Erik Van Woensel interviewed by Anthony Carlyle
How did you come across homeopathy?
Our mother was always interested in natural healing methods and for instance, in springtime she used to give us herbal teas to ’clean the blood’. We were also never vaccinated. The only allopathic medication we used was aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid a very common allopathic medicine, incidentally, made from willow leaves). When I was about 15 years old, I caught influenza, and I asked the local pharmacist if he had something else than aspirin. He gave me a bottle containing a homeopathic remedy. which managed to cure of the influenza so effectively and much quicker than aspirin could have done, which naturally made me very interested in finding out more about homeopathy. It turned out that our local village pharmacist was a huge fan of homeopathy, and he gave me some books to read. This was a huge risk because at that time homeopathy was actually forbidden in Belgium and even pharmacies were not allowed to keep any homeopathic remedies in stock in the shop. But this local village pharmacist was a very convinced and convincing follower of homeopathy. Since the beginning of the twentieth century homeopathy was forbidden in Belgium and homeopathic hospitals were closed. Nowadays homeopathy can only be practised by medical doctors, dentists and midwives.
What made you become a homeopath and how did you start your practice?
I continued reading about homeopathy during this period from 15 to 18 years. When I finished high school, I had to do civil service for 18 months instead of military service. At that time I was working in a geriatric centre and had more time to study. I took classes about homeopathic Materia Medica from a local successful homeopath called Remi Indekeu. Later I met a well-known and successful Belgian homeopath, Luc Chaltin. And when I saw how these two people were working, I got the idea of becoming a homeopath.
Even when I had just started studying the books from the local pharmacist, people started asking me for remedies for simple (acute) things like coughs or colds. Later when I was about 20 years old, I started to prescribe remedies for chronic complaints. I opened a practice in the Netherlands in 1986 when I was 24 years old, because at that time homeopathy was still forbidden in Belgium.
You started a school for homeopathy more than 25 years ago, tell us how it went with the school.
From 1990 until 1999 I was teaching in a school in the south of the Netherlands. In 1995 I opened my own training centre – ’Educatief Centrum voor Homeopathie’ – to be able to organize classes I could not do within the structure of the school where I was teaching. In my school I had different supervision groups. I also organised George Vithoulkas’ video courses for about 8 years. Nowadays the school has changed into ’Institute of Classical Homeopathy Erik Van Woensel’ to meet the demands on international level and to be able to organize the e-learning.
What kind of challenges were there with the students?
The challenge in homeopathy is always to make sure that students get the correct information and learn how to recognize it. There is a lot of literature that uses the name ‘homeopathy’, but that in fact has nothing to do with homeopathy. This is still a major problem, for students.
Can you say something about how homeopathy has developed since you started as a homeopath?
Homeopathy and its application have been well-described by Samuel Hahnemann. What happened after him is that there have been a few very talented homeopaths who have been able to clarify different aspects of the practical application of homeopathy. This has helped a lot to structure the thinking of homeopaths.
Unfortunately, in the 1990s there were some teachers who brought confusion to the practical application of homeopathy. They presented information that was supposed to be a new development in homeopathy, when it was a return to the pre-homeopathy epoch where medicines were prescribed based on assumptions instead of facts. Samuel Hahnemann introduced a scientific system of healing as a reaction to the medieval-barbaric medicine that was based on the theory that the body was composed of four humours or liquids (yellow bile, phlegm, black bile, and blood) and that illness occurred when these humours were out of balance. Treatments often focused on restoring balance, such as bloodletting, cupping, and leeching. He clearly stated that speculative information based on appearance (’signatures’), smell, taste, chemical analysis, etcetera is not useful information to base a Materia Medica and therapy on. The only scientific information we have access to are poisonings, provings and clinical experience. Therefore, it surprised me that those teachers started to spread this type of information, which clearly is a step backwards not a forward development.
This has done a lot of damage to homeopathy.
