Dr. Navneet Bidani interviewed by Alan V. Schmukler

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Dr. Navneet Bidani is interviewed by Alan V. Schmukler

AS:  Welcome to Hpathy Dr. Bidani.  You’re a third generation homeopath, so what was it like growing up in that family?

NB:  It is true that I come from a family of intellectuals and I obviously have not escaped my genes. My grandfather (late Dr. Suraj Parkash Bidani) was the first qualified homeopath from Haryana, India. With his great efforts he made homeopathy known to the people of Haryana state. My father (Dr. Sushil Bidani), a firm proponent of homeopathy has a vast experience of 45 years practicing homeopathy and he is still practicing. My house was thus a focal point for a lot of discussions on homeopathy and I was exposed to it from a very young age. I used to see my father and my grandfather discussing cases and their homeopathic treatment, and from their discussions I came to know what homeopathy is and what its benefits are. These lively discussions and debates got me deeply interested in Homeopathy and I decided to become a Homeopath.

Every single thing I learned through my father and grandfather has played such a large role in my success. As a child, I had the benefit of being treated by homeopathy right from the start. My oldest memory of homeopathy is of my grandfather prescribing sweet, sugary pills to someone who came to meet him at home. I was about 6 or 7 years old and was very fascinated as this was a new side of my grandfather, which I knew nothing about. He let me taste some non-medicated sweet pills, and I was thrilled as it tasted like candy. As a child and young adult, I had an innate interest in healthy living, and was averse to synthetic and processed foods. I was attracted to books about Natural Hygiene, Macrobiotics, and such diets seemed logical to me. I could imagine how much sickness was due to unhealthy living. It became self-evident, too, how stress was a major cause of illness. In my own case, I could relate every illness of mine to some stressful situation in my life.

I noticed that animals who eat and drink in less hygienic situations than humans, are often more healthy. It followed that the cause of illness had to be something deeper than just the microbes and that it also had to do with the host. Homeopathy, with its profound understanding of the individual recognized this. It has changed my life in the most profound way. It has freed up my expression, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It has released me from unresolved past thoughts and feelings. It has freed up my energy to enjoy my life at the highest level.
I am a healthier person on all levels because of my homeopathic treatment and the entire credit goes to my father and grandfather.

AS:  You were taught by inspired and talented people. When you finally started to practice, was it all smooth sailing?

NB: When I started my practice as a consultant homoeopath, patients were few. One day my father asked me – how are you doing? I said that I needed some assurance. He answered,  “ Do not worry. Use this time to study, because if you do not, there will never be a time to study and you will regret this opportunity.” He further said that in the beginning you must familiarize yourself with the repertory. He used to go over each rubric with a pencil, from Mind to Generalities one by one and then later we got very familiar with the rubrics. Thus we always knew what to ask. I confess that when I passed my BHMS, being a novice, lacking in exposure to patients I was not good at prescribing. It is exposure to patients along with experience over the years that helps one to master the art of homoeopathy. Thus exposure to patients and cases is extremely important.

It has now been well over fourteen years of practice and at no time since then, has respect for Homeopathy lessened. As practice increased, the time for individual study of each case was not available and snap diagnoses were generally the rule, but, even so, the results were such as to justify the choice of Homeopathy as regular practice, and, when time permitted, there was no more delightful pastime than searching for the indicated remedy. The joy of successful application of the simillimum was always greater than that of an operation completed without technical error. When such operation resulted in improved condition there was always a keen sense of success almost at hand, but this was never to be compared with the intense satisfaction that followed the exhibition of the correct remedy in an annoying symptom complex.  In the latter case the forces of nature seemed to be released and health was on a higher plane afterward, which can seldom be said of even the most successful operation.

AS:  The rate of autism, at least in the West, in increasing at an alarming rate. Allopathy has little to offer in terms of cure. What has been your experience with this disorder?

NB: In recent times there has been an increase in the incidence of autism both in the West as well as in India but researchers do not know how much of this rise is due to more children being diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or if actual cases are increasing or a combination of both. Most of the rise in autism is a statistical mirage. ASD is now being diagnosed in 1 in every 68 children, according to the most recent data (2010) from the Center for Disease Control (CDC). When the number is adjusted for gender, it’s 1 in every 42 boys and 1 in every 189 girls. The diagnosis of Autism leads to a kind of despair and feelings of hopelessness in the parents, as they are told that it is a lifelong developmental disability and that there is no treatment available for it except for training.

