[H] In Search of the Vital Force 2

[David Little]

Dear Colleagues,

Homeopathy is a medical science and healing art not a religion. We
should not start worshiping Hahnemann as if he was perfect nor treating the
Organon as if it was a religious text that contains no mistake. We also
should not impose our personal spiritual beliefs on others. Nevertheless, I
agree with Jung that one can't separate metaphysics, religion, philosophy,
legends, myths, fables and stories from the human psyche nor the healing
arts. This is because these subjective contemplations carry deep archetypes
that originate in the collective unconscious and have very deep influence
on the human psyche and soma. Philosophy is part of the healing arts that
can't be ignored. Hahnemann wrote:

"Philosophy represents the highest ideal towards which the human mind
is imbued with a desire to struggle. Philosophy is not only the highest of
all sciences; it is also the basis and the fundamentals of all others. No
science can exist without philosophy, for without its help it falls to the
level of a handicraft or at any rate of a subsidiary subject. This is true
above all of medicine." (Samuel Hahnemann, His Life & Work; R. Haehl,
Volume 1, page 251.)

Homeopathy is not just an objective science like allopathy because it
includes the subjective realms of the human mind and studies the entire
human condition. Hahnemann included philosophical ideas inspired by Deism
and the Masons in his writings including the Organon. Boenninghausen
transformed an ancient hexameter that was used to assess the deviation of
the Soul from the path righteousness to case taking in his classic
work Judgement of the Value of Characteristic Symptoms.

This review of the symptoms is based on 7 essential questions Who,
What, Where, Why, With What, What Mode and When? I guarantee that if you
keep asking these questions they will reveal the deepest aspects of the
mental and physical symptoms! This is because they are based on the deepest
philosophical question possible "Who am I".

It is my opinion that one can't ignore philosophy in the healing arts
because they are an integral part of the human psyche and human experience.
In Homoeopathy we do not separate the psyche and soma and only look at the
body like the reductionist scientists. Hahnemann wrote that we needed to
study the Gestalt of the disease as expressed by the symptoms of the body
and soul not just the body. We have to look at the whole human being, which
includes the Unconscious and its expressions.

In Homoeopathy we look at the psyche and soma as a functional polarity
that makes up a whole. In psychology this includes the persona, shadow,
anima-animus, collective unconscious and Self as well as the body and its
systems, organs and tissues. To be a good homoeopath one must understand
the psyche and soma as well as the human condition. This cannot be done
without a philosophical attitude.

It was Hempel who first placed a spiritual interpretation on psora and
linked it with Christian tradition. He wrote the evil fruits must be the
results of evil forces associated with serpent and devil. He felt this
principle of division and desolation in the material organism is what
"Hahnemann called psora". There is nothing like this in the Chronic
Diseases! This is a very long way from Hahnemann's ideas that primary psora
was caused by scabies (mites), tinea (fungi), herpes (viruses) and bacteria
(staphylococcus, etc).

Kent echoed his interpretations in his writings although in a different
manner. Kent taught that the origin of disease was in do to changes in the
will and understand and bad actions. This then produced the
psoric-susceptibility and the result was psoric-infections. This is in line
with Swedenborgian philosophy.

As a Deist and Mason Hahnemann would probably not object to
philosophical discussions about our origins. He probably would not object
discussing how humanity may have left a former Eden-like state. He would
most likely be very familiar with the idea that spiritual decline was a
precursor to physical disease. In truth, however, Hahnemann never
spiritualized the miasms. He considered the miasma to be a microorganism
and the miasmic diseases to be the unresolved affects of infections. The
following footnote on page 75 is closely related to aphorisms 5 and 72 of
the 5th and 6th editions of the Organon.

"Or have these various, acute, half-spiritual miasms the peculiar
characteristic that - after they have penetrated the vital force in the
first moment of the contagion (and each one in its own way has produced
disease) and then, like parasites, have quickly grown up within it and have
usually developed themselves by their peculiar fever, after producing their
fruit (the mature cutaneous eruption which is again capable of producing
its miasma) - they again die out and leave the living organism again free
to recover?"

(The Chronic Diseases Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homœopathic Cure; S.
Hahnemann (Theoretical Part), Nature of Chronic Diseases, footnote, page 75.

This paragraph teaches the difference between the acute and chronic
miasms. Acute miasms are rapid in their onset and reach crisis after a
relatively short period of time. Hahnemann notes that this genus of
microorganisms is self-limiting so they leave the patient either in
convalescence or dead. Patients who do not completely recover from acute
miasms usually suffer from the chronic miasms.

