Homoeopathy is a system of medicine based on the principle like cures like. While mention of this principle is found in the writings of Hippocrates (400 BC) and even earlier in those of the ancient Indian poet Kalidas (approx. 10^th Century BC) it was a German physician Dr. Samuel Hahnemann who in 1790 founded a system of therapeutics based upon it. Hahnemann became interested in the curative powers of the medicines, and in one of the text books of his time he read that cinchona bark (from which quinine is extracted) cured malarial type fevers as it is bitter. He thought that the best way to determine the action of cinchona was to see what effect it had on the body. Thus he took some of the substance himself, and much to his surprise he developed fever, chills and other symptoms resembling those of malaria. This result made him see that the reason why cinchona is effective in cases of malarial type fever is perhaps because it is capable of producing a condition very similar to malaria. He repeated this experiment and performed several others with other medicinal substances on himself and on volunteers from amongst his family, friends and students, and each time obtained the same result. On this was based the homoeopathic principle like cures like which means that a substance that can cause a certain effect in a healthy person can cure a disease with similar symptoms. For example a person who has been poisoned with lead (chronic poisoning) will experience symptoms such as severe colicky pain with spasm of the abdominal muscles, constipation and paralysis and fatigue; on the other hand a person suffering from these symptoms especially where there has been no history of lead poisoning can be relieved with the homoeopathic remedy Plumbum metallicum (lead in homoeopathic ultra minute doses). The homoeopathic principle can be used to heal or alleviate conditions even where no medicines are employed; for example an experienced cook when burned will hold his hand close enough to the fire to experience an increase in the burning pain rather than immerse it in cold water, as in this way his pains are relived faster after a temporary increase in the discomfort and also there is better healing.

          Hahnemann’s experiments of testing medicinal effects on healthy volunteers came to be known as provings. From the provings were compiled records in which the symptoms obtained were arranged systematically and these constituted the Homoeopathic Materia Medica. During the nearly one hundred provings that he conducted in his lifetime, and the vast number of patients he treated using the system, the founder of Homoeopathy noted the following:

          1. Medicines produced changes not only in some particular region in the body but affected the whole of the body and also the mind. Holism is one of the basic tenets of Homoeopathy, so that disease is defined as affecting the whole and not just a part of the body. The homoeopathic physician notes down the state of the patient’s mind in addition to listing his physical symptoms and attempts to match the patient to a homoeopathic remedy with a similar set of symptoms. For example a mild, yielding, sensitive woman who is easily moved to tears, who suffers from a disordered digestion due to an erratic diet and who is thirstless but craves sour and pungent foods which would aggravate her condition, will probably require the homoeopathic remedy Pulsatilla as a similar description can be found in the symptomatology of this plant remedy.

          2. While several medicinal substances did produce symptoms resembling the same disease condition each substance did so in its own peculiar way, with it’s own distinct conditions of aggravation and amelioration of the symptoms, it’s own unique accompanying sensations etc. In treating an individual also a homoeopath will look for these peculiar symptoms which individualize the patient, so that treatment is not diagnoses based but individual based. Thus if of two children with respiratory tract infection, the first is very irritable, wants to be constantly carried by the mother but is very irritable if someone else tries to touch him or even look at him, has a thick white coating on the tongue, is thristless and vomits with the cough he will probably require the homoeopathic remedy Antim tart; whereas the other child if he is of thin build, coughs especially in the evening between 4 and 8 PM, wants sweet foods but eats little, is afraid of being alone and feels chilled easily, he would probably require the homoeopathic remedy Lycopodium. Both might share a common diagnosis but throw up quite different and peculiar, individualizing symptoms which call for the selection of different homoeopathic remedies.

          3. In treating patients Hahnemann realized that if he administered the medicinal substance as it was, even in small doses, there followed an aggravation that was at times quite intense, and also some poisonous substances could not be administered as medicines. He therefore started diluting the medicines, and in doing so he realized that a step by step, serial dilution of the remedial substance when accompanied by a process of succussion or vigorous shaking increased the efficacy of the remedy while reducing it’s harmful and undesired effects. In fact the more diluted and succussed the remedy is the more potent it’s curative action. This process therefore came to be known as potentization. Potentized homoeopathic remedies are ultra dilutions of the original substance and beyond certain potency none of the original medicinal substance can be detected in the remedy, and it is assumed that only the energy of the original substance remains in these homoeopathic doses.

