One of the most intriguing and extensive lifetime studies on psychosomatic cancer development and therapy comes from Ryke Geerd Hamer, M.D., of Germany. Dr. Hamer was born May 17, 1935, in Mettmann, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. His father was Heinrich Hamer who was a Protestant pastor in Meschede from 1945 to 1969, and his mother was Margot Hamer, of Italian descent. Young Hammer grew up in East Frisia (German: Ostfriesland) where he lived with his grandfather until the age of 7. He finished high school in Krefeld at age 18. He then studied theology and medicine in Tübingen and Erlangen, Germany, where he met Sigrid Oldenburg, a medical student who later became his wife. Soon a daughter was born to the young family and a son, Dirk, who would later play a large role in their lives. At the age of 22, he completed his master's degree in theology.
Early Years
In 1953, he began to study medicine. In April 1962 he passed his medical state examination in Marburg, Hesse, and received his professional license as a Doctor of Medicine in 1963 at the age of 28. His doctoral thesis was Untersuchungen über den Einfluss des Adaptinols (Heleniens) auf die Dunkeladaptation des gesunden Auges.
In 1972, after spending several years at the University Clinics of Tübingen and Heidelberg, he completed his specialization in internal medicine and began to work as an internist in charge of cancer patients. He also worked in several other practices with his wife Dr. Sigrid Hamer. Dr. Hamer showed an extraordinary talent for inventing medical devices and patented several of them. He patented a non-traumatic scalpel (Hamer Scalpel) which cuts twenty times sharper than a razor blade, a special bone saw for plastic surgery, and a massage table that automatically adjusts to the body's contours. His inventions provided Dr. Hamer and his family with the financial means to move to Italy, where he fulfilled his plan to treat the sick in the slums of Rome free of charge.
The Hamers were a normal family with four children (two girls and two boys), until August 1978, when a terrible event shook their lives. An Italian prince of the House of Savoy shot Dirk Hamer while he was asleep on a boat anchored on the island of Cavallo. Dirk’s battle with death lasted for almost four months, while his father watched over him day and night. Dirk finally died on December 7th, 1978. Shortly after Dirk’s tragic death Dr. Hamer, who had been healthy all his life, but who was deeply saddened by the loss of his son, found he had testicular cancer. Being both scientifically minded and suspicious about this coincidence, he set about researching the personal histories of his cancer patients to see whether any of them had suffered some shock, distress, or trauma before manifesting cancer.
Dr. Sigrid Hamer
Dirk Hamer
Germanic New Medicine (GNM)
Dirk Hamer Syndrome (DHS)
After extensive research into thousands of his patient’s histories, Dr. Hamer concluded that most cancers were indeed associated with a previous emotional shock for which the individual was emotionally and mentally unprepared. He perceived that many diseases are a special biological response to an unusual situation, and when the shock situation is resolved, the body self-heals and returns to normal. He called such an unexpected shock event “DHS (Dirk Hamer Syndrome)”, named after his son Dirk. A DHS is not a normal, everyday, psychological stress conflict, but rather an event that triggers deeply embedded survival issues and causes a lasting stress period or “stress phase.”
Dr. Hamer explains that a DHS differs greatly from a psychological problem in that it is a biological event that not only occurs in the psyche but also simultaneously in the brain affecting a specific organ or gland. By analyzing thousands of brain-computer tomograms (CT scans) of his patient’s histories, Dr. Hamer discovered that the moment a DHS occurs, the shock impacts a specific, predetermined area in the brain, resulting in a “lesion” that is visible on a CT scan as a set of sharp concentric rings. In other words, each DHS leaves a visible mark in the brain, which he called the “Hamershen Herd,” or HH. Dr. Hamer confirmed the presence of this HH in thousands of patients he studied. He observed that HH occurs in the area of the brain that corresponds to the organ or body structure manifesting the disease. Since each area in our brain is connected to a particular organ, the location of the brain lesion determines which organ will be affected. The size of the HH on a brain scan is determined by the intensity of the conflict. In nearly all cases Dr. Hamer investigated, the conflict occurred approximately 2 years before the diagnosis of cancer. From the effect of DHS, the affected brain cells communicate the shock to the corresponding organ, which in turn responds with a pathophysiological alteration.
