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A case of chronic headache and toxoplasmosis

Summary
Although the ideal homeopathic treatment would be to find one remedy that completely cures the case, daily practice is that even if THE simillimum is found this only seldom leads to a complete cure of a chronic disease. The method Peter Chappell used to design a simillimum for AIDS in Africa soon appeared to be also useful for creating remedies for chronic diseases. These disease-specific PC-remedies can be used to complement the action of the simillimum.

The case presented is an example of how this new method can be used in practice. The history of PC-remedies in epidemics and chronic diseases is summarised, and the philosophical basis and practical instructions on how to use PC-remedies in chronic diseases to complement the simillimum discussed.

Keywords
Chronic diseases, PC-remedies, Peter Chappell, China, Toxoplasmosis, Choroiditis

Headache all my life
April 2003 a 30-year-old mother of three children consults me because she is suffering from headaches. She has red hair and makes a lively and cheerful impression. She has headaches as long as she can remember. “It runs in the family”, she says. Also she is often tired.

As a young child a brain scan was made to look for a malignancy that might cause the headaches. If she has a headache “everything is pounding and hurting”. Behind the eyes she will feel a pressure. During walking she then needs to hold her head with her hands. The headache is clearly worse motion. Also stooping makes it worse. She prefers to sit or lie down, but with three young children of which one is hyperactive and later is diagnosed to have PDD-NOS (most common form of autism) tasking the rest she desires is not always possible.

A hot shower helps. The headache decreases “and it brings my mind to rest”. A cold east wind can aggravate her headaches.

“If in the morning I have a headache on rising it will stay with me until the evening.” The headache can also start later on in the day.

If she doesn’t sleep enough she has more headaches, and doing a nap in the afternoon ameliorates a present headache.

During headaches she is irritable.

At puberty she had to study hard to get good marks, so she would be learning until late in the evening. The level was actually too high for her, “but I had started it and wanted to finish it”. Besides that she had to travel 3-4 hours every day, because the type of religious school her parents wanted her to attend was far away form where she lived.

Later, when she was trained to become a teacher, she had less headaches. The studies were easier for her, and since the school was near she could go by bike.

In recent years the headache can start in the neck and then extend over the head to the eyes.

“I get stressed easily. I like to do a lot of things, too many, and I’m too stubborn to let go of some of my activities. So I get stressed about how to manage it all, and I have notes hanging everywhere in the house to remind me of the things I need to do. I can’t do things half, but am rather perfectionistic. I want to do things myself so I know they will be done right, and if they go wrong I can blame myself. If I do something I really go for it.

“I get a headache if I can’t overlook everything. I work very structured. If we get guests I make a lot of fuss beforehand. Everything out of the normal rhythm stresses me. I need to plan things.”

The vision of her left eye is bad. Every one or two months she gets an inflammation of her retina leaving scar tissue behind. Also the right eye gets infected sometimes but has been damaged less. She sees black spots due to the scars, and can’t read the blackboard from a distance. Lines are blurred and not sharp. During her second pregnancy her eyesight deteriorated much. A diagnosis of what is going on with her eyes has, as far as she knows, not been made. Later in a letter from the ophthalmologist I read that at that time is was diagnosed as uveïtis posterior of the left eye eci (without a known cause). Later the name choroiditis possibly caused by diffuse retinal pigment epitheliopathy. In again another letter toxoplasmosis is also mentioned as a possible cause.

She can fall asleep any time of the day. If she sits on the couch she often falls asleep, and also if travelling by car or train she dozes off easily. “I can’t stay awake.” If reading a book in the evening she always falls asleep.

When the children were younger she was very sensitive to what other people would think of how she raised them. She would easily feel she wasn’t doing things right. Also in discussions she would easily feel not being knowledgeable enough about the subject and that others would think her being stupid.

She resembles her father most. “He is a great person; also very perfectionistic.” He is a history teacher and also does all kinds of other activities due to which he works until night.

Her mother was always tired, but also always available and busy caring for the children. She is the second of two girls. The eldest sister has quite an explosive character, and she had the role of mediator in the family. Having peace in the house was important. She would respond to her sister calmly. “My mother and sister could say rude things and hurt people without being aware of it. I was easy going, quiet and shy. My teachers never knew who I was. In a group I will never speak out of fear to say something silly. People didn’t hear me nor saw me.

Her husband is five years older. He is her first love and being rather sloppy, the very opposite of her.

She is chilly.
She likes bread, sweets, chocolate, chips.
She dislikes red beets and bell pepper.
Sleeps on her abdomen with her hands under her abdomen.

She dreams about her youngest son dying. “If I dream I startle very much. About things that could have happened in daily life concerning the home or the family. For instance about burglars.

With her menses she used to be very nauseous and have a lot of pain. Because of that she started using anticonceptives at a young age.

Her faith in God is very important to her. “It is a great feeling to know that I am a child of God. Also the church community is important. To enjoy together all the gifts of God, and to be active together for the church.”

Analysis
A repertorisation suggested Aurum, Silica, Sepia, Natrum muriaticum, Conium, Nux vomica, Calcarea carbonic, Glonoinum, Bryonia, Phosphorus and Belladonna. Combining the commitment to the church community with her headaches Sanguinaria also seemed an option. None of these remedies were convincing though. I prescribed Calcarea phosphorica 200K for her, since one of her children responded well to it, since Calcarea carbonica and Phosphorus both came up high and because it fitted her idea that others might think she can not study well and is stupid. Besides that on asking whether she liked meat she answered to especially love bacon, and she confirmed to be afraid of thunderstorm.

Treatment and follow-ups
After five weeks
Following the remedy she had a lot of headache for a week. Then for three weeks, despite a busy period, no headache at all. Also after the remedy both her eyes got infected. In the mean time the right eye is back to normal.
Plan: wait.

Three months later
She has had quite a lot of headache again. Her tiredness is less though. She has stopped participating in the school board because it causes too much stress and therefore headache. “I like doing it, but it is in my head day and night. I can’t go easy with it if others don’t do their part properly. I had to decide to stop, because it was just escalating. It is very hard for me to say no.”
Plan: Calcarea phosphorica 200K

Three months later
Again she had more headache initially followed by a few weeks of no headaches at all. Now she has headache every day but a bit more moderate. But as soon as there is something outside the daily routine, like having someone over for a coffee or going out for an evening, it is worse.

I conclude that the remedy is perhaps close but certainly not close enough. She relapses too quickly and the general improvement on the longer run is rather because she skips things from her agenda than that she has internally improved. So I decide to ask her to tell me more how she experiences the headache.

“It hinders me in my functioning. Because of it I am less happy, less cheerful. It is very frustrating. Consciously I minimise my activities and even then I still have headaches. That is just not nice. I want to be a cheerful mother. The headaches hinder me to enjoy everything.”

