Any discussion of ecological healing and environmental health cannot afford to ignore the role of homeopathy. By avoiding the ecological repercussions of current mainstream medical practices, homeopathy supports a sustainable, clean ecosystem.
Through their professional practices, homeopathic practitioners have an opportunity to contribute to environmental stewardship by helping establish homeopathy as a catalyst for environmental healing. The need for such healing has never been more urgent. As the degradation of the natural environment continues to accelerate, homeopathy and its values offer profound insight into personal and global healing.
Homeopathy, Sustainability, and Environmental Healing
Preventing illness and protecting our environment can and should be mutually inclusive. To that end, Ecologically Sustainable Medicine (ESM) offers a clear agenda by codifying the tools and resources that lead to economically sustainable healthcare and environmental healing. Homeopaths can be persuasive spokespersons for this agenda because homeopathy is an excellent form of ESM and meets the requirements of a sustainable medical system.
Non-toxic, non-polluting, sustainable, humane
In homeopathy, the production of medicines creates little if any toxic waste and, in a spectacular, counter-intuitive leap, each drop of medicine generates one hundred drops of the next higher potency. Therefore, only a small amount of the original substance is required to create all of the homeopathic medicine we need. This has enormous potential for environmental sustainability.
For example, to make the remedy Cuprum metallicum 200c, you begin with 1 gram of very thin pure copper. This solid is then triturated (i.e., ground in a mortar and pestle) together with 99 grams of milk sugar into a 1c remedy. One gram of this 1c is then further triturated with 99 grams of milk sugar to make 2c. One gram of the 2c remedy is triturated with 99 grams of milk sugar yet again to make a 3c. The 1c, 2c, and 3c strengths can then be stored in a pharmacy, serving as the master mixtures for a very large supply of medicine. Once one of these remedies has been created, it will not need to be made again, barring issues of accessibility and distribution.
In ecological terms, homeopathic remedies never exhaust natural resources; there is negligible environmental impact and no question of over-consumption. Remedies meet the criteria for both renewable and sustainable sources of medicine. Compared to the waste stream produced by pharmacological manufacturing and by hospitals, the waste produced by a homeopathic pharmacy is infinitely small. No waste is produced from the original material; it is all used. And no harmful chemicals or complex reagents are used in the manufacturing process.
Conventional pharmaceutical research and development is costly and often degrades the quality of life on earth. Without the development of synthetic Taxol, for example, the Pacific Yew Tree (Taxus brevifolia) might have become extinct due to the pharmaceutical industry’s accelerated harvesting of the tree to produce a drug used in chemotherapy.
Laboratory testing on animals, the sine qua non of much pharmaceutical research, is controversial at best and tragic at worst. The development of polio vaccine involved the testing and killing of 2 million wild rhesus monkeys. The proving process in homeopathy is conducted on humans.
Using renewable human energy for healing
Historically, homeopathy has attributed healing to the vital force. Current understanding of homeopathic healing argues that homeopathy “stimulates a self-healing response” (Bellavite and Signorini, 2002, The Emerging Science of Homeopathy: Complexity, Biodynamics, and Nanopharmacology). This stimulation is said to occur via an informational exchange: the specific information contained in a homeopathic remedy helps the organism direct a healing response.
Like chiropractic adjustments or acupuncture needles, homeopathic remedies stimulate the homeostatic healing response. The primary fuel for healing is within the organism itself, in contrast to traditional Western medicine, which often requires a continuous physio-chemical reaction to generate a response. For example, the allopathic medicine colchicine, used to treat gout, inhibits the build-up of gouty crystals in the tissues—but this response is dependent on taking the drug. If the patient stops taking the drug, the disease process reasserts itself.
In homeopathy, a remedy provides information/serves as a catalyst that initiates healing. There is no dependence on pharmacological energy to maintain a response, though sometimes the stimulus (remedy) must be reinitiated (repeated) to complete the healing. Unlike allopathic treatments, which must be maintained continuously to sustain a response, homeopathic medicines can lead to healing that continues for extended periods.
A synergy with human health and global well-being
Contemporary eco-psychologists extend the concept of the collective unconscious to a global level, positing the existence of a world that is largely unconscious. “Simply put, all phenomena in the world possess intrinsic unconscious characteristics” that can be thought of as an inner, subjective nature (Aizenstat, 1995, Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind). One of the ways that we access the unconscious world is through dreams. The homeopathic proving is another access, because the prover reveals the hidden nature of the medicine, just as a dream reveals the unconscious.
The homeopathic method of drug development (the proving) facilitates the expression of the inner state of any substance through the human vehicle, the prover. This is consistent with the experience of traditional shamanic healers (Cowen, 1995, Plant Spirit Medicine). In sum, homeopathy offers a powerful tool for accessing the inner nature of the world’s material phenomena.
By considering the nature of the remedy in the healing equation, homeopathy provides a profound model for understanding the dynamics between human sickness and healing substances. In homeopathy, nature itself is the source of healing. Evidence shows that homeopathy works on animals and plants, not just humans, thus the potential for large-scale ecological healing is significant.
Connection with the web of life
Once we embrace the synergistic relationship between homeopathic remedies and global healing, it is easy to understand that participating in homeopathy enables both homeopath and patient to deepen their relationship with nature, encouraging ecological healing. This participation reinforces the value that species extinction and habitat destruction make absolutely no sense. We cannot afford to lose any species or habitat since extinction limits the potential development of medicines.
For example, the development of a new homeopathic medicine from the redwood tree, Sequoia sempervirens, brings a fascinating medicine to our materia medica without endangering this plant species.
Ecologically sustainable medicine
Homeopathy reaches beyond the boundaries of medical technology. It is a methodology embedded in a planetary whole. Any discussion of ecological healing and environmental health cannot afford to ignore the role of homeopathy. By avoiding the ecological repercussions of current mainstream medical practices, homeopathy supports a sustainable, clean ecosystem.
Through their professional practices, homeopathic practitioners have an opportunity to contribute to environmental stewardship by helping establish homeopathy as a catalyst for environmental healing. The need for such healing has never been more urgent. As the degradation of the natural environment continues to accelerate, homeopathy and its values offer profound insight into personal and global healing.
Criteria for ESM
• Safe and harmless
• Clean and non-toxic
• Cost-effective
• Non-polluting
• Adaptable and flexible
• Renewable
• Protective of the quality of life on earth, the environment and earth’s natural resources
• Synergistic with human health and global well-being
• Connected with the web of life
Reprinted with permission from Joel Kreisberg, DC, CCH from an article in the Homeopath
Joel Kreisberg, DC, CCH, is founder and executive director of Teleosis Institute, a not-for-profit organization, dedicated to educating health professionals about Ecologically Sustainable Medicine. Currently, he is an adjunct faculty member at JFK University’s Masters Program in Holistic Health Education. He completed his BA at Wesleyan University, Doctor of Chiropractic at New York Chiropractic College, and MA in Integral Ecology at Prescott College. He trained at the Hahnemann College of Homeopathy and the Bengal-Allen Institute in Calcutta. Author of several books on homeopathy, he has been teaching for over 20 years. Visit http://www.drkreisberg.com/
