What’s true is that faith is a huge healing force irrespective of whether you choose homeopathy or allopathy. What’s not true is that this makes either any less efficacious medical system. Faith simply multiplies the dose and aids healing. This is why a bedside manner is so important. A patient who visits two different doctors for the same health complaint can feel better with the one that inspires more confidence regardless of the fact that they may both prescribe the same medication.

According to Oscar Wilde, “Scepticism is the beginning of faith”. That unbelievers make the strongest disciples can best be seen in the case of homeopathy. The great pioneers of homeopathy — including its founder, Dr Samuel Hahnemann — were originally MDs in conventional medicine, initially suspicious and unaccepting of any other healing system. It was only when they experienced homeopathy’s safe, effective and profound benefits for themselves, did they turn into staunch converts of this gentle, humane and holistic science. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. An eye-opening personal experience was exactly what turned these die-hard disbelievers into homeopathy’s strongest proponents.

Similarly, those conventional physicians, conventional medical writers and others who still remain critical of homeopathy should, in all fairness, experience it before they reject it. Try it before you fry it. If homeopathic remedies were, in truth, mere placebos, they could not have demonstrated, time and again, excellent results in infants, children and even animals. What ‘feel-good-factor’ could be at work when homeopathy provides instant relief to a crying, colicky 6-month-old baby? Could it be that animals recover when force fed tiny little so-called ‘dummy’ pills because they feel ‘psychologically good’? Dr Batra’s treats more than 200 canines everyday at an animal care centre in New Delhi with remarkable results. Dr Bharate who successfully treats wild animals, including lions, at Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park, with homeopathy, would surely be amused if told that homeopathic pills only offer a ‘feline-good-feeling’.

For those who take pride as the ‘chosen’ representatives of rational and scientific thought, it is time to recognize homeopathy as a holistic embodiment of evidence-based medicine (EBM). Homeopathy’s efficacy is evident in the plethora of ‘before-after’ reports – USG reports showing ovarian cysts gone after treatment, CT scan that reveal tumours disappearing after treatment, and blood reports demonstrating normal parameters after treatment, to name just a few. Homeopathy is a credible, rational and evidence-based replicable science.

There are dozens of double-blind trials which scientifically confirm the clinical and therapeutic efficacy of homeopathy in conditions ranging from asthma to psoriasis and depression to carpal tunnel syndrome. For those who choose to ignore the mountain of evidence in favour of homeopathy, one can only say, have faith. It can move mountains.