 30 years, set up clinics in places as diverse as Calcutta and Cairo, taught in medical schools in Cuba, is on faculty at six US schools and is published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. She is currently making a series of documentary films about the potential of homeopathy.

 

Laurie is the Tampa (FL) study group leader whose group was the first to try out Carol's new course, "FALL IN LOVE WITH THE ORGANON". She will answer your questions about how to include philosophy in your study group curriculum and to get your study group members involved.
Some of the advantages she found include:
- Members could view the lectures at home if they missed a meeting.
- The course allowed new members joining us to easily catch up with the rest of the group.
- We could fill in any gaps in our understanding by choosing specific topics, or we could follow the entire course in the prescribed order.
- We used the Q&A section as the basis for group discussion and a multiple choice quiz to confirm that we all "got it".
- We used the reading list with every lecture to study further on our own.

 

Carol Boyce: It’s 2am in the morning here in London – so forgive any typos at our end!   First of all I have to say that in no way do I present myself as an expert on the Organon - only as someone who appreciates the magnitude of the work - the effort and painstaking attention that it took over the span of some 50 years to distill the homeopathic methodology into this slim volume.  All respect and thanks to Hahnemann. All that remains is for us is to FALL IN LOVE WITH IT!!!!TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THE ORGANON !!!!

 

In my many years of teaching, I learned that Philosophy is always the poor relation - students are fascinated by Materia Medica - they see themselves or people they know - remember the first time that happened how amazed you were that the homeopath /  teacher knew all your idiosyncracies without you having to say anything!

 

Students are always fascinated hearing about cases resolving after years of unsuccessful allopathic treatment - or so called 'incurable' cases being cured.  And it's true for a homeopath there is no high like the cured case - it carries you through the hard slog of practice.

 

Repertorization is fun - like solving a crossword, the excitement of actually finding the rubric in the book!  Anatomy and Physiology can be fun too - finding out what group of symptoms belongs to which diagnostic label - discovering just how this amazing body of ours is designed to work.

 

Then there is philosophy and that little book that caused such a stir - the Organon. The 200 year old book that the anti-homeopaths criticize because it hasn't changed from then till now – therefore is so out of date, it's worthless, not realizing that because it is based on empirical evidence and objective truth it is timeless.

 

It can be hard to study without guidance and a little like practicing case taking - it takes a position low on the priority ladder until students are forced by exams like finals at school or the CCH qualification to get down and work out what it means.

 

Carol Boyce: I was teaching the MSc and PhD programs in Homeopathy at the American University of Complementary Medicine in Los Angeles when the Dean asked me to design a Distance Learning program. Needless to say, it had to begin with Philosophy. Without a solid underpinning of principles and how to apply them in practice, all the other information, the Materia Medica, the case analysis, the ability to speed repertorize, none of them are tied together into a coherent whole.

Laurie, who is NCH study group leader in Tampa, FL, asked if I would teach her class Philosophy - so I turned a camera on and this course is the result. Laurie can tell you more about how she found the course and how she used it with her students.

 

I want to make it as widely available as possible, especially to NCH study groups - to support the training of homeopaths - both home prescribers and those intending to become practitioners. Some of you know I've recently been working in places far from here and I'm offering it to homeopaths in training in the developing world free of charge - starting with Ghana, where they are putting together a comprehensive training for local people.

 

The course will be online as part of Homeoversity - you can check out the website at:  http://www.hv99.com to see what they have on offer - some of it is open to the public - some of it - like this course will be offered as part of my online school. 

 

If you are interested in a sample lecture just send me an email and I'll send you the access details:   Carol@somethingtosayproductions.com. Access is restricted to students and practitioners of specific modalities. We'll send you all the details, including an early bird special and further special discounts for NCH study group members.

 

Moderator: Do you recommend going through the lectures all at once at the beginning of a course, or interspersing them?

 

Carol Boyce: Beginners and new students can do the course in order - students who feel an area needs more clarification can do just one segment. Each topic is a separate lecture for that reason - you can mix and match as they say here.

 

The Old Masters had a lot to say about those physicians who did not immerse themselves in homeopathic thought but tried to practice from an allopathic stand point while using homeopathic medicines.

 

It's our duty to our patients and to homeopathy itself to be the best practitioners we can be - it's only by honing our skills and endeavoring to follow the principles that Hahnemann spent 50 some years of his life refining, that we can do homeopathy justice and it can take its rightful place as mainstream medicine. We owe it to ourselves and - as they say in India - to the suffering humanity.

 

In an ideal world we should always know what to do. We know the principles, and we can read the vital force and it tells us what to do. What medicine to choose - what potency to choose, how frequently to dose - when to re-prescribe - what needs to be changed in the life of the patient - obstacles to cure and so on as outlined in Aphorism 3.

