Power vs Force in Detoxification

Something I was taught the first week of Naturopathic Medical school (at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine) left an indelible mark on my thinking about healing. Dr. Sensenig quoted Paracelsus in his first lecture:

“The Physician is only the servant of nature, not her master. Therefore, it behooves medicine to follow the will of nature.”

I was hooked on this philosophy. I wanted to know how nature operates so that I can follow her will.

My first clue was when Dr. Sensenig told us about our Naturopathic roots in the mid-nineteenth century when the lay movement of Nature Cure in Western Europe came together with the Homeopaths, and Benedict Lust established the first school in this country called the American School of Naturopathy. Both groups were based on the idea that a vital principle is operating in humans to maintain health and offered varied ways to do that.

Besides the remedies themselves, homeopathy contributed ways of understanding healing, such as Hering’s Rules which can assess the results of any therapeutic modality. Dr. Sensenig urged us to verify for ourselves this underlying philosophy of medicine in our practices.

Investigating this Philosophy

In a detoxification elective in school, I learned more about gall bladder flushing, kidney and liver cleanses, therapeutic fasting and such and tried it all. I enthusiastically embraced intravenous chelation when presented with the possibilities for changing the life of someone who is really sick.

After some clinical experience, especially with patient compliance, I began to consider what Dr. Sensenig said about verifying our Naturopathic philosophy. As the years pass, with continuing education, I more and more carefully evaluate how I can “do no harm” while effectively accomplishing a restoration of health for the patient.

A Yardstick for “Do No Harm”

I adopted Dr. David Hawkins’ definitions of power and force to help me evaluate clearly.

“Power is always associated with that which supports the significance of life itself. . . . Force always moves against something, whereas power doesn’t move against anything at all. . . . Power gives life and energy – force takes these away.”

Power respects the laws of nature, because it is the vitality of life itself moving through the channels nature provides.

Force is human-made; it is the principle of opposition in order to accomplish a goal. We recognize it in treatments which are “anti-”: anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, antihistamines, and so on.

Where allowing is powerful, controlling is forceful. Power is enlivening, force is exhausting. Power is gentle, force rough. Where Power is harmonious, force disrupts. Power leads; force coerces. Power is nurturing, force is draining. Power is principled, force expedient. They are as different as requesting is to demanding.

So the question for me becomes: which treatments for detoxification are powerful without being forceful?

Laws of Nature

Nature Cure pioneers such as Priessnitz and Father Kneipp concerned themselves with the effects of violation of Nature’s laws on the physical human organism. Lindlar listed those effects as:

“1. Lowered vitality.

2. Abnormal composition of blood and lymph.

3. Accumulations of waste matter, morbid materials and poisons. (These conditions are identical with disease.)”

They used treatments like fasting, colon cleansing, manipulation, physical therapy as well as botanicals to follow Natural Law. All these methods of opening up the organs of elimination and clearing the body are effective for tissues and organs, and can affect the cells. But at that time, there was 100 years less of environmental toxins and the food supply was not by any means as manipulated as today.

Detoxification with Homeopathy

Let’s look at what we want to accomplish with detoxification.

Waste matter starts inside the cell with the cell’s products of metabolism. As well, exogenous toxins can make their way into the cell and disrupt its metabolism and elimination.

I found that Homeopathic remedies are a useful adjunct because they can affect all the levels of the organism including the cells directly and in a powerful way. The low, medium and high potencies of Homeopathic remedies have affinities for different densities of matter. Any potency denser than the resonance vibration of the cell will not work inside the cell but instead on the tissues and organs, and any potency more rarified than the vibration of the cell will first work on more subtle levels, then filter down to the physical.

Intracellular resonant vibrations occur at the magnitude of 10 to the power of minus 9 to 10 to the power of minus 12. That is equivalent to the concentration of a homeopathic remedy at 4 to 6 CH (and 8x to 12x.)

So, material doses of a substance or potencies of it up through 3C or 6x are not sufficiently rarefied to resonate inside the cell, but can affect the cell by affecting the tissues and extracellular spaces.

For example, Berberis or Chelidonium botanicals affect the tissues of the liver and gall bladder. However, they have no power to reverse a disruption of cellular function of those organs.

