The Living Homeopathic Proving

My recent illness brought to mind an interesting ‘proving’ Jimmie and I inadvertently conducted last year, when concerned about the oncoming cold and flu season.

Provings are the testing of substances to find out what symptoms the substance is capable of producing and hence curing. Hahnemann (father of homeopathy) felt that the best proving was done on oneself as he did when he discovered, quite by accident, by his ingesting repeated doses of Chinchona bark to test Cullens theory on the effectiveness of ‘China’ in treating Malaria-he would develop the symptoms of malaria,which the bark was used to treat, thus the first homeopathic proving.Later on, and into the present, formal provings are conducted on volunteers in a reasonable state of health (provers) who generally have no knowledge of what substance it is they’re taking. Doses are repeated until provers start to experience symptoms of a change in state. The provers record everything they experience, whether physical, emotional, mental, or even spiritual, as long as the change in state persists. At the end of the proving all the records are collated and compared to find the symptoms, states of mind, feelings and experiences the provers have in common, and which can reasonably be attributed to the emerging signature resonance of the substance. To break it down to you, a remedy when given to a sick person will cure the symptoms, but when given to a healthy person will actually produce those same symptoms.

I had heard that influenzinum at the 30c dose could be used as a prophylactic, and should be taken once a week for a few weeks prior to the cold and flu season. This sounded great, so I took a dose and gave one to Jimmie as well.

Later that day, I developed a pain in my chest, and started coughing, which within an hour or 2, my chest felt like full blown bronchitis. Hmmmmmmmm. OMG, we took a 1m dose, not a 30c, and now I’ve actually given myself a symptom, and Jimmie as well became sick, but as soon as we put 2 and 2 together, we were quickly able to antidote it. And so dose does matter. The vital lesson we learned, first hand; 30c is a low enough dose to work as a prophylactic but 1m could actually cause the symptoms of the condition you are trying to prevent.

Respect, Mr Hahnemann for your findings, personal provings, and procurement of the art and practice of homeopathy.