Analysis
The frustration due to the feeling of being hindered is a theme of the Rubiaceae. From that plant family China comes up strongest in the repertory. The following rubrics support China (using Complete 2005):

• Head; PAIN; Motion; agg. (180)
• Head; PAIN; Stooping; agg. (144)
• Head; PAIN; Mental exertion, from; agg. (150)
• Head; PAIN; Heat; amel.; hot; applications (27)
• Head; PAIN; Pressure; amel. (192)
• Vision; COLORS before the eyes; black; spots (102)
• Mind; CONSCIENTIOUS about trifles (100)
• Mind; DELUSIONS, imaginations; Unfortunate, he is (13)
• Mind; DELUSIONS, imaginations; Tormented, he is (5)
• Mind; DELUSIONS, imaginations; Work; hindered at, is (1)
• Mind; DREAMS; Death, of; family, in (23)
• Mind; DREAMS; Misfortune, of (69)
• Mind; DESIRES; Numerous, varies things (24)
• Generalities; FOOD and drinks; Sweets; desires (190)

China is not mentioned under retinitis nor under inflammation choroid, but other problems of the retina are mentioned in the materia medica: “retinal asthenopia … black spots before eyes … anaemic retina”.

Prescription: China officinalis 200K (DD Chininum phosphoricum).

After three months
All in all it is going very well. in three months time she had only headache twice. This gave her the confidence to resume teaching, which she enjoys a lot. Despite that she needs to take a nap in the afternoon less. She also restarted her work for the school board, and even when she continued work until 12 PM this did not result in headache. Her eyes are still the same, but have at least not deteriorated.
Her sleep is no longer restless and there have been no frightening dreams. She is less chilly, and while it is Winter had to start wearing her Summer nightgown. Never before was she so comfortably warm in the Winter.

She has stopped hanging notes all over the house, and is less stressed if she can’t finish what she is working at.

Plan: wait.

Another month later
Sleeping worse and also more headaches since a week, without a clear reason.

Plan: China officinalis 200K

Four months later
Again a relapse and China 200K is repeated.

Three months later
Her left eye is getting worse and that also causes headaches.

Plan: China 200K

Three months later
Although she is on China for more than a year now the choroiditis continues every one or two months.
Since her response to China for the rest of her complaints is very good my conclusion is that this choroiditis is beyond the range of what a constitutional remedy can do for her.
The ophthalmologist now confirms the diagnosis: Toxoplasmosis, most likely congenital.

At this point there are several options. One is to give the toxoplasmosis nosode, another to by repertorisation look for a remedy for choroiditis that could complement China. I would have opted for any of these were it not that I had seen some interesting results with disease-specific remedies designed by Peter Chappell, the so-called PC-remedies.

Intermezzo on PC-remedies

Epidemics
In 2001 Peter Chappell went to Ethiopia to see what homeopathy had to offer for the AIDS-epidemic in Africa.

There are two possibilities to prescribe in epidemics:

1. On the totality of expression in the individual, or
2. On the totality of expression of the disease in many individuals

When dealing with millions of patients in a continent with only a handful of homeopaths available it is clear that option 2 is the way to go.

Hahnemann writes about the genus epidemicus principle in his Organon § 101-102:

• … as it is only by a close observation of several cases of every such collective disease …
• … to choose the most suitable homeopathic remedy for this array of symptoms, is obtained by a complete survey of the morbid picture …

Initially Peter took 70 cases of AIDS to determine the genus epidemicus of HIV/AIDS. The main symptoms appeared to be:

• Weakness, can’t walk far, can’t work much,
• Loss of appetite
• Loss of weight independent of appetite
• Reduced illness recovery powers
• Chronicity of normally acute symptoms
• Old diseases reappear
• New diseases are easily acquired

(For a more extensive description see The Second Simillimum by Peter Chappell)

Peter felt that it was critical to have one remedy for AIDS as more would be too complicated in Africa. If you look carefully in homeopathy there is rarely one remedy suggested for an epidemic disease, except perhaps Lathyrus for polio, China for malaria.

Logically you only need the remedy that covers the totality of the epidemic, but such a remedy for AIDS appeared not to be available in the materia medica.

Peter then decided to create a new technology to design a remedy. He figured out how to reverse engineer the totality and essence of the symptom picture information and the medical disease description into a remedy he later called PC1. (See also the résumé in the appendix).

• The results of this new AIDS treatment using PC1 has been demonstrated in Africa over four years - Rwanda, The Congo, Cameroon, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Central African Republic, Ethiopia etc. Also from India positive reports have been received. The clinical observation is that people get well from all symptoms, opportunistic infections, old infections, all symptoms and can work again and feel very well in weeks. It seems that PC1 always works for AIDS in Africa, except if there is starvation or regular reïnfection, and provided patients keep taking it daily as needed.

For a retrospective study Corrie Hiwat and I went to Malawi in 2004 and later reported positive results in Homœopathic Links (issue 4/2004). In cooperation with the government of the Central African Republic at present a large study is about to be conducted in the capital Bangui.

Since the principles are the same Peter could use his technology to design remedies for other epidemic diseases as well. These include gonorrhoea, syphilis, tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid, hepatitis, rabies, leprosy, bubonic plague, scabies, but also chlamydia, warts, influenza, herpes, Lyme’s disease etc
Hundreds of cases of malaria were treated this way and dozens cases of acute, sub-acute and chronic gonorrhoea, again with consistent good results.

Chronic diseases
Peter suggests that chronic diseases are slow moving processes based upon viruses and bacteria, like a slow running epidemic. Hahnemann (miasms), www.ccid.org and Hanan Polanski and other new sources back this up.

Chronic is a misnomer, diseases are not static, they are really slow running evolving syndromes, i.e. slow epidemic like processes. Hahnemann writes in § 1003:

• In the same manner as has here been taught relative to the epidemic disease, … chronic diseases, which, as I have shown, always remain the same in their essential nature, … must be investigated, as to the whole sphere of their symptoms, in a much more minute manner than has ever been done before, for in them also one patient only exhibits a portion of their symptoms, a second, a third, and so on, present some other symptoms, which also are but a … portion of the totality of the symptoms which constitute the entire extent of this disease …

Peter: “It follows logically that you can treat all diseases with the genus epidemicus approach. Diagnosis is a major medical-scientific advance since Hahnemann’s time. Homeopaths have been blindsided, I think, by the idea that treating diseases directly is allopathic. It is perfectly possible to treat a disease holistically with the genus epidemicus approach.”

So, using the same technology Peter started designing remedies for diseases like epilepsy, asthma, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, migraine, arthritis, autism, CFS/ME, CRPS, diabetes, cancer etc. (See appendix 2 for a list of available remedies.)

Having seen the results with the PC-remedies for infectious diseases in Africa I decided to give Peter the credit of the doubt and to try some of his remedies for chronic diseases out in my practice in the Netherlands. The results have been varied. Sometimes there didn’t seem to be a response, but in other cases the results were better than I had ever seen with homeopathy. In all these cases I used the PC-remedy to complement constitutional treatment, or if a constitutional remedy was hard to define I started with the PC-remedy and would give a constitutional remedy once the picture became clear.
E.g. I have for instance a case of MS that has shown improvements I have never witnessed before – the patient is now better than 10 years ago. A Parkinson’s patient showed an improvement the neurologist stated he had never seen before.

