HOMEOPATHY
& MULTIPLE SKILLS
The discipline of homeopathy can be neatly summed up as an ‘exercise in
pattern recognition’.
In such an exercise we have to recognise two major problems.
(1) The ongoing and evolving complexity of modern society, which will give rise
to different patterns.
(2) Different skills necessary to recognise such evolving patterns.
This article is about the second major problem, a discussion about the need
to qualify different skills that are essential in the search for ‘these
homeopathic patterns’.
In this endless search for the best remedy we are now overwhelmed with the rapidly
increasing pace of information which can be accessed at our fingertips through
the internet.
Repertories are being endlessly updated
Computer programs are being perpetually changed
Countless new ‘provings’ are added to our repertoire every month
Welcome to the 21st Century, a century menaced by ‘information’.
Our problems do not lie in accessing information, we have already lost that
battle, but in processing information.
Towards that end, I would like to discuss and evaluate how effective a number
of classical and neo-classical models have been with regard to this major problem.
We take for granted the educational and predominant model- that is ‘classical
homeopathy’ -we have built up a strong consensual construct of the process
over the 200 years since Hahnemann’s original contribution.
The diagram below demonstrates the major contributors to the ongoing evolution
of this homeopathic construct, it is an arbitrary division based more on the
past contributions of the ongoing debate which became so heated in Homeopathic
Links.
My analysis will not contribute any further to this debate, but will instead
ask and examine what skills are necessary and whether these ‘so called’
models can be examined from a neurobiological basis.
I have used Howard Gardner’s model of multiple intelligence(1) in order
to examine the skills necessary in evaluating the therapeutic process.
We can divide the skills (or intelligences) into a number of different aspects but it is more convenient to contract them into four basic skills in the case of homeopathy
1. Rational//Analytical Intelligence - This is our ability to
mentally process logical problems and equations, the type most often found on
multiple choice standardized tests. Before the advent of the Multiple Intelligence
(MI) theory, logical-mathematical intelligence was considered the archetypal
intelligence, the "raw intellect" on which Western culture has placed
a high premium. Though MI theory agrees that logical-mathematical intelligence
is indeed a key section of the intellect, it is by no means the only section
that must be both explored and cultivated. This has been the skill most prized
by the homeopathic community and the skill that has been the cornerstone of
the ‘classical model’.
The problems that arise with an overemphasis on this aspect of intelligence
are that Homeopathy was a product of the Age of Enlightenment (2). This was
a time when the power derived from science and reason would create a new world
order, its ethos was to demolish the irrational and the magical for the sake
of modern progress. This appalling faith in ‘rational man’ led to
some of the most heinous crimes of the century. For example, the Nazi regime
and its ‘eugenics program’, a scientific experiment, led to the
‘extermination camps’. Another appalling example in the power of
reason was how Behavioural Psychology dominated the entire century denying that
consciousness even existed.
‘It is possible to be a behaviourist and recognize the existence of consciousness
----------But I preferred the position of radical behaviourism, in which the
existence of subjective entities is denied.’ (3)
My point is that Classical Homeopathy has relied solely, on this particular
skill, tending to invalidate other models or skills.
2. Associative// Visual- Spatial Intelligence – This is
no substitute for rational intelligence. Rational intelligence analyses sequences,
whereas Associative intelligence makes connections without regard to sequence(4)
. In using this skill, we tend to link or make associations to people, places,
ideas, objects, and concepts. In some ways this skill can be defined as an exercise
in ‘lateral thinking’, a system of thinking which was promoted by
Edward de Bono(5) . In his books he gave the term ‘lateral thinking’
to the process of association, invention and creativity. In associative thinking
we create meanings by linking glimpses, and juxtaposing them, until they reach
novel and creative nuances. This is the method employed by artists and poets,
and ultimately homeopaths. Our role is never truly scientific but combines both
an analytical precision with the subtle nuances of associated possibilities.
In some ways this is the predominant mode in the 21st Century, the way the internet
is set up depends on this ability to network and make associations between entirely
different domains.
If one looks at the spurious division between Classical and Neo-Classical models
earlier depicted in the diagram, one begins to realise that most of the models
tend to rely very heavily on this particular skill and demonstrate ingenious
ways of lateral thinking when the analytical method fails us.
