What's Classical Homoeopathy?

By classical homoeopathy we mean the healing method as established about 200 years ago by founder Samuel Hahnemann. He worked out the similarity principle as a healing law into 291 aphorisms in his Organon of Medicine. In these he describes the foundations of the healing method we call homoeopathy which are still authoritative until today. The most important cornerstone is that illness is a disturbance of the entire organism on a dynamic, i.e. non-material level. From this we can deduce that healing can only take place on this level as well, by using the remedies which have the power to affect it.

This is possible by dynamizing or potentizing substances we wish to apply as a remedy. We can only learn their area of activity by testing them on healthy test subjects. Symptoms caused by repeated administration of certain substances can be neutralized in an afflicted person and thereby constitute a recovery. This means that it's a matter of investigating the totality of all symptoms in a patient, and then applying the remedy which was most similar in the medicine test. So the local symptoms are never treated, only the patient's altered ailing condition, including his mental-emotional state.
The administered remedies are singular, dynamized and harmless. Based on the similarity principle the 'remedy disease' will neutralize the original complaints resulting in the patient's recovery. The highly potentialized unitary homoeopathic remedies have no harmful side effects and will not cause habituation. Obviously this healing method is radically different from the traditional medicine we got raised with and are familiar with. The study of classical homoeopathy therefore demands a different approach of the phenomena's 'disease' and 'health'.

A good introduction and exploration of the terrain can be found in the book: 'Klassieke homeopathie:niet te geloven?!' by Anne Vervarcke, published by Academia Press, Ghent.

Because of the time-consuming and complex method there have been a lot of attempts at simplification. Among others, clinical homoeopathy came about, where the therapy focuses on fighting the symptoms. Complexhomoeopathy mixes several lowly-potentialized homoeopathic substances which show a certain affinity with an organ or organ system. To avoid confusion the Hahnemann method started calling itself classical or unitary homoeopathy. Spurred on mainly by the American homoeopath J.T. Kent, the method got propagated and systemized.