In the healthy condition of man, the spiritual vital
force (autocracy), the dynamis that animates the material body (organism),
rules with unbounded sway, and retains all the parts of the organism in
admirable, harmonious, vital operation, as regards both sensations and
functions, so that our indwelling, reason-gifted mind can freely employ this
living, healthy instrument for the higher purposes of our existence.
These words were written by Dr. Hahnemann more than
200 years ago (the first edition of Organon of Medicine was published in the
year 1810). This concept is as much criticized as the concept of dynamization
of homoeopathic medicines. It was proposed at the time when science was growing
materialistically on the Newtonian theories and laws with full enthusiasm to
win the nature. Simultaneous to it there were many para and metaphysical
observations. Many interesting observations and developments challenged to the
concept of materialistic scientists that reality was explainable in terms of
matter only and anything which has no material explanation was not reality but
mere product of hallucinatory imaginations. Religious talk about soul and body
is viewed by scientists as a matter of faith and feeling.
Vital force is an influence which directs all aspects
of life in an organism. It adapts to environmental influences, it animates the
emotional life of the individual, provides thoughts and creativity and conducts
spiritual inspiration. The vitalist school of thought believed that this vital
force connects the individual with the ultimate Unity of the universe. Thus,
the vital force includes varieties of functions, and that aspect of the vital
force which establishes balance in states of disease is called the “defense
mechanism”. The defense mechanism is integral part of vital force but it is
only one of many functions. The defense mechanism acting on all the three
levels (body, emotion and intellect) of the organism can be viewed as a tool of
the vital force acting in context of disease.
The dynamis that animates the material body could be
easily understood when one observes the well coordinated living of an organism
with its environment and differentiates living and non-living world. Is it a
physico-chemical phenomenon as is taught in the present day science? If not
where is the scientific proof?
In 1879, a girl living in Ontario, Canada, after
recovering from an unknown convulsive illness appeared to have electromagnetic
properties. She started discharging electricity. Any metal object which she
picked up would adhere to her open hand and would have to be forcibly pried
away by another person.
In 1888, a sixteen year old boy came to the attention
of scientists of Maryland college of Pharmacy for having electromagnetic
properties. He was able to suspend iron and steel rods of half inch diameter
and twelve inches in length from his finger tips. He could also lift a beaker
filled with iron filling merely by pressing three fingers against side of the
beaker. An audible click would occur when he pulled one of his fingers away.
In 1895, in Missouri, a fourteen year old girl
suddenly found that when reaching for metal object such as handle of a pump her
fingers gave off sparks of such high voltage that she experienced pain. The
doctor who attempted to examine her was actually knocked onto his back and
remained unconscious for several seconds. To the relief of the young lady her
ability to shock eventually began to diminish and had vanished completely by
the age of twenty years.
We find reference of vital or psychometric energy in
literature of Paracelsus. He believed that it could purify body and restore
health or could poison body and cause sickness. In 17th century Dr. Helment, a Flemish chemist
and physician believed this energy could enable one person to affect another at
a distance. German Baron von Reichenback and Polinasian Huna independently said
that the vital energy could be stored and transferred from human to objects.
After Newton materialistic view dominated and
scientists believed that the universe and the living world was completely
explainable in purely mechanical terms and biology and medical science were
developed basing on laws of physics and chemistry. In 20th century, Newtonian laws failed to
explain the atomic and subatomic realm of existences. Therefore, new concepts
of Field Theory by Faraday and Maxwell, Quantum theory by Heisenberg and theory
of Relativity by Albert Einstein were developed. In his book ‘Tao of Physics’,
Fritjof Capra described the effects of these concepts.
‘…Maxwell and Faraday in 19th century gave field theory to explain
force between electric charges and current, a moving charge. An electric field
is a condition in space around a charged particle/body which produce a force on
any other charged particle/body in that space. The effect of electric field
could be felt by an electric charge. A charge in motion produces a magnetic
field also. Theory of relativity states that all motions are relative this
means that in a moving bus passenger A is stationary with respect to other
passengers and to him things outside the bus are moving but for an observer
outside the bus, A is in motion. This simply implies that every charge can
appear as a current in the frame of reference where it moves with respect to
observer. Thus, electric field produced by the electric charge and magnetic
field produced by the moving electric charge that is current are unified in
electromagnetic field.