 

The course covers all the main topics from the Vital force and Susceptibility, through the Homeopathic Theory of disease, the Law of Similars, The Law of Cure, Causation, Introduction to Materia Medica and Differential Diagnosis, Introduction to Case taking, Analysis and Repertorization, Provings and Pharmacy, Primary and Secondary Action and Second Prescription issues along with a series on the Miasms and a section on Acute prescribing.

Knowing the philosophy helps us become better patients - more patient !!! in our own healing

As a practitioner we HAVE to understand the philosophy or we can't do our work - in practice we refer to it every minute of everything we do.

 

When we prescribe Arnica for a bruise we are using it - the Law of Similars - the minimum dose and so on - nothing is routine.

 

The better we understand it the more solid a practitioner we can be - so I wanted to do something that went back to the source but that was also practical and pragmatic.

 

Each topic is related to the relevant Aphorisms in the Organon and to the application in practice.

 

Moderator: People are even less patient nowadays than they were 200 years ago. Hahnemann railed against those who tried to force-fit things, but how can we 'translate' the philosophy to help consumers understand the healing process, and the time it takes?

 

Carol Boyce: Yes it's true that impatience is a real problem. We can help them understand something about the hierarchy of symptoms and the Law of Cure. Once they understand that there is an order to everything, they get more patient and excited to see the process.

 

Jeanne: Will this lecture series help students prepare for the CHC exam?

 

Carol Boyce: Yes, it's made with that in mind. Also, it will be eligible for CCH hours - we are just finalising how many it will be - but 20 hours of lectures plus reading lists, etc -- it will be probably be around 35+ hours. I'm working with Karen Allen at CHC on it now. On completion you should be clear about all the main aspects of Philosophy and Principles and be enthused to study further in a new spirit of discovery!  You'll have fallen in love with the Organon!!!

 

The course helps build an underpinning of your future practice - you will need to continue your study - homeopathy has a way of forcing the best out of you if you rise to the challenge - sending you cases that just force you to reach a bit further than you did before.

 

Whatever methodology you use to select a medicine you still come back to this - what is amazing is that we have this solid philosophy - allopathy has no underpinning philosophy to speak of and the more you contemplate that fact, the stranger the current situation becomes!

 

Laurie Stemm: When Carol taught this course to our study group we were amazed at how much we didn't know and how many gaps were filled in that our classes had overlooked.

I have members of all levels and we all were able to get so much clearer on the basics of health in general.

 

Carol Boyce: It's a common thing that when we are studying we think we 'get it' and it's only when we look at it from a different perspective we realize that maybe we don't get it as well as we thought.

 

Jeanne: Did you study it all at once or spread out over several months (years)?

 

Laurie Stemm: We had the class weekly with some bi- weekly. I think it would be excellent to do 1 or maybe 2 classes a month depending on the subject of the class.

 

Moderator: Are you able to integrate homeopathic philosophy into your films? It seems to me this would be a great 'teachable moment' to the public

 

Carol Boyce: Yes, we are doing this but with the kind of films we're making, it has to be subtle - so it's not seen as preaching - lot going on in that area for us.

 

Debby Bruck: Everyone should see Carol's fabulous videos!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/homeopathyworldcommunity

 

Carol Boyce: Thanks, Debby!

 

Dipankar bakshi: Please discuss Aphorism number 9 and its relevance very briefly in the context of modern jet-age medical science.

 

Carol Boyce: Aphorism 9 says: In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital force (autocracy), the dynamis that animates the material body (organism), rules with unbounded sway, and retains all the parts of the organism in admirable, harmonious, vital operation, as regards both sensations and functions, so that our indwelling, reason-gifted mind can freely employ this living, healthy instrument for the higher purpose of our existence.

 

I am not certain I understand the question but I love this Aphorism - I think it hones in on the quintessential difference between homeopathy and modern medicine. It highlights the vast difference in perception of what the body is and how it works. Modern Medicine takes no account of the vital force and its role in life - ignores its existence – which, when you think about it, is remarkable. Without the animating dynamic vital force, the body is dead - yet there is no focus on the difference between a dead body and a live body - on what is life?  This is not a question that is asked by medical science.

 

Without the vital force animating the body and keeping it in harmony, functioning and healthy - our reason gifted mind cannot be here - WE cannot be here. The body enables the mind to exist on this earth in this time. Which brings me to my favourite quote:  "If you don't take care of your body, where are you going to live?"

 

Modern medicine, I would suggest, still sees the body as an unintelligent machine that goes wrong and needs to be fixed; that symptoms may make sense physiologically but are not seen as an intelligent response of the vital force to the situation it finds itself in - the stimuli it experiences, the causative factors that derange it, etc.

