Minutus

What's the difference?
Is there an "official" definition of Hahnemannian homeopathy or is it grass roots?
Susan

"Classical" is a broader term, and includes people who were practicing and gently "expanding upon" Hahnemann's work, around the time that he was still alive. E.g. Kent, whose Swedenborgian bent on case analysis (and his emphasis on mental / emotional symptoms) and potency choices were not via Hahnemann. But *most* of his method follows Hahnemann's closely.

There were others who departed farther from Hahnemann and are not considered classical. (Or according to some people, are not considered homeoapthy; depends whom you ask. E.g. combination prescribing.)

The definition of Hahnemannian homeopathy is simply, those practices that Hahnemann described and taught in his writings.

Then one can argue about whether e.g. 4th edition practice is Hahnemannian even though in his 6th editions he evidently intended water dosing and LM method to *replace* the prior methods, though at least by some accounts he himself did not give up dry dosing / 4th ed methods, but supplanted it in much of his case management.

And one can argue about "what he practiced" versus "what he taught"...

There's plenty of grey area with both terms, but that's the basic idea.

Shannon

Actually, "classical" is a term invented by, as I understand it, George Vithoulkas, in an attempt (misguided, in my view) to distinguish homoeopathy from all the other things that like to go under that name.
As Shannon has indicated, even homoeopaths can fundamentally misunderstand what homoeopathy is, gradually broadening their notion of it until it includes prescribing penicillin for ear infections because it "works" and prescribing mixtures because they "work". Once you lose hold of the singular thread that determines whether practice is homoeopathic, you lose your way entirely (and end up considering, e.g., combination prescribing has being some "kind" of homoeopathy). By many long-time contributors to this list, even the nature of that thread can be recalled only with difficulty, a sad decline that direct results from tolerating misuse of the term homoeopathy.
The unforeseen effect of labelling homoeopathy "classical homoeopathy" was unfortunately to suggest that there may be kinds of homoeopathy that do not hold to that thread: that do not prescribe on the basis of symptom similarity. This is how well-intentioned people arrive at the conclusion that some kinds of homoeopathy may be based on "clinical success", speculation, and possibilities rather than the law of similars.
The term "Hahnemannian homoeopathy" as I've seen it used has clearly indicated either of two things: (1) homoeopathy; (2) homoeopathy that adheres to Hahnemann's recommendations. (Such recommendations include, for instance, avoidance of repetition of any remedy in unchanged potency and use of intercurrents for minor interruptions to steady treatment.)
In the second sense, the term has some usefulness; in the first, it is again merely unfortunate in suggesting that there may be kinds of homoeopathy that have any prescription basis other than the law of similars.
Kind regards,
John