The mind is an epiphenomenon of the body, and the body is an epiphenomenon of the mind. We operate as body-minds. The body is the visibility of the soul, and the soul is the life of the body. You cannot deal with everything by sheer will power or mental approaches. We are embodied in a physical cosmos, and we have our bill to pay to physical existence. And that includes our relationship to the physical aspect of the earth . . . to plants, stones, and animals.
–Edward C. Whitmont
It is not, as some madly assert, that Alchemy makes gold and silver. Its special work is this; to make arcana and direct these to the disease.
– Paracelsus
This course is about homeopathy and depth psychology. The homeopathic constitutional remedies, which are prepared from the kingdoms of nature, present themselves in Materia Medica as discrete patterns of human behavior or personality types, each with its own imaginal reality, as though a discrete archetype with its own well defined boundary. Remedies appear as singular layers in the constitution, as a substance that resonates most clearly with the presenting symptom pattern of the sick individual. It requires imaginal and symbolic thinking that integrates the integrity of body, mind, and soul dynamics as a pattern of totality, a holistic viewpoint. Homeopathy, like depth psychology, requires an approach to the scientific method that modern science neglects in its mechanical and chemical models.
Over 200 years of well-documented clinical evidence in the homeopathic literature shows its efficacy in treating a wide variety of acute and chronic ailments in men, women, and children as well as in animals. It is safe, gentle and highly effective. The implications of the very idea of a constitutional remedy are twofold: that the energetic nature of each naturally occurring substance presents itself as a healing archetype that resonates with the imagination of the individual, and that our infirmities themselves are archetypically patterned, and to be fully understood, they must be viewed from an archetypal perspective. Disease is presented as a process of soul and imagination, an affliction of an abandoned relationship with the Self rather than a physical abnormality.
We will examine the schism in the field of medicine that began in ancient Greece, a division between the empiricists and the rationalists, which was well documented in the Hippocratic Corpus. We will also examine the alchemical influences that led to the discovery of homeopathy, particularly the work of the 16th- and 17th-century physicians, Paracelsus and Hahnemann, and show that homeopathy and depth psychology are twin souls of the ancient alchemical tradition.
The disease does not have a corpus; and what has a corpus is not disease.
Brendan Feeley grew up in the west of Ireland where he was exposed to the use of herbs for healing in his family and the local community. He is an astrologer and has practiced classical homeopathy for more than 30 years. He holds graduate degrees from Trinity College, University of Dublin, and Pacifica Graduate Institute. He can be reached at 301-424-6644 or at bpfeeley@aol.com; his website is www.bpfeeley.com.
Recommended Reading: Psyche and Substance by Edward Whitmont
