Homeopathy, the Religion

Science and Health with Key to the Materia Medica,
by John Robert Benneth

Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, saw the connection between Mesmerism, spiritual healing and homeopathy.

This may come as a surprise to many.  It may be troubling to some, revelatory to others, but in the United States, homeopathy is regarded, in at least one state, as a religious practice exempt from laws normal regulatory laws.

This is a difficult subject to write about, hard to articulate . It isn’t to destroy Christian Science, it’s here to enlighten it as there are some conundrums which need unravelling.

I don’t know about other states, but in  Oregon, homeopathy is defined as a spiritual practice and therefore has an exemption from regulation or restriction by rules that would normally restrict the use of homeopathic drugs to naturopaths and other physicians.

Here is the wording:

ORS 685.010 Definitions. As used in this chapter: “Drugs” includes: (a) Substances recognized as drugs in the official Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States

ORS 685.030 Application of Chapter 685 — Naturopaths 2009 EDITION

(2) “Drugs” includes:

(a) Substances recognized as drugs in the official United States Pharmacopoeia, official National Formulary, official Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States, other drug compendium or any supplement to any of them;
(1) This chapter does not apply to any Christian Scientist or other person who by religious or spiritual means endeavors to prevent or cure disease or suffering in accord with the tenets of any church.

It could be argued that homeopathy cannot be construed as religious or spiritual healing. The response to that  is that it certainly can be regarded as such, as the official Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States is only a compendium of labelled intentionsnot a chemical or physical identification of such. Allopathic pharmacopoeia are catalogs of patent medicines, they can be identified chemically, wehreas homeopathic, or perjhaps more technically, supramolecular medicines to date have no such convention.

The Oregon statute specifically names it and Christian Science in its seminal religiouis text “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures specifically describes the use of homeopathy as spiritual. The religion of homeopathy is Christian Science, a late 19th century religion known for its spiritual healing,  inspired and founded by Mary Baker Eddy, a practicing homeopath who was married to a homeopath, Dr. Daniel Patterson, and had an adopted son who was also a homeopath, Dr. Ebenezer Foster Eddy.

At one time, Foster-Eddy, who was adopted by Mrs. Eddy at the age of 41, the same age at which Mrs. Eddy had her transformative healing, became the second most powerful figure in the church.

She studied under the renowned American Mesrmerist and spiritual healer, Phineas Quimby.

She discusses homeopathy in the Christian Science text book, describing it as a form of spiritually curative medicine that demonstrates the principles of spiritual healing.

Mary Baker Eddy establishes homeopathy as a spiritual practice.

In Science and Health she describes how homeopathy demonstrates spiritual healing. In the church manual  cases of serious diseases treated with homeopathy are discussed. The homeopathic remedies used to successfully treat them with are named. Procedures and processes particular to homoeopathy, such as homeopathic aggravation, the use of placebos, the use of mental symptoms in diagnosis of disease, the absence of the intended orthomolecular matter in homeopathic remedies, how potency increases with dilution are taught. The homeopathic materia medica used as a reference book is Jahr.

The use of similars in homeopathy, the effects of homeopathic remedies on the mind and how homeopathy provides for an understanding of spiritual healing is explained in Christian Science.

Homeopathy is the inspiration of Christian Science.

The religion is explicitly free from Oregon laws regulating the practice of homeopathy.

The founder was was well steeped in it. Mrs. Eddy’s first husband, Dr. Daniel Patterson, was a homeopath. The church manual, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, gives examples of cases cured by her and the remedies she used to cure them with.

Collecting the references from her book of revelations, one can see that homoeopathy is what she took to be evidence of the power of mind over matter, that healing is essentially spiritual.

Science and Health says of Mrs. Eddy,

“Her experiments in homoeopathy had made her skeptical as to material curative methods. Jahr, from Aconitum to Zincum oxydatum, enumerates the general symptoms, the characteristic signs, which demand different remedies; but the drug is frequently attenuated to such a degree that not a vestige of it remains. Thus we learn that it is not the drug which expels the disease or changes one of the symptoms of disease.”  Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 

Eddy explicitly credits homoeopathy for making her skeptical of allopathy in the use of material methods to heal. She mentions one of Hahnemann’s closest disciples, Georg Jahr, as her reference work in homoeopathy, and states that not a vestige of a drug remains in a homeopathic remedy.

This can be taken to mean that none of the original intended matter is left in the homeopathic solution.

She writes,

“The author has attenuated Natrum muriaticum (common table-salt) until there was not a single saline property left. The salt had “lost his savour;” and yet, with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of water, and a teaspoonful of the water administered at intervals of three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever. The highest attenuation of homoeopathy and the most potent rises above matter into mind.

“This discovery leads to more light. From it may be learned that either human faith or the divine Mind is the healer and that there is no efficacy in a drug.

“You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful.
The boil simply manifests, through inflammation and swelling, a belief in pain, and this belief is called a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high attenuation of truth, and it will soon cure the boil. The fact that pain cannot exist where there is no mortal mind to feel it is a proof that this so-called mind makes its own pain — that is, its own belief in pain.”

