Jason-Aeric Huenecke of Oceans
Northwestern Academy of Homeopathy Class VII Commencement Speech
9 April 2011
I want to dedicate this talk with an open heart to these graduating students of homeopathy who are entering the infinity of worlds that each of us bring to every dynamic into which we enter.
Tonight the graduating students requested that I speak about homeopathic provings. I will do so with gratitude to Samuel Hahnemann who instructs homeopathic practitioners via the Organon of the Medical Art on how to practice homeopathy and to do homeopathic provings.
What are homeopathic provings? They are the method by which we discern what healing powers a substance holds and expresses in the human being. In a proving a volunteer takes a dose of a homeopathically prepared substance. The substance given in a double blind format frees all concerned from prejudice or speculation of what symptoms the substance may produce in the healthy human individual. Over the course of several weeks, usually two or three months, there are careful observations of self and symptoms by the prover and her supervisor. Provings are always the primary source of homeopathic information.
Proving substances teach us by producing signs and symptoms in a healthy individual; these symptoms become a part of our Materia Medica the compilation of all of the provers’ symptoms that express the genius within the substance. The clear totality of symptoms from the proving will inevitably provide much needed healing to someone who is suffering.
It is important to understand that homeopathic provings are a cornerstone of homeopathic practice.
The definition of a homeopathic proving: “A homeopathic proving is a systematic observation and recording of symptoms which are produced by the defined administration of a homeopathic drug or drug-like effective substance, not yet homeopathically proved, to healthy persons (provers, volunteers).”
It is also important to understand what your loved one is embarking upon in entering her or his homeopathic practice. They will open their doors to those who are suffering and they will be asked to hold an infinity of worlds. They are charged with the task of listening without prejudice, to the world of each individual suffering in their own unique way, and to come to understand that world enough to prescribe a single homeopathic remedy that matches their symptoms in order to stimulate their innate healing powers and be restored to health.
This is no easy task to be free of prejudice, to love unconditionally, to stick to the person’s sensations, to hold another’s inner world and come to understand as deeply as possible how they suffer then to match this to a remedy. It is no easy task and yet, it is possible. Homeopathy helps countless individuals to be freed of long held suffering and live richer and fuller lives, freeing them from the finite to live infinitely.
Studying homeopathy and participating in a proving helped these brave students to clarify their unique way of suffering and recognize that which they have believed to unlovable in their lives, thus enabling them to see more clearly their own and others’ suffering. Each student has successfully navigated major transformations from the recognition of their own suffering and healing, including births and deaths, separations, divorces, major life moves, and relocations, in order to step more fully into their lives.
The graduates are transforming their lives right before your eyes. The proving process has helped many of these individuals come to know that homeopathy is the right choice for them professionally.
One student writes, “When I saw the dreams of the Snapping Turtle provers I knew I had made the right decision to become a homeopath. The power of the remedy to penetrate into the psyche and sing its song uncompromised – as happens in dreams – was undeniable. On the whole, the provers were having similar dreams. That the dream themes were inextricably linked to weave the environment and natural problems facing the snapping turtle (being stuck in the mud, sitting high on a vista, looking serenely at the surroundings)– floored and inspired me.”
What homeopathic provings teach us is that anything in the world can be transformed into a homeopathic remedy (including ourselves). Provings teach us that we can use everything we do to help us to realize that we are a part of the energy that creates everything.
In a certain sense, your loved one, each of these graduating students, has been honing their lives to live homeopathically; they have been in an intense ongoing proving of their own lives for over four and a half years. Why have they done this? I believe that they have done this in order to offer the first remedy to whomever enters their caring embrace, that first remedy is of course love.
If the homeopathic practitioner has this insight, discernment, knowledge and awareness then she understands how to act expediently and thoroughly, and she is a genuine practitioner of the homeopathic medical art.
Thank you.
Epicurus in a letter to Herodotus writes, “The sum of things is infinite. For what is finite has an extremity, and the extremity of anything is discerned only by comparison with something else. Now the sum of things is not discerned by comparison with anything else: hence it has no extremity, it has no limit; and, since it has no limit, it must be unlimited or infinite… …moreover, there is an infinite number of worlds, some like this world, others unlike it. For the atoms being infinite in number… …are borne ever further in their course. For the atoms out of which a world might arise, or by which a world might be formed, have not all been expended on one world or a finite number of worlds, whether like or unlike this one. Hence there will be nothing to hinder an infinity of worlds.”