What advice would you give to:
A. People struggling to study homeopathy
Look for correct information to start with. Look for a teacher who has enough experience to be able to show how to apply homeopathy in a scientific way as propounded by Samuel Hahnemann.
It is necessary to get examples of patients from practice that have had follow-ups of at least 2 years, and that have had reactions that confirm the laws of cure, proving that the defence mechanism of the patient actually has recuperated.
B. New graduates who wish to start up in a large city.
Starting a new practice takes time, no matter what discipline you want to practise. Often it takes up to 5 years to have a well-running practice. You must start by making sure that people know where you are and what you have to offer. In fact, the best promotion is cured patients, because they will tell others. In this way your practice will grow organically. It is also important in the beginning to have the support of an experienced homeopath who can help you to find a correct remedy for your patients.
C: Homeopaths who do not have so much success in their practice?
Well in any independent discipline (not supported by the state) there are people who are successful and others who are not. It is difficult to foresee. Usually, it depends on letting potential clients know where you are and informing them about what you do.
You have co-written some books with George Vithoulkas, Can you tell us about working with George?
When I gave a lecture during the annual meeting of the dealers of the Radar program in 2004 at his academy in Alonnisos, George Vithoulkas approached me and asked me if I could assist him with the preparation of the Materia Medica Viva, which I agreed to.
A few years later when I showed him my book ’Classical Homeopathy Evidence Based Medicine’, he asked me to help him to write the book called “Levels of Health”. Someone else had made an attempt that had resulted in an essay of 17 pages, but George preferred to have a real book including cases very similar to the way I present cases in my books. So, I studied the theory of the Levels of Health and wrote the theoretical part. I then worked with him in Alonnisos where he revised in the morning whatever I had written the day before and in the afternoon, and in the evening I changed the text according to his comments and advice. Later I wrote the cases and added them to the first edition of the book.
It was a very interesting experience working with George Vithoulkas because of his deep understanding of homeopathy and the clarity of his thinking. He has been able to connect the homeopathic information with modern scientific knowledge and has clarified a lot of issues, making the application of homeopathy much easier for modern homeopaths.
How do you explain homeopathy to a confirmed skeptic especially the idea that your system is evidence-based?
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) means a systematic approach that integrates the best available research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. It involves using research findings to guide clinical decisions, ensuring that patients receive the most effective and appropriate care. Evidence-based is not clearly defined assessment of a therapy.
In this way, it is very easy to apply these standards to homeopathy, which was developed by Samuel Hahnemann as the first scientific healing method.
As I explain in my books, homeopathy stimulates the patient’s defence mechanism, and this can easily be proved by the laws of cure that we use to assess our patients in homeopathy. Already in the Organon (for instance in paragraphs 201 and 216) Hahnemann gives observations how the defence mechanism can protect the life of the patient by shifting life-threatening symptoms to other harmless parts of the organism. This has led to the development of the directions of cure (also called Hering’s laws). These directions of cure describe how symptoms behave when there is curative action of a remedy. This change in symptoms we now know is due to the recuperation of the defence mechanism that is better able to protect the vital organs. I have described it extensively in my books “Classical Homeopathy. Evidence-based Medicine.
People who are skeptical about homeopathy usually do not know a lot about this subject. When they improve their knowledge, they usually lose the skepticism, because it is a very logical system of healing.
As for the real skeptics I ask them to take a remedy in high potency daily as we do in a proving and then they will see automatically how it works.
Your system of finding the correct remedy involves lots of steps and might be abandoned quickly by less conscientious homeopaths, how would you justify the amount of time needed to go through a case?
The system I present has been developed over a period where I had many patients, often one appointment every 30 minutes. To be able to deal with the number of patients and information I had to work in a quick and practical way. Therefore, I tried to understand how the brain goes through the information and how it processes it. In this way I developed the steps of the Strategies and Techniques in Analysis. The only way to be successful in homeopathy is by knowing what you are doing with the information at every moment.
