Tips for Homeopathy at Home with Marcus Fernandez and Pamela Wirth

Marcus Fernandez, Principal of Europe's Largest Homeopathy School and Bestselling Author 

Marcus Fernandez has been at the forefront of homeopathic education for over three decades. As Principal of The Centre for Homeopathic Education (CHE), he's trained thousands of practitioners through a curriculum that balances classical knowledge with modern application. His work is rooted in a belief that natural medicine should be practical, empowering, and accessible - not mystified or gatekept. 

His latest book 'Homeopathy at Home' reflects that ethos. Designed to be used, not shelved, it offers simple, step-by-step guidance for everyday ailments using natural remedies. Its success, reaching #1 in Amazon's holistic medicine category, reflects a rising demand for family-focused, self-directed wellness. Marcus also created an AI-powered virtual assistant that lets people ask home prescribing questions 24/7 - a project born from his desire to make quality natural health advice as available as online misinformation. 

While his formal background is in homeopathy, Marcus speaks just as comfortably about men's health, slow living, and holistic longevity. He co-hosts Beyond the Shed, a raw and reflective podcast spotlighting unfiltered conversations about men's emotional health — part of a wider mission to create space for honesty, healing, and ownership in the way we care for ourselves and each other. 

Whether he's teaching herbal remedies in a London classroom or exploring health span strategies on a podcast, Marcus brings curiosity, compassion, and depth to every conversation. His message is clear: the body already knows how to heal — we just have to give it the right tools. Marcus' warmth and wisdom makes natural health both useful and deeply human.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hi, this is Pamela Wards from the Hello, Health, and Courage and Women's Podcast. And today I have Marcus Fernandez, principal of Europe's largest homeopathy school and best-selling author. He's been at the forefront of homeopathic education for over three decades. And it's such a pleasure to have you here, Marcus. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Thank you. I'm very pleased to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

So tell us a little bit about homeopathy. What sort of things that you end up treating or discussing more than others, things people should be thinking about. Just kind of speak to us about, you know, a lot of what this all means for people.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Sure, absolutely. Well, homeopathy is based on, as a system of medicine, it's been around for about 200 years, but actually the principles go back a lot further. They're ancient principles. And the main principle of homeopathy is called like cures like. So for example, if you chop an onion up, your eyes water, your nose runs. Well, we use onion in a very diluted amount for people with colds or hay fever with the similar symptoms where the eyes are running and the nose is running. So whatever can cause something in a large amount, in a small amount, it can cure it. So another example is coffee. So if you drink lots of coffee, you get very animated, agitated, uh, very sort of um excitable. Well, we use coffee in a very small diluted amount for people that have those symptoms without drinking coffee. So they say they can't sleep, got a richer thoughts and ideas. So again, whatever can cause something in a large amount, in a small amount, it can cure it. And that's really the basis of homeopathy, like cures like.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Super. And then so tell us a little bit about um when when you're teaching, where do you start? And how does this fit in with integrative and functional health when people are trying to get to the root of what's going on? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Well, often people get into homeopathies, often through their kids, through their children, like most of us, once we have kids, it's uh it changes everything uh from the food that we eat to the car that we drive. And that also includes health and well-being. And often um, you know, when you have a child, as you know, you have this little baby and you don't really want to put anything chemical inside this baby. It's pure, it is it's that um that that purity, and you you don't want to do anything to to to affect that. So often people get in it through children. So it could be, for example, baby's got colic or teething. Uh often that's often how people do it because homeopathy is free of side effects, and how the remedies work is like it stimulates the body to heal itself. So often um it is through the home. Uh, and that's why I wrote a book recently called Homeopathy at home, because I I believe they say charity begins at home. Well, I think health begins at home. And and we we a lot of the things that we often can go to the doctors for, we can actually deal with ourselves, like our grandmothers or great-grandmothers who had this knowledge, they knew what to do. And often people get scared and fearful and will often rush to the allopath out of fear. What's fear? Just lack of knowledge. So um often people use it, like I said, in the home. So people, you may have heard of Arnica. People have a bang, a bump, a bruise. Often they take the remedy Arnica. So people often start with first aid remedies like that. Or if they have a cut or graze, they'll use calendula. Um, if they say crush their fingers on a door, hypericum. So these sort of first aid remedies that people will tend to go to and are very simple to use. And then people progress on. So, for example, if you have a cold or a cough, they'll try these natural remedies first, homeopathic remedies first. And the difference there when you get into things like coughs and colds, in homeopathy, you we could all have five people could have a cold, but we would all have individual symptoms. So it's just not like the allopathic model of one size fits all. You have a cough, you get a cough mixture, if you, you know, which suppresses the cough. Um, whereas in homeopathy, you could have a cough, Pamela, and it could be worse inside, better for going outside, uh, thirsty for cold drinks. And you take my symptoms, and I could be worse outside, better inside. That was the opposite, I think, of what I just said, and better for warm drinks. Now, we were both, even though we got a cough, we would have different symptomatology and therefore need a different homeopathic remedy. So this is when you started getting much more individual with the remedies. And really, yeah, health is about about the individual, not one size fits all, which is often the pharmaceutical approach to everything. Uh, this is very much about the individual the individual. And in homeopathy, when we look at people, I always use the analogy of the car dashboard. If the oil light flashes, it means there's something wrong in the engine. Now, if you just take the ball back or, you know, or suppress the symptoms, there's still a problem in the engine, the car's going to break down two or three miles down the road. So I so I I what I we do as homeopaths, we go into the engine, fix the problem, and the light will go off by itself because symptoms are a sign that whether it's acute symptoms, chronic symptoms, it's the way the body expresses to us that there's an issue, there's an issue going on.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

