This article was written by Antonie Peppler, the founder of Creative Homeopathy, who talks about the different layers of disease and how they are interconnected. With this, she touches on symptom language and how our subconscious mind communicates messages through the body—what we call somatization. Also, she goes into esoteric concepts like “Karma” and how they relate to epigenetics.
The Three Layers of Illness
The acute Layer of a Disease
To understand the meaning of these “stress issues,” one should know the three levels of observation inside the explanatory model.
Firstly, we have the acute layer. Here we find everything that afflicts us. Direct symptoms such as colds, coughs, the “thick neck” of tonsillitis, the speechlessness of Laryngitis, accidents and injuries, or simple emotions such as rage and anger are all acute symptoms. They are an immediate expression, an answer to situations we find ourselves in.
The second layer, beneath, contains chronic occurrences, everything that, so to say, through frequent repetition, has become “established.” Today our daily life is characterized by compromises, some of which are voluntary, others simply common sense, and to accept them sometimes testifies to our lived-out social competence.
If we do this more and more unwillingly and eventually refuse to do it, for example, in the implementation of our demands, so we do not resolve the relevant issues but only suppress them. Sometimes this suppression is essential (for survival), a control mechanism to avoid simultaneously processing too many emotional problems. At first, suppressing a situation and glossing it over appears much more straightforward than the persistent confrontation with their own will. It becomes problematic when we forget our “skeletons in the cupboard.”
The Chronic Issues
The resolution of a chronic issue does not only mean that we assert ourselves, show the strength of will, etc., but, much more, that we ask the question of why an aspect under consideration appears so disturbing or essential, why we have chosen a particular pattern of behavior, and what we, in the positive sense, want to learn from it. Why did we need to conform, and did we even want to? And how much is there of, but “one must” be for or against it, of being pliant or cool, giving in or having to get your way, how much of this is really to do with ourselves, and how much conforms to the expectations of others?
Latent communications and relationship crises have a high affinity to the resolution of chronic processes. From this point of view, a completely different understanding opens itself up to constant head or stomach aches, and many skin diseases are considered defense reactions.
Our daily life and love life mainly offer unbelievable scope for such compromises: she wanted to study, he actually to go abroad, and both didn’t want any children, house, or to land in the family trap. She tried to tell her boss what she thought and her bothersome colleague as well, but the right moment never came up. He hates ties and blue suits, yet the company dress code and his wife are enthusiastic about them. That is all superficiality, unimportant.
Epigenetics and Karma
The third, deeper layer ultimately contains the pre-conditioning from tradition, epigenetics, and “karma.”
The theme of inherited experiences has been particularly disputed again and again in the last, one could even say, millennia. In 2009 human geneticists from Tufts University first proved experimentally that experiences or inhibiting genomic imprinting are not the only ones that are inherited. Still, these therapeutically corrected and improved experiences and abilities can also be passed down, although the “genetic” suppression is still apparently present.
On this new position of the Epigeneticists, we realize how little we, in truth, know about this mechanism, and we get an idea that precisely to this layer, where in Creative Homeopathy, the so-called “beliefs” have their origin, is attached a considerable significance.
On the questions of belief and opinion around the theme of the soul, karma, the lost twin, and other divine sparks, ideas tend to differ sharply. Prenatal imprinting, the (too) loud or quiet noise around, maternal stress – that we leave as influencing factors still apply. However, karma is, for most people, too “far-fetched.”
Any belief is too much for rational atheists; to the faithful, the divine is perhaps more desirable than anything else. The agnostic stands calmly in between his “belief in possibilities.”
But the fact is: that we cannot prove something does not mean that it does not exist, but simply that we cannot perceive it with our senses. But evidently, the mists are clearing: ultimately, the epigenetic proof of the inheritance of experiences, or the resulting behavior patterns, is reasonably good proof for the existence of something which could also be referred to as an aspect of karma.
[1st sentence of 4th paragraph under “The Three Layers of Illness”] “If we do this more and more unwillingly and eventually refuse to do it, for example, in the implementation of our demands, so we do not resolve the relevant issues but only suppress them.” This sentence is hard to follow…could it be clarified or reworded? [Last sentence of 1st paragraph under “The Chronic Issues”] “And how much is there of, but “one must” be for or against it, of being pliant or cool, giving in or having to get your way, how much of this is really to do with ourselves, and how much conforms to the expectations of others?” This sentence is also confusing and hard to follow.