International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol.10, 2019 33
countries” outside the US (Praderio, 2017, para.
3). Cutting across traditional boundaries, both
the Jobs and Paltrow examples illustrate the
current fascination with CAM, while also
pointing to a worrying trend of celebrity
influence whereby celebrity’s health decisions
guide the public through their offers of medical
advice or health endorsements (Hoffman et al.,
2017).
Celebrity influence aside, some health services
implicitly validate treatments such as
homeopathy. For example, Health Canada
legitimizes naturopaths as health professionals,
and naturopaths often prescribe homeopathic
remedies (Caulfield &Rachul, 2011). This
blending of some aspects of science while
maintaining a connection with premodern
approaches to healing sets the stage for this
article, in which I present a possible mechanism
for understanding the current fascination with
treatments that are, from an evidence-based
perspective, either ineffective or dangerous.
In a recent IJCS article about a group (Gentle
Wind) based in Maine, Kayla Swanson argues
that quasi-religions allow scholars to focus on
groups that exist at the intersection between
religious and secular. Borrowing from Arthur L.
Greil and Thomas Robbins (1994), quasi-
religions are groups that “either do not see
themselves, or are not seen by others, as
unambiguously religious” (Swanson, 2018, p.
8). In this article, however, I take a different
approach from Swanson while also
acknowledging the importance of considering
the liminal space between the religious and the
secular. I argue that, from a secular perspective,
some forms of CAM are forms of practical
magic, which I define as a set of practices used
to influence or protect the body by calling upon
the assistance of supernatural forces. Although
this definition of practical magic may entertain
any number of contemporary treatments, I add
another element that is relevant to this article.
Instead of occupying a middle position between
the religious and the secular, practical magic is a
blending of the two.
My narrow definition of practical magic borrows
from Adrian Chadwick’s analysis of Iron Age
and Romano-British settlements. Although there
may be little to connect modern and Iron Age
beliefs about magic, Chadwick offers a useful
definition of practical magic as a spectrum of
practices and beliefs reflective of implicit social
structures (Chadwick, 2015, p. 38). More
typically, scholarly discussion of practical magic
focuses on anthropological descriptions of
various people’s pragmatic engagement with
their environment, such as casting a spell for a
safe sea voyage. Consequently, Edvard Hviding
describes practical magic not only as a “false
technical act” but also a “true social act” which
gets at part of the discourse regarding magic’s
role in various cultures. My main focus of
Hviding’s comments here, however, is on how
this false technical act constitutes “bad science”
while also satisfying health consumers’ need for
exceeding natural constraints, or their
ambivalence toward distinguishing between
scientific and medical cures (Hviding 1996,
p. 174).
In addition to conceptualizing homeopathy as a
form of practical magic, it is worth thinking of
CAM as part of what Christopher Partridge has
described as the “occulture,” which refers to a
broad collection of occult and esoteric beliefs
and practices that include human potential
spiritualities, healing, shamanism, alternative
science, and so on (Partridge, 2016). Partridge
argues that, rather than being limited to
subcultural practices (e.g., secret and
underground practices), the esoteric has now
come into the mainstream. In some cases, this
mainstreaming involves seeking out and
achieving a scientific veneer. Significantly,
modern practical magic should be distinguished
from premodern magical practices, which may
have served to provide a cognitive structure
regarding the large domain beyond perception.
By contrast, practical magic sits alongside a
scientific worldview that has increasingly
pushed the mystery back.
This article is organized as follows: In the first
section, I describe homeopathy, highlighting
some current tensions in our analysis of CAM.
In the second section, I describe practical magic
in more detail. In the third section, I analyze
homeopathy’s religious roots. Finally, I apply
the concept of practical magic to homeopathy
and conclude with a discussion of the

34 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019
implications of these findings for both
consumers and social scientists.
Homeopathy and the Allure of
Complementary and Alternative
Medicine (CAM)
In the late eighteenth century, homeopathy
emerged from the work of German physician
Christian Friedrich “Samuel” Hahnemann
(1755–1843), who discovered (or invented)
homeopathy as a treatment reliant on stimulation
of the body’s healing power. Hahnemann
viewed his practice as scientific and only
prescribed placebos to “soothe the patient’s
mind and desire for medicine with something
inconspicuous such as a few teaspoons a day of
raspberry juice or sugar of milk” (Jütte, 2014, p.
209). As part of his nonplacebo treatment plan,
Hahnemann prescribed diluted medicines
according to the “law of similar,” or “like cures
like” this means that, to cure an affliction, the
treatment should mimic the symptoms of the
illness. If a patient has hay-fever symptoms, then
a homeopath might prepare a dose of red onion
because both the illness and treatment lead to
tears, a runny nose, and so on (Banerjee,
Costelloe, Mathie, &Howick, 2014). The
homeopath would dilute the onion, and then
increase the potency of the dilution by shaking,
or succussion, to release the spirit-like power of
the medicine.
Although critics of homeopathy emphasize both
its lack of benefit and its potential harms as an
alternative treatment, it is necessary to go further
than simple dismissal of health consumers’
choices, and ask why individuals seek out such
treatments in the first place. Scholars have
shown that magical thinking is at the heart of
many decisions to use alternative therapies
(Beyerstein, 2001 Greasley, 2010 Stevens,
2001). But magical thinking aside, other
motivations to use such products may include a
justified disillusionment with orthodox medicine
