If You Meet Hahnemann on the Road, Kill Him
by Richard Pitt
Don’t be afraid; you won’t do either—not literally, anyway. The zen-inspired title of this essay is adapted from the book If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him, by psychologist Sheldon Kopp. The premise of Kopp’s book is the necessity of finding one’s own inner truth rather than relying on any external authority, of moving beyond a spiritual or therapeutic relationship based on an abdication of personal autonomy. The relevance of Kopp’s premise to homeopathy lies in the fact that the aura of Hahnemann hangs over homeopathy as strongly today as it did 100 years ago. Indeed, the very identity of homeopathy is so inextricably linked with the influence of Hahnemann that it is difficult to imagine an alternative approach.
I do not mean to suggest that there is anything essentially wrong with acknowledging the unique contribution of Hahnemann in the establishment of the homeopathic method, and the elucidation of its main philosophical positions; his writings are a vital part of homeopathic thinking and a pioneering contribution to medical thought. At the same time, however, it is apparent that Hahnemann’s personality dominates the profession to the extent that it has incorporated, along with his ideas, vestiges of his personal issues and of cultural dynamics peculiar to the time in which he lived. It can be argued, in light of this, that the collective identity of our profession resembles that of a cult of personality as much as it does that of a medical art, giving rise to distinctly religious overtones in the expression of homeopathic thought and philosophy as expounded by Hahnemann, Kent and others, and rendering the system of homeopathic practice an extension of Hahnemann’s profound influence.
In Constantine Hering’s preface to T.L. Bradford’s biography, The Life and Letters of Hahnemann, he suggests that Hahnemann should be judged on the basis of his own words and actions, and that a biographer should be careful not to make assertions regarding his character that could be abused or taken out of historical context. The purpose of this essay is neither to pathologize Hahnemann nor to minimize in any way his impact on homeopathy and medical thought, but to attempt to understand his impact on homeopathy today, and to explore the issues we face as an evolving professional community—particularly those related to our professional heritage, which inevitably includes Hahnemann as a man and an historical figure.
The Influence of Hahnemann
The practical consequences of Hahnemann’s impact are manifold. As indicated above, the most important of these is a perception of the very identity of homeopathy as an extension of one man’s influence, which tends to confine it, in the minds of many, to a realm of quasi-religious doctrine as opposed to that of a full-fledged scientific methodology. While this may be a result of conflicting dynamics within Hahnemann’s personal development, and of the contextual influences of the religious and scientific cultures of the 18th and 19th centuries, it perpetuates a contemporary tendency to seek confidence in what we do in the authority of living teachers, and to choose teachers and schools of thought that satisfy our emotional needs. While there is nothing wrong with learning homeopathy from more experienced teachers, there is a tendency in the profession to confer authority on such teachers—and to establish hierarchical relationships with them in which they are put on pedestals and treated like gurus—that is similar to the intensity of devotion that Hahnemann demanded of his own students. Interestingly, some of these students had received theological as well as medical training, another indication of the strong religious dynamics characteristic of homeopathic thought during his lifetime.
The influence of Hahnemann on homeopathy, even today in the 21st century, is intrinsic to its very identity, and may be one reason why homeopathy has struggled to “find itself” and to achieve a greater level of recognition within the spectrum of medical modalities. Homeopathy is not alone in having its roots in the founding contributions of a single powerful figure; Chiropractic, Osteopathy, Rolfing, Feldenkrais, and Alexander Technique have each followed a similar pattern and may struggle to some degree with some of the same issues that homeopathy does. In homeopathy, however, the ongoing influence of Hahnemann is perhaps stronger than that of the founding figures of these other healing professions, and to that extent, ours has inherited both the wisdom and the shadow of the man himself.