The causes of autism are not completely understood. There are literally thousands of articles and hundreds of organizations blaming one thing or another, from vaccines, GMOs and pesticides to even electromagnetic fields, WiFi signals, chemtrails and residential proximity to freeways. Scare headlines are everywhere but it is a common understanding at this time that ASD is caused by environmental influence on genetic predisposition.

And as we begin to learn more about ASD, we are finding that it is so much more than a psychiatric disorder, as claimed in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM-5), which was published in 2013. Every child with ASD is given the same diagnosis, yet they are so unique in how it affects them and what treatment approach will work for them. This uniqueness gives more credibility to the ‘Spectrum’ in Autism Spectrum Disorders. The ‘Spectrum’ may be explained by the fact that every child has had a different pre-conception, conception, in-utero, birth, and childhood environmental influence on their genetic make-up. And this is what the base of homoeopathic prescription is, as the focus of homeopathy is not to treat the isolated symptoms of Autism but to treat the child as a whole.

As per my experience, classical homeopathy has been used with success to alleviate symptoms, both mental and physical, or to cure individuals with autism. For many parents who have seen a large overall improvement in their autistic children, homeopathy has played a major role. Even though there is a relatively high rate of cure with ADD/HD individuals, it is still believed that a full recovery from autism through homeopathy is not usual. However, in many cases, we see big improvements in the symptoms and behaviors of ASD individuals, even if a complete recovery is not cited. And starting intervention as early as possible improves the chance of a successful recovery from autism. Ideally, this should begin before age 5. It is often observed that as children with ASD age, they seem to get further and further away from us and it is harder to bring them back. Cases are also often complicated by other interventions such as allopathic drugs, vaccinations, behavioral therapies, etc.


AS:  I think your experience will give hope to many parents.  In the U.S. the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has paid out over 3 billion dollars to parents of children injured by vaccines. Do you think parents should have a legal option to refuse them?  In areas where epidemic disease is still a factor, should Homeoprophylaxis be used as it was in Cuba, where 2.3 million people were treated prophylactically for Leptospirosis?

NB: These are two different questions and I’ll answer them separately. When it comes to vaccination, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Luckily, the Indian government so far is not as rigid as in the West. We still can refuse vaccination, and I kept my son free from such vaccines. Vaccines often contain preservatives, adjuvants, additives, or manufacturing residuals in addition to pathogen-specific immunogens. So what do we know, and what can we be sure of? One thing that appears to be beyond dispute, based on overwhelming evidence that spans across decades, is that pharmaceutical companies have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to bribe, lie, threaten and commit fraud in order to bring, and keep, their products on the market. This kind of behavior is so commonplace, it appears to be part and parcel of the accepted modus operandi of the drug industry, albeit unofficially.


Most vaccine studies are about developing more vaccines for children and adults to use. Large studies comparing the health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children have not been a priority for vaccine researchers. This is a travesty, as this is the kind of research most desperately needed. Until such research is done, I recommend that parents have the freedom to make the decision, whether to vaccinate their children or not.

Regarding homeoprophylaxis, my views are somewhat different. In every epidemic we all know that there is one remedy, which covers a significant percentage of the symptomatology of the epidemic. We call this remedy the “Genus Epidemicus”. If this remedy is given in the whole population during the epidemic, it will probably prevent some cases going into the full blown epidemic. Unless we understand the mechanism of action of such an idea we will be making wrong assumptions. I’ll try to explain it by giving a famous reference of a Scarlet fever epidemic in which Hahnemann successfully prescribed Belladonna. Here one thing worth highlighting is that when Hahnemann wrote that Belladonna will protect from scarlet fever, he gave it during the epidemic and not before the epidemic. And the explanation is that since the symptoms of the patients with scarlet fever matched the symptomatology of Belladonna, the remedy would act as a curative remedy only for those people of course, and not as a preventive. So a curative response was misunderstood and misinterpreted as prophylaxis. Under no circumstances we, as homeopaths, could be talking about homeoprophylaxis in the way that vaccinations are used and acting today.

Moreover, all persons who fall ill in an epidemic have a predisposition to it. If they do not have it they will not fall ill. If they fall ill, they do so each in a different manner, some reacting mildly, some more severely and some even die during the epidemic. If we take all the cases homeopathically we see different remedies indicated. So the predisposition to disease is different and independent of the type of remedy picture that they will develop when struck by the epidemic. So the remedy picture has nothing to do with the predisposition of the organism, it is a totally different thing. Therefore there is no way to prevent something to which it is not related. I do not see how a remedy given in advance in every organism can counteract the predisposition!!

