An appraisal of Hahnemann’s vital force as a complete vitalist concept

Abstract

Hahnemann’s ‘vital force’ was an early 19th century understanding, elaborated to some extent by 20th century authors such as Kent (‘simple substance’) and Close (‘vital principle’). Homoeopathy considered disease to be the result of a weakened vital force and therefore disease to be “a dynamic expression of the disturbance of the harmony and rhythm of the vital energy" (Roberts 1997: 23). According to Makewell (2008) the concept of vital force remains ‘19th century’, therefore comparisons to analogous vitalist concepts within other medical and philosophical traditions, such as ‘aether’, ‘prana’, and ‘q’i’ was a prudent decision made by the researcher. Moreover, the researcher feels recent explorations such as Reich’s concept of ‘orgone’ will be beneficial to the currency of homoeopathic philosophy. This study sought to critically appraise Hahnemann’s notion of vital force through the comparative exploration of conceptual overlaps and deficiencies between the Hahnemannian concept and the parallel vitalist concepts in a range of medicinal and philosophical traditions in terms of the understandings of the nature, function and role of vital energy in the maintenance of health. This research was conducted by means of a qualitative methodology as a comparative exploration using NVivo® 10 to identify and extract themes derived from the stated objectives from key source texts within each of the vitalist philosophical and medical traditions Homoeopathy, Traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, Orgonomy, animal magnetism and hermetic alchemy. Such derived data was compared to similarly derived data extracted from homoeopathic writings regarding the ‘vital force’ [viz. Hahnemann, Kent and Close].An analysis was conducted on the vitalist concepts within each tradition and the conceptual overlaps and deficiencies which exist between each conceptual view and the notion of vital force as described by Hahnemann. Themes of each vitalist principle were analysed from the literature in terms of their nature, function, and role in the maintenance of health and compared to the homoeopathic concept of the vital force. Data analysis began with familiarisation and immersion with the data and note-making tables and diagrams were used to focus and organise information. Common themes were identified, and data was coded in NVivo 10® according to these themes. The data was then revised until there was suitable representation of all the information. The data was then interpreted, relationships identified, differences outlined in concepts and the presented in an informative and descriptive manner. Some vitalist concepts had more in common with Hahnemann’s vital force than others, while others were poorly defined and remained steeped in mystery as there were no detailed writings and documentations as was the case with animalmagnetism. Prana and qi seemed to have the strongest overlaps with vital force, but additional attributes set them apart from the concept of the homoeopathic vital force. The concepts of ‘orgon’ and ‘aether’ also showed a strong similarity to vital force, particularly aether. The researcher concluded that the data reflected in this comparative analysis established that all the vitalist concepts in the various vitalist medical disciplines did in fact describe the same phenomenon. One difference is that some some disciplines described energy in more detail as seen with prana and qi where the flow of energy was deemed to collect in energy reservoirs in the body namely the chakras and nadis in Ayurveda and the dan tiens and meridians in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Vital force on the other hand, was not described as having energy reservoirs but as having a more generalised and unspecific distribution. Furthermore, Hahneman seems to have been influenced by hermetic teachings regarding aether in his development of his vitalist philosophy.