THE HOMEOPATH AS ANTHROPOLOGIST OR NEUTRAL OBSERVER – By Peter Morrell

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‘The sick are entitled to exact knowledge, not to guesswork.’

‘The disease is not to be named but perceived; not to be classified
but to be viewed, that the very nature of it may be discovered.’

‘Throw aside all theories, and matters of belief and opinion, and
dwell in simple facts.’

‘The human mind should not be burdened with technicalities. They
destroy the description, and close the understanding.’

‘You must see and feel the internal nature of your patient as the
artist sees and feels the picture he is painting. He feels it. Study to feel the economy,
the life, the soul.’

‘The physician must penetrate into the inner recesses of symptoms;
the very life of the patient must be opened and laid bare. Learn the fears, instincts,
desires and the aversions of the patient. The remedy often crops out through the
affections.’

‘So long as man relies upon the senses to settle what is scientific
and what is not, and does not use his understanding, so long will he be in confusion, and
sciences will oppose each other.’

‘Homoeopathy is an applied science not a theory.’

‘It is not a matter of theory or belief or opinion; we must have
something more substantial. Homoeopathy must rest upon facts.’

‘We owe no obedience to man, not even to our parents, after we are
old enough to think for ourselves. We owe obedience to Truth.’

‘Truth is the daughter not of authority but of Time.’ Francis Bacon
(1561-1626) (in Fisher, 1936, p433)

To me there are two basic threads which run through these quotes. One is
about being a neutral or detached observer and wresting truth from direct observation. Two
is about the form of homeopathy we construct from what we do and see. I shall expound on
both of these themes.

The psychological aspects of remedies means that they are merely bare
observations about the way people are in their ‘raw suchness’ rather than as any kind of
neat theory about psychology or causes or mechanisms. Homeopathy is not rooted in mechanisms
or in any type of explanation about human nature or why people should come to possess the
symptom pictures and psychological characteristics which they have. Homeopathy makes no
judgements and offers few explanations about life or patients. It is rooted in a neutral and
essentially phenomenological view of man. What this means is highly relevant to homeopaths
even if they do not yet know it.

It means that the remedy is just a portrait of a psychological ‘essence
state’ and is ‘blameless’ and non-mechanistic. To try, for example, and explain why a Natrum
mur person cannot urinate in the presence of strangers or why a Mercurius type should wish
to nip the nose of a passer by, reveals a ludicrous and monumental misapprehension about the
nature of homeopathy. As Kent says, homeopathy is not an explanatory science, but more a
therapeutic method that sidesteps all neat theories and asserts: ‘here are people essences
and here are drug pictures – your task is to match them by neutrally viewing the patient and
intimately coming to know the drug pictures.’ That at least is one definition of our craft.

Thus the best homeopaths are ‘little more’ than neutral bystanders or
‘good anthropologists’ who traditionally desist from making judgements of the culture they
are immersed in – they just describe patterns and match them together. In effect, homeopaths
are ‘archivists of medical types’ – matching one set of pictures (patient data) into the
files of another set – drug pictures. They sift, sort and pigeon-hole data from one set of
containers (people) into another (materia medica) and back again. At best, they are thus
‘medical archivists’ and do not attempt to explain, justify or judge, or to find mechanisms.
They must remain detached and neutral and not lapse into explaining things, devising
theories or seeking out mechanisms. They must dwell ‘in simple facts’ as Kent says – to
‘describe but not explain’.

By comparison, science seems to have completely lost this ‘real-life
thread’. It seems totally bogged-down in mechanism and theory and unable to see that true
life is not in that direction at all. As such, the two traditions could not stand in starker
contrast, dwelling at opposite poles of human knowledge. Homeopathy has stood the test of
time and is faithful to its fundamental ‘neutral anthropology’ view of man. That is its most
fruitful track and best approach – both now and for the future. The best homeopaths have not
and do not stand in judgement over the patient and do not try to explain their symptom data
– they just sift and match the two sets together. In doing so, their success reflects the
fundamental soundness of an approach which Kent calls an ‘applied science’.

Having said all that, it is also true that science was originally very
soundly based upon real-world empirical observations. While more recently it has lost its
thread somewhat and become more obsessed with explanations and theories, yet the
explanations it offers, form, for homeopaths, a disappointingly false creed, which says very
little of any significance about the real world it claims to be periodically in contact
with. By contrast, in the early days of science, from the time of Copernicus (1473-1543),
say c1500, right up until the current century, say c1900, science was much more
observational and descriptive. Staying descriptive meant it was rooted in observation rather
than in trying to explain things. As Kent says, trying to explain everything soon becomes a
very neat end-in-itself that leads you away from the solid base of pure observations and
then trotting out into the ‘fantasy paddock’ of mechanism. Science has lost itself almost
completely in this world of mechanism and cannot seem to see a way back to simple direct
perception, common sense and direct phenomenological viewing neutrally like the ‘good
anthropologist’.

