Minutus is for Classical Hahnemannian Homeopathy

[John Harvey]

Dear Tanya,
Though it's a favoured term of abuse of real homoeopaths on this list at present, fundamentalist actually also has a meaning, and its meaning concerns dogma strictly regulating others' adherence to beliefs or methods.
An apt antonym to it might be liberal -- relatively unconcerned with another's beliefs or methods -- or pluralist -- willing to allow others to practise their various beliefs or methods.
Fundamentalist, liberal, and pluralist are categories of one kind: let's say, of tolerance.
You seem to be suggesting that those who equate homoeopathy with mongrelism and urge the rest of us to concur in promoting that falsehood are, in my terms, liberal or pluralist (in your terms, general) -- in a nutshell, tolerant -- and that those who equate homoeopathy with the law of similars and urge the rest of us to see that we all actually agree on that much are fundamentalist -- in a nutshell, intolerant.
The reality of the difference between the proponents and opponents of Shannon's contention that it is possible, desirable, and necessary to redefine homoeopathy is something else, though. Those favouring the contention and those opposing it are not necessarily either fundamentalist or liberal/pluralist at all.
It can easily be argued that those pushing Shannon's proposal are less tolerant of those who continue to point out that our point of universal agreement is that homoeopathy requires the law of similars than the latter are of the former. And it can easily be argued that the latter (i.e. those rallying to the law of similars) are prepared to allow the former (the Shannonites) to practise whatever other modalities they like, but that the former insist upon changing the very nature of the modality called homoeopathy by promoting homoeopathy as something else (to put it broadly and roughly: prescription of potencies).
No: the difference between the two sides is clearly not the difference between fundamentalist and either liberal/pluralist or "general".
But the word general that you've used, if correctly opposed to its opposite, specific, could be more useful.
If specific homoeopathy could be summed up as homoeopathy relying specifically upon the law of similars, then general homoeopathy could be expressed as that "homoeopathy" that relies upon any of a number of laws.
This does seem to accord with both Shannon's and Irene's approaches: Shannon's, that she'd like everybody to agree that homoeopathy relies not specifically upon the law of similars but generally upon some sort of similarity; Irene's, that she'd like everybody to agree that homoeopathy relies not specifically upon the law of similars but generally upon whichever techniques (which she calls principles) in the Organon suit, ditching entirely the law of similars as something "better" comes along.
From that point of view, Irene's approach may be said to be far more fundamentalist than any real homoeopath's. Real homoeopaths do not confine their techniques to those described in the Organon but only confine their approach to the method that defines homoeopathy: the law of similars, "Let likes be cured by likes".
But leaving that possibility aside, if we're to usefully apply the term fundamentalist, let's use it correctly to describe behaviour that is designed to remove the options of others, and oppose it to a term, such as liberal or pluralist, that describes behaviour designed to retain the options of others.
And if we're going to use the more relevant term general, then let's oppose it to specific and see where that gets us. Because the inaccurate depiction as "fundamentalist" of those who would like to be able to continue using a word to mean what it means without having to contend for weeks at a time with Shannon's proposals to implement the impossible is not only insulting to real homoeopaths but also misleading to others. Most, if not all, of the true homoeopaths on this list (i.e. those who respect and abide by the law of similars as the basis of their homoeopathic practice) are perfectly content to let those who wish to practise Sankaranopathy, Scholtenopathy, and even extreme Irenopathy do so in peace and harmony. When contention concerning use of the word homoeopathy has arisen, it has done so not because some real homoeopath has suggested that Irenopathy is bad, but because an Irenopath such as Shannon suggests that homoeopaths should surrender their identity, to be subsumed within Irenopathy, which should be permitted to appropriate the term homoeopathy!
So that's quite a spin to put on it, to say that the homoeopaths are intolerant or fundamentalist.
That opposition of approach to pluralism, my friend, suggests that it is the Irenopaths, rather than the homoeopaths, who are, by and large, behaving as fundamentalists do: that it is they who are attempting to remove the very choice that the homoeopaths freely allow them.
You have also, I think, repeated another category mismatch in confusing method, or (as it's often called in homoeopathy) principle, with technique.
The method or principle that is homoeopathy is simple and open: it is the effort to prescribe the simillimum on the basis of known pathogenesis and sufficient case-taking. The techniques by which to do so are many, and have long been added to and improved upon by real homoeopaths without criticism by each other.
The criticism that is made of them is due to something quite different, and by others entirely: it is due to their refusal to surrender their method, or principle, and it comes only from those who have surrendered it.
Irene, Shannon, Luise, and several others on this list may be brilliant, forward-thinking pioneers in healing through clever use of alternatives to the law of similars. Irene has even admitted as much on many occasions. That is all well and good, and we homoeopaths wish them well. The Irenopaths' problem is that they have lacked the imagination to name their new methods appropriately.
Shannon argued that the appearance of the word "homoeopathic" on a box of allopathic medicine has educated the general public to understand that homoeopathy is something other than the law of similars. That argument was contrived on the basis that somebody walks into a shop, sees a medicine label, and walks out believing thereafter that the "x" on the label represents homoeopathy. This scenario is so unrealistic that it's laughable. So let's laugh and move on, and let's help those who need names for their new Irenopathies to invent them. The broader term I proposed seems to have been agreed to by Shannon (see her post under "The campaign against spring fever"), but various classes of Irenopaths may need help with the individual variations.
And let us no longer confuse those who understand what homoeopathy is with those, such as Irene, who -- at least ostensibly -- confine their "principles" merely to the techniques outlined in the Organon but abandon homoeopathy's one actual principle. The former are educated, liberal, pluralist, and accurate in their depiction of homoeopathy; the latter range from those innocently unaware to those, such as Irene and a couple of her camp followers, willing to destroy homoeopathic practice for the sake of their own egos.
I'll append here what I wrote to you, Tanya, in August 2007, as you've evidently forgotten it: if there's a single homoeopath today who doesn't sometimes practise something that falls outside the definition of homoeopathy, I'd be fascinated to know how he or she manages, for instance, obstacles to homoeopathic cure. We're all capable of respecting practices that are not homoeopathy. But we must all be capable equally of respecting the name of homoeopathy if common perception of the word's meaning is not to be obscured by the very people supposedly practising it.
Cheers --
John
2009/6/29 tamarque@earthlink.net >

