John Lunstroth made the following comments on the internet discussion group, Lyghtforce, in response to our posting of a chapter of our forthcoming book on Hahnemann and the Natural Healing Power:

The confusion certainly is not with me. If I was confused, why did Verspoor and Decker adopt my ideas?

Please tell Messrs. Decker and Verspoor that it honors me they have adopted much of my argument, some of the key parts of it virtually verbatim, from *my* discussions on this topic (DL's role was simply that of the naysayer). I was shocked though, to see my ideas appropriated without attribution. I think it's opportunistic, and there is no question it casts a bad light on their scholarly bona fides to take such an action.

I have a couple of comments to make on the article and their insights into the matter — Decker's translations support the idea that he was not aware of this understanding prior to my comments and analysis on this list — as he drove O'Reilly's translation, and from the word by word translations we have looked at with Luise on the list, it is clear that Decker adopted the 5th organon point of view about the healing power of the VF. Furthermore, it is still clear to me that Decker's understanding of Vitalism as a historical/philosophical current is not quite there, IMO. Decker virtually translated the Organon — had he had the scholarly wherewithal to read the material without preconceptions, he would have caught the contradictions that led to my insight too — he certainly had the opportunity.

Both Decker and Verspoor had preconceptions that prevented the insight, and these are documented. Verspoor himself has made the same mistake Decker did in the translation, and has adopted in print a point of view opposite that found in the article. For this the reader is directed to the Lyghtforce online magazine and Verspoor's article on ST. In fact, I have quoted Verspoor on the list as an example of the pervasiveness of this misunderstanding. Decker and Verspoor have absolutely no claim to have discovered the central idea they present as their own in the referenced article.

Rudi and Steven should step to the bar and acknowledge their source.

John Lunstroth

Dear John,

The charge you have levelled against us is a serious one and deserves a public reply. A quick examination of the situation will reveal that the charge has no foundation in fact. Indeed, we could well wonder if you had not borrowed your ideas from us, except for the fact that you still have not grasped the broader context within which the whole issue of the natural healing power exists!

Let's look at various prior statements made by us on the issue of the natural healing power:

1996 - Publication of the following commentary by Steven Decker in the the Glossary of the O'Reilly edition of the Organon:

cure, heal: heilen. To restore health through curative means or through the natural process of healing. To make whole again. In this translation, 'to cure' (&#sect;1) refers to the restoration of health brough about through the use of medicines or other treatments, while 'to heal' (&#sect; 39) refers to the body's own process in recovering from an injury. Throughout the text of the Organon, Hahnemann distinguishes, in various ways, between healing and curing, however, the German language has only one word, heilen, which encompasses both meanings. General references to both healing and cure are translated with the words 'medical' and 'therapeutic.' (SRD)

1999 - June. Publication after almost 2 years of work of Homeopathy Re-examined: Beyond the Classical Paradigm. Following are several extensive quotes on the issue of the so-called vital force and the role of healing versus curing.

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HAHNEMANN AND NATURAL HEALING

One might think from the above criticism by Hahnemann of the allopathy of his day that he was a critic of the natural restorative power of the Living Power. At the time, "Hahnemann's attitude towards natural healing was just as great a stumbling-block to his friends as the psoric theory." (Haehl, Vol. I, p. 282).

The concept of the healing power of nature in the Western world derives from Hippocrates (460-377 BC), who taught that everyone possesses an inborn power which sustains the body's functioning in time of health. Disease, then, was seen as a disturbance of natural functioning (equilibrium) and the efforts of the inborn sustentive power, which they called "Physis." Thus, it was the role of the "physician" to assist the efforts of nature to heal by efforts that supported this power or by medicines that were similar (similia similibus). Asklepiades (90 BC) argued that the sustentive power could do nothing to free the body of disease, but only increase the suffering and favour the process of disease. Disease was then seen as something apart from the body and treatment was to be in the form of measures (medicines) which opposed the natural healing efforts (contraris contrarius).

The two views of the Living Power existed because no one had seen the dual nature of that Power. Hahnemann's insight into the generative power elegantly and powerfully resolved this apparent contradiction. Disease was not solely the efforts of the Living Power to restore health (a view held by much of the natural health movement and by classical homeopathy), but involved the generative power. It is true that some disturbances of the organism can involve only the sustentive power, but these were not "degenerative" and could be healed from within and aided by regimen from without. However, eventually even such measures, if sustained long enough, affect the generative power to a degree by stricture, not conception (protracted disease). Then, the efforts of the sustentive power are insufficient and even dangerous to the organism unless aided. Even if aided by measures that support the sustentive side of the Living Power, the patient is unable to remove the disease, which has affected the generative power. Only remediation directed by the Heilkünstler can effect a destruction of this impingement of the generative side of the Living Power.

