Natural Philosophy - Homœopathy in a Wider Context

by Peter Fraser

Classical Homœopathy as a discipline has many unusual or even extraordinary properties. As a science it has a deep and strict adherence to scientific principles yet it is regarded by conventional science as completely beyond the scientific pale. On the other hand, as an alternative practice it is regarded as too rigorous and prescriptive by many alternative practitioners. It has come about through the vision of one guru like figure yet it has been advanced by many more, often also guru like, figures. It has been more successful and more enduring than any other described system. Homœopathy has been so successful and opens up so many avenues of discovery and exploration that it has felt no need and possibly not had the time or the energy to explore its relationship to knowledge and understanding in a wider context. This is a pity for homœopaths, who have lost out on using their exceptional knowledge and skills in all the ways that they might have; but it is an even greater loss to the world in general for the skill and knowledge that homœopaths possess could change many aspects of understanding in the wider world.

It is undoubtedly worth looking at homœopathy not just as a medical modality but as a particular and successful form of knowledge and so learn from it how to make other forms more successful and more useful.

Such an investigation involves understanding the answers to a number of different questions. We need to know the general features of non-conventional science and thought. We need to understand the inherent weaknesses of both conventional and non-conventional understanding, particularly the latter. We need to know how homœopathy differs from both conventional and non-conventional thinking. From this we can deduce some of the ways in which homœopathy has overcome these weaknesses to prosper in a way that so many other unconventional modes of thought or understanding have not.  With this information and understanding it should be more apparent as to how the thinking involved in homœopathy can be applied to making many other disciplines more effective and powerful and how we can find solutions to many of the problems that we face and for which conventional thought has no viable or sustainable solutions.

At the time in which classical philosophy reached its apogee with Socrates it split into two fundamentally different streams. One of them, that of Socrates' student Plato, harked back to the thinking of Pythagoras. The main features of it were: a belief that the perceivable world is only an imperfect shadow or projection of something greater or deeper that we are not able to know directly; and that the most important feature of any object is the relationship it holds to other objects. The other stream, that of Plato's student Aristotle, held that all things had intrinsic qualities that were entirely their own and which could be observed entirely independently of anything else and in finer and finer detail. Both streams faded during the Dark Ages but returned to the West at the Renaissance through the Moors who brought with them the writings of both groups that had been preserved in the Arabic world.

Partly through the powerful influence of Thomas Aquinas and partly through natural advantages which are explored later, the Aristotelian system had the ascendency within the Church, which was then the arbiter of knowledge. By the time that the Church realized that this type of thinking was a challenge to its authority, and so its power, it was too late and its fight back exemplified by its attacks on Galileo proved ultimately to be futile. While the Aristotelian approach followed the same successful path it treads today, Neo-Platonism was to be found adopted by distinct groups who were often insular and secretive and disinclined to proselytize. This pattern established five hundred years ago prevails today and an examination of why this should be is central to understanding the difference between conventional and non-conventional thought.

The biggest difference between the two is that conventional thought and science are reductionist in their approach. This means that although the focus of study always becomes sharper and narrower, in order to do this it must refer to wider outside information. Thus the subject matter becomes more specific and more detailed but the framework within which it is understood becomes wider. It can be applied to more situations and more diverse systems. It encompasses a greater number of areas of study even if it can only be applied to them in a more limited way. The opposite is true for non-conventional thought, which is holistic in nature. The focus of study is wider and more general and must by definition encompass everything. However, the framework is self-contained and often becomes narrower and more specific to the particular modality or discipline that uses it. Conventional thought studies small areas from a single, general understanding. Unconventional thought studies everything from many different and self-contained understandings. Conventional thought stands on the outside looking in while unconventional thought stands inside and is looking out.

Conventional thought is always looking for a single theory of how things work. The Holy Grail of science is the Grand Unified Theory that will explain all physical interaction in a way that can be expressed as a single equation. The disadvantage of this is that it cannot accept that a thing can be viewed in from two different angles with a different result. At every stage a single unambiguous view was accepted and all others rejected. This seemed to work well until science started to look at fundamental particles. At this point it became clear that when viewing the individual, general rules do not always apply. If you looked at the fundamental particles in one way, as waves, they behaved in that way; if you looked at them in another way, as particles, they behaved differently. The only way for conventional science to deal with this is to use statistical generalizations about the population as a whole. This eventually applies to any conventional study, from quantum particles to human beings, where individuals’ responses cannot be considered, only the aggregate effect on a significant number of individuals.

