Man in his search for truth encounters the logical fact that there is nothing new under the sun. He merely rediscovers reapplies or assembles such information as may come to him, whether from physical or metaphysical sources.
Research along many different lines is bringing added proof of a remarkable degree of civilization antedating our own by what may be at least 150,000 years. It is know as the Atlantean civilization thought to have disappeared with the continent of Atlantis.
Even as we write, the public with the continent of Atlantis, that a German village pastor, who has devoted some twenty years of his life to the study of this subject, intends to spend considerable time this summer exploring what he believes to be evidence in the depths of the North Sea. Pro-Atlanteans are often referred to as Kitchen archaeologists by professionals; but those who believe in its existence point to Plato who told of Atlantis and its fabled people. So, for the purpose of this paper, let it suffice that we have Plato on our side.
It has been my privilege and pleasure to search out deeper and probably less apparent reasons and methods for and of healing and to find threads coming from antiquity.
In the course of this quest I came upon the word Huna, a Polynesian word meaning the secret; also learned of its companion word Kahuna, which means the keeper of the secret. Through 35 odd years of research and study, our friend, Max Freedom Long, among many things, found out valuable words, languages and what their meanings do and can have for mankind, not only in understanding himself as of today, but his forebears and antecedents of many, many generations past, who have left behind them writings, markings, and symbols.
For example, during a prolonged stay in the Hawaiian Islands, Long, who had majored in Psychology and Anthropology, devoted a great deal of his effort along psycho- religious lines after having learned of the ancient and mystical rights connected with the rituals of fire-walking. This brought him in contact with De. Brigham, the elderly curator of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.
Dr. Brigham was remarkable character and in the later years of his life had given up in despair trying to find a younger person to carry on his work. He took Long into his confidence, placed all records and exhibits at his disposal together with personal authenticated recital of Brighams own experience. Thus he led this good researcher further in the quest of explaining so-called magical or spiritual healing.
Conditions then favored the writing of a small booklet, simply delineating the scant information and the few facts in his possession. It happened that among many who showed interest in the subject was an English newspaper man, who had lived for many years among the Berber tribes of North Africa. He told in detail of being adopted as son by the tribes priestess-healer, an old woman. She gradually taught him the tribal language, and laid particular emphasis on the modus operandi essential to the ancestral healing techniques, custom requiring that they be handed down from generation to generation in the male line only.
To the surprise of these men, they discovered that common words with identical meanings were shared by Polynesians and Berbers leading to a most comprehensive and striking conclusion. It was found that Berber history contained some knowledge of and reference to the “lost continent” of Atlantis and to the rise and fall of what to us is modern Egyptian civilization, which existed some 5,000 years ago. Further more information showed that portions of the original Berber tribes had traveled westward in search of homes and future growth.
Taking up the Hawaiian side of the picture and working backward until a most vital contact was established, there was noted a strong possibility of continued of thought and practices in the history of man from antiquity to modern days.
The so-called homoeopathic Law of Healing has no doubt been recognized partially, if not in toto, during phases of mans evolution. It is simply recorded, for instance, in the Science of Pharmacy. The Chinese, as far back as 2,000 B.c., advocated the testing of drugs on humans. Babylonian records antedate the Chinese by 600 years, emphasizing as early as 2600 B.C. the classification, uses and methods of drug preparations.
In the writings of Hippocrates is to be found an elemental application of the Law of Similar in the treatment of a case of mania with Hellebore.
Emanuel Swedenborg, in his own right a most enlightened individual, throughout his writings frequently quoted occult sources as well as using his capacity for inductive reasoning to provide him with many of his remarkable conclusions and statements. Swedenborg, we must remember, antedates Hahnemann by barely a generation, and from the similarity in their methods of scientific investigation one cannot help but wonder as to the extend of Swedenborgs influence on Hahnemanns thinking. To revert again to the question of the historical value of the homoeopathic law, we want to quote from Judge Troward in The Law And The Word, as follows.
When we first observe the working of the Law under conditions spontaneously provided by nature, it appears to limit us; but by seeking the reason of the action exhibited under these conditions, we discover the principal and true nature of the Law in question, and we then learn from the Law itself what conditions to supply in order to give it more extended scope, and to direct its energy to the accomplishment of definite purposes.
The maxim we have to learn is that “Every Law contains in itself the principal of its own expansion,” which will set us free from the limitation which that LAw at first appears to impose upon us. The limitation was never in the Law but in the conditions under which it was working, and our power of selection enables us to provide new conditions not provided by Nature, and thus to specialize the Law and disclose immense powers which had always been latent in it, but which would forever remain hidden unless brought to light by the cooperation of the personal factor. The Law itself never changes, but we can specialize it by realizing and providing the conditions thus indicated.
Historically, the Law has record of proof. In proving his theory and directing others along the same path, Hahnemann tells them to repeat his experiments; repeat them carefully and accurately, and “you will find the doctrine confirmed at every step, it insists upon being judged by the result”.
Inherent in the Law of Similars is, of course, the fact that “the power to hurt implies the power to heal,” and, as Judge Troward pointed out, the knowledge of the Law, its application, or, as he said, its specialization, will determine upon application the result. Hahnemann, as you know, did not hesitate to point out that any agent with power adversely to effect life, health, sensation, and especially the mind, was to be considered a curative agent.
In the Organon, he refers to the necessity of psychical means of cure in conditions which originate and endure from emotional causes, such as continued anxiety, worry, vexation and exposure to terror and fright. This in essence conveys the same idea as the present day school advocating the philosophy of the psycho-somatic.
Hahnemann in his day pointed out that a knowledge of mathematics gives the requisite severity in forming judgment, a conclusion which Science of today is discovering bit by bit tot he degree that the Science of Mathematics is now looked upon as the mother of all Science and not its handmaiden. Even Constantine Hering, founder of American Homoeopathy as well as the first president of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, when warned by his apothecary against experimenting with Peruvian bark, replied, “I have studied mathematics and I am able to tell the rue from what is not true.”
The physicist and the chemist of today would be absolutely lost in the formulae, theorems and postulates without a basic knowledge of mathematics and particularly its philosophy. We need only to point out that this is another bit of evidence leading to the continuity of life and thought from the universal standpoint. May we all draw therefrom such strength and conviction that leads us through better understanding to an improved application of the Simile in our todays practice.
(I have quoted freely from the Life of Hahnemann by Rosa Hobhouse, Life and Letters of Hahnemann by Thomas L. Bradford, M.D., The Organon, Dr. Knerrs Life of Hering. I wish to acknowledge with appreciation the benefit derived from reading Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science by Eric Temple, Whats Life by Erwin Schroedinger Growth of Physical Science by Sir James Jeans.)
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