So let me ask this. A lot of the people that um that that we talk to have chronic symptoms that have been going on for a long time. Um and and they're they're kind of they they feel like they're out of options. Um, they feel like they've tried everything. If if if if you were to talk with someone that has chronic autoimmune or autism or is um uh some sort of behavior that is potentially addictive behavior that they're trying to unwind, how would you address some of these things? What would you do? Like, is there a questionnaire or is there like a test?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah, so would you explain that? Yeah, so basically, I mean, I'm a practitioner, I've been a practitioner for 30 years. When somebody comes in, everybody has a different story to tell. So again, we could all have the same condition, but actually it would manifest in different ways. So our job as a homeopath is we we do first of all what a timeline. So from birth, or even you know, if if they've got the information, you know, in in neutral, how the birth will go all the way through to where people are now. So it's a timeline, which is your map of that person's life. Uh, and that's looking at them mentally, emotionally, as well as physically. So we take all aspects of the person. So, you know, what what we will do then draw the timeline and we basically we take all the symptomatology, what makes it worse, what makes it better, um, what whereabouts it is, the condition, uh, you know, it could be all systemic or it could be local or wherever it is, any concomitant symptoms that go along with that. Um, but then the next question we ask is when did it all start? And often, Pamela, they've never been asked that question. Well, it started five years ago. The next question you ask is, well, what was happening in your life five years ago? What was going on? Because we're like a detective, we're trying to find out again, anything going on mental, emotional, physical. It could be a trauma. Something could have happened, which which I'm just giving you a very basic outline. Something could have happened, uh, often say in around that time. And and it can be emotional, not everything's physically, you know, it's emotional. It's it could have been a divorce, a trauma, a loss, a grief. I see that all the time. People never been well since their that grief or loss or trauma emotionally. And then they start three months later with this physical condition. However, some people can be born in that way as well. And that's in homeopathy, we look at things that people have inherited. So we take the medical history of both sides of the family: the mother, the father, the mother's mother, the mother's father, the father's father, the father's mother, the children, the uncles, the aunties, trying to find out patterns within their health and well-being. And so it's it is a you know, normally you see a home path, it can be an hour, it can be an hour and a half, depends on the case. But we do a really in-depth look at the person as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

And then typically, what what's next? Do you do you then try something with like an herb? Do you try like a test to determine or use data? What kind of a out there?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

So we take the case, and what we're looking for is what is the person presenting now? What is the what what is the picture that we see? So, as I explained before about the remedies, we're looking at um we have thousands of remedies, you know, we have thousands upon remedies, but each remedy has a mental and emotional picture and a physical picture. Okay, so even looking at everything from top to toe, from head to foot, to all these different symptoms. So, what we're trying to do is match the remedy to the person's state where they are right now. So, like I said, if we take into consideration how people are sleeping, all these characters, what we call characteristic symptoms, and then we match them to the to the state. So, for example, as I mentioned about kafia, the remedy coffee, if the person was, you know, they couldn't sleep, the insomnia, rush of thoughts, um, they could have been in terrible pain, uh, like nerve pain, for example, so they might have trigeminal neuralgia or something, you know, really chronic they've had for a number of years, and that matches the picture of the remedy coffee. So if you took coffee in large amounts, the whole senses will be hypersensitive to noise, to light, to you know, they can't sleep, the slightest little noise wakes them up. So the whole nervous system is is affected by external stimulation. So that would fit the remedy picture of kafir. So we're trying to play a game of snaps. So whoever, whatever people are presenting, there's a remedy that if you took it in a large amount would produce those symptoms. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

It does. Now, when you try something, how long do you have to wait to know whether or not that's working, or we try something else? Like I I believe in homeopathy, there's there's like a it's like one at a time or something, or is that not true?