[Shannon Nelson]

Hey John,

I'm dropping out of this whole discussion, so it would be better if,
instead of attaching my name, use some description instead. Your
descriptions of what I was saying do not make me happy--I do feel
misrepresented--but more to the point, I am choosing to leave you to
it, while I get on with other things, so why not find a different
moniker, one that describes *what you object to* instead of what you
think I was saying. (Or even what I *was* saying, since I won't be
reading most, and so won't be able to comment or "defend myself.")

Just a favor I'm asking, okay? I think it would lead to clearer
communication, too, as you would be addressing *your* concerns, instead
of a conversation that is no longer running.

Best wishes,
Shannon

[John Harvey]

Hi, Shannon --
Yes, you do keep inviting me to cease to point out that -- as I think I correctly summed up here -- your unrelenting contention that it is possible, desirable, and necessary to redefine homoeopathy is incorrect on all three of those points.
Of course I'd be happy to leave the field open you to state as facts for all newcomers to homoeopathy your uninformed, uneducated, childhood impressions of what homoeopathy is. Go right ahead; take the first shot. You won't notice anything anyway. And if you do, this time, really stop it, I know that it won't take you more than a couple of months to start over again, having learnt nothing at all except that others are disagreeable enough to disagree with your "knowledge" that homoeopathy has magically up and dressed itself as sloppyopathy.
Oh, and while you're resting, might I suggest a book.
Cheers --
John
2009/7/1 Shannon & Bob Nelson >
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."

— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)

[Shannon Nelson]

But -- You never did respond to (among other things) the quotes I
gave, wherein Hahnemann refers to (a) cure of burns by hot water; (b)
cure of burns by heated wine or oil of turpentine; (c) cure of bad bump
on the head by gradually increasing pressure; (d) the few cases where
allopathic medicine *has* actually produced cure, by choice of (and he
explains some reasons why this sometimes happens) a medicine which
*does* have homeopathicity to the disease--all of these things *he*
describes in the Introduction to the Organon as "homeopathy", and
"homeopathic."

E.g.: (p. 25) "In all ages, the patients who have been really,
rapidly, permanetly and obviously cured by medicines, ... have been
cured solely (although without the knowledge of the physician) by means
of a (homeopathic) medicine which possessed the power of producing a
similar morbid state."

And p. 26: "Even in real cures by means of mixtures of medicines ...
it will be found that the remedy whose action predominated was always
of a homeoapthic character."

p. 29: "the old experienced reaper ... will not touch cold water ...
when he has worked himself into a violent feverish state in teh heat of
the sun ... but takes a small quantity of a heating liquor, a mouthful
of brandy; experience ... has convinced him of the great superiority
and efficacy of this homeopathic procedure ..."

Do you feel these quotes are irrelevant to the discussion?

