What’s so great about the Organon

If you are a homeopathic student, practitioner, or afficionado, someone will have likely told you to read the Organon, since it is the text that outlines homeopathic philosophy and practice.

It’s an old book though, 200 years old, and sometimes I can’t help but wonder why we are so obsessed with something that has been read and re-read, analyzed and re-analyzed for centuries.

I mean, why haven’t we moved beyond the Organon yet? Why can’t we just read the many analyses and commentaries of the Organon, which seem more clear and straightforward than the Organon itself?

Everyone has a slightly different answer to this question. Dimitriadis’ article on the subject stresses that “Hahnemann’s views [can] most accurately be ascertained from Hahnemann himself, even allowing for difficulties of translation”, and in gaining familiarity with his language. Afterall, most of our primary and foundational texts are written by Hahnemann and learning to read his writing style is a skill worth honing, in order to be able to evaluate the primary texts ourselves. Furthermore, “the only absolute point of distinction between Homœopathy and all other therapies, is its philosophical and practical foundation on Similars” which was outlined most completely in the Organon (Dimitriadis, p2). But for me, reading Hahnemann is about understanding how the profession started, what milieu it started in, how Hahnemann intended the profession to be practiced and how that differs or not from the present state of the profession.

Reading Hahnemann is not about being “Hahnemannian” in practice. “Hahnemannian” philosophy is a flawed term to me, as Hahnemann changed his mind on a variety of subjects over his lifetime. So what time period is “Hahnemannian” homeopathy? Is a dosing strategy from the fourth edition of the Organon less Hahnemannian than a dosing strategy based on the sixth edition of the Organon? I had many “Hahnemannian” teachers in my homeopathic schooling, and I can tell you they all said different and contradictory things. The teachers I had who were not “hahnemanian” (by their own admission), would say we needed to move beyond Hahnemann; that he was unscientific or old fashioned. But who should I emulate or trust? The teacher one I liked the most? Or the teacher that had the most beautiful explanation for their theories? Or the one who seemed to have the most cured cases?

Obviously liking a teacher says nothing about how good their philosophy and logic are, nor does the beauty of their explanations: “countless explanations regarding the phenomena in diseases … wrapped in unintelligible words and an inflated abstract mode of expression, which should sound very learned … Of such learned reveries … we have had quite enough (Organon, aphorism 1, footnote). Even the teacher who seems to have the most cured cases may not be the best to emulate because they may be overinflating their results (or other teachers are downplaying their results), or they may have more of a subconscious understanding of homeopathic philosophy/prescriptions/dosing, etc and therefore unable to explain their actions and reasons to students for emulation. The mark of a good teacher is not their own results, but the results of their students. The mark of a good practitioner is their own clinical results. The two professions and skills are different and shouldn’t be conflated.

If we measure a good teacher by the results of their students, then Hahnemann has to take home the prize, as he started the whole profession. Without him, there would be no Boenninghausen, Lippe, Kent, Hering or Vithoulkas or Sankaran. Hahnemann taught them. Or at least, Hahnemann taught the person that taught them. And he wrote his Organon to teach people how to practice homeopathy. So in other words, we could attribute all homeopathic cures to the power of his teaching, and his teaching starts in the Organon. Furthermore, the idea that he is unscientific or old-fashioned can only be investigated by reading his Organon first, and critically evaluating his logic and reasoning.

So whether you want to be “Hahnemannian” or you believe Hahnemann is an old foggy we no longer need, the only way to effectively argue your point of view effectively is, ironically, to read his work critically. If you want to be “Hahnemannian” then you need to understand which of his actions or philosophies you are emulating, and decide which of them you may not want to emulate and why. And if you don’t want to emulate him, you need to read what he wrote, otherwise you may find yourself accidently doing the same thing he did! But mostly, you need to read his writings to make up your own mind. Ask yourself if you agree, if what he says makes sense, if it applies to modern medicine or not, or if it is practically useful. If you do what he says in your own practice, does it help or hinder your results?

In other words, the power of his writing should not be measured on its age (every medical student still quotes Hippocrates, whose work is two thousand years older than Hahnemann’s) or on the type of prose it uses, but on the clinical results it engenders.