Q is for...

1) Quantum. Physics or mechanics, the quantum version, will explain many things in the coming decades. It is said that when you ‘go very big or very small, there is nothing there but patterns’. Patterns of what? This is the awe-inspiring part, as at a sub-molecular level there are no atoms, no protons, no anything. So the patterns are not patterns ‘of’ anything, they are just patterns. I think this is where the explanation of how very ‘dilute’ homoeopathic remedies work will be found.

In journeys into the spirit realm, it is found that there is no time, which is a construct that goes with the material world. Quantum mechanics shows that particles can become energy, and also can disappear ‘here’ and reappear ‘there’ instantly, so time has not had a part in it. As I am not a quantum physicist I will stop now, and just say ‘there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. Thanks to the Bard!

2) Quiet. I am a quiet person by nature and, like my mother and daughter, speak softly. This works against me in my hobby of amateur drama, as no director at auditions believes I will be able to raise my voice and be heard at the back! This is quite untrue, as anyone who knows me well can tell you - if I am cross I can shriek like a fish-wife...

3) Quinine. This is the substance which led Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) to discover homoeopathy. He was a doctor in Leipzig, and apparently was a grumpy character, which may have been the reason he needed to supplement his medical income by translating medical books. In one of these he read that the reason quinine cured malaria was that it sedated the stomach. He doubted this, and decided to test it by taking quinine even though he was well. He was amazed to find that he developed symptoms that were exactly the same as those of malaria. Instead of throwing the quinine away in disgust and going for lunch, he made a leap of imagination and wondered “If that drug can cause what it can cure, I wonder if that is true of other substances?” He carried out many experiments and found that this is in fact the case, which led to the statement of the homoeopathic principle ‘like cures like’ or ‘similia similibus curentur’.  The dilution of the remedies is NOT the main principle of homoeopathy, and was only discovered later by Hahnemann. For more about homoeopathy, see the entry on my site, madelineannstringer.ie