Holistic thought at its very best involves looking at things from many angles, through many different systems and theories. This is not as easy as it sounds as the view from one system may be contradictory to that from another and the ability to hold several incompatible views at the same time is extremely difficult especially for anyone brought up with a rationalist world view. There is always a temptation to retreat into a single internally compatible view of the world and to ignore all others.  A conventional theory does not need to apply to everyone in a group. If it applies to a statistically significant part of the group then it can be said to apply to the group as a whole. However, this distinction is not always recognized when reapplied back and it is often assumed that something that affects the group will affect all the members of the group when this is patently not so. This is one of the greatest disadvantages of applying conventional science to medicine. Drug tests reveal whether a drug can have a positive effect: whether it affects a greater number of individuals than are affected by a placebo. It cannot be assumed that just because something can have an effect it will have an effect; yet this assumption is common and this logical error lies behind much of conventional medicine. A mirror image of this logical error lies behind conventional medicines distrust of alternative medicine and homœopathy in particular. Just because the incidence of something is not statistically significant and so not provable, it does not mean that it does not occur.

Holistic thought is individualized to the particular circumstances that are being observed. This means that no two things are the same and no two things can be treated in the same way. More than this, the things that are interesting and important from a holistic point of view are the things that are different or extraordinary, the things that individuate. Every case or situation is its own particular story and it is this story that relates to the holistic system. The facts, and so the principles, that are important are not related to other examples and so cannot be examined together. Reductionist thought takes the opposite approach and it is the things that are common that are most important. Reductionist theories are based on commonalties. Reductionist thought is progressive. Each new discovery is built on those that have gone before and creates a platform for further advances. Holistic thought is not progressive. Each new discovery can be self-contained. It often does not generally advance other systems of holistic thought and does not necessarily help those that will come in the future. Holistic thought can only progressive if we are willing and able to use many different systems and apply them even though they give different pictures and highlight rather than resolve inconsistencies and contrary states.

The self-contained nature of holistic thought makes it vulnerable to many of the manifestations of the guru complex. Each new theory or world-view can seem fresh and able to explain everything and answer all questions. It has often been elaborated by a single person and he or she, though more often than not he, will believe that it is sufficient in itself that no other view is needed and so by extension that all other views must be false. The natural tendency in such a situation is to forms of paranoia, absolute belief in the insider and distrust of the outsider who, by not declaring absolute agreement, must be an enemy bent on concealment and destruction of the truth. Such a situation is unlikely to lead to a clear-headed examination of the system and the further development of it; rather its limitations and errors are likely to be defended and raised to a level of doctrine. Those who become interested in the system are accepted only as disciples of the guru. Any questioning of the system is heresy and there is no opportunity to refine and expand the system.

Reductionism is by its nature based on the principle of causality and the concept of sequence, that one thing follows another. Reductionism, because of this, requires a degree of rigor that is not required in holistic systems. Any error will be carried forward into the next stage of study and so errors will be compounded. Each stage therefore requires rigor and a high standard of certainty that error has not been allowed. Even when error does creep in, through the process of compounding it, it is made larger and more obvious and so will eventually be clearly revealed. In a holistic system this does not happen. If an error is small enough not to cause immediate concern it will not become any more obvious or important and may never be exposed.

Holistic thought does not require absolute and direct causality. Observation is validated by fitting into the pattern of the particular view or system. If many systems are used this becomes very precise and accurate, but as the tendency is to stick to just one system the validation can be of very little value. Validation in conventional science tends to come from a plausible mechanism. This can be just as inaccurate. Conventional science has a tendency to invalidate accurate observations if they do not correspond to a known mechanism and it will allow much greater leeway to inaccuracy if it comes with a plausible mechanism. Although rigorous observation is always claimed to be the foundation of conventional science this is not strictly so. Rather science is founded on the current paradigm that it has accepted. Observation that validates the paradigm is accepted but any observation that is not validated by the paradigm must be inaccurate. It is only when a new paradigm is proposed and accepted that observations previously disregarded can be accepted, as long as they fit within the new paradigm.