 

If the questioner is here I hope that maybe answered it?

 

Christina: Being a beginner, I hope this isn't too basic, but I was wondering ....What do you think is the best course of action when using remedies; is it better to stick to one for awhile or switch if you don't see immediate results.  Also, what do you look for as far as symptoms - are you looking for the current symptoms to look better or worse?  Do you stop the remedy right away if they get better?  If they get worse? 

 

Carol Boyce: Christina, thanks for your questions - they are both basic and complex at the same time.  Complex because, in homeopathy, we can never say never and we can never say always - every case must be individualized so therefore the actual answer to your questions is that we can't say. We can't say what the best course of action is in a case we don't know anything about. Students and homeopaths alike get desperate for Rules to follow. There are Rules of sorts but there are always exceptions and qualifiers.

 

So in the first part - is it better to stick to one remedy for awhile or switch if you don't see immediate results. We should stay with the same remedy until it has exhausted its action - in an acute this maybe be a matter of hours - it may need to be repeated - in a chronic it may be weeks or months - it may also need to be repeated - the case may take time to resolve - what do we mean by immediate results? The vital force will tell us what we should do. We use the Law of Cure to assess progress and act accordingly.

 

We look at the case overall and assess progress. The symptoms of the case may not resolve until the very last. For example, if the symptom the patient complains of is eczema - that symptom may not resolve until many other symptoms in the hierarchy have resolved - anxiety for example, a deep grief has been accepted and so on. It might be that the current symptoms get worse if there has been a similar aggravation to remedy that has been prescribed, but this should be short and sharp and disappear. It might be that the current symptoms get better but the PATIENT gets worse, in which case the patient is not following the Law of Cure.

 

Do we stop the remedy immediately if they get better? Well it depends on what we mean by better? Totally cured or just improved - has the case resolved or is the vital force still working on the issue? - in which case we may need to repeat again if the case begins to stall. Do we stop it if they get worse? What do we mean by worse? Is the case moving in the opposite direction of the Law of Cure? Then we should stop the remedy is not homeopathic to the case. An aggravation?  In which case there might well be amelioration afterwards - so we should watch and wait and see what happens and not prescribe until we are sure we know in which direction the case is moving. We may still need to repeat the remedy again once it is clear what is happening.

 

So we can never say never and never say always. And I think you might benefit from the course because the whole point of it is to understand the principles and philosophy that underpins the work we do as homeopaths in a pragmatic and practical way - so we know what to do and why we are doing it and are not lost in a sea of confusion.  Which is not to say there are never cases that we get stuck on - there definitely are - and that's when we ask peers for support and those with more experience for help - but first and foremost it is our responsibility to get the basics clear - to build that foundation that underpins our work and use it to be the best practitioners we can be.

 

So you might find the class on vital force helpful - how to read it and why we do. Also the class on Law of Cure and how to follow it and why we do.

 

Moderator: Laurie, you had the benefit of Carol being there with your study group... do you think other study groups will be able to learn properly with the DVDs and the reading lists and other materials provided, but WITHOUT Carol there to answer questions?

 

Laurie Stemm: Everyone, I hope you understand this is truly much harder to understand learning like this – having to type out all the answers. With Carol’s examples, power points and simple descriptions interpreting the Organon, we were able to understand many of these points much more easily. You do have Carol in these videos. She is teaching you as if she is in the class with you.  This was filmed exactly as it was taught to us and she answers our questions in the class

 

Carol Boyce: The classes are videos of the classes I did for Laurie intercut with the power point slides and reading lists and a quiz and certificate of completion at the end of each.

 

Debby Bruck: You are saying this is self-directed learning series?

 

Carol Boyce: Yes, Debby, self-directed - there will still be contact with me for the CCH hours because that's part of the requirement

 

Sally: Do you have an idea about price for the series?

 

Carol Boyce: Price points are being finalized - but I want to make it available for as many people as possible - the point it to train as many good homeopaths as possible - the world needs them more than ever!!!!!

 

Sally: Glad to hear that!

 

holism07: Is the Kunzli version of the Organon considered obsolete?

 

Carol Boyce: We will be using the 6th Edition Dudgeon - The Brewster Reilly version is probably the best for people studying at study group level

 

holism07: thanks!

 

Laurie Stemm: We are putting together prices for the entire course, some subsets on Acute-case taking, Miasms  and other individual classes now.  We are giving substantial discounts for study groups and for introducing the class.  So if you send me your email, I will send you all the information

 

Carol Boyce: Please send an email to Carol@somethingtosayproductions.com with “Philosophy” in the subject line and I will send you all the details and access to a sample lecture as soon as it’s ready.