One of the characteristics of many influential historical figures is their willingness, founded in the uniqueness of their vision, to take great risks and to challenge the status quo. While this strength allows them to resist the stream of convention, it is often accompanied by an intolerance of dissent and a demand for obedience from followers. This is a dynamic seen in many cults and religions, as well as in political movements in which the dynamics of power, control and conformity may be more obvious. Such individuals often have great charisma and an unusual intensity of purpose—which can be seductive to those searching for profound answers to life’s fundamental questions—and homeopathy has historically attracted practitioners interested in the formulation of a comprehensive narrative of the world and its workings, encompassing as it does both the overtly religious/spiritual concerns and the anti-conventional elements inherent in such a quest.
Hahnemann’s own story is characterized by intellectual tenacity and a determination to pursue his purpose at great personal expense, both to himself and to his family. He accepted discomfort and refused to be impeded by social and political constraints. He exhibited highly unusual capacities, qualities often found in those who have a far-reaching impact on the world. However, the shadow side of such personalities often leaves a trail of damage that raises many questions as to the motives and psychological dynamics that fuel their behavior. In his seminal book on charismatic spiritual leaders, Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities, psychologist Len Oakes explores the dynamics of such personalities in search of a deeper psychological understanding of their underlying motivations. In his introduction, he cites the following passage from William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience:
”When a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce—as in the endless permutations and combinations of human faculty they are bound to coalesce often enough—in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries. Such men do not remain mere critics and understanders with their intellect. Their ideas possess them; they inflict them, for better or for worse, upon their companions or their age.”
While we would not want to use the term “psychopathic” to describe Hahnemann, it is nevertheless apparent that he does conform to many of the descriptions proffered by William James. Oakes suggests that what all such “prophets” have in common is their opposition to convention and their ability to inspire others with their visions. While Hahnemann may not conform to Oakes’ definition of a prophet as someone who attracts followers that look to him or her for guidance in their daily lives, it is clear that he did demand a high degree of adherence and conformity to his way of thinking, and expended great energy in the condemnation of those who refused to see the wisdom of homeopathy, and of the so-called “mongrels” (his word) who practiced various hybrid forms of medicine. He also exhibited many of the qualities that Oakes lists as key attributes of a prophetic personality:
- Enormous energy for life
- Grandiose self-confidence
- Optimism and positivity, leading to delusions of optimism and refusal to compromise or hear criticisms—a blindness to others and fixation on revolutionary vision
- The use of moral absolutes, to amplify a sense of crisis in which the sinfulness of the world is described in absolute terms
While Hahnemann does not seem to have attempted to use the power of his personality to influence his followers in a direct way, he did insist on adherence to a philosophical purity rooted, in his estimation, in a divine source, and his intolerance of even his closest followers’ engagements with practices that deviated from his formulation of “pure” homeopathy is well known. This tendency can perhaps be rationalized as a manifestation of the inevitable growing pains of a system in the process of self-definition in an historical context of adverse social and political forces, but it has also been an essential expression of many charismatic political and religious leaders throughout history—“You are either with me or against me.”
While we need to be careful not to unduly pathologize Hahnemann, who sacrificed so much to develop and promulgate homeopathy in the wider world, it is not inappropriate, in my estimation, to examine the dynamic influence of his legacy as it finds expression in homeopathy over 200 years later. Within homeopathy, Hahnemann is revered both as a profound thinker and as the founder of its system: we still study the Organon as the bible of homeopathy; we still adhere to his philosophical guidelines, accepting them as the foundation of classical homeopathy; and while we may not practice as Hahnemann practiced in his time, in general we still measure what we do against his example, and engage in considerable debate when practitioners’ methods deviate from his. Among a large number of the more conservative “classical” homeopaths, Hahnemann’s dictates are regarded as impervious to challenge, and the whole of the system of homeopathy is seen through his experience and writings.
In our profession, then, the influence of Hahnemann is alive and well, and while it offers us the coherence of tradition and principle, it is also reasonable to ask whether—and if so to what degree—this coherence also constitutes an impediment. Are we like children who can’t escape the dominion of our parents? Is the widespread influence of one man, with all his issues, inhibiting the growth of the profession itself? And does this influence perpetuate a cult of personality, and replicate patterns associated with it, within the field of homeopathy?