Conventional science is postulated on a world that is constant, values that do not change and physical laws that are predetermined and immutable. Qualities and interactions are regarded as innate properties of the world and its constituents and are not affected by time or outside influences. Some aspects of this proposition were cleverly maintained through the theories of relativity. By saying that something, in this case the speed of light, does not change and by measuring everything else in relation to this arbitrarily chosen constant a stable system emerges. However, even this is not enough to stabilize the situation of the individual elementary particle and only statistical analysis of larger populations can bring the individual back into line.  Holistic science allows more easily for things to display different qualities or properties in different circumstances and when observed in different ways. All things and all processes can exist as individual occurrences and are not necessarily dependent on other manifestations of those things or processes.

Conventional science is based on reliability and regards reproducibility as the most important test of any interaction or process. In order to achieve this variables are always minimized and the focus of any experiment is always the smallest and least complex possible. Holism requires the inclusion of everything and so results in a complexity that is impossible to reproduce. Holistic procedures are therefore not as reliable or dependable as those of conventional science. Likewise any technology based on holistic thought will never be constant and reliable in the way to which we are accustomed. Many of the processes that arise out of holistic thought are dependent on the thoughts, beliefs and intentions of the person carrying them out. The results are variable. Often experiments that are set up to prove something controversial will always prove it; while experiments to disprove the same thing, even if identical, will always disprove it. In the same way new processes and ideas are unreliable when first proposed and tested but at some point reach a critical mass and do become absolutely reliable and reproducible.

The strength of conventional science lies primarily in its ability to progress and build upon itself. Causality, sequentiality and reproducibility all lead to advancement and mean that the achievements of one generation outshine those of the previous one. The weakness lies in that the focus becomes narrower and the vision more blinkered. Every advancement is self-contained and the consequences and corollaries of it are not considered and do not form a part of the understanding. This both restricts the true total effect of any advancement and allows unintended side effects to negate many of its advantages. As its understanding is of the statistical group and not of the individual, its advantages are much clearer for the group, and even when the group is helped the individual might be disadvantaged. Again conventional medicine offers good examples. A medicine that offers a positive effect for a statistically significant proportion of those who take it might still have a considerable negative effect on some individuals, called a side effect. A social policy may have a positive benefit for many individuals and even of the society as a whole but still have a deleterious effect on some of the individuals within that society.

Complexity and interaction are features of the modern world and they work counter to science’s single-minded drive to focus and specialization. Many areas of science are pushing at the boundaries of how far any discipline can be isolated and sheltered from the rest of the world. Disciplines such as quantum physics and chaos theory are showing the limitations of conventional science.

Those things that are the strengths of conventional science are the weaknesses of alternative thought. Without causality, sequentiality and reproducibility there can be no certainty; no convincing proof of what is happening. Without reliability it is much more difficult to put alternative science to practical use, especially in a consumerist and impatient society that demands immediate and verifiable results. It is all too easy for those using alternative thought to convince others but, more importantly, to convince themselves that they are doing something that they are not. (Is a specific change in a person due to the treatment given or not.  In many cases it is hard to fundamentally prove).  At the same time they can doubt what they are achieving, or not have the courage of their convictions and unable to be sure of what they have achieved and fail to take whatever they are doing to the next level. Conventional science is by its nature susceptible to corporate and institutional greed and corruption, while alternative thought is more susceptible to individual venality. It can be easily subverted to the desires and fantasies of a powerful individual. The strengths of alternative thought lie in its focus on the individual and on the whole picture. There are no such things as side effects in alternative thought; everything that happens is relevant and important and has to be taken into account. The pros and the cons of any action are equally apparent and neither can be ignored. The individual is the focus of attention and only what happens to the individual is important. It is not acceptable to ignore the path of the individual in a general statistical analysis. The relevance of failure in alternative thought is also important. In conventional science, failure, the fact that something does not happen is merely a negation; in alternative thought failure offers positive information. For conventional science a lack of action is merely a statistical fact that is weighed against the actions that are productive. In alternative consideration of the individual the fact that something has not happened is a source of information and a starting point for further enquiry.

Homœopathy has always trod a fine line between the conventional and the alternative. It is always being pulled one way or the other but has managed to somehow keep its footing over the years. Perhaps this is why it has not spread its influence further than the limited world of alternative medicine; it has taken all its available energy to keep it on the straight and narrow. However, the fact that it has done this, and done it consistently over a period of more than two hundred years, is extraordinary and worthy of closer examination. Although it is definitely an alternative science it has used some of the features of conventional science to keep it from becoming subject to the common weaknesses of alternative thought.