 

Debby Bruck: Hello Everyone. Every Sunday through Thursday at noon Eastern Time Vera Resnick, classical homeopath from Jerusalem, and I do a live 30 minute radio show called, "Who's Reading the Organon". It’s been very successful. It’s FREE! It’s like George Burns and Gracie Allen. Vera is the straight man and I'm the comedy side. Duh! I ask the silliest questions and say the dumbest things sometimes.

 

The goal is to read all the aphorisms in one year. We started in May - so it's been 3 months and that has been 68 shows. Eye opening and very valuable no matter where you are in your

homeopathic journey. Everyone is welcome to join us in the live chat on HWC. You can download the archives or podcast the sessions. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/homeopathyworldcommunity

It will be a good addition to your study sessions and learning with Carol.

 

DebbyBruck: Thanks, Carol. Jump right in.

 

Carol Boyce: Cool, Debby, good for you! I will tune in myself!

 

Laurie Stemm: We have some great news about the film on autism.

 

Carol Boyce: Let me give a quick update on films. Saving A Lost Generation Project is going well. I was just in New York filming an interview with Pierre Fontaine, a homeopath who has been focusing on ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) and two families with recovered children. I'm editing the footage now for another clip to use to get the word out.

 

I’m not sure if you know this project is much more than a documentary film. We are coordinating a pilot study of ASD children being treated with homeopathy. We have an Autism Center in Florida on board that is affiliated with a hospital and a university research department - the parents of the children are excited to have the pilot study there. We will document the children going through the program on film.

 

We are continuing to fundraise for it - if you know anyone who might be interested in helping fund a pilot study, please ask them to get in contact with us - the parents want to begin in October this year! Carol@somethingtosayproductions.com

 

We've also been working with Generation Rescue - Jenny McCarthy's organization - to get a list of homeopathic practitioners with experience of treating ASD for their website - so far there have been no homeopaths listed.

 

You can read more about the autism project at the film website here: http://www.savingalostgeneration.com

 

I have just finished editing clips of interviews with Homeopaths from the developing World that were shot at the “Homeopathy in the Developing World” conference last year. They will be posted on our website later this week. Dr Gustavo Bracho is one of them - one of the Cuban researchers involved in the Leptospirosis work. There is also an interview with a homeopath from Kenya and another from Ghana.

 

Debby Bruck: Please write an update and I'll post on www.HomeopathyWorldCommunity.com  with the past blogs.

 

Carol Boyce: Ok, will do thanks

 

Debby Bruck: How many films will be created?

 

Carol Boyce: We have two other projects in the works - a lot of footage already shot - one we can't talk about because it's too controversial, but stay tuned for its release. While I was in New York filming for Saving a Lost Generation, I met up with a group of ocean rowers who were intent on breaking the 114-year old record for rowing the North Atlantic between New York and England (you may have seen it on CNN) - they broke the record by 11 days in spectacular fashion - and you'll find out later why the whole adventure was so interesting to us.

 

While I was in New York I was lucky enough to be able to attend a meeting at Tina Quirk's house at which NCH president Nancy Gahles gave a presentation about her incredible work getting homeopathy a seat at the table of health care choices. I'm editing the video I made at that meeting for the NCH website at the moment.

 

Our new Something to Say website with all the clips I've been talking about will soon be live so check in and follow all the action from there! http://www.somethingtosayproductions.com

 

Debby Bruck: Wonderful progress this year, Carol and NCH!

 

Carol Boyce: We posted the video of the UK Homeopaths' Lobby of parliament earlier this year - in protest over the Evidence Check into homeopathy which you will have heard about via the NCH e-Newsletters. And I did a spoof of Rachel Maddow for Hahnemann's birthday called The Plural of Denial is Not Science - in answer to some of the anti-homeopathy campaign in the UK - which as you know is raging strongly.

 

Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the last two years - every donation, no matter how small allows us to keep moving forward and doing our part to show the enormous potential of homeopathy.  It’s crucial to retain final editorial control of these films so raising funding is crucial to that.  I had the option to pitch one of the projects to the BBC, but their science department has proven to be very biased against homeopathy, so I turned it down!

 

Moderator: Carol and Laurie, thank you so much for staying up waaay past your London bedtimes. We appreciate all your comments, and look forward to getting all the info on "Fall in Love with the Organon".

 

Please email Carol if you want to receive the info: Carol@somethingtosayproductions.com with “Philosophy” in the subject line.

 

Sally: thank you!

 

Carol Boyce: Thanks for the opportunity, and to everyone for showing up.

 

cheryleey: Thank you for all you do!

 

Laurie Stemm: I'll be happy to answer any questions about how we studied the Organon in our study group. Please email me at lstemm@shipwreck.net .

Thank you all and good luck in your studies.

 

Carol Boyce: Yes, indeed - we need you out there in practice!

 

CHAT ENDED AT 22:10 EDT