I understand that studying my way of analysing cases might take some time, but once you understand the way of thinking, it makes prescribing much easier and much faster. Especially if you understand how to differentiate remedies with the physical generals as Boenninghausen and Kent advise.
You have talked about rewriting the Materia Medica, could you describe the reasons for doing this and how is it going?
The Materia Medica is the basis of homeopathy. Without a trustworthy Materia Medica we will fail as a homeopath. Therefore, this information has to be without mistakes. I have noticed that over time many different authors have copied Materia Medicas and while doing so have made mistakes and have written things in a different way than was originally intended. For instance, the prover had a particular desire for salty food and in his Materia Medica, we find lots of new mentions of a desire for salt.
Samuel Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura is a masterpiece of observation and of presentation of information. And his close followers also wrote very reliable Materia Medicas. Unfortunately, they are often not used anymore.
I am trying to get rid of the mistakes in our Materia Medica and look for the original symptoms so that we will again have a reliable source that is up to date.
What would you say to critics who disavow homeopathy because of its claim to potencies extremely poisonous substances by using the system of diluting and shaking these often deadly substances to bring out their curative sides? Also, is there any previous history of potentiation at all, or was Samuel Hahnemann the first person to invent or publicise this method?
Samuel Hahnemann was a genius and one of his qualities was that he could use information from a certain source to solve a problem in another area. For instance, he observed that in an epidemic the guiding symptoms of the remedy for the epidemic are usually not found in only one patient. But he emphasized that you have to collect these guiding symptoms from different patients and then see the pattern. This information he used to solve the problem of the re-appearance of chronic symptoms in patients which led to his theory of Miasms.
When he started applying homeopathy there were strong aggravations because of the similarity of the medicines and in some cases too high doses. But diluting alone made the medicines too weak. As he describes himself in the footnote of Paragraph 269 in the Organon, he used the idea of friction as is applied on materials (magnets, making wood burn) to provoke energy. But he was the first who used it in liquids.
Samuel Hahnemann always informs the reader where he gets information from and admits himself that what he does is not always original. But he was the first one who could see the connection between many different kinds of information and transformed it into a useful scientific therapy.
A real critic is someone who wants to understand. To those I also propose to experience it themselves. The others who only want to get attention by trying to ridicule are not worth paying any attention to.
Some schools of homeopathy have claimed to make provings of things like the Berlin Wall or Trump’s hair, for example, and what would be the problem with newer provings like these for example.
What most homeopaths do not understand anymore is that a proving is a simulation of a natural infection or disease. Samuel Hahnemann writes about the natural disease and the artificial disease (the proving). The reason why the Law of Similars works is because both the symptoms of the Materia Medica and the natural disease stem from the same thing: the defence mechanism reacting to a stressor.
So a proving is a situation in which we alter the condition of the organism, we unbalance it and change the metabolism. In this way the defence mechanism must spring into action to protect the vital organs and starts to produce symptoms. In the same way as it does in its reaction to a natural disease. This can only be done when we do a proving that reaches the level of a sub-intoxication. It cannot be done by meditating or doing dream provings. These types of so-called provings have nothing in common with the provings which Samuel Hahnemann developed.
Remember that the first symptoms of the Materia Medica come from poisonings. But of course, in a proving there is no intent or purpose to poison anyone. Therefore, we stop dosing when the reaction comes, it is at the level of sub-intoxication.
Also, the remedies we find in Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura were the substances already being used as medicines. But Hahnemann wanted to know in a scientific way what their use was and therefore did provings with them.
Could you describe what new things you are working on at the moment, and how do you go about doing it?
My aim is to clarify some aspects of homeopathy because so much confusing information has been spread over the last 30 years under the name of homeopathy. So many books have homeopathy in their title that have nothing to do with it.
To clarify some theory and case analysis I have written the two volumes of “Classical Homeopathy – Evidence-based Medicine” and the “Levels of Health case studies”.
