Vol. 7, No. 3, 1990

Articles on the New Age

Peter Andrews

My wife, Alice, was literally raised on Homeopathy. At 12 years old she had experienced it cure 21 warts. She had seen it work!

Yet every book she read on the New Age Movement included Homeopathy as Holistic Healing.

Then she saw the article in the newspaper on Swami Naranyani, an ex-Presbyterian who converted to Hinduism and spread the religion whilest healing through Homeopathy, laying on of hands and praying over articles of clothing. "She preaches the teachings of a Hindu saint," (The Star Newspaper, 17/7/1989).

The connection was disturbing and Alice searched for answers. The findings have been grouped together under some of the many questions asked during her search.

A. What Is Its Origin?

,b>1. Paraselsus (1493-1541) Homoeopath Elizabeth Danciger researched the historical roots of Homeopathy, and found its source in the teachings of Paraselsus, who believed in the principle "Let like be cured by like."

This is an ancient occultic practice whereby, for instance, they would treat a blood disease with a bloodstone (The Emergence of Homeopathy, Elizabeth Danciger, p. 3)

Alan Debus states in his preface to The English Paracelians, "Until recently however, few scholars have emphasized the fact that in Paracelsus and his followers there was a curious blend of the occult and the experimental approaches to nature," (p. 3).

Believing in invisible spirits or forces in herbs and minerals, he tried to extract them for healing purposes. Thus he is considered the patron of Holistic medicine.

2. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843)

In a radio interview Swami Naranyani stated, "In Homeopathy, Hahnemann, who was a medical doctor, reintroduced the rule of "one remedy."

Hahnemann believed that disease could be cured by giving drugs which produce effects similar to the disease's symptoms. He had noticed that workers harvesting quinine, or Peruvian Bark, often fell ill and showed symptoms like those of malaria.

So he asked himself, "Can a drug which cures an illness also cause it's symptoms?"

He dosed himself and sure enough had the symptoms of malaria. He started diluting it and found no side effects in very weak doses.

(Note that recent experiments with healthy test persons have not verified his theory. Hahnemenn had taken quinine earlier in his life and it is quite probable that his experiment had caused an allergic reaction, which can typically occur with the symptoms he described (Healing at any Price, Samuel Pfeifer, MD, p. 654))

B. How Is It Prepared?

1. The "mother tincture" is firstly prepared. The required vegetable, animal or mineral substance will be either crushed, aged or soaked in an alcohol and water solution for approximately 6 months in test tube A.

2. A drop of the "mother tincture" is diluted in 99 drops of alcohol and water in test tube

This is stopped up and shaken vigorously against a rubber or leather pad, this method being known as succussion. Hence the first centesimal.

3. One drop from test tube B is placed in test tube C which also contains 99 drops of diluent and this is again succussed. This is the 2nd centesimal or 2C.

This process of dilution and succussion is repeated as often as 12C which is the equivalent of a pinch of salt in both North and South Atlantic Oceans!

Dr Schuessler's tissue salts have a common 6X inscribed on the bottles or 1 part in a million, or 1 teaspoonful in a bathful of water.

A dilution of 12X would be the equivalent of a teaspoonful of the original mother tincture in a mass the size of the Empire State Building, (Homeopathy Investigated, A.D. Bambridge RGN, p. 9).

C. So How Does It Heal?

The first questionable aspect is that there is nothing of any chemical value left to heal your body.

The secret is in the shaking! This shaking is paramount to the Homeopathic remedy.

Hahnemann believed that the more it was diluted, the more potent or effective it became.

He was once asked if he could cure a serious epidemic by pouring a bottle of the correct poison into Lake Geneva and allowing the world to take of its substance.

He replied "If I could shake Lake Geneva 60 times, then yes, I would do this." (Ibid, p. 4)

In Hahnemann's own book of 1810, The Organon of the Art of Rational Healing, he states, "A change is affected in the given drug. It is changed and subtilised at last into spirit-like medicinal power which indeed, in itself, does not fall within our senses but for which the medicinally prepared globule... becomes the carrier.... and manifests the healing power of this invisible force in the sick body," (as quoted in: A-Z of Homeopathy, Dr. Trevor M. Cook, p. 597).

Swami Naranyani practices the same theory: "It is an energy, a vibration that is put into either pills or liquid."

What we have here is the transmitting of a spirit, not a chemical to heal the disease. Hahneman believed that he was working up the same force that psychic healers meditate on before they lay hands on people.

The healing also relies on you. Homeopathy believe that in each person lies "inherited natural curative powers." Homeopathic medicines seek to stimulate this force or energy to overcome the disease. (Healing at Any Price, p. 738)

D. What Is the Source of This Force?

1. The Occult. When asked to prove the existence of this energy, the healers used a dowsing rod and pendulum - old instruments of the occult.

