When I interviewed tonight's guest Lynne McTaggart for After Dark(1) back in 2002, she told me as the editor of health newsletters she looks at "medical literature and determines what is actually proven about conventional and alternative medicine [and] what works and doesn't work." It was studies of homeopathy and other alternative approaches that actually led her to begin putting together the thesis for her groundbreaking book, The Field(2).
Homeopathy(3) which seems to defy traditional scientific practices was first used by a German doctor, Samuel Hahnermann, back in the 18th century, who tested hundreds of plant, animal, and chemical substances on himself and noted his reactions. What is curious about the remedies is they often involve a very diluted amount of the original substance, sometimes containing less than a molecule of it.
But an article in the latest Psychology Today points out that subjects receiving homeopathic remedies have in numerous studies shown significantly faster recoveries from certain illnesses than those receiving a placebo. And yet organizations such as the National Council Against Health Fraud persist in associating homeopathy with quackery.
"I believe new science will explain how homeopathy works," Ellen Feingold, a pediatrician turned homeopath, told Psychology Today. And that is precisely what McTaggarthas begun to do in The Field, illuminating the quantum connections that run through physics, biology and parapsychology.
--L.L.
1. http://archive.coasttocoastam.com/afterdark/index.html
2. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006019300X/ctoc
3. http://www.homeopathic.com/