Dr. Hamer started including psychotherapy as an important part of the healing process and found that when the specific conflict was resolved, the aberrant cells stopped growing and the circular area or target rings in the brain started to disappear. Brain scans would change to show healing edema around the damaged area of brain tissue. Healing would establish normal communication between the brain and body. Similar healing edema could also be seen around the now inactive cancer tissue. Eventually, the cancerous cells would become encapsulated and detoxified by the body. Diseased tissue would disappear, and normal tissue would then again appear. In short, Dr. Hamer noticed that conflicts and cancer were very closely linked, and the conflict creates an observable pattern on brain scans.
.jpg)
All this research led Dr. Hamer to develop Germanic New Medicine (GNM), which is composed of “five biological laws":
-
1st law ("Iron Rule"): Severe diseases originate from a shock event that is experienced by the individual as very difficult, highly acute, dramatic, and isolating. The shock’s psychological conflict content determines the location of the appearance of a focus of activity in the brain that can be seen in a CT scan as a set of concentric rings, called "Hamer foci", which correspond to the location of the disease in the body. The subsequent development of the conflict determines the development of both the brain focus and the disease.
-
2nd law (Two phased nature of disease): A patient who has not solved their conflict is in the first, active conflict phase, where the sympathetic nervous system predominates and which manifests as a "cold disease" accompanied by cold skin and extremities, stress, weight loss, and sleep disorders. If they manage to resolve the conflict, they enter a second, post-resolution healing phase, in which the parasympathetic nervous system predominates, commonly diagnosed as a separate "warm" (rheumatic, infectious, allergic, etc.) disease. This second phase is the one that usually entails more risks, and a complete cure only comes upon its completion. In some circumstances, not solving the conflict but downgrading it to a reasonably livable level may be preferable to facing the second phase.
-
3rd law (Ontogenetic system of diseases): Hamer proposes that disease progression is primarily controlled by the brain, either by the "old brain" (brainstem and cerebellum) or the "new brain" (cerebrum). The old brain controls more primitive processes, having to do with basic survival, such as breathing, eating, and reproduction, whereas the new brain manages more advanced personal and social issues, such as territorial conflicts, separation conflicts, and self-devaluation and identity conflicts. Hamer's research is tied to the science of embryology because he links the type of disease progression—whether involving tissue augmentation (tumor growth), tissue loss (necrosis or ulceration), or functional impairment—with the embryonic germ layer (endoderm, mesoderm, or ectoderm) from which both the organ tissues and the corresponding brain regions originate. Conflicts which have their focus either in the brain stem (which controls body tissues that derive from the endoderm) or the cerebellum (which controls tissues that derive from the mesoderm) show cell multiplication in the conflict-active phase and destruction of the resulting tumors in the healing phase. Cerebrum-directed conflicts (affecting the rest of mesoderm-derived tissues and all ectoderm-derived ones) show either cell decrease (necroses, ulcers) or function impairment or interruption in the active phase, and the replenishment of the damaged tissues in the healing phase (which can also be diagnosed as a tumor).
-
4th law (Ontogenetic system of microbes): Microbes do not cause diseases but are used by the body, coordinated by the brain, to optimize the healing phase, provided that the required microbes are available when needed. Fungi and mycobacteria work on tissues that originated in the endoderm, as well as on some of the tissues originating in the mesoderm. Bacteria work on all mesoderm-derived tissues and viruses on ectoderm-derived ones. Hamer maintains that these microbes, rather than being antagonistic to the body, perform a necessary role in healing, and that some of the interventions of conventional medicine are counterproductive, by interfering with these natural processes.
-
5th law ("Quintessence"): The conflict-active phase and the healing phase of diseases, as described above, constitute "special meaningful programs of nature," developed during the evolution of the species, to allow organisms to override everyday functioning to deal with emergencies.
Thus, according to Dr. Hamer disease processes through three levels:
1. Psyche - the DHS registers in the mind
2. Brain - the HH appears in the brain
3. Organ-organic disease manifests in the organ
Summary:
In summary, Dr. Hamer showed that when we suffer from an unresolved conflict, the emotional reflex center in the brain that corresponds to the experienced emotion (e.g., anger, frustration, or grief) will physiologically change and become dysfunctional. Each of these emotion centers is connected to a specific organ. When an emotion center becomes dysfunctional, it will relay wrong information to the organ it controls, resulting in the formation of aberrant cells.