“Homoeopathy diminishes the drug, but the potency of the medicine increases as the drug disappears.”

She then presents rhetorical questions, questions not easily answered.

“Vegetarianism, homoeopathy, and hydropathy have diminished drugging; but if drugs are an antidote to disease, why lessen the antidote? If drugs are good things, is it safe to say that the less in quantity you have of them the better? If drugs possess intrinsic virtues or intelligent curative qualities, these qualities must be mental. Who named drugs, and what made them good or bad for mortals, beneficial or injurious?

A Terrible Case

“A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient looked like a barrel. I prescribed the fourth attenuation of Argentum nitratum with occasional doses of a high attenuation of Sulphuris. She improved perceptibly. Believing then somewhat in the ordinary theories of medical practice, and learning that her former physician had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an aggravation of symptoms from their prolonged use, and told the patient so; but she was unwilling to give up the medicine while she was recovering. It then occurred to me to give her unmedicated pellets and watch the result. I did so, and she continued to gain. Finally she said that she would give up her medicine for one day, and risk the effects. After trying this, she informed me that she could get along two days without globules; but on the third day she again suffered, and was relieved by taking them. She went on in this way, taking the unmedicated pellets, — and receiving occasional visits from me, — but employing no other means, and she was cured.

Chapter Six, Science, Theology and Medicine, S&H, p. 156

In the next paragraph, Mrs. Eddy presents homeopathy as the preceding step to metaphysics.

“Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the next stately step beyond homoeopathy. In metaphysics, matter disappears from the remedy entirely, and Mind takes its rightful and supreme place. Homoeopathy takes mental symptoms largely into consideration in its diagnosis of disease. Christian Science deals wholly with the mental cause in judging and destroying disease. It succeeds where homoeopathy fails, solely because its one recognized Principle of healing is Mind, and the whole force of the mental element is employed through the Science of Mind, which never shares its rights with inanimate matter.

Mrs. Eddy is presenting the argument here that homeopathy is the learned progression of metaphysics. Modern science is now discovering the physical mechanisms of homeopathy and are describing them in scientific terms similar to metaphysical terms.

Amongst other meanings meta means “beyond. ” Recently the description of the operative mechanism of homeopathy has been identified as “supramolecular” (Demangeat, Montagnier, Roy). Supra also means beyond, referring to intermolecular forces.

Professor Rustum Roy, the late professor emeritus of the material sciences at Pennsylvania State University, and one of the world’s most decorated and highly respected scientists, has made a particular point of addressing the role structure plays in giving matter its particular qualities: The same material element can have entirely different properties due to the arrangement of its molecules. His prime example is a diamond, one of the hardest elements, and graphite, one of the softest; yet both substances are made of pure Carbon.

Roy uses this example to illustrate the polymorphic qualities of homeoapthic remedies, which are made with water.

He talks about how a mere refrigerator magnet can change the pH of water.

ROY: “What got me interested in this field,” says Roy, referring to a Power Point slide of Raman spectroscopy, showing the psychokinetic effects of Dr. Yan Xin, a physician of the Chinese Traditional Medicine Research Institute of Chongqing, China on the pH of water at a distance (http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/yanxin.html), “was this particular figure. This is the Qi Gong master Yan Xin, who I know rather well. He was a personal physician to Deng Tsao Peng, the Prime Minister of China for many, many years, he was changing the water from seven kilometers, or even 2,000 kilometers, 6,000 kilometers away, San Fransisco to Beijing. And so look at the difference now between the left and the top and the bottom left. Is that a change or what in the Raman signal . . I should, Holy Cow, either this guy is drawing them in and making them up, but the person doing this was the head of the physics dept at Singh Hwa.”

CALLER: “He is changing the water by sending qi energy?”

ROY: He is sending qi energy from a distance. He first did it at seven kilometers away, and never in the same room, and then he did it cross town, San Fran to Beijing, and so on, so it is really . . I want to go into more detail, so is water that changeable, intention, these are relatively weak vectors, if you could do that, now I don’t know, I just assume that nobody’s cheating here, and I said that is certainly very interesting.”
How Homeopathy Works, video, 43:30, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU5ukds8G8o

“What is very fascinating with Dr. Yan Xin’s work, is that he is using modern scientific methods and tools to prove (to the Western mind) that the focusing of chi onto substance such as DNA can be measured. Besides conducting studies, he has given Chi-Emitting Lectures to millions of people. In these lectures, he sends out healing energy to the audience, in which people may be healed of an affliction, and he teaches them a form of meditation in which they can learn to heal themselves.” http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/yanxin.html

Marry Baker Eddy writes,

“Homoeopathy mentalizes a drug with such repetition of thought-attenuations, that the drug becomes more like the human mind than the substratum of this so-called mind, which we call matter; and the drug’s power of action is proportionately increased.”

