Introduction and Full disclosure:
Rather than have you try and tease out my biases while
reading this, I’ll give them to you up front.
As you may or may not know, not only was I previously a devout Catholic,
I was also very much a part of the alternative health movement to the point
that I completed a 4 year diploma in Classical Homeopathy. I will admit up-front to still not being
entirely convinced that homeopathy is completely bogus for the simple reason
that I have seen things first hand that are not easily dismissed as placebo and
for which I do not have a better explanation.
I am, however, strongly skeptical.
But the subject of this essay is not the purported efficacy of homeopathy
– there are many others who have already dealt with that subject at length and
are far more qualified than I to assess it.
Rather, I wish to give a basic background on what homeopathy is, from a
former insider’s perspective, and explore the similarities – apparent to me
soon after joining the homeopathic community – between religion and both homeopathic
philosophy and the homeopathic community.
If all you know about homeopathy is that it uses very dilute medicines
which cannot possibly have any of the original substance remaining left in
them, then you will find almost all of the information I present in this
article to be completely new to you.
Homeopathy is, first and foremost, a system of medicine based on an
elaborate vitalistic philosophy.
Now, before I get into the meat of this essay, I also want
to say unequivocally that I have never encountered a single dishonest
Homeopathic practitioner and I would never call any of them quacks or
charlatans as those terms imply a deliberate attempt at fraud. My fellow skeptics who have only a passing
familiarity with Homeopathy often scoff dismissively and assume that homeopaths
just dispense sugar pills and bottled water willy-nilly and collect the cash to
get rich. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Not only is the process of
interviewing a patient extensive, often taking one to two hours, a homeopath –
depending on their level of experience - may also spend an additional hour or
more researching which remedy to administer.
Very few homeopathic practitioners can even make a living at it, let
alone get rich! In fact, many actually
operate at a loss, spending far more on courses, books and supplies than they
would ever be able to recoup from the minimal fees they charge. And since most patients do not have insurance
coverage that pays for homeopathy but must pay out of pocket, many small scale
practitioners end up offering their services for discounted rates or bartering
them. So you can clearly see my eyes
rolling when I hear an MD refer to Homeopaths as swindlers out to make a quick
buck when the MD is the one who pulls in a six figure salary and would be lying
if he or she claimed to not be influenced in which prescriptions they give
their patients by the pharmaceutical reps and their multi-million dollar
advertising and entertainment budgets. Homeopaths
sincerely believe in what they do and they work hard at it, putting in an extraordinary
amount of study. Regardless of how
effective the remedies themselves are, to impute that all Homeopaths are frauds
is rather like claiming that all Christian preachers are actually just
pretending to have faith. So disagree
with them and argue with them all you like, but at least have the respect to
acknowledge their sincerity and good will.
Homeopaths actually care about their patients.
Now, on to what this essay is actually about.
Samuel Hahnemann: The Homeopathic Prophet
Homeopathy was founded by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hahnemann
, an admittedly brilliant physician who also made contributions to mainstream
medicine through his encouragement of hygiene, clean living and good diet, and
his opposition to the barbaric and dangerous treatments mainstream medical
treatments of his day such as bloodletting and the use of potent toxins.
Disillusioned by these harmful practices, he
quit medicine to focus on translations work and it was while translating the
work of a fellow physician that he first began formulating his ideas about
Homeopathy after he encountered a statement that the Peruvian bark cinchona was
effective against malaria because it was bitter and astringent.
Hahnemann reasoned that these properties
alone would not account for its effect since many other medicines that possessed
those same properties were completely ineffective against malaria.
So he tested the substance by administering
it to himself and recording the symptoms produced.
The symptoms resembled those caused by
malaria itself and so Hahnemann concluded that the effect was due to their
similarity.
The Latin motto of
homeopathy is similia similibus curentur, often phrased in English as “like
cures like”.
This idea that a substance which
can provoke a certain set of symptoms in a healthy individual will cure those
same symptoms in a sick individual is the basis of all homeopathic treatment,
and the word homeopathy itself.
From the
Greek, Homeos = similar, Pathos = disease.
The process of human experimentation whereby a substance is administered
to a group of healthy individuals, and the resultant symptoms recorded to
create a picture of the remedy’s supposed curative properties is called a
proving.
Data from accidental poisonings
was also used and later anecdotal data from patients cured by these remedies was
also added.
