A Message to British Homeopaths

Way back in November 2007, I had written an editorial about the attacks on Homeopathy in UK. The editorial was titled ‘Is Homeopathy Bleeding to Death?’ and had created a furor in our community then. At that time I was angry about the very passive and timid response being given to the purported nonsense against homeopathy and wanted to counter it more aggressively. It has been more than 2 years now and we have seen many more attacks on homeopathy in UK. We have seen more pharma-funded anti-homeopathy blogs, more closure of B.Sc. degrees, more media slandering and even a trial by the U.K. Science and Technology Committee. At the same time we have seen two good things happening:

1. Homeopathy has kept growing in rest of the world.
2. There has been an increased movement and galvanizing of efforts by various individual homeopaths and groups against these attacks. The efforts like HMC:21, Homeopathy World Community, Voice of Not So Young Homeopathy (VONSYH), HomeopathyHeals etc are laudable initiatives that are exposing this anti-homeopathy lobby and making a strong pro-homeopathy statement by bringing together ideas, people and resources. Even Hpathy.com has started creating a database of homeopathic research and methodologies to help homeopaths answer the critics. So yes, the external attacks have helped our fragmented community to come together to an extent.
   (Below is a recent example of this coming together)

The question now is how to reverse the situation in U.K.?

I know my friends in U.K. are already working on that, but still I would like to share my feelings about this. To find an answer to the above question, we need to answer a few more questions first:

1. Has homeopathy suffered such attacks in the past?
   – The answer is YES.
2. Has homeopathy survived those attacks and grown despite them?
   – The answer is again YES. And that leads us to the most fundamental question:
3. Why and how did homeopathy survive and grow through those trying times in the past?

The answer to this last question needs some thought. Since the time these attacks started in U.K., the community there has primarily looked towards the official bodies to do something. The official bodies have time and again countered the anti-homeopathy statements and campaigns. They have done a lot, but much more could have been done, if the organizations had involved every single homeopath in their efforts.

And that brings us back to the last question – Why and how did homeopathy survive and grow through those trying times in the past? Homeopathy has survived every attack and ridicule because during those attacks, somewhere a homeopath was curing a sick person, who was more interested in getting better rather than understanding the physics behind homeopathy. The homeopaths at the street-end and in small villages were doing something that societies and organizations cannot do – they were showing the efficacy of homeopathy first-hand to the people, and creating a chain of believers that in turn kept homeopathy alive despite all attacks. We have survived because of the people we cure and not because of the official bodies or the Royal Family!

And that is what I believe we need to focus on once again. It is high time that every individual homeopath realizes the power he/she has and the work they can do to reverse this tide. Yes, do not feel ‘What can I do against such large scale staged attacks?’ It is you, and you alone, the individual homeopath, who could turn this tide and defeat this anti-homeopathy campaign. And you do not need loads of funds and ammunition to do that. All you need is a strong will to do something. All you need to do is to reach out to as many people as possible, see as many patients as possible and make people realize that Homeopathy is effective. If there were millions of people speaking for you, as your patients, the anti-homeopathy lobby would be forced to shut-up. The proof of the pudding lies in its eating and it is up to you to make people taste the results of our system.

That brings us to the strategic question – How?

The first thing is to reach out to as many people as possible. The best way to do it is by organizing free seminars for the general public. Give your weekend to this effort. Enlisting the help of your existing patients and contacts, go to nearby schools, patient groups, churches, private offices etc and organize free seminars about what homeopathy is and how it can help them with their disease conditions. You can publish small booklets and if you get a sponsor, distribute free remedy kits to the attending group. If some volunteers from UK take up the lead, Hpathy can help create a central fund for such booklets and remedy kits.

The second thing is to treat as many people as possible. For that, you can organize free homeopathy treatment camps using the same contact group as above. Every village or town could set up free clinics for treating acute conditions and when these patients see results, they will also come to your clinic for their chronic conditions. The effort does not need lot of resources. All it needs is your desire to do something for homeopathy and your time.

It is time we stop looking outside for help and reflect on what each one of us can do individually. If all of us do what we are trained to do and if each one of us reaches out to the public and spreads the message, every offensive against homeopathy is bound to fail. Remember, the proof of the pudding lies in its eating and the real power belongs to you, the individual homeopath!

I hope my thoughts will resonate with some of you. You can send me your thoughts and feedback at editor@hpathy.com

Best wishes,

Dr. Manish Bhatia