Homeopathy and the spirit like force
The founder of Homeopathy teaches that substance need to be diluted so it "develops the latent dynamic powers" that can fix any "mistunements" (diseases) in your "dynamis" (spirit)
There are many concerns for us, Catholics, regarding Homeopathy. You can read more about these concerns here .
In this article, I want to focus on the consequences of the fundamental principle of homeopathy “similia similibus curantur”, the idea that “like cures like”, by using the original texts of the creator of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann.
For those who are not familiar, this principle is proposed by Hahnemann in many writings, but, specially, in his main book, Organon, where he explains:
In order to cure gently, rapidly, certainly and permanently in each case of disease, choose a medicine which can, of itself arouse a similar suffering to the one it is supposed to cure! 1
This principle is so fundamental for homeopathy that, in fact, the name “homeopathy” is derived from the Greek “homoios-pathos”, which means “similar suffering”.
Hahnemann states that created things or substances (minerals, grains, vegetables, etc) are capable of harming you if they are in its natural and crude form, but, if you make small doses of it, by dilution or trituration, the same substance can actually cure you.
while too strong doses do harm and produce considerable disturbance in the system, a small dose, and even the smallest possible dose, cannot be inefficacious, if the remedy be only otherwise indicated. 2
For homeopathy, if coffee gives you insomnia, it is only because it is in it's crude form. If intake a grinded and highly diluted coffee bean it will restore your sleeping cycle.
This, by itself, is very concerning doctrine for us Catholics: Natural substances, while surrounded (wrapped) in matter (physical matter), don't show they true power and may even harm you.
It seems Homeopathy proposes that physical matter, somehow, hides the “power” of the substances.
Let's examine this further.
The founder of Homeopathy believed that in created things there is a “secret invisible force”3, often referenced as dynamic (or dynamis) in their literature.
Medicinal substances are not dead masses in the ordinary sense of the term, on the contrary, their true essential nature is only dynamically spiritual — is pure force 4
They explain that the “dynamically spiritual pure force” in substances are naturally restricted (weakened) by its own matter and, by removing the matter by means of trituration and/or subsequent and exhaustive dilution and shaking (succussion), it will “develops the latent dynamic powers of the substance which were previously unnoticeable“5 .
For a medical homeopath, this is necessary process because, “(substances) in their crude state do not manifest the least medicinal power in the human body“6 . The substance own matter is restricting its power. It is like everything has this “spirit like force”, but this force is weakened (or imprisoned) in it by matter, and, when you remove the matter, the "spirit like force" is strengthened (or free) and potentialized.
They say that by separating particles of the substance it “develops the latent dynamic powers of the substance which were previously unnoticeable, as if slumbering. The dynamic powers of these substances mainly have an influence on the life principle, on the condition of animal life (...)” 7.
Then how this “spirit like force” of substances can cure a disease? Well, for homeopaths, the cause of diseases cannot be a viruses or germs, “the causes of our diseases cannot be material" 8. For them, diseases are just your own “spirit like force”" mistuned in you:
when a person falls ill, it is initially only this spirit-like, autonomic life force (life principle), everywhere present in the organism, that is mixed through the dynamic 9
It is the disease-tuned life force alone that brings forth diseases. 10
Hence it is obvious that the diseases excited by the dynamic and special influence of morbific injurious agents can be originally only dynamical (caused almost solely by a spiritual process) derangements of the vital character of our organism 11
In fact, Hahnemann, was so sure about the immaterial source of diseases, that they are just your spirit mistuned, that he states that “the only way the medical-art practitioner can remove such morbid mistunements (the diseases) from the dynamis is by the spirit-like (dynamic, virtual) tunement-altering energies“12.
The substance now, free from matter (by griding, dilution, succusion, etc), develops a the “dynamis” and “life power“ capable to “tune” your spirit:
The dynamic powers of these substances mainly have an influence on the life principle 13
The process by which the homeopathic medical art cures disease (...) It differently tunes the life force by means of an affection similar to that of the disease, engendered by a medicine that has been homeopathically 14
By now you may have noticed the recurrence of the word “Dynamic”...
