Interview with Homeopath Leslie Johnson on Tautopathy

Manfred Mueller, Director of The Homeopathic College, interviews homeopath Leslie Johnson.

Leslie is a new homeopath having just graduated in June 2013 from the Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine. She is a registered pharmacist in the US where she and her husband own a drugstore. I specifically wanted to know more about her interest in tautopathy¹ – the homeopathic use of a potentized drug or other offending agent to treat for the harmful effects of a crude or toxic dose of that substance/exposure.

MM: Please tell us a little more of your background and how you came to study homeopathy.

LJ: As a registered pharmacist who had worked in many areas of pharmacy including a chain store, hospital, closed-shop for the mentally ill, independent pharmacy and compounding pharmacy, I decided at age 43 to open up my own store.  My husband and I actually opened a small independently owned drug store together in a building called “The Gables Center for Natural Medicine” in our small town of Mayville located in western New York on Lake Chautauqua.

Knowing little to nothing about natural medicine, nor alternatives to allopathic medicine, I used the slow days of our start-up to read everything I could on herbs and homeopathy.  The ND who came to our building 2 days a week suggested that I carry remedies for him and gave me a list. I started learning by pumping him and his patients for information when they came to purchase the remedies. Then I took classes in the Buffalo, New York area from homeopath Joette Calabrese, RSHom(NA), CCH who held them in peoples homes in the evenings. The groups were mainly women but from varying backgrounds.  I did this for a few years, racing to Buffalo after working all day.

Then I became a patient of Joette’s and used homeopathic medicines to treat my stress load – working 50 hours a week at a new business and raising a family with 3 children!  The remedies she used were amazing and I was so much better so fast that I wondered: “Why are we not shouting about Homeopathy from the rooftops?”  After this, I bought books and began treating small issues with my family and customers who would specifically ask for something natural. I never pushed homeopathy but once I brazenly treated a local dentist for tendonitis with Ruta 30c!

It was on a Mission Trip to Haiti where I was absolutely SOLD on homeopathy.  I treated three different people on my team with three different remedies.  All were different situations and on all different days. The first was a young woman with violent diarrhea and vomiting as we left for Haiti in Pittsburgh airport. Arsenicum album 30c worked in ONE dose, and I did not dare to tell her mother (a nurse practitioner) just what exactly I had used!  The second was a nurse with terrible diarrhea and cramps, using the outhouse-latrine (an awful place to be sick) who complained to me how she felt. One dose of Colocynthis 30c fixed her so well she never had a repeat episode and was able to teach Bible stories all afternoon – far away from any bathroom! The last was a gal who had never stepped foot outside of the US and could not sleep a wink for three nights there. She said she could just not get comfortable, so I gave her Arnica 30c which cured this in one night. All were amazed, but no one more than I. And with just ONE dose?!

I could not wait until I could officially study this fascinating science.  In September 2010 I began my 3 year course at the Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine.  My goal is to help people that are searching and not finding what they are looking for in other fields of medicine or alternatives. There are areas that are not touched by other means, and homeopathy IS the right medicine.

MM: I love stories like this. As a part of your graduation with honors, you wrote a lengthy paper on the use of Tautopathic remedies within the homeopathic practice. How did you come to choose this interesting topic as the subject for your paper?

LJ: In order to graduate from the Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine (CCHM) with Honors, the Independent Research Paper (IRP) is a requirement. I was quite afraid to tackle a big paper, as I had not done one since my early college days back in 1979!  Pharmacy school is mainly about chemistry, math and the sciences. Rarely does one ever have to write a paper. So that alone was daunting!

I was originally thinking about what topics would be applicable in my pharmacy business.  We have many patients with ailments and illnesses that would be interesting to research along with homeopathic remedies that may help their condition.  When I first thought of the topic of Tautopathy, it was perfect for me as it combines my knowledge of prescription drugs, vaccines, medicines AND homeopathy. It encompasses any condition in its scope.  It is limitless in its possibilities. Learning more about this part of homeopathy also interested me, as our CCHM course touched on Tautopathy mainly to introduce us to the topic and briefly describe its usefulness.  I yearned to know more.

There are so many patients who I have met that have had reactions to vaccines or to medicines!  To think that a remedy made from that “offending substance” could possibly undo the damage from that reaction was fascinating to me.  While traveling to Toronto for my classes, I listened to Manfred Mueller’s lectures on the topic that I had borrowed from Joette and could not believe my ears.  That started me on my quest for more information on this topic. I wished I could be taking notes instead of driving!

MM: Using homeopathy to antidote the effects of irritating causes seems like a logical use for homeopathy. Yet, I am always surprised that more homeopaths aren’t seeing that drugs, vaccines, toxins and other exposures are leaving a more lasting effect on people’s health. In other words, they are failing to see the need to use homeopathy to antidote these effects. As a pharmacist, you must see a lot of casualties from the effects of conventional treatments. Can you give me a few examples that stand out in your mind?

