Julian 
Most people have heard of homeopathy and seen the remedies for sale in health food stores and vitamin shops. Homeopathic remedies are considered gentle and therefore they are often used to treat babies and children. It is a philosophy and a method of treatment for all types of illnesses and was developed by German-born Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann as an alternative to the medical practices of his time. He lived from 1755 to 1843. To Philadelphians, the name is familiar. Hahnemann University Hospital is located in Center City and was named for Samuel Hahnemann.
Homeopathic treatments are widely accepted in today’s society as a form of alternative or holistic medicine. As you look at a display of homeopathic remedies you will see row upon row of neatly organized and labeled vials, usually in blue and white, from the accepted authority in homeopathic remedies, Boiron Laboratories. Pick one up and read the name and you may begin to wonder what the strange words mean and how they cure what ails you. If you’ve chosen a vial marked Apis Mellifica, that’s a remedy made from bee venom. According to homeopathy ‘like cures like.’ Homeopathic doctors will ask the patient many questions in order to get an accurate picture of how they feel. Then they choose the remedy that best matches those sensations. For example, an ailment that stings or burns, such as a burning sore throat, may be treated with the bee venom remedy.
In addition to similia similibus curantur, or like cures like, the homeopath will choose the remedy with the strength needed for his patient. The strength of the remedy is determined by a process of dilutions. In homeopathy, the higher the dilution the stronger the remedy will be. That means that the more the original substance, like bee venom, is diluted, the stronger the remedy. This is the opposite of traditional medicine. In between every dilution the remedy is shaken to ‘potentize’ it. Hahnemann referred to this process as the ‘ritual of potentiation.’ This imbues the remedy with the power to heal which is then transferred to the person taking the remedy. The strongest remedies are ones in which not one molecule of the original substance is left, just the vibration or the memory of it. The label will be marked with the number of dilutions for that vial, usually from 1x to 30X. The remedies are diluted with water and sweetened with sugar. Then they are made into tiny round pills. These must not be touched with bare hands, or any part of the body, or the potentiation will be ruined. If one little pellet is dropped or contaminated, and then put back into the vial, the whole vial is contaminated. In order to take the little pills, the patient is to pour out the number of pills or pellets needed into the cap of the vial and then tip it out under his tongue where they dissolve. They are not to be chewed.
Some remedies seem bizarre. They appear to break the rules of homeopathy. The original substance for a well-known cold and flu remedy is duck liver. The remedy is known as oscillococcinum. It is sold here and widely used in Europe where homeopathy originated.
This healing power then, grows stronger as the original substance grows weaker. According to cult and occult expert, John Ankerberg, “Some leading homeopaths have confessed that the energy they claim to manipulate in curing people is indistinguishable from that occult energy in general which has gone by a wide variety of names throughout history.”
Homeopathy claims to work by correcting an imbalance in the body’s ‘vital force’ or life energy. These imbalances cause disease. Other names for this are mystical energy, cosmic energy, and so on. This belief in a pervading life force in all creation is found in pantheistic teaching and places God everywhere: in each man, animal, plant, cell, everything, even in homeopathic medicine. Like Chinese medicine, homeopathy assumes as fact the vital force of the body.
Richard Grossinger, author of Planet Medicine: From Stone Age Shamanism to Post Industrial Healing states, “Psychic healing, homeopathy, acupuncture, orgone therapy, and various shamanisms and voodoo all suggest that there must be an energy outside of contemporary definition.”
Homeopath, Dr. George Vithoulkas openly reveals that the real purpose of homeopathy is “to help open the higher centers of the brain for spiritual and celestial influx,” states Jane Gumprecht in Holistic Health: A Medical and Biblical Critique of New Age Deception. What is ‘celestial influx’? It is the inward flow of spirits. This is the true power behind homeopathy. But couldn’t these be good spirits? Let’s continue.
Homeopathy works. Some people find that it doesn’t work for them, and then suddenly a while later, it does work. Once it starts to work it seems it will usually continue to work for that person. It is wonderfully handy to cure one’s illnesses or those of your children by a quick trip to the health food store for the friendly blue and white vial with the nice sugar pills. Or just use the homeopathic home kit sold by Boiron Labs that has all the most common remedies and a booklet on how to use them. Any mom or dad can be a homeopath. But how does it work if there is little or no active ingredient of any kind left in the pellets? Why does the one marked ‘Belladonna’ cure headaches when that is a poison, known as Deadly Nightshade, when not diluted?