Phases of Illness
Dr. Hamer proposed that diseases develop in two distinctive phases:
1. Conflict Active Phase (called “CA” or “Cold Phase”)
2. Resolution/Repair Phase/Rest Phase (called “PCL - post-conflictolytic” or “Hot Phase”)
The above brain CT shows a target configuration (Hamer Focus) in the right hemisphere of the post-sensory cortex of the cerebrum. The exact location indicates that the patient suffers from hypersensitivity (pins and needles) in the left leg because of a “separation conflict”. Since the rings are sharp, we can conclude that the conflict has not yet been resolved. But why is the left leg affected rather than the right? Since the brain plays such an integral part in German New Medicine, a person's handedness always must be considered.
In Dr. Hamer’s German New Medicine, CA and PCL are viewed as two phases of the same disease. In the CA phase, the person may have insomnia, loss of appetite, excessive worry, or compulsive thinking focused on solving a conflict. First, the sympathetic nervous system is dominant over the parasympathetic nervous system, but if the conflict is not resolved, it will eventually deplete the sympathetic nervous system as well. This conflict creates a “fight-or-flight” response. Many anthropologists believe that through evolution, we developed a fight-or-flight stress response to resolve conflicts. But under modern conditions, many individuals do not have the therapeutic opportunity to resolve conflicts emotionally and mentally. Hence, this stress response may become stuck in the “on” position. When a conflict is not resolved, the CA phase continues chronically, draining the person’s deep energetic resources.
Because appetite and digestion are weak during the CA phase, the person suffers poor nutritional status and impairment of detoxification organs, such as the liver and kidneys. Over time, this physically causes impaired cellular function, disrupts the enzyme system, and prevents homeostasis. The body endeavors to preserve the best level of life for as long as possible, though it can no longer prevent cell damage and organic disorders. According to Dr. Hamer, remaining in an intense conflict-active state over a long period can be fatal.
When the conflict is resolved, the PCL phase begins. At the mental and emotional level, conflict resolution comes with a feeling of great relief. The person is no longer mentally and emotionally attached to the conflict. The healing phase is also called the “warm” phase, because, during this phase, the autonomic nervous system expresses vagotonia, meaning that the equilibrium between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is biased towards the parasympathetic. Blood vessels dilate, improving circulation and warming extremities. In the recovery phase, a fever may manifest as the immune system recovers.
In Reckeweg Homotoxicology, this PLC phase would be viewed as a “regressive vicariation,” or a healing process. According to Dr. Hamer, during the healing phase at a cerebral level, parallel to the psyche and the organ, the brain lesion also starts to heal. On a brain scan, the sharp target rings are surrounded by temporary brain edema and appear in the resolution phase as blurry, indistinct, and dark.
Conflict resolution is essential to this healing phase. According to Dr. Hamer,
“If we are not able to resolve the conflict or if a feasible resolution cannot be attained, e.g., we can't leave our workplace or an unhappy relationship, we have the chance to consciously downgrade the conflict either intellectually, psychologically, or spiritually. By downgrading the conflict, we decrease the conflict intensity and consequently the symptoms both on the cerebral and the organ level.”
When the conflict is resolved, the patient is no longer mentally occupied with conflict details. Mental stress is less physical, the appetite returns, hands may become warm again, and sleep returns to normal. However, there still may linger weakness or fatigue and a need to rest more. These effects show that the parasympathetic nervous system is becoming more active and is at the beginning of the healing phase.
After identifying the brain as the mediator between the psyche and the organ, Dr. Hamer found that the target configuration only remained sharp as long as the person was in conflict activity. Once the conflict is resolved, the brain lesion enters – along with the psyche and the organ - the phase of recovery. Like with any wound that is repaired, edema develops that protects the brain tissue during the healing process. On the brain scan, we can see the changes: the sharp target rings that submerge in the edema now appear blurry, indistinct, and dark. These observations confirmed Dr. Hamer's findings that every disease runs in two phases: first, a conflict-active phase, characterized by emotional stress, cold extremities, a lack of appetite, and sleeplessness, and then, provided we manage to resolve the conflict, a healing phase. The healing phase, commonly referred to as “disease”, is often a difficult process with fatigue, fever, inflammations, infections, and pain.