I have presented some of my cases at several places, which has inspired others to try the remedies out as well. Slowly I am receiving feedback from them and a body of evidence is building up that diseases specific remedies can be very helpful in the treatment of chronic diseases.

This short history regarding my experiences with PC-remedies determined my policy in treating the case we were discussing.

Continuation of treatment
Based on the experiences described above I felt this case was a perfect example of a case where a disease-specific remedy could complement the simillimum. I asked Peter to design a remedy PC-toxoplasmosis for my patient. Soon I received the remedy that is since then available as PC303w.

Prescription: PC303w in liquid; five drops daily after banging the bottle five times.

Follow-up after one month
The black spots have become smaller. This has never happened before. Until this remedy they would only get bigger each time there was again an infection. In the areas around the black spots she could only see black-and-white. This has changed, and she can see colours again in these areas.

Plan: continue PC303w 5 drops per day until there is no further improvement. Since some of the scars will probably stay and keep influencing her eyesight I didn’t expect her eyesight to become completely normal. Because I wasn’t sure whether taking the PC-remedy continuously would cause her to become less sensitive to it I choose to let her stop as soon as the symptoms stayed the same for some weeks.

Three months later
Two months ago she stopped taking the PC-remedy since there was no more change. Since then her eyesight is stable and ever since starting the remedy she has had no attacks any more. Since a few weeks though her headaches have come back.

Plan: China 200K.

Four months later
The headaches vanished soon after China and are still gone. A month ago though she had a choroiditis again and restarted taking PC-toxoplasmosis.

How to dose the remedy for her is something I still needed to find out, since the experience with these disease-specific remedies was still very limited. Actually I was about the only one testing them. The fact that she had no attacks for seven months where she used to have them every 1-2 months was remarkable, but knowing the scars these inflammations cause can most likely not be completely removed I would prefer her having no more attacks period.

Plan: continue PC303w until there is no further improvement, and form that point on take the remedy periodical for one month as a prophylaxis followed by two months no remedy.

Two months later
Headaches back, but no more chorioditis.

Plan: China MK

Four months later
Again some headache, but absolutely not as bad as it used to be before she started taking China more than two years ago. No chorioditis.

Plan: China MK

Five months later
She has had no more inflammation of the eyes for a year now, so using the PC-remedy as an intermittent prophylactic seems to work well.

Plan: PC303w daily for one month every three months. China if indicated. Since the headaches are possibly also associated with the choroiditis due to congenital toxoplasmosis giving disease-specific remedy prophylactic and the constitutional one as soon as indicated is in my opinion the best strategy for this case now.

Comment
Whether the toxoplasmosis nosode would have given the same results is difficult to say. The experiences with other PC-remedies for infectious diseases suggest though that these work a lot better and far more consistent than the respective nosodes. Although nosodes are made from diseased material like pus this does not automatically mean that they represent the totality of the disease. If that were the case we could, based on the genus epidemicus concept, treat with success each and every tuberculosis patient with Tuberculinum, each and every patient with gonorrhoea with Medorrhinum etc. In Africa we see though that practically every patient with AIDS responds to PC1, with malaria to PC-malaria and with gonorrhoea to PC-gonorrhoea. This suggests that the PC-remedies for infectious diseases cover the totality of the disease better than nosodes do. For my personal practice this means that if I need to complement the simillimum with a miasmatic / disease-specific remedy a PC-remedy has by far my preference over a nosode. I will prescribe a nosode only if based on the symptoms it is indicated as the simillimum.

How to use PC-remedies

In epidemics and infectious diseases

In these cases treatment can be started with the PC-remedy designed for the specific disease.

1. In acute states like malaria the remedy can initially be given every 30-60 minutes, five drops after banging the bottle five times. The repetition schedule is similar to that of other homeopathic remedies given in acute diseases.

2. In chronic infectious diseases like chronic hepatitis or in after effects of acute diseases, e.g. cystitis ever since gonorrhoea, the same dose can be given on a daily basis.

The practical implications of this approach are that the medical diagnosis alone can be enough to choose an effective remedy, and that individualisation or a genus epidemicus approach, which both take a lot of time, are at least initially not necessary. In situations where one has little time per patient, like in a major epidemic or in countries with limited amounts of homeopaths with also limited skills, this is a great advantage.

In those cases where after the PC-remedy has done what it could there are still symptoms left one can individualise the case and look for a simillimum for the patient.

In chronic diseases

In chronic diseases the effects of earlier infections, either in the patient or his ancestors, have become a miasm that underlies the chronic disease, which is expressed in a specific constitution. So here a constitutional approach is required, and complementary disease-specific remedies are called for in case the constitutional simillimum alone does not solve the case.

The choice of the PC-remedy is now not based on the totality of the disease that may have caused the miasm, but on the totality of the chronic disease that is being expressed by the miasm. Where for instance recurrent cystitis since gonorrhoea is the early effect of a miasm in the making which can still be treated with PC-gonorrhoea, a case of rheumatoid arthritis would call for a diagnosis-specific remedy (PC-arthritis) rather than the miasm-specific remedy (PC-gonorrhoea) that may have caused the disease.

The practical approach here is to start with what is staring you in the face.

1. If the constitutional remedy is quite clear starting with that is the way to go. If at some point it is clear that the effect of the constitutional treatment is limited, and that the disease, be it less severe, is still present, complementing the first constitutional simillimum with a second disease-specific simillimum, a PC-remedy, is called for. If later there is a relapse of constitutional symptoms the constitutional simillimum has to be repeated, if these are still clearly better but only the symptoms of the disease as such relapse the PC-remedy needs to be repeated.

2. If the constitutional symptoms are mostly hidden behind the symptom picture of the disease starting with the PC-remedy for that disease is needed. These are the kind of cases where we otherwise usually fail to find the remedy, or where a well-chosen remedy fails to act. The effect of the PC-remedy will be that the symptoms of the disease will diminish and that constitutional symptoms will start to come up. Once these give a clear suggestion for an individual remedy that should be given next to the PC-remedy.

The PC-remedy can in most chronic cases be given only a daily basis, five drops after banging the bottle five times. Individualising the dose may be necessary and the patient is often able to find out him/herself what the best dose is.

Beware of initial aggravations. The PC-remedies act in that way similar to other homeopathic remedies. They can give an aggravation, they follow Hering’s law etc. So in cases with a very weak constitution, e.g. severe chronic fatigue syndrome, where the constitutional remedy is hardly detectable the patient is often not able to let an aggravation in response to either a constitutional or a PC-remedy be followed by a process of ongoing improvement.

So first of all see whether there are ways to improve the patient’s ability to give a curative response. A wide variety of ways to do this are available, like slowly increasing the amount of exercise, supplementing vitamins and minerals, psychological treatment etc.

