Healing vs. Curing

Usually we think of the term “cure” as applying to conventional medicine’s attempts to suppress symptoms with drugs. And we think of “healing” as applying to the alternative medicine’s attempts to bolster the life force to allow the person’s natural healing power to straighten things out.

So in the philosophy of natural healing, often the term “dis-ease” is used, because the whole notion of disease and cure is thought to be false. Well, it’s true that the allopathic view has corrupted the understanding of the curing of disease. But there is a deeper understanding that Dr. Hahnemann brought out, which shows that “healing” isn’t the answer to the false cures of allopathy. He discovered principles of the medical art that bring a whole new perpsective..

Heilkunst is Dr. Hahnemann’s complete system of medicine. It embodies the philosophy and principles of remediation from disease, beyond the common concept of healing that we find in the natural medicine field. Heilkunst is based on Dr. Hahnemann’s work but also draws from Rudolf Steiner, Wilhelm Reich and others of the Dynamic System.

(See What is Heilkunst?)

As we evolved spiritually over the ages, we lost some etheric vitality as a tradeoff, and took on susceptibility to disease. In order to diagnose and treat this disease, we need to understand its real nature. Dr. Hahnemann found it to be two-fold, according to the two-fold nature of the life force.

Let’s first look at traditional natural medicine, including Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and all the various modern naturopathic approaches. They’re based on the understanding of a “vital force” and they work on healing by balancing or shoring up this “vital force”. Also they work according to the principle of nature called the law of opposites.

For example, if you felt chilly and took a warm bath, that would be using the law of opposites. Or you might have a deficiency of some nutrient, or even a deficiency or excess of chi, you would treat the deficiency or excess by bringing in its opposite, increasing or decreasing the amounts to achieve balance. That’s using the law of opposites appropriately.

But Dr. Hahnemann discovered that this vital force had two distinct sides - it was actually a functional polarity and that each side of the polarity corresponded to a different principle in nature. That meant that a different principle of nature needed to be invoked in order to address each side.

Hahnemann found that the law of opposites actually doesn’t have jurisdiction in disease proper. In disease, only the law of similars has jurisdiction. The curative medicine is one that is given according to the law of similars. In other words, you would use a remedy that has been proven to have similar effects as the disease that you’re trying to cure.

Dr. Hahnemann found that using the law of similars with remedies that were highly diluted would not cause harm. The remedies are not only diluted but shaken vigorously, which activates the curative properties.

So this is the basis for understanding what Dr. Hahnemann meant by the dual nature of the life force. The two sides of the life force are the generative power, which involves the law of similars; while the sustentive power involves the law of opposites.

This means that all the natural healing approaches that are using the law of opposites are only engaging one aspect of the life force, the sustentive side. And, it is not the sustentive side which has the power to engage in the curing of disease.

Healing is the function of the sustentive side, but curing is the function of the generative side.

The true healing function comes into play after curing has been accomplished, by restoring balance and sort of cleaning up the battlefront after the battle has been won.

So, “healing” in this sense is really not the primary focus we need for annihilating disease, but “curing” is. In no other discipline except for the Dynamic System is this distinction made.

Now, to continue about curing and the generative power.. Disease is a matter of the generative power, because it is an actual impingement or impregnation by a disease entity. It’s not simply a condition arising out of an imbalance. So it needs to be treated with remedies that annihilate or extinguish the impingement.

Shoring up the life force as it exists on the etheric level can help to remedy imbalances, but true disease involves this generative aspect of the life force, and so it must be aborted like a pregnancy. And like pregnancy, you can’t undo it simply by strengthening or balancing the person’s vital force!

When there is not an actual disease process, only symptoms of imbalance, that can be corrected by healing methods that balance, because in that case, the generative force is not involved, only the sustentive force. For balancing, we can use diet, nutrition, energy healing, devices like the zapper, classical homeopathy, herbalism, bodywork, etc.

So, to sum up:

• Medicine (dynamized remedies working via the law of similars) engages the generative power and is used in the curing of disease.
• Regimen (working via the law of opposites) engages the sustentive power and is used in the healing process.

Disease requires remediation, which involves both curing (Medicine) and healing (Regimen). Imbalance only requires healing (Regimen). It’s important to understand this distinction and the different jurisdictions involved, in order to begin to understand the real nature of disease and what is required to treat it.