          4. Hahnemann postulated that these ultra dilutions since there were now beyond the material realm, also touched through their action something immaterial, viz. the inner energy or spirit which imparts life to the body, and keeps all it’s parts working harmoniously. This energy he called the Vital Force. The aim of homoeopathic treatment is therefore to stimulate the restore the disordered Vital Force to return the body to it’s original healthy state.

          5. Through his clinical observations Hahnemann also identified that there was something fundamental to the complaints that the patient manifested with, and that when attempting to cure it was necessary to also remove this fundamental cause of disease which he called a miasm. He identified three miasms and also classified remedies as being suited to eradicate specific miasms, so that the homoeopathic remedy selected for the patient would have to match not only the patient’s symptoms but also cover his miasm. This gave prescribing a certain depth.

          The practice of Homoeopathy started gaining in popularity in Europe, The USA and Asia. With new remedies being proved even after Hahnemann’s death in 1843 the Homoeopathic Materia Medica started to become voluminous. There was a need therefore to create an index of symptoms which would serve as easy reference for physicians. This index is called a repertory.

          Although this science had faced opposition right from the time of its foundation, Homoeopathy continued to spread and progress. It received patronage from some of the most respected people in society and in the United States at the turn of the century one of every five doctors used Homoeopathy. There were many great homoeopaths in that country at the time, viz. Dr. J. T. Kent, Dr. C. M. Boger, Dr. Nash, Dr. Allen and Dr. H. C. Roberts, all practicing classical homoeopathy. During this period homoeopathic literature developed, its tools were sharpened, its philosophy expounded and its practice evolved.

          Homoeopathy had spread to India, and here too there was much development. Calcutta was the stronghold of Homeopathy with famous homeopaths like Dr. B.K. Bose, Dr. M. L. Sircar, Dr. N. M. Chowdury and others. Development continued at this pace in various countries across Europe, America and Asia into the twentieth century until the 1930s when it’s practice began to decline. One reason was that while Homoeopathy integrated philosophy into its theory and practice there was a shift in medicine to a mechanical model of the body. Then there was the discovery of antibiotics and the use of steroids, and in this way a wider rift developed between conventional medicine and Homoeopathy. Another reason was that amongst homoeopaths there started to emerge disagreements. Many deviated from classical Hahnemannian Homoeopathy and some started prescribing on local symptoms and diagnoses, while others mixed several remedies (whereas Hahnemann had advocated the use of single remedies), and yet others discarded the idea of potentised remedies; all this with pharmacies patenting specifics, mixtures and formulas, even homoeopathic hair oils and toothpaste! The stream of Classical Homoeopathy began thinning, although the science itself survived. Except for a handful of classical prescribers, Homeopathy went into the hands of less qualified people or prescribers with no classical foundation.

          This state of affairs continued till the 1970s when it’s practice and spread experienced a renaissance. While Homoeopathy had considerably declined in the US and many parts of Europe there were still a considerable number of Homoeopaths in India. A Greek Homoeopath by the name of George Vithoulkas, who also came to India to study the system, can be said to have begun the resurrection of Homoeopathy in Europe in the late 1970s. He re-emphasized treating the patient and not merely his symptoms, and also laid a lot of stress on the perception of the mind state, which Hahnemann had identified as the most peculiar and thus most imortant aspect of any patient. There had been homoeopaths before him who did this, especially Dr. James Tyler Kent, an American homoeopath in the early twentieth century, who was able to perceive remedy states as images or pictures. This brought some life into an otherwise dry materia medica where remedies had only been looked upon as collections of symptoms, mental and physical. Vithoulkas, working along similar lines, developed an understanding of essences of various remedies. He taught the same at his seminars using video recorded case interviews from his teaching practice. His enthusiastic teaching and appreciable results inspired a new generation of homoeopaths in Europe, the US and India.

          One of the early schools of Homoeopathy in India has been the Institute of Clinical Research (ICR). Founded in Bombay by Dr. M. L. Dhawale this school came to it’s own in the early 1970s, when it attempted to systematize the processes of homoeopathic case taking and remedy selection. It introduced a post graduate course and had the following of a band of very dedicated and devoted doctors who believe in strict adherence to methodology. Recently this school has expanded and put up a hospital at Palghar near Mumbai. One of the main teachers in the ICR, Dr Praful Barvalia, has taken the step of co-ordinating Homeopathic therapy with other diagnostic and therapeutic methods in the case of children with learning disabilities and other psychological problems including autism. His center in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, is a fine example of coordinated work by a group coming from various disciplines.