The Implications of Individualism in Homeopathy
As we all know, homeopathy is focused on that which individualizes each particular case. We explore the unique qualities, sensations and personality of each client. This individualization of our cases, embracing both objective and subjective phenomena, in turn focuses more attention on the individual ability of the practitioner. The relationship between homeopath and patient can be vital to the creation of an atmosphere that allows the case to unfold. This focus on the individual homeopath as a reflection of the system of homeopathic practice is part of the creative tension and exploration within homeopathy, as it is in many other arts and sciences. There will always be Einstein-like figures that challenge the accepted principles of conventional wisdom; but in homeopathy, it may be necessary to ask whether too much weight is given to the influence of certain individual practitioners as opposed to the collective wisdom of homeopathic science, and whether this perhaps reflects the lack of an objective system within homeopathic practice, giving greater significance to its “artistic” expression through individual practitioners than to scientific principles and guidelines of practice.
Much contemporary debate in homeopathy addresses this concern—with emphasis on the question of whether individual practitioners are delving into interpretive, speculative or subjective realms in unwarranted opposition to the so-called scientific tradition of homeopathy represented by Hahnemann and other “masters.” One of the more interesting aspects of this debate, however, is its largely unquestioned focus on the famous individual practitioners and “masters” that seem to dominate the consciousness of the profession, in light of which the system of Homeopathy can come to seem less significant than the individuals who formulate it. Is this a problem in the development of homeopathy? Is our apparent need for “masters”—dead or alive—to show us the way a reflection of a collective immaturity on the part of our community and of certain narcissistic tendencies in its central figures?
I use the term narcissism here to refer both to a self-centered focus in general and also to those psychological characteristics, said to be attributes of the narcissistic personality, outlined by Oakes. Drawing on the formulations of traditional psychology, Oakes classifies six key characteristics of the second developmental phase of so-called narcissistic personalities: 1) not belonging to any group, 2) construction of a personal “myth of calling,” 3) splitting of the personality, 4) radical autonomy, 5) conflicts with authorities, and 6) the acquisition of practical skills appropriate to a later prophetic career. Without engaging in an excessive analysis of Hahnemann’s psychology or restricting our understanding of him to that of a classically defined narcissistic personality, it is nevertheless apparent that some of these attributes are consistent with Hahnemann’s personality to a degree sufficient, perhaps, to have influenced the developing identity of the homeopathic profession down to the present day.
The scholar and teacher Alfonso Montuori describes a model of learning that suggests a related but alternative understanding of the concept of narcissism. Montuori suggests that the apparent polarization of so-called “Reproductive/Rationalistic” and “Narcissistic” models of learning can be balanced by a third learning modality that he refers to as “Creative Inquiry”:
”By “Reproductive” I mean an approach to education that sees the source of knowledge as almost exclusively outside the knower, and focuses almost exclusively on the accurate reproduction of that knowledge by the knower. It is about reproducing the content one has received; reproducing the disciplinary organization, instructional pedagogy, and power structures that generates this knowledge; reproducing the standard, accepted ways of conducting inquiry; reproducing the societal/industrial expectations for what a good member of the workforce is; reproducing the existing social and academic order. Narcissistic Education emerges as an important corrective to the dry, limited view of traditional Reproductive Education. But if in the process it rejects high academic standards, if it does not involve dialogue with the larger scholarly community, if it is not grounded in the literature, if it is not open to challenge and critique, if it defies the laws of science and common sense, we end up with a narcissistic world of navel-gazing that adds little if anything of value to the field, “process” replaces “content,” and an entirely new set of oppositions is created. Creative Inquiry is designed to integrate the best of traditional scholarly inquiry and also expand what we mean by education and inquiry by including an ongoing process of self-inquiry that recognizes the role of the knower in inquiry. Creative Inquiry in the educational process is not merely an accumulation of facts and figures, the development of an academic specialization and expertise in a given topic, but can also be an opportunity to transform oneself, one’s world, and the process of inquiry itself.”