In the arena of detoxification, they remove the wastes from the extracellular spaces, a big relief for the cells, but do not fundamentally change the cells’ function.

Tissue Level

The Schuessler cell salts in 6x dilution work on the level of tissue functional disturbances – thus, the alternate name of Tissue Salts. They provide nutrition in a concentration which the cells can assimilate which then supports the cell metabolism.

According to J.B. Chapman, MD writing about Dr. Schuessler’s biochemistry,

“A study of physiological chemistry makes one familiar with the signs of functional disturbance brought about by changes in the concentration of the mineral salts in the tissues and fluids of the body.  . . . the slightest variation in the ratios of concentration of the mineral salts in the body fluids may be reflected by functional disturbances, and the visible signs of these changes may be read with precision by those who have studied biochemistry.”

Reading the signs of the functional disturbances, we can choose the cell salt to nourish a particular tissue. For example, nervous tissue responds to Kali phos and Mag phos and bone responds to Calc phos and Silicea.

Intracellular Level

In contrast, a homeopathic potency beginning at 4C, through 6C to 9C (or 8x through12x and 18x) have an effect inside the cell. Remedies in these potencies can reverse a lesion – an alteration of cellular structure or of the ability of cells to carry out a function. We will see how in a moment.

In more rarified potencies of 9C to 12C (and 18x to 24x) the original substance approaches Avogardo’s number in dilution and so approaches the border of matter in influence.

Avogadro’s number, on the order of 10 to the  23rd power, is the dilution of a homeopathic remedy where it is likely there is not a single molecule of the original substance left in the remedy, just the information of that remedy.

Remedies at potencies higher than the 12 – 15C range have an affinity for more subtle levels of the individual. Potencies in the range of 200c and up communicate directly with the inner being, which must be done with utmost respect, honoring Natural law.

High Potency Prescribing

The practice of prescribing homeopathic remedies at a potency of 200c often results in a pronounced aggravations of the patient’s symptoms. What happens is that the information from the 200c remedy initiates such a drastic change that the body cannot respond fast enough to channel out toxins or make efficient the organs of elimination.

To remedy this, a method of preparing the body based on Dr. Nebel’s work was developed by Dr. Leon Vannier of France beginning in 1911 and called Biotherapeutic Drainage. It has been subsequently expanded on and refined, primarily by the French schools.

“Drainage is the combination of measures to be used to ensure the regular elimination of toxins that burden the body of a person. I say of a person, not of persons, because the fact of great importance to remember is that drainage must always be individualized”

according to Dr. Vannier. He individualized remedy selections based on general symptoms, functional symptoms, and lesional symptoms. Instead of finding a remedy to cover all these symptoms, as done in classical homeopathy, he used different remedies in different potencies to address each of these sets of symptoms.

What Would Hahneman Do?

If combining homeopathic remedies is not comfortable for you, consider what Dr. de Ruyter had to say in an article which summarized Dr. Vannier’s methods of prescribing:

“When Hahnemann started to develop his homeopathic treatment, orthodox doctors often used many drugs in combination. Hahnemann severely criticized this polypharmacy. In order to study the effects of each homeopathic remedy Hahnemann did not use combinations of remedies in the early years and objected to the use of remedy combinations by other homeopaths. Hahnemann’s warnings against using combinations of homeopathic remedies have become an entrenched doctrine in some homeopathic quarters.

However, combinations of homeopathic remedies have been used successfully for well over a century by homeopaths on the European Continent.

Continental homeopaths have known from Hahnemann’s own time that he did use combination remedies, and the material in the German biography of Hahnemann by Dr. R. Haehl has been available to homeopaths who can read German for 74 years. But these historical facts have not been easily accessible to English speaking homeopaths who do not read German. So it is not surprising that Anglo-American homeopaths have believed for a long time that Hahnemann never used remedy combinations. The documented historical fact, however, is that he did.”

What Does a Prescription Look Like?

Vannier’s prescription began with the simillimum, or remedy covering most of the patient’s symptoms with emphasis on the general symptoms. Vannier called this the fundamental remedy. He used it in high potency, 200c or 1M at infrequent intervals of 12 to 20 days apart. This is familiar to classical homeopaths.