The practice of giving prophylactic potentised remedies without knowing whether an epidemic will manifest or not and claiming that this remedy works as protection, is to say the least, irresponsible. A remedy will act and prevent only once the symptoms of this remedy are starting to manifest already, and the remedy could then act as a curative agent in the very beginning stage of the epidemic, not as a prophylactic. The difference is enormous in explaining to the public what exactly we are doing, instead of giving the impression that we have discovered another way for preventing diseases.

AS:  So you’re saying that the epidemic has to be occurring, as it did in Cuba, for the homeopathic remedy to act protectively. So you are comfortable with the Genus Epidemicus concept, just not the notion of long term prevention?

NB: There is no reason to assume that these medicines continue to act preventively years after administration, moreover no long-term studies have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of this long term prevention. Let me elaborate it further.  As mentioned above, Hahnemann’s method for finding specific homoeoprophylaxis is based on the genus epidemicus remedies. These genus remedies are found by studying the signs and symptoms of the target miasm in a group of patients. These homeopathic “specifics” were not chosen by the name of the disease alone, but rather, by the grand totality of the symptoms of the entire epidemic in a greater number of people. Hahnemann explains his methods for making such a collective picture and finding group remedies in aphorism 100 to 103 of the Organon. This method is called the group anamnesis. The group anamnesis is very useful when there is a clear and present danger of infectious diseases. This method provides remedies that can prevent, abort, and treat the prevailing miasm. The same genus remedy that will prevent the disease will usually abort the early stages of the illness before the more dangerous symptoms develop. This is a valuable technique in the early stages of serious contagions when the symptoms are more common, and it is not wise to wait for the more dangerous yet characteristic symptoms to appear. The same remedy that will prevent and abort dangerous infections will also treat a good number of developed cases, although other genus remedies may be needed according to the symptoms and the stage of the disease.

Even Dr. Carol Dunham wrote: “The selection of the prophylactic remedy must, to some extent, be governed by the nature of the epidemic, and therefore the best preventive cannot always be determined until the epidemic has appeared, and its peculiar nature has been ascertained.”

AS:   If homeopathic remedies seem to work for people who were exposed but not yet symptomatic, can we assume that the body is responding to the illness at some subtle, not yet detectable level?  

NB: Yes, as we all know that our bodies are extremely dynamic and react to anything that is external to itself. This includes all food, medicine, and chemicals that are put into it. Because the body is not always successful in dealing with every stress or infection, it is important to find a substance in nature that has the capacity to mimic the symptoms the person is experiencing in order to aid the body in its efforts to defend and ultimately heal itself. Like other forms of energy medicine, homeopathy helps dissipate blockages in an individual’s subtle energy that may be preventing the individual’s body wisdom from healing the illness. When the blockages are released, the individual’s body wisdom is freed up to do what it needs to do – restructure, reorganize, release, reconstruct, realign, etc. This innate body intelligence is what brings about the healing that results from energetic healing modalities. Some people compare this process to pushing a boulder over a cliff. It only takes one big shove in just the right place and then gravity takes over. Likewise, an individual may need only one homeopathic remedy to stimulate a deep and long lasting healing response.

AS: What physical or mental aspect would lead you to identify a tubercular child, a syphilitic child, a psoric child, a sycotic child?

NB:  The chronic miasms are a cornerstone of homeopathic philosophy. For 12 years Hahnemann quietly searched for the fundamental cause of the chronic diseases that was slowly destroying the health of his patients. The outcome of this research was published in 1828 in the first edition of his great work, The Chronic Diseases Their Peculiar Nature and their Homoeopathic Cure. He named 3 miasms – Psora, Sycosis and Syphilis. Later a fourth miasm was added (by J. H. Allen), called Pseudo Psora or Tubercular Miasm. The consideration of miasms is of paramount importance in effective homoeopathic prescribing, particularly in this world of multi-suppressions where perceiving a clear picture of disease is becoming increasingly difficult. By miasmatic children is meant those born afflicted with one or more of these chronic miasms. Also it became evident that a great many people express symptoms of combinations of these miasms. In the limits of an interview it is impossible to give clear symptomatic pictures of all the miasms, so l’ll share the most prominent features of these miasms on which I judge.

