Fundamentals of Homeopathy

The fundamentals of Homeopathy as laid down by Hahnemann are as follows:

1. There is a natural and universal scientific law of cure, namely, that likes can be cured by likes. This means that small amounts of any substance which causes disease in a healthy person, can be used to treat that same disease in a patient.
2. The knowledge of the action of remedies is harvested from single and double blinded experiments in which small doses are given to healthy subjects who later record their detailed reactions to the test substance. This is called a homeopathic proving. The knowledge base for a particular substance is culled from case histories of treatment with medicines that have not undergone a proving but which have yielded a cure in clinical practice. To this is added the information of symptoms produced by accidental poisonings with toxic substances. The provings, clinical and toxicological data form the materia medica of the remedy.
3. The ability of the organism to feel, sense, act, or achieve homeostasis is maintained by a non-material principle called the dynamis. This dynamis or spirit-like vital force is, according to Hahnemann, similar in nature to forces involved in gravity or magnetism. It is a force, which to date, has illuded explanation or classification by the natural sciences.Diseases, therefore, are not actual material things, rather they are descriptions or classifications of symptom patterns. Symptoms are not things to be removed or suppressed by drugs, rather they are an expression of or the language of the vital force’s attempts to heal.The properly prepared, selected and administered homeopathic remedy somehow “resonates” with the vital force and stimulates the healing process. Remedy selection is accomplished by closely matching the remedy picture of the disease to the symptom picture of the remedy.
4. A single remedy at a time is given since two or more remedies cannot be the most similar to the disease. Single remedy administration also allows a clear evaluation of its efficacy.
5. A minimum dose must be used. Small doses of a substance stimulate healing, medium doses paralyze the patient and large doses can kill.
6. Individualization of the treatment is essential. No two people are exactly alike in either sickness or in health and although homeopaths use classifications of disease types, finer individual distinctions must always be made since, although the action of two remedies may often be similar, they are never exactly the same.
7. The mere removal of symptoms by suppressive means is a grave danger in that it defeats the vital force’s attempt at homeostasis and puts the patient at risk for a more serious disease.
8. That there is a distinction between acute or epidemic diseases and chronic disease patterns of patients. Preventive homeopathic care requires an understanding of these chronic patterns.