Then secondly start by giving the patient one diluted dose and wait for days or weeks until a possible aggravation has passed before giving a second dose. If the patient indeed recovers from an aggravation you may expect that the aggravation after each dose will be shorter and less severe.

Pharmacies
PC-remedies can be ordered at three pharmacies. Instructions how to use the remedies are available in English, German and Dutch.

The remedies can be ordered as granules, from which the homeopath him/herself can prepare a dilution for the patient (instructions enclosed) or as dilutions that can be mailed to the homeopath or directly to the patient.

For German speaking countries: Apotheke zum Hl. Florian in Austria: hl.florian@gmx.net
For English speaking countries: www.helioslondon.com
For Dutch, English and German speaking countries: recept@hahnemann.nl

The list of available remedies is printed in an appendix. The updated list as well as much more information is available at www.vitalremedies.com

Book
Peter Chappell has written an illuminating book on his discovery of creating disease-specific remedies in which he extensively shares his African experiences as well as the philosophy underlying this new approach.

The book ‘The Second Simillimum – A Disease-Specific Complement to Individual Treatment’ is published by Homeolinks Publishers and can either be ordered there directly (www.homeolinks.nl or office@homeolinks.nl) or via your bookseller: ISBN 807103-3-4.

Bibliography
• Peter Chappell, The Second Simillimum, Homeolinks Publishers, Haren 2005
• Corrie Hiwat & Harry van der Zee, PC1 - Answer to AIDS in Africa, Homœopathic Links 4/2004

Harry van der Zee, MD
Editor of Homœopathic Links
harry@homeolinks.nl

Appendix 1
Resume of the technology of making PC1
Peter Chappell, London June 2006

The technology of making PC1, a disease specific homeopathic remedy for HIV/AIDS, was evolved from the way homeopathic medicines are usually made. Homeopathic remedies have a very high safety protocol (Food and Drug Administration, United States of America) proven over a period of 150 year. In this sense this new approach to treat disease is a further development of Homeopathy and combines the advantages of homeopathy (high safety/no side effect) and pharmacology (disease specific treatment) and thus little or no homeopathic skills are needed to prescribe and follow up.

In homeopathy the medicine production process usually starts with an animal, plant or mineral substance from which homeopathic medicines are extracted by a repetitive dilution and succusion process (banging to create 1000g+ shocks and impressing of information into the water molecules) to produce health and immune system stimulating patterns of information in water. Homeopathic medicine uses the above dilution and succusion extraction method to do this. In this new technology the homeopathic medicine is created by putting information directly into water and no substance is ever involved. This means that similar to high homeopathic potencies diluted beyond Avogadro’s number, the remedies created using this new approach do not contain a molecule of substance as in conventional pharmacology.

Recent articles from mainstream science recognise that information can be held in water and already for a longer period on the evolving fringes of science there is a gathering momentum in this direction from many different perspectives. Prof. Emoto`s (Japan) work on crystals is mentioned, since he elaborated a very clear and reproducible system to image information saved between water molecules. We have already asked Prof. Emoto to image the PC1 information (See crystal CD-ROM). The Emoto Laboratory staff in Lichtenstein was reportedly very surprised that a tiny pin head granule could result in so many well defined crystal shapes, inferring real and substantial information in the granule. Differences in crystal shapes are also visible between the two different gender formulations of PC1. Obviously the very existence of homeopathic medicine over centuries strongly testifies to this water/information effect being real.

There is nevertheless insufficient proof that homeopathy works. How potentisation works has not been fully explained by science yet. Simply because the scientific discoveries, paradigms, theory, technology, measuring devices and language have not yet been fully developed to allow this. This is a major impediment to the acceptance of homeopathy, but has still though not stopped homeopathy becoming a legitimate healing paradigm. There is likewise no mainstream science that describes why the basic resonance principle on which homeopathy rests works either. But there is clear evidence that healing by resonance has existed from well before human life began, and is in fact, like gravity, a natural characteristic of the universe. This lack of scientific language is an impediment to describing the action of this new process by which PC1 is made as the language, concepts, fields of action and measuring equipment are not yet developed to allow a clear, scientifically valid, description to be made.

To make the AIDS remedy a special non-physical thought form device is used to synthesise the information about the disease based on the core essence and psychological and physical information (the totality/essence) that crystallises this into one pattern totality. This is impinged into water. It works on an informational/energetic level only. There is no physical component to the information impinged into the water. The exact working of this device is, for the time being, a proprietary secret. We can say from experience that the many new homeopathic like medicines made by this new method, act exactly like homeopathic remedies in their curative action, in initial aggravations*, in following exactly the law of cure, in being compatibly with potentised remedies, in working well alongside potentised remedies, in requiring the same case management skills, in provings, and in having no observable side effect nor toxicity. It is also clear that this new method makes superior quality nosodes. (* Aggravations have only been reported in chronic diseases and not in the treatment of AIDS with PC1, or malaria with PC-malaria.)

The obvious advantage of this new process is that instead of having to look for a substance in nature that after provings and clinical use appears to be a simillimum for treating the genus epidemicus of an epidemic disease (in practice such a match is seldom, so a group of remedies are being used) this new technique makes it possible to directly make a simillimum for a known genus epidemicus.

In this new technology the specification of the information concerning HIV/AIDS carried within water that the patient receives is based upon the information needed to stimulate an immune response exactly appropriate to the disease, which is based on the principle of resonance, as is in homeopathic medicine. Resonance here is intended to mean the idea as we find on piano, where striking middle C activates the harmonic C chords.

We suggest that the symptoms of a disease are in fact the immune system response to the disease. A fever for example is an intelligent immune system defensive action. With resonance we reinforce the pattern of the immune response by providing information in water that contains the same pattern as the typical immune response to a specific disease, so that the immune system multiplies its efforts.

In conventional medicine the basic idea is to reduce the virus, bacteria or parasites by attacking drugs to reduce their numbers so the immune system can do its work. In this new technology and in homeopathic medicine in general we work in the opposite way by stimulating the immune system to strengthen its response. Both these ideas work, and they can often be used complementarily to good effect, as is our experience with the usage of both ARVs (Aids drugs) and PC1 together in AIDS patients.

In actual practicality the AIDS remedy called PC1 is based upon reversing the ‘genus epidemicus’ concept detailed by Hahnemann in the Organon, Aphorisms 100 to 103.
In this case Peter Chappell carefully and systematically compiled 70 detailed case studies of HIV/Aids in Ethiopia in 2001, and from this he deleted those symptoms that were a consequence of the reduced immunity, typically recurring previously acquired infections (typically tuberculosis), and recently acquired infections, (typically herpes), and also those symptoms which related to the constitution of the person, as these were seen as the response to the disease, not the disease itself. In simple terms, a Phosphorus type person when dying is concerned for the wellbeing of their children, an Arsenicum is very anxious about dying, etc and these are just natural responses that would be expected to any threat of imminent death. These are therefore not part of the disease itself.

