Recently a friend showed me a video clip on a
website which features The Amazing Randi, a
stage magician who is now better known as a
professional skeptic and debunker of all things
'unscientific'. The clip shows him on stage setting
out to prove to the audience beyond all doubt just
how gullible those people are who believe in a
particular type of pseudo-science that masquerades
as medicine. The object of his ridicule?
Homeopathy, of course.
His diatribe is predictably caustic and I lost
interest after seven of the fourteen recorded
minutes. But then it set me thinking. What a
delicious irony it is that a man who has made his
living as a magician should now spend his time and
energy attacking a healing system which can only be
described as......well, magical.
In the past few years, and on frequent occasions
throughout its history, homeopathy has come under
attack, perhaps more often than any other healing
system. The question is, why? It is easy enough to
dismiss the cures that homeopaths witness on a
regular basis, as the results of either placebo
effect or spontaneous remission. But why are the
skeptics so keen to prove not only that homeopathy
doesn't work, but that it cannot work?
My own tentative conclusion is that homeopathy
suffers from a case of mistaken self-identity. To
me, the real power of homeopathy lies in its
paradoxical and unpredictable nature, yet these
very qualities are the last thing that homeopaths
seem to celebrate. Consequently, we have a magical
and mysterious art that has spent the past two
hundred years trying to prove that it is in fact
rational, reasonable and entirely scientific.
The more I reflect on it, the more I can understand
why Randi and his cohorts are so vehemently opposed
to the claims of homeopathy. The desire to gain
acceptability and popularity has
led the homeopathic profession to present itself
as something which, at heart, it is not, and it has
paid the price. Yet there is a gift in this, if it
could be recognized as such.
I believe that what has always attracted people to
homeopathy like moths to a candle are those very
qualities that homeopaths have tried so hard to
cover up. It is undeniably mysterious, with its
Latin terms and ever more esoteric explorations of
the uncanny correspondence that exists between the
outer world of nature and the inner world of humans.
Homeopathy is more alchemy than it is medicine, and
as such it will never sit comfortably in a box
labelled 'rational and scientific'. It reaches out
into the realm of spirit, that far-off land which
scientific rationalism has tried, and failed, to
demolish. Yet its roots extend deep into the earth
itself, echoing our own dual nature as spiritual
beings who are nontheless an integral part of the
landscape we inhabit.
Perhaps the day will come when homeopathy will speak
for itself, on its own terms, in its own poetic and
mysterious language. Perhaps we will learn to
recognize the value of the irrational and the
paradoxical. Who knows, we might one day give thanks
to Mr Randi for pointing out that homeopathy doesn't
belong in that dusty old room called 'current
scientific understanding'.
