Intro: Publisher’s Note and Editorial
Publisher’s Note
There is something fitting about returning with an issue devoted to the Vital Force at this time of year. The summer solstice marks a season of growth, abundance, and vitality. Gardens flourish, daylight lingers, and life expresses itself with remarkable energy and diversity. It is perhaps no surprise that many cultures have regarded this season as a reminder of the living forces that animate the natural world.
The theme of this issue, The Vital Force: Energy, Form, and the Pattern of Life, invites us to reflect on one of homeopathy's most foundational ideas. For more than two centuries, homeopaths have grappled with questions that continue to challenge medicine, science, and philosophy today. What is life? What organizes living systems? What allows an organism not merely to survive, but to heal, adapt and express its fullest potential? These questions remain as relevant now as they were in Hahnemann's day.
The cover image reflects this spirit of inquiry. The radiant sun, branching tree, celestial spheres, and elemental forces remind us that life unfolds through relationship. Roots and branches. Energy and form. The visible and the invisible. Whether we speak of the Vital Force, Dynamis, or the organizing intelligence that underlies living systems, we are invited to look beyond isolated parts and consider the patterns that connect them.
One of the hopes behind the relaunch of The California Homeopath is that it becomes more than a repository of articles. We hope it becomes a place for conversation. Homeopathy has always evolved through careful observation, clinical experience, spirited debate, and the exchange of ideas among colleagues. To support that process, we have introduced a new commenting feature on our website, allowing readers to respond to articles and engage directly with authors and fellow practitioners. I hope you will join the conversation.
Like public radio, The California Homeopath depends upon the community it serves. We believe that thoughtful homeopathic scholarship should remain accessible to all, which is why our content is freely available and not hidden behind a paywall. If you find value in this publication, I invite you to subscribe or renew your support. Your contribution helps ensure that this work remains available to practitioners, students, and readers around the world.
As we publish this Summer Solstice edition of The California Homeopath, I find myself feeling deeply grateful. After nearly a decade in dormancy, the journal is once again finding its place within our profession. The response from readers has been warm, encouraging, and at times quite moving. For that, I offer my sincere thanks.
I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to our sponsors, Similia and Dynamis. Their support has played an important role in helping bring this publication back to life. At a time when thoughtful professional discourse is needed more than ever, their partnership reflects a commitment not only to this journal, but to the continued growth and vitality of the homeopathic community. We are deeply grateful for their encouragement and support.
Thank you for reading, for sharing this publication with colleagues, and for being part of this growing community. I look forward to welcoming you again for our Winter Solstice edition, Volume 20, Issue 3.
With gratitude,
Kirsten McGregor
Publisher, Editor
Editorial: Volume 20, Issue 2
This is the 2nd edition of the new California Homeopath. Our first issue was focused on the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on homeopathy, a meeting of the future and the past. This next issue carries on this apparent polarity, by exploring the implications of the recognition of the Vital Force on modern science and medicine. The issue theme is described as:
The Next Paradigm Shift in Consciousness Thinking: How the Concept of the Vital Force and an Energetic Perspective of Reality is Challenging the Mechanistic Reductionism of Science, Medicine and Philosophy.
This is quite a challenge and the many articles presented explore this from many angles. For homeopaths, we have taken for granted that Hahnemann’s revelatory teachings in the Organon and the acceptance of a Vital Force as an essential energetic reality of life would have many parallels in other systems of thinking. In fact, it is true, but bringing the threads of these different historical, philosophical, medical ways of thinking is an interesting exploration. I have personally always thought that if people really understand the real “alchemy” of homeopathy, of seeing the parallels between nature consciousness and human consciousness then what may seem to be controversial and esoteric, would in fact be embraced by many more people.
Therefore, in this edition there are valuable, creative and even poetic explorations of the implications of accepting the concept of the Vital Force. Kathleen Scheible’s article, “The Past that Contains the Whole: Homeopathy, the Holographic Universe and the End of Mechanistic Medicine” begins this exploration by referring to one of the most important European philosophers, Benedict de Spinoza, or Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), a Portuguese Jewish philosopher, which Samuel Hahnemann was most certainly familiar with. Spinoza’s work functioned as a perfect anti-thesis to the mechanistic model of Rene Descartes and much of Hahnemann’s thoughts can be found in Spinoza’s work and Scheible eloquently explores this, along with looking at the philosophical roots of Hua-Yen Buddhism.
The comparisons between Eastern and Western philosophers offer fertile ground in exploring the implication of the Vital Force, and my article on the subject, entitled, “The God (Consciousness) question and its relationship to Homeopathy” moves in similar directions, by looking at what we mean by consciousness or even the term, God, and how that is seen in the Indian tradition of Advaita Vedanta and of the South Indian system of medicine, called Siddha. It also looks at the history of Western thought and how it has struggled between religious and secular thinking and how its embrace of the mechanistic, reductionist model has led to the cult of science in its denial of anything that doesn’t fit within this paradigm. As we know, homeopathy has been seen as a form of witchcraft, as it embraces a truly holistic paradigm and Hahnemann’s own deistic beliefs are consistent with Spinoza’s.
