Strangely enough I get this question frequently, as if I belong to a remote branch on the homeopathic tree hanging on to an outdated or even an unfathomable belief, defied by daily practice. The question also implies that others don’t believe in the similimum.
Usually, I answer that, according to Hahnemann ‘what is to be cured in disease’, is the distorted vital force in a person. In my reading of the Organon a person can only have 1 vital force in his lifetime, as Hahnemann equals it, in the well-known and often-quoted aphorism 9 as the ‘spiritual vital force’ or dynamis that animates the organism (…) in harmonious, vital operation both in sensations and functions (….) As a person will only have one and the same body this life, the vital force operating in him, must be one and the same and thus unique as well.
Some things in a person’s life will never change: his date and place of birth, hence his birth horoscope, his set of parents, his siblings and his place among them, his fingerprints, his DNA…. Each person is unique, and so is his vital force. I agree that ‘vital force’ or ‘dynamis’ is a blurry term and can be interpreted in different ways. Some might call it soul or spirit, but then again, it is hard to imagine those as ‘disturbed, out of harmony or – as Kent would say- disordered in the economy of man.
similia similibus curentur
Homeopaths have from the onset attempted to define what our ‘similar’ remedy needs to cover. It was written: the totality of the symptoms. The picture of the patient’s state. Vithoulkas and others called it ‘the essence’, Sankaran and followers the ‘sensation’ or even the ‘source level’. All point the most individualized picture, the uniqueness, which is by the way a quality of every phenomenon in creation.
How many uniquenesses can a person have? For me, the only possible answer is ‘one’. You can only be one person at a time in this life. Essentially you will stay the same. But, people argue, but we change throughout our lifetime, don’t we? We are not the same person at age 45 that we were at age 13. Actually, we are. Growing up, maturing and aging belong to all living beings, it is not unique and certainly not a disturbance. It is a normal, natural evolution and we don’t treat what is natural or common. We treat what is disturbed, disharmonious and incoherent, expressing itself by symptoms on mind and body, remember?
What about timelines?
How many times in a consultation have you heard a patient say: I’ve always been like this’. One reason is: he’s indeed always been like this. The other reason is: everybody lives in the eternal now. Projections in the past or the future are always done ‘now’. You can’t be anywhere else then now. The mind holds memories of the past, but the memories are memorized now.
So even if you make a timeline of the patient’s evolution, there won’t be a reason to prescribe more than one remedy: the best suitable one matching the actual state.
One best remedy, namely the similimum but many good remedies
Homeopathy is founded on the law of similarity. Therefor the more the remedy is similar to the unchanging essence of the patient, it will put in motion what is needed for the disturbed vital force to be ‘restored to health’ (Organon aphorism 1) . Since homeopathy is nothing but pattern matching, it seems self-evident that the more the essence of the remedy matches the essence of the disturbed dynamis the better result we can expect. Consequently, I think there is one best, though there might be many good remedies. The best matches the essence of the pattern, the good one partially. This can be a clinical prescription on the symptoms if there are good reasons, a miasmatic remedy, a family member of the prescribed similimum that better matches the physicals, a mythical remedy etc.
Nature or nurture?
Another question regarding the similimum often heard is: do you think one is born with his disturbance or is it acquired? The ‘nature or nurture’ question in anthropology.
It only takes 2 or more siblings in a family to answer that question; everybody is born unique. Brothers and sisters may differ so much that doubt arises of they have the same DNA from the same parents. The upbringing, though not identical, will predominantly be the same, though the reaction to that upbringing differs according to each person’s experience of it. And the experience, again, is determined by the state, essence or uniqueness. Everybody is born with the individuality already in place. If not, are all babies the same until they acquire during their upbringing a state/ disturbed vital force?
Obviously, upbringing plays an important role. Childhood experiences colour the person’s life; it’s the domain psychologists and many other therapies explore. It’s the quest for answers to the ‘why do you feel and act the way you do?’-question? And the answers are sought for in childhood experiences, often hidden in the subconscious mind. They constitute the personality of the person (together with social and cultural background, IQ, education, gender, financial situation etc) but we don’t prescribe on personality. Or, to be more precise: not on the aspects of the personality that are logical, common, predictable and in proportion to the events in a person’s life. The psyche has it’s structure and hence it’s predictable logic. What falls outside of this we consider one of the ‘signs and symptoms’ from the disturbed vital force.