In Hahnemann's time and before, the idea of the natural healing power was again gaining ground, but also with it came a recognition of the need to assist crude nature. The main proponent of this approach just before Hahnemann's time was Ernst Georg Stahl. Stahl's views on the role of the anima (soul) in "animating" the physical body led to the vitalist doctrine, which "...teaches that the final basis of all processes in the organism is the vital principle...[and] has the power to maintain form, expansion, situation and tension in all bodily parts and to restore normality in case of disturbances in these parts. Illness is an affection of the life power and is expressed by disturbances in the movement, sensibility, etc. All disturbances call forth a reaction of the life power." (Haehl. Vol. I, p. 285). This vitalist doctrine "...acquired a prevalence in Germany lasting for decades under Hufeland's influence (1762-1832)." (Haehl. Vol. I p. 285).

Here we can see the profound difference between Hahnemann and the vitalism of his time. For the vitalists, the life force carries out both the functions of homeostasis and healing/curing. There is no distinction between its role in health (normal functioning) and disease (abnormal functioning). There is no distinction between healing (the efforts of the sustentive power) and curing (involving the generative power). The life force is simply to be supported by regimen (much of the natural health movement — diet, vitamins, exercise, right living, avoidance of toxins, elimination of toxins, etc.) or by medicine (classical homeopathy, which speaks of the patient, not disease, and which sees the role of the medicine to support the efforts of the "vital force," not to destroy the disease). Without the profound insight into the dual nature of the Living Power, one is left with an abstract notion of disease and cure. (p. 232-233 of Homeopathy Re-examined: Beyond the Classical Paradigm)

SUSTENTIVE ASPECT (LEBENS-ERHALTUNGSKRAFT)

The sustentive aspect is that action of the Living Power that helps to maintain natural healthy functioning or homeostasis. Homeostasis is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as:

The maintenance of a dynamically stable state within a system by means of internal regulatory processes that tend to counteract any disturbance of the stability by external forces or influences; the state of stability so maintained.

It involves metabolic functioning and the maintenance of a healthy physiology. It is the sustentive aspect, which Hahnemann labelled the Lebens-Erhaltungskraft, which adjusts the organic functioning in response to outside stimulus and stress (weather, diet, exercise, and geopathic stress). The sustentive power is designed to maintain, at an instinctual level, the state of health. It is also the sustentive aspect which provides the innate healing capacity of the organism (to restore balance after illness, to heal wounds, etc.), which Hahnemann called the counter or back-action of the Living Power.

However, this capacity to heal is simply crude-instinctual nature, unguided by reason and intellect, and leads, except in very minor acute diseases, to the sacrifice of a part in order to save the whole. Medicine involves the application of reason and intellect in a manner that avoids the blunderings of crude nature. This is the basis for Hahnemann's criticism of the allopathy of his day. The allopaths sought to imitate the natural [sustentive] efforts of the body to heal, through purging, bloodletting and artificial ulcers (fontanelles), but succeeded only in further weakening the sustentive aspect of the Living Power and "curing" nothing. Classical homeopathy also relies on the sustentive power, having no knowledge of the generative side of the Life Force, rendering the concept of the "vital force" a sterile one, both scientifically and therapeutically. However, it will be potent in practice whenever it hits, unawares, upon a "principled" application.

Introduction, P. 68. The old school merely followed the operation of crude instinctual nature in its indigent a] strivings to pull through only in moderate, acute disease attacks — it mimicked solely the Sustentive Power of Life (Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft), incapable of deliberation left to itself in diseases, which, incapable of acting according to intellect and deliberation, resting simply as it does on the organic laws of the body, works only according to these organic laws, — crude nature, which is not capable, like an intelligent physician, of bringing the gaping flews of a wound together and of healing by fusion, which does not know how to straighten and fit together the oblique ends of broken bones far apart from one another, however much it lets bone gelatine exude (often to excess), can tie off no injured artery, rather, in its energy, makes the injured bleed to death, which doesn't understand how to reset a dislocated shoulder, but, to be sure, hinders the art of bone-setting by the swelling that comes quickly to pass round about, — which, in order to remove a splinter stuck in the cornea, destroys the entire eye by suppuration and only knows how, with all its exertion, to dissolve a strangulated inguinal hernia by gangrene of the bowels and death,also, often in dynamic diseases, makes patients far unhappier by its metaschematisms than they previously were.

Curing disease requires the physician to engage the Living Power in its generative aspect using medicines on the basis of similar resonance (see below).