Jan Scholten, developed his model of Group analysis within the Periodic Table,
for a number of reasons. I suspect the original analytical methods were failing
him so he favoured a map, the Periodic Table which could act as an exercise
in associative intelligence. It enabled us to make connections not possible
before its advent, and also facilitated the processing of materia medica which
can be tiresome at the best of times.
Massimo Mangialavori, again has developed a system of Analogue possibilities
based on his vast wealth of clinical material. He has specifically taught a
method that takes ‘a polycrest’ as a default remedy which is usually
over prescribed and overvalued and then through a process of association between
natural history, proving, and mythology has prescribed successfully and built
up a network of remedies that may be similar to that ‘polycrest’.
For example, he defines Silica like as having certain qualities and characteristics
and then proceeds to teach other remedies that may have certain similarities,
enabling the practitioner to be more creative and widen their network of known
remedies.
Rajan Sankaran, has evolved through a series of different models, but his latest
‘serving’ is a model based on the search for the ‘vital sensation’
which he has managed to qualify by creating a series of miasms (or emotive responses)
that enable the practitioner to pick out and prescribe the correct remedy in
a plant family. I can understand the process behind his thinking, and though
not in total agreement with this model, one can understand how and why he should
wish to facilitate the rather unknown territory of the plant kingdom by devising
another map, linked by miasmatic associations.
Divya Chabra, bases her method from free association, an extension of the psychoanalytical
method. It enables one to reach through the subconscious layers of dreams and
deep-seated delusions, thereby reaching deep down into those symptoms which
manifest as illness. This whole process relies less on an analytical approach
and more on the ability to associate and link elements that appear disparate.
It is a method more suited to the feminine psyche.(6)
Finally Eileen Naumann has developed a system based on her metaphysical and
shamanic beliefs that enable her to prescribe using mythology, the doctrine
of signatures and a very developed creative function. The doctrine of signatures
might be highly controversial and even possibly wrong, but it nevertheless is
a potent method of poetic association which on many occasion helped me find
a remedy.
What is interesting to note about all these so called ‘neo-classical models’
despite all the spurious invective, is how prominent the role of associative
intelligence is, in all these models.
3. Emotional Intelligence – This covers a number of skills.
Interpersonal skills cover the realm of empathy and the ability to understand
other people. Intrapersonal skills cover the ability to understand yourself
and develop your insights into how and why you do things.
This is a complex domain of intelligence, since the more controversial aspects
of intention and placebo fall under this domain. It is equally difficult to
quantify since different individuals will have different affects on people,
and for example, charismatic individuals will tend to have a far greater effect
on their patients out of all proportions to their intellectual abilities.
At the beginning of the 19th Century even though orthodox medicine was slowly
organising itself into the monolithic bastion it has become today, regular doctors
endlessly mimicked ‘quacks’ to build up business.
For example Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) advising a young
practitioner has this advice
‘Use at first all means to get acquainted with the people of all ranks.---
I remember a very foolish, garrulous apothecary at Cannock, who had a great
business without any knowledge or even art, except that he persuaded people
he kept good drugs: and this he accomplished by only one stratagem, and that
was by boring every person who was so unfortunate as to step into his shop with
the goodness of his drugs.‘ Here is a fine piece of asafoetida, smell
of valerian, taste of album graecum. Dr Fungus says he never saw such a fine
performance in his life’ (7)
In other words it is difficult how to quantify or qualify the qualities of certain
practitioners who may be natural healers or have extraordinary personalities.
It is difficult to be absolutely objective about the effects of each practitioner
on their patients and here we can become embroiled in the role of interpretation
and the role that empathy can play towards an understanding and a curative response.
4. Intuitive Intelligence – This skill remains difficult
to qualify and therefore is one that is least studied or given credence. Intuition
is the skill of knowing without recourse to logic or reason. It underpins and
mediates ‘immediate apprehension or understanding’. It behaves like
a shadow, networking unconsciously to suddenly highlight some hidden depth of
human thought.
This skill is endemic to exceptional practitioners, most of those homeopaths
mentioned above, for example, have very high Intuitive Quotients. However, problems
arise when we wish to quantify or even train such an ability.
