This is the first draft of a re-write of our philosophy to encompass later philosophical thinking and practice. It stems from my article on the Organon 7th edition, which was a plea for the profession to write it. Certainly I do not have the effrontery to write such a work myself and consider it authoritative. It needs to be the product of the whole Homoeopathic profession, or at least those at the exploratory end of the spectrum.

Deliberately in this article I am avoiding use of the controversial title �Organon� as so many correspondents considered it heresy. Please forgive me for my earlier error.

This is an appeal to all practitioners to submit their successful experiences and new concepts where they differ from the chapter and verse of the original Organon. I will build them into this article with proper ascription.

Hahnemann�s Organon covers;

Vital Force.
The similar remedy.
*The Totality of Symptoms.
*Potency, x, c, and LM.
Provings.
Acute and Chronic disease. *Miasms.
The Unprejudiced observer.
The Contrast between homoeopathy and Allopathy.
*Healthy Living
* �Mere� Isopathy
The State of the Disposition

Stars represent areas I wish to comment on, and invite the profession�s comments also. Please don�t feel restricted to these.

LATER AUTHORS

(Where I have not done full justice to any author please submit a brief synopsis of your own views).

BOENNINGHAUSEN �

Generalised the concept of modalities, eg any symptom affected by a modality extended to the whole person being affected by that modality.

Boenninghausen also brought out an early repertory, and wrote an excellent Materia Medica.

HERING � As well as his famed wrestle with the Lachesis, and subsequent proving thereof, Hering developed the �Laws� of Direction of Cure.�

KENT � Added a Swedenborgian (New Age spiritual � in those days known as Ancient Wisdom) dimension to Homoeopathy.

He developed a repertory which was the mainstay of Homoeopathy until the 1980�s. This was developed around a head to toe Schema which has since been adopted as the format for nearly all the modern repertories. (Boger and Murphy excepted).

Kent also wrote a major Materia Medica in which he went to great length to outline the character and behaviour patterns of the remedy under discussion.

VITHOULKAS � Remodelled Homoeopathic philosophy in accord with the science of Harmonics, where a musical note will resonate on a distant tuning fork.

As part of his philosophy Vithoulkas defined cure as �happiness,� emphasizing cure at the most central mental levels. (Science of Homoeopathy p8).

He also developed the three cone model of the Direction of cure, and conversely of suppression (Science�P 47)

Vithoulkas also continued and amplified Kent�s style Materia medica development in his Essences. His method was to convene his clinic doctors to present cases of a particular remedy. He then recorded what was common to each case and recorded it into his material Medica.

As a result Vithoulkas� essences are rock solid descriptions of remedies and the character development of their patients. However a lot of fringe information has been omitted and these remedy descriptions are open to a charge of being one-sided.

BOMBAY RESEARCH AND CHARITIES, of whom RAJAN SANKARAN and JAYESH SHAH are the chief spokesmen, developed the theme of the Central State, based on Hahnemann�s #211, The State of the Disposition. This is often revealed by the Central Delusion.

This method of prescribing, which might loosely be described as �Exorcising the Devil� which drives the Pathology, often leads to one delusion being prescribed on to the exclusion of any conflicting symptomatic data. It is an amazingly successful approach but needs to be followed through with awareness of the Dominating and Silent States, ie after the first successful prescription a sequence of latent states may arise requiring entirely different treatment. (Sankaran - Spirit of Homoeopathy).

This of course is well known in older Homoeopathy �eg Sul� Calc� Lyc, and Vithoulkas writes on it in the �Science�.� as the concept of Layers.(P128).

This system has the huge virtue of almost eliminating repertory and differential diagnosis, two very time consuming aspects of symptomatic prescribing.

In effect it eliminates the need for the �Totality of Symptoms,� and even the �Three legged stool� � at least for the first prescription.

The Bombay group have further developed an enhanced system of classification of �miasms,� coupled with intensive examination of the chief sensation of the patient until it reveals the �miasm� of the patient

Families of plants have been classified into the same miasms, and prescription in this system is based on the intersection of the miasm and of the plant family having the patient�s chief sensation.

Effectively this amplifies our use and understanding of plant remedies ninefold, while rendering the prescription far more precise.

The Bombay group have further amplified and refined our understanding of Snake remedies and of Lac rememedies.

Jonathon Shore has done similar work on the Bird family, and Nancy Herrick has proven a number of unusual Animal remedies.

