Law of Similars by James Tyler Kent

[READ ORGANON $ 21-25]

In these paragraphs Hahnemann summaries what he has said before and points out the necessary conclusions. In doing so he proves that the only method of applying medicines profitably in disease is the homoeopathic method. We daily see that the antipathic and heteropathic methods have no tendency of permanency in their results. By these means there are effected changes in the economy and changes in the symptoms but no permanent cure, the tendency being simply to the establishment of another disease, often worse than the first, and without eradicating the first.

In this connection we might speak of the giving of morphine and purgatives. The friends of the patient plead with you to stop the pain or give something to move the bowels for the relief of the patient. You know quite well that the relief from morphine is very transient, but when you are occupying the ground of principle there is the strongest reason why a dose of morphine should never be administered. After giving morphine changes are observed which are really detrimental to the patient. The symptoms are changes, and this is always unfortunate.

The same objection applies to the giving of chloroform in labor. No woman at the present day is well enough to go through labor without some symptoms calling for a remedy. Hence, if you give chloroform in labor, you put your patient in a state in which she is unable to express the symptoms of her own condition. If, at the close of labor, she was about to give forth symptoms that would indicate to the intelligent physician what remedy she needed (perhaps to overcome a life-time of suffering) you would be deprived of knowing what the remedy was by this act of foolishness.

$26. This, depends on the following homoeopathic law of nature which was sometimes, indeed, vaguely surmised but no hitherto fully recognized, and to what is due to every real cure that has ever taken place :

A weaker dynamic affection is permanently extinguished in the living organism by a stronger one, if the latter (whilst differing in kind) is very similar to the former in its manifestation.

In this paragraph Hahnemann distinctly declares that the phenomena of cure depend entirely upon fixed law, the law of similars or the law that governs Homoeopathy. After Hahnemann had made a number of reported cures for the purpose of observing whether the cures had been made accidentally or from purpose and whether they were in accordance with the law of similars or with the principle of dissimilars.

In every instance he was able to see that the cures had been made in accordance with the law of similars, viz., that the drug which cured in each case was capable of producing symptoms similar to those which it cured. This is true in all planes, under all circumstances, and all other apparent cures are not cures but suppressions.

“A dynamic disease in the living economy of man is extinguished in a permanent manner by another that is more powerful when the latter (without being of the same species) bears a strong resemblance to it in its mode of manifesting itself.” That sentence seemed to be about the best way of expressing the law in Hahnemann’s time.

The words “more powerful,” or more intense, would afford a natural way of expressing it, but when one has lived in Homoeopathy, and has been able to perceive its inner working, the word “powerful” expresses a different thought. If we follow along the line of potentization we lose the idea of power that is manifest to an uninitiated mind. We enter the world of thought and therein learn of a different kind of power of intensity.

When we think naturally of power or intensity the mind is at once carried to the idea of intensity as in an electrical problem in which we increase the intensity by increasing the number of batteries. On the other hand, Hahnemann’s expression leads to the idea of intensity, having qualities more internal, higher, prior; i.e., in the sense of from first to last, the more internal it is the more intense, more it approaches the first substances, so that intensity as to cause means higher or more internal, higher in the sense of subtleness or fineness.

The word “powerful” then, you will please note, contains an interior thought, and that is the only way to bring the mind to realize what is meant. Powerful is actually from within and hence we potentize, going higher and higher, in order that we may reach intensity, and it is in this sense that the remedy becomes more powerful by potentization. As a matter of fact, when speaking upon the material plane, the remedy grows weaker by potentization because the material is actually reduced.

It would seem strange to materialist, to an old school doctor for instance, who has not thought of anything but the giving of great pills, to say that Aconite becomes more powerful by being attenuated. To him it would just be saying that it becomes more powerful the weaker it becomes and yet it is really so, though he cannot see it.

“A dynamic disease is extinguished by another that is more powerful when the latter is similar to it.” The first proposition is that it must be similar and then it must be intense enough. the more there is in the interior, the more there toe expect in the other lights, because there is more in its interior; it is purer, it is more dynamical and it will turn aside and destroy all other light.

This law of similars is seen prominently in the natural world. We see it from man to man. It is easily illustrated among the insane. It is the secret of mind cure, and there and many instances of mind cure that are based on the law of similars. One example of this is seen in the young girls who has lost her mother or lover and is ill as a consequence, is depressed with grief is constantly sobbing, and has become melancholy.

She sits in a corner, hears nobody, thinks no one can pity her because no one has had just such grief. Let us apply allopathic treatment to her. “Come, there is nothing the matter with you; why don’t you brace yourself up; why don’t you try to arouse yourself?” But this only throws her into a deeper state of melancholy. Scolding and harsh treatment do no good. But introduce the homoeopathic treatment, employ a nurse if you will who is a good actress and who has gone through the same identical grief, and let her make a big fuss in the other corner.

Pretty soon the patient will say, “You seem to have the same grief that I have.” Yes, I have not lost a lower.” Well, you can sympathize with me,” and the two fall to bellowing and weep it out together. There is a bound of sympathy. Sometimes a curable case of insanity can be reached in this way, and thus we have a mind cure. Hahnemann made use of this plan in curing insanity. When a patient would exert her will, but is unable on account of the physical encumbrances, then the homoeopathic remedy will restore order.

$27. The curative power of medicines, therefore depends on their symptoms, similar to the disease but superior to it in strength, so that each individual case of disease is most surely, radically, rapidly and permanently annihilated and removed only by a medicine capable of producing (in the human system) in the most similar and complete manner the totality of its symptoms, which at the same time are stronger than the disease.

