Germanische Heilkunde

Discover the five biological laws that explain why symptoms start, how healing works, and what the psyche, brain, and body are really doing during changes in your health.

The best free GNM/GHK introduction on the Internet

What is GHK or GNM?

Germanische Heilkunde (or Germanic Healing Knowledge: GHK, also known as Germanic New Medicine: GNM) describes how and why the psyche, brain, and body work together to produce what we think of as disease.

Instead of viewing health symptoms (“diseases”) as errors, GHK shows how each symptom is actually a biological response with purpose and intelligence.

This is not a belief system. It is a set of rules or laws that have been empirically observed in hundreds of thousands of people and animals.

GHK gives us a way of seeing the meaning behind problems, trauma, symptoms, and stress.

The Five Biological Laws

First Biological Law

“The Iron Rule of Cancer”

Every symptom begins with a biological conflict in the psyche.

You experience information, a circumstance, an event that your unconscious mind evaluates as too unexpected and demanding for your current capacity.

The psyche interprets this as existential isolation and instantly forms a biological conflict.

The biological conflict is not caused by the event or circumstances but by our own unconscious assessment of what the situation means in that instant. To the psyche, it means that pursuing a survival need will cause a survival threat. This impossible tension is what creates the sense of existential isolation.

Psyche, brain, and body are a single information-processing system, so a biological conflict in the psyche simultaneously initiates changes in the brain and in the body.

Second Biological Law

“The Law of the Two Phases”

A biological conflict initiates a two-phase process in the psyche, brain, and body.

This two-phase process involves adaptation during the active biological conflict, and repair once the biological conflict is resolved within the psyche.

Phase 1 — Conflict-Active Phase (as soon as the biological conflict begins)

As long as the biological conflict is active, the psyche, brain, and body shift their priorities to function despite the conflict, reduce the felt intensity of it, and try to create the conditions to resolve it.

These adjustments arise entirely from the psyche’s meaning-making. They are not reactions to external circumstances or events. Most psychological, emotional, and behavioral symptoms occur in this phase.

Phase 2 — Healing Phase (as soon as the biological conflict ends)

When we resolve the biological conflict in the psyche — usually by becoming conscious of the two opposing compulsions — our whole organism immediately enters the healing phase.

The psyche, brain, and body restore balance by removing now-unneeded tissue, rebuilding (and usually expanding) diminished tissue, and releasing excess fluid and metabolic byproducts. More than 80% of physical symptoms occur in this phase.

Third Biological Law

“The Ontogenetic System of Special Biological Programs”

Every tissue type follows a predictable pattern in response to both a biological conflict and resolution of a biological conflict.

A biological conflict in the psyche will produce a predictable adaptive strategy in the psyche, brain, and body. There are roughly 500 different kinds of biological conflicts, each producing its own changes.

Because the different tissues of our body (and brain) originate from different developmental layers, they each have characteristic ways of helping us to:

  • endure and resolve the biological conflict (Phase 1), and then
  • repair and restore tissues (Phase 2).

In Phase 1 (Conflict-Active Phase)

Each tissue type increases or decreases its function in the way that best helps the psyche with the conflict. Most tissues do this either by increasing or decreasing in size, while some tissues just change function without tissue loss or growth.

Tissue increase is what is diagnosed as “cancer.” Tissue loss is diagnosed as osteoporosis, necrosis, ulceration, etc. Functional diminishment will show up as conditions such as multiple sclerosis or diabetes.

These changes are not pathological reactions; they are functional adjustments to enhance your sense of survival and reduce your sense of danger.

In Phase 2 (Healing Phase)

After the biological conflict is resolved in the psyche, each tissue follows its own predictable recovery pattern:

  1. tissues that increased in size will stop growing and begin to break down,
  2. tissues that decreased in size will rebuild or regenerate, usually to a larger, “better” size,
  3. functional loss will usually rebound to over-function before returning to a new equilibrium based on the psyche’s updated meaning. (Some functions, such as voluntary muscle control, actually diminish even more, temporarily)
  4. When the healing phase is substantially complete, it will be punctuated with a brief flashback to the original biological conflict. This crisis is necessary to “reset” the brain and metabolism to a new equilibrium.