The following quote from the Introduction to the Fifth Edition further underlines Hahnemann's views regarding the falsity of basing a medical (curative) system on the sustentive aspect of the Living Power rather than the generative:

P. 103. No! that glorious power innate in the human being, ordained to conduct Life in the most perfect way during its health, equally present in all parts of the organism, in the sensible as well as the irritable fiber, and untiring mainspring of all normal natural bodily functions, was not at all created for purposes of helping itself in diseases, nor for exercising a Remedial Art worthy of imitation — no! true remedial art is that cogitative pursuit that devolved upon the higher human spirit, free deliberation, and the selecting intellect deciding according to reasons,in order to retune that instinctual, intellect- and awareness-lacking but automatic, energic Living Power, when said Living Power has been mistuned by disease to abnormal activity, by means of a resonant affection to the disease,engendered by a medicine selected homeopathically, the Living Power being medicinally diseased to such a degree, and in fact to a somewhat higher degree, that the natural affection could work on it no more, and thus it becomes rid of the natural disease, yet remaining occupied solely with the so resonant, somewhat stronger medicinal disease affection against which the Living Power now directs its entire energy, soon overcoming it, the Living Power thereby becoming free and able again to return to the norm of health and to its actual intended purpose, "the enlivenment and sustenance of the sound organism," without having suffered painful or debilitating attacks by this transformation.

Hahnemann's views on the falsity of the allopathic approach of his day is in a separate section below.

References to the Sustentive Power

The mischievous effects to chronic patients that lie in this their blind treatment, in this overloading of them with strong unknown drugs... will infallibly make any, even healthy persons, ill, — at first obviously and perceptibly so, but when longer continued their hurtful action is less apparent, but all the more profoundly penetrating, and productive of permanent injury, in this way, because the ever active-life-sustaining power silently endeavours to ward off the injury with which these frequent assaults threaten life itself...

Thus, for instance, the Living Power of our organism, that is always exercising a preservative {sustentive} function, protects the sensitive parts of the palm of the hand of the pavier (as also of the worker among fire, the glassblower and the like) against the scratching and lacerating sharp angles and points of the paving stones, with a hard, horny covering, to protect the skin with its nerves, blood-vessels and muscles, from being wounded or destroyed... From "Allopathy: a word of warning to all sick persons," Lesser Writings, pp. 747-8.

P. 106 (Introduction) ...it was left to the individual nature of the one so treated to do the most and best for the complete dispatch of the disease and restoration of the lost vitality and juices — to the Sustentive Power of Life which, along with the dispatch of the natural acute malady, had to conquer the consequences of inexpedient treatment and so, in the innocuous cases, by means of its own energy, the functions could resume their normal relationship, however, often laboriously, imperfectly and with many an ailment.

§ 63.5. This back-action belongs to the Sustentive Power of our Life and is an automatic function of the same, called after-action or counteraction.

§ 262.1. In thermal diseases on the contrary — except with spiritual-mental aberration-derangement — the subtle, unerring internal sense of the here very lively, instinctual Life-sustentive-drive decides, so distinctly and definitely, that the physician simply needs to advise the relations and the attendants of the patient to put no obstacle in the way of this voice of nature, be it by denial of that which the patient urgently demands in enjoyments or by deleterious proposals and persuasions.

§ 205.1.a] 1(Footnote) Therefore, I cannot recommend, for example, local eradication of so-called labial or facial cancer (a fruit of advanced Psora? not seldom in unity with Syphilis?) by the Arsenical means of Frere Cosme, not only because it is extremely painful and frequently fails, but more because when this means indeed locally frees the bodily site from the malignant ulcer, the fundamental malady is not diminished in the least hereby; the Sustentive Power of Life is therefore necessitated to transfer the focus for the great internal malady to a still more noble site (as it does with all metastases) and allows blindness, deafness, insanity, suffocative asthma, dropsy, apoplexy, etc. to follow.

§ 63.5. this is repeated above - why? This back-action belongs to the Sustentive Power of our Life and is an automatic function of the same, called after-action or counteraction.

The generative aspect is that capacity to create, such as in sexual procreation the joining of the ovum and the sperm. Disease is also, for Hahnemann, a sexual or procreative act in the sense that it involves the penetration of the Living Power of the human Wesen by an external disease Wesen. Hahnemann talks of the engenderment of disease by the impinging action of the disease wesen. The Living Power acts receptively in the face of this impingement, and gestates what it has conceived.

References to Generative Aspect

Hahnemann uses the verb "erzeugen" to refer to the creation of disease in an organism. This reveals the existence of an aspect of the Living Power other than the sustentive power. Indeed, Hahnemann makes a clear distinction between these two aspects of the Living Power — one for the sustaining of health and the other for the engenderment (generation) of disease. However, the sustentive power, in its efforts to contain the disease, actually contributes to and sustains the disease (see section on Disease). The German words using the term "erzeugen" are translated with the English word "engender."