Then it is not sufficient merely to give the drug itself regardless of its form. It is not sufficient to give the crude drug, but the plane upon which it is to be given is a question of study. The attenuation also must be similar to the disease cause. In a proving the crude drug may bring forth a mass of symptoms in one prover, but when a person is sick those symptoms will not be touched by the crude drug because the patient does not sustain the similar relation or susceptibility that the one did who proved it.

In paragraph $29, Hahnemann has given an explanation of the law of cure. He himself preludes it by saying that he does not attach much importance to it, You are not in any way bond to consider it, and it is usually omitted in this course.

LECTURES ON HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY BY JAMES TYLER KENT –

The old school of Allopathy considered about `sickness’ and `medicine’ in a particular way.



– The sphere of sickness was limited to the physical level. Only tissue changes were seen and considered.

– The source of sickness, process of sickness, the nature of sickness and the concept of real health were not studied.

– Only the result of sickness was felt with fingers, seen with eyes and observed by sense through instruments.

– The meaning of restoration of health was confined to relief in the ailments of particular organs where they appeared. – Drugs were used in crude forms to remove the ailments.



– The system was based entirely on experience. Decisions were made on opinions of individuals at different times and concensus of opinions or hypothesis.

– Pathological findings formed the basis of the diagnosis.

– The internal of man–his mental and emotional aspects were not considered.

– Symptoms–the language of sickness, at the levels of mind, emotion and body were not studied.



– Every pathological result had its corresponding bacteria.

– Doctrine of Vital Force had no place for them.

– Prime importance was given to the organs of man, and not to the man himself which constituted of body mind and emotions.

Will and understanding of man not studied and considered

HOMOEOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY
Dr. Hahnemann `proved’ the drugs on healthy enlightened human bodies. He found that the drugs affected the mind, the emotions and the body and the effects are expressed through symptoms and modalities. He also found that these drugs in potency are able to remove Similar Sickness appearing in human beings. He discovered an Universal Truth; a truth based on `science’ where opinions do not matter, experiences do not form basis; source of sickness, process of sickness and the nature of sickness is explored and the correct curative agent is found.

Dr. Kent has interpreted and explained the various aspects of Hahnemann’s “Organon of the Healing Art”. His lectures are so vivid that they mirror the fundamental laws of health and healing to the mankind at all levels of understanding. This book was written about 90 years ago-but still, the concepts hold true in the present times. He was an empirical Hahnemannian. He could not compromise with the deviation from principles and philosophy and we find his criticism sometimes sharp and bitter of `Pseudo-homoeopaths’.

KEYNOTES OF PHILOSOPHY
– Man is the will and the understating and the house which he lives in is his body.

– The organs are not the man. The man is prior to the organs.



– The order of sickness as well as the order of cure is from man to his organs. The real sick man is prior to the sick sick body.

– A man is sick prior to localization of disease. When we wait for localization, the results of disease have rendered the patient incurable.

– Symptoms are but the language of nature, talking out, as it were, and showing as clearly as the daylight, the internal nature of the sickman or woman.

– Crude drugs cannot heal the sick and that what changes they effect are not real but only apparent.

– Tissue changes are of the body and are the results of the disease, they are not the disease.

– The bacteria are results of the disease. The disease cause is more subtle.

– The remedy, which will produce on healthy man similar symptoms, is the master of the situation, is the necessary antidote, will overcome the sickness, restore the will and understanding to order and cure the patient.



– Man consists in what he thinks and what he loves and there is nothing else in man.

– The physician has to `perceive’ in the disease that which is to be cured, and that is through `totality of symptoms’. He has to perceive the nature of disease and the nature of the remedy.

– Experience has only a confirmatory place. It cannot take the place of science and truth.

– All true diseases of the economy flow from centre to circumference. All miasms are true diseases.

– The active cause is within, and the apparent cause of sickness is without. If a man has no deep miasmatic influence, outer causes will not affect him.

– Homoeopathy has two parts: the science of homoeopathy are the art of homoeopathy. One has to learn the art of homoeopathy to prepare himself for the application of the science of homoeopathy.

– Vital force is constructive and formative, and in its thing in the universe has its aura. Every star and planet has it. The remedy to be homoeopathic must be similar in quality and similar in action to the disease cause.

– As soon as the internal economy is deprived in any manner of its freedom, death is threatening; where freedom is lost, death is sure to follow.

– Potency should suit the varying susceptibility of sickman.



– Any more than just enough to supply the susceptibility is a surplus and is dangerous.

– Human race has been greatly disordered in the economy because of surplus drug taking.

– Primitive cause is not in the bacteria. Bacteria themselves have a cause to appear and survive.

– Over sensitive patients are actually poisoned by the inappropriate administration of potentized medicines.

– Their chronic miasms are complicated with chronic drugging and its effect upon the vital force.

– The physician who can only hold in his memory the symptoms of a disease or a remedy will never succeed as a homoeopath.

– The majority of such as call themselves homoeopaths at the present time, are perfectly incompetent to examine a patient, and therefore incompetent to examine homoeopathy.

– It is impossible to test homoeopathy without learning how to get the disease image so before the eyes that the homoeopathic remedy can be selected.

– At the present day, there is almost no such thing as an unprejudiced mind.



– Do not prescribe until you have found the remedy that is similar to the whole case, even although it is clear in your mind that one remedy may be more similar to one particular group of symptoms and another remedy to another group.

– It is unaccountable, therefore, that some of our homoeopathic practitioners make use of palliatives that are so detrimental to the patients.