“What sensible man would imitate the efforts of the organism for its own preservation? These efforts in reality are the disease itself, and the morbidly affected vital force is the producer of the visible disease”.
“That exquisite power innate in the human being, designed to direct in the most perfect manner the operation of life while it is in health, equally present in all parts of the organism, in the fibers of sensibility as well as in those of irritability, that unwearying spring of all the normal, natural functions of the body, was not created for the purpose of affording itself aid in diseases not for the purpose of exercising effective work, the attribute of the healing art worthy of imitation.
No! the true healing art is that higher power of human intellect, of unfettered judgment and of reason selecting and determining on principle in order to effect an alteration in the instinctive, irrational and unintelligent, but automatic energetic vital force, when it has been directed by disease into abnormal action”.
From the modern psychological standpoint there is confusion here in the use of terms, but it is clear that Hahnemann as a distinct conception of two phases or aspects of that organic unity which is man, both of which are endowed with the attributes of mind, and which act and react upon each other.
Man is to him both matter and energy, physical and spiritual, body and mind, a “higher mind” and a “lower mind,” the one being conscious and rational and the other, which Hahnemann sometimes calls “the dynamis,” unconscious, instructive and “unreasoning.” Both as unites, are endowed with intelligence, but each, as we shall see later, manifests a different kind or form of intelligence.
It is inherently improbable, it is absolutely unthinkable, that a blind, unintelligent force, acting automatically, or mechanically, could do any or all of the things attributed to its agency, or be to the ego and its material organism what it manifestly is: doing things that require for their performance the exercise of intelligent choice and selection, and the adaptation of means to ends, even when the means are sometimes faulty and inefficient. There is much here requiring explanation.
It is clearly evident upon observation and reflection that all the phenomena and operations of normal life proceed in an orderly and intelligent manner.
Intelligence is perceptible in every functional operation in organized beings. Where and what is this intelligence?.
We are accustomed to speak of the vital processes as being “automatically” performed, but close observation of the phenomena shows something more than mere automatism. It is possible to watch some parts of these operations under the microscope, and observers have repeatedly testified to their to their astonishment and fascination as they have watched protoplasmic cells moving about, selecting their course and performing their duties exactly as if endowed with intelligence. In the building up of tissues, the repair of injuries to organic structures there is constantly manifested the power of choice and selection and the intelligent adaptation of means to ends. These are functions of mind.
Pabulum is conveyed to needy parts and transformed into new tissue and waste material carried away under the very eye of the observer. Individual cells are seen wending their devious way through tortuous channels, avoiding obstructions, never interfering with each other, until their selected destination is reached and their work accomplished. Everything moves with precision.
We know that these wonderful processes are going on within our own bodies constantly, and yet we are not conscious of directly influencing or controlling them. Because we were not conscious of such control we have thought that they were independent of our mind and thought, although related in some way to us through that mysterious, intermediate, apparently unintelligent and unreasoning something which we call life or life force. Even the effect upon these processes of depressing mental emotions,although often observed, has had no special significance for us. The true character of the relation has escaped us.
Reason tells us that wherever work or activity proceeds systematically and intelligently there must be a mind directing it; that where there is law there must be a lawgiver; that behind the manifested or expressed thought there must be a thinker; that back of motion must be the moving force, and in the last analysis, back of force, will. Will is an attribute of mind-of intelligence-whether it be manifested in the life-energy of a cell, an organ or a whole organism, individual or cosmic, for the universe is an organism, instinct with life.
The rational, conscious mind of man responds to every thought presented to it by another mind. Mind responds only to mind. Proving drugs upon the healthy, according to the method of Hahnemann, demonstrates that there is that in man which responds, in some way and under certain conditions, to the impressions of every element or combination of elements in the universe.
That which responds. Hahnemann calls the Dynamis, adopting the old Greek word for power. That which makes the impression he calls “the spirit-like power (or dynamis) concealed in drugs.” He goes on to show that the only basis of this correspondence between organism and drug is their fundamental similarity of nature and character. Both are “spirit-like,” or “dynamic.” If there is life force in the organism of man there is also a corresponding life force in the organism of the plant from which the drug comes, and, by a further extension of the same argument, in the so-called “inanimate” drug substance also.
Dr. Paul Carus says:
“There is no absolutely dead matter. But every atom is freighted with the potencies of life”.
All elementary substance is either living substances or capable of being transformed into living substances. Guided by the law or reciprocal action according to which like only responds to like, are we not justified in saying that all elementary, principle of life was not potentially presents in Silica could it responds to or impress the living organism? That in the Silica which responds to the life principle of the human organism, when they are brought into proper relations through the laws of Similia and Potentiation, is its “dynamis,” as Hahnemann calls it, and that is potentially a living being.
All energy in the last analysis is living energy. The action of Silica is not primarily chemical upon the organic matter of the organism, but dynamical upon the protoplasm or living substance, disturbing or restoring physiological harmony, as the case may be; and this takes place under dynamical laws, acting alike in the silica and in the organism.
Life or mind, in the cosmic sense, is the sum total of all the powers or forces in the universe. But it is more than that. It is the primal substances itself from which all things evolve and contains within itself all the elements of being. Life in the individual being is the sum total of all the elementary organic forces, derived from and inseparably united with the universal or cosmic life or being. In the individual, life is a continuous influx from the life of the Universal and Infinite Being, and finds its perfect manifestations through organism, in spiritual and physical harmony or health.
Health, in the physiological sense, is a state of the organism in which, by means of a normal susceptibility to the action of the elementary forces and substances, they are continually received in proper manner and adequate amount to maintain the organism in its integrity.
So long as man is master of himself through knowledge of the laws of his being, all goes well. The life force holds all in “admirable harmonious sway.” But let him lose this mastery through violation of those laws and he falls from his high estate. That delicate poise and adjustment of his relations, when disturbed or lost, brings sickness, suffering, and death.
We have traced the organic processes in health and disease to life. We have seen that mind is involved in these processes.
Where is it located, and what is the relation between life and mind?.
A few years ago Professor Elmer E.Gates, psychologist and scientist, formerly identified with the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, established a large and elaborately equipped laboratory, especially designed for the investigation and study of the phenomena of biology and psychology. At his researches and conclusions bear directly upon the subject under discussion. I shall let him speak for himself in liberal quotations from his published papers.
From an elaborate series of observations of phenomena in his own person, under all measurable environmental conditions, in which he recorded, four times a day for a period of two years, all measurable bodily conditions and all mental activities, he drew “an important conclusion, namely, that our mental life, in all its acquisitive and productive capacities, is not merely directly all its acquisitive and productive capacities, is not merely directly influenced by every environment and bodily condition, but that our mental power and processes are the results of a functional interaction between the organism of the individual being and the large organism of the cosmical environment.
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.