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Well, bit there's different ways of prescribing, so it depends on the case. So we have different tools in our toolbox. So an example would be you uh every again, everybody's in individual, and what we look at is what we call the vital force, which is prana in Ayurveda, is qi in Chinese medicine. We're looking at that vital force. So often it depends on the case. If somebody's quite chronically sick, sick, because we have a thing called potency in homeopathy, which is like the strength of the remedy. Um, so we we would gauge that according to the individual. Now, if somebody could come into me and they've been sick for a number of years, could be sick for 10 years, quite a chronic condition, their vitality is quite low, I might start with a remedy low and often. So it could be a low potency, like a 6C, and they may need to sit that daily or twice a day because their vitality is very low. Uh, and it's very physical. If it's something a bit more mental and emotional, and the person's actually quite vital force is quite good and quite strong, then I may go for higher potency. Okay. So if if I think that the remedy I'm going to give them, and I think the cause of a lot of this is mental and emotional, we need to shift that, then we would go higher in the potency. But really, we normally see people once a month, and we would expect to see some kind of shift in their case within that four weeks. Okay. That the what they're going into in the right direction. Yeah. And often what can sorry.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, no, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

No, what often can happen when you give a remedy, as the as the symptoms start to clear, then sometimes people get what's called a return of all symptoms. And that's important because sometimes symptoms have been suppressed, especially through medications. So as you start getting the body to heal and they start to shift, then the next layer comes up to be dealt with. And that's a good sign in homeopathy because the body is going back to try to heal what should have been healed before, but may have been suppressed with with uh you know a and I think some people call that herxing, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

A herx or the body is herxing if it's overriding.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Well, we call it Herring's Law, which means it it's going back, it's one of the signs of health and vitality being restored.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yes, it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

So if someone is is considering finding a um a provider, what sort of things should they look for? What are some things that may or may not be the right fit? Or because it it's hard to pick out a good provider um when there's a lot of options, right?

unknown 12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

So you're talking about practitioner now. Yeah. Well, I think I'm always going to say this because I think it's the it's the it's always the gold gold standards, is you know, go word of mouth, go with people that you know have experienced that practitioner and have got good results. So I think that's number one. It really is. I mean, it's uh because when you're just going online or you're just trying to find somebody online in that way, and it can be quite difficult. If you can't find somebody directly who's um had a good experience with a homeopath and is well known, then I would say go and speak to an osteopath or acupuncturist, and often they know good practitioners in in your area. So I always think that's a good place to start. The second place is to go to one of the registers, the professional registers that have professional standards. So you in America, I think they have the CCH, which is a register, CCH uh of certified homeopaths. Um again, it it depends, it's different all over the world. But I would go look for a homeopath on a professional register. And even if you find somebody, always speak to them first on the phone, you know, have a chat with them, talk to them, explain your situation. Uh, and if you don't feel that there's a good fit with that practitioner, because you could be with them for quite a long time if it's quite a chronic case, um, then I would say that, you know, you almost interview them and see whether or not uh you it feels all right fit for you. Because this really, uh as a practitioner myself, I I I it's it's you're walking alongside people. You're walking alongside them, you know, it's about helping them restore that health and vitality. But often it can be a journey. And I often say to people, say at the end of the case, they're taking the first consultation, you know, often my rule of thumb is if you've had something for you know 10, 12 years, say they come in with asthma or eczema and they've had a lot of medications, it's gonna take for every month year they've had, it's gonna take a month to clear. This is what I expect. So you're looking at, you know, not one remedy is gonna fix everything. It could be 10 to 12 months. And and I always say to people, are you okay with that? Is that something that you could work with? And they're gonna say yes or they're gonna say no. But I always say, let's review it after three months and see where we are. So I think it's a lot of this is is you've got to use your common sense, I think, with people.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah, now kind of turning to you and and your book, and um is this something that you think people can actually do um on their own, or you know, when when they have kind of this written scribe, if you will, out of your published work, is that something that they actually can um do at home, or is that something that they can do in conjunction with a practitioner? And then this also probably feels to a lot of people similar to things like essential oils. And so how does that kind of come into this too, or not?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