Shannon

[John Harvey]

Are these excerpts irrelevant? Well, I think it depends somewhat on your purpose. If it's to make spaghetti, then, no, they're not irrelevant, and if you throw them in as both homoeopathy and the universal law that Hahnemann allegedly stole (á la Irene), these quotes will undoubtedly serve to stir the spaghetti into a fine state.
But let's assume that you have some interest in working out what homoeopathy really is, in order to make a rational choice as to the best strategy by which homoeopaths can (1) protect the public understanding of homoeopathy as the law of similars in practice, (2) thereby protect the name of homoeopathy as harmless and effective, (3) thereby give parliamentarians every reason to support homoeopathy, and, just incidentally, (4) not confuse everybody. (I don't actually see these quotes earlier in this thread, but I'm happy to respond.)
Let's further assume that neither you nor Luise is going to forget in the near future that an adequate definition substitutes in a sentence for the word defined and therefore must, in doing so accurately, be both broad enough and narrow enough to accurately distinguish the word defined from everything else. Irene may yet come round to understanding this, but I know that you two are with me here.
And let's assume that once you have the evidence as to what really constitutes homoeopathy, you will support its protection and use.
Let's also assume that, though Hahnemann did write of the benefits of exercise, animal magnetism, cold showers, warm-to-hot water treatment of burns, and magnets, his great work the Organon and his mission in life concerned the safe, efficacious employment of medicines.
Medicines: how to make them safe for use; how to make them useful; how to employ them in a way that gave the practitioner certainty.
Hahnemann's ingenious brainwave? Test the effects of a drug on the healthy: find out its power to derange health; then perhaps he would learn something of how it healed.
Voila: similarity! -- and the beginning of years of research confirming that the homoeopathic relationship is responsible for the cures he saw documented.
So there's a little context. Here's some more context: what are we doing? What are we trying to do for our patients? We're trying to find the best ways in which to prescribe for them... medicines.
Furthermore, excepting the last few aphorisms of the Organon, what does Hahnemann spend his life's work and the Organon describing the use of? Medicines. What does he admonish every medical practitioner, every homoeopath to take note of in addition to the patient's state? The pathogenetic effects of medicines.
It's quite clear, I think, that Hahnemann's intent in describing and defining homoeopathy was to convey that the precription of a medicine should be based upon its capacity to mimic the patient. He wasn't declaring in favour of the doctrine of signatures (quite to the contrary!) or some airy-fairy general philosophical notion of how the cosmos worked. But analogy with everyday experiences can be far more convincing than assertions concerning experiences one is disinclined ever even to try (such as deliberate infection with one illness in order to cure another, or banging bottles of medicine to administer experimentally to a patient who already appears to have had an excess of it, thank you very much). So, in introducing the reader to the subject, Hahnemann spoke of pipe bands' homoeopathicity to the screams of dying men, and of the the use of a mouthful of brandy for burns, and so on and so on. He did not, as far as I am aware, advise the use of either pipe bands or brandy; this was merely argument by analogy. His focus was certainly and unambiguously on the safe, efficacious use of medicines.
You haven't said what kind of response you'd like from me to these excerpts, Shannon, but I take it that you raise them in the context of Irene's contention that Hahnemann merely selected an isolated example -- medicine -- of a universal law rather than making an original discovery and systematising a practice based upon it.
Well, what can I say? Despite exactly that circumstantial allegation by a couple of authors I know of, there's absolutely no evidence for it. In addition, it's worth considering that Hahnemann had no truck with speculative systems and despised the doctrine of signatures. If you're looking for signs, I think the signs are there that, to Hahnemann, the practice of the law of similars was about the practice of medicine.
There's some support for that notion too in his use of the Latin words curentur and curantur: curing is not something you do with pipe bands on the battlefield, and his materia medica, with the exception of the medical use of a couple of imponderabilia, contains references to medicines.
So, in short: yes. The quotes are irrelevant to the question of whether it is possible, desirable, and necessary to begin claiming that homoeopathy includes -- let's see -- compound remedies, guesswork, speculative fancies, interpolation, potency complexes, prescription without case-taking, prescription without provings, prescription without attempting to make the most homoeopathic match. To this question, those quotes are most definitely utterly irrelevant.
Cheers!
John
2009/7/1 Shannon & Bob Nelson >

[Shannon Nelson]

I only asked you to

1) Tell me whether you understand the distinction I am making, between
"homeopathy as Law of Similars", versus "homeopathy as method of
practice"? Is that a clear distinction, or not yet?

And
2), with reference to that distinction,
(a) READ the quotes (I've sent them 2 or 3 times, complete with page
numbers)
(b) address whether you saw any significance or relationship between
them, specifically the fact that Hahnemann repeatedly refers to the
etc., etc. (cure of this by that, including accidental this and that)
as *homeopathy*. Have you found and read the quotes yet, or shall I
send them a third time?

That's all I'm asking for. Two paragraphs would be PLENTY in response.
If you can get your thoughts down to two paragraphs, and two that
actually address my *questions*--whether you understand my distinction
between "law of similars" versus "method and practice"; and 2) in what
way those quotes might fail to it support my contention that
"homeopathy" may be used with reference to the former ("natural law" of
"like cures like") and not merely to its use to mean the entire
practice, with rules and methodology.

Shannon

[John Harvey]

If you take the time to read what I wrote, I think you'll find it's clear enough. I probably could have written less, and apologise if I could have done so without leaving huge loopholes to stumble through; I'm doing my best to clarify and cover bases in order to minimise the circling over old ground. Forgive me.

John
2009/7/1 Shannon & Bob Nelson >
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."

— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)