Homeopathy - Science, Doctrine and Catholicism
The principles proposed by Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), creator of Homeopathy, are permeated with Gnosticism and contrary to the Catholic faith.
During a lecture on Gnosticism in 2018/2019, the homeopathy section got so much attention that I wrote an extended explanation for those eager to learn more about Hahnemann's ideas.
What you read about here is an adaptation of this early work.
Dear friends, here is an article I wrote for you to explain the science and doctrine of Homeopathy, as you requested.
Please, feel free to use this material as you see best.
It is essential to notice that, in Homeopathy, science, and doctrine fuse. This “fusion” alone can be exposed extensively. However, for this short work, I shall show both separately: science and then doctrine.
Analyzing Homeopathy’s Science and Doctrine separately is didactic and useful since when ordinary material science is understood, the real important part (the doctrinal ideas) will be easily comprehended.
Science of Homeopathy
This work is meant to be short; therefore, I will use external links. From a science perspective, I would recommend this good and illustrative explanation about homeopathy from a not-so-good author Richard Dawkins:
In the video above, Richard Dawkins shows homeopathy as, at best, a placebo.
But make no mistake, Richard Dawkins is not a Catholic; he is an atheist with many wrong ideas. Nevertheless, his exposition on Homeopathy is very well-founded and clear.1.
Yet, one may ask, why should we use his arguments if he is not Catholic?
It is not because someone has wrong ideas that all his ideas have to be discarded. The Catholic Church incorporated this axiom with perfection through the centuries. For example, even though Plato and Aristotle were pagans (the former was involved in pederasty/homosexualism), we use their teachings in metaphysics to help explain natural theology. The Summa Theologiae, from the great St. Thomas Aquinas, is packed with quotes and ideas derived from the works of Plato and, mainly, Aristotle. However, it was never acknowledged that every word from the same pagan authors was good or worth reading.
Same we do here with Richard Dawkins.
The making of homeopathy
With the science part explained, it is also essential to see how homeopathy is made. The central doctrine of theirs is that like-cures-like. So if coffee gives you insomnia, it is because coffee, in its pure form (with matter), generates insomnia. Still, if you remove the matter from coffee by means of dilution, it will restore your sleeping cycle.
How does someone remove matter from anything? How does this dilution work?
First, you need a solution: Put 99 drops of water (or alcohol) in a cylinder and 1 gram of (let’s say) coffee bean powder, and shake this solution vigorously 20 times.
Making the second solution: Take another clean cylinder and add 99 drops of water (or alcohol). Add one drop of the resulting solution from step 1 to this cylinder. Shake 20 times.
Making the third solution: Take another clean cylinder and add 99 drops of water (or alcohol). Add one drop of the resulting solution from step 2 to this cylinder. Shake 20 times.
Repeat it 30 times or more. The more you repeat, the better.
The process above will give you a homeopathic solution that claims to cure insomnia. Again, they claim that by diluting the coffee bean powder added in step 1, you are left only with the non-material force of coffee, which can make you sleep. In contrast, in its crude form, the matter of the coffee bean makes you awake.
To see it being in the video, please watch this:
For science, it doesn't make sense.
Doctrine of Homeopathy
To understand its doctrine, we must go back to its very founder Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), and his main literary work, a book called “Organon of the Medical Art”, which can be easily found in libraries today or online.
This book passed through many posthumous editions that watered down his doctrine (no pun intended). Still, even in the current edition, his gnostic doctrine is as clear as water.
Origin of diseases and cure for Hahnemann
While Hahnemann will not call himself Gnostic or Pantheist or identify himself as a Dualist or any other anthropocentric system that either demonizes or divinizes matter, it is easy to identify all aspects of such doctrine in his writings.
In his Organon, right at the beginning of the chapter titled “Diseases Are Dynamic, Not Material”2, he will explain: “The causes of our diseases cannot be material”3.