In the end of the Organon, there is a helpful footnote that explain us:
What is dynamic influence, dynamic power? We perceive that, by some secret invisible force, our earth conducts its moon around itself in twenty-eight days and a few hours, and the moon, in turn, raises our northern seas to flood tide at set hours and, in an equal number of hours, lets it sink again to ebb tide (allowing for some variation at the full and new moons). (...) 15
Hahnemann goes on and on, comparing the forces of the universe as the “secret invisible force” inside of you. This energy/force is very like Star-Wars ideas, Yoga, Budhism, etc. They all have their roots on the same issue: Gnosis/Pantheism
You may be puzzled and ask if Hannehnman was concerned about a scientific explanation for all of this, and he was not. He says:
Scientific explanations for how it takes place do not matter very much and I do not attach much importance to attempts made to explain it. 16
Conclusion
Now, the doctrine that says that matter is a prison (or weakens) the spirit or, as they say, “spirit life force” is precisely Gnosticism. You can learn more about it here:
It was the Manicheans who thought that certain fruits had divine particles in it 17.
It were the Gnostics exposed by Saint Irenaeus18, who said in matter, there was a divine light.
Pope Pius IX, in the allocution Maxima Quidem, denounced the crescent propagation of the pantheistic/gnostic ideas in his time:
With singular lack of principle, equal only to their folly (...) (they think that) God is really coming to be in man and in the world; and that all things are really God and of God’s substance; 19
Later, he condemned the following preposition in the Syllabus:
God is one and the same thing with the world, and, therefore, spirit with matter, necessity with liberty, good with evil, justice with injustice 20
We Catholics understand that God didn't put immaterial spirits in minerals, vegetables, etc. We, human beings, have a material body and an immaterial soul. But we don't believe that minerals have any “spirit” or a “dynamis”. Minerals, are pure matter!
With this short exposition I hope the question below is clarified:
Why Homeopath dilute things hundreds of times?
To remove matter, in order to “develops the latent dynamic powers of the substance” that can fix any “mistunements” in your “dynamis”
Bibliography
Hahnemann, Samuel. Lesser Writings. New York, Radde, 1852.
Hahnemann, Samuel. Organon of the Medical Art. Birdcage Press. Kindle Edition, 1996.
Hyppo, Augustine of. Confessions (Classics). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. 1961.
Smyrna, Irenaeus of. Against Heresies. Veritatis Splendor Publications. Kindle Edition. 2012.
Pius IX, Pope. Les Actes Pontificaux Cités Dans L ́Encyclique et Le Syllabus Du 8 Décembre 1864 Suivis de Divers Autres Documents. Librairie V Poussielgue et Fils, 1865.
Pius IX, Pope. The Syllabus of Errors, 9 June 1864, www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9syll.htm.
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 921
Hahnemann, Lesser Writings., pg. 466
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 4027
Hahnemann, Lesser Writings., pg. 733
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 3263
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 3259
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 3263
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 528
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 1084
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 1093
Hahnemann, Lesser Writings., pg. 619
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 1118
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 3265
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 756
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 4027
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 1208
“These particles of the true and supreme God were supposed to be imprisoned in the fruit“ (Hyppo, Confessions, Book III, Chapter 10)
“the aeons brought matter into existence and imprisoned some part of the Divine Light into the evil Hyle (Hyle)” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Introduction — Hyle is Greek for matter. Aeon in Gnosticism is spirits of being/ emmanations from god.
“Or, ils en viennent à ce degré d'impiété et d'impudence qu'ils attaquent le ciel et s'efforcent d'éliminer Dieu lui-même. En effet, dans une méchanceté qui n'a d'égale que leur sottise, ils ne craignent pas d'affirmer que la divinité suprême, pleine de sagesse et de providence, n'est pas distincte de l'universalité des choses, que Dieu est la même chose que la nature, sujet comme elle aux changements que Dieu se confond avec l'homme et le monde; que tout est Dieu; que Dieu est une même substance, une même chose que le monde, et par suite qu'il n'y a point de différence entre l'esprit et la matière, la nécessité et la liberté, le vrai etle faux, le bien et le mal,le juste et l'injuste. Certes, rien de plus insensé, rien de plus simple, rien de plus répugnant même ne saurait être imaginé." Pius IX, Les Actes Pontificaux Cités Dans L ́Encyclique et Le Syllabus, pg. 401, Maxima Quidam
Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors