The problem of tracing in an individual the origin of disease and its subsequent pattern of development, is not peculiar to the complementary therapies, though it may be especially acute for them. Like orthodox medicine, many of them avoid the issue by simply addressing the presenting symptoms. Homoeopathy, declaring itself above such issues, raises the art of addressing symptoms to new levels of refinement and discrimination. Only Elmiger's Sequential Therapy, by focusing on, and retracing, the historical development of disease in an individual's whole life, does address the issue homoeopathically. Acupuncture, on the other hand, does seek a chain of causality through a combination of acute observation of symptoms and application of universal laws. Sazonova, Kosareva, & Manchonkena point out that the concept of causal chains in bioenergetic functional medicine is analogous to that of disharmony in Chinese medicine: both show that a damaged organ can be, in different individuals, the cause of different diseases, or disease patterns.
If we may, for present purposes, use the term Soma to designate the functional unity of body and mind, it may be fair to say that no therapy as yet deals adequately with the full scope of causality in the Soma. Causes are addressed as either physical or psychological and not as a hybrid of the two; causal chains in their current form, are corporeal chains. It is a little surprising to realise that the therapies focusing on the less tangible, psychological elements of the Soma, are much more inclined to have an interest in the underlying, often hidden, causality of a state. It is, indeed, the central concern of Freudian, Jungian, and analytical psychology. Even in hypnotherapy, which is really not that interested in mysteries, the identification of the initial sensitising event and its subsequent reinforcement, is a common and basic object of the analytic therapeutic process. Its achievement is usually rapidly followed by a modification of the significance of that event for the patient. Deep recall, which typically involves body, brain, and emotion, permits a re-evaluation of the original stimulus; and its changed resonances, working down the time-line, create changes in the patient's current behaviour.
Nonetheless, there seems to be no therapy which traces the reciprocal causal links between the body and the psyche, in a way rigorous enough to permit prediction, or even simply pattern definition.
Possibly the complexity of the human system renders such a vision impossible in principle. Perhaps we are hampered by an underlying and unspoken supposition that there is a potential state of perfect health,or of perfect balance, in body, mind, or both. Yet where are the perfect specimens amongst us? Everyone, everyone, seems to have some disease, some area of at least a mild malfunction. It might be wiser and more correct to consider a degree of dysfunction not simply normal, but natural and right. Such mild and transitory dysfunction may be the necessary condition which makes possible the quite remarkable dynamic homoeostasis of the human organism.It is rigidity of performance which is often a sign of ill health, whether, for instance, in heart rate variability, or in behavioural disturbances: it is a sign of the failure to adapt to the constant changes within the organism, or its environment.
In this light, both Schimmel's concept of Functional Medicine, and Voll's Regulatory Medicine make perfect sense: they aim to maintain dysfunctional process within reasonable bounds, allowing homoeostasis to operate effectively. This permits the physical structures and the processes which have been disturbed to recover where this is still possible. Pathogenic and pathological conditions are checked, ideally, at a pre-clinical stage, because functional disturbances are fundamentally energetic in nature, and therefore more difficult for conventional medicine -- based on structures and chemistry -- to detect. Schimmel's Functional Medicine is primarily a technique for the detection, recording, and reordering of energetic and functional disruption.
His view is that “ functional ' (or regulatory) disorders are affected by preclinical functional - energetic disease states , or energetically masked disease states. These may be uncomfortable, unpleasant, or downright disruptive, but are given scant attention in modern orthodox medicine.
Although conventional medicine finds difficulty in detecting functional disturbances and causal chains, in Schimmel's view Electro-acupuncture after Voll and Bio-Energetic Regulation ( EAV & BER) are viable methods, and the combination of subjective Vega-testing and objective CompSeg measurement were ideal. Now that the latter is no longer easily available, additional objective techniques may be desirable.
The concept and detailing of causal chains are the outgrowth of Schimmel's work over a long period of gestation, involving a number of collaborators, and the testing and treatment of more than 1000 patients. The notion of causal chains therefore arises not as a theoretical speculation, but from extensive clinical experience.
The core of the concept is that in illness, and especially in chronic illness, the effects of dysfunction may spread to any organ in a reciprocal or subordinate relation to the organ first troubled, and thence to others, so creating a chain of causality. Schimmel came later to consider these more as networks than as chains, but it was then too late to change the term which had passed into common usage. It is nonetheless helpful to think of the identified chains in this way.
As noted above, the effects of causal chains, in all their complex diversity, are analogous to the ramified effects of disharmony in Chinese medicine. It is natural then, that the aetiology of the chains is to a considerable degree related to the energy of the meridians, and the meridian-based links and associations can help in understanding symptoms not readily explained by normal anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry.
In five-element acupuncture, given 12 individuals with the same illness -- let us say I.B.S.-- there could be 12 different points of origin; in other words for each patient a different causative " official" might be identified. In the same way, in the causal chains concept, the same damaged organ could be the origin, in different patients, of various different diseases or disease patterns (syndromes). This is also true of Homotoxicology.
What is lacking in in the concept, however, is a set of principles by which chains may develop, whereas in five element acupuncture there are, for example, the Shen and Ko cycles, the Mother /Son Law, etc. They are replaced by pragmatic measurement with the CompSeg or Mora, or the vegetative reflex of the Vega testing. Perhaps these very different conceptual characteristics reflect the ages and cultural preoccupations of the societies in which they developed: the problem of creating an orderly and law-regulated society in ancient China, and the problem of measuring scientifically and regulating our experience of all aspects of reality today.
Schimmel is explicit about the links with acupuncture theory and practice, and insists that the causal chains are maintained by, and therefore expressions of, Chi energy.
In describing the chains in detail, he lists not only the anatomical and physiological links between the organs of the chains, but also details and links them through the acupuncture meridians, which can often make good sense of links of the chain which do not correspond to those commonly accepted in orthodox practice.
However, he also insists that it is essential to recognise, on the one hand that all body cells are linked via the mesenchymal system, and on the other that at least 10 media are capable of connecting the links of the chains. Thus we have the foundations of a vastly complex and subtle web of connections. To these we can now add possibilities only beginning to emerge when Schimmel wrote -- for example Popp's ultra-weak luminescence;Coghill's radio signalling; Oschmann's liquid crystal matrix, piezo-electric network, tensegrity, and soliton waves; and a much grosser level, the muscular meridians or "trains" elaborated by body workers; not to mention the holographic dispersed memory function suggested by Pribram , and the infinitely variable impacts of consciousness on the whole soma.
The upshot is a picture of an organism so staggeringly complex and so richly interconnected that we may never be able to focus all its parts and interconnections clearly; and it may well be that in a kind of corporeal Uncertainty Principle, the more we observe some functions in a given situation, the less we shall be able to know about others. For example, the more we focus on measuring electrical conductivity etc, the less we become aware of the impact of the Mother-Son Law in a given case, or of the behavioural characteristics fruitfully linked and interconnected in a homeopathic case-taking. Perhaps one day a "super therapy" may develop which can encompass the whole range of "media" -- perhaps even including the chakras and subtle bodies if it becomes possible to monitor these -- and do justice to the indescribable complexity of physical organisms and human beings. But it could well be that the reality underlying the widely varied frames of reference which different therapies use, is so subtle that we cannot perceive it directly. Both the Law of the Five Elements and molecular biology are describing the functioning of the same organism, but it is hard to see the common ground. In practice, many complementary therapies are confidently using and shifting between different frames of reference; most doctors are not.
Be that as it may, Schimmel's concern is with both the meridian, and the anatomical/physiological links, in themselves complex enough.
One of the problems of EAV, as developed by Voll, is that the practitioner can be confronted with quite a large amount of data, but be without a coherent way to assess all its implications. Faced with this problem, Voll’s own solution, very effective still today, was simply to focus on certain types of measurement (e.g. IDs), and largely ignore most of the data. The problem is, of course, shared with orthodox medicine and allopathic practice; there, it gives rise to a plethora of "weird little eponymous syndromes" (Scott-Mumby) because individualised patterns are observed, but progressive causal linkage is lacking. Just as the chains make sense of complex data derived from EAV, so Schimmel's therapeutic recommendations for the chains can be seen as a simplification of the Voll's complex and cumbersome remedy selection for "mesenchyme reactivation”. Schimmel differentiates five basic pathogenic patterns from the 12 causal chains, and he insists that there is always one basic pattern in an individual from which one or several chains may originate. Together, these constitute a conceptual framework which offers a diagnostic model for chronic illnesses, and he estimates that some 80% of patients complaints can be fitted into the system and explained in a causal fashion. It would, however, be wise to be mindful of the remaining 20%, and ask ourselves
what alternative principles may be operating in them, and what this has to tell us about the causal chains model.
The chain originates from one or several maximally stressed organs, or focal organs, from which a very varied range of pathogenic influences affect other organs. Practitioners noted that the same chain could be present in different "diseases", and inferred that a variety of diseases could be caused by one causal chain. Therefore any one cause -- the most stressed organ in the patient -- could give rise to a varied range of symptoms. As noted above, this perception is, also common to acupuncture and to Homotoxicology
.
The sine qua non, of course, is to be able to identify the maximally afflicted organs, especially in the preclinical stage. Then, as Schimmel says, the pattern is equivalent to a prognosis of possibilities, and observed pathology is the unfolding of the chain, with progressive afflictions, or, in the terminology of Homotoxicology, progressive vicariation. The key to therapeutic success is bioenergetic regulation, and EAV, BR, Comp Seg, and VRT are the ideal techniques and technologies. Bio resonance is an obvious alternative to the now unavailable Comp Seg as well as Vega Test; of the newer technologies, possibly GDV may have a significant contribution to make, and the Imedis instrument offers an updated equivalent of Comp Seg. Given the availability of these, the charts, organ and meridian lists, and the textual discussion offered by Schimmel (more concisely summarised and elaborated by Sazonova, Kosareva and Manchonkena), can be used to identify the links between the maximally stressed/focal organs, and others.
A suggested protocol for this process in bioresonance, follows below. The pathogenic patterns and chains are not reproduced here, since it would be difficult to improve the presentation by Schimmel himself and -- particularly -- its summary by Sazonova, Kosareva, and Manchonkena. It should be noted that there are minor discrepancies between the chains identified by the latter and those given by Schimmell.
However, it may be useful to draw together here some findings which are scattered in Schimell’s writings and observations;-
1) Schimmel's finding was that the following organs are most frequently affected in chronic illness, and therefore most probable candidates as the origin of the pathogenic pattern/chain (in descending order of frequency): --
1) Liver, and above all the intrahepatic bile ducts, especially right-hand side.
2) Pancreas
3) Large and small intestine
4) Kidneys, and paranasal sinuses
2) Because, as we have seen above, a variety of different symptom pictures may, depending on the hereditary predispositions, environmental and exogenous factors etc, develop from one cause, the medical diagnoses of various doctors and specialists seen by the patient are of less interest than the results of bioenergetic testing.
3) The most frequent disturbances in the left quadrant of the abdomen are (as above) due to the pancreas; in the right quadrant it is the liver and intrahepatic bile that is. (Quadrant here refers to Comp Seg regions). In this situation, disorders of other organs in the same quadrant are not considered.
4) Often, where e.g. liver and bile ducts were observed to be burdened, lab tests gave negative results, and similarly in other quadrants.
5) Usually the liver and pancreas are both involved and reciprocally affect each other, whichever is the starting point. This is because they are closely linked in both their incretory and excretory functions.
6) The extremely common burdening of the biliary tract system could be explained by toxins in the bile (along with gravel) leading to irritation of the ducts. This is due to influences from diet, environment, and other "media" listed by Schimmel, along with insufficient biliary metabolism.
7) Where the left lobe of the liver is indicated, this may be due to a shift of toxins from the left part of the transverse colon, and the entire ascending colon via the vena mesenterica caudalis. Comp Seg results indicate this may also simulate pancreatic irritation.
8) The resultant causal chain could be as follows (Basic Model V and Causal Chain I): --
1) Loading on the biliary system tract system.
2) Loading on the liver and pancreas
3) Excretory effects (common) Incretory effects (occasionally)
e.g. Dysfermentia e.g. Hypoglycaemia, diabetes, sex hormone
dysregulation
4) Disturbances of large and small bowel.
(E.g. spasms, mucosal irritation, dysfermentia, constipation, diarrhoea, dysbiosis,
I.B.S.)
5) Absorption of substantial toxins from bowel into blood and lymph. (Leaky gut syndrome).
6) Via enterohepatic circulation,this again creates liver/pancreas disturbance, in a vicious circle.
7) As the liver, pancreas, and intestine may well be disturbed, so the diaphragm may be affected, either mechanically by gas formation or through the lymph tracts. The diaphragm is attached by many ligaments to the liver and pancreas, whose disturbances will affect it.
8) Therefore the peritoneum, and the peritonea of various other organs can become disturbed (because the peritoneum is, in actuality, a single organ throughout the body, like the skin, and therefore the peritoneum of the diaphragm is merely a part of the whole)
9) Elevation of the diaphragm will displace the cardiac axis, and may disturb cardiac rhythms and impair abdominal breathing.
10) This will upset both the circulatory and respiratory functioning.
11) The above 10 steps constitute the orthodox anatomical and physiological links, but there are additionally links via theacupuncture meridians between liver, stomach, intestines, and head mucosa (meridians VIII,IX,X), and via collateral meridians, to the pancreas. So we could see linkages, for example, from the original disturbances to problems of the sinuses, which would be hard to establish in orthodox physiology, and would probably be treated as a quite separate dysfunction
(It is Schimmel's belief that either excessive or low-grade chi energy is shifted by the acupuncture system from the liver and pancreas and intestinal mucosa, to the head (especially RH) causing irritation, and finally inflammation. Why this should be so is not definitively established, but could well be in an attempt to improve detoxification through the breath. At all events, the effect can be to cause bacterial or viral infections to develop in the head mucosa, and decay and infection in the teeth and gums. Meridians X&II can quite suddenly activate disturbances in wisdom and other teeth, but such pain and disturbance can often be soothed and reduced if abdominal and pelvic disturbances are controlled by diet therapy).
Linkages through the meridian network may well explain the link between disturbances in the teeth (and sinuses) and elsewhere in the body (see e.g. Weston Price, R Voll, P Stortebecker, G Meiniger). Schimmel himself discusses very little the involvement and significance of the teeth, although a dentist himself, and although he does so much more fully in his book "Complex Homoeopathy". He also makes little mention of the mesenchyme. Yet for Voll, these are perhaps the predominantly important systems in pathology, and dealing with the odontons and reactivating the mesenchyme were his main preoccupations.
Schimmel himself makes the important observation that different practitioners have "favourites " -- organs and systems which are their own main focus of attention. For one it is the liver, another the kidneys, another the gut. For Voll, the odontons and mesenchyme, for Schimmel the pancreas and bile ducts. How can this be?
Five element acupuncture and modern Orthodox practice might describe a migraine in totally different ways, yet both might succeed -- or fail -- in treatment. Perhaps our incredibly complex soma has many capabilities for responding to therapeutic interventions and these can be appropriately made in several, or many, ways. Perhaps each practitioner succeeds best with a different category of client. Or, more fundamentally, perhaps we are simply unable to perceive the underlying reality and can understand its functioning only metaphorically, whether the metaphor be one of Imperial Officials, or of molecular biology. To each his own metaphor; and the metaphor which allows an individual to conceptualise his therapeutic practise most clearly will probably be the technique which will bring him the greatest success.
For the practitioner to be able to use all the foregoing, and the much greater detail given by the writers cited, a practical method of identifying the chain by measurement of disturbance of organs is needed, and must be accompanied by means of identifying an appropriate therapeutic intervention. Below is a suggested method for a bioresonance practitioner.
In ' Pathological Causal Chains ' , Schimmel does not discuss the techniques of identifying the chain. This may be because he had already done so in ' The Treatment of Chronic Diseases Volume 2 ' . It is not clear whether the latter (compiled from his writings of the mid-1970s) was still his current practice by the time ' Pathogenic Causal Chains" was produced a decade or so later. In the absence of other information, we must assume it to be so.
Schimmel specifies ten aspects of the diagnostic process: --
1) In BFD testing, eliminating "irrelevant abnormal readings" by using magnets or Biotron mat.
2) A specific sequence of EAV testing (see "Guidelines" Vol 2 section5.1.3 ).
3) Use of nosodes/nosode complexes as test substances for toxic and focal afflictions of organs and organ systems.
4) Meridian energetics and meridian pathways.
5) Iridology to reveal patient's genetic constution and disposition.
6)The symptom picture and it's relationship to the disturbed meridian energies.
7) Case history, and orthodox clinical assesment.
8) Knowledge of anatomy,physiology, and pathology.
9) Knowledge of basic mesenchymal functions and holistic perspectives.
10) Focal influences--- a) bacterial b) toxic c) neural d) energetic.