AIDS was found to have these primary characteristics
• Weakness, loss of strength, can’t walk far, can’t work much, can’t look after themselves fully, and finally not at all.
• Later on a loss of appetite from a fungal infection in mouth and digestive tract.
• Loss of weight independent of appetite.
• Reduced recovery powers.
• Chronicity of every symptom, normal acutes like headaches and coryza become permanent.
• Dying is usually from starvation as they physically cannot eat.

It should however be noted that probably these are all the effect of reduced immunity.

This above was the materia medica required from the selected remedy. Peter Chappell considered the Aids nosode (which he noticed caused severe aggravations), constitutional remedies, and tried extensive repertorisation and consideration of existing homeopathic remedies as indicated and consulted many colleagues. He also realised that the common epidemic approach advocated practically by Hahnemann, of a small group of remedies prescribed on the presenting symptoms was doomed to fail in Africa where skills are in short supply and homeopathic skills virtually non existent except sparsely in South Africa. Peter Chappell felt that there was no example in Homeopathy to date where one remedy treated the totality of any disease in its entirety, even though China/quinine for malaria, through which Homeopathy was unfolded, was the closest example. He felt that no current known homeopathic approach was in fact likely to be satisfactory.

He then decided to reverse engineer the totality/essence of Aids and put that informational essence/totality into water. This possibly has not been done before. The exact method, outlined above, is not revealed here for several reasons, including the wish to protect it from the scrutiny of the materialistic world-view that dominates the minds of political and medical decision makers even in the African countries we are dealing with.

What Peter Chappell can say unequivocally and definitely is that there is no material content, it is not a complex remedy derived from several homeopathic remedies or otherwise remedies, nor derived from such, it is likewise not derived from a nosode or is a combination of nosodes, it is not a radionic formulation, it is not made by a material machine. It is a completely new method that makes it possible to create a homeopathic simillimum for a totality of symptoms, a genus epidemicus.

There can be no obvious mechanism for side effects and Peter Chappell never saw any in several hundred carefully monitored cases. No one else has reported any either. The PC1 remedy appears to work as an exact simillimum for the disease and its action seems to be extremely reliable, and a virtual certainty if adverse conditions are not present. Virtually perfect homeopathic ‘law of cure’ is seen routinely on psychological as well as physical levels. ‘I am well, my strength is back, I can walk 5 kilometres again, not just 50 metres, I can look after myself, I am so hungry now, I am putting on weight, my symptoms are better now, my pain has gone’ are all almost certain common responses.

The adverse conditions are recurring infective sex especially with a male with a high HIV virus level load, complete lack of food to eat (actual starvation) and sometimes being too close to death already. Otherwise it seems to work even in cases of serious destitution, in AIDS hospices, and often in spite of several other concurrent serious diseases (which often rapidly abate) and other seemingly impossible circumstances. This has now been experienced thousands of times virtually across Africa and to a little extent where tried in India. It does not seem to work as well, however, for AIDS-patients in the Western countries. After analysing the reasons for that (E.g. completely different social background) a new PC-remedy called PC1-West has been designed.

We have clear clinical results from different African Countries (Ethiopia, South Africa, Cameroon, Swaziland, Kenya, Malawi, Central African Republic etc) as well as India and reported by different doctors. All these results are anecdotal but consistently positive since the first use of PC1 in 2002. We are now in the process of building hard science based results to consolidate this new technology for the benefit of humanity. A protocol has been designed for an epidemiological study that will be conducted in the Central African Republic in cooperation with the government, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health, the key AIDS organisations and clinics, and the Institute Pasteur in Bangui (the capital). All the blood testing costs will be paid for by the Global Aids Fund. This is the first time to do systematic research. We want to objectify the clinical results and investigate if these are based on an increase in CD4-8 and CBCC and a reduction of Viral load. Since PC1 is a holistic approach it could be that the immune response is mediated not just by CD4 helper cells, but also by cytotoxic T-cells. Following the epidemiological study a comparative study is planned.

The intellectual property rights of the AIDS medicine (PC1) in particular are owned by a United Kingdom charity. PC1 is provided by the trust for research and treatment at a not-for-profit basis.

Appendix 2
Complete Remedy List July 2006
(July 06 new remedies available by September in pharmacies)

The list of remedies will expand in the time to come. For updates see www.vitalremedies.com

Remedy Name Code Comments
Epidemic disease/ceeds/miasms
AIDS PC1AM For African males
AIDS PC1AF For African females
Anthrax PC2120k New 7/06
Bilharzia PC132d
Botulism PC135g New 7/06
Bronchitis Infectious PC136h New 7/06
Brucellosis PC134f New 7/06
Bubonic Plague PC131 c
Campylobacteriosis PC2140n New 7/06
Candida PC141d
Chagas -Trypanosomiasis African PC148k
Chlamydia PC144g
Cholera PC2141p New 7/06
Common Cold PC2143r New 7/06
Coxsackie A & B PC2142q New 7/06
Dengue Fever PC153g
Diphtheria PC154h
Dys Co (Shigella) PC155j New 7/06
Epstein Barr/Infective mononucleosis PC2162r New 7/06
Escherichia coli PC2160p New 7/06
Foot and Mouth Disease PC173j New 7/06
Gaertner - Salmonella enteritis PC184k New 7/06
Giardia Lamblia PC185m
Gonorrhoea PC180g
Helicobacter Pylori (stomach ulcer) PC298a New 7/06
Hepatitis A PC198n New 7/06
Hepatitis B PC199p New 7/06
Hepatitis C PC2190q New 7/06
Herpes - Chicken pox PC197k New 7/06
Herpes – Shingles/Zoster PC296y
Herpes Simplex PC192j
HIV Vaccination PCV1h New 7/06
Human Papilloma Virus (warts) PC193k
Infective mononeucleosis see Epstein Barr
Influenza PC200i
Influenza Bird (Avian Flu) PC202k
Leishmania – leishmaniasis PC237t
Leprosy PC230l
Lyme’s Disease PC232n
Malaria PC240m
Malaria vaccination PCV2m New 7/06
Measles PC2241x New 7/06
Meningitis Neisseria PC249v
Morgan PC2240w New 7/06
Mumps PC2242y New 7/06
Onchoceriasis (River Blindness) PC253r
Polio PC262r
Proteus Vulgaris PC268x New 7/06
Rabies PC282t
Rubella (German Measles) PC284v New 7/06
Salmonella enteritidis (Gaertner) PC184k New 7/06
Scabies PC290s
Shigella dysentreriae (Dys co) PC155j New 7/06
Smallpox PC291t
Staphylococcus PC2291d New 7/06
Streptococcus Pneumoniae PC2292e New 7/06
Sycotic Co Neisseria Mucosa PC299b New 7/06
Syphilis PC293v
Tetanus PC301u
Toxoplasmosis PC303w
Tuberculosis PC300t
Typhoid fever Salmonella Typhi PC302v
Typhus PC313h New 7/06
Warts – Human Papilloma Virus
Whooping cough PC341w New 7/06
Yellow Fever PC350y

