(a nexus of thought destined eventually for a complete work or essay)


- It works. Not necessarily for everyone, but then again penicillin doesn't for every bacteria, either.

- It works on animals. What does that say about the claims of critics that has a placebo, or psychological effect, only? It debunks those claims.

- Studies. Statistics and studies are commonly misconstrued. Correlations are shown as causal, and coincidence is shown as correlation. These things need to be looked into. How can you do a double-blind, test-group controlled study on a large enough to be meaningful when the medical method requires initial patient consultations of two to four hours minimum, as well as dietary and lifestyle analysis? Depending on who you talk to, there are numerous substances and activities that can invalidate the efficacy of homeopathic remedies. So these studies need to be looked in to.

- In addition to animal cures, there are also child, even neo-natal remedies that are effective. Also, sometimes one remedy will not be effective, but another will immediately help. Each condition may have 10 or more variants or remedy options, and the selection of each depends on many circumstances, ALL of the symptoms and emotions involved and the character of the patient. The mere similitude of diagnosis requisite for a meaningful study would be hard to achieve, which leads to skepticism if it ever has been.

- It's true that the potentizing METHOD of homeopathy has only been around a few hundred years (note: LONGER than many mainstream allopathic methods that are accepted blindly, and without questioning their (sometimes notable) side effects). BUT. The basic remedy of the plants and substances involved (witch hazel for hemorrhoids) are practically timeless. Humans have used those medicinal plants into prehistoric times.

- There is a clear medical agenda for anti-homeopathy. Since the industrialization and profitization of the health "industry," there is a clear division between the profit-seekers and the ones that still remember Hippocrates.

The simplest summation of the "danger" of homeopathy to this model (and specifically the mega-powerful pharmaceutical companies) is that you cannot patent natural substances, while you CAN patent artificial mimicry of them.

And the ability to patent means control, royalties, etc, etc, profit. So the pharmaceutical companies have ZERO (greed-based) motivation to tell you that a simple herbal, naturally available, you-can-grow-it-in-your-window, FREE (or nearly) remedy is efficacious. Rather, they will spend billions on convincing you that you must BUY their extravagantly priced, extravagantly marketed product for your malady.

- It was illegal until the 70's to advertise for pharmaceuticals

- I had the opportunity to discuss homeopathy with a scientist-professor-researcher in Belgium. She had not yet observed successful homeopathic treatments, but was very conscious of the possibility of it working. I was surprised because many of the critical essays I have read point out the chemical processes in dilution as a barrier, and they definitely are a barrier to the West's way of thinking, especially if you think that science has answered 99% of man's questions. However, this Belgian (actually Flemish) scientist brought up the very good point that pheromones work on much the same principle, with much the same lack of understanding by modern medicine and science. Pheromones act even when they exist in such a minute and spread-out way in many cases as to be undetectable by any means we as yet have available. Homeopathy works in much the same way chemically.

Speaking of healthy eatin'... Southern style...

The pursuit of health in mind and body ought to comprehend the whole diet, both physical and psychological...

As a first step in eating healthy, one ought to eliminate candy, soda, white (non-nutritive) bread products, and other sources of excess sugar...

BAGELS ARE BAD FOR YOU!

At least most of them...