Heilkunst is the term used by the German medical reformer, Dr. Samuel Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) for his radical revision of the prevailing system of medicine. “Heilkunst” is a German word meaning essentially “the art of making whole”. The term “homeopathy,” also coined by Hahnemann, is often used, mistakenly, to refer to Hahnemann’s complete system of medicine as set out in his various writings. While homeopathy refers to the use of medicines against a disease using the natural law of similars, Hahnemann’s complete system as set out in his extended Organon of Heilkunst, covers the law of opposites and all the various aspects that fall under that law - diet, nutrition, lifestyle, energy work, psychotherapy, even antipathic medicine (such as anti-inflammatories).
The nature of Heilkunst lies essentially in the following aspects:
- its explicit recognition, for the first time in medicine, of the polar nature of that living principle (”Lebensprinzip”) or what he later termed the Dynamis (a generative and sustentive side - see below);
- the dynamic or energetic nature of disease (as opposed to the prevailing material or mystical views); and
- the use of medicines on the basis of their dynamic or energetic, not simply biochemical, effect.
Dr. Hahnemann, unlike any medical practitioner before him, also made a fundamental distinction between ”’disease”’, a dynamic impingement of the ”’generative”’ side of the Living Principle or ”’Dynamis”’, and ”’imbalance”’, a disturbance of the ”’sustentive”’ power (what traditionally was termed the ”vis medicatrix naturae” or inner healer). He further provided a clear distinction between the initial action of the disease agent, which involves an almost imperceptible impingement of the generative power of the Living Principle, and the counteraction of the sustentive side, which produces the various symptoms we associate with disease, but which is really the effort of the Living Principle or Dynamis to rid the human organism of disease.
The cure of disease involves the use of a medicinal agent (artificial disease) according to the law of similar resonance and there were various levels of similitude identified by Hahnemann (homeo, homo, iso) according to the nature of the disease agent. Heilkunst also includes the use of the law of opposites, which involves the healing function of the sustentive power in such realms as diet, nutrition, lifestyle, energy work and psychotherapy, drainage and detoxification, all of which are contained in one form or another in the above noted works. From this we find a clear distinction between the act of ”’curing”’ (destruction of the disease itself), which is what the therapeutic agent accomplishes through its power to affect the generative power wherein is lodged the disease, according to the natural law of resonance (similar or opposite), and ”’healing”’, which is what is accomplished by the sustentive power reacting to this artificial disease agent (medicine), and which can be supported where there are imbalances in energy flow, nutrients, blockages, etc.
It could be said that Heilkunst provides the foundation in natural law and principle for the rational ordering of therapeutics (organized intervention in a case of sickness), on a basis which is empirical, but not empiricist, because grounded further in natural law principles. Without this foundation, any system of medicine is, according to Hahnemann, without principle (allopathic) and will have the potential to cause great harm as a result. Hahnemann strove to provide an underlying framework to understand health, disease and imbalance, which allows the incorporation in an integrated manner of the myriad of therapies and substances designed to help the organism heal, largely found in the natural health field.
An important part of Dr. Hahnemann’s system of medicine is the development of medicines in the light of his understanding of the dynamic (energetic) nature of disease, namely, the serial dilution and succussion of the crude medicines of his day. While he was initially looking to find the maximum therapeutic action commensurate with the least toxic effect of a substance, Dr. Hahnemann subsequently discovered that the curative nature of a medicine lay in its dynamic action, consistent with his earlier discovery that disease was itself a dynamic event involving the generative power of the human Dynamis or Living Principle. While most medicines used in accordance with the law of similars in Heilkunst tend to be potentised to the point that they are beyond Avagadro’s Number (or Lochschmidt’s Number in Germany) or any known biochemical action, medicines can be used containing material substance, such as mother tinctures. The key to the law of similars is a similar resonance between medicine and disease, not whether the medicine is potentised or not. While medicines prepared according to Dr. Hahnemann’s rules are often referred to as “homeopathic medicines,” it is their application in an actual case against disease, not their dilution or potency level that makes them “homeopathic,” or “isotonic” or “homotonic” as the case may be.
Dr. Hahnemann was part of a stream of thought in Western philosophy called the dynamic system, which includes Goethe, Coleridge, the Hunterian physicians, and later Rudolf Steiner and Wilhelm Reich, to name the most important contributors.
Heilkunst also encompasses the application of the second natural law, the law of opposites (”contraria contrarius”). This encompasses the entire realm of regimenal measures designed to bring the human organism back into homeostasis, through working with the sustentive side of the Dynamis, the natural healing power.
Heilkunst was essentially brought to the light of day over the last decade thanks to the work of Steven Decker (USA) who has provided the most accurate translation to date of the extended Organon of Heilkunst, the magnum opus of Dr. Hahnemann’s system of medicine. This translation is available at amazon.com and is a three-part, interlinked e-text in the original German (integral text), the interlinear, and finally the English rendition. Heilkunst is taught as a diploma course on an international basis at the Hahnemann College for Heilkunst (Canada).
Basic Principles
Man has equally a spiritual and natural or dynamic side. The Living Principle that animates the human organism is dynamic in nature (Dynamis) and has two aspects: the sustentive power, which maintains homeostasis, and the generative power, which provides the capacity for regeneration and new life (at all levels - body, mind, soul and spirit) and involves palingenesis.