First aid
Burn PC10b
Injury PC201j
Scar Tissue PC297z
Shock PC11c

Chronic Disease and Syndromes
Acne (cystic, nodular) PC125f
Acromegaly & Gigantism PC129j New 7/06
Alcoholism PC120a
Allergies PC127h
Alzheimer’s PC121b
Ankylosing Spondylitis
PC128i
Arteriosclerosis PC122c
Arthritis PC123d
Arthrosis PC2122n New 7/06
Asthma see eczema
Cancer general PC140c
Cancer Mamma PC2145d New 7/06
Cancer Uterus PC2146e New 7/06
Cancer Lung PC2147f New 7/06
Cancer Colon PC2148g New 7/06
Cancer Prostate PC2149h New 7/06
Cancer Stomach PC2150K New 7/06
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome CFS/ME PC142e
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome CRPS PC143f
Cirrhosis of the liver from alcoholism PC2144s New 7/06
Crohn’s Disease PC149m New 7/06
Cystitis (Interstitial) PC145h
Dementia (non specific) PC156k New 7/06
Diabetes type 1 PC157m New 7/06
Diabetes Type 1&2 PC150d
Diabetes type 2 PC158n New 7/06
Down Syndrome PC151e
Eczema & Asthma together PC160e
Emphysema PC166k
Epidermolysis Bullosa PC161f
Epilepsy PC162g
Fibromyalgia PC172h
Gout PC181h
Haemophilia PC190h
Infertility PC171g
Leukaemia PC231m
Lupus (SLE) PC233p
Marfan’s Syndrome PC248u
Meniere’s PC247t
Migraine PC241n
Motor Neurone diseases including Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Post-Polio Syndrome, Primary Lateral Sclerosis, Monomelic Amyotrophy PC242o
Multiple Sclerosis PC243p
Myasthenia Gravis PC245r
Myopathies including congenital myopathies, muscular dystrophies, mitochondrial myopathies, myoglobinurias, myositis ossificans, familial periodic paralysis, polymyositis, inclusion body myositis, neuromyotonia, stiff-man syndrome, tetany PC244q
Noonam Syndrome PC400n
Osteoarthritis PC252q
Osteoporosis PC251p
Parkinson’s PC260p
Psoriasis PC263s
Psoriatic Arthritis PC269y New 7/06
Rheumatoid Arthritis PC281s
Spina Bifida PC292u
Stomach Ulcer PC298a
Ulcerative diseases (All) PC330u
Ulcerative colitis PC331v New 7/06
Wegener's granulomatosis PC340v New 7/06

Behavioural syndromes
Anorexia PC126g
Autism PC124e
Bulimia PC133e
Eating Disorders (All) PC167l
Fat PC170f
Obsessive-compulsive disorder PC254s New 7/06
Poverty Consciousness PC266v
Schizophrenia PC294w

Toxins
Antibiotics (streptomycetaceae) PC2121m New 7/06
Cortizone PC147j
Environmental Toxins PC168m
Histamine PC195m
Mobile Phone PC2244e New 7/06
Penicillin PC261q
Radiation Toxins PC283u
Snake Bites Antidote (all) PC295x
Vaccination PC320v

Trauma Remedies
Caesarean Birth Trauma PC314h New 7/06
GWTrauma (Genocide/War) PC304x
NCTrauma (Natural Catastrophe) PC305z
PLTrauma (Past life)
N&H Atomic Trauma PC307b
Birth Trauma PC308c
Adoption Trauma PC309d
Abuse Trauma PC310e
Torture Trauma PC311f
Unburied Relatives PCPC315k New 7/06

Worms
Worms - thread PC2342w New 7/06
Worms - toxoplasmosis PC303w
Worms - guinea PC183j New 7/06
Worms - general PC264t

Endocrine system toning & balancing
Pituitary/anterior PC370a New 7/06
Pituitary/posterior PC371b New 7/06
Pineal PC372c New 7/06
Thyroid PC373d New 7/06
Thymus PC374d New 7/06
Pancreas PC375e New 7/06
Adrenals PC376f New 7/06
Testicles PC377g New 7/06
Ovaries PC378h New 7/06

Spiritual Issues
Chakras Crown PC1000a
Soul Connection PC1100b
Truth PC1101c
Isolation PC1102d
Joined Up thinking PC1103e
Judeo/Christian/Islamic beliefs PC1104f

CPH, the leading provider of homeopathic training will be running a seven weekend Diploma in Bio-Energetics course (certificated by the Naturopathy Institute) which will provide the CAM practitioner with the skills and knowledge needed to incorporate a wider range of energetic medicine techniques into their practice and utilise these for the benefit of their patients. Participants who successfully complete this course will be eligible to move onto the one year Post graduate Naturopathy Course to become a qualified Naturopath.

The field of energetic medicine now covers bio-resonance, kinesiology, electro- acupuncture, dowsing, flower essences, and vibrational medicine which have all developed as therapeutic or identification techniques and are increasingly becoming part of the professionals toolkit of successful complementary and alternative practitioners. This joint venture brings together the various energetic disciplines and incorporates traditional techniques with modern and technological innovation.

For further information please download an information pack from:

www.collegeofpracticalhomeopathy.com or ring Pauline on 020 8445 6123

“Homeopathy is Bunk!” Discuss....Part 2.
Lionel Milgrom, RSHom, MARH, BSc, MSc, PhD, CChem, FRSC

.....So Where Was I? Oh Yes....

In part 1, we saw how deeply ingrained ancient Greek thought patterns about atoms are ultimately responsible for the sceptical attitude expressed in the title. Of course, Democritus's original insight developed into a far more sophisticated and quantitative paradigm. Atoms are no longer 'indestructible' but, thanks to modern physics, they can be smashed into ever smaller sub-atomic fragments. In fact, the quantum revolution that ushered in modern atomic theory challenges our deeply held beliefs about 'reality'.....But more of that later. Suffice to say, atoms and molecules are now routinely 'visualised' on computer screens; their complex interactions and inner workings seemingly enough understood not to shake belief in an essentially material universe.

I say 'seemingly' because really, all the quantum revolution has been allowed to achieve in the bio-molecular sciences is confirmation of a 200-year-old cartesian 'faith' in the fundamental structural shapes of molecules.

For it should be realised that 'shape' is NOT a fundamental property of molecules: it only arises when certain obscure but highly significant approximations are made to quantum theory.1

What these approximations do is convert unimaginable fluctuating concentrations of energy back into easily imagined 'molecules'; conventionally visualised as 'frozen', coloured balls, joined together by bits of plastic. A little unfair, perhaps, but it explains the belief that if no molecules of a drug are present, there can be no cure.

So, sceptics continue to condemn homeopathy (and indeed most CAMs) even though there is mounting evidence and centuries of experience to the contrary. Time, perhaps, to consider science's main instrument of 'torture', the double-blind randomised controlled trial (RCT).

“Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition….!”
Like many therapeutic procedures, homeopathy and its remedies have been subjected to rigorous RCTs as if they can be treated like conventional drugs.These trials have been reported elsewhere, so I will simply make some general comments.

First, for 'no-substance' remedies, a significant number of trials and meta-analyses have delivered positive results.

Second, these generally lead to an outcry that the trials lack rigor and further testing is necessary. On the other hand, when trials return negative results, then detractors proclaim the 'death' of homeopathy.

Considering recent withdrawals of RCT-tested conventional drugs from clinical use because of the appearance of dangerous 'side-effects' (e.g., Vioxx), homeopathy's Inquisitors might be considered biased - as was blatantly demonstrated in the recent Lancet meta-analysis, and the orchestrated media campaign that followed.

Third, trials so far have been equivocal: some in favour of homeopathy while others against. If homeopathy was that impossible, surely negative trial results would be the norm? This is compounded by results from trials of individualised homeopathic prescribing,5 where blinding ensures neither patient nor homeopath know if the prescribed remedy is verum or placebo. These trials show that homeopathy's effectiveness is sometimes no better than placebo. We shall see later why this is not all that surprising. However, that any therapeutic procedure is never practiced according to RCT procedures, should make us wonder why outcomes measurements are not more routinely employed to test real-life therapeutic efficacy.

"Oh no! Not the soft cushions!" Deconstructing the RCT
Does the RCT really provide relevant protocols to investigate homeopathy or any CAM therapy?6 This question becomes urgent when careful account is taken of an implicit assumption lying buried at the positivist heart of RCT philosophy: that the efficacy of a drug or therapy can be treated totally separately from the context in which it is given.

Powered by this assumption, researchers consider drug/therapy efficacy and context merely separate and additive, as opposed to fundamentally complex, entangled and interactive. It is then but a series of simple arithmetical steps to arrive at a figure for the efficacy of the drug/therapy over placebo.
Perhaps plausible when dealing with conventional pharmaceuticals with supposedly known, measurable, and reproducible properties (even if in clinical practice they turn out to have previously unknown and dangerous 'side-effects'). But where the RCT is used to test efficacy of a therapy as well, then the implicit assumption that specific and contextual effects are not affecting each other, can only be a very rough approximation, if not false.

In fairness, this has been recognised in conventional circles so that many CAMs, including acupuncture, touch therapies, and homeopathy, have been called 'complex interventions'. However, 'interference' (entanglement?) of contextual effects has even been observed even in RCTs of conventional medicines. Drug presentation (e.g., a pill's shape or colour) can affect efficacy. Clearly, the assumptions behind the RCT are incapable of properly accounting for and including contextual effects of therapy, particularly in complex interventions. For homeopathy, this means it is not possible to separate supposed clinical effects of a remedy from contextual effects of the homeopathic interview. In fact, using an algebraic algorithm (based on quantum 'macro-entanglement' occurring between patient, practitioner, and remedy - called PPR entanglement),8 it can be shown that any attempt to 'get at' the affects of the homeopathic remedy, separate from the entangled context in which it is prescribed, is likely to destroy the very therapeutic effect one is trying to investigate.9 It is like Nelson, at the Battle of Copenhagen putting his telescope to his blind-eye and declaring, "I see no signal!" Thus, it is not surprising if RCTs of homeopathic prescribing5 show no effects greater than placebo, or that RCTs of homeopathic remedies are so equivocal. We shall return to this point later.

So How Could Homeopathy Work? The Trouble With Science
So, "How can (seemingly) 'nothing' do something?" and how might this question arise? Despite the 'triumph' of atomic theory, science is no unified edifice. Theory and practice in one branch of science do not necessarily transpose to other disciplines, e.g., physics with bio-medicine. Quantum theory's theoretical and predictive refinements have little bearing on the day-to-day reductionism that informs most other sciences.

Thus, physicists think of objects interacting with each other 'at a distance' via intervening and intertwining fields (quantum field theory even predicts the objects are themselves fields). Although quantised electric fields bind atoms together, bio-molecular scientists still think of molecules interacting via direct physical contact: in cells this is highly organised. Such thinking has difficulty rationalising the speed with which enzymes specifically recognise and turn over millions of substrate molecules per second, purely via organised collisions.

It seems more likely that the meeting of enzyme with substrate molecules could be facilitated by some prior long-range field interaction, possibly mitigated and amplified by solvent water molecules that 'lock' them into each other. This leads to one of the most 'popular' explanations for how, in the absence of the original substance molecules, homeopathic remedies might work.

The 'Memory' of Water
Quite simply, no water; no life. As Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Gyorgyi put it, "Water is the mater and the matrix, the mother and the medium of life." Yet, water is not as simple as the formula H2O suggests. Its life-giving and sustaining properties are due to residual electrical forces called hydrogen bonds, originating from within each water molecule's oxygen atom. Hydrogen bonds loosely bind individual water molecules into large dynamically organised fluctuating 'structures'. And it is these which in turn fundamentally influence and mediate the interactions between chemical and biochemical entities.

To adopt a theatrical metaphor, if nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and hormones etc, are the principal 'actors' in the unfolding drama that is life at the molecular level, then water provides the stage, set, theatre, and ultimate direction. Perhaps too much emphasis has been placed on bio-molecules at the expense of the solvent in which they 'perform'.

But there is so much about this universal solvent that still needs to be discovered, and investigating it won't be easy. Within a single microscopic cell, for example, there are huge differences in the water content and properties of its various parts, from the jelly-like consistency of the cytoplasm, to the more watery content of vacuoles. Modelling such diversity could be a computational nightmare. However, the structure of water itself is being modelled, and shows that it can form dynamically coherent hydrogen-bonded molecular ‘structures’ around cavities, similar to icosahedra (a 3-D 20-sided figure).10 It is not so difficult to imagine such short-lived yet coherent aqueous entities as bearers of a 'memory' of things once dissolved but now disappeared.

Evidence for a water memory effect has been steadily building for years. However, in 1988, three Italian physicists used orthodox quantum theory to predict it. They showed that, given a huge number of water molecules (in the order of 1017, representing a visible macroscopic entity), the sum of all the hydrogen-bonded interactions between them could lead to a state where under certain circumstances, they resonate together, spontaneously organising themselves into a so-called 'coherent domain'. This phenomenon the physicists called 'superradiance', and they went on to show how coherent domains could not only be triggered by homeopathic potentisation,16 they would survive removal of all trace of the original dissolved substance. In other words, a theoretical mechanism for homeopathic potentisation and the water-memory effect could already exist. Remedy potentisation could be likened to 'encoding' the solvent with the remedial substance's 'imprint', similar to the formatting of a compact disc. Presumably, dropping a liquid potency onto a solid substrate, like glucose or lactose, 'locks in' this memory.