PSORA – The central idea of the psoric miasm has been described as weakness, or lack. Psora gives us the feeling that we are small, weak, unable to succeed in the face of a challenge, overwhelmed by the demands that life makes on us. It is the feeling of lack—lack of strength, stamina, power, or whatever else it takes to survive. Psoric children are usually healthy at the physical as well at the mental level. Very sensitive and emotional children, these children are easily moved to tears, anger or any emotions. Anger in psoric children is sudden, lasting for a short while till the event is over, handled or expressed. They forgive and forget easily once the event is over. Hatred feelings do not come naturally to them and if they do hate somebody then it for some genuine reason. However they do not keep any hard feelings for the persons they don’t like. Revengeful attitude is not seen in these children. These children have curiosity, like they will usually go close to flowers, to butterflies, to see and observe their movement, etc. Their curiosity is just out of the need to learn more. They have a lot of intuition because their sensitivity range is very high. They appreciate good things in life and they love their play, study, hobbies etc. and involve themselves completely in every task.

These are the children who are in touch with time and realities of life; they don’t succumb to external pressures easily. At school these children will take active participation in all events. They play with a very healthy attitude and will have a positive approach towards the game. Children love painting or drawing. Paintings of a psoric child are clear, constructive with vibrant natural colors. Paintings will show actual shapes without much distortion, and a lot of positivity. Their paintings would be related to nature and natural colors. They like to listen to stories of adventure, bravery, good deeds, of angels, heroes, etc.  They watch movies or cartoons and are easily moved to tears or laugher watching them.

SYCOSIS – The sycotic miasm’s main theme is excess. The disease gonorrhea expresses this theme in its urethral discharge and genital warts, and the miasm amplifies it throughout the mind and body. Sycosis expresses its excess inner energy in strong, sudden reactions and in the need for excitement and stimulation. Sycotic children are dull, lazy, sluggish and slow to act. Their concentration levels are low and hence they have difficulty in concentrating on one task. These children are poor to average in studies and bring a lot of complaints from school regarding studies, behavior, attention, play, etc. They forget what to write in the exams out of confusion or anxiety about how they will perform. Their memory is weak, for words, alphabets, reading etc. They have difficulty remembering what they have studied, and make mistakes all the time. Their mind just does not seem to work and hence these children prefer doing homework which is repetitive [more mechanical rather than intelligent work]. They have a lot of non-constructive, negative or fixed ideas. They keep building up ideas and ideas in their mind; they plan a lot of big things, but never carry out these imaginations / ideas to reality or practicality. Even if they do try to implement on these, they cannot pursue it to their final destination which often leaves them sad and depressed.

Sycotic children usually do not enjoy playing because of their laziness and sluggishness. They play games which involve sitting at one place. They are especially disinclined to play outdoor games. They always desire to win, by whichever means, and usually by crooked means which comes naturally to them. Paintings done by sycotic children are shabby, disorganized and with dark colors. Their paintings are usually half done. Even their completed paintings have no meaning, which clearly reflects their confusion. Stories which sycotic children prefer to listen to are those of jealously, corruption, evil, cheating, stealing etc.

Sycotic children keep internalizing their emotions. There is a constant bottling up of negative emotions within them, which troubles them all the time. If somebody scolds them, they will not weep or show any emotions [like most children do]. Instead, they start thinking about the incident over and over again, and develop hatred towards the person [be it his parents or closest friends] who has hurt them. They will then keep making plans and schemes as to how they will take revenge, etc.  Sycotic children are extremely self-centered and selfish in nature. They only think about themselves and will go to any extent to accomplish their goals or wishes. Hence, these children often turn out to be sly, crafty, and malicious in their manners. A sycotic child would never ever admit his/her mistakes. They will always blame others for the mistakes. Even when scolded, these children will repeat the same mistakes again. And when they fail, they want to blame all their failures on somebody else. They never want to take responsibility for anything! The disease gonorrhea centers on the reproductive organs, and the sycotic miasm has a strong sexual component that can be expressed in short-lived anonymous encounters or in any other sexual expression of the need for stimulation and excitement.

