Introduction
The raison d'être of The Minimal Dose
Homeopathy has to be one of the most contentious healing modalities in existence. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been so attracted to it (probably not, actually, but it likely didn’t hurt). Its detractors will swear up and down that any healing that comes as a result of homeopathic treatment can only be attributed to the placebo effect. Their objection isn’t that homeopathy doesn’t work as that would imply that they’d actually given it an honest try. It’s that it can’t work. Here’s why that idea is stupid.
If an actual, honest scientist, who recognizes the importance of the scientific method, is presented with a phenomenon that cannot be explained through what they already know, they will recognize the need for more research. Assuming they have an inclination to discover the mechanism, they may form a hypothesis and begin running experiments to discover an explanation for the phenomenon they’ve observed. What they won’t do (remembering that we’ve categorized them as an honest scientist) is simply deny that the phenomenon exists. They also probably wouldn’t mount a campaign against the phenomenon, pathologically and persistently attacking any reference to it that happened across their path.
In a sense, the rejection of homeopathy is understandable on its face. Despite what we know about chemistry, here’s a healing modality that claims that the more you dilute a substance, the stronger its biological effects become. It doesn’t help that many of the remedies used regularly in homeopathy are poisons (Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, Henbane, etc.), even though they’ve been diluted beyond the point of having a physical effect on the body. Hell, most of the potencies homeopaths are using on a daily basis are diluted beyond the point of it being at all statistically likely that there is any of the original substance left in the solution (leaving aside the possibility of nanoparticles for the time being).
And yet the phenomenon exists. Despite the antagonists spreading the idea far and wide that ‘there is no scientific evidence for homeopathy,’ there’s actually a significant body of well-conducted research published in academic journals showing the opposite. Millions of people around the world are using homeopathy regularly with great success. The ability to deny outright the existence of the homeopathic principle gets more and more difficult every day (not that this will slow down its detractors).
I used to think that the self-proclaimed “skeptics” (really a misnomer, as they seem to be skeptical of everything but the mainstream consensus view of reality on all levels), would be able to see the light of day if there were a solid explanation for the mechanism of homeopathy. If we could say, “look, here’s how it works,” we’d all smile, shake hands and be on our merry ways. At this point, I think that’s naive. I’m now more inclined to believe that we’ve got some people who are content to live in an old paradigm, a materialist and mechanistic view of reality, and are actually quite threatened by the idea that reality is much more complicated than what their day to day existence would imply.
Well, I’m not one of those people. I’m extremely curious about how homeopathy works and willing to put in the legwork to get a better understanding of it. I think that there are likely clues in homeopathy that can lead us to a greater understanding of the Universe we all inhabit.
So that’s the purpose of this Substack (do we still call them blogs?) It’s not to take on the detractors (there is literally no point in that) or even to answer to them. It’s to explore the mechanisms of how this truly amazing healing modality actually works. And it won’t be limited to the mechanism of how a diluted substance can have a physiological effect (I think the science has already progressed enough to give us a pretty good theoretical basis for this, which I’ll be covering in the near future), but will also look at how the body actually heals once the information contained within the remedy is received.
It should be stated from the outset that I’m not a physicist. I’m just a student of homeopathy looking to use this gift of healing to help as many people as I can, and along the way, hopefully be able to get a deeper understanding of how it all works. That being said, much of the material I’ve been looking into already is over my head. But I am willing to learn. I guess this is my way of saying that there are inevitably going to be mistakes along the way, but hopefully I’ll have the fortitude to be able to say when I don’t understand something and maybe some more knowledgeable readers out there can help to point me in the right direction.
I think that the fact that one individual on his lonesome came up with this extremely controversial modality of healing more than a couple of decades ago and people are still using it nowadays in the millions is proof that there must be something more to it than just placebo.