Look at it from this perspective: when you sow carrot seeds in your garden in a sunny, well-nourished spot, water and it and care for it, the carrots will thrive, be big and tasty. When, on the other hand, carrots are sown in a shady spot, in poor soil, with lack of water, light and nourishment, they will stay small, be infested by worms, crooked. But there will never grow a cauliflower out of your carrot seeds. In other words, circumstances will determine whether you thrive or flounder, but it will still be you.
In short: if there is only one disturbed vital force in a person, showing it’s uniqueness by signs and symptoms and we don’t treat the symptoms but the person, there must be a remedy that matches that vital force and that is what we call the similimum.
What does a ‘good’ remedy do?
When people don’t believe in the similimum, they might argue that there are many good remedies a person needs during his lifetime. I don’t deny; as said: many are good, only one is the best.
What is a good remedy? Usually, it means it deals with the symptoms, whether on the mind or the body. But if you aim your remedy prescription to match the symptoms, how can you tell that the disappearance of the symptom was a cure or a suppression? Patients are happy enough when their symptoms are gone. How can we tell the difference? The basic question we homeopaths should ask ourselves is: did we ‘restore the patient to health’? Therefor we must have a definition of health; if we don’t know what we are aiming for, how can we evaluate our treatment?
Health is defined by Vithoulkas as freedom on all levels: from physical symptoms and emotional or mental disturbances. Even regular medicine incorporates mental-emotional wellbeing in the definition of health. I’d say a person is healthy (er) in Vithoulkas terms plus when he is ‘OK with himself’ in more and more situations, more coherent and harmonious, which is expressed in more forgiving and loving.
If symptoms disappear during a treatment, all patients will be happier, freer in mind and body but that is a natural result of the fact the suffering is no longer there. That doesn’t mean the homeopathic remedy had a deep action. When for instance the pain in the knee is gone with the remedy, obviously the patient will feel freer in his physical mobility and happy in his mind but that would also be the case with anti-inflammatory drug. We wouldn’t call this a deep acting remedy. When corticosteroids relieved the asthma patient, who can now breathe freely and therefor feels happier, it is not a deep acting remedy with effects on the mental-emotional level. It just takes away the symptom and the predictable results of it.
In homeopathy when this happens, it is often understood as if the remedy touched a deep/mental-emotional level, while it was just a clinical prescription on physicals. A ‘deep’ acting remedy works on the mental-emotional state that was there before the physicals, not the predictable, common results of the complaint.
Since the disturbed vital force/state is not dealt with a remedy that matches the physical complaints, it will produce other/new signs and symptoms and therefor homeopaths frequently see this as an indicator to change remedies. It is even an argument that is used against the similimum. The remedy picture changes, so it is said, and thus another remedy is now required. The same can happen multiple times: new signs and symptoms because of suppressing the original ones, other remedies given to suppress those. Does this sound like a quick, mild and permanent restoration to health as Hahnemann meant it?
Another argument is that finding the similimum is impossible and an attempt to do so is hybris. There are just too many people and too many possible remedies. Hence besides the believe that a similimum doesn’t exist, as we argued before, there is the believe that, would it at all exist, it is hopeless to find it and should not be ventured on.
I attempted to explain why I believe there is a logical ground to accept the idea of a similimum. And yes, the idea that every unique person needs a unique remedy is hopeless and not workable. It can never be the exact and perfect match. We are extremely complex beings, now with over 7 billion, how could we ever find it? My answer to this is that when the remedy is ‘close enough’ or similar enough to produce resonance, we can call it a similimum.
Moreover, I explained why giving many remedies is not a good idea.
The fact that homeopaths all over the world are similimum prescribers gives fuel to the idea it is a possible, be it a hard-to-reach goal. Homeopathy is hard work. Restoring a sick person to health is no minor thing, it is a total transformation. It cures chronic diseases (by regular medicine deemed incurables) and results in a more coherent, harmonious and loving person. This is so much more that a rash taken away or a migraine vanish.
However: having said all this; all and every truth we accept, you can argue is based on believe.
If some people are believers that a similimum doesn’t exist, I am a belier it does, and equal in this respect.