‘In quantum electrodynamics quantum field is seen as
fundamental physical entity, a continuous medium present everywhere in space
and particles (matter) are merely a local condensation of the field,
condensation of energy which come and go, thereby losing their individual
character and dissolving into underlying field.’ Therefore, material bodies do
not exist in void that is empty space but are inseparably linked to their
environment through this field. Further, Mach’s principle proves that this
interaction reaches out to universe to the distant stars and galaxies. The
basic unity of cosmos is thus manifested in all small and large existences.'
Einstein says, ‘We may therefore, regard matter as
being constituted by regions of space in which field is extremely intense….There
is no place in the new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the
field is the only reality.’
Indian philosophy goes further. It teaches, 'Nothing can be manifested until
consciousness is tainted with desire. Whatever exists in the universe is a part
of the greater consciousness (BRAHM). The whole universe including living and
non-living world is just a manifestation of this greater consciousness'.
Harold Saxton Burr (1889-1973) was Professor Emeritus,
Anatomy at Yale University School of medicine. He claimed that all living
things are molded and controlled by electro-dynamic fields, which could be
measured and mapped with standard voltmeters. He named them fields of life or simply
the Life-field or L-Field.
Dr. Burr and his colleague Dr. Ravitz in the book “The Fields of Life” described
their experiments to measure bioelectric field and its functions. They
emphasized, ‘Every living system possesses an electrical field of great
complexity which can be measured with considerable certainty and accuracy and
it shows to have correlation with growth and development, degeneration and
regeneration and orientation of component parts in the whole system.
He showed that changes in the electrical potential of
the Life-field would lead to changes in the health of the organism. Through
experiments he was able to show that changes in environmental electromagnetic
fields, caused by such things as the phases of the moon, sunspot activity and
thunderstorm, substantially affected the L-field.
He could detect a specific field of energy in a frog's
egg and that the nervous system would later develop precisely within that
field, suggesting that the Life field field was the organizing matrix for the
body.
Working with humans, through the reading of the
individual's Life-field he was able to chart and predict the ovulation cycles
of women, to locate internal scar tissue and to diagnose potential physical
ailments. So he insisted that the Life-field forms primary to the physical
organism.
Student and colleague Leonard Ravitz worked with
hypnotic subjects and demonstrated that changes in the Life-field directly
related to changes in a person's mental and emotional states
After 30 years of pains taking research Dr. Burr
concluded, ‘The following theory may then be formulated. The pattern of
organization of any biological system is established by a complex
electro-dynamic field which is in part determined by the behavior and
orientation of those components. This field is electrical in physical sense and
by its properties relates the entities of biological system in a characteristic
pattern and is itself in part result of the existence of these entities. It
determines and is determined by the components.
More than established pattern, it must maintain
pattern in the midst of a physio-chemical flux. Therefore, it must regulate and
control living things. It must be the mechanism, the outcome of whose activity
is wholeness, organization and continuity.
Two Russian scientist husband and wife, Sewyon and
Valentina Kirlian developed a technique to photograph and visualize bioelectric
field. Ostrander and Schroeder described this in ‘Psychic discoveries in Iron
curtain’.
‘….When Semyon visualized his hand the hand itself
looked like a milky way in a starry sky. Against a back ground of blue and
gold, something was taking place in the hand that looked like a firework
display. Multicolor flares lit up, they spark, twinkle and flash. Some lights
glow steadily like Roman candles other flashed out and dimmed.
‘On another occasion Semyon Kirlian was calibrating
his instrument. He tested his own hand in the machine but failed to get usual
pattern of emanation. His wife, however, was able to calibrate the machine.