And yeah, yeah, it's it's not essential oils, no, even though it sounds like the similar name, Romotherapy, homeopathy, they all sound the same. No, I mean, homeopathy is a system of medicine. I mean, this is what people have to understand. If you go to places like India, for example, 100 million people use homeopathy as their primary health care. You know, we we used to uh we've got homeopathic hospitals here in the UK, not like they used to be, um, but you know, it it is an established um medical system, you know, as as I mentioned. But I think for everybody, my passion now after 30 years of doing homeopathy, long, long time, is actually I've come full circle. And when Hay House approached me to write this book on homeopathy um 18 months ago, it wasn't really in my orbit to do it because we know we teach at degree level with our practitioner training. And but actually it was the best thing I could have done because it took me way, go all the way back from when I first started practicing when I used to run a mother-and-baby clinic here in London. And I used to treat at the time, I was very young, I was like 23, you know, just qualified, and I was treating these, I didn't have kids myself. Um and they used to be so grateful, like you know, they're bringing little Johnny in with a colleague, or you know, you're sleeping all the way through now, and they're bringing these little presents and cards and gifts saying thank you so much. You know, I've slept for the first time in a week or two weeks. And again, when you don't have kids, you don't really, I was young as well. I you don't really understand what that means until I have my kids, and then I really understood what that meant. Um, and what I used to do is teach, I used to run these little short courses, six-week courses, um, about how to use, you know, the top five remedies for coughs, colds, colics, first aid, um, to these mother and baby groups. And and I get them to buy a remedy kit, um, which I've actually got one here you should show you, a little kit here. And these little kits, they have all little remedies in. You can get these from any homeopathic pharmacy wherever you are in the world. And I used to teach them how to use those remedies. And I could see how when you teach people how to use things, how much more empowered they became, because they go home, they'd try it, and they go, Oh, yeah, you know, Johnny fell over and I gave him some monica and he was back on his feet and he was good, or Susie had a cold, and I gave her some pulsatilla, and it was amazing. She, she all this mucus came out, but she was good, and it only took you know two or three days, and she was, you know, uh more vital than she was before. And I'd see that fear dissipate because people, you're empowering people to take charge of their health and well-being. And so by writing the book, I had to go right back to the beginning again. Because really, it's an A to Z, it's a guidebook, A to Z from I saw off, I think, with um anxiety or acne, go all the way through things like coughs, colds, hay fever, impetigo, all these, all the way to the end, which is I think warts is the last area. And there, what I've done is put the five top five remedies or top three remedies or top six remedies for each condition that I, from my 30 years of experience, think that people should know about. And I've also added things from the kitchen cupboard because sometimes you might not have the remedy, but there's plenty of things in our kitchen cupboard that we can use, be it you know, turmeric, be it cayenne pepper, be it whatever it is, chamomile tea. Actually, chamomile tea, amazing. I mean, in my I mean, I knew how good chamomile was. My god, it's virtually good for everything you can think of. So it's just really to empower people in the house, in their homes, things they could use first before you have to seek help. And again, just to empower people to use it and to see the results and realize that the body, and I truly believe this, Pamela, with every ounce of my being, all the healing wisdom we're ever going to need is within us. Well, it is within us, and we've just got to turn the key in that lock, I feel.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah, I I I totally agree with you. When it comes to nutrition, obviously that's a big piece.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Um, and I was raised in a big Catholic Irish family where sugar was a a treat and a sign of love. And obviously, I've had to re-redo my signs of love, knowing how bad sugar is for the body. You know, how how do you help counsel people on when they're doing these things? What sort of diet changes or things do you want to make sure that they're including or not including?