He believes that all diseases are just “the force” in yourself misaligned:
“When a person falls ill, it is initially only this spirit-like, autonomic life force (life principle), everywhere present in the organism, that is mistuned through the dynamic”4
By having “the force” misaligned, Hahnemann will propose “spirit-tuning” as the right way to fix it:
“the only way the medical-art practitioner can remove such morbid mistunements (the diseases) from the dynamis is by the spirit tunement-altering energies of the serviceable medicines acting upon our spirit-like life force.” 5
Make no mistake, Hahnemann is not proposing you pray to God through the intercession of Our Lady to cure your disease; he is saying that in natural things, there is a “dynamis” that are capable of “tunement-altering” the energies in you because they have a “spirit-like life force”.
For those who have studied, this is straight-up Gnosticism, a topic I will write more about for you one day, but for now, you can check the excellent summary of Mr. Fedeli:
Dynamic force in Homeopathy
You may have noticed the recurrence of the word “Dynamic”...
At the end of the book, there is a helpful footnote that explains 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). (...)” 6
Hahnemann goes on and on, comparing the forces of the universe to the “secret invisible force” inside of you. This energy/force is like Star Wars ideas, Yoga, Buddhism, etc. They all have their roots in the same issue: Gnosis/Pantheism.
Matter is a problem for Hahnemann
As for all Gnostics and Samuel Hahnemann, matter (material) is a problem because it diminishes the power of the substances or essence (force/energy).
For Samuel Hahnemann, the solution is to dilute (remove the matter/material) of the substance to liberate the power, the life force, as he explains on $269 of Organon:
For its own special purpose, the homeopathic medical art develops to a formerly unheard of degree the internal, spirit -like medicinal powers of crude substances.
(...) in their crude state (natural things) do not manifest the least medicinal power in the human body.
(...) by trituration and succussion while these particles are separated from one another (...) develops the latent dynamic powers of the substance which were previously unnoticeable, (...) The dynamic powers of these substances mainly have an influence on the life principle, on the condition of animal life.7
We could go on and on, but I think it is sufficient for now to see the foundational doctrine of Homeopathy, which is not catholic.
Conclusion
As you can see, Homeopathy is not science as we understand it. It is based on a doctrine incompatible with the Catholic faith.
From a science (Medicine) perspective, it is a fallacy. It is a pseudoscience. A placebo.
From a catholic theological view, it is full of Gnosticism.
Bibliography
Hahnemann, Samuel. Organon of the Medical Art (Kindle Edition). Birdcage Press, 1996.
Whenever Catholics need to cite liberal authors positively, great reservations must be made. This is not a new mode of thinking and can be read more in excellent books like Liberalism is a Sin, by Felix Sarda. Here is an excerpt from Page 44: “Spare your praises of Liberal books, whatever be their scientific or literary merit, or at least praise with great reserve, never forgetting the reprobation rightly due to a book of Liberal spirit or tendency. This is an important point. It merits the strictest attention.”
Hahnemann, Organon of the Medical Art, loc. 527
ibid. loc. 528
ibid. loc. 1084
ibid. loc. 1118
ibid. loc. 4027
ibid. loc. 3526
Homeopathy - Science, Doctrine and Catholicism
As someone who is and always has been a practicing catholic, I was eager to see what you would report on homeopathy. Looking for answers to get my children well over 35 years ago, instead of putting holes in their eardrums to drain fluid and taking chemical steroids reduce allergic reactions, I found homeopathy. I knew God had created a way for our body to heal, since our body is always trying to be in homeostasis. I needed to find a way to help my children's bodies recover that balance and not have allergies or teething issues, etc. I found homeopathy and have never looked back. Finding the right medicine made from plant animal or mineral sources, has helped my family, pets and plants to recover quickly from many ailments. Any medicine that uses sources created by the creator of this magnificent world, in a none harmful, non-polluting, resourceful, inexpensive, safe and gentle means is the medicine that I prefer to use so much that I am a certified homeopath since 2021. We may not know how it works, but I've seen it work over and over again to my amazement and therefore, it is not contrary to the Catholic faith unless helping the body to heal is also contrary.