George Vithoulkas, an exceptional homeopath, who has codified and assembled
an overwhelming amount of materia medica, is ultimately an exceptional intuitive
!!! To assemble and process such a vast amount of information in front of a
patient and to find the correct remedy relies on his intuitive faculties. Every
‘good’ homeopath must have this ability!
Today, neuro-pyschologists are able to draw on several areas of research that
attempt to explain intuition –or ‘nonverbal nonconscious thinking’.
This view sees intuition as neither feminine nor an aspect of the ‘right
brain ‘ thinking but rooted in mechanisms that demonstrate the brain’s
ability to ruminate and search for subtle patterns and connections without ever
being conscious of the process.
We have this assumption about ourselves that mind and consciousness are synonymous,
that we are aware of everything that's important,' says Philip Merikle, a psychologist
at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, who studies unconscious perception.
'The more we establish the unconscious influence, the more we realise we're
not [aware]." (8)This is a strange discovery indeed, to suddenly discover
that our conscious minds play a minor role in a ghostly dance that is dramatically
underpinned by some very clear perceptual and information processing skills
that seem to reside in parts of the body and mind that are totally inaccessible
to our waking consciousness.
It is disturbing that one’s supreme faith in our rational and cognitive
functions is suddenly forced to acknowledge or even play second fiddle to some
mysterious non-conscious activity that appears to actively play a part in the
very drama of life even when seemingly absent from our conscious vista. (9)
Today neuro-biology has been forced to shift the centre of control and global
awareness away from the meaner offerings of a conscious mind to the profound
depths of an ‘embodied mind’ which takes pride not only in ‘mere
housekeeping’ but also plays an essential role in interpreting categories,
determining emotive reactions and other high level cognitive operations which
have been traditionally only associated with conscious awareness.(10) While
neuro-biology has been forced into acknowledging such a profound puppet show,
most complementary models of medicine, can breath ‘a sigh of relief ‘
that vitalism albeit in the form of ghostly whispers has always addressed its
focus towards the very depths and entrails of some embodied intelligence.
One psychologist who calls this ‘intuitive nonconscious mind’"
the undermind" is Guy Claxton of the University of Bristol. His view is
that intuition is evolution's default strategy for solving problems, and society
at least Western society has lost sight of it. He argues in his book that children
learn better if encouraged to meditate on problems. 'When you allow your brain
to soften and to draw in other influences which you didn't think were relevant,
your brain will find connections."(11)
This might seem like the old argument, popular in the 1970’s of the left-right
hemisphere division, but today neurologists can’t divide the brain with
such ease, it is not just right versus left brains, but two entirely different
modes of functioning in the brain.
Intuitive Intelligence & Its Relevance to Homeopathy
My digression on Intuitive intelligence was to show that neuro-biologists today,
agree that it represents a vital mode of brain functioning that should be taken
into account when educating students in homeopathy. However its ‘modus
operandi’ is still highly debated.
• The Precognitive Model, one school of thought,
considers ‘the intuitive skill’ to be an innate precognitive ability
that can be trained through meditation and various other relaxation methodologies.
• The Cognitive Model, another school, believes that this ‘intuitive
faculty’ can be trained through feedback. In a book called ‘Educating
Intuition ’ by Professor R. Hogarth (12), argues that intuition is a normal
component of everyday life and has its roots in the process of ‘tacit
learning’.
He concludes that we can educate this ‘sixth sense’ by engaging
in a number of exercises that can help us to train this sense in order to increase
the accuracy of our judgmental processes.
• He stresses that Intuition is largely acquired through experience in
specific domains.—
For example, take culture, we do not set out to learn about it, but adapt to
it over time without thinking about it. Through experience we learn what is
normal and not normal.
• Intuition is acquired tacitly through exposure to the homeopathic domain.
---This is the basis of apprenticeship yet simple exposure does not guarantee
that valid intuitions will be acquired.
In evaluating this process, we must consider how accurate our feedback is in
a specific environment.
For example, a tennis player or hunter can immediately evaluate the accuracy
of their winning shots. This is an exacting environment and accuracy and feedback
can be learnt quickly.