P. 103. (Introduction) No! that glorious power innate in the human being, ordained to conduct Life in the most perfect way during its health, equally present in all parts of the organism, in the sensible as well as the irritable fiber, and untiring mainspring of all normal natural bodily functions, was not at all created for purposes of helping itself in diseases, nor for exercising a Remedial Art worthy of imitation —

P. 27. a] 4 (footnote, Introduction) Usually such a stomach-vitiation is of dynamic origin, engendered by emotional mind [Gemüt] disturbances (grief, fright, chagrin), chill, exertion (mental or bodily) directly upon eating — often even after moderate fare.

P. 103. (Introduction) .when said Living Power has been mistuned by disease to abnormal activity, by means of a resonant affection to the disease, engendered by a medicine selected homeopathically.

&#sect; 111. The vitality gradually sank only the more deeply the more wine the patient had been talked into taking, (because the engenderess of the weakness, the chronic disease, could not be remedied by the prescription) since the Living Power in the after-action opposes ennervation to artificial excitations.

&#sect; 120. The old medicine does indeed engender great alterations, but constantly such which are not good, and it continually ruins the health altogether with this extremely ruinous metal given out of place.

&#sect; 159. Surprisingly, one sees that it always happened by means of a medicine which is fit to engender by itself a similar suffering to that contained in the disease case, though these doctors were not immediately aware of what they were doing and did it in a fit of forgetfulness of the contrary doctrines of their school.

&#sect; 4.1. At the same time he is a health sustainer if he knows the things that disturb health, that engender and maintain disease, and is aware of how to remove them from healthy people.

&#sect; 21.1. Since now, the curative Genius [Wesen] in medicines is not in itself discernible, which nobody can deny, and ... therefore, we have only to abide by the disease occurrents that the medicines engender in the healthy body as the only possible revelation of their indwelling curative power, in order to learn what disease generative power, that is, at the same time, what disease curative power each single medicine possesses.

&#sect; 22.1. a] 5. The morbidly mistuned Living Power possesses so little remedial ability worthy of imitation that all of the alterations of condition and symptoms it generates in the organism are indeed just the disease itself.

&#sect; 80.1. — Psora, that true fundamental cause and engenderer of almost all remaining frequent, indeed countless disease forms,a] which figure in the pathologies as their own self-contained diseases under the names of nerve weakness, hysteria, hypochondria, mania, melancholy, imbecility, raving, epilepsy, convulsions of all kinds, of softening of the bone (Rhachitis), scrofula, scoliosis, and kyphosis, bone caries, cancer, fungus hematodes, neoplasms, gout, hemorrhoids, jaundice and cyanosis, dropsy, amenorrhea and hemorrhage of the stomach, nose, lungs, from the bladder and uterus, of asthma and suppuration of the lungs, of impotence and infertility, of migraine, deafness, cataract and amaurosis, kidney stones, paralyses, defects of the senses and pains of a thousand kinds, etc.

These references are pervasive throughout the Organon. In the one reference noted here, the footnote to Aphorism 22, Hahnemann identifies the Lebenskraft itself as the "engenderer." In the Introduction, near the end of the fourth section, Hahnemann states: "...die...Lebenskraft ist die Erzeugerin der sich offenbarenden Krankheit!"

&#sect; 101. These efforts are indeed simply the disease itself, and the morbidly affected Living Power is the engenderer of the self-manifesting disease!

And from the Synopsis to Hahnemann's 6th Edition, #15, Hahnemann refers to "...the Living Power and the disease symptoms that are engendered thereby."

What we can see here is that the generative power is grounded in the Living Power. The disease wesen "fathers" and the Living Power of the human Wesen "mothers" the disease issue. So the generative act involves both [generators] parents (wesen).

WHY MEDICINE SHOULD NOT IMITATE CRUDE NATURE

The action of the Living Power in the face of disease is to set up a counter-action or after-action. This is the healing reaction (see chapter on Healing Reaction). However, nature cannot cure disease on its own. Thus, the efforts of the purely instinctual sustentive aspect of the Living Power (crude nature) to restore balance without correct medical intervention (based on the law of similar resonance) results in the sacrifice of some part to save the whole. The suffering and morbid anatomy induced by the Living Power in its blind efforts to restore health becomes a part of the original disease. It is impossible to separate out what is due to the disease and what is due to the counter-action of the sustentive aspect of the Living Power.

Allopathy, or academic medicine, in Hahnemann's time consisted of two approaches — initially, the use of toxic chemical cocktails, and later, under the influence of Dr. Broussais, more the imitation of the observed efforts of nature to heal by means of purgatives, blood-letting and fontanelles (artificial ulcers). In theory, this sounded laudable — to assist the efforts of nature herself to rid the organism of disease. Who could object, at least in theory?