We can see characteristics of both Montuori’s Reproductive/Rationalistic model and his Narcissistic model in contemporary homeopathic learning and practice; in fact his formulation is, in my estimation, an accurate representation of some of the fundamental issues that we face as practitioners in defining the science and art of homeopathy. On one level we have a “scientific” emphasis on homeopathic philosophy and practice—examination based on objective criteria for remedy knowledge and methods of analysis—and on the other, the “unknown” qualities of the client/practitioner relationship and the “intuitive” abilities of the practitioner, who seeks an understanding of the individual subjective realities of the client. Both methods have validity and it is precisely the integration of the two that allows for success in practice. However, undue emphasis on either one can lead to a dry, sterile, reductionistic form of practice, or a highly subjective, self-reflective form of practice that seeks no rational comparison or justification.
My use of the term narcissistic here also encompasses homeopathy’s emphasis on central figures and its tendency to foster institutional factionalism and the perpetuation of a cultic orientation both within homeopathy and in relation to the world at large. As mentioned earlier, contemporary devotion to living teachers partakes of qualities similar to the kind of relationships Hahnemann cultivated with his students. While it is clear that Hahnemann was a medical genius and a great thinker, he also exhibited qualities of rigidity and authoritarianism that evoked strong devotion and aversion in equal measure. Perhaps these qualities were necessary prerequisites of the construction of the phenomenal system we know as homeopathy; a less rigid person might not have had the tenacity, determination and mental discipline to achieve what Hahnemann did. Does this mean, however, that we are bound to replicate the same inflexibility and doctrinal rigidity? Some of the profession’s more “conservative” contemporary commentators seem at times to embody the role of the Catholic priests of old, imparting the wisdom of the “masters,” always looking to the past for their authority and questioning any ideas or methods that do not adhere to pre-established doctrine. In contrast, some of the more “progressive” homeopaths act more like born-again Christians, identifying themselves as bringers of a new paradigm with all the passion and zeal of those who believe they have found the light.
In terms of relations with the world at large, it is apparent that many systems that exist on the margins of social acceptability tend to maintain rigid ideas of identity in response to real or perceived threats from the established powers. Homeopathy has had this type of adversarial relationship to conventional medicine since Hahnemann’s time, and one can as easily assert that its fortifying adherence to the foundational principles laid down by Hahnemann is also a weakness to the extent that it isolates us unnecessarily from more mainstream thinking.
Teachers in Contemporary Homeopathy
External pressure during Hahnemann’s time may also have contributed to the underlying “cultic” dynamic within homeopathy, especially with respect to Hahnemann’s insistence that his students adhere to his dictates. Today, there are a number of teachers who evoke, consciously or not, a similar level of devotion. Perhaps the most significant of these are Rajan Sankaran and others of the Bombay Group. For quite a number of years, Sankaran in particular has attracted a passionately devoted group of followers who treat him like a guru and who tend to accept less than critically the positions he articulates in his writings and seminars. Many of these students now identify themselves as practitioners of the “Sensation Method,” making a distinction between themselves and other homeopaths. While this may not necessarily represent a conscious attempt to separate their practices from others in the homeopathic community, the effect is to establish a clear distinction that tends to suggest feelings of uniqueness and superiority.
While Sankaran’s ideas obviously merit serious study and experimentation, the identity dynamics thus created are potentially problematic. After all, homeopathy is homeopathy. There are many ways to find the simillimum within the homeopathic method, but to identify oneself as an adherent of one method within the broader homeopathic system raises certain questions. Many practitioners now say, for example, that they conduct all their cases according to this method—as if one methodology, however wonderful, is complete in and of itself. Is it valid to assert that an attempt to systematize a particular style of case taking and analysis represents a new and more complete homeopathic “method”? While Sankaran’s systematization exemplifies an interesting dynamic with respect to the challenge of addressing the subjective nature of homeopathic practice, to the extent that every case demands a unique approach it remains open to question. As neophyte practitioners uncritically adopt Sankaran’s method of seeking the “Vital Sensation,” they may unwittingly reduce the art of homeopathy to a specific system of case taking and analysis whose results will be difficult to replicate in other situations. Further, such systematization may be unnecessary and superfluous to the extent that what Sankaran is advocating is at its root simply good homeopathy, i.e., knowing when to ask the question that elicits the most revealing response, which is after all the goal of all homeopathic practice.