These processes are lawful, purposeful, and originate entirely from the psyche’s meaning-making — not from external conditions.

Fourth Biological Law

“The Ontogenetic System of Microbes”

Microbes (germs) do not cause disease symptoms.

They participate in the healing phase after a biological conflict is resolved in the psyche.

During healing, tissue that grew during the conflict-active phase will become “excess” at conflict resolution and will begin to break down with the help of microbial activity.

Tissue that was lost during the conflict-active phase will stop breaking down and will begin to refill and rebuild with the help of microbial activity.

Different types of microbes participate in healing phase processes in strict accordance with the ontogenetic system. This means that dental plaque can’t cause tuberculosis, for example. Or staphylococcus can’t give you the measles.

(Note: viruses have never been seen participating in any healing phase process. They are hypothetical only)

Fifth Biological Law

“The Quintessence”

Biological symptoms are not a mistake. They are because you are evolving.

Just as every symptom is appropriate to the biological conflict in the psyche, every biological conflict in the psyche is itself meaningful in the context of your evolution.

Health symptoms are not malfunctions or mistakes. Every change in your psyche, brain, and body — whether during the conflict-active phase or the healing phase — is an adaptive response generated by your organism to do something about biological conflict(s) in your psyche.

These tissue, functional, and experiential changes — in the body, brain, and psyche — are biologically intelligent attempts not only to resolve the conflict and repair your system, but also to establish a new, better system.

The process that produces this new-and-improved “you,” including all structural and functional adjustments across the psyche–brain–body system, is the actual mechanism of biological evolution.

Thus, every biological conflict begins because of a subjective drive to evolve — to move toward a state of greater biological safety, stability, and wellbeing.

Why is it useful to understand these five biological laws?

When you understand the GHK, you know that your symptoms follow biological laws. Each health issue occurs because of a specific type of conflict in your psyche — not because of germs, genes, toxins, or physical trauma.

Your biology is driven by your psyche’s need to move you toward wellness or away from danger. It’s not metaphorical—it’s literal.

Every symptom makes sense when understood as part of a meaningful, intelligent mechanism of survival and evolution.

Less Fear

When your symptoms make sense, your panic dissolves.

Clearer Direction

Your symptoms become messages instead of threats.

Deeper Insight

Both health issues and life problems become easier to identify, resolve, and complete.

More Energy

Less conflict = less biological effort = more vitality.

A GNM Glossary

A simple guide to the core ideas and terms used in Germanic Healing Knowledge.

First Biological Law

Active Phase (Conflict-Active Phase)

The first phase of a special biological program when the biological conflict is still active in the psyche and the organism makes tissue or functional changes to find resolution.

Biological Conflict

A biological conflict is a conflict, within the psyche, between a state one desires to experience and a state one desires not to experience.

Conflict Content

The fixation (problem, obsession, charge) of the psyche after a DHS and while the biological conflict is active. Conflict content determines the SBS.

Conflict Mass (Conflict Load)

The extent or accumulation of tissue and functional changes (including in the brain) while a biological conflict remains active in the psyche.

DHS (Dirk Hamer Syndrome)

The DHS is the moment in which the psyche decides that a circumstance is serious, unexpected (“catching us on the wrong foot”), and proof of isolation from life source. This is the initiating event for a biological conflict and a special biological program.

Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer

Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer (1935–2017) was a German physician who discovered the Five Biological Laws and developed the body of work he patented as “Germanic New Medicine (GNM),” later referred to as “Germanische Heilkunde (GHK).”

Existence

At the core of every biological conflict is an unconscious fear or belief that the source of our existence is threatened or nonexistent. The result is “existential isolation.”

Hamer Focus (Hamerscher Herd, HH)

A Hamer focus is a sphere of electrochemical activity, visible on a CT scan, at the site of heightened nervous-system activity in the brain and corresponding organ in the body, during a special biological program.

Idiopathic

“Idiopathic” means a condition with no known cause. In Germanische Heilkunde, we know that every disease or symptom that is not caused by injury, poisoning, or malnutrition is caused by a special biological program which begins in the psyche of the organism with a biological conflict that forms at the moment of a Dirk Hamer Syndrome (DHS).

