Over the years of ‘Take Heed’ Ministries I have quite often been asked for my thoughts and views on Homeopathy. Usually this has been in the wider context of ‘Alternative Healing Therapies’ many of which have come to be associated with ‘New Age’ thinking.
Last year (February 2015) I posted an article to the ministry web site under the title of –
‘NEW AGE MOVEMENT: Three Old Lies
And it can be accessed on
https://www.takeheed.info/pdf/2015/February/New-Age-Movement.pdf
From page 11 of that article through to page 13 I make some general references to some of these practices including Homeopathy before then focussing for a time on Aromatherapy. At the bottom of page 12 and the top of page 13 I wrote this –
Rather than me trying in this article to give specific advice (Aromatherapy excepted as I will explain shortly) I will simply recommend two books that examine the pros and cons from a Christian standpoint. In each case I will list the title and give links as to where copies of the books can be obtained both in the UK and in the USA. The books are –
“Healing at any price” (by Samuel Pfeifer) UK
“Healing at any price” (by Samuel Pfeifer) USA
http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Price-Samuel-M-D-Pfeifer/dp/0850091535
“New Age Medicine” (by Paul C Reisser) UK
“New Age Medicine” (by Paul C Reisser) USA
I want now to quote just a few excerpts on HOMEOPATHY from each of those books –
From ‘Healing at any price’
‘Hahnemann believes that through shaking his remedies (potentiating) a cosmic “vital force” is transferred to the homeopathic solution. The power that is transmitted directly in psychic healing through the laying on of the healer’s hand is now thought to be carried by the homeopathic medicine and conveyed indirectly (pp 63-64)…
Several terms which are repeated time and again in homeopathic books make one stop and think. They talk of the “vital force”, “harmony with the universe”, the “ethereal body”. All these expressions have been brought to the West by Gurus and Yogis…. Homeopathy is intertwined in Eastern philosophy’ (p 67)…
Dr Otto Maresch investigates the healing powers of high potencies (30X to 1000X and more. We have seen that such a dilution would not leave one molecule in a single bottle. The healing power, say the homeopaths, is coming from “cosmic power” transferred to the remedy through the ritual of potentiation’ (p 72)… ‘along with many other physicians, I am personally not convinced that homeopathy can be proved by scientific methods… Most interesting is a report by Dr Donner, M.D., a homeopath himself, who made the scientific proof of homeopathy his goal. However the first serious attempt of a homeopath to find the truth in the jungle of homeopathic claims ended in a fiasco with Dr. Donner turning away from his pseudo-religious faith in homeopathy’ (p 74)…
‘I could not prescribe any homeopathic remedy after discovering all the information I have compiled in this chapter… I would issue a special warning against all remedies beyond a potency of 6X to 12X as there is no other explanation for their success than an occult one or a placebo effect’ (p 81).
From ‘New Age Medicine’
‘Yet, even though the New Age Movement has embraced it, in its earliest form homeopathy and its energy concepts only vaguely resembled the “universal energy” ideas which now pervade holistic health…
Homeopathy, on the other hand, initially was built on a foundation which more closely resembled “Original Sin”…. Hahnemann proposed that at a deep, essentially spiritual level our “vital force” is damaged and distorted. We have all inherited a unique “disease core” which is destined to express itself throughout life in a variety of ways…
While the theological implications of Hahnemann’s system may be interesting, the scientific validity of homeopathy is, for all practical purposes, impossible to establish… The problem is that classical homeopathy flatly rejects the common idea that diseases can be defined, understood and treated on a physical level…
Thus, according to homeopathy, Western medicine’s efforts to categorize disease are a colossal waste of time, and its labours in counteracting symptoms (even doing something as simple as taking an aspirin for a headache) actually make the patient worse…
The committed homeopathic physician takes a radically different approach to disease. He or she pays scrupulous attention to all of the patient’s symptoms, even the most trivial ones. Then an effort is made, utilizing personal experiences and the extensive Homeopathic Repertory, to find a specific remedy which produces symptoms most exactly like that of the patient. When given in extremely dilute doses, the remedy theoretically works in the arena of the “vital force” to help the body dispel its pattern of disturbances…
In contemporary homeopathy the New Age concept of the mystical life energy id often invoked as the explanation for this practice… Ultimately, homeopathy’s greatest weakness is one shared by several other systems: it stands or falls on a concept which is at odds with the mainstream of knowledge about human physiology, and which is resistant to independent validation’ (pp 138-141).
There are also quite a number of articles written by Christians from a ‘warning’ perspective and the following three links are examples of such warnings –
http://www.gotquestions.org/homeopathic-Christian.html
http://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=334
http://logosresourcepages.org/NewAge/na-med.htm
Just by way of giving some ‘balance’ there is also an article articulating a ‘supportive’ perspective and this can be accessed on the following link –
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Health_Concerns/holistic.htm
As I move towards a conclusion of this article, what really prompted me to write it was a 15-minute radio broadcast that I recorded on 4th May 2016.
This was the writeup for it in my TV/Radio guide –
Why I changed my mind: Professor Edzard Ernst tells Dominic Lawson why he stopped believing in homeopathy
This is a most revealing and informative interview and from my own perspective served to confirm to me my own view that I would not submit myself to homeopathic treatment. However, this is a personal choice that each would have to make and by way of help the following link will take you to that radio interview –
Cecil Andrews – ‘Take Heed’ Ministries – 9th May 2016