          Also in India in the mid 80s Dr. M. L. Sehgal from Delhi, like his contemporaries in other parts of the world, focused his attention on the mind state of the patient and how to perceive it. Dr. Sehgal was of the opinion that one could prescribe on the mind state alone. Working on this idea he developed a unique and revolutionary concept whereby the mental symptoms need not be asked to the patient directly but can be perceived by the way in which he narrates his complaint. He also found unique ways in which to apply existing symptoms from out of the materia medica. For example the remedy Stramonium has the symptoms “Fear of darkness” and “Desire for light”. According to Dr. Sehgal the patient could be expressing these symptoms when he said he is suffering from a particular ailment and he is extremely anxious that he does not know what it is and he would want to be investigated; this could be understood to mean fear of the unknown (darkness), and desire for investigation or knowledge of his problem (light). Dr. Sehgal wrote a sereis of books and founded the Sehgal School of Revolutionised Homoeopathy in Delhi. He also inspired many people internationally, although there are quite a few who appreciate him but do not follow him directly as he wanted to exclusively use mental symptoms in his prescribing ( as opposed to mainstream Homoeopath who would use both mental and physical symptoms).

          Also in the 80s, Jeremy Sherr, a homeopath based in England restarted the process of proving new homoeopathic remedies in the Hahnemannian style. Homoeopathic remedies are derived from various sources of all three kingdoms, namely Mineral , Plant and Animal. Examples of some Homoeopathic remedies are Natrum mur (common salt), Allium cepa (onion) and Naja(venom of the cobra). Sherr first undertook the proving of Scorpion. Sherr exemplified his understanding of the remedy Scorpion with the portrait of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He later proved Hydrogen, Chocolate and other new remedies. His provings have been published have helped heal many a case in practice. This inspired others in various parts of the world to undertake more and newer provings so that in the last fifteen years, more than three hundred new remedies have been added into the homoeopathic armamentarium.

          Among those who developed further the understanding of the mind state of the patient is the Bombay physician, Dr. Rajan Sankaran. He, too, regarded the mind state as more than just a random collection of discrete and unconnected symptoms. But his concept was that the whole of this state arose from an altered perception of reality, which is called Delusion. For example if a person views his situation as being very dangerous and threatening, and himself as a helpless child, he will react with panic and clinging. His apparent mental state (panic and clinging) comes from the delusion that he is like a child in dangerous surroundings. This false feeling will also be seen in his dreams. Another example: a patient who views himself as handicapped will feel incapable of handling his everyday responsibilities and react by shunning his duties and depending entirely on others. His apparent mental state (lack of responsibility, lack of confidence and dependence on others) comes from his inner, false perception that he is handicapped. In this way Dr. Rajan Sankaran brought out the importance of dreams and delusions as the basis of disease. Dreams became an integral part of case understanding after they were emphasized by Dr. Juergen Becker of Germany and Dr. Sankaran. The way to deal with dreams was explained by Dr. Sankaran as follows: “We have not to ignore a dream nor interpret it. Interpretation of a dream is always a theory and this is not what homeopathy is about. We simply need to go into the exact feelings in the dreams and see where else do such feelings occur in the persons life. The dream is closest to the delusion, the false perception which is at the bottom of the mind state of the patient.” These and other ideas were contained in his first book The Spirit of Homoeopathy which became immensely popular, and which continues to be among best sellers in Homoeopathic literature. Apart from dreams there are other ways to perceive the patients delusion, and among these, the patient’s interests and hobbies, including what books, movies, activities etc. fascinate him, or hurt his sensitivity, were useful pointers to his inner state. Often unable to recall dreams the patient can vividly describe a scene from a movie or a newspaper story, with such powerful emotions that it could have been his own story. Such a thing is like a dream and can be used to perceive the delusion of the patient. Dr. Sankaran later systematized this method in his book The System of Homoeopathy.

          Dr. Sankaran continued to develop other concepts, aiming at systematizing homoeopathy and standardizing results. He used his concept of disease as a false perception of reality to understand miasms. In his understanding miasms represent the depth and degree of desperation of the person’s inner delusion. As Dr. Sankaran understood it, Psora, the miasm at one end of the spectrum, shows a lot of hope, while Syphilis, the miasm at the other end of this spectrum shows the least hope and therefore the most desperation. He also added another six miasms to the already existing ones.