At the height of the healing phase, the brain edema reaches its maximum size, and exactly at this moment, the brain triggers a brief, strong push that presses the edema out. In German New Medicine, this crucial moment is called the “epileptoid crisis (EC)”. Heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, bleeding tumors, migraine attacks, and epileptic seizures are a few examples of this crisis. The symptoms always depend on the nature of the conflict and which brain layer is affected. After the brain edema is pressed out, neuroglia (brain connective tissue that provides structural support for the neurons) assembles at the site to restore the function of the nerve cells that were affected by the conflict shock. According to GNM, this is a glia accumulation that is commonly viewed in conventional oncology as a brain tumor, even though it is a healing brain lesion.
Laterality – Biological Handedness
Another aspect of Dr. Hamer’s GNM is what is termed laterality or biological handedness. According to Hamer’s observations, a person’s dominant hand determines whether the conflict impacts the right or left side of the brain and whether a symptom occurs on the right or left side of the body, considering the cross-over correlation from the brain to the organ.
This does not mean whether you use your right or left hand to write. Because there are so many rehabilitated or switched left-handed people who deem themselves right-handed, most people do not understand their true laterality. An easy way to establish biological handedness is the clapping test - clapping the hands like applauding in the theater. The hand that is on top is the leading hand and tells whether a person is right-handed or left-handed. If your right-hand strikes your left hand, then you are right-handed. Conversely, if your left-hand strikes your right, then you are left-handed. Another way is to clasp your hands together and observe which thumb is on top. If it is the right, then you are right-handed, if the left thumb is on top then you are left-handed. Also, right-handers start walking with the right foot, and left-handers with the left foot. Left-handers are usually ambidextrous.
Determining laterality is very important for finding out from which brain hemisphere you primarily operate. Simply put, the right hemisphere of both the cerebellum and the cerebrum predominantly controls the left side of the body, and conversely, the left hemisphere of both the cerebellum and the cerebrum controls the right side of the body.
Additionally, the right and left sides of the body are assigned to mother/child and partner-related conflicts. A partner includes a person’s spouse, siblings, relatives, colleagues, business partners, neighbors, schoolmates, friends, or foes. For a man his child is associated with his mother/child side when he is raising the child or when his father’s feelings are very strong, otherwise, the child is considered a partner. For a child, his/her father is the first “partner”. By the same token, the mother can be perceived as a partner when the child grew up with the grandparents or when the mother-child relationship has deteriorated. If an adult cares for a sick father like for a child, the father is most likely associated with the mother/child side. A pet can be perceived as a child or as a friend (partner). A conflict evoked by a partner, for example, a separation conflict, is mother-related if the subconscious mind makes a connection with the mother. What ultimately counts is with whom the conflict is associated at the moment of the DHS.
Metastasis
The standard metastasis theory suggests that cancer cells of a primary tumor travel via the bloodstream or the lymph system to other parts of the body where they cause cancerous growth at a new site (theoretically, this assumption would imply a potential risk of contracting cancer through a blood transfusion). German New Medicine does not dispute the fact of secondary and third cancers. However, according to the Five Biological Laws, second and third cancers are not the result of migrating cancer cells, but of a second or third DHS, often triggered by a diagnosis or prognosis shock that puts the individual into total panic, causing a new conflict or even several new conflicts leading to additional cancers. For example, a cancer diagnosis shock can trigger a death fright conflict leading to the development of lung cancer.
Every person always has millions of cancer cells in their body throughout their life. This is not an indication that there is something pathologically wrong; instead, the presence of cancer cells is a normal biological process. These millions of cancer cells remain undetectable through standard tests. However, they appear as tumors once cancer cells have multiplied to several billion. When doctors announce to their cancer patients that the treatments they prescribed had successfully eliminated all cancer cells, they merely refer to tests that are able to identify the detectable size of cancer tumors. Standard cancer treatments, such as cytotoxic chemotherapy or radiation, may lower the number of cancer cells to an undetectable level, but this certainly cannot eradicate all cancer cells. If the underlying causes of tumor growth are not addressed, cancer may redevelop at any time, in any part of the body, and may progress and metastasize at any speed.