The fact that a large number of teachers have become involved with Sankaran’s ideas and identify themselves accordingly creates interesting challenges in the teaching of homeopathy to students. Some now recommend the teaching of Sankaran’s method fairly exclusively from the beginning of training, theorizing that it is no longer necessary to attend to the fundamentals of homeopathic case taking and practice as they have been developed over the last 200 years. For these people, Sankaran’s method is it, and one need only learn it well to practice homeopathy with greater success than anyone else.
Such total conviction is perhaps the inevitable result of commitment to inspiring ideas that seem to offer secure answers to the challenges of practicing an art as subjective as homeopathy. At the same time, however, the tendency to identify oneself not just as a homeopath but as, for example, a practitioner of the “Vital Sensation System,” creates an illusion of separation and hierarchy within homeopathy as a whole. As philosopher Ken Wilber explains in A Brief History of Everything, new ideas and systems often arise from a desire not to build on an earlier method but to supersede or subsume an extant paradigm so as to be able identify oneself as the creator of something distinct from it. My intent here is not to dismiss Sanakran’s ideas so much as to question social and political constructs that have evolved around them and that have caused considerable consternation within our profession.
Method or No Method
As homeopathy is an art as well as a science, in the end we all have to find our own way. It is important to realize that even if we learn a great deal from various teachers, we ultimately have to leave the teacher as we forge our own identity, gaining the necessary confidence from our own practice and experience. To the extent that we insist on imposing any “system” on the organic process of the homeopathic art, we court the risk of a rigidity in our style of thought and practice that disempowers us as unique individual practitioners. Our “method” then replaces the experience of being a simple witness for the patient’s story, and the agenda of getting to the “vital sensation” may be inappropriately imposed on our relationship with the patient. Similarly, the “seven-level” model espoused by Sankaran (similar to many other esoteric models of levels of consciousness), can foster a desire to “get to” each of the seven levels, even if the remedy picture has become very clear at level one or two. While this approach may work in the hands of a skilled practitioner, when attempted by inexperienced homeopaths it can create more confusion than clarity. The simple beauty of just listening without a particular agenda, which can effortlessly lead one to a deeper understanding of a person and therefore the correct remedy, can be undermined by a relentless style of inquisition in which the client is required to express feelings and thoughts until “the truth” is revealed.
Sankaran’s philosophy can be seen as a continuation of a Kentian stream of thought with distinct connections to the esoteric aspect of spiritual thought adapted by Kent from Swedenborg. From this perspective, the central “spiritual” core is seen as the holy grail of understanding, in contrast to the more “mundane” objective methodologies of “scientific” homeopathy, especially the more non-classical styles practiced in France and other countries. This is just one more example of the subjective/objective dichotomy in homeopathic practice. While the concept of individualization lies at the center of Hahnemann’s revelations and is also central to our concept of the simillimum and holistic principles, the vulnerability of Sankaran’s method lies in its potential for subjective interpretation of individual dynamics by different homeopaths in a manner that could be construed as “Narcissistic” according to Montuori’s classification. The quest for a “systemic” approach in which objective methodology and subjective process can come together is the continuing challenge of homeopathy that Sankaran, along with the rest of the profession, is striving for. The goal of finding the correct remedy through our knowledge of materia medica is a formulation of an objective process in the context of an uncompromising embrace of the uniqueness of every individual and of the many ways by means of which it is possible to discover the simillimum. The fascinating conundrum surrounding Sankaran’s method of establishing the Vital Sensation, as well as his system for examining families and miasms, is his search for an objective “method” of homeopathic analysis through the utilization of highly subjective processes. The issue is not that it doesn’t work, as enough people have used it successfully it to confirm its validity; the problem rather lies in the adoption of any method as “the method.”