The next step is to clarify some aspects of the Materia Medica, because also a lot of misinformation has been published about this subject which confuses students and practitioners.
When preparing Materia Medica I realized that the only way to clarify it, would be to look for the original source of every symptom. A big problem is that through the years many writers have simply copied the mistakes of others. So, when you look for the original source, mistakes become clear. In my Materia Medica every symptom will have the code of the original author.
Now, I am working on the first step of the Materia Medica project, which is now the most urgent for students and practitioners. It is a book that concentrates on the physical generals of the remedies. Because the physical general symptoms are the most important to differentiate the remedies, it is especially important that homeopaths have access to correct information to be able to prescribe the most similar remedy.
After finishing the Materia Medica project, I would like to make some adjustments to the Repertory, but I do not know if I have enough time to do this.
How much time do you spend on travelling giving seminars?
Since the covid pandemic most of the seminars have been changed into webinars. So, traveling has been reduced a lot. Personally, I prefer “live” meetings because the interaction with participants is much better.
How do you see homeopathy developing in the next 50 years or the next century?
The development of homeopathy is in the hands of the homeopathic community itself. It is particularly important that the community returns to study the original ideas behind homeopathy to realize the wrong direction homeopathy has taken. I already mentioned, for instance, the use of signatures which Hahnemann was completely against.
What do you enjoy with homeopathy? Is it teaching, is it listening to the patient and finding out the correct remedy, or is it solving the problems that they have on the way to becoming well again, or just hearing people saying, “thanks for helping me?”
What I enjoy about homeopathy is that it is a true science. If you study Hahnemann’s Organon thoroughly you will understand the scientific method with which he developed homeopathy. With every subject he writes about, he explains where the idea comes from and how he came to certain conclusions. It is all based on facts and completely logical. Nothing is based on presumptions or fantasies. This scientific basis will emerge as you are able to look back over a case and recognize it when you apply homeopathy in the way S. Hahnemann explained. To see the way how a symptom pattern that has appeared in the provings, presents itself in the same way in a patient, and how this leads to a cure of a certain pathology, is one of the most interesting experiences one can have in life.
The most interesting realisation is that not only the pathology becomes better, but that there is amelioration in all parts of that human being improving the quality of life. It is a whole new dimension that opens where you can see the action of the laws of health and disease. The effect of homeopathy is remarkably different from the one allopathy has. It is not comparable.
The moment humanity realizes and understands what Samuel Hahnemann has been able to discover; he will have a statue in every important city in the world.
What are the chances of homeopathy taking over from allopathy as the most popular kind of medicine?
The chances are exceedingly small, because the pharmaceutical industry has too much power and will never share its position with another therapy or approach as it does not want to lose money.
What about the criticism of Homeopathic medicine for lacking the expertise to carry out physical operations, how could homeopaths work together with surgeons?
I have had the opportunity to work with different surgeons in Latin America and Europe. There are always medical doctors and specialists that are honest enough to admit the limitations of their therapy and whose primary goal is still the patient’s well-being. If they know the quality of the work of a well-experienced homeopath, they will approach him/her when they cannot find a solution for one of their patients
What about the quality of the homeopathic remedies? Is there room for any improvements?
We have good enough laboratories all over the world at the moment.
What improvements would you recommend for training new homeopaths?
A homeopathic training should concentrate on teaching the scientific basis of homeopathy. Too many homeopaths have no idea of what homeopathy really is and what they are doing. Once students understand the logic of homeopathy, it becomes much easier to apply it. Apart from this it is particularly important for students to understand which symptoms of the patient are distinctive, because not everything the patient says is useful to find the most similar remedy. The Materia Medica should be limited to only the most important symptoms of the remedies because it is not possible to learn all the symptoms of a remedy from the beginning.
Important is of course the practical application of homeopathy, where students first should have the opportunity to see how a homeopath works and then step-by-step be introduced to practising homeopathy.