It is important to note that
most of the historic provings were done with physically active doses of
substances, whereas modern provings tend to use homeopathic dilutions.
Now, up until this point, Homeopathy was
actually far more rigorously empirical and scientific than the mainstream
medicine of the day, which Hahnemann called “allopathy”, a term that has taken
on a pejorative connotation that many homeopaths and other alternative health
practitioners still use to refer to mainstream medicine.
I will not go into too much detail on the
further development of homeopathy. You
can easily find that information in other historical resources if it interests
you as it very well documented, with a large body of historical documents to
draw from including some interesting stories about Hahnemann and others that
resemble legends. For example, the
origin of succussion (the vigorous hitting of the bottle at each stage of
dilution to add energy to the remedy) is said to have come about when Hahnemann
noticed that the remedies he used were more effective after having ridden on
horseback to see a patient.
Instead, let me just broadly paint
a picture of how this system of medicine that began with such well intentioned
scientific beginnings morphed into what I perceive to be a pseudo-religious
movement. Hahnemann wrote a book
outlining his philosophy and practice known as the Organon, which is for all
intents and purposes the holy scripture of Homeopathy. The Organon went through 6 editions, with the
last being published posthumously.
Hahnemann was known for being very possessive of his new system and
dictatorial about how he spread the practice of Homeopathy. After releasing a new edition of the Organon
which would form the orthodox methods of practice for the majority of
Homeopaths, Hahnemann and a few select colleagues would continue experimenting
with new methods and concepts that would only later be revealed to others in
the next edition. Those who deviated
from orthodox practice and attempted to do their own research or try different
methods were – and still are! - treated as heretics with ostracism, public
criticism and condemnations. The Organon
is divided into numbered verses known as aphorisms which are quoted by
homeopaths very much as one would quote the bible or the koran, and often with
equal if not greater weight and reverence given to these writings. Though new translations from the original
German exist that some Homeopaths accept, others grant authority only to older
translations much the same way some groups of Christians accept only the King
James Bible as authoritative.
Vitalism and energy medicine
In the Organon – which you can read on-line at
http://www.homeopathyhome.com/reference/organon/organon.html -
Hahnemann claims that the body’s health is
regulated by the “vital force” and that diseases that affect it are energetic
states with an energetic signature which can be cancelled out by the
application of a remedy which has a similar energy signature and produces a
temporary artificial disease state, which, when it subsides, will leave the
patient in a state of health.
Now this is a very key point.
Any skeptic
encountering homeopathy will learn about Avogadro’s constant (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avogadro%27s_number):
the theoretical point of dilution at which no
trace of the original substance remains, which is 6.02214X×10
23 (You’ll note that 10-23 is the date skeptics
use to protest homeopathy).
The obvious
questions when one learns that homeopathic remedies are diluted well beyond
this point is, do these homeopaths know about this?
And if so, how can someone know about this
and not be a fraud?
The reason that
homeopaths and their patients are not disturbed by the knowledge of Avogadro’s constant
is because of their faith in vitalism.
I
knew about the Avogadro constant before I signed up for Homeopathy school.
Truth be told, I thought it was cool and I
was proud of this distinctive feature of homeopathy.
You see, homeopathy is often referred to as
“energy medicine” alongside aromatherapy, healing crystals and others (which
are inferior and more primitive forms of energy medicine, according to
classical homeopaths).
They believe that
the process of dilution and succussion imparts an energetic signature to the
remedy and that this acts as a signal that stimulates the body’s own innate
healing mechanisms.
In fact, in
homeopathy the belief is that the greater the dilution, the more powerful the
remedy is.
Whereas pharmaceutical
medicine and herbs operate at a clearly physical level, reacting biochemically
in the body, homeopathy does not and even when physical doses are used that is
not the intended method of application.
At its very core, Homeopathy relies on a faith in the existence of an
invisible and undetectable vital force in the body which has innate healing
abilities (note that Chiropractic was founded on a similar philosophy and calls
their version of this healing capability ‘the innate’, but most Chiropractors
have abandoned that philosophy in favour of a more scientific and publicly
palatable approach.)
It also requires
faith that the remedies administered have a similar undetectable vital force or
energetic signature capable of interacting with the body’s vital force.
The obvious assumption would be that this is
a spiritual quasi-religious belief, and for many it is.