According to GNM, curing cancer has little to do with getting rid of a group of detectable cancer cells. It is more important to address the circumstances that promoted tumor development (the causes). A few examples of how to do this include reprocessing psycho emotional traumas and conflict, cleansing the body of accumulated toxins and waste, reestablishing a normal physiological pH, and supporting the immune system. In this perspective, toxins are the antecedent of the cancer terrain, and the trauma with associated conflict is the trigger for tumor development. GNM regards tumor formation as a regulatory mechanism, much like cyst formation. It is the final and desperate survival mechanism that the body has at its disposal. According to Dr. Hamer, tumors form when all other regulatory measures of self-preservation have failed. The body has no other choice than to respond to such profound stress factors with predictable biological survival or coping mechanisms that may involve temporary abnormal cell growth.
Ryke Geerd Hamer, MD
Expelled From the Clinic
In October 1981, Dr. Hamer submitted his research to the University of Tuebingen as a post-doctoral thesis. The objective was to have his findings tested on equivalent cases so that the GNM could be taught to all medical students and that patients could benefit from the discoveries. But to his dismay, the University committee rejected his work and refused to evaluate his thesis. Even worse, shortly after he had handed in his thesis, Dr. Hamer was given the ultimatum to either deny his findings or his contract would not be renewed. It was extremely difficult for him to understand why he was being expelled from the clinic for presenting well-substantiated scientific findings. Dr. Hamer stood his ground. After his dismissal, he retreated to his private practice where he continued his research. Several attempts to open a private clinic failed because of concerted efforts by the conventional medical establishment opposing it. Letters of Dr. Hamer's patients to health officials remained unanswered or were returned with the comment: “Not applicable!”. To this day, the firm position of the authorities has not changed. In 1994, Dr. Hamer expanded his system to the 5 biological laws that cover all diseases in the entire field of medicine, based on research of 20,000 cases.
Heading 1
In 1985, after 29 years of marriage and the raising of four children, Sigrid Hamer died.
Partly due to sorrow over the death of her son and demoralized by the ceaseless intimidation inflicted by the powerful Savoy family.
Dr. Hamer suffered numerous legal battles during his life and even served prison times twice, for at least 3 years. The medical establishment became relentless in its condemnation of Dr. Hamer’s work. The harassment of Dr. Hamer culminated in 1989 when a court sentence stopped him from practicing medicine. Despite the fact that his scientific work had never been disproved, he lost his medical license on the grounds that he refused to renounce his findings on the origin of cancer and to conform to the principles of official medicine. On January 22, 1992, he was sentenced in Cologne to 6 months suspended, for treating patients without a license. Dr. Hamer appealed and on February 12, 1993, the sentence was reduced to 4 months. On July 27, 1993, Dr. Hamer was sentenced to 6 months suspended for “defamation” in Austria. In 1997, Dr. Hamer was arrested in Cologne and, on September 9, 1997, was sentenced to 19 months by the district court of Cologne. He served 12 months in jail in Cologne again for treating a cancer patient without a license.
Even worse, in 2001, Dr. Hamer was sentenced to three years in prison in France on the charges of “fraud and complicity in the illegal practice of medicine”. He had been charged and found responsible for the deaths of French citizens due to the availability of his publications in French. An international arrest warrant was issued, and Dr. Hamer was arrested in Spain in September 2004 and extradited to France. He served his time in the French prison Fleury-Mérogis in France and was released from his unjustified incarceration in February 2006. He returned to Spain.
Tragedy and Legal Troubles
Ryke Geerd Hamer, MD
Later Life
In March 2007, Dr. Hamer was forced to leave his Spanish exile. He went to Norway, where he was safe to continue his life’s work. He resided in Sandefjord, a coastal city on the western shore of the Oslo Fjord.