For the answers one should look to the man who developed homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann. He was a brilliant scholar who mastered seven languages and also became a physician. The medical practice of his day was considered a science and an art, and as some have said, mostly art. These were times of harsh and even barbaric treatments such as bloodletting and leeches. There was little doctors could do to relieve pain. Hahnemann almost quit medical practice because he felt it did more harm than good until he came upon cinchona or Peruvian bark, his first remedy. He worked for years on his list of remedies and the symptoms they would treat. His work was published as The Organon. Today this handbook of remedies and their symptoms is widely available, but the authoritative source is known as the Materia Medica. The descriptions of symptoms are detailed in extreme having categories under each illness covering head, mind, stomach, genitalia, skin and more. The wording is sometimes shocking and unexpected. Next, let’s take a look at Samuel Hahnemann’s deeper beliefs and his attraction to the occult.
Hahnemann was influenced by several mystical and occult elements which played a large role in his approach to healing. He was a Freemason, and a Swedenborgian. Emanuel Swedenborg was a mystic philosopher. Hahnemann was his ardent follower and Swedenborg was his mentor. The key tenet of this philosophy is a series of Revelations by which immediate and unquestionable communication with the spirit world is obtained. Swedenborg taught his followers how to enter a state of consciousness that would put them in touch with spirit entities. Researchers Ankerberg and Weldon observe “Swedenborg was a powerful spiritist and medium.” That Hahnemann was inspired through the practices he learned from Swedenborg is accepted by many homeopaths. Some even regard his book, The Organon, as a divinely mystical book. This runs counter to the Scriptures which state that the Bible is the only book inspired by God according to 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
Another profound influence upon Samuel Hahnemann was Swiss occultic medical philosopher Paracelsus (1493-1541). His teachings combined the esoteric occult teachings of the Cabala with the facts and fancies of science of that time. Add to this mix Swiss-German physician Franz Mesmer (1733-1815) who founded animal magnetism also known as Mesmerism which was actually, an occult art used by Shamans (witch doctors) for centuries to bring people under their control. Consider this quote from the 6th edition of Hahnemann’s Homeopathic Bible, The Organon:
“I find it necessary to allude here to …Mesmerism. […] 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 mesmerizer endowed with this power into another person dynamically […] The above mentioned methods of practicing mesmerism depend upon an influx of more or less vital force into the patient […]”
According to Pastor David L. Brown, Ph.D., New Age/Occult Researcher, “what Hahnemann has just described is modern psychic healing.” Pastor Brown goes on to say, “During my research I became increasingly aware that this man rejected the Bible and God’s “wisdom that is from above” and followed the earthly, sensual and devilish wisdom from beneath (James 3:15-17). Then I came across a quote that reveals his view of Christ! Hahnemann was offended by the life of Jesus Christ. He mocks Jesus Christ, calling Him “the arch-enthusiast.”
Samuel Pfeifer, M.D. in Healing at Any Price? writes, “He took offense at the arch-enthusiast, Jesus of Nazareth, who did not lead the enlightened on the straight way to wisdom, but who wanted publicans and sinners to struggle on a difficult path toward the establishment of the kingdom of God. The man of sorrows who took the darkness of the world on Himself was an offense to the lover of etheric (highly refined, heavenly) wisdom.”
Even today, homeopathy is popular among Christians as part of natural health. When I was a new Christian in the late 70’s, early 80’s, I was like many others who were into health and healing apart from the medical establishment. When I discovered homeopathy, I loved it. I bought the handbooks and the kit from Boiron and other remedies to round out my collection. In fact, the lady who led me to the Lord Jesus actually introduced me to homeopathy. I used it on the whole family. But I noticed something strange after a while. It wasn’t working on me, for some reason. My spiritual antennae started to hum. I sensed something wasn’t quite right here. God’s gift of discernment had warned me about other things in the past before this. He never misled me. But, you know, I didn’t want to give up homeopathy! It was pretty cool and actually fun. Especially when it worked. But the Holy Spirit has a way of gently nagging for our protection. I finally said, Lord, if this isn’t of You, I don’t want it in my life. Please show me. It was then I began to do the research on homeopathy and its origins. I had to repent of using it. I took my expensive kit, remedies and books and tossed them out. I now understood why it didn’t work on me. I had the Lord’s protection as a new Christian. I also believe that if I had chosen not to obey the Holy Spirit on this, and stubbornly kept trying to make it work, then it would have. It was after I obeyed that the Lord revealed all the dark beginnings of homeopathy. Just one more observation: isn’t it interesting how very charming the darkside makes their trinkets! It almost hurts to give them up. I was saddened when homeopathy turned out to be a trick of the enemy. It pained me to throw out my collection. I liked being the go-to Mom who could tell you what remedy you needed and have it on hand.
I know this message won’t be received by everyone who reads this. I would just hope that you would ask God to show you the truth, if you use homeopathy. If you mean business, He will.
Contributor