The difference is that Vannier also prescribed in alternation a nosode of Psorinum, Tuberculinum, Medorrhinum, or Syphilinum, according to the patient’s symptoms. This would be again in the 200c or 1M potency about 2 weeks after the simillimum, or fundamental remedy.

In addition, Vannier also selected one or two remedies based on the functional symptoms which he called drainage remedies. These were given once or twice a day in a medium potency, usually of 30C. In addition, if there were lesional symptoms, another remedy would be prescribed in a low potency, such as 6C, every day or every other day, again, based on the signs and symptoms matching those of the Materia Medica. It is apparent that since lesions involve cellular changes, the selection of the lesional remedy potency must match the cellular level.

Typically, Vannier had patients follow this treatment for a month, then reassessed and changed the remedies when necessary. When the fundamental remedy and nosode match the patient well, the drainage remedies may not change or there may only be minor changes in the remedies for the next month. When indicated, the fundamental remedy and nosode may be increased in potency, from 200c to 1M, for example. If the patient’s symptoms continue to improve, the treatment is continued without major changes for several months.

In children or subacute cases, Vannier found that the treatment may be complete in 2 to 3 months. In chronic cases and for most adults, Vannier continued treatment for 8 to 12 months in order to restore the patient to health.

Biotherapeutic Drainage

I have been using a refinement of Vannier’s system of Biotherapeutic Drainage as taught by the late Dr. Gerard Gueniot, MD of France.

I have found it a powerful – not forceful – way of detoxifying a patient.

I include remedies which act on the organs, tissues, and cells as well as more subtle levels in a single prescription. Of special note is the use of nosodes, which go to the heart of detoxification. A distinction is that I use the nosodes in the 200K or 7CH potency, which by affinity acts on the cellular level.

Miasm as Efficiency of Eliminating

Each nosode belongs to a miasm, which I understand as the reactional mode of a person. This is nothing other than how well the organism eliminates on the cellular level, and what happens if it cannot eliminate effectively.

The basic reactional mode is the Psoric, which in the normal course of things sorts and assimilates what it needs and eliminates what it cannot use, including the products of metabolism. When overburdened from unhealthy lifestyle, the Psoric suddenly, almost violently and effectively eliminates and is improved and brought back to equilibrium.

The Sycotic and Tuberculinic reactional modes do not eliminate well. The Sycotic stuffs toxins in the most benign places. The Tuberculinic begins inflammatory, demineralization and autoimmune processes because it simply does not have the energy to eliminate, primarily since the liver is not working well.

The Syphilitic has paradoxical and unpredictable ways of eliminating, often through self-destruction.

So by giving the nosode in the 7C potency repeatedly at infrequent intervals, the organism is given the information to restore and make efficient its eliminating. This results in detoxification that follows normal physiology without forcing the natural capacities of elimination. It makes those capacities efficient. Often patients report that after a dose of the nosode, they experienced an episode of diarrhea, or are slightly feverish and achey, which are characteristic of elimination through normal routes.

Powerful Detoxification

Biotherapeutic Drainage is powerful in Dr. Hawkin’s definition of the word. It supports the significance of life itself by favoring the normal tendencies of the body to eliminate toxins.

It does not move against anything at all, it encourages detoxification non-aggressively and without forcing the natural capacities of elimination.

It gives life and energy on the cellular level, organ level, and on the level of the tissues of the body.

Biotherapeutic Drainage respects physiology and Natural Law. It is effective in combination with other modalities.

Through and through, Biotherapeutic Drainage fits my criteria for Naturopathic detoxification – powerful, not forceful.

References

Chapman, J., Dr. Schulessler’s Biochemistry, London, 1973

de Ruyter, E, Computer Homeopathy and a Summary of Dr. Leon Vannier’s Theories on the Paratuberculous and ParacancerousStates, Amsterdam, 1994

Gueniot, G, Homeopathy for the Individual Terrain, lecture, 2008

Hawkins, D, Power vs. Force, CA, 2002, p. 132-133

Lindlar, H, Philosophy of Natural Therapeutics, England, 1975, p.19

Vannier, L, La Pratique de l’Homeopathie, editeurs G. Doin & Cie, 4th edition, Paris, 1950, pg 454

(Avogadro’s number 6×10²³ )

What has your experience been with detoxification? Was it forceful or powerful by these definitions? Please comment below.

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