Ad 1) The bioresonance practitioner has a more convenient method to hand in the form of 1) Basic or Standard treatment, or more effectively 2) Optimised basic treatment. 10 or a dozen pulses of these should be sufficient to eliminate irrelevant abnormal reactions -- the “everyday energetic chaos" with which most patients arrive, leaving the more significant abnormalities standing out more clearly. These will also render unnecessary Schimmel's use of magnets.
It should be noted that Spin testing and treatment can with advantage replace Schimmel's use of the Biotron Mat, achieving far more permanent and deep reaching effects than geomagnetic shielding during testing. Once the patient starts to arrive with less disturbed readings as a result of spin testing, then the other measures can be applied with confidence in their significance.
Ad 2) Schimmel's numbering of points is a mixture of the classical and Voll systems. His sequence of diagnostic testing represents a saving of time and labour over the standard procedure of testing all end and control points, and a certain amount of additional information. That of the therapeutic testing is extensive and time-consuming, and it is not apparent how Schimmel differentiates the requirements of testing and checking points.
Ad 5) Probably few practitioners in the United Kingdom will have ready access to reliable iridological evidence.
Ad 7) Few, if any, bioresonance practitioners will have access to the range of orthodox methods of clinical examination described by Schimmel; and most will be lucky if they have access to any such information. Very few could have the knowledge to assess the symptom picture and its relation to the disturbed meridian energies in the depth possible for Schimmel. This represents a serious hindrance to the successful use of causal chains in the fullest possible way.
Schimmel makes no reference to the fact that the Vega test has available simplified, yet accurate, methods for determining the chain, through the use of e.g. sarcodes and filters.
However, the bioresonance practitioner does have available a shortcut, which makes causal chains much more amenable to rapid analysis and assessment, since a specific point rebalanced by bioresonance will have a further chain of effects on other points only if their dysfunction was causally dependent upon it.
Therefore a simple procedure can be followed: --
1) Normal testing procedures are applied to find the point most in need of treatment; or, if there is reason to suspect a particular culprit, it can be selected instead -- such as an identified focus.
2) The point is rebalanced in the normal way, using ten or a dozen impulses(1:1, optimised).
3) The CMP's are re-checked
4) If these have largely or completely returned to, or close to, 50, it indicates that the treated point is having a wide effect.
5) An impulse or two from ZR or PM2000 is applied to the treated point to disturb it.
6) If it was indeed the origin of the causal chain, the CMP's will have returned to original values, or other disturbed readings.
7) If they have not, the cause has not been identified, and the procedure must be applied to other candidates. For example,if a few points have been unaffected by the process, the prime cause must be sought among them. The point having the most extensive effects is likely to be the source of the causal chain.
8) Treatment should be centred on that point. It is sometimes said that successful treatment of the lower rungs of the chain will usually rectify the cause, but this does not seem to be Schimmel's opinion.
9)A similar procedure to the above could be adopted using Source points in place of CMP's, and the chain could be traced based on 5 Element laws to identify the possible origin of the chain.
The above procedure does not obviate the desirability of taking into account the other factors in Schimmel's list of methods, in so far as the practitioner's abilities and experience permit; this is essential in order to contextualise and corroborate the findings of testing. It does though, providing a way to use causal chains within a bio resonance practitioner’s normal routine, where the facilities and knowledge available to Schimmel are never likely to be easily accessible.
--------- ---------
Causal chains and basic pathogenic patterns, are extraordinarily rich and helpful concepts, enabling practitioners to make clinical sense of an often confusing array of point readings, and to identify the physiological systems to which treatment can most effectively be directed. In this context, all advanced practitioners should make the concept and method a regular part of their procedures.
H. Schimmel ------------------ Pathological Causal Chains.
Guidelines for the Treatment of Chronic Diseases Vol 2
Complex Homoeopathy
Functional Medicine
E.M. Sazonova, A.B. Kosareva, & A.B. Machonkena -------------- Pathological Causal Chains
K. Scott-Mumby ------------- Virtual Medicine
J. Oschman -------------- Energy Medicine in Human Performance and Therapeutics
C. Swanson -------------- Life Force-- The Scientific Basis
H-H Reckeweg ------------ Homotoxicology
Text references to the work of R. Voll, H. Weston Price, P. Stortebecker, & G. Meiniger can be identified in the above works.