          Another very popular and now quite widely accepted, yet controversial theory of his is the kingdom theory. Through his very busy clinical practice Dr. Sankaran was able to identify differences in patients requiring remedies from different kingdoms. He was able to see the main issue with persons requiring mineral kingdom remedies had to do with structure and the loss of it, while that with plant kingdom remedies had to do with sensitivity, while the animal kingdom remedies had issues with survival as their basic problem. In this way for the first time Homoeopathy which had been seemingly discrete from other sciences such as chemistry, zoology and botany was now very obviously connected with them. By understanding miasms the way he did and through his kingdom theory the practice of Homoeopathy became more systematic and simpler. There were now over two thousand remedies in the homoeopathic material medica to chose from, and in choosing one for the patient it was easy to get very lost. Using Dr. Sankaran’s approach one identified the kingdom and miasm and thus narrowed down the possible remedies considerably. Therefore if is a patient presents thus: He suffers from a degenerative variety of arthritis and he needs support to walk. He feels that his knees will give way and is willing to stretch himself to do whatever he can to conserve his joints. He is very afraid of any kind of loss especially financial, as to him this means a loss of stability from which he will find it very difficult to recover. He is dependent on others and fears the loss of relationships, especially those that provide him with a stable base. In this example one can see quite easily that running through the mind state of the patient is the fear of losing the stable base on which he is dependent. Even the arthritis threatens that his knees, on which he depends to keep him upright and mobile, will give way. The problem here has to do with losing structure, whether it has to do with his knees, his financial situation or relationships. This patient would, in all probability, require a mineral remedy. Also he views this loss of structure as a situation from which there is little hope of recovery, and he is desperate and willing to stretch himself and so whatever he can to prevent it. This would put his miasm somewhere at the syphilitic end of the spectrum. Now the selection of his remedy has been made far simpler when the physician knows that he is looking for a nearly syphilitic mineral remedy ( In this case, Calcarea Fluor).

          Dr. Sankaran also connected the periodic table of elements to homoeopathy, so that the table itself can be viewed as a map of remedy states. Similarly he studied the plant kingdom remedies using the existing botanical classification into plant families. In this process he discovered one level deeper to delusion, viz that of sensation. Each plant family shared a common sensation; what differed with each of it’s members was the degree of desperation with which the sensation was experienced (miasm). One had begun with looking at physical and emotional symptoms, then realized that delusion was deeper to both of them, and now there was yet one level deeper to both mind and body, viz. sensation. Each person expressed a unique sensation which connected directly with the source of the remedy. More recently he has discovered a still deeper level, that of energy. Each patient has a unique energy pattern ,which is seen in various expressions including body language and especially through hand gestures .It is this energy pattern disturbance that is the problem and needs to be treated. Thus the original Hahnemannian idea that disease is a disturbance of the inner vital force and that homeopathy is energy medicine has now become a practical reality. Dr. Sankaran’s concepts widened the horizons of homoeopathy as never before, as one was now able to prescribe even remedies not yet proved. Dr. Sankaran has written six major books, some of which have been translated into twelve languages.

          Dr. Sankaran leads the Bombay School of Homoeopathy, and together with his colleagues Dr. Jayesh Shah, Dr. Sujit Chatterjee, Dr. Sunil Anand and Dr. Sudhir Baldota has been teaching through video cases a unique method of case taking and remedy selection at seminars in twenty five countries around the globe. The school also holds annual international courses and seminars in Mumbai, some of which have been attended by over a thousand participants. The unique case taking method as taught by Dr. Sankaran, traces the patients experience of his suffering or ailment right down to the deepest level, viz. that of sensation and energy, till that point where the source of his turmoil is reached. Although through this method Dr. Sankaran has attempted a standardization of the case taking and remedy selection techniques in homoeopathy, the technique itself remains artistic and varies with patients, something that is in keeping with the basic principle of individualization.

          Working along similar lines another homoeopath, Dr. Divya Chhabra, also from Bombay started exploring the use of the Freudian concept of free association in bringing out the inner delusion and arriving at the remedy. She has developed her own method of case taking in which the patient is allowed to begin with peripheral expressions or situations and from there the case taking progresses as a spiral to the centre which is his innermost delusion. Her method is popular with homoeopaths both in India and abroad.