But others believe that these energies and
forces are very real natural energies and that one day technology will advance
enough to allow them to be detected and measured.
They may make reference to quantum physics
being the arena where these discoveries will be made, but I have yet to meet
one who actually has more than a superficial understanding of quantum physics
or any sort of reasonable hypothesis as to how that area of study might relate
to homeopathy.
Miasms, suppression, and the “theory” of the origin of
disease
While
homeopathy is often used to treat acute concerns, which is termed therapeutics,
the focus is chronic disease, especially in modern practice where many of the
patients who come to a homeopath do so because they have tried and failed to
find relief through conventional medicine or other more popular forms of
medicine. Hahnemann’s other well known
work is a book called the Chronic Diseases in which he ascribed all diseases
that afflict humanity to a group of what he calls “miasms”. These miasms are a sort of inherited energetic
pollution that affect the vital force and cause disease, a concept very similar
to the Christian doctrine of original sin.
The origin of these miasms is said to be a natural disease that was
“suppressed” in the past. This notion of
suppression is another pseudo religious concept you will often encounter in
homeopathic philosophy and many other alternative medicines. It claims that the application of allopathic
medicines – particularly the toxic poultices of the past, and the modern use of
steroids – pushes the disease state further into the vital force resulting in
chronic disease rather than healing. You
may hear, for example, homeopaths claim that skin diseases treated with
steroids can lead to asthma through this process of suppression. The flip side of this is that one aim of
homeopathy is to bring these suppressed diseases to the surface, and so they will
interpret new or changing symptoms as signs that the disease suppression is
being lifted. This is of particular
concern to medical doctors as interpreting symptoms as signs of healing
(sometimes termed a healing crisis), may prevent the patient from recognizing
what may in fact be serious symptoms that need attention.
The chief
miasm is called Psora, said to be responsible for 7/8th of all
disease, and is descended from suppressed scabies. The other ones are
syphilitic (descended from syphilis), and sycotic (not to be confused with
psychotic, and derived from suppressed gonorrhea). To these original three Hahnemann later added
Tuberculin (descended from suppressed tuberculosis), and subsequent homeopaths
have expanded this pantheon to include miasmic versions of cancer, malaria,
leprosy and a host of others. Many of
these new additions are of course opposed by the Hahnemannian fundamentalists
who see any evolution of the philosophy beyond the canonical works of
Hahnemann, Kent, Hering and a few other early pioneers to be heretical.
Homeopathic sectarianism
It was
this doctrinal in-fighting that first caught my attention as a student of
Homeopathy.
It was everywhere.
It didn’t take long to realize that most of
the political tensions and personal conflicts rampant within the homeopathic
community and the various small competing schools stemmed as much from differences
of opinion over doctrine and practice as they did from ego and personality
clashes.
Coming from a background in
Catholic apologetics where my favourite subject of study was the doctrinal
differences between Catholicism and Protestantism I immediately saw in
Homeopathy a mirror image of this religious sectarianism.
Much in the same way the Protestant reformation
resulted in offshoots of Protestantism centered around the teachings of
particular theologians like Luther, Calvin, or Wesley, the same thing has been
part of Homeopathic tradition since Hahnemann died and left no plan of
succession.
You have probably
encountered the term “Classical Homeopathy,” which is meant to distinguish it
from unorthodox versions of the practice.
The basic form of Classical Homeopathy relies on a core cannon of the
works of Hahnemann and some contemporaries such as Kent, who was a member of
the Christian mystic movement Swedenborgianism (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedenborgianism
) and introduced many of its concepts to Homeopathy where they continue to
influence its practice.
Those who
practice his methods refer to them as Kentian, one of the sub-schools of
practice that exist within orthodox classical homeopathy.
The chief characteristic of all classical
homeopathy is that only one remedy is used at a time and it is tailored
specifically to the symptoms the patient presents with.
This individualization is the key reason why
homeopaths object to the methodologies of clinical trials published in mainstream
medical journals.
Those trials, by their
nature, tend to minimize variables and so chose one remedy to test against one
disease.
In homeopathy, remedies are not
chosen to suit the disease, or even the disease’s common symptoms, but to suit
the patient’s individualizing symptoms.
So, for example, you would not say give remedy x for headache.
You may say if the headache has a sudden onset
with throbbing and redness in the face, give remedy X, but if it slowly
progressive and vice-like give remedy Y.