Isolation

Isolation, in a biological context, is a subjective sense of being disconnected from the source of existence (or that it is nonexistent).

Psyche

The psyche is the unconscious information-processing “software” of an organism’s nervous system: the unconscious or subconscious mind. It is where a DHS takes place, and where a biological conflict forms, initiating a Special Biological Program. When we become conscious or aware of something, it is no longer in the psyche.

Sympathecotonia

Sympathecotonia is the state of sympathetic nervous system dominance: the organism’s “day” state of alertness, activity, and outward focus. Sympathecotonia characterizes both the normal biological stimulation phase and the exaggerated state of the conflict-active phase (“lasting day”).

Territorial (Masculine) Conflict

A territorial conflict is a masculine conflict relating to those collective systems and social resources which an individual claims, provides for, and protects. An active territorial conflict will involve one of the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex.

The Iron Rule of Cancer (First Biological Law)

Every idiopathic disease symptom begins when a biological conflict in the psyche initiates a psyche-brain-body emergency program. The biological conflict is triggered by a DHS.

Second Biological Law

Vagotonia

Vagotonia is the state of parasympathetic nervous system dominance — the organism’s “night” state of rest, digestion, and repair. Vagotonia characterizes both the normal daily biological relaxation phase and the deep restorative state of the healing phase of a special biological program (“lasting night”).

Tracks

Tracks are conditions we associate with a DHS. When we notice these conditions again later, our psyche can set up an “alarm” that the DHS may recur. We briefly recreate the active phase of the special biological program in our psyche, then move into healing-phase symptoms. Tracks are indications that the biological conflict is not solved.

The Law of Two Phases (Second Biological Law)

Every Special Biological Program (SBS) unfolds in two phases—a conflict-active phase and a healing phase—provided the biological conflict in the psyche is resolved. Each “disease” symptom is either an active-phase symptom or a healing phase symptom.

Hot, Warm, Warming

“Hot” diseases or symptoms are those that arise during the healing phase of a special biological program. “Warm” activities and substances that have a “warming” effect will temporarily reduce conflict-active symptoms but exacerbate healing phase symptoms.

Healing Phase (Post-Conflictolysis, PCL)

The healing phase (PCL) of a special biological program begins the moment an organism resolves the biological conflict in its psyche. PCL comprises healing, restoration, and scarring (permanent tissue change) in two parts (PCL-A and PCL-B) separated by the epi-crisis.

Conflict Resolution (Conflictolysis, CL)

Conflictolysis is the moment the psyche resolves the biological conflict and the special biological program switches from conflict-active phase to healing phase.

Cold, Cool, Cooling

“Cold” diseases or symptoms are those that arise during the conflict-active phase of a special biological program. “Cool” activities and substances that have a “cooling” effect will reduce healing-phase symptoms but exacerbate active-conflict symptoms.

Clearing Communication

Clearing communication is a structured inquiry and communication-based clearing approach that helps bring unresolved conflicts, charge, fixed meanings, self-devaluation stories and other contents of the psyche into consciousness.

Third Biological Law

Attack Conflict

An attack conflict is a conflict of attack, defilement, dirtiness, puncture, or pain.

Brain (Brain Relay, Nervous System)

A brain relay is the specific part of the brain that mediates between a particular biological conflict and its corresponding organ/tissue during the course of a special biological program.

Cell Loss (Necrosis, Ulceration)

In new-brain tissues (controlled through the cerebral cortex or cerebral medulla), cell loss resulting in tissue deterioration occurs during conflict activity.

Cell Proliferation

An increase in tissue size due to cell duplication.

Cerebellum

The cerebellum governs corium skin and evaginated gland tissues, which respond in special biological programs related to “attack.”

Cerebral Cortex

The cerebral cortex governs sensitive tissues, sexuality, and fight-flight-freeze functions, which respond in special biological programs related to sensing and responding to the environment and to social order.