          Dr. Jan Scholten, a Dutch Homoeopath, continued the exploration of the periodic table as a means of understanding the nature of mineral remedies in Homoeopathy. Through his work the entire periodic table can be related to Homoeopathy. A journey down the table from the first to the seventh period corresponds to the development from infancy to old age, from powerlessness to power, from dependence to independence. For example, row 3 of the table deals with people involved in everyday tasks, while row 4 deals with the innovators, inventors and artists, people involved in creative work, and row 5 deals with people in position of power and responsibility; heads of organization, leaders, dictators, kings. Also he realized that the left half of the table represents a climb towards success, while the right half represents an effort to maintain one’s position and then a decline. In this way he could predict the mind state of elements not yet proved, and later provings and clinical application of his concepts confirmed them. He has written two major books, viz. Homoeopathy and Minerals and the Homoeopathy and the Elements, both of which are immensely popular, and through the use of which many unproved remedies have been utilized.

          In the past five years, another Mumbai based homoeopath, Dr Prafull Vijaykar, has expounded his ideas. Termed “Predictive Homoeopathy”, it attempts to understand the basic constitution of the patient and uses the same as the basis of prescribing. He also has connected Homeopathy to embryology through his theory of seven levels of suppression. With the help of several cases from his practice he has illustrated that when a symptom is treated locally it is suppressed to a deeper level in the organism. Cure, on the other hand, should result from within outward, namely in the reverse order of the suppression. This phenomenon is already well known in Homeopathy as the Hering’s Law of Direction of Cure. Dr. Vijaykar has emphasized this law and uses it as a strict yardstick to judge whether what is happening in a given case is suppression or a cure.

          As homoeopaths attempted to understand the patient at deeper and deeper levels it became apparent that the main idea of the interview in homeopathy is to get to the finest level of the symptoms experienced by a patient. Each symptom is probed deeper and deeper till the peculiar sensation is uncovered. This sensation represents the individuality of the person and will be often seen to be the connecting thread in the whole case. The body and mind will express this at the deepest level. With all this emphasis on the mind state of the patient homoeopathy has been thought to be similar to psychotherapy and analysis, and sometimes attempts have been made to combine the two; homoeopathy is deeper than psychotherapy as the latter deals with the subconscious and conscious minds whereas the realm of homoeopathy is that of energy which is the basis of the subconscious and conscious minds. The idea of the homeopath is not to ask why of a phenomenon, rather he goes into the what exactly of a phenomenon. The basic philosophy is to observe without judgment each phenomenon as it gets finer and finer and this is very similar to the process of meditation. Meditation, like homoeopathic remedies, reflects the patient’s inner turmoil, and is being recommended by some homoeopaths to complement the work of homoeopathic remedies.

          In that sense homeopathy does not subscribe to the cause-effect theories. For example it does not say that stress is the cause of peptic ulcer or hypertension. It says that stress itself is a part of the disease as much as the ulcer or hypertension is. Together, stress and the ulcer/hypertension, are two expressions of the same basic disorder, a disorder in the deepest level of the being, and it is this disorder that needs to be seen and treated. There is no psycho-somatic medicine or somato-psychic causation; there is only the totality of observable phenomenon. The homoeopath is interested in observing the sensation expressed in the ulcer, and this will be no different than the sensation in his emotional stress taken to the deepest point.

          For example the patient may say that with his ulcer, apart from the symptom of burning pain which is commonly experienced with the condition, there is a feeling that the stomach is very weak and is fragile and can break from any slight indiscretion. When this person’s mind state is examined it will be that his emotional stress is based upon a feeling of others finding out that he is not what he portrays to be, and this will be expressed as a feeling of fragility with regard to the image he projects. WHAT THE HOMEOPATH WILL OBSERVE IS THAT THE SENSATION EXPRESSED IN THE ULCER, WILL BE NO DIFFERENT THAN THE SENSATION AT THE BOTTOM OF WHAT THE PATIENT CALLS AS STRESS. The fragile sensation , seen both locally and mentally is actually an expressioin of the deepest level of the disturbance, deeper than mind and body , and the underlying basis of both. A remedy with such a sensation (in this case, Thuja) will bring a healing action at the deepest level, thus helping his ulcer and his stress at the same time.