Yet homeopathy presents a far more ‘inexact environment’, sometimes
it is far from clear how accurate the prescription has been, it can take many
months sometimes to find an accurate remedy. In some cases many years can go
by, until the homeopath suddenly has an insight. This is an ambiguous environment
where training one’s ‘sixth sense’ may take many years. Novices
and recently trained homeopaths may find it difficult to evaluate the efficacy
of a remedy. Empathy may bring understanding to the patient and/or a remedy
may act partially. Placebo may even act vehemently at times.
This creates an environment that is inexact and therefore a difficult domain
in which to train the ‘intuitive faculty’.
Modern masters, especially all those mentioned above, have seen thousand of
patients, and posses ‘a crystalline intelligence’ that is an intelligence
that has been honed through a vast experience, enabling the subtly and nuances
of pattern recognition to come alive.
In the final analysis, homeopathy is primarily based on an experiential curve
which may take many years, since the learning and evaluating environment, i.e.
the interaction between remedy and patient, can be so ambiguous at times.
Defining an ‘Embodied Mind’
Up to this point in the article, most Classical and Neo-Classical prescribers
would accept that all four skills play a predominant role in their search for
the simillimum. Yet as homeopathy has evolved, and methodologies have developed
to overcome and classify the ever increasing domain of materia medica, we are
constantly faced with ever growing challenges arising from our changing society.
I propose that in order to prescribe ‘as the masters do’, we have
to develop and extend the concepts and the domain of the ‘embodied mind’.
We might further argue that the domain of this ‘embodied mind’ somehow
fits the description of the ‘vital force’.
But let us be clear that the ‘embodied mind’ or as some neurobiologists
prefer to call it ‘the adaptive unconscious’ has a very clearly
defined role in the makeup of the human organism.
According to Timothy Wilson (13), a neurobiologist, who has spent many years
studying the role this aspect of our mind has to play in our daily lives, has
this to say about it:
• The Adaptive unconscious is an older system designed to scan the environment.
• It detect patterns and avoid danger.
• It learns patterns easily, does not unlearn them well.
• It is an inflexible inference maker.
• It develops early and guides behaviour into adulthood.
This so called ‘embodied mind’ has been very clearly demonstrated
to exist and function outside our conscious existence(14) .
It is quite clear that Intuitive intelligence is not only a different fundamental
way of processing information but also works at a level seemingly below consciousness.
I suspect that it works within the domain ‘of the embodied mind’
or ‘the vital force’ to use vitalist jargon.
We may ignore its value in our everyday affairs, but this is certainly not to
our advantage. Intuition developed as an evolutionary default strategy to process
information that was just too overwhelming for our conscious selves.
Homeopathy may have developed through rational and exacting methods of analysis,
to give rise to the ‘Classical model’. Yet such a model was derived
from a century when the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ believed that through
the power of reason and science, humanity could create a new world order. When
our faith in the truth of the rational process, would lead to ever greater heights
and triumphs in the human sphere. The advent of Freud and Quantum theory soon
destroyed that myth of rational invincibility. Reason as a torchbearer to the
progress of science, soon perpetrated some of the worst political crimes in
this century.
Thus, ‘the Soviet Marxist experiment’, a radical version in the
scientific belief of progress, led to the Stalin and the death of millions.
The homeopathic paradigm is a product of such enlightenment thinking, we now
live in the 21st century and must adapt to the ‘savage demands of information’
that may well suffocate our ‘analytical modus operandi’.
I believe, that ‘exceptional homeopaths’ possess ‘exceptional
intuitive skills’. These skills can be developed, but once developed they
act as if in a shadow play, exercising networking skills that can barely be
acknowledged yet might whisper into conscious awareness, a theme or insight
that might bring about a resolution of the problem. Such a skill, or intuitive
whisper, can surely come about as a flash of sudden insight, or an invincible
unshakeable feeling about a situation. It entails immediate understanding without
recourse to reason or logic. I suspect that the ability may be innate, yet it
can be developed through examining our methods of feedback.