From a philosophical point of view, Sankaran’s thought and methodology represents the esoteric perspective within homeopathy—the other, more objective side being represented by the “medical” wing of homeopathic practice and history. Ironically, Hahnemann’s own practice was strongly medically based, whereas one could say that Kent and the other Swedenborgian homeopaths were more influenced by underlying esoteric theories, even if their practices included extensive medical analysis. The implication in Sankaran’s philosophy seems to be that there is only one correct remedy for each person, and that the goal of the interview process is to figure out the unique pattern within one remedy image. While it can be said, however, that at any given time there is only one correct remedy that will work the best, this does preclude the possibility of identifying additional remedies that may be necessary at various times in a given case. Even if Sankaran and his colleagues in India don’t believe that only one remedy is necessary for a cure, this remains a common assumption among those who subscribe to his philosophy as a whole.
One of the difficulties of devoting ourselves to the teachings of a single theorist is that doing so can cause us to deviate from own independent development as practitioners; it can give rise to a conscious or unconscious abdication of autonomy, as well an isolation from other theorists and practitioners. Identification with a particular method inevitably creates some degree of separation. Given the historical tendency for homeopaths to squabble among themselves, and given the schisms that exist even within the broader “classical” family, it is interesting to observe the impact that Sankaran’s thinking is having on contemporary dialogue within homeopathy. It does not constitute a wholesale denial of the validity of his ideas to question the wholesomeness of the impact—similar to that of some authority figures in other walks of life—of his personal psychological dynamics on the broader homeopathic gestalt.
One of the contentions of this article is that we ought perhaps to question our need to have a “guru” to tell us what to do or think, and our need to seek such direction from certain charismatic teachers. There will always be a need for teachers, but their role must be questioned more closely in terms of the impact they have on others and the motivations underlying their desire to occupy it. While Sankaran and his colleagues have enjoyed great success in the promulgation of their ideas, it remains to be seen whether their philosophy will encourage or stifle further innovation and originality, and to what extent it will become part of the mainstream of homeopathic practice. While there are many other innovators in homeopathy today, for some reason the energy around Sankaran and the Bombay Group partakes of the “cultic” dynamic described above to a greater degree than seems to be the case with most other teachers. It may be that this reflects variations within the professional community with respect to the need for guidance and authority.
Implications for Practice
The ultimate goal of this discussion is an examination of the process of developing self-knowledge and evolution in the homeopathic practitioner. While like most human beings we can be quite neurotic and still function somewhat effectively in our profession, it is also true that homeopathy is a journey for all of us, and that our ability to function competently as homeopaths is connected to some degree to how well we know ourselves. But there is an even more compelling question that pertains to the structural influences of homeopathy itself: When we immerse ourselves in the system, philosophy, history and practice of homeopathy, we become part of the hologram of homeopathy; we inherit the “miasm” and energy of the whole system and its entire history. Part of the spirit of Hahnemann is in us, and the question is, what do we do with it all?
Obviously, we want to do the best work we can, and it seems to me that our work should force us to look into ourselves, to question our own processes and to use homeopathy to help us in our own evolution. We cannot separate this personal evolution from that of our patients. We are implicated by our actions and our relationship with our patients and fellow practitioners. We have to strive to “Know Thyself” and, in that endeavor, to respect others. We have to cultivate caution against pride and vanity, which will rebound on us individually and on our profession as a whole. We have to recognize that our actions have consequences and that the future of homeopathy as a viable profession is dependent on how we conduct ourselves as practitioners. Our own willingness to evolve personally will affect our capacities as healers. The fact is, most people come to see us because of who we are as human beings, not because of which system or method we practice. Regardless of the system, “guru” or method to which we subscribe, it is by our humanity that we will ultimately be measured, rather than our brilliance with respect to case taking, materia medica, or analysis. As Van Morrison so famously put it—“No Guru, No Method, No Teacher.”
Richard Pitt CCH, RSHom (NA), practices homeopathy in San Francisco.
