Homeopathy – an attempt at spiritual analysis

  1. Lemma
  2. Хомеопатията - опит за духовен анализ
  3. Bulgarian
  4. Nachev, Ivaylo
  5. Natural and the supernatural
  6. 5-2002
  7. Шиндеров, Михаил [Author]. Homeopathy – an attempt at spiritual analysis
  8. Църковен вестник
  9. homeopathy

    1. The article attempts to explain why the right spiritual stand on homeopathy is of such difficulty for Orthodox Christians. On the one hand, there are the two main opposing groups, the scientific and the religious one, which accuse homeopaths of respectively charlatanism and occultism. On the other hand, there are the statistical data about quick recovery and significant positive impact on patients.

      According to the author, one of the main issues for the Orthodox Christian is not the efficiency of homeopathic means, but rather the lack of an explanation as to how homeopathy actually works. While homeopaths themselves deny having to do anything with magical rituals and spells, they are not concerned about shedding light on the inexplicable mechanism of homeopathy, an attitude in clash with Christian convictions.

      Another very important issue for the Orthodox Christian to consider is the ideological and philosophical orientation of the homeopathy. Homeopaths are mostly governed by modern pagan beliefs and natural philosophy notions, which are completely incompatible with the Church view on man. Thus homeopathy sees man as one balanced natural system and illnesses as a result of a disturbed balance. Its ideology does not include the concepts of God, sin, blessing. The Church, by contrast, attributes illnesses to broken connection with God as the source of life, which comes about because of our sins.

      The author comes to the conclusion that homeopathy is neither harmful, nor entirely harmless. Christians should use their reason, a gift by God, and take into account the responsibility of their free will, when faced with the question whether to use this alternative method of healing or not.