Great questions, whitecoast!
I'm definitely curious to learn more about it dugdeep, so thanks for sharing your own passion for it.
If I was to go about learning about homeopathy's history and the medical developments within that system of healing, maybe talking also about offshoots and innovations/adulterations, what history would you recommend?
That's a tough one. One of the best books I found on the subject is called
Hahnemann Revisited by Dr Luc De Schepper. Mind you, it's a textbook, it's expensive, pretty dense and is aimed at actually teaching students methods, philosophy and practical minutiae about practicing. The first 100 pages are an excellent summation of the developments in Hahnemann's work and the differences between the different editions of the Organon, as well as some of the offshoots (of which De Schepper is pretty critical). But unless someone is actually pursuing becoming a practitioner, I don't know if I'd recommend buying the book.
For a good primer on homeopathy in general there's a good book aimed at a general audience called
Homeopathy: Beyond Flat Earth Medicine by Timothy R. Dooley. It's pretty easy to find free PDFs of it online. As far as I remember, it doesn't get too much into the developments in the system, but it does provide a pretty good foundation.
There are probably a number of books out there that would cover what you're looking for, probably many articles online too, but unfortunately I can't think of any.
In addition to the Organon 6th Edition, what resources on the topic of homeopathy, looking back, have been the most useful to you? Or is that by and large the be-all, end-all? I've also seen a book called Medica Materia around. How does that fit into the bigger picture and history of homeopathy?
The Organon is dense, difficult to understand but loaded with incredible insights. I'd liken it to reading Gurdjieff, in that it's "all there" for anyone with enough tenacity to plumb its depths. Again, I wouldn't recommend it for the layperson. Inspiring books for me would be the aforementioned
Hahnemann Revisited,
The Science of Homeopathy by George Vithoukas and
Homeopathic Psychology by Philip Bailey (although I'm a little less enamored with that last one since I've learned more).
Materia Medica's are a little different. They're a usually-painstakingly detailed list of all the characteristics of a remedy given in a 'proving' (when they give a medicine to healthy persons and meticulously record all the symptoms that manifest, therefore getting a close to a complete list of all the symptoms a particular remedy will cure). The Materia Medica is an essential tool in the toolbox for a homeopath. There are simplified Materia Medicas out there that may focus on the 'keynotes' of different remedies, but some are as many as 12 volumes, they're so extensive.
There are hundreds of Materia Medica out there at this point; the first one written by Hahnemann with hundreds (if not thousands) of later homeopaths building upon his initial publication. Any homeopath out there probably has multiple different ones and generally consults many in any given case.
I can only guess there must be developments in treatment know-how by the field of classical homeopathy. Would a homeopath in training (a self-described student like yourself) train under a homeopath to acquire case studies to learn better formulations? Are there professional societies of classical homeopaths that share and network about this kind of information, and is that information publicly available?
As with any system of knowledge, finding good teachers is needed for learning! I think training under an experienced practitioner is a must, whether that be some kind of mentor situation, or more often a formal school. Even within classically trained homeopathy, there are probably as many approaches as there are practitioners (although the core method would be the same, there are an infinite number of different approaches to that method), so being in a school where you're exposed to different teachers and different approaches has its advantages.
How much information is out there publicly available (as in, for free) is, as you might expect, limited - there's a lot of articles, videos and even some books you can find, but to get to the deep learning you're going to find you have to pay for it (in my experience). On the other hand, there's a great deal of information for established homeopaths on refining their skills or trying different approaches (this is mostly paid for, but there is some free or cheap stuff if you hunt for it). There are lots of different homeopath societies out there who have different missions, and often they have conferences or webinars, but I haven't found any that will take a neophyte under their wing and teach them everything they need to know - I'm not sure if that's what you're asking, though. There are a lot of articles out there with different practitioners sharing different findings and a number of homeopaths have specific systems that they've developed that they then teach to others (this is almost always charged for). There are also conferences, webinars, classes, etc. I have come across some that do the hard sales pitches ("Do you want to get superior results in less time?"), but most of whats out there seems genuine. I've found that
this site has some excellent content for sale and usually offer free previews.
I was really fortunate in that I contacted a published homeopath and he took me under his wing, to a limited extent, and kinda showed me the ropes over email while working my way through his books, which was extremely generous of him! But after working with him for some time (at a certain point he had to stop due to other commitments) I realized there were still large gaps in my knowledge and decided to try to find a school, which is where I'm at now. I think one thing that is vital in learning this system is supervised work with patients, which is something only a school is going to be able to provide. You can only get so much from books.
No practitioner is perfect, whatever the healing modality. In your own experience (I don't know how many homeopaths you've worked with), what types of mistakes in healing tend to be the most common for homeopathic professionals to make? I know you mentioned a plethora of "newfangled-itis" among the innovators/adulterators of the modality, but setting them aside for now, what about the classical old-school homeopaths?
It's impossible to say. I think the more experience a homeopath has, the less likely he or she is to make mistakes, but everybody makes them. I also don't think I have enough experience to even comment on it (how can a beginner criticize an experienced practitioner with any credibility?) Even to criticize the non-purists is a bit haughty of me since they may be getting good results, it just doesn't interest me as much as the classical system.
I was looking into homeopathy after hearing some were able to write mask exemptions, and this one in my area looked quite legit. She had a book for sale for $99 and a comment about grinding a material with milk sugar while tapping into the collective consciousness.
So I though, "hmm, maybe I should do my own homework more intelligently before I start looking for practitioners since at the moment I'm not even sure what to look for in a good practitioner." (Aside from having a long and detailed intake interview).
Thanks for the suggestions and resources provided
@SevenFeathers and
@Channa.
It's tricky for a patient to make sure a given practitioner is "good". Even someone "tapping into the collective consciousness" would be fine as long as their methods are sound, leaving the woowoo dross aside. I think one thing you could do is look at their credentials - what school did they attend and what certification do they have? Maybe look at some online reviews from patients who have worked with them (this can be tricky, though, as homeopathy is always under attack by rabid materialists who will leave bad reviews without even having worked with them, and on the other hand, a practitioner is only going to publicize good reviews themselves). But even saying that, theoretically there might be some self-taught homeopaths out there with no certification who are excellent practitioners, so it's difficult to navigate. Word of mouth may be your best resource.
Hope that helps!