Hahnemann did. He condemned not only the excesses of this medical approach, but the very theory itself. His criticism derives from the profound understanding he had attained of the role of the sustentive and generative aspects of the Living Power. This discovery of the essentially generative nature of disease (whilst also involving the sustentive power to varying degrees) is perhaps the greatest, and most original revelation contained in the Organon. The law of similars had been there before, others (by Hahnemann's admission) had undertaken provings, and the idea of potentising remedies had come as a result of empirical discovery. However, the description of the dual nature of the Living Power and the generative nature of true disease came from Hahnemann's genius. No one since, with the exception of Wilhelm Reich, has achieved the same insight. Reich, following Freud's insights, was fully conscious of the sexual function of the Living Power and its role in disease. However, it took the penetrating mind of Steven Decker to consciously discern the dual nature of the Living Power in Hahnemann's Heilkunst. Until Steven's discovery of this fundamental functional duality in Hahnemann's writings, there was only a unidimensional view of the Living Power, expressed in the term "vital force," which was really just the sustentive aspect.

Hahnemann's criticism, which is contained centrally in the Introduction to the Fifth Edition of the Organon, is a model of reasoning based on solid observation. It was important to challenge the theory itself, for the theory led to the excesses of the treatment, which were always defended on the basis of the theory (substantial bloodletting, for example). Allopathic medicine today similarly defends harsh, invasive treatment on the basis of a particular false theory (chemotherapy, radical mastectomy, infant vaccination, etc.).

Hahnemann's argument was as follows:

The efforts of crude nature against disease involve healing, not curing.

These efforts are imperfect, resulting in damage to the organism.

Artificially assisting or encouraging these efforts through invasive intervention only weakens the sustentive aspect of the Living Power. If this invasion is persisted in, eventually the patient dies or a further disease is added to the organism.

Thus, allopathic intervention, which presumed to be assisting nature, was a false approach to treatment.

Introduction, P. 68. The old school merely followed the operation of crude instinctual nature in its indigent strivings to pull through only in moderate, acute disease attacks — it mimicked solely the Sustentive Power of Life (Lebens-Erhaltungskraft), incapable of deliberation left to itself in diseases, which, incapable of acting according to intellect and deliberation, resting simply as it does on the organic laws of the body, works only according to these organic laws, — crude nature, which is not capable, like an intelligent physician, of bringing the gaping flews of a wound together and of healing by fusion, which does not know how to straighten and fit together the oblique ends of broken bones far apart from one another, however much it lets bone gelatine exude (often to excess), can tie off no injured artery, rather, in its energy, makes the injured bleed to death, which doesn't understand how to reset a dislocated shoulder, but, to be sure, hinders the art of bone-setting by the swelling that comes quickly to pass round about — which, in order to remove a splinter stuck in the cornea, destroys the entire eye by suppuration and only knows how, with all its exertion, to dissolve a strangulated inguinal hernia by gangrene of the bowels and death, also, often in dynamic diseases, makes patients far unhappier by its metaschematisms than they previously were.

P. 95. Introduction Since what crude nature does in order to help itself in diseases, in acute as well as chronic ones, is highly imperfect and is disease itself, it is easy to estimate that the artificial furtherance of this imperfection and disease could damage still more, at least not improve on, the help of Nature even in acute maladies, since the medicinal art was not in a position to enter into the hidden ways by which the Living Power organizes its crises; rather, [the medicinal art] only undertakes to actuate [the crises] by aggressive means from outside which are still less beneficent than what the instinctual Living Power left to itself does in its way, but on the contrary, are still more disturbing and rob still more vitality.

P. 98. A so-called critical sweat or diarrhea from the continually active Living Power after suddenly getting sick occasioned by vexation, fright, lifting strains or catching cold, will be far more successful in dispatching the acute suffering, at least for the time being, than all the sweating and purging medicines from the pharmacy which only make one more diseased, as daily experience teaches.

P. 100. What intelligent human being would want to imitate it in its rescue operations?

P. 101. These efforts are indeed simply the disease itself, and the morbidly affected Living Power is the engenderer of the self-manifesting disease.

P. 102. Necessarily, therefore, all artificial imitation and also suppression of these efforts must either increase the malady or, by suppression, render it dangerous; allopathy does both — those are its injurious practices which it passes off as remedial art, rational remedial art!

P. 103. No! that glorious power innate in the human being, ordained to conduct Life in the most perfect way during its health [sustentive power], equally present in all parts of the organism, in the sensible as well as the irritable fiber, and untiring mainspring of all normal natural bodily functions, was not at all created for purposes of helping itself in diseases, nor for exercising a Remedial Art worthy of imitation —

At the same time, Hahnemann elsewhere indicates the manner in which we should imitate nature, namely in the domain of the generative power, such as the use of cowpox to protect against smallpox. This imitation of nature would appear to be in contradiction with the above without the understanding of the two aspects of the Living Power and their role in disease and health. (p. 225-232)