On July 3rd, 2017, Dr. Hamer died of a stroke he experienced 3 months earlier, in his home in Sandefjord at the age of 82. The stroke which left him without the ability to speak and partially paralyzed. Some report this was the result of the “final” decision by the German medical authorities to disallow reinstatement of his license to practice medicine after a long 30-year battle. He is buried in Erlangen, Germany, where he married his beloved wife, Sigrid.
In short: Dr. Hamer was a brilliant scientist and physician that helped cure thousands of people. He was venomously attacked and incarcerated by the medical profession for his DNM theories and practices. The conventional world of oncology is beset with millions of failures and deaths. Cytotoxic chemotherapy is sanctioned by the medical boards and cancer industry and is not questioned when people suddenly die from such treatments. However, pioneers such as Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer commonly lose their medical license to practice and some are even incarcerated. The medical establishment in Germany and the European Union warns of the threat posed to patients by Dr. Hamer's GNM. If conventional oncological treatment is rejected, the application of Dr. Hamer's GNM practices is still punishable in some countries as medical malpractice.
Dr. Hamer’s mind-body medicine model is one of the most comprehensive and empirically researched. Over the course of his lifetime, he published countless books on his discovery primarily in German adding to his research continuously. What has unfolded since he discovered this biological system in 1981 is vast and encompasses all of medicine, especially oncology, psychiatry, embryology, and neurology. Ultimately, it does not matter whether the reader agrees or disagrees with Dr. Hamer’s mind-body model. It is clear enough from numerous other sources that shock, chronic stress, and conflicts that go unresolved trigger pathological processes, weaken immunity, and can lead to tumor formation. The importance of uncovering mental and emotionally traumatic events and resolving chronic conflicts should always be considered paramount to cancer recovery. We owe a great tribute to Dr. Hamer for his lifelong work and the genesis of GNM.
This biography only briefly describes Dr. Hamer’s extensive psycho emotional medical model. For those readers interested in learning more about GNM, there are numerous web addresses and YouTube videos that further explain his ideas. (See references)
References and Notes
-
Dr. Hamer’s web address is http://www.drrykegeerdhamer.com. Much of the information for this biography has been referenced from this site.
-
In 2010, Dr. Hamer established the University of Sandefjord - for the Germanic New Medicine®; Natural Art and Lifestyle. This information may be accessed from his website: drrykegeerdhamer.com
-
Hamer RG. [Kreft – Gåten som ikke fines]. EFuengirola, Spain: Amici di Kirk Verlagsgesellschaft für medizinische Schr, 2001. [Norwegian]
-
Hamer RG. [Celler Dokumentation. Eine Dokumentation von acht vorwiegend urologischen und nephrologischen Krankengeschichten]. Spain: Amici di Kirk Verlagsgesellschaft für medizinische Schr, 1994. [German]
-
Hamer RG. [Kanker en op kanker lijkende ziekten. Psyche - hersenen – orgaan]. Spain: Amici di Kirk Verlagsgesellschaft für medizinische Schr, 1994. [Dutch]
-
Hamer RG. (2000) Summary of the New Medicine. Spain: Amici di Kirk Verlagsgesellschaft für medizinische Schr, 2000.
-
https://www.gnmonlineseminars.com/category/dr-hamer-tribute/
-
Caroline Markolin’s website - http://www.germannewmedicine.ca
-
Note: Although Wikipedia claims to be credible because anyone can edit it, in fact, the website represents the viewpoints of its most strident and persistent editors. It is also heavily influenced by paid public relations professionals who do not disclose their conflicts of interest. In short, Wikipedia is a useful reference for many topics but is not a reliable source for academic research.
References
THE CONTENT ON THIS SITE IS PRESENTED IN SUMMARY FORM, IS GENERAL IN NATURE, AND IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY; IT IS NOT ADVICE, NOR SHOULD IT BE TREATED AS SUCH. If you have any healthcare-related concerns, please call or see your physician or other qualified healthcare provider. This site is NOT intended to be a substitute for a healthcare provider’s consultation: NEVER DISREGARD MEDICAL ADVICE OR DELAY IN SEEKING IT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING YOU HAVE SEEN ON THIS SITE. We make no representations, nor any warranties, nor assume any liability for the content herein; nor do we endorse any particular product, provider, or service.
© 2017-2024 Dr. James Odell, ND, OMD, L.Ac.