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, it it it's out of the realms of homeopathy, but as a practitioner, I feel that I need to know about that. And so what I do, look, I'm very simple. I like to keep things very simple for people. I don't want to overwhelm them. And what I people often ask me, you know, what should I eat? And I say, well, start off by eating real foods. Well, what do you mean by that? Well, if it comes out of a box and from a factory, it's not a real food. You know, if your grandmother would recognize it, then it's a real food. So start off with that. So, you know, you're gonna start off where people are at, and they think, okay, yeah, I think I can do that. So I say, try and go for 80%. 20%, okay, have you a little cheap, but start off with 80% first for the first stage. Yeah. Um, so that's my basic advice, you know, in the very beginning with people. If I feel they need much more than that, then I will recommend they go and see, you know, somebody else, like nutritionalists or whatever. But actually, you'd be you'd be surprised how people can shift by just starting eating real food. Yeah. Um, and also the people don't realize what real food is. That's what often surprises me, you know. So I I often will say that. And obviously, you know, drink plenty and and of water and different things like that, but but it's it's just some very common sense advice.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah, I think that's fabulous. Anything else you want to touch on that I forgot to ask about?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Not really. I just think with um I think it's just a with homeopathy, it's just a different way, like a lot of these complementary medicines like acupuncture or different things, where we are stimulating the body to heal itself. And to me, with the remedies, it is like a key to a lock. You're you are finding if you know the key in itself is not powerful. So the remedy in itself is not powerful. But when you when you take the remedy, and if it's the right key and like an ignition of a car, the engine starts to go, then that's that's all you want to be doing is getting the getting the engine going again. So the body then does all the work. And I think this is the difference with homeopathy and allopathy, whereas you know, you've got to keep taking the drug, or you've got to keep, you know, keep taking it. But you know, the pharmaceutical industry is not in the wellness business, it's in the sickness business. And as long as you understand that model, then you realize that that's why you've got to keep taking the drug. But with homeopathy, a bit like acupuncture, you have acupuncture, the need you have the acupuncture needle, it's trying to unblo the chi that's blocked, and it's just there to stimulate that, and the body then. Does the rest. So I think, I think my message to everybody always is health is innate. You know, health is innate and you already have it. You've just got to try to unblock it or unblock the blocks that are there to get back to that innate health. So so that that that's my that's my overriding message, I think, to to for everybody. And my my well, when I first home, when I first heard about homeopathy, I wasn't, I didn't know anything about homeopathy. I mean, this is in the book. I was in a band, I was 20 years of age, I was going to be a rock and roll star. And um, and somebody, I had to work at this nursing home uh to uh to earn some money because we were going on tour and I was a struggling musician, never had any money. I started working in this nursing home with the elderly, which was so far removed from my reality. And I was having a cup of coffee one morning uh in the coffee room. This lady, this nurse said to me, she started talking about she was doing this course and she and she said what it was. She said, You know what, Marcus, you'd make a really good homeopath. And I I never even heard what the word, I'd never heard the word before in my life. And she explained what it was and she said, look, I'm I'm going to this open day with these, I'm going to start this four-year course. I'm going to start learning about it. Why don't you come with me? Anyway, cut long story short, the day before this open day, and I wasn't really intending to go in, but I thought maybe she was a bit lonely. She wanted me to come with her. I'd agreed to go. But the morning before, the day before I was supposed to go, I woke up with terrible tonsillitis. And I used to get this all the time. I was a singer in a band. I smoked, I drank, I wasn't very healthy. But I got I got tonsillitis since I was a kid. And I thought, right, I'm going to try this homeopathy. If it works, I'll go to the open day. And if it doesn't, I won't go. So I went down to the local health food store, looked at all these weird and wonderful remedy names like Gelsemium, Arsenicum, Nox Vomica, which I thought was a great name for a band. Um, all these weird, wonderful names. And I've got a remedy called Gelcemium, which I which I talk and I went home and I opened the little bottle and I and I thought, if this works, I'm gonna go tomorrow. And if it doesn't work, I'm not gonna go. And I popped the remedy. And literally, Pamela, within 20 minutes, I fell asleep in the in the chair that I was sat in at home. And I woke up two hours later and I was soaking wet with sweat, absolutely ringing wet. Wow, that was that was powerful. And this I kept taking more, and this happened all day. And I woke up the next morning and he had no tonsillitis, and that was 32 years ago. I've never had it since. And I went to the open day, and the man was speaking, he'd been a practitioner 40 years, explaining what he'd done about homeopathy, about cases, all and I remember going really quiet inside when he was talking. There was a real stillness, and it was like I was hearing truth for the first time. There's something inside me resonated with what he was saying. And I thought, if this is true, what he's saying, how come the whole world doesn't know about it? And then my second thought was, I'm gonna make sure the whole world does know about it. And fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

I'm definitely gonna make sure your book notes are in the notes, the show notes, and we will definitely get your your um your message out. So thank you so much, Marcus.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Thank you, Pam. Thank you for having me.