Cerebral Medulla

Part of the “new brain,” responding to biological conflicts of self-devaluation. The cerebral medulla governs new mesoderm tissues, which includes most of the musculoskeletal tissue, blood and lymph, gonads, renal parenchyma, and more.

Constellation

When two biological conflicts of a similar nature run at the same time and in both sides of the brain, it creates a “constellation,” which produces a third symptom in addition to the symptoms of the constituent special biological programs.

Crossover

Crossover describes the neurological principle by which the right side of the brain relays to the left side of the body, and the left side of the brain relays to the right side of the body. Crossover applies in the cerebellum, cerebral medulla, and cerebral cortex, but not in the brainstem.

Ectoderm

The ectoderm is the outermost embryonic germ layer, giving rise to cerebral-cortex-controlled tissues involved in sensory, motor, and sex and territory.

Endoderm

The endoderm is the innermost embryonic germ layer, giving rise to tissues involved in obtaining, digesting, absorbing, and eliminating literal and metaphorical “morsels” — food, air, water, sound, light, and more. Endodermal tissues are relayed through the brainstem (pons) and respond to morsel conflicts by growing additional tissue to improve function.

Feminine Conflict

A feminine conflict is a temporal-lobe conflict concerning belonging, receptivity, relation, safety, or rejection from within the territory or container. It is the feminine counterpart to the territorial (masculine) conflict, and each feminine conflict relays from one of the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex.

Functional Loss

In Germanische Heilkunde, the term “functional loss” refers to the active phase of a special biological conflict relayed from the cerebral cortex, in which there is meaningful functional impairment but there is neither cell loss nor cell proliferation.

Germ Layer

A germ layer is one of the three early cell layers in an embryo (ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm) that later develop into all the body’s tissues and organs. The tissues within the germ layer will always have similar structure and behaviour.

Hamer Compass

The Hamer compass (or GNM compass) is based in embryology, behavioural sciences, and the ontogenetic history of the germ layers of animals. These seven compass points allow us to understand and predict the course of a special biological program based on conflict content, which brain relays are involved, and what changes are occurring in body tissues or functions.

Hormone Status

Hormone status describes the psyche’s current mode of organization in relation to belonging and territory, and will always be in either feminine or masculine mode.

Laterality

Your dominant neurological side decides how you “map” people/animals you know within your psyche. Laterality also determines rule of weight for temporal lobe (territory and belonging) conflicts.

Morsel Conflict

A morsel conflict is a biological conflict in the psyche involving the inability to obtain, ingest, or absorb a vital “morsel” or eliminate an unwanted or spent “morsel” (feces). Morsels may be literal (food, water, air) or metaphorical (income, words, “crappy” situation). Morsel conflicts trigger special biological programs in endodermal tissues, relayed through the brainstem.

Mother-Child

Your dominant neurological side decides how you “map” people/animals you know within your psyche. You map “mother-child” – those to whom you feel an unconditional, nurturing relationship – to your non-dominant side.

New Brain Tissues

New brain tissues are body tissues whose special biological programs are relayed through the cerebrum — either the cerebral medulla (for self-devaluation conflicts) or the cerebral cortex (for separation, motor, blood sugar, territorial, belonging, and similar “sense and respond” conflicts). New brain tissues respond to conflict by undergoing cell loss and/or functional loss during the active phase, then rebuilding — often to a greater size — during the healing phase.

New Mesoderm

The new mesoderm is the outer middle embryonic germ layer, giving rise to the body’s structural and connective tissues: the bulk of the mammalian body. New mesodermal tissues are relayed through the cerebral medulla and respond to self-devaluation conflicts by undergoing cell loss during the active phase and rebuilding to a permanently larger and stronger state during the healing phase.

Old Brain Tissues

Old brain tissues are body tissues whose special biological programs are relayed through the brainstem (pons), the midbrain, and the cerebellum — the most evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain. These tissues respond to core survival conflicts by growing additional cells during the conflict-active phase, and breaking them down during the healing phase with the help of microbes.

Old Mesoderm

The old mesoderm is the inner middle embryonic germ layer. Old mesodermal tissues are relayed through the cerebellum and respond to attack conflicts.

