When it was announced that the long-awaited Sixth Edition of Hahnemann’s Organon was at last available and about to be published, there was great curiosity on the part of his present- day followers to see what changes, additions of developments were embodied in it.
What subjects had most interested and occupied the mind of the old master during the last years of his long life? What subjects did he regard as the most important and as most needing further elucidation? Had he changed his mind in regard to any of the fundamental principles of his philosophy? Had he formed any new theories? Had he changed his method of applying the principles which he had laid down in in former editions?
Speculation on these question was rife. There were some, like the writer who believed that few changes would be found in the practical rules and methods which had stood the test of more than a century of experience and proved their permanent value in the cure of innumerable cases of disease. They expected that the changes would consist of a further development and elucidation of those theories and concepts which constituted the latest former additions to his system- abstruse subjects which did not appear of were only lightly touched upon in the early editions; subjects, for example like those of vitality, dynamism and potentiation, which were the last to be developed and introduced into the “Organon.”
This conjecture turned out to be correct, and it is well for the medical world that it did. Never was there greater need than now that the medical profession should be reminded, as by a voice from the celestial world, that there is something more vital and more important for them and for suffering humanity than matter and materialism; than germs and germicides; than serums and vaccines; than mechanics and mechanisms; than pathological processes and products.
That “Something” is a fuller knowledge and realization of the spiritual nature of life or mind in organism; of life or mind as a spiritual, entitative power or principle manifesting itself in and through the physical organism of which it is the architect and builder as-well as the tenant.
Whatever tends to throw light upon the connection between mind and body; whatever enlarges or clarifies our conceptions of what Life is and how it builds its house, or performs its functions; whatever enlarges our knowledge of the relations between the various organs and systems of organs of the physical body; whatever tends to show how the living organism acts and reacts under the influence of external or internal agencies – mental, psychical or physical; that is important and important in the highest degree, because the medical profession as a whole has largely neglected or ignored these phases of the subject and has regarded man merely as a mechanism actuated solely by physical forces- and treated him accordingly. From this misconceptions arise the most glaring errors, the most flagrant abuses and the most tragical results in the medical and surgical treatment of today.
Hahnemann, in his later life, with marvellous insight and striking prescience, fixed his attention principally upon the spiritual and dynamical aspects of the subject of medicine. Hence we find that the changes, additions and developments in the Sixth Edition of “The Organon” deal principally with these subjects. These remained longest in his mind. To them he gave his deepest and most mature thought. Evidently he regarded the results of his thought as sufficiently important to justify a new, and, as he termed it “most likely the last” edition of his immortal masterpiece ***”THE ORGANON.”
Dynamism, The Vital Force, Potentiation and the Infinitesimal Dose: Around these three subjects have centered the hottest controversies and most mordant criticisms in the history of homoeopathy; and these are the newly treated subjects in the Sixth Edition of “The Organon.” For more than a century the battle between the “dynamists” and the “materialist” has been fought-the “dynamists” always in the minority, but unconquerable.
Their heads are “bloody but unbowed.” The ” long, thin line” is unbroken. Their trenches are deep and well protected. Their supplies of ammunition are constantly being replenished and their weapons improved by the latest findings and conclusions of modern science, the whole trend of which is toward the confirmation of the dynamical conclusions arrived at by Hahnemann.
The invention of the telegraph, telephone, electric dynamo, X- ray machine, phonograph, telegraphone, “radio,” The discovery of radium, etc.; The advances made in the study and utilization of electronic and ionic machines, and of colloids and solutions in general – The New Dynamism- these have all been brought about in physical science through the application of the identical dynamical principles which Hahnemann was among the first to recognize in their general application, and the first to apply in modern medicine and therapeutics.
To Hahnemann belongs the honor of having been the first physician to connect biology and psychology with physics in a practical system of medicinal therapeutics, and to give an impulse to studies in biodynamics which has gained momentum continuously ever since.
When Hahnemann, after formulating his principal concepts of Life or Mind in its relation to the physical organism, began to experiment with the action of drug upon healthy human subjects, observing the subjective as well as the objective phenomena, he opened up a new field of research and laid the foundation for a true science and art of medicine and psychology. From that time forward and for the first time, man could be studied and treated scientifically as an individual, in all his personal and peculiar actions and reactions.
The philosophy of Hahnemann is based upon and includes not only the physiological and pathological actions and reactions of man as a physical organism, but of man as a spiritual and psychical being; for it includes and utilizes the mental, the subjective and the functional phenomena as they are developed under the influence of hygeopoietic and pathogenetic agencies. In this respect homoeopathy differs radically from and is infinitely superior to all other systems of therapeutics; and this is solely because it recognizes Life or Mind as an entity; as the primary, spiritual power or principal which creates and sustains the physical organism and is the primary cause of all its action and reactions. Its working principle is the universal Law of Reciprocal Action, otherwise known as the law of balance, compensation, rhythm, polarity, vibration, or action and reaction, all of which signify a principle operative alike in the physical, mental and spiritual realms. In its out-working it is essentially the *Law of Love for it is always beneficient practitioner of homoeopathy never uses, and has no need to use, any irritating, weakening, depressing, infecting, intoxicating or injurious agent of any kind in the treatment of the sick, nor to violate the integrity of the body by forcibly introducing medicinal agents by other than the natural orifices and channels.
Homoeopathy achieves its ends and accomplishes its purposes by the use of single, simple, pure drugs; refined and deprived of the injurious properties and enhanced in curative power by the pharmacodynamical processes of mechanical communication, trituration, solution and dilution according to scale; in minimum or infinitesimal doses, administered by the mouth; the remedy having been selected by comparison of the symptoms of the sick with symptoms of drugs produced by tests in healthy human subjects; under the principle of symptom- similarity, as enunciated in the maxims, “Similia, Similibus Curantur.- Simplex Simile, Minimum.”
This is homoeopathy in a nutshell. It is a Shell which some find hard to crack, but when cracked it is found to be packed full of sweet and wholesome meat, *with no worms in it.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.