How homeotherapeutics or homeopathy work is the subject of on-going controversy. Outside of the energy medicine field, homeotherapeutics and homeopathy are met with disdain by standard Medical Doctors and researchers. To complicate matters, there is no current consensus on how homeotherapeutics or homeopathy work within the Complementary and Alternative (CAM) field. Regardless, people are flocking to CAM practitioners. In the US in 2006, the number of visits to CAM practitioners exceeded the number to standard MDs. Obviously, there is a huge discrepancy between CAM practitioners and the general public on one hand, and standard medical doctors and their research arms on the other. We wade into this mine field by reviewing recent research and offering a perspective gained from over 30 years of experience. We know that homeotherapeutics and homeopathy work. We provide a possible answer for how they work below. We also address a weakness that we perceive in current homeopathic practice.

Homeotherapeutics is an umbrella term we use that covers homeopathy, Bach Flower remedies, Schuessler's Tissue Salts, Electro-Acupuncture and Micro-Nutrition Plus™. For the purposes of this article, we will be using homeotherapeutics and homeopathy interchangably. For more on the differences between the two, please see our article by Clicking here.

Recent Research

"There is no basis for believing that homeopathy has any effect," says Robert Baratz, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, in Peabody, Massachusetts. "Homeopathy is a magnet for untrustworthy practitioners who pose a threat to public safety. It's quackery."¹

Dr. Baratz's viewpoint can be considered a typical expression of the standard medical viewpoint regarding homeopathy. The basis for the viewpoint, besides reflecting an obvious bias against CAM therapies, is that homeopathy has not been proven to work. Dr. Baratz is referring to double-blind studies that have been published in standard medical journals. Dr. Baratz, and other health professionals that have not done a comprehensive review of the available studies, cherry pick studies to back up their viewpoint. The studies they cite are not considered to be of high quality by the homeopathic community, nor by unbiased researchers. There are several high quality studies critical of homeopathy. The better of these types of criticism cite the meta-analytic studies - studies of studies. Most meta-analytic studies have shown that the effects of homeopathy are better than placebo, but the possible effects required better studies.² As of 2007 there were six meta-analyses of hundreds of individual studies performed.

"The already published research on homeopathy in the last ten years [1996-2006], in its majority, has followed wrong lines and therefore is causing and will continue to cause confusion and uncertainties within the medical profession...Yet, homeopathy is growing in the preferences of the patients... If the medical community wants to see the real effect and also the limits of homeopathy [, homeopathy] should aim in having good research. If this crucial problem is not understood and solved, mainly by the prestigious medical journals, then homeopathy will continue to expand unbelievably but haphazardly while the medical profession will pretend that such a thing does not exist."³ George Vithoulkas

Unfortunately, according to Mr. Vithoulkas, one of the pre-eminent homeopathic physicians, none of the meta-analyses were performed according to homeopathic principles, including the studies that were sympathetic to homeopathy. Briefly summarizing Mr. Vithoulkas' excellent article, no study followed basic homeopathic principles, particularly that homeopathy does not treat diseases, only diseased individuals.

The standard view also hinges on the inability to explain homeopathy's mechanism of action; how it does what it does. This is also true for many allopathic substances - standard medicines - currently being used. It was also true for aspirin for over 90 years, but it was still effectively used and actively prescribed.

How does Homeopathy or Homeotherapeutics work?

Celletech President and Master Homeopath, John Cain has over 30 years experience in the homeopathic and homeotherapeutic field. Over the course of his career, John has had the opportunity to review many of the major homeopathic manufacturing methods currently being used, as well as several no longer in existence. After reviewing the various methods, John chose to use the Magnetic/Mechanical method, developed by Malcolm Rae in the late 1960's in England, to manufacture Celletech's remedies.

All homeotherapeutic and homeopathic manufacturing processes are designed to extract the energetic signature or magnetic code of the original substance and then amplify it. The Magnetic - Mechanical method, as the name implies, uses direct application of magnetic energy to create a remedy. Using this method, a remedy is made by passing a magnetic field through a waveguide, created from the original substance, into an alcohol/water solution. The alcohol/water solution absorbs the magnetic field, in a process similar to the way a recording is made on an audio or videotape. Magnetic fields applied in this way are a common everyday occurrence, leaving behind a detectable magnetic field called remanence⁴. There are over 20,000 Magnetic/mechanical devices currently in usage. Celletech has used the Magnetic/Mechanical method to create remedies for tens of thousands of customers since 1988. This method differs from the standard HPUS - Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States - used by many manufacturers worldwide.

The HPUS specifies the Pharmaceutical - Mechanical process to create a remedy. It is a secondary method of extracting the energetic signature or magnetic code. The Pharmaceutical/Mechanical method starts with an original substance - an herb, mineral, or toxin - and then dilutes and succusses the substance in a series of steps. This process removes the physical properties of the original substance and amplifies its energetic signature. When used to created remedies above 24x or 12c, this process removes the potentially toxic materials used to make some homeopathic remedies.

Both methods, Magnetic - Mechanical and Pharmaceutical - Mechanical, are valid processes. The Magnetic - Mechanical method's advantages are that it starts out with the energetic signature of the substance, so no toxins are ever involved, it is an error-free method of creating a remedy or combination, and it is the most accurate method for creating higher potencies, especially above 30c. Its disadvantage is that it cannot be used to create remedies below 6x. The Pharmaceutical - Mechanical method is great for creating large quantities of lower potency remedies. Its disadvantage is that, when creating a remedy from a toxic substance, some of the toxin will be present in measurable quantities in remedies below 24x or 12c. This can be problematic for highly sensitive individuals.

References

John Cain 8/2007

[The picture at the top of the page is of the Samuel Hahnemann Memorial in Washington, DC)

1 - Michael Castelman, Psychology Today Mar/Apr 2004. Accessed at: http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20040302-000003&page=2

2 - Lancet 1997 Sep20;350(9081):834-43. Accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

J Altern Complement Med. 1998 Winter;4(4):371-88 Accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 2000 Apr;56(1):27-33 Accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

3 -G.Vithoulkas at http://www.hpathy.com/research/vithoulkas-homeopathic-trials.asp, written 11/2006

4 - http://www.hpathy.com/research/Lenger-homeopathic-potencies.asp