Homeopathy 'At a Distance'
Is that all? Nothing wrong with the memory of water per se, but healing of any kind also depends on a very human interaction between consenting beings, something deterministic bioscience cannot account for. For all its novelty, the memory of water hypothesis is couched in the same reductionist language as the biosciences. As such, it could effectively confine attention solely to the possible pharmacological effects of the potentised medicine.

Perhaps thorough discussion of homeopathy's efficacy also needs development of theoretical models that take better account of its experience. This has long been argued in complementary medicine, especially when considering the underlying meaning of the placebo effect. Here the complex psychological interaction between patient and practitioner is more thoroughly explored. But as we shall see, and just like the memory of water hypothesis, theoretical models may be available from within the quantum theory of physics, with its concepts of non-locality, complementarity, and entanglement.

The Domains of Quantum Theory
To most, quantum theory and its implications apply only within the microscopic confines of particle physics, not in our macroscopic domain. However, one of the strangest outcomes of quantum theory - non-local entanglement - need not be size-limited.

Entanglement occurs when the parts of a system are so holistically integrated, measurement of one part of the system instantaneously (i.e, not limited by the speed of light) provides information about other part, regardless of their separation in space and time. What is important isn't size but whether the elements of the system behave coherently (i.e., act as one indivisible whole), and whether such a system's processes can be described using what is called a 'non-commuting algebra of complementary observables'.

What this means is when two observations are made, the overall result depends entirely on the sequence in which they are performed. This is readily understood when considering, say, cooking. Here, operational sequence really does matter, as this will determine whether we have a decent meal or not. The complementarity of a pair of observations means that both are necessary in order to acquire a complete picture of a process or system. A generalised version of quantum theory (which relaxes or weakens several of orthodox quantum theory's basic axioms) has recently appeared, called Weak Quantum Theory (WQT). This explicitly allows quantum theory's application into 'macroscopic' areas such as philosophy, psychology and information dynamics.

'We Only See The World We Make.'
What is it about quantum theory that could so resonate with homeopathy and CAMs? One of the ways that classical and quantum physics differ is that the former enshrines common sense, for everything considered physical is observable and therefore measurable: this is the leitmotif running through all reductionist science including biomedicine. However in quantum physics, not everything considered physical is observable or measurable. So, a wave function is not a directly observable entity: only its effects are. A wave-function is a multi-dimensional descriptor of a system's quantum state, whose existence can only be inferred from the observable effects it produces in our 4-D 'reality'.18 This is not through any fault in measurement: the fault lies in the mathematical language we use to describe measurement.

All experimental results come in the form of the numbers we use every day, called real numbers. But, the multi-dimensionality of a quantum state can only be fully described using a much larger number set called complex numbers. These are irreducible 'aggregates'; part real number, part so-called 'imaginary' number; something impossible to describe purely in terms of real numbers. Simply put, if the familiar real numbers are represented as an infinite line, then complex numbers have an extra imaginary dimension and are represented by an infinite plane. Of course, it isn't necessary to stop there: complex numbers can have many imaginary dimensions....

Real numbers are part of the larger set of complex numbers, but not vice versa. Trying to describe a quantum state purely in terms of real numbers is like trying to squeeze a 3-D cube into a 2-D plane: information is invariably lost, notably the cube's three-dimensionality. It is this loss of information in trying to translate complex numbers into reals, that leads to much of what we mistakenly believe is 'quantum weirdness'.
This means the quantum world-view's consequences are profound. It means giving up any notion concerning knowledge of things 'out there', 'in themselves', separate from our observation of them. There is no escaping it: quantum theory demands we accept that the observer and the observed are intimately and irreducibly connected. 'We only see the world we make.'

Now in homeopathy and CAMs there is the notion of an all-pervading Vital Force (Vf) which strives to hold the whole organism in balance. However, the Vf is not a directly observable entity: like the wave function in quantum theory, it is only observed indirectly through its effects, i.e., the symptoms it produces. This descriptive similarity of wave function and Vf, suggests a similarity in discourse between quantum physics and homeopathy/CAMs. Perhaps quantum theory's language can be used to describe homeopathy.

Heisenberg Uncertainty for Homeopaths
In the quantum model for the homeopathic process I am developing, the homeopathic process is regarded as a dynamic set of complementary 'local' observations of the patient, and 'global' practitioner-based self-observations (e.g., inner state, how that might fluctuate during the session, and the state of the patient-practitioner relationship). The ultimate result of this process is the remedy. From this perspective, the patient, the practitioner, and the remedy may be considered an entangled therapeutic triad: attempting to isolate any one element of this trinity breaks the entanglement.

This could explain why RCTs of homeopathy return such equivocal results.9 It is an observational procedure whose effect is to break or 'collapse' the three-way patient-practioner-remedy entangled state. If so, then the effect of the RCT is similar to how in orthodox quantum theory, observation 'collapses' a particle's wave function.

While unobserved, a particle is thought to be indeterminate; its evolution in time expressed as a wave function. Observation, however, causes the wave to 'collapse' instantaneously to a particle, whose complementary position and momentum (i.e., they cannot both be known exactly at the same time) are related via Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This means, the act of observation in part creates that which is observed. Or, even more starkly, the price we pay for knowledge is loss of an underlying ontological physical reality. The RCT may be considered to be a similar procedure that 'collapses' the three-way entangled homeopathic state, leading to loss of the underlying homeopathic 'reality'.

The fact remains however that sometimes trials of non-individualised homeopathic remedies do return positive results. Assuming those who obtain them are as competent and objective as those who obtain negative results, this could be explained as surviving entanglement from remedy production, ironically as a result of the water memory effect.

The Italian physicists mentioned earlier, suggested potentisation formed super-molecular organised hydrogen-bonded 'coherent domains' within water.16 Coherence in physics means entanglement; in this case, the individual water molecules of a coherent domain make up one entangled entity. The tantalising prospect emerges then that there could be several 'layers' of entanglement operating in the homeopathic process: from the molecular (created during production of the homeopathic remedy), right up to that occurring between patient, practitioner, and remedy.

Consequently, although according to this analysis RCTs of homeopathic remedies rule out the possibility of over-arching three-way PPR entanglement, residual molecular entanglement 'built into' the remedy via the water memory effect could survive, possibly leading to the small observed positive effects sometimes observed during homeopathic clinical trials. Thus, in considering how homeopathy might work, it may well be necessary to take full account not only of 'local' memory of water effects, but also 'non-local' contextual effects.

Conclusions
Perhaps in future, further trials of homeopathy should concentrate more on objectively measuring outcomes24 from 'real-life' practice, rather than gathering ever more equivocal data from RCT clinical trials that are patently unsuitable for testing homeopathy, or any other complex therapeutic intervention.

There is still much work to do, but perhaps ideas proposed here could lead to testable working hypotheses for homeopathy/CAMs. However, progress is hampered by difficulties acquiring research funds from largely sceptical, anti-homeopathic funding agencies. Nevertheless, with both local (i.e, 'memory of water') and non-local (i.e., entanglement) hypotheses developing, work is in progress on experimental protocols.

As ever….watch this space.

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