"On the other hand, are not the chronic miasmas disease-parasites
which continue to live as long as the man seized by them is alive, and
which have their fruit in the eruption originally produced by them (the
itch-pustule, the chancre and the fig-wart, which in turn are capable of
infecting others) and which do not die off of themselves like the acute
miasmas, but can only be exterminated and annihilated by a
counter-infection, by means of the potency of a medicinal disease quite
similar to it and stronger than it (the anti-psoric), so that the patient
is delivered from them and recovers his health?"

(The Chronic Diseases Their Peculiar Nature and Their Homœopathic Cure; S.
Hahnemann (Theoretical Part), Nature of Chronic Diseases, footnote, page 75.)

Acute miasms involve self limiting parasitical infections like
measles, mumps, cholera, smallpox, etc. Chronic miasms are not naturally
self-limiting like leprosy, TB or syphilis. They are lifelong infections
that are caused by microorganisms that do not die off by themselves. They
last for the entire life of the person unless cured by Homœopathy. This is
the major difference between acute and chronic miasms. One may be
"never-well-since" an acute miasm as a sequel but the miasma-parasites are
gone.

Not all long lasting degenerative diseases are caused by chronic
miasms. Organon (§74-§81) explains that there are three types of long
lasting degenerative diseases. These are the man-made and physician caused
diseases, disorders based on continual pathogenic influences, and diseases
based on the chronic miasms. These can all cause long-lasting degenerative
diseases.

Diseases based on maintaining causes (continual emotional stress, bad
diet, occupational hazards, environmental induce disorders, the affects of
poverty, etc.) have the potential to self heal if the obstacles to health
are removed early. For example, if one stays in a dark basement for a week
and gets cold, stiff and fevered they usually will recover if taken out of
this environment. Long term exposures that cause pathological damage,
however, may produce a "never-well-since" syndrome. If the same persons
stayed in a cold basement for 5 years they may not recover. This would
produce a pseudo chronic disease (never-well-since the exposure) in terms
of time but not a chronic miasm! It is about time people understood the
difference.

All three of these chronic disorders are often combined to make a
complex disease. According to the footnote to aphorism 78 of the Organon
there are two great categories of chronic miasms, the inherited and
acquired. The inherited miasm is uncovered by studying the collective
diseases of the family while the acquired miasm is found in the individual
history of the patient. It is statements like the above that make Samuel
Hahnemann the Founder of modern epidemiology.

For homoeopaths to de-link Hahnemann's miasms teachings from acquire
infections, the inherited affects of epidemic and endemic contagion,
auto-immune disorders and immuo-deficiency diseases is a great mistake.
Hahnemann Chronic Diseases is an early study of the immune system that
needs to be brought up to date not transformed in pseudo-spiritual doctrine.

Some speak as if miasms are only inherited conditions but this is not
the case. Miasms are based on prior infection either in one's ancestors
and/or acquired in this life. Most of Hahnemann references to the acute,
half acute and chronic miasms refer to the acquired infections! When he
speaks of syphilis he is talking about patients whose blood and tissue are
teaming with spirochetal bacteria!

Hahnemann writings contain teachings on vital force, constitution,
temperament, the soul, intellect and emotional disposition, hereditary
predispositions, susceptibility, acute and chronic diseases, layers,
iatrogenic disorders, long lasting chronic-like states caused by
maintaining cases, and the infectious acute, half-acute and chronic
miasms. Some persons are mixing all these facets of pathology with miasms
and making the miasms everything!

This has caused other to make the miasms nothing because they are
nothing special. Now we have two extremes that are constantly fighting with
each other! One sided says the miasms are the cause of everything and the
other says miasms mean nothing. On and on it goes ("everything" "nothing")
where it stops nobody knows!

In order to solve this dilemma I suggest returning to Hahnemann's
original postulates which clearly state that the miasma are
"disease-parasites" and miasmic diseases the affects of unresolved
infections. This is the middle path that avoids the above extremes. Let us
apply this information in a scientific manner to the vital force and the
system of mass defense which includes humoral as well as the activities of
the immune system. This is a very fruitful area of research.

At the same time that I support the study of philosophy and psychology
I also suggest the we all study the medicinal sciences very seriously. It
is time for homoeopaths to understand what Hahnemann's miasms really are
and put the ghost of Hempel's ideas to rest.

Sincerely, David Little