Disease is dynamic in nature, not material. Hahnemann argued, logically, that the material effects of disease could not be their own cause (causa morbii). What conventional physicians saw and described, such as bronchitis or pneumonia, were not diseases, but the results of disease. Disease was instead a dynamic affection of the generative power occasioned by a spirit-like morbid entity that had the power to impinge upon the generative power of the human organism. The interaction of the dynamic disease agent and the human generative power could lead to the creation of a disease within the human being. This disease state would then call forth a response from the sustentive side of the Life Force, what had earlier been termed the “vis medicatrix naturae,” producing the various signs and symptoms we tend to call disease.
Thus, the disease process in Heilkunst consists of a dual action: the initial action (Erstwirkung) of the disease agent, which impinges upon the generative power, which is generally imperceptible (such as the initial infection by the measles microbe), and the counter or after-action (Gegenwirkung, Nachwirkung) of the sustentive power, which produces the various sufferings the patient complains about (such as the irritability, fever and rash that follows some 10-14 days after the initial infection).
Disease is also of two fundamental types: disease that has a largely fixed, constant nature (essence or Wesen); and disease that is of a more variable nature or essence. The latter Hahnemann termed “pathic” as the curative medicine can only be determined through the symptoms (suffering or “pathos”) produced by the disease in the patient. The former are referred to as “tonic” diseases and the curative remedy is determined by the particular jurisdiction the disease falls into and the principle governing that jurisdiction. Hahnemann’s system involves the following tonic disease jurisdictions: homotoxic (toxins), homogenic (physical and emotional traumas), pathogenic, iatrogenic and ideogenic (spiritual diseases engendered by false belief, which he termed the “highest disease”).
The pathic diseases generally arise out of the more primary constant diseases, such as the chronic diseases that arise out of the chronic miasms, and exist in layers. Homeopathy is a specific approach that Hahnemann developed to determine the curative medicine for the variable nature or pathic diseases, as these could only be determined through the totality of characteristic symptoms of the disease. The matching of the medicine with the disease was done by means of various provings of medicinal substances on healthy people to see what disease complex it would produce. This could then be matched to a disease complex in a patient.
Hahnemann identified two specific principles, a thermal disturbance pattern (often seen overtly in specific fevers), which is characteristic of pathic disease, and an altered state of mind, which is characteristic of tonic (fixed diseases) disease. This polarity between the tonic and unific state of mind, and the pathic and pluritic thermal imprint provides a further duality between the “highest disease” realm (ideogenic) and the deepest disease realm, which has come to be known as the “chthonic” realm.
Hahnemann stated that a person could have more than one disease at a time, each of which might be contributing to the symptom picture of the patient. Hahnemann set out clearly right from the beginning of his new system of medicine that the practitioner should first seek to treat the constant nature diseases, as these can more readily be identified in most cases (by cause, e.g. Arnica for contusion disease) and since they are fixed in nature, they are always treated with the same medicine, thus simplyfying treatment. The homeopathic approach to the remaining pathic diseases could then more easily be used.
A fundamental principle of Heilkunst is that there can only be one remedy for a given disease state. However, because it was possible for there to be more than one disease at a time in the human organism, this opened the possibility of the prescribing of more than one remedy at a time to the patient. Out of this understanding, and from his knowledge of the dual nature of disease, Hahnemann, through his own work with intercurrent and alternating remedies and the experiments of a close pupil, Dr. Karl Aegidi, used and worked with dual remedy prescribing. Initially (1833-36) he gave two medicines in the same solution (simultaneity of ingestion), but due to political pressures and misunderstandings switched to the use of two medicines within the action of the other (simultaneity of action).
In light of difficulties treating more complex cases, Hahnemann undertook further research and developed his theory of ”chronic miasms,” which are fixed nature diseases of the pathogenic type (originally infectious, but also inherited) which give rise to all the (secondary) chronic diseases, which are pathic in nature. Dr. Elmiger of Lausanne, Switzerland uncovered a specific sequence to these miasms, which confirms and extends what Hahnemann himself wrote and taught, and which Dr. Elmiger termed the Law of Succession of Forces. This allows for a more effective and systematic treatment of various disease conditions that have an inherited component, even when that component is latent or not readily recognizable in the symptoms of the patient.
Hahnemann also gave indications as to when the practitioner could tell that the disease had been cured by the similar medicine and healing was underway (the complete process termed “heilen” or remediation). Constantine Hering, often called the Father of Homeopathy in the US, further developed these guidelines, which are often referred to as “Hering’s Law or Principles”. This was later amended by James Tyler Kent who noticed that when disease was suppressed or several groups of symptoms (diseases) developed in a patient over time, that the remedial process proceded in the reverse order of the emergence. This provides the basis for the sequential treatment of traumatic disease states, from most recent back through time to conception, followed by the sequential treatment of the chronic miasms. The pathic diseases, existing in layers, are dealt with as they arise at various stages along the way.
If some symptoms become worse almost immediately after taking a similar medicine, this represents an apparent worsening of the natural disease, but is really an exacerbation due to the adding of the symptoms of the similar medicine to those of the original disease in the patient. This so-called “homeopathic aggravation” is of short duration and generally only found in acute diseases. There is also a later worsening of some symptoms, and even a return of old symptoms, essentially in chronic, complex cases, which Hahnemann called the “counteraction” and which is often referred to as the ”’healing reaction”’. The “homeopathic exacerbation” involves the initial action of the curative medicine affecting the generative power of the Living Principle or Dynamis. The “healing reaction” involves the counteraction of the sustentive power of the Living Principle against the medicine (artificial disease).