UNDERSTANDING BASIC HEALING PRINCIPLES
Illness does not occur without cause. Most if not all illnesses, result through a build-up of toxins. The body cells have a memory of past illnesses and retracing is the process of re-activating, and working through these illnesses. When a disease isn't worked through properly at the time, an element of latency or repression occurs eventually leading to loss of vitality, a sub-standard state of health and eventually diseases of a more insidious nature.
Underlying causes of disease must be discovered and removed or treated before a person can recover completely from illness.
Symptoms express the body's attempt to heal, but are not the cause of disease and therefore, should not be merely suppressed by treatment. Physicians and surgeons palliate symptoms instead of removing the causes. The elimination of the symptom is not the same as elimination of the disease.
In allopathic medicine a symptom is usually thought of as the patient's real disease and the goal is to hold back, decrease or eliminate that particular symptom. This is often done without addressing the underlying cause and does not promote or offer a cure.
The word "holistic" means "whole". In providing holistic care, there are several factors to consider -- lifestyle, dietary habits and emotions; these may all have a relationship with the symptoms you observe. Our body knows how we got sick, why we got sick and how to heal itself. The reason why it sometimes is unable to do so is because of the stress that we put in its course. We need to examine our life style and habits.
Healing Crisis vs Disease Crisis
We need to understand that our body structure is basically constructed of cells and therefore we need to address our problems at cellular level. We should rejuvenate and strengthen our body cells; provide the cells with the nutrients needed for them to actively function as intended; hence maintaining a strong immune system to protect and ward off diseases.
Chronic lesions are formed over years of wrong living. A permanent cure doesn't occur apparently, until the disease process is retraced back through the various stages in the reverse order that the disease developed. Reasons for disease are many including faulty nutrition.
"Fasting is a good way to bring on a healing crisis, although fasting on its own is not enough to build new healthy tissue. There also needs to be all the essential nutritional elements such as a balanced diet combined with necessary vitamins and minerals."
-- Dr. Bernard Jenson - The Science and Practice of Iridology.
A healing crisis typically comes at a time when a person feels at their best and the body has built up a certain amount of energy, required to perform the task of elimination of toxins. At the time of a healing crisis the organs of elimination are said to be working in good order.
"It is difficult for the average person and for the average doctor to tell the difference between the healing crisis and a disease process,” explained Dr. Bernard Jenson.
Though usually the manifestations are similar, a healing crisis is brought about through an accumulation of health in the body, and the active healing power carries the person through. It is difficult to accept the fact that a healing crisis comes right after a patient is feeling his best. Invariably a patient says, "I have never felt so well in my life." This is the time you can usually expect the crisis and is the time when the crisis can do its best work.
It takes energy to eliminate wastes, to go through these eruptions, whether boils, rashes, or pimples. It is only through the ascendancy of an inherent power to eliminate that we can accomplish what we do in a healing crisis. During the healing crisis the patient's bowel movements usually are better regulated than they are during a disease crisis.
One crisis is not always enough for a complete 'cure'. The person in a chronic state, who has gone through many disease processes in his life, must go through these disease processes again in the reverse order in which they occurred.
"In looking over the whole process, consider that disease is an eliminative activity of the body. If we believe that the body is consistently trying to remain well, we believe that even the process of disease is an eliminative process; and we should do little to interfere because the body is fighting for supremacy over the disease. It is well to know that even disease can be looked upon as a 'cure' by allowing it to run its course and by giving the body every opportunity to recover of its own accord."
-- Dr. Bernard Jenson, The Science and Practice of Iridology.
Suppression of Symptoms
Suppressive treatments are those that eliminate symptoms without acknowledging the cause of the problem.
Much ill-health, particularly in adults, is merely a manifestation of the condition known as auto-toxemia or self-poisoning. From the moment of birth, food is taken into the alimentary canal with never a respite for the overworked organs of digestion. Debris begins to accumulate faster than it can be eliminated.
Unwanted nutriment is stored away in reserve as fat, but sooner or later a radical cleansing effort has to be made by the body to rid itself of accumulations of waste products, and many so-called "dis-eases" are simply the outward and visible signs of this inward cleansing process.
Unwanted organic matter which incidentally provides a favourable soil for infection by micro-organisms, is removed in various ways and all the organs of elimination are used -- bowels, kidneys, lungs and skin. Catarrh and eczema are examples of such an operation involving elimination through the mucous membranes and skin.
Suppression leads to degeneration
"No attempt should be made to SUPPRESS such symptoms. To do so only invites trouble of a more serious kind in the future. In fact the suppression of symptoms is responsible for some of the degenerative diseases in later life e.g., rheumatism. Rather, we should assist the body in its periodical spring-cleaning and this can best be done by a period of rest and warmth and the lightest of diets. In fact, abstention from solid foods for a short period can make an important contribution.
Numbers of people are unknowingly suffering from the cumulative effects of SUPPRESSIVE treatments to which they have been subjected in the past - medical drug poisoning - and, in such cases, response to biochemic treatment may be slow. If little or no benefit is apparent after a reasonable period of treatment with the remedy indicated by the symptoms, the system can be rendered more responsive by a short anti-toxic course.” -- The Biochemic Handbook
Recovery Symptoms - Hering's Law
Constantine Hering, a German Homeopath who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1830's, observed that healing occurs in a consistent pattern. He described this pattern in the form of three basic laws which homeopaths can use to recognize that healing is occurring. This pattern, known now as Hering's Law, has been recognized by acupuncturists for hundreds of years and is also used by practitioners of herbalism and other healing disciplines.
According to the first of Hering's laws, healing progresses from the deepest part of the organism - the mental and emotional levels and the vital organs - to the external parts, such as skin and extremities.
Hering's second law states that, as healing progresses, symptoms appear and disappear in the reverse of their original chronological order of appearance. Homeopaths have consistently observed that their patients re-experience symptoms from past conditions.
According to Hering's third law, healing progresses from the upper to the lower parts of the body. For instance, a person is considered to be on the mend if the arthritic pain in his neck has decreased although he now has pain in his finger joints.
As the symptoms change in accordance with Hering's Law, it is common for individual symptoms to become worse than they had been before treatment. If healing is truly in progress, the patient feels stronger and generally better in spite of the aggravation. Before long, the symptoms of the aggravation pass, and leave the person healthier on all levels.
The major English writings of Hering are:
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1. A Concise View of the Rise and Progress of Homoeopathic Medicine (1833)
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2. The Homoeopathist, or Domestic Physician (2 volumes, 1835)
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3. Hahnemann's Three Rules Concerning the Rank of Symptoms
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4. Analytical Therapeutics
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5. The Guiding Symptoms of Our Materia Medica (10 volumes, 1879 - 1891). Completed after his death by homoeopaths and students.
Footnote:
It is believed that ageing and loss of energy are closely related to the reduction and deterioration of the naturally existing nucleic factors-DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (Ribonucleic acid) that begins at birth. The loss of energy and physical deterioration are due to the increase in the breakdown of these nucleic factors which are essential for healthy cell function.