We were also privileged to feature an in-depth interview with Frans Vermeulen, one of the most influential scholars and contributors to the evolution of modern homeopathic knowledge. Through his extensive research and writings, Vermeulen has helped generations of practitioners better understand the origins, development, and application of the homeopathic materia medica, tracing its progression from Hahnemann’s original provings to the vast body of contemporary clinical and proving literature available today. In a wide-ranging conversation with Publisher and Editor Kirsten McGregor, Vermeulen reflects on a lifetime devoted to the study of homeopathy. Together they explore the foundations of homeopathic philosophy, the evolution of materia medica, the challenges of preserving rigor in an expanding knowledge base, and the enduring principles that continue to guide homeopathic practice. More than a retrospective, this interview offers a thoughtful examination of where homeopathy has come from, where it stands today, and what may be required to carry its essential insights forward into the future.
Rumble’s article “Vital Force in a Post-Materialistic World” explores the subject from Hahnemann’s own words, especially in aphorisms 9 and 10, and explores the term “Wesen” that was translated in Hahnemann’s 6th edition of the Organon by Wenda Brewster O’Reilly. Wesen is translated as being “essence, substance, creature, living thing, nature or entity.” It is therefore a field, a matrix and the vital substance or force is the power, or the expression of this Wesen. This is not different to how the concept of prana is described in Advaita Vedanta. Rumble’s article sticks to the language of homeopathy and its implications in our exploration of the human expression of health and disease.
Barr’s article, “Subtle Electrical Signalling in Health and Medicine: Stem Cells, Extreme Dilutions and Medicines” looks more at the potential of modern science to reveal the implications of the vital force or an energetic consciousness, including possible genetic or epigenetic connections within a subtle electrical field. He refers to the work of Luc Montaigner, famed French scientist, and also British biologist Rupert Sheldrake and his work on morphic resonance and morphogenetic fields.
We then move into the world of practical homeopathy, but in which the implications of an energetic field or consciousness is central to the exploration. Seeing the connections between the outer and the inner, between the gestalt of a situation and the apparent synchronicities experienced as part of the homeopathic interview and a person’s life story, all give evidence of a “vibratory” holistic universe. Mundy’s article “The Mirror and the Magnet” uses live cases and the experience of the author to reveal the fact that when we talk of the vital force, we are talking about energy and about attraction and the cosmic dance of connection as revealed by homeopathy. Mundy’s experience over four decades shows in some fascinating cases and a “homeopathic view” of the world, whether in film, movie, politics or history.
Je Norbu’s articles take this further in two articles, exploring non-mechanistic models with his work on provings of three new substances. His first article is entitled:
The Three Modes of Perception: How the Vitalistic Homeopatherapeutic Practitioner Knows What the Mechanistic Clinician Cannot See. He explores the problems of perception in mechanistic medicine and then further elaborates this in describing the case taking dynamics from a holistic and phenomenological view and the provings he did of Gavia Immer (loon), Ovum Chelydra Serpentina (egg of the snapper turtle) and Lux foraminis nigris (light of a blackhole). He follows this up with cases to reveal this thinking. One has to read the articles to get a sense of where he is coming from.
To take the study of provings further, I undertook two provings some years ago, one of Ricinus communis (castor oil bean) and of Manihot esculenta (Cassava), both in the Euphorbiaceae family. Although done separately and years apart, one in the U.S. and the other in Malawi, Africa, the study and comparisons of both remedies showed some interesting similarities, consistent with exploring common themes of plants in the Euphorbiaceae family and other plant families. Another proving study by well-known prover from India, Chetna Shuckler, was of Human igG. Shukla has contributed many provings to the world of homeopathy and this is one more excellent exploration. Provings, after all, are the central foundation of the science of homeopathic exploration, a journey into the essence of nature itself and therefore has to be a central part of any understanding of the vital force and of consciousness studies.
We also have significant and grounding articles by AnnMarie Rian and Vijay Vaishnav. AnnMarie’s article challenges us to explore implicit bias in our case taking and our views of the world and how we bring our own bias to whatever we do, including being homeopaths. This gives another perspective on what Hahnemann means by being an “unprejudiced observer.” Vaishnav’s article brings right back to earth and to the fundamentals of homeopathy as both a science and an art as we grapple with everyday cases and where our knowledge of medicine, of the physical knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathology informs our work as homeopaths.
We are also publishing the second installation of the Chronic Miasms by Will Taylor. His exhaustive study offers an essential foundation into this vitally important part of homeopathic history and practice. A deep knowledge of miasms and use of nosodes is one of the key areas of homeopathic study and therefore Taylor’s contribution gives us an important contribution to this study.
We want to state our thanks to all the contributors for this issue and to our advertisers and to everyone supporting the work of the California Homeopath.
Richard Pitt
Co-Editor