10 people with the same medical diagnosis may be prescribed 10 different
remedies.
In homeopathy the medical
diagnosis – at least in terms of choosing the remedy – is of secondary or
tertiary importance.
In a very real
sense for the homeopath, the remedy is the diagnosis that the practitioner is
making, and the only other diagnosis that might aid in remedy selection would be
the miasmatic diagnosis as certain remedies are directed towards specific
miasms.
Important considerations are the
patient’s state of mind and any strange rare and peculiar symptoms.
Remedy profiles may include hundreds of
different possible symptoms with many overlaps between remedies, and
practitioners may frequently disagree over which remedy best suits a particular
patient.
In sharp
contrast to this extremely complex process of individualization, the remedies
you buy in drug-stores generally consist of combinations of ingredients of
varying low potencies labelled as a treatment for a specific condition. This shotgun approach to throwing a range of
remedies at symptoms instead of a single targeted remedy is anathema to
classical homeopathy and will often be dismissed as not homeopathic at all. You may be surprised to learn that these
drug-store homeopathic remedies that are the bread and butter of sales for the remedy
makers are generally frowned upon by homeopaths themselves, not for the obvious
financial reason that OTC homeopathic remedy use allows consumers to bypass the
practitioner, but because they are heretical to basic homeopathic dogma.
Many
practitioners of Classical Homeopathy are what I would term fundamentalists,
who will not deviate from the original cannon and generally restrict the
remedies they use to the well known ones described in the old Materia Medicas
(their compendiums of remedy indications.)
Other homeopaths have moved far beyond the original scope of homeopathy
and pursue new remedies and new doctrines.
One such common doctrine that forms the foundation of the work of popular
contemporary homeopaths Jan Scholten and Rajan Sankaran, is the doctrine of
signatures. This doctrine states that
the natural form of a remedy relates in some way to its function. A classic example would be Pulsatilla, a type
of buttercup flower that is very delicate, easily damaged, easily swayed in the
wind, etc. and whose symptom profile includes weepiness, changeability of
symptoms, etc. Patients needing Lachesis
Muta derived from the venom of the bushmaster snake are said to have snake-like
personality traits, feel as if they have a lump in their throat like a snake
swallowing prey, and so on. Where most
classical homeopaths would choose a remedy based primarily on which remedy best
matches the symptoms, regardless of the source of the remedy, those subscribing
to this doctrine might first attempt to classify their patient as a plant,
animal or mineral, and further narrow down from there into subcategories. Though these practitioners still fall under
the umbrella of “classical” homeopathy, they are nevertheless considered
heretics by the fundamentalist camps. The
fireworks in the clashes between proponents of different methods of practice
are really quite something to observe and have resulted in schisms forming
within schools such as my own.
As with
religion, there is a mainstream orthodoxy; in this case classical homeopathy
and its subsets that still fall under that umbrella. There are also numerous unorthodox
interpretations of homeopathy. The type
of homeopathy employed by naturopaths alongside herbs and other treatment
modalities is generally classical, but often limited in use and tends towards
the therapeutic. Some New Age energy
healers may use homeopathic remedies chosen through forms of augury like
applied kinesiology, a dowsing pendulum, astrology, intuitive interpretations
of energy sensing or aura visualizing, or forms of Kirlian photography or other
imaging techniques that purport to create a visual representation of the
patient’s aura. All of these methods are
shunned by classical homeopathy and often considered mere quackery. Other practitioners use classical homeopathy as
a basis for further experimentation and work with limited combination remedies
and other methods of symptom based remedy selection that they perceive as a
natural evolution in homeopathic thought and do not regard Hahnemann’s
doctrines as immutable. Still others
seek to use historical research into Hahnemann’s unpublished work, and new
translations and interpretations of the Organon and Chronic Diseases to gain a
new understanding of what Hahnemann’s newest vision for homeopathy was just
before he died.
Homeopathy
shares many traits in common with religions:
A founder who put forth new doctrines about the unseen and the impossible
to verify. A body of stories about him
and other important characters in its history, generally regarded with
reverence. A cannon of orthodox
literature written long ago that is studied and interpreted and provides the
doctrinal and philosophical foundations for its practice. It relies on unverifiable supernatural or
quasi supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. And, of course, its adherents can’t agree on
many points and fight ongoing battles of words over their differences.