Partner

Your dominant neurological side decides how you “map” people/animals you know within your psyche. You map “partners” – those whom you perceive as colleagues, peers, or acquaintances: father, siblings, friends, competitors, sexual partners, coworkers, etc – to your dominant side.

Rule of Weight

The rule of weight describes how third and subsequent temporal-lobe conflicts relay once both temporal lobes are already active with territorial or feminine conflicts.

Temporal Lobes

The temporal lobes are the cerebral-cortex regions through which feminine (belonging) conflicts and (masculine) territorial conflicts relay.

The Ontogenetic System of Special Biological Programs (the 3rd Biological Law)

The Third Biological Law shows us that every special biological program has evolved in only one of four germ layers. This allows us to decipher conflict content based on which specific germ layer is manifesting symptoms.

Fourth Biological Law

Viruses

Pathogenic viruses were proposed by Louis Pasteur in the late 19th Century but have never been isolated, characterized, and proven. Almost every symptom blamed on viruses is actually the healing phase of a special biological program in the ectoderm germ layer.

The Ontogenetic System of Microbes (Fourth Biological Law of Nature)

The Fourth Biological Law describes the precise, orderly role of microbes – fungi, mycobacteria, and bacteria – in the healing phase of special biological programs. Microbes co-evolved alongside the germ layers and participate only in healing phase, never during the conflict-active phase, of special biological programs.

Parasites

A parasite is any organism that flourishes because there is an excess of its particular food supply. Parasites obey the Third Biological Law of Nature, but are not endemic to the organism.

Mycobacteria

Mycobacteria are microbes that, during the healing phase (PCL), consume and break down excess (“tumour”) tissue that formed during conflict activity in endoderm and old-mesoderm tissues (old-brain–relayed tissues).

Infection

What is called “infection” in conventional medicine and blamed on “pathogenic agents” in or on the body of a host organism is actually a tissue repair and restoration process involving microbes — fungi, mycobacteria, or bacteria — in the healing phase after resolving a biological conflict in the psyche.

Fungi

An organism’s endemic fungi — including species such as candida — are microorganisms encoded in the organism’s DNA that participate in the breakdown of tumours in old brain tissues, in accordance with the Fourth Biological Law.

Bacteria

During the healing phase, bacteria help remove certain kinds of tumour cells or rebuild certain kinds of lost tissue.

Fifth Biological Law

The Quintessence (Fifth Biological Law of Nature)

The Quintessence is the Fifth Biological Law of Nature, which states that every so-called “disease” — every special biological program — is meaningful in the context of the organism’s biological evolution. Nothing in nature is malignant or purposeless: every DHS, every biological conflict, and every SBS exists to help the organism attain an evolutionary desire and permanently adapt.

Special Biological Program (SBS)

A Special Biological Program is a meaningful, adaptive process initiated by an organism (in its psyche, brain, and body) in response to a biological conflict in its psyche. The purpose of a special biological program is to produce changes in thinking, nervous-system state, and tissue or function so the organism can endure the biological conflict without fully feeling it, resolve the biological conflict, and then make permanent biological adaptations.

Ontogenetic

“Ontogenetic” describes biological processes and changes that occur within an individual organism’s own lifetime — including growth, differentiation, repair, adaptation, and special biological programs. In GHK, ontogenetic processes – not phylogenetic (generational) changes – are understood as the true mechanism of biological evolution.

MindTree Integration

MindTree Integration is a guided inquiry process that combines Clearing Communication with the five biological laws of the Germanic New Medicine to uncover, resolve, and integrate the meaningful inner logic behind symptoms, conflicts, relationship issues, and recurring life patterns.

Germanische Heilkunde (GHK)

GHK is the knowledge of five biological laws of Nature that show the origin and course of every idiopathic disease and the basis of biological evolution.

Germanic New Medicine (GNM)

GNM is the knowledge of five biological laws of Nature that show the origin and course of every idiopathic disease and the basis of biological evolution.

Biological Program

A biological program is a biological process that does not begin with a DHS in the psyche.

Biological Law

A biological law is a natural, unbreakable law that governs disease and healing.