A remedy given on the basis of a person's constitution cannot cure anything. The constitution is the person in a state of health. There can be greater or lesser deviations from this state producing symptoms, but this is not disease. A remedy chosen on the basis of one's constitution can only re-balance the constitution or reinforce a person's resistance to disease. It may cause symptoms to disappear, but it cannot address disease that has already engendered itself within the Living Power. Health and disease involve different aspects of the Life Force and remedies given on the basis of health cannot affect that aspect of the Life Force involved in the engenderment of disease. (p. 3-4)

There is the true unhampered constitution, which is the genotype as expressed by Eizayaga. Given that the principle of the constitution is health, the use of a constitutional remedy restores health through the sustentive power of the life force (see section on The Dual Nature of the Living Power). It cannot act directly on the generative aspect of the life energy (which engenders disease) and, thus, cannot cure anything (see section on Constitution). (p. 51)

Constitutional remedies then, to the extent that they are used, can only act on the sustentive aspect of the Living Power, that aspect of the life energy involved in maintaining a state of health. As such they cannot cure disease. They can but remove indispositions (disturbances of the Living Power that have not yet triggered the generative aspect) and strengthen the sustentive power to the point that the disease and its expression are rendered latent (back to its pure tonic aspect). Thus, the constitutional remedy will work restoratively in cases of disturbance that are not too complicated, but will generally fail where there are many diseases in a patient, in particular the chronic miasms. (p. 159)

Aphorism 64 has always been a puzzling one for homeopaths.

&#sect; 64.1. During the initial-action [Erstwirkung] of the artificial disease Potences (medicines) upon our healthy body, our Living Power appears (as seen from the following examples) to comport itself purely conceptively (receptively, passively as it were) and thus, as if forced, to allow the impressions of the artificial Potence impinging from without to take place in itself, thereby modifying its condition, but then, as it were, to rally again and a) to generate the exact opposite condition-state, when there is such a one (counteraction, after-action) [Gegenwirkung, Nachwirkung], to this impinging action (initial-action) in equal degree to that which the impinging action (initial-action) had on it by the artificial morbific or medicinal Potence, and according to the measure of the Living Power's own energy, — or, b) when there is not an exact opposite state to the initial-action in nature, the Living Power appears to strive to assert its superiority by extinguishing the alteration actuated in itself from without (by the medicine), in place of which it reinstates its norm (after-action, curative-action) [Nachwirkung, Heilwirkung].

The main confusion seems to be with the second half. What exactly is Hahnemann referring to here when he speaks of the two situations of after-action? More specifically, what does he mean when he refers to a situation where "there is not an exact opposite state to the initial action in nature" as compared to one where "there is such a one?"

To fully grasp the importance of this distinction we need to closely examine the entire Aphorism.

APHORISM 64

The first half of the Aphorism deals with the effect of medicine on the Living Power and the removal of the natural disease by means of the generative side of that Power. This is what Hahnemann calls the initial action. The term "Erstwirkung" or literally "first working" has been erroneously translated as "primary action" in most previous translations of the Organon. The concept of primary gives it a quality that it does not have. The action of the medicine is the first or initial action of the wholing or remedial process.

Here Hahnemann gives us a clear image of the effect of the medicinal wesen and leaves no doubt that this is in the nature of a sexual act, which involves the generative aspect of the Living Power:

During the initial-action of the artificial disease Potences (medicines) upon our healthy body, our Living Power appears (as seen from the following examples) to comport itself purely conceptively (receptively, passively as it were) and thus, as if forced, to allow the impressions of the artificial Potenceimpinging from without to take place in itself, thereby modifying its condition.

That the generative side is involved is reinforced by the previous Aphorism wherein Hahnemann explains the two actions. The first, the "Erstwirkung," is said to resonify or re-tune the Living Power. The term Hahnemann uses here is "stimmt," which is the term used when he is speaking of the action of the generative power (see section on The Dual Nature of the Living Power).

&#sect; 63.1. Each Life-impinging Potence, each medicine, resonifies [stimmt] the Living Power more or less and arouses a certain alteration of condition in man for a longer or shorter time.

&#sect; 63.2. One designates it by the name of initial-action [Erstwirkung]...

The eradication of the natural disease through the initial action occurs as a result of the action of the medicinal wesen and the subsequent action of the generative side of the Living Power. Thus, the initial-action consists of two sides as well, although the seminal action of the medicine intiates the germinal action of the ever present Kraftwesen.

&#sect; 63.3. Although a product of medicinal and Living Power, it belongs more to the impinging Potence.

The second half of Aphorism 64 then describes the counter-action of the Living Power in the face of the action of the medicinal wesen on the generative side (initial-action). For this Hahnemann uses the term "Nachwirkung" or literally "after working." This has been erroneously translated as "secondary action," implying a lesser degree of importance. It is more correctly translated as "after action." The after-action is the effort of the Living Power to re-establish the state of health in response to the generative stimulus of the medicinal wesen. The after-action involves the other side of the Living Power, the sustentive power.

