'Single remedy' principle of homeopathy

A homoeopathic remedy is chosen on the basis of its similarity to the state of the vital energy of the patient (symptoms come from the deranged vital force). Each patient only has one vital force, therefore only one remedy needs to be given to match it.

Each remedy affects the entire person, by affecting this vital energy. When you give more than one remedy without properly assessing the response of the patient, only one of them will be 'taken up' by the vital force. Which one is not predictable - it might be the last one, it might be the one with the potency that the patient is most sensitive to, it might be the one that is most similar to the state of the patient (the most homoeopathic one).

This creates terrible confusion in a case. Which remedy has had the effect? If the patient cures, which one did it? Where do you go after this? Which remedy do you repeat? How do you choose a complementary medicine? If a patient aggravated on the remedy, was harmed by it, which one did this, how can you avoid it in the future if you do not know which one did it?

Combination remedies are somewhat different. When you place more than one remedy into the same water, we do not know what this creates. Our provings (experiments to discover the symptoms of the remedy)are done only with a single substance. When you put many remedies together, we no longer know what that remedy will do, or what it can do. This is not in any way homoeopathic, because without knowing what a remedy can cure, we cannot prescribe it with any confidence (it becomes a guess). None of the companies promoting combination remedies have bothered to do provings, to show that their medicines have a symptom picture that is relevent to what they are saying it will treat. It is completely unscientific and contravenes the spirit of Hahnemann's philosophy (to know precisely what a substance will do before prescribing it).

When it is appropriate to change medicines is a different thing though. It is unlikely a patient would alternate back and forth through 2 remedies in the space of a few hours. Such a situation would most likely be two partial similars being used to palliate or suppress parts of the symptom picture. When you palliate or suppress, a different part of the case will flare up and worsen (as the vital energy is blocked in the other part). I have rarely seen an acute actually treated properly this way when you look at the way the patient reacts once the acute is over (the chronic appears worse rather than better as should happen after good acute treatment).

On the other hand, a patient may move through different states in response to a remedy, and as the state changes, you can change the remedy. If a remedy cures symptoms, they should not be reappearing regularly. This implies palliation and not cure. If the symptoms vanish and do not reappear, but you see a new remedy picture materializing, then you must prescribe on the new picture.

To Bhondor

Please visit the website of
PRASANTA BANERJI HOMEOPATHIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION
http://www.pbhrfindia.org/

This foundation is owned by the Father Dr Prasanta and his son Pratip Banerji. They treat all patients free of charge. They do NOT subscribe to the Hahnemannian diktat of 'Treating the symptoms presented by the patient with a Single remedy'.

I would like to place on record that I too broke away from this diktat in 2005, long before I read about the Banerji protocol, and as a result I faced a great deal of criticism from the classical school of Homeopaths who had been brainwashed to believing that it was only by using Hahnemann's diktat that any patient could be cured.

I proved otherwise and my therapy was derisively branded 'Joepathy' which term has stuck and attracts over 2000 hits on Google today. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was not the only Homepath (Joepath) that was using the direct 'This for That' method in helping patients which I too do completely free of charge here in Sri Lanka where I live.

You are invited to contact them since you live in Kolkata and discuss your problems if any with them.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who claim the mantle of homoeopath but cannot live up to its responsibility or reputation.

Or worse, there are those who claim they have discovered a 'better' way, but are only doing what the allopaths do. Their 'discoveries' are actually a return to the illiogical practices that actually caused Hahnemann to invent a better form of medicine, one based on nature's laws.

However, there are Indian homoeopaths who practice this way - I know that Rajan Sankaran's colleagues all practice out of Mumbai, and they are all single remedy prescribers. I do not really know India very well or many other homoeopaths from there though. I speak to some of them through other forums, such as Hpathy.com. Manish Bhatia is a classical homoeopath from India. You could go to the website and post a request there to find out who practices in the traditional method.