The Tao of Homeopathy

From the Book

The Healing Process:

Disease is the cure in progress. It is the mechanism by which the body-wisdom asserts itself and communicates its needs. The homeopath understands that disease is never static. It is a dynamic process, always changing from moment to moment.

Healing is also a process, never a singular event.
The wise homeopath remains mindful that many things may encourage a return to health, and does not imagine her own contribution to be more or less important than anything else.

Healing may appear to follow the taking of a medicine, but the consultation process itself provides an opportunity for a healing relationship. For many, the very decision to seek help is the first crucial step on a long healing journey. A wise homeopath named Burnett was fond of saying that when a ladder is used to climb a height, all of the rungs are equally important.

True healing involves a growth in consciousness, an opening in awareness and a return to oneself. Everything else is symptom relief.

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Details

The cover artwork and all the illustrations accompanying the text were produced using ink on paper. Utilizing Arabic characters presented in Far Eastern calligraphic style, each piece reflects upon the ideas and themes contained in the chapter with which it appears.

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Author

Ian Watson was born and grew up in Yorkshire, England where he lived until age seventeen. He has a lifelong interest in natural healing, and bought his first set of (Bach) flower essences at age fifteen.

Shortly afterwards he first discovered homeopathy, and began to study it. He went on to train in reflexology and radionics before embarking on a full homeopathic practitioner training at The College of Homeopathy in London, graduating in 1988.

He has remained interested in other forms of energy healing, and subsequently trained in Shen Therapy, and more recently in Journey Process work with Brandon Bays.

Based in the English Lake District, Ian Watson is internationally known as an author and workshop leader in the fields of homeopathy and self-development. He has written several books and produced numerous audiotape seminars that have inspired students and practitioners around the world.

He is the co-founder and a director of The Lakeland College, one of the largest homeopathic training organizations in the U.K.

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Reviews

The Tao of Homeopathy
Ian Watson
Edge, Kendal, England, 2004
ISBN 0-9517657-2-8

'Every paragraph of Lao Tzu echoes homeopathic principles. 'That which shrinks, must first expand' expresses the law of similars...

'I therefore consider the Tao Te Ching as an essential homeopathic textbook, alongside the Organon and Kent's Lectures...

'With so many modern textbooks concentrating solely on the goal of finding 'the remedy,' this reminder of Tao's wisdom is a timely gift...'
— from the Foreword, by Jeremy Sherr (pp. vii-viii)

Simple. Less. Un- ...
The general practitioner of homeopathy has suppressed his or her gag reflexes at hearing such words as these so as to practice homeopathy.

But many practitioners manage this feat only selectively — that is, as soon as the 'rest of life' is involved, as soon as they aren't 'seeing patients,' then they go back to finding less of anything a constriction, and simplicity a backward state ('could need a Stage 18 remedy'), and 'un-' a very negative way to start a word.

I'll start again — perhaps this will be more palatable. Upstream, there are fewer options, fewer tributaries, less multiplicity.

Downstream there are minutiae, techniques, strategies, and the 'ten thousand things,' — like, for one, the homeopathic remedy Salmon (which, upon hearing the keyword 'upstream,' we automatically prescribe: how times have changed — now we have key word prescribing).

As Ian Watson notes in this book, the Taoist tag phrase 'the ten thousand things' can, to a homeopath, bring to mind ten thousand remedies.

Equally, though, ten thousand patients, ten thousand rubrics, ten thousand symptoms, ten thousand students. Upstream from the ten thousand things, the way is much simpler.

'To learn homeopathy,
a great deal must be absorbed.
To become a homeopath,
A great deal must be relinquished.'
— Ian Watson (p. 59)

Look, listen — there were two types of alchemists:

- one type thought they were making gold from metal,
and so they learned a lot about metallurgy and chemistry...

- and the other type acted in the same arena while knowing that, in doing so, they acted metaphorically upon themselves.

I have trouble with the words actually, all of them —

'I am a Taoist,'
   'I am a Sufi,'
      'I am an alchemist,'
         'I am a homeopath.

Not true. And if it were ever true then the saying of it would make it not so.

The 'individual' (not a true description) is able at times to align with the way (Tao). The 'individual' is able to perform an act that is homeopathic to the presenting moment. The 'individual' can be on the path, or be part of the teaching, at a given time and place.

But have you ever met someone who embodied the ability of continually meeting all the suffering that s/he met with the likeness of that suffering? Do you know and identify yourself as a practitioner of homeopathy?

Is homeopathicity an adjective that you can attach to this or that act or do you attach it to 'your' (not true) self? Are you the one for whom homeopathicity has become an eternal attribute? Or should that be 'the One'?

Must see more patients, must teach more students, know more remedies, read (or at least buy) more books. More — this is the way things are.

'The homeopath accepts things the way they are. She doesn't even try to change a situation or even to improve it. That is not her role...
What we resist, persists.
What we accept, dissolves.
Of course, in order to truly accept another, self-acceptance is required. This is an ongoing process.'
— Ian Watson (p. 9)

Of a like mind with this is Jeremy Sherr's description of homeopathic action -

'We see a pattern and respect it. I don't care who caused it and why; there's no way I can tell. So I give something in nature that has the pattern. Let it be. Let it be more.

'This is homeopathy, — let the symptoms come out fully, and then it can go away.'
— Jeremy Sherr (Seminar, Portland, Oregon, 1992)

Why all these quotations from Jeremy Sherr?

'Homeopathy doesn't belong to anyone.
It is one of the ways in which life heals itself.'
— Ian Watson (p.18)

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Contents

Foreword
Introduction
The Tao
This And That
The Healing Process Acceptance
Interconnectedness Presence
Emptiness
Knowledge
The Homeopathic Principle Doing Nothing
The Unexpected Susceptibility
Prevention
Outcomes
Action And Reaction Appearances
Being Appropriate Listening
Awareness
Cause And Effect Attraction
No Substance
The Wise Practitioner Questions Individualization
Less Is More
Similars
Signs And Symptoms Learning
Simplicity
Potency
Quiet Practice
Doing Too Much
Death And Dying
Being And Doing
Small Steps
Doing What Comes Naturally Seasons
Maintaining Harmony Rules And Regulations Inside Out
Better Or Worse Completion
Transliteration Acknowledgments
About The Author And Artist

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