Just after a few days Semyon fell sick with an acute ailment and he realized
that the change in his bio-electro-dynamic field was prior to actual onset of
the illness. Kirlians further find that photo graphs of fields of a person in
poor mental or physical health show changes in diameter, regularity, color etc.
They found similar phenomena in studies of fields of leaves plucked from
healthy and diseased plants. Several
institutes brought hundreds of green patients, leaves of grape wine, apple tree
etc. and in every case Kirlians were able to establish whether or not the plant
was ill long before any physical or pathological change in the leaves or the
plants, by studying the leaf’s energy field in high frequency photos.’
Kirlians also observed that as leaf gradually dies,
its self emissions also decrease correspondingly until there is no emission
from dead leaf. Like was the case with the finger from human dead body. Thus,
self emission of living things seems to be direct measure of the life processes
occurring within their system. Pressman in 1970 stated that in the living organism,
systems that handle information are ordinarily shielded from interference from
external electro-dynamic fields, but in pathological states the barriers break
down and more of an influence is exerted by the external forces as solar
flares, lightening discharges etc. Lewin (1951) has noted that ordinary
boundaries do not function well in pathological states.
Using Dr. Burr’s technique, Dr. Louis Langman,
gynaecologist and obstetrician at New York University, collage of medicine
studied potential difference near uterine cervix and on external abdominal wall
and correlated it with clinical course of patients with following results –
‘…more than 428 women were studied. Out of 75
patients with known cancer of female genital tract 97.7% showed the cervix to be
consistently electro-negative to the ventral abdominal wall. In 353 patients
suffering from non-malignant conditions, 289 showed cervix to be positive with
respect to abdomen (81.9%).
‘…a reversal of polarity from negative to positive
occurred after total hysterectomy for intra-epithelial carcinoma of cervix, but
reversal was not found in more advanced stages of cervical carcinoma (stage II
and III) in patient who had either a radical hysterectomy or radiotherapy.
Also, women preoperatively, diagnosed squamous metaplasia of the cervix of
uterus showed reversal of polarity after total hysterectomy.
‘…this was observed that if the involved tissue is
removed in entirety- reversal of polarity occurs which is not so in cases where
involved tissue was not fully removed.’
William A. Tiller, physicist of Standford University
used systematic Kirlian photography and demonstrated relationship between
mental and emotional changes and electromagnetic field emanation. He studied a
group of schizophrenics and a group of alcoholics before and after successful
treatment. In both the groups pattern of emission from the contact part of
finger pad showed fragmentation of large portions of normal emission and
appeared chaotic. After successful treatment there was observed –
A. filling in of the emission pattern,
B. an enhancement of manifested energy intensity and
C. more orderly and coherent finger print pattern on
the contacted portion of photograph was observed.
Tiller observed marked pattern changes associated with
respiratory infections. Changes were also noted with change in emotions and
mood. [Tiller – “A.R.E. Medical Symposium]
Progress in such researches will lead to era of new
medicines. These observations imply that presently diseases are treated at very
superficial level, rather tentatively because seemingly physical diseases
originate from the changes in the vital dynamics due to interaction and
adaptation of an organism with the environment to achieve the best possible
survival. Until these changes are not reverted a cure could no be achieved.
These researches are very preliminary for the purpose of clinical applications
but these give a sound basis and support to the concept of vital force and
dynamization of homoeopathic medicine.
About 200 years back Dr. Hahnemann had given
principles and methods of preparing and applying dynamic medicines clinically.
The principles and the methods are practiced in homoeopathy world over.
References –
1.
Organon
of Medicine – Dr. Hahnemann
2.
Chronic Diseases and their Nature – Dr.
Hahnemann
3.
Science of Homoeopathy – Dr. George Vithoulkaus.
4.
Commentary on Organon of Medicine – Dr. B. K.
Sarkar.
5.
Wikipedia.
Dr. M. K. Tyagi
Research Officer, Sewa Mandir.
Email: 1.sewamandir@usa.net, 2.manju_mkt2003@yahoo.co.in