The most important and clearest indicator of what is special about homœopathy is found in the second aphorism of The Organon. It is not enough that something works; it must work on easily comprehensible principles. This simple statement is perhaps why homœopathy has been held to the straight and narrow. In any other alternative discipline the fact that something works is sufficient and no further information is required. Homœopathy in its classical mode, its most effective and longevous form, is not content with the fact that it works; it insists that there are principles which can be recognized and described upon which that efficacy depends. These principles are not the same thing as a mechanism, which is what conventional science demands but they are more than the undifferentiated results with which alternative thought is usually satisfied. The insistence on principles but not on mechanism is the distinctive feature that makes homœopathy outstanding and an investigation of it and its implications is the starting point for putting alternative thought on a firmer footing and allowing it to move into a more effective place.

The fact that different questions give different answers about the same thing is a real problem in Aristotelian thought where what is perceived is what is real, and so one of a pair of contradictory perceptions must be incorrect. In Platonic thought the perception is always imperfect and so it is quite possible for two perceptions to be imperfect in different ways. By looking at many, often varying perceptions of something it is possible to postulate more accurately the form that could project these various images. Homœopathy at its best has developed the skills of using multiple views to get a clearer vision of the imperceptible essence that lies behind.

Through its adherence to the principle of the single remedy it has developed what can be called pattern thinking, a tool that allows understanding of the essential nature of something through an understanding of the many different ways that it is physically manifest. Although it is an idea that is implicit in the Organon, it was something that was only fully integrated into homœopathy by Hering, Kent and the other Swedenborgian homœopaths some seventy years later. It was through the Swedenborgian concept of correspondence and the ideas of degrees of breadth and degrees of height that homœopaths were able to explain and understand how to observe the patterns that run through a case.

Homœopathy not only treats the individual but makes a point of looking for the individual features and especially the characteristic features of the individual. This would be impossible to do in conventional science where characteristic and individual features are the things that prevent understanding. The deeper the conventional understanding the less relevant and informative it is about the individual, whether it be the individual person or the individual elementary particle. Much of what conventional science knows about us is not of any importance to us. The things that are special are the things that make us who we are and which allow us to recognize and differentiate those around us. As conventional science becomes more precise it becomes more general and less meaningful for those that use it. Homœopathy is always concerned with the things that are important to us, the things that give us individual validation. However, the understanding of the individual can only be seen within its own context it has no validity outside that unique individual validation. It is impossible to apply statistical analysis or to use the concept of significance. Homœopathy has often dearly wished for a wider validation but the impossibility of abandoning the primacy of the individual has always prevented any realistic idea of proof.

Hahnemann himself manifested many of the properties of the guru figure. He developed new ideas that formed a self-contained system of understanding. His ideas were out of their time and attacked on many fronts. He built a coterie of disciples from whom he demanded absolute loyalty. He became increasingly paranoid and unreasonable. Yet his system outlived him and went on to further substantial developments. At every stage, the present being no exception, developments have been made by figures who show the same guru like propensities and yet it has continued to grow and develop in a way that is common to conventional science but exceptional in alternative thought. Again it is the primacy of principles that has allowed this to happen; these principles have always been recognized as more important than the people that have expounded them.

Homœopathy has also shown an ability to grow by building on itself, by furthering and developing the work of earlier practitioners. It has not, as do most alternative therapies and ideas, remained self contained and atrophied but it has welcomed and accepted new ideas and outside influences and used them to increase its understanding and scope. At the same time it has not neglected or forgotten its history. Conventional science and medicine changes so that every few years a substantial part of it has become outdated and been discarded. In homœopathy we may have had the developments of Hering and Kent or the modern ones of Sankaran and Scholten but they have in no way diminished the importance and relevance of the Organon, or of Hahnemann’s first provings. On the other hand one of the areas in which homœopathy has fallen short of its promise, and in a way that is common in alternative thought, is a failure to try to understand and to accommodate other fringe disciplines. The desire to be accepted into the conventional science, which is the Achilles' Heel of homœopathy, has led to inappropriate attempts to connect to theories that have been accepted and the shunning of potentially enlightening ideas that have not been accepted. Homœopathy has a different relationship to failure and error than that of conventional science. In the world of science failure is meaningless. Sometimes it will disprove something and so remove a false trail but even this is rare; it normally would take the success of a negative experiment to disprove something. In homœopathy a failure or an error is a fount of useful information. A paradoxical example of this is that the only convincing proof of homœopathy is the fact that the wrong remedy is ineffective. The powerful effect of homœopathy is often ascribed to placebo effect or the effect of the consultation itself.  However, the fact that the wrong remedy has no effect and a later correct remedy does work undermines these opinions. The remedy that is not similar enough to bring about a cure can still have an effect, such as a proving or a suppression and so provide further information about the correct remedy.