Today science finds itself in the absurd position of actually denying the
existence of observations which challenge its pet theories. Thus theory has come to have
dominance over neutral observation, in a way undreamt of by Bacon or Galileo (1564-1642).
That must be viewed with grave concern by anyone looking for objective truth and sound
knowledge – commodities which science now seems incapable of supplying. Galileo would not
have tolerated this situation. He would staunchly reject any theory that did not account for
the evidence. He would boldly amend all such theories in the light of new evidence. Doing
that cost him his life. It was he who excitedly and naively tried to show the Pope the
newly-found moons of Jupiter through his telescope. Only to be told there are none and the
Inquisition will be contacting you very soon.

On a personal note, I notice now, looking back, that when I was a boy I
possessed certain qualities like a massive curiosity about the world; subtle and very
accurate perceptional powers; and the ability to think clearly and without reference to what
others say. These three qualities I can now see have carried me through. I cultivated
further my powers of observation mainly through tree-climbing and bird-nesting in the fields
and an interest in watching living things going about their business. Thus my naturally
acute perception became more and more accurate, refined and subtle, but always remained
solidly rooted in what IS, not in what might be.

Following natural science I studied Zoology and Botany, but soon realised
that the academic study of biology sadly lacks the wonderful vitalism of my childhood
science and thus I soon became disappointed with what academics had rendered a lifeless and
boring subject – concerned almost entirely with mechanism and theories and as dry as dust.
Professors were scornfully dismissive of observational science as ‘Victorian and old-hat’. I
still reject with that viewpoint – observation is, has been and always will be the
fundamental basis of all science.

But the world drips with meaning, and we must cultivate direct and
accurate observational powers that keep us directly in touch with the concrete real world.
We should, as Kent says, throw aside all theories, so leaving our minds uncluttered by the
theories and rantings of others. That is exactly what the early scientists did. It is what
Kent means. And also the great Zen Masters. Every day we must wipe that slate clean, polish
the bright mirror of consciousness, and view the world afresh. With every patient, we must
throw the materia medica to one side and view that person like Adam, or the first person we
have ever met, and concentrate upon their innate nature neutrally as a direct observer,
making no judgements and offering no theories. If we adopt this ‘anthropological approach’
then we shall directly perceive them just as they are. Then later, when turning to materia
medica we shall have no difficulty in seeing the remedy they need. We can then prescribe not
on the basis of any arrogant or distorted preconception, but upon a certainty founded in
direct neutral viewing.

As Bacon and Kent say, the authority we rightly accord to truth is not
rooted in what others have said, nor in what our parents think and say, nor what has gone
before, but upon how WE perceive the world. Yes, we do owe obedience to truth. Not the
so-called ‘truth’ of modern science, of endless mechanism and trite theorising, but the
bright, fresh truth of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler (1571-1630) and all the early scientists
who were much more faithful to mother nature and cultivated direct observational powers,
rather than a crazy devotion to neat theories and mechanisms.

Only through rooting ourselves in the real world and neutral observation,
can we become great homeopaths and cure sick folks of their problems. Homeopathy must resist
any temptation to become mechanistic or to follow science down that stupid road that kills
off the imagination, that kills off the love and life of our subject. We must stick to our
direct observation as ‘neutral anthropologists’, looking at the patient and the materia
medica and making no judgements and offering no explanations to anyone for what we do.
Homeopathy IS a phenomenological pursuit and long may that be so. That is perhaps what Kent
also meant by the following:

‘The time may come when homoeopathy of the purer kind will be
popular; but it is a very long time ahead.’ (Lesser Writings)

And in case we need reminding, Samuel Hahnemann too was firmly rooted in a
place called the real world and spent most of his waking life there. He had little time for
fantasy, idle speculation or crazy theories. His view of the old materia medica was damning
to say the least:

“Undeterred by the magnitude of the task, Hahnemann set about
creating a materia medica which should embody the facts of drug action upon the
healthy.” (Close, 1924, p147)

“From the earliest beginnings until now, the materia medica has
consisted only of false suppositions and fancies, which is as good as no materia medica at
all.” (The Organon,v110

“The… virtues of medicines cannot be apprehended by…smell,
taste, or appearance… or from chemical analysis, or by treating disease with one or more
of them in a mixture…” (The Organon, v110)

“If one has tested a considerable number of simple medicines on
healthy people in this way… then one has for the first time a true materia medica: a
collection of the authentic, pure, reliable effects of simple medicinal substances in
themselves; a natural pharmacopoeia…” (The Organon, v143)

Thus homeopathy arose not as some judgemental and bellicose theoretical
system, derived from a distorted view of medicine. It arose through meticulous and
painstaking observations and experiments in the real world, made by a man with superior
observational skills and reasoning powers. Hahnemann did not rail against orthodoxy for the
hell of it, but because he knew they were wrong. Just as Galileo knew they were wrong. They
still are. Maybe we should all strive to become such creative heretics and keep open minds
as well as open eyes.

Sources
Francis Bacon, 1620, Novum Organum, London
Stuart Close, 1924, The Genius of Homeopathy, Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, New York
H A L Fisher, 1936, A History Of Europe, Arnold, London
Samuel Hahnemann, 1810, The Organon, Kunzli translation (c1978)
James Tyler Kent, c1900, Lesser Writings, New Remedies, etc, Jain Edition

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