          All this development and change in concepts and literature in the last fifteen or twenty years has also seen the emergence of newer and better tools for the science. Kent’s repertory, which is over a hundred and fifty years old, was perhaps the repertory most frequently referred to by homoeopaths well into the 1970s. Today, there are many more repertories available, and the largest of them, the Complete Repertory compiled by Roger van Zandvoort is about six times the size of Kent’s Repertory., David Warkentin, an innovator from California, pioneered the development of software in Homeopathy. His Reference Works programme, which began as a simple tool for searching for specific symptoms in the vast literature of Homeopathy, has now evolved into a great tool for selecting the remedy, based on many modules, many complex functions etc. There are now four main software in use in Homoeopathy and one of them has been developed by a Mumbai Homeopath, Dr. Jawahar Shah.

          Homeopathy continues to grow significantly in many parts of the world. In the USA and Canada there has been a revival in the past fifteen years. Whereas in the early 1970s there were only 50-100 physicians in USA who specialized in homeopathy, yet by the mid-1980s it can be estimated that there are approximately 1,000 homoeopathic physicians, this apart from approximately the same number of health professionals from different disciplines who also use homeopathic medicines, and these include dentists, podiatrists, veterinarians, physician assistants, nurses, naturopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, and psychologists.

          Many new schools and practitioners have come into existence. In Great Britain Homeopathy has been available within the NHS since the Health Service first began in 1948. There are currently five NHS homeopathic hospitals and many community-based and independent clinics where qualified medical homeopathic doctors work. Many GPs, and other members of Primary Health Care teams have received some training in homeopathy and use homeopathic treatments on a daily basis within their routine work. Recently homoeopathy in the UK has become even more organized under the Society of Homoeopaths that has set standards of education and practice. This organization is a member of the European Council of Classical Homoeopathy which is now pressing for strict standards of homoeopathic education all over Europe. Homoeopathy is most popular now in Holland and Germany. What is also interesting is that in the former Soviet Block countries of Eastern Europe including Russia, the science was banned in the communist era. Now in the short span since the collapse of the USSR, Homeopathy has evolved very rapidly with teaching courses and books available in the local languages. Russia has now over 500 homoeopaths.

          Homeopathy is widespread in Europe, but it is even more popular in Asia, especially India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Presently, there are well over one hundred four- or five-year Homeopathic medical schools in India and most are affiliated with universities. It has been estimated that there are over 1,00,000 homeopathic practitioners in India.

          Homeopathy is very popular in South America and is still widely utilized. It is firmly rooted especially in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, where it is very popular and recognized by the governments of these countries. It has been estimated that there are now approximately 2,000 doctors in Argentina who practice homeopathy, and a similar number in Brazil. Several innovators have emerged from this part of the world, notably T. P. Paschero and his associate E. F. Candegabe. They worked in depth on the mind state of patients and remedies. Candegabe is especially known for his concept of Minimum syndrome of Maximum value, wherein he identifies the core symptoms of the patient and the remedy.

          Others from this region include P. S. Ortega, who worked extensively on the Hahnemann idea of miasms. Masi Elisalde, another homeopath, founded a school based on his own understanding of remedies. His ideas attracted many homoeopaths especially in Europe. His basic philosophy is based on Christian concepts. Parallels between homeopathy and religious ideas are not unique. The Israeli homeopath Joseph Reeves saw much similarity between Homeopathy and the concepts in the Jewish holy book, the Kabalah.

          Besides the countries already mentioned Homoeopathy is also widely practiced in France, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand South Africa, Nigeria and Israel.

          Several homoeopaths also worked on finding the common ground between Homeopathy and other disciplines like psychotherapy, meditation and music, and among them is Dr. Rajan Sankaran. Dr. Sankaran has especially applied the homeopathic principle to music. This concept is based on his understanding that homoeopathic medication, by it’s very nature, only reflects what is inside of you, your inner turmoil, by making you aware of it. In this it is similar to music as any music which affects a person does so because it only reflects his own inner music. He studied the possibilities of using Indian ragas as healing agents. In order to do this he used the homeopathic idea of provings to note the phenomenon produced by the substance and then use the substance on patients displaying similar symptoms. He took some ragas and played them to audiences in different countries to observe the effect produced and also note if the effect was universally same or specific to a particular background. He found that there was a significant similarity of effect of a specific raga, crossing all boundaries. He noted the effect of some ten ragas and hopes to expand this to more ragas. He uses music in some cases to complement his therapy, selecting specific music for specific patients based on his music provings. He is now working with using music and art generated by the patient himself as a healing agent, in consonance with the basic principle of homeopathy.