So where does a study of what homœopathy has been able to do over the last two hundred years take us and what self-imposed restrictions need to be removed if we are to move on.  The first thing that is needed is an acknowledgement that homœopathy does not and cannot fit into the current paradigm of science. There have been a number of investigations and theories that have tried to give homœopathy a mechanism that fits within the current paradigm or needs only to extend it slightly. Generally these have failed to explain aspects of homœopathy and have appeared ridiculous to the conventional community so falling down on both counts. Any theory or mechanism of homœopathy, and of a wider alternative science, that is to have validity and utility must not only encompass its stranger and least explicable features in some way but it must embrace them and concentrate on them. These are the individual and characteristic things about homœopathy and so the most useful and the most revealing. Those parts of homœopathy that are derived from radionics, in which there is no necessity for a direct physical connection between substance and remedy and between remedy and patient clearly are not compatible with a conventional understanding of cause and effect. The various remedy machines are an example of this where there is no direct connection between the remedy and its origin yet the remedies thus created are undoubtedly effective. The very strangeness of this is an indication that it is an important area for study. The proving experience is another characteristic area where the normally accepted rules of life are violated. It is, and has always been, a careful and rigorous experimental process; yet it is more akin to the shamanic than to any other practice. The laws of causality and time are clearly breached and because of the rigor and care that has gone into the process these breaches are exposed in a way that is indisputable.

These are some of the important and clearest features that must be covered by any theory or idea. The thing that most clearly comes out of homœopathy and needs to be central to an expanded understanding is a set of clear principles. These principles, rather than any theory or mechanism are what is stable and useful and they are what we can always fall back on to understand whatever it is that we are looking at.  It should be possible to look at what principles can be described from an understanding of homœopathy but which are at a deeper level and so can be applied in a much wider context. These principles should lie behind the principles of homeopathy but be clearer and more widely applicable. By using the Platonic method we should be able to move up a further level, get one step closer to the form of the ultimate perfect principle. The success, comprehensive nature and careful recording of homœopathy over the last two hundred years means that we have a sound base from which we can step closer and higher to a more universal truth.

Taking the case of homœopathy and of alternative science more generally we can find some of the characteristic features that need to be covered by these principles and from which the principles can be derived. The first and most striking and therefore likely to be the most important feature is acausality. Things affect and are affected by other things to which they have no measurable or identifiable connection. This is the feature that conventional science finds most objectionable and it is the feature that we most need to accept and celebrate if we are to move on. The term "Acausal Science" is the one that best describes what we do yet it is a terminology that even the most hardened and rebellious practitioner might have difficulty with. Yet in some way we need to embrace the concept and by accepting the concept of acausality transfer our attention from the cause to the effect.

Homœopathy's primary principle is that like cures like. The effect comes about through the agency of similarity. That two things are alike is sufficient in itself to bring about a mutual effect. This is analogous to the phenomenon of resonance in causal science where a movement in one object will result in a similar motion in another object with the same harmonic properties, though in such a case a mechanism is apparent. The principle that is clear from homœopathy and is also indicated less precisely by other areas of alternative thought is that two similar things interact even if there is no apparent mechanism for such an interaction. It can be postulated from this that there is an undiscovered mechanism by which things of a similar nature can interact. The principle of individuation, that it is the characteristic and unusual phenomenon which are important and that the commonalties are of little consideration, is the next important feature of homœopathy and something that is more generally common in alternative thought. It would make sense that common features that are found in all, or most, examples of something would bring about interaction with all, or most, other possible examples of that thing. These interactions would be general and widespread and would tend to cancel each other out. Only the unusual features which would interact very rarely and so would have a perceptible net effect.    