(Yes, I must have missed out many many others. Please don�t get indignant, just insert them here).

Provings of new remedies are taking place worldwide at a rapid rate and these are being absorbed into the materia medica at a rate faster than can be published in print. (Watch this space for Ruapehu lava, Maungakiekie, Lapis Albis, and Pohutukawa).

Jan Scholten�s marvellous work on the Periodic Table has simplified prescription of mineral remedies and amplified the number of minerals available to us by approximately tenfold. It has also given us a new understanding of the �Bathwater� remedies, Sanicula etc.

Scholten�s work similarly obviates the need for the Totality of Symptoms, a large proportion of repertorisation, and differential diagnosis. These are rapidly obsolescent studies.

I have no doubt there is much new work I am not aware of, and I seek the assistance of other schools and practitioners to supplement this work.

In particular I will be happy to receive concise paragraphs on the old practitioners, both Boenninghausen and Hering, I�m aware I haven�t done justice to them, plus inputs about others who have amplified Hahnemann�s original concepts.

So that�s the history to date, and based partly on that, and on my own observations I offer the following comments, all of which are open to improvement as unfinished work.

The Totality of Symptoms, thoroughly dealt with by Sankaran and Scholten.
Miasms. The original work on Chronic Miasms was based on residues of old Psora and Venereal Disease. These are well fleshed out by Phyllis Speight.
At his recent Auckland seminar Sankaran told us that his classifications were not necessarily based on original disease, but on the typical pattern of the disease. Eg the Malarial miasm is not necessarily based on an old family history of Malaria, but on the periodic pattern in which it occurs.

� That gives us two equally viable concepts of miasms to work with.

� Healthy Living and vitamin supplementation is obviously beneficial,( but not necessarily curative, particularly once the money runs out). While Hahnemann states this in the Organon, he negates it in �Chronic Diseases.�

� Without any dietary change the Simillimum will restore health. If this equates to improved nutrition then the inference must be that the Simillimum will improve ASSIMILATION from the normal diet of all those elements whose lack contributes to ill health. It is also quite likely to cause changes in the patient�s Desires and Aversions to create an appetite for foods more beneficial to the patient.

� �Mere� Isopathy. Hahnemann derides this and wouldn�t like to see a profession based on it. Experience over many decades shows the validity of this aspect in the treatment of Vaccination Syndrome, Cannabis (or any) toxicity, Allergies etc. Isopathy is by no means 100% effective but is too valuable to be discarded.

� Potency. Hahnemann covered x, c and LM potencies, and a system of potentising based on one new bottle per potency. Korsakov modified this to use one bottle for the whole range of potency. Other systems of potentisation arose and were denigrated, swirling jets etc. (even this must have some effect, consider the effects of Fluoride in the water supply). Perhaps the most controversial system was potentisation by magnets (Rae), but this appears to be largely accepted by now. It is certainly an effective, economical and time-saving system.

� It can be argued that X, C, and LM potencies were simply convenient Mathematical classifications and do not represent the whole range of potencies available to us. For instance why can we not develop a system based on using any convenient sized plastic bottle, eg 300ml, 500ml, 1 litre, 2 litres etc and succuss one drop of any of the other potencies in it. It is perfectly possible to use eg a scale of 6c, 30c, 200c, 1m etc in eg one litre of water. This would be an entirely different mathematical scale but would nevertheless be effective. I am currently using a drop of 30c in a 300ml bottle and getting very strong and long lasting reactions out of it, in a remedy which I previously took up to cm, losing effect there. This opens up the potency range dramatically. While the concept is original to me, this can�t be an isolated spark of solitary genius. Surely there must be many others out there using it?

Here endeth my own original input. They arise because I learned my Homoeopathy in isolation, in early New Zealand then Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and before the Internet. I had to do all my own thinking the hard way.

While all these concepts have worked for me over 40 years I do not consider them authoritative for the whole Homoeopathic profession and would want a lot more wide ranging experience and confirmation from others before I did so.

Likewise these are not the only issues to be explored.

Once again I appeal to the entire Homoeopathic profession to add their successful experiences and observations where they differ from the strict letter of the Organon.

I am in theory more or less semi-retired and I do get times where I can put my efforts into editing and co-ordinating your inputs, and am willing to take on this most necessary work.

Derek Briggs 4 July 2003