LJ: There are hundreds of examples I could give you but here are two that particularly stand out:

Example 1: MM was an elderly woman taking Ibuprofen daily for knee pain as advised by her doctor. She ended up in kidney failure!  This is a case where Ibuprofen 30c may have been effective for her pain without the side effects and the end result of kidney failure!  Also, it may have been used tautopathically to reverse the damage from the kidney failure as well.

Example 2: SS: A young woman about 24 years of age had a severe reaction to her first Influenza vaccine. This was about 2 years ago now.  She started having hypersensitivity reactions to food and drinks, but mainly to food.  She would become red-faced, red-chested and very short of breath.  She ended up on an Epi-Pen and Benadryl regularly to reduce this reaction.  When she got pregnant, everything went away but now that she has had the baby it is back albeit to a lesser degree.  She would have benefited greatly from using the tautopathic remedy made from that specific years flu vaccine.

MM: It must be difficult for you now to be still immersed in the world of allopathic pharmacy as you have graduated from homeopathic school and have already had such good successes with homeopathy. Would you care to comment a little further?

LJ: I would have to say that I am just plain “disappointed” in the world of pharmacy and prescription drugs. After 30 + years as a pharmacist, I am disappointed that the US has not come any further in truly, truly helping people with overall health and wellness.  There is an awful lot of talk, but really not much in terms of results. It is almost as if we are “stuck” at this point, and unwilling to move forward and think out of the “prescription drug box”.

Alternatives to drugs are out there with herb shops aplenty, and grass-roots individuals working hard to grow their own food and take fewer medicines but never anything official coming from the government about overall health.  LOTS of obesity-talk, mainly due to TV shows like “Biggest Loser” and Michele Obama mentioning that she would focus on childhood obesity and nutrition, but really not much action.  By that I mean REAL investigations into our foods and our medicines – two areas that are making us less healthy, not MORE healthy.

We are just such a nation of “big business” now that any threat to these conglomerations is snuffed.  In my years as a pharmacist I see people adding medicines…rarely subtracting…and adding pounds too.  Then they ache all over and are exhausted, so exercise is torture. When I bring up the topic of food, EVERYONE says they eat good. EVERYONE!  Not one person has ever said that they don’t!!  It is incredible.  When you actually start explaining and informing them about good nutrition, they almost do not believe you…they are so entrenched in eating out of the grocery store freezer aisles and fast food chains. Our whole way of thinking needs to change, and those individuals trying to encourage the change are often labeled as “kooks” or as paranoid neurotics.  We need more professionals realizing that things are not improving in the US (health-wise) and clearing away the mire of misinformation to get to the truth…both nutritionally and medicinally.

In my little corner of Western New York…I am starting now. One customer/patient at a time!

MM: Absolutely! We’ve come to the conclusion that there is a black out on “real” health and how to attain it for the simple reason that sick people bring “them” more money by way of more doctor visits, more prescriptions, more hospital stays, more goods and more services. I’m sure I’ve left out a few! Oh yeah, earlier graves!

The power of homeopathy and especially, the use of homeopathy to “antidote” harmful influences, is immense and will always set homeopathy apart. Personally, I believe we homeopaths should fight in every state and province in the US and Canada to have what they have in the UK and India, for example – homeopathic hospitals and treatment facilities. Besides, clinical homeopathy would save every government and taxpayer untold amounts of money; the quality of care would increase; the casualties would decrease.

Leslie, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your unique perspective with us. Thank you so much and best of luck in your endeavors.

 

Footnotes:

1. Mr. Mueller has the following to say of the word “tautopathy” in his article “The Practice of Tautopathy During the Classical Era of Homeopathy”:

“P. Sankaran informed us that Mr Dudley Wooton Everitt, the late director of Nelsons Homeopathic Pharmacy in London coined the term “tautopathy.”¹ Everitt was a Trustee of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital who reportedly donated “boxed homeopathic remedies to every graduate of the Missionary School of Medicine.” He also contributed to homeopathic provings, including in the elder Sankaran’s provings of Atrax robustus and Hydrophys cyanocincta. Everitt was a passionate supporter of homeopathy until he and sixteen homeopathic physicians died tragically in the 1972 Trident air disaster.²

Yasgur defines tautopathy as a form of isotherapy, primarily reserved for treating the effect of conventional drugs.³ Another form of isotherapy is isopathy. Isopathy has been around for centuries: it is the practice of employing a product of a disease for the prevention or cure of that same disease. Variolation was such a practice – a pre-Jennerian method of inoculation with pus from a smallpox eruption against a future smallpox outbreak.”

 

If you are interested in learning more on Tautopathy, please visit the links below:

• The Practice of Tautopathy During the Classical Era of Homeopathy: A Review of the Literature, article by Manfred Mueller, MA, DHM, RSHom(NA), CCH
• Mr. Mueller’s tutorials on the subject of Tautopathy and Antidoting
• Mr. Mueller Interviewed By Alan Schmukler of Hpathy.com
• Interview on Reverse Chronological Tautopathy
• Any of the Blog posts under the Tautopathy category

Header Photo Credit: Fellowships of the Spirit