          Dr. Juergen Becker, a homeopath from Freiburg, Germany was one of the first to break free from the traditional confines of a homeopathy very strictly bound by a study of symptoms. He started examining fairy tales and mythology as possible prototypes of patients and remedies. Somewhat similar to Carl Jung, Dr. Becker also examined the phenomenon of synchronicity. His seminars in Bad Boll in Germany in the mid eighties, though controversial at that time, drew a number of Homeopaths. His ideas are somewhat more accepted now. In the past five years Dr. Becker has been working with a newer method of potentising remedies, called the C4 potencies, which he believes affect much deeper levels than the traditional Hahnemannian potencies.

          Other homeopaths too started using more and more means of perceiving the inner turmoil of the patient. A New Zealand based Homeopath, Deborah Collins, and her husband Bert, took this a step further and used past life regressions and recollections to see clearly what kind of situation could explain the current behavior and feelings of the patient and used this information to help select a remedy. A homeopath from Koln, Germany, Dr. Muller, pioneered the use of colors as a tool in selecting the Homeopathic remedy. He did extensive research and located very specific colors for specific remedies. The patient would be given a whole table of colors in several hundred shades and asked to select one. This idea somehow did not become very widely used. Often these other methods have been used to complement the traditional methods and not exclusively. Also included in these methods are Iridology, Astrology, Kirlian photography, face reading, handwriting analysis, constitutional types and pendulum dowsing. However none of these are widely used.

          Some homeopaths of the present day see themselves as a part of the alternative or holistic movement, and sometimes combine other therapies with homeopathy. These include Biochemics, Bach Flower remedies, acupuncture, osteopathy, yoga, meditation, diet, naturopathy, Reiki, pranic healing, counseling etc. However, most classical homeopaths will use only one form of therapy at a time (usually the constitutional remedy of the patient), so that they can properly evaluate the result.

          The various schools of Classical homeopathy can be likened to the various gharanas of Hindustani classical music. They share basic concepts, yet differ in the styles of rendition. There is a lot of common ground and much give and take between the various schools. Many practitioners of classical homoeopathy, while having their foundation is one school feel free to take from other teachers. Many seminars and workshop on the recent methods are held in various parts of the world. Mumbai, in particular, attracts many homeopaths from all over. Most homoeopaths will agree that it is a nice time to be practicing Homoeopathy, in the midst of this renaissance.


The evolution of Homoeopathy can be summarized thus:

1) From merely looking at symptoms to understanding the phenomenon as a whole

2) From superficial to deeper understanding of the mind state

3) From limiting to homeopathic books for information, to taking information from all sciences like chemistry, zoology, botany.

4) From studying only patients symptoms to going into movies, books and all phenomenon that he is sensitive to and using that information. Also more usage of dreams.

5) From fewer remedies to many more.

6) From seeing homeopathy as isolated, to seeing it as a part of holistic movement and finding common ground with other therapies.

7) From unclassified information to clear classifications into kingdoms and miasms.

          The evolution of homeopathy can be likened to developments in the field of art. From more factual art one saw emotions being portrayed; later one saw paintings that depicted subconscious images like angels ,devils etc and still later art (modern art) depicts only the colors, shapes, form and movement, and gives a pictorial expression to an inner energy pattern which is beyond fact, beyond emotions and even beyond dreams. In a similar way Homeopathy has progressed in perceiving the patient and remedy to deeper and deeper levels and this translates into much better percentages of success than before.

          It is important that the patient choose the right Homoeopath, someone who practices classical Homeopathy. The signs of such a homoeopath are that he will take time to go over the details of the whole case, from head to foot, and ask questions regarding all aspects of the patient including his likes and dislikes in food and also his reactions to various physical and psychological factors. He will make a detailed inquiry into the mind state of the patient and often the dreams. A patient generally leaves such a consultation with a feeling of being seen and understood in his very core, often seeing himself in a way he has not done before. The classical homoeopath gives a single remedy at a time and will carefully study the response especially to see that symptoms are going in the right direction and the patient in general and mentally is feeling better and not only has some relief in symptoms. What he aims for is not only to tackle the chief complaints of the patient but to, over time, bring about a quantum shift in the entire being of the person towards health and freedom. He asks for no more, he is content with no less.