"Sensitivity to the rod and ability to make a pendulum react are psychic powers," says Dr. Kurt Kosch in his book, Occult (p. 188).

The healers even admit the connection!

Brian Inglis in his book Natural Medicine, is discussing the history of Alternative medicines: "Organisations often make little attempt to disguise their impatience with such dabblers of the occult," (p. 198).

2. The East. George Vithoulkos, a naturopath, says, "The real purpose of homeopathy is to open the high centres (brain) for spiritual or celestial influx. The purpose is to become One with yourself, one with the universe, through your mind," (Homeopathy, p. 99).

Swami Naranyani had mentioned Hahnemann reintroducing "one" remedy.

It is the force or energy working through the powder, solution or granules to make you vibrate as one with the universe. It is the same power believed in by the Hindus and the psychic power of Rosicrucians.

E. Aren't We Hanging Homeopathy on Their History?

Surely they don't believe in that today?

1. "In 1986 John Dale interviewed an administrator in the Faculty of Homeopathy. She harbours similar doubts after eight years of working there. `One has to recognise the two sides of the spiritual realm - the good and the evil,' she says.

"In homeopathy you are definitely into the spiritual realm. It is very easy to make a religion of it. If one reads Hahnermann's own writing it is very easy to treat it like a bible and end up in a state of worshipping Hahnemann and hom¬eopathy. I've seen it happen. It takes over. Without a doubt nearly all the doctors attending the faculty are involved in some sort of spiritual practice such as anthroposophy or transcen¬dental meditation,'" (Personality Magazine, 12/6/1989, p. 22)

2. In the same article is a testimony of a Christian Homeopath.

"Concern about the link between homeopathy and the occult drove one particular practitioner, Dr. Douglas Calcott, to resign from the faculty after 20 years of membership and destroy all his homeopathic equipment. He once believed emphatically that homeopathy was a gift from God, but being a Christian fundamentalist he felt he could no longer participate in something with occultic links.

"`Since renouncing homeopathy as occult, I have found my relationship with Jesus much more real and effective,'" says Calcott in 1983 (Ibid).

F. Doctors Fail To Treat Me as a whole Person

A definition of Holistic or Wholistic medicine from their own book A-Z of Homeopathy: 1. "Holistic medicine," a general term used to describe alternative medicines which are concerned with all aspects of a patient and his or her life rather than a particular illness...," (Cook, p. 42; emphasis mine).

2. "Vitalism is back; the currently fashionable term for it being holism. Presenting acupuncture, chiropractic, herbalism, homeopathy, naturopathy, astropathy, radionics and psychic healing as worthy of recognition. ...the Healing Research Trust has claimed that they are all based on a philosophy of holism," (Natural Medicine, Inglis, pp. 198-199).

Their philosophy? Janet Pleshnette in Cures that Work, writes: "Illness happens to a whole person, body, mind and spirit. A person is not a machine. He is an energy field, a dynamic system, both influencing and receiving influence from everything around him, living or not."

She explains further: "Instead of separate building blocks (within a person) there extends a complex web where the relationship between the particles matter more than the particles themselves, and where matter itself must be described as a concentration of energy. Matter and energy are interchangeable," (Ibid).

This is Hindu thinking - that we are one with the Universe, all is one, we are in God, God is in us, we are God.

G. Have Christians Been Influenced?

The following are quotes from a Christian Naturopath's seminar notes:

"The universe is composed of energy. (Gen. 1-3). All matter is composed of energy. Different forms of matter are determined by different vibratory rates of energy.

(If you have a problem it is in a different energy field and the brain doesn't know of the disease.)

The human is composed of energy proved by Krilian photography and electromagnetic measurements.

The physical body is the outward manifestation of the energy field.

Everything that happens to the body, happens first to the energy field. Whether it be emotional, chemical or physical it robs energy from the body. (Jody Robbins Emotional/Body Seminar Notes)

He says our thoughts and attitudes influence the energy field and govern our life and health.

Once Christians start worrying about food combinations and energy levels, one wonders where our faith has gone in the God who heals us.

Having followed Holistic healing principles for two years Alice found it was becoming a religion in itself; feeling guilty when she ate red meat or dairy products or even when giving the kids medicine.

Her focus became on herself believing that she could heal herself.

She didn't feel she could ask God for healing as it was her own fault for being sick.

You the reader might be saying, "But I have high blood pressure and Homeopathy is the only thing that helps!"

In the light of what you have read, and as New Age thought becomes prevalent in medicine, you will have to choose between supporting occultic based practices and following the word of God.

Jesus promised an abundant life; a wholeness, peace, joy and hope that transcends health and wealth and offers a fullness of life that rests on the grace and mercy of the Creator.