Homeopathy and Human Evolution

Review

This book review is reprinted with the permission of the American Institute of Homeopathy

Reviewed by Henry Williams, MD, DHt

The author has practiced Homeopathy since 1974, was a student of Dr. Thomas Maughan of South London, and was the founding member of the Society of Homoeopaths in 1977 and co-founder of the College of Homoeoopathy in London which teaches lay practitioners.

He sees "...three levels of prescribing: healing the sick; creating health; and creating shining spirits." The practitioners should first treat the imbalance for which we are consulted-this may take several remedies as well as time-then the constitutional remedy. If we give the constitutional remedy first, the patient will feel better, but the ailment may not improve. The title of the book derives from the first level of prescribing, that of treating the miasmatic elements of the patient. This may produce "...aggravations of symptoms, or produce acute illness." "If possible, these aggravations should not be prescribed for." Properly handled, the patient will become "noticeably more in the present and able to use the here and now as an effective springboard into the future." "They will be more in their body and comfortably so, and their consciousness about themselves and the world" will "change vastly." "Negative emotions, depression, fear, etc. will disappear," and they will reach their potentials sunny, creative human being.

"Constitutional remedies often produce aggravations which may be quite unpleasant, and may even discourage the patient from continuing" treatment. "Here, combination remedies, or other support ... may be used and provide easier passage towards cure." "Combination remedies can make good intercurrent remedies where ... there is no antidotal or antagonistic relationship to the constitutional remedy that has been prescribed." "When the constitutional remedy begins to flag,... a combination remedy may revitalize the case" where another constitutional remedy would spoil the case.

I hope these quotes will give a flavor of this challenging volume. It is one that will reward any practitioner and professional to study for it has many questions that must be faced by all of us who too easily fall into routing and dogmatic doctrine.

This book review is reprinted from The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths.

Reviewed by Jerome Whitney

One of the healthy aspects of homeopatby is that since the day the Organon was first published in 1810, there has been a vision toward which thinking homeopaths have reached and to which succeeding generations have contributed. Homeopathy and Human Evolution is an attempt to further elaborate the homeopathic vision as we move into the 21st century.

In order to understand the thoughtful content which Martin Miles has provided, it is necessary to look at the tradition of which he has chosen to be a part. Martin's philosophical approach falls directly in a line of descent from Constantine Hering, James Compton Burnett, Margaret Tyler and Thomas Maughan. It is interesting to note that Hering was a practising Swedenborgian while both he and Burnett were avid disciples of Paracelsus' medical philosophy.

If Hahnemann's articulation of the miasms represented an approach to the constitutional past and Kent's use of mentals the constitutional present then Burnett and his work on treating for propensities represented the beginning of treating the constitutional future. For it was Burnett who pioneered the practice, here in England, of using 'disease tendencies' presented by the patient to cure inner causes before they became outer pathology. However, this mode of approach gives us only one clue to Martin's bomeopathic vision, for from Burnett he inherited even more.

One hundred years ago even most British homeopaths, utilising the fad current at that time of pathological Hughesian prescribing, were no more able to effectively treat turnouts and cancer than their allopathic counterparts. Meanwhile patients lined the waiting room of Burnett with conditions of morbidity of the type seen today only in Third World countries. Why did they do this? Because Burnett achieved positive results where even most average homeopaths failed. Many times the outer pathological symptoms were so gross that Burnett could not see the causal simillimum. As a result he utilised a systematic approach in which he treated a patient in such a way as to clear up the symptom picture to the point where the similimum could be prescribed.

Before proceeding it should be made clear that Burnett, Thomas Maughan and Martin Miles have each considered that a prescription is truly homeopathic only if it is made on the basis of the similimum. Any other mode of prescribing, even, in potency is just that, another metbod. in the case of Burnett, the following sequence to prescribing was followed:
1 if at all possible give the simillimum, but if the simillimum could not be ascertained:
2 Give the organ remedy for the most affected organ: if that was not recognisable:
3 Use 'Diathetic homeopathy'
a) nosodes, especially nosodes of cancer;
b) constitutional homeopathic remedies
c) specifictaint remedies,like Thuja incases of vaccinosis;
4 other: eg the 'arborivital' method of Cooper, (ie herbal tinctures, one dose-wait three months)

This was the approach followed by burnett in his practice and it is similar to the pattern outlined by Martin in this book. To put it in simple terms: if the patient is in such a state of mess that the homeopathic similimum can not be immediately identified or the state of the patient is such that it will not produce effective results than clear and build them up. In education circles such a practice is termed 'learning readiness'.