Towards a Post-Classical Paradigm
I propose that the most effective way of developing this ‘intuitive skill’
and thereby accessing the domain of ‘the embodied mind’(or the vital
force ) is to explore its ‘modus operandi’ from two points of view,
as mentioned above.
• The Cognitive model -- We can either accept that this skill can be trained
through feedback via ‘tacit learning’. In other words, through seeing
many patients, one would develop the necessary intuitive skills that would begin
to guide and replace ‘the beginners mind’. This is the ‘classical
model’ which though heavily biased towards ‘rational skills of analysis’
does in essence develop the ‘intuitive skills’ as well, though without
any real acknowledgement of the fact.
• The Precogntive Model – This is far more controversial, yet from
an anthropological and esoteric perspectives it explains shamanic and altered
states of consciousness, together with sudden incontrovertible ‘flashes
of intuition’ that appear to have surfaced from an entirely different
level of the mind.
This model assumes that the ‘embodied mind’ possesses
• Predictive abilities
• A non-conscious awareness that mediate between the mind and the body
• One can access its awareness through various somatic techniques
• Such techniques include –Dowsing ability—Kinaesthetic techniques---Ideo-motor
hypnotic techniques and finally Vascular autonomic signals.
• Such useful techniques may help the increase the probability of the
correct remedy and reduce the element of speculation in prescribing remedies.
It is not my wish to enter into a discussion of the advantages or disadvantages
of these techniques, nor to further explore the realm of the ‘embodied
mind’. It is only to emphasise its crucial role in making and processing
information during the homeopathic interview.
To reiterate my observation, ‘exceptional practitioners’ have ‘exceptional
intuitive skills’.
I suspect that such practitioner’s possess some internal process, similar
to kinesiology that may ultimately help in finding an unknown or unproved remedy.
Their ability to listen may extend onto a number of different levels, and I
have heard many comments about brilliant cases presented where rational explanations
simply failed to make sense.!!
We endlessly post-rationalise brilliant cases, and bring the force of reason
and analysis to bear on cured cases after they have shown the desired results.
Take the example, one of the greatest contributions to our Western culture(15)
, Socrates and his unerring faith in reason and analysis. One of the paradoxes
in his overwhelming pursuit of reason, was the remarkable phenomenon known as
Socrates’ inner spirit or ‘daimonion’. In situations where
his formidable powers of reason began to flag, he regained his stability through
the intervention of a divine inner voice.
In the 21st century we may not wish to accept such ‘inner spirits’
as anything but fanciful conjecture. But we do have to accept the overwhelming
evidence from a neurobiological perspective, for the ‘adaptive unconscious’.
We also have to accept that our educational processes are being severely tested
by the savage onslaught of ever increasing amounts of information, together
with the rapid changes occurring in society.
It is my contention that we need to extend ourselves beyond what I have loosely
termed ‘Neo-Classical methodologies. We need to develop a Post-Classical
methodology which trains students to access and develop a series of multiple
skills that will enable Homeopathy to become part of the 21st century.
1. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence. Gardner, Howard.New
York :Basic books 1993
2. Al Qaeda and what it means to be Modern John Gray Faber & Faber 2003
3. The Shaping of a Behaviourist. B.F. Skinner New York Knopf 1979
4. The Three faces of Mind Elaine de Beauport Quest Books 1996
5. Lateral thinking. Edward de Bono New York Harper & Row 1973
6. Review of homeopathic teaching with Divya Chabra by M.A.Fleisher Homeopathic
Links Spring 2003 Vol 16(1)
7. Quacks. Fakers & Charlatans in Medicine. Roy Porter Tempus Publications
2003
8. New Scientist The zombie within 5th September 1998
9. See article on my website www.biolumanetics.net/tantalus The Ghost in the
Machine
10. Lewicki, P., Hill, T., & Czyzewska, M. (1992). Nonconscious acquisition
of information. American Psychologist, 47, 796-801.
11. Hare Brain Tortoise Mind Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less
by Guy Claxton, Fourth Estate (1997).
12. Educating Intuition by Robin M. Hogarth University of Chicago Press 2001
13. Strangers to Ourselves Timothy D. Wilson The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press 2002
14. ibid The Ghost in the Machine
15. The Dream of Reason Anthony Gottlieb Penguin Press 2000