SYPHILITIC – The central theme of syphilitic miasm is ‘hiddenness’. The syphilitic miasm creates a sense of harboring something dangerously wrong inside oneself, something beyond the reach of rational knowledge or description, and even the sense itself may be so deep as to be inaccessible to the conscious mind. This sense of having something wrong inside can be expressed directly in self-criticism or guilt, in reserve based on a fear of exposing one’s own inner state to others, or in self-control that arises from the fear of allowing the inner wrongness to gain the upper hand. Its indirect expression happens when the sense of the hidden flaw is projected out onto the world around, and then it becomes suspicion, fear, anger, and even violence; in this case, the feeling is that “If I have something so wrong inside me, then the rest of the world must too.” A child in the syphilitic miasm has a very poor memory. These children forget very easily, and cannot remember both recent and past events. Their concentration levels are extremely poor and sometimes there is a complete absence from reality. Their perceptions are dull, and these children are always in a state of confusion and irritability. They think of negative aspects all the time. They hardly ever put any of their imaginations or ideas into actions. They show disinterest/ little interest or aversion to everything whether it is at play, study or any kind of hobbies, etc. They have an extremely low intelligence and cannot correlate many things in life. They may behave in an idiotic, imbecilic and unacceptable manner as if they had gone insane. These children are destructive even at play. Their only way of playing with toys is breaking them and they will not rest in peace until they break their toys part by part. They also destroy other children’s belongings. Games these children enjoy are bow and arrow, guns and arms, etc. Whatever they play, they must win at any cost and will resort to any unfair means for that. They justify all their actions as being fair.
They like to listen to stories of murder, horror and those depicting evil, violence and destruction, etc. They are very slow to grasp or learn anything. They have an aversion to all kind of studies. These are the children who will repeatedly fail in one class and will never pursue their studies till the final day of exams. They, then, copy from books/ neighbors and try to achieve success in their exams. They take a lot of pride in such a success.  Paintings done by a syphilitic child are usually with dark colors, those depicting violence and destruction like themes of war, bridges being broken down, of bombarding, death, etc. Syphilitic Children are slow to react to any emotions or sometimes do not react at all. Hence, these children are often labeled as “unemotional”. They have little or no emotions left in them. These are the children who will always treat other children and people as objects, as love and affection for others is nil. Syphilitic children are extremely obstinate and headstrong. They will always do what they want to do. They cannot bear contradiction from anyone and in any form. They must have their own way in everything that they say, do or desire. Their verdict is final and if you dare to go against or contradict it, they resort to irritability and even violent means. These children are not content with anything in life. They feel that everything they do, or everything that happens to them is worthless and that they have no reason to live. They are usually depressed children who will keep the depression to themselves, and the first thing you know is that they have committed suicide / or attempted suicide.

TUBERCULAR – The Sensitivity level of children belonging to this phase is HIGH, but their reaction to any stimulus is SUDDEN, ERRATIC and UNPREDICTABLE. Children in this phase, at times, show a very sharp memory and at other times there is complete lack of memory.

Their concentration levels may vary from high to low.  Tubercular children have a clear and acute perception, are very sensitive to external impressions and are almost clairvoyant in nature. Because of their clairvoyance, they are able to perceive threats very easily and hence they can decide the next line of action. If this clairvoyance is channeled in a proper way, these children can read the minds of other children or adults very easily. Children in this phase, have very strong imaginative power. They create their own world of angels, imaginary characters, etc. They get many such ideas and then they try to implement these ideas in real life. For example, after seeing Superman or Batman they think, “If batman can fly, why I can’t”. They may try to get similar costumes, collect their friends and may perform a heroic act. Tubercular children are sentimental, loving and friendly by nature. They love their play, studies and hobbies. They may like certain toys or games at one moment and have hatred towards the toy another time. At one moment, they are very enthusiastic about a particular game, at another moment; they are bored and want to change to something else. They will never stick to one game or activity because of their constant desire for change. They cannot pursue one action for a long time.

About the author

Alan V. Schmukler

Alan V. Schmukler



  • Thanks for nicely quoting the peril of modern vaccination. Your experience regarding the child characteristics of the four miasms is very educative and would enrich the present concepts of the miasms. May Almighty bless you.

  • The cases of autism are more or less based on suppression of feelings. By this I mean that a child desires to express his/her feelings but in vain. This results in anger (4) grade. Irritability (4) grade and sorrow and tearfull (4) . In many cases the child feels neglected by the family even if the family shows care, love and attention. I have succeeded in using Natrum Mur 30 and going up to 10M gradually repeating less and less in high potencies. However, other remedies may also be indicated according to totality. The family must show attention and loving care to speed the cure.

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