&#sect; 63.4. Our Living Power strives to oppose this impinging action with its own energy.

&#sect; 63.5. This back-action belongs to the Sustentive Power of our Life [Lebens-Erhaltungs-Kraft] and is an automatic function of the same, called after-action or counteraction.

TWO TYPES OF AFTER ACTION

In Aphorism 64, Hahnemann speaks of two types of after action of the Living Power.

First, the Living Power can respond to the artificial disease by bringing forth the exact opposite condition-state to oppose the initial action, and to as great a degree as the initial action. He then gives several examples of this in Aphorism 65.

Second, the Living Power can assert its superiority by extinguishing the initial action and re-establishing balance.

The first circumstance occurs where such an opposite condition exists in nature. The second occurs where there is no state in nature exactly opposite to the initial action.

&#sect; 64 ...but then, as it were, to rally again and a) to generate the exact opposite condition-state, when there is such a one (counteraction, after-action), to this impinging action (initial-action) in equal degree to that which the impinging action (initial-action) had on it by the artificial morbific or medicinal Potence, and according to the measure of the Living Power's own energy, — or, b) when there is not an exact opposite state to the initial-action in nature, the Living Power appears to strive to assert its superiority by extinguishing the alteration actuated in itself from without (by the medicine), in place of which it reinstates its norm (after-action, curative-action).

Two Questions

Two questions then arise: What is the importance of the distinction made in the mode of action of these two after actions? In what situations is there no opposite action in nature?

To answer these questions, we need to look at the related Aphorisms.

In Aphorism 68, Hahnemann gives us a further clue to this second mode of after action.

&#sect; 68.1. Experience shows us that in homeopathic cures following the uncommonly small medicinal doses (&#sect; 275-287) which are necessary in this curative mode, and which were just sufficient, by similarity of their symptoms, to tune-over the similar natural disease and to expel the natural disease from the Feeling of the Living Principle, some small amount of medicinal disease still continues on alone initially in the organism occasionally after extirpation of the natural disease, but, because of the extraordinary minuteness of the dose the medicinal disease disappears so transiently, so easily and so quickly by itself, that the Living Power has no more considerable counteraction to take up against this small artificial mistunement of its condition than the counteraction of elevating the current condition up to the healthy station (that is, the counteraction suitable for complete recovery), to which end the Living Power requires but little effort after extinguishing the previous morbid mistunement. (See &#sect; 64 B)

Hahnemann explicitly links Aphorisms 68 to 64B, namely the situation of the after-action of the Living Power where there is no exactly opposite state in nature for it to copy. Here Hahnemann is speaking of situations where some of the medicinal disease continues on "alone" in the organism after the eradication of the natural disease. If there were an exactly opposite state in nature, then the correct remedy, chosen on the basis of the law of resonance (in accordance with the principles of the correct dimension or jurisdiction) would leave no trace — there would have been a perfect similitude. In those cases where there is no exactly opposite state in nature, however, part of the medicinal disease remains ("goes on alone") after the eradication of thenatural disease. This is not a failure of insufficient remedies such that none cover the entire disease, but a reality of the fact that there is not always an exact similitude to be found. Thus, proving more substances will not necessarily solve this problem. Or might this fact call out for the "concordant" remedy?

Following the initial action, in which the natural disease was eradicated, the Living Power organises counter measures. To the extent that there is such an exact opposite condition-state to the initial action in nature, the Living Power draws on this energy form or template to exactly oppose the initial action (through the sustentive side). This opposition is conducted on the basis of equal energy (as great a degree as the impinging action) because there is no disease to overcome, just the restoration against the stimulus of the initial action to restore balance. This would seem to operate on the basis of re-establishing balance in the vacuum left by the eradication of the natural disease.

However, where there is no exact opposite condition-state in nature, we have the continuation of the medicinal disease alone in some form. Instead of acting against a vacuum, the Living Power now faces the remains of the medicinal disease. In the face of this, it cannot simply oppose an equal energy to the vacuum; it must assert itself by a superior power to first overcome the medicinal disease. In addition to the ability of the Living Power to re-establish balance in the absence of disease, it is also able to overcome the artificial or medicinal disease where some is left after the removal of the natural disease. After this extinguishing of the medicinal disease, the Living Power then easily re-establishes balance. Why do provings actually strengthen health, according to Hahnemann, if not due to this phenomenon?

There is a distinction in these two cases. In the first case, where there is an exact opposite condition-state in nature, the healing action is wholly against the natural disease effect. However, where there is no exact opposite condition-state in nature, the healing action is also partly in the counteraction. This is seen in the second term (Heilwirkung) Hahnemann uses for part b) of Aphorism 64.