In dealing with morbidity Burnett found that nosodes were a powerful tool in unblocking the patient. In fact so effective that he went on to do the original provings of Carcinosin, Bacillinum, etc. So too has Martin found them to be powerful instruments in dealing with the drug suppressions, recreational drug abuse, vaccinosis, the effects of the contraceptive pill, and immune deficient diseases of the late 20th century. Once again we are experiencing gross morbidity in its latest phase of insidious destruction of the human spirit and its distorted perversion of the vital force. This was a problem which also increasingly confronted Thomas Maughan in treating the patients that came to him during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Another dilemma confronting Maughan was that most of his students had not yet grasped a real appreciation of his vision at the time of his death in 1976. Rather, they took their class notes and applied them by rote without understanding. As a consequence the role of combination remedies has been given attention that is not in alignment with their purpose. Combination remedies were meant to be used to achieve a specific result and are given in low potency to clean up or support the outer being. Meanwhile the 'high' potency homceopathic similimum is working on the inner being at the casual level to bring about a cure as per Hering's idea of 'Direction of Cure'

Hering's'Direction of Cure'and Hahnemann's concept of the simillimum are not the exclusive tools of the homeopath. In fact they are the measure of any healing, anywhere, anytime, by any healer no matter the healing technique, be it Egyptian therapeutic dreaming, Navajo sandpainting ritual, a kind word, acupuncture, shiatsu, etc. If the healing process follows from within out, from the greater to the lesser, from above downwards then the patient has received the vibrational simillimum regardless of the technology of administration.

Martin has found in his own experience just as did Maughan and Burnett that clearing and budding up the patient is an essential part of dealing with gross morbidity. Thus combination remedies serve to support, accelerate and provide the sod for the Homeopathic Similimum to do its work of cure, as Kent wrote in his 8th Lecture (pg84-87) regarding cause and ends. Thomas Maughan said in a lecture in 1972:
The means of selection makes a remedy homeopathic. ... Cell salts (& combination remedies) ... are picked in the main on pathological grounds: Here one is concerned with the actual condition of bones, tissues and discharges. In homeopathy these take least place - one is concerned with the patient first and the body afterwards.

The homeopathic tradition as it is being evolved on the Burnett, Maughan, and Miles line is what can be termed Developmental Homeopathy. It requires that the prescriber be trained to the highest degree to recognise the homeopathic simillimum needed by the patient; to access the readiness of the patient to respond to it; the ability to'clear'up the patient when morbidity clouds the picture; and the understanding to prescribe the foundation needed by the patient in order achieve cure in the least, time with the least aggravation. Meanwhile developmental prescribers need the sensivity to follow the aspiration of their patients and support them in the unfoldment of their path.

'Homeopathy and Human Evolution' then is the latest expression of a tradition and a vision which traces its roots back through major contributors to the evolution of homeopathy right to its pre Hahemanian roots in Paracelsian medical practice. It is not a book to be read in one reading but in small doses, to be pondered, tried and tested in the field of experience. Its style may not be everybody's cup of tea but its content has significance for those who choose to be open to it. It is not important even if one agrees or disagrees with the ideas presented, rather, it is a book to stimulate us to think aboutwhatwe are doing, to challenge cherished assumptions and ultimately lead us to a better understanding of the inner spirit as well as the outer technique of healing and cure.

Works consulted
J.H. Clarke,James Conipton Burnett,MD, London: Homeopathic Pub. Co. 1904.
J. Compton Burnett Diseases of the Spleen, London: Janes Epps & Co,1887.
J.T. Kent, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, 1900, 5th ed
Thoman Maughan, DSc; Lectures, Various 1970-1976.
Marfln Miles, RSHom; Lectures, Various 1978-1992.