In 1896, psychologist Frank H. Randall, in his book “Mesmerism, Hypnotism and Thought Reading,” writes on how to magnetize water. It is strangely resonant with what Roy observes of Yan Xin’s ability to restructure water psychokinetically:

“How to magnetise water: Procure a tumbler fresh water, hold it in the palm of the left hand that the fingers extend round and in contact with the vessel, concentrate the fingers of the right hand to a focus inside the the tumbler, either below the surface of the water, or just above it. Gather from your patient and seat of his disease, that you may dispensator magnetism into the water accordingly, strongly will your patient’s relief, using the utmost energy of your mind to force the magnetic fluid through the finger tips. Continue this concentration for a few minutes; breathe and make a few passes over the glass, then hand it to your patient; request him to drink as much as he can without discomforting himself.”

Mrs. Eddy writes,

“Evidences of progress and of spiritualization greet us on every hand. Drug-systems are quitting their hold on matter and so letting in matter’s higher stratum, mortal mind. Homoeopathy, a step in advance of allopathy, is doing this. Matter is going out of medicine; and mortal mind, of a higher attenuation than the drug, is governing the pellet.”

“Homoeopathy furnishes the evidence to the senses, that symptoms, which might be produced by a certain drug, are removed by using the same drug which might cause the symptoms. This confirms my theory that faith in the drug is the sole factor in the cure. The effect, which mortal mind produces through one belief, it removes through an opposite belief, but it uses the same medicine in both cases.

All o these people quoted here are speaking of a biomagnetic force that an be manipulate directly by human operators, or indirectly, in homeopathy, through the process of dilution and succussion.

Mesmerism, contrary to much popular opinion that it is synonymous with hypnotism and is induced merely by suggestion. But this is not the case. Mesmerism is the manipulation of silent forces to induce altered states, both physical and mental.

Homeopathy shares with Mesmerism this same quality, and it is interesting to see that investigators seem to be brushing against the same biomagnetic connection.

The founder of homeopathy, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, MD, is no exception:

“I find it yet necessary to allude here to ANIMAL MAGNETISM, as it is termed, or rather MESMERISM (as it should be called in deference to Mesmer, its first founder) which differs so much in its nature from all other therapeutic agents

“This curative force, often so stupidly denied and disdained for a century, acts in different ways

“It is a marvelous, priceless gift of God to mankind by means of which the strong will of a well intentioned person upon a sick one by contact and even without this and even at some distance, can bring the vital energy of the healthy mesmeriser endowed with this power into another person dynamically (just as one of the poles of a powerful magnetic rod upon a bar of steel)

“It acts in part by replacing in the sick whose vital force within the organism is deficient here and there, in part also in other parts where the vital force has accumulated too much and keeps up irritating nervous disorders it turns it aside, diminishes and distributes it equally and in general extinguishes the morbid condition of the life principle of the patient and substitutes in its place the normal of the mesmerist acting powerfully upon him, for instance, old ulcers, amaurosis, paralysis of single organs and so forth

“Many rapid apparent cures performed in all ages, by mesmerizers endowed with great natural power, belong to this class

“The effect of communicated human power upon the whole human organism was most brilliantly shown, in the resuscitation of persons who had lain some time apparently dead, by the most powerful sympathetic will of a man in full vigor of vital energy,(166) and of this kind of resurrection history records many undeniable examples

“If the mesmerizing person of either sex capable at the same time of a good-natured enthusiasm (even its degeneration into bigotry, fanaticism, mysticism or philanthropic dreaming) will be empowered all the more with this philanthropic self-sacrificing performance to direct exclusively the power of his commanding good will to the recipient requiring his help and at the same time to concentrate these, he may at times perform apparent miracles

“Notes related to the aphorism – [166] Especially of one of such persons, of whom there are not many, who, along with great kindness of disposition and perfect bodily powers, possesses but A VERY MODERATE DESIRE FOR SEXUAL INTERCOURSE, which it would give him very little trouble wholly to suppress, in whom, consequently, all the fine vital spirits that would otherwise be employed in the preparation of the semen, are ready to be communicated to others, by touching them and powerfully exerting the will

“Some powerful mesmerisers, with whom I have become acquainted, had ALL this peculiar character.” Hahnemann, The Organon of Medicine, aphorism 288

Hahnemann, a professional translator who spoke a ozen languages, was one of the most educated chemists of his day. He had little time for mummery or mysticism, as his critics would love to portray him.

Such was also the case with Anton Mesmer, also an MD. These people, like Roy are presenting their world view because of what they experienced, and although it doesn’t fit the putative paradigm, in the face of ridicule, defamation andattack, they report it fearlessly.

In the past, science has fled in the face of this evidence. And so, as in the case of Christian Science, it has retreated into religion, as a spiritual practice. Mrs. Eddy did not have the benefit of modern supramolecular chemistry that studies intermolecular forces and tries to explain them.

Homeopathy is staying abreast of sceince inthi regard. The material sciences have cave in on the memory o water argument and are now admitting that water, in regard to its solutes, can indeed retain a memory.

A new day is dawning . . .