The effects observed primarily in homœopathy but also seen elsewhere are most apparent in organic systems and the more complex and developed the system the more clearly apparent and substantial they are. The more complex the system the greater the scope for individuality. The more simple and basic a system the less likely it is that there will be important features that are individual and characteristic. While conventional science reduces any question to the smallest variable this is not possible when there is a general interaction that cannot be isolated. All features will be relevant. Nothing can be discounted even though only the net overall effect will be apparent. In a simple object the features that are unusual and differ from the norm are much less than in a more complex object. Complexity by its nature compounds difference while simplicity reduces it.

The concept of similarity is more complex than the concept of identity. Identity is all or nothing; it either is or it isn't. Similarity is a continuum. It cannot be easily defined or measured and there are different degrees of similarity. When two things are similar it is one whole thing that is similar to another whole thing. It is not an effect of the individual parts but a cumulative effect of the sum of those parts. This sum is made up of those parts that are characteristic and share an essential quality. Just as the commonalties cancel each other out in a comparison between two things so within something the common properties are negated by other common properties leaving only the unusual and characteristic. It is the individual and essential pattern that arises out of the interaction of the parts that is important and the similarity can only be between these essential patterns.

The feature of homœopathy that has not been included in its principles is the effect of will, of intention and the force of the human mind on the outcomes of actions and experiments. However, it is undoubtedly a feature of homœopathy and of alternative science, though it is not absent from conventional science. This needs to be factored into any theory of acausal science. It could be said that, continuing with analogy of harmonic resonance, the human will and, probably to a lesser degree, that of any complex structure can act as a sounding board amplifying and clarifying any interaction.

Acausal science therefore has a place to start with four basic principles.
-There is an interaction between two things of a similar nature that is analogous to harmonic resonance but takes place in an, as yet, undescribed medium.
-This effect tends to cancel itself out with common features and only stands out as a net effect with that which is characteristic and unusual. Such a net effect is derived from the whole.
-Any reduction to parts limits perception of the effect while an overall holistic view enhances it.
-Such an effect can be altered or strengthened by the introduction of a willed resonance with it.

The final question is what can be done with these principles; what do they call out for. One of the strengths of homœopathy not mentioned is the lack of prejudice, using the word in its technical sense of judging in advance. This has been a consequence of not knowing the mechanism with which we are working. Without such knowledge we cannot presume to know what will happen and so have to judge purely on results, results that are untainted by expectations. So the most important thing is to observe and to see how these principles are played out in various forums.

One of the important areas is the study of the natural world and particularly of those areas of the natural world that are not fully explained by conventional causal science. All the curiosities and anomalies of nature, the strange and characteristic features that are not susceptible to immediate and simple explanation should be the objects of study to see how these principles might help in explaining and making sense of difficult phenomena.

The other major fields are all the strange ideas and controversial theories that have never been fully accepted into the mainstream. There are many strange and impossible ideas and theories and technologies that have been postulated over the last 150 years that are worthy of attention and careful examination. They tend to have been handicapped by all the shortcomings of alternative thought outlined above. However, using the tools and rigor we can develop from our principles, they can be tested and proved and truth and error will reveal themselves. These include minor crack- pot theories and inventions and the work of major thinkers who have stood outside the mainstream. There are engineers such as Buckminster Fuller and Tesla, media philosophers such as Marshal McCluhan, and psychologists such as Reich and Illich. We have the tools to refine and validate those parts of their theories that are worthwhile and to discriminate them from the parts that do not have validity or relevance.

From the many and multifaceted views of the world that this will give us it is possible not only to have a clearer, deeper and more realistic understanding of the nature of the universe but it will be possible to develop technologies that are more powerful than anything we have yet imagined but which work with the natural flow of things rather than fighting against it. This is what we have done with homœopathy and what we can do in a more general way. Not only will this enhance the way we live but it will feed back into homœopathy and allow it to become a more normal and less isolated discipline.

Peter Fraser practices homeopathy in Bristol and London, England.  He is the author of many provings, working with the The School of Homeopathy, Devon and author of a number of books, including The AIDS Miasm, books on Snakes, Spiders and Insects and the series of Using Maps and Systems in Homœopathy, which includes: Miasms, Realms, Mappa Mundi and Philosophy. He is currently working on a Supplement to Clarke’s Dictionary of Materia Medica that extends it to cover many new homeopathic remedies.  Information on Peter can be found on www.homoeopathist.info