&#sect; 64.1. During the initial-action of the artificial disease Potences (medicines) upon our healthy body, our Living Power appears (as seen from the following examples) to comport itself purely conceptively (receptively, passively as it were) and thus, as if forced, to allow the impressions of the artificial Potence impinging from without to take place in itself, thereby modifying its condition, but then, as it were, to rally again and a) to generate the exact opposite condition-state, when there is such a one (counteraction, after-action) to this impinging action (initial-action) in equal degree to that which the impinging action (initial-action) had on it by the artificial morbific or medicinal Potence, and according to the measure of the Living Power's own energy, — or, b) when there is not an exact opposite state to the initial-action in nature, the Living Power appears to strive to assert its superiority by extinguishing the alteration actuated in itself from without (by the medicine), in place of which it reinstates its norm (after-action, curative-action).

If by "extinguishing the alteration" Hahnemann means simply that the Living Power overcomes the artificial imprint by dint of its "superiority," it would seem that the superiority consists in the more substantive robustness of natural energy overcoming the more shadowy artificial energy than in its supplying a resonant tone supplied only by itself, which would lead to the use of the term healing action (Heilwirkung) here.

This distinction between the two types of after-actions also provides some insight into the intensity of the counter-action in some cases. Could it be said that it is in precisely those cases where there is no exact opposite condition-state in nature that the counter-action is stronger (because the Living Power has to over-power the artificial disease that remains and re-establish balance)? But concordant remedies might better match that which is to be lifted, leaving no unfinished business.

The question, then, is when do we not have the exact opposite condition-state in nature for the initial action?

This would seem to arise in those cases where the disease itself is not natural, that is, not arising from nature. The only type that would seem to fall into this category are the diseases [dynamic affections] originating in the Geist by way of conceiving a belief (ideogenic superstition or "Aberglaube") which is then spun and maintained by the soul before passing on into the emotional (Gemüt) realm, and thence on into the Leib [organic functioning]. These are unique to the human animal. It is that range of disease that comes via the imagination and that can leave the same way [footnote 17a]. The so-called mind-cures and faith healings [e.g., brought about by Christian Science practitioners, etc.] must then also operate in this realm. The emotional shocks in the homogenic realm, as well as disturbances (adverse cravings) occasioned by beliefs in the regimen and diet (regimentory) would also seem to fall within this realm.

Finally, the iatrogenic diseases are created by the mind of man (artificial concoctions) and may have no counterpart in nature.

This would explain the generally observed strong after-actions (termed healing reactions) where emotional traumas and drug diseases are being treated by medicines acting on the basis of the law of similar resonance (see section on Healing Reaction).

However, within this range of un-natural condition-states, we are here, in Aphorism 64, speaking only of those that can be treated by medicines. There may well be cures that are achieved by non-medicinal means within this realm (e.g., faith cures, psychotherapy) as there are in other realms (regimenal)

The distinction made in Aphorism 64 is in the nature of the counter-action to the initial action of the medicine. It provides an insight into the different reactions of the Living Power in reacting to medicines. (p. 307-311)

Hahnemann taught us about the dual nature of the Living Power. To understand this dual nature is to reap a harvest of further insight into his genius.

However, this dual nature has effectively been ignored because its significance was not at all understood. Past translators buried the meaning of Hahnemann's dual-sided Living Power under the single and abstract term "vital force."

For Hahnemann, the Living Power consists of a sustentive aspect and a generative aspect.

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The book, Homeopathy Re-examined is replete with references to the dual nature of the Living Power and of the falsity of the vitalism of classical homeopathy. For Mr.Lunstroth to state that the more advanced chapter of the new book, posted on this site to help clarify matters, is an "appropriation" of his ideas is fallacious in the extreme. It seems rather strange that we would, in the light of these many other insights, which are logically connected to the one on the natural healing power, have to "appropriate" the ideas of another.

His own ideas on the natural healing power [which we have followed with some approbation] would benefit from a study of one of the key insights of Hahnemann into the dual nature of the Lebenskraft. His continued references to the "vital force" show that he has not absorbed this as of yet. Without this key concept, one cannot really appreciate the extent to which Hahnemann was not a vitalist, but a dynamist (Hahnemann called the Living Principle the Dynamis), and what that means.

As regards his charge that a certain earlier statement showed a lack of understanding about these issues on my part (Rudi Verspoor), this statement predates my meeting and collaboration with Steven Decker as it uses the term vital force, but the context is simply to say that cure acts to enhance the vital force and then triggers a process of the vital force tackling the next trauma or blockage — it doesn't say that the remedy doesn't remove the disease, which fact (the remedy destroying the disease) I was fully cognizant of even then and it doesn't say that the remedy acts by stimulating the vital force directly as the classicists put it. He takes one quote out of context and then ignores all the rest of what has been written, much the tactic of which he has accused David Little.

  - Rudi Verspoor and Steven Decker

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