In March, 1996, I provided my supporters with the following article about homeopathy. Why? Because I had just disovered homeopathy's powerful healing benefits for the first time and wanted to share it with others.

by Dr. Lawrence Seliski, N.D.; B.E.S.; B.N.

Homeopathy is a 200 year old science, an art of medicine, and one of the treatment modalities used by Naturopathic Physicians and Homeopaths throughout the world. This treatment, which has been popular in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Greece, India, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico to name a few places is seeing a resurgence in popularity in North America as a safe alternative to the invasive and pharmaceutical approach of Medical Doctors. Strong supporters of the use of homeopathy have included Mahatma Gandhi, John D. Rockefeller, and Yehudi Menuhin. England's Royal Family have had homeopathic physicians on staff for approximately 150 years.

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), a medical doctor and researcher in pharmacology, is the father of homeopathy. He became disillusioned and gave up his medical practice after neither he nor other medical doctors could help his severely ill daughter. By experimenting on himself, he discovered that any substance capable of producing symptoms in a healthy individual can cure these same symptoms in a sick individual. The concept of Let Likes Be Treated by Likes had first been recorded by Hippocrates and had been simplistically considered by others to mean that the best therapeutic agent to use to treat a disease or ailment needed to look like the disease or ailment. For example, a herb with a part shaped like a kidney was used for kidney ailments or something red might be used for blood building. Through other doctors and himself testing more substances, Hahnemann rediscovered the true law of similars which is the foundation of Homeopathy.

The word homeopathy is derived from the Greek words homoios (similar) and pathos (suffering). The homeopathic practitioner does not treat a particular illness or disease process but rather evaluates the whole person considering not only the physical symptoms but mental symptoms, emotional symptoms, general reactions to heat, cold, position, time of day, food, etc. as well as any striking or peculiar symptoms. In this way, the homeopathic practitioner individualizes each case (as no two people will react with the exact symptoms in a given illness or disease) and selects the remedy that most closely matches the symptom picture of the individual. A comprehensive interview and a clear symptom picture is important as there are over 2,000 remedies to choose from. Minute, non-toxic doses of plant, mineral or animal substances are used to prepare the remedies in different dilutions in the accepted and regulated process developed and tested by Dr. Hahnemann.

Two hundred years of testing, proving, and using homeopathic remedies have shown that since symptoms are the body's way of defending and healing itself as well as dealing with stress, homeopathic remedies work with, rather than against the individual's overall defense system and provide a gentle but powerful healing stimulus. It should be noted, however, that just as the state of health of each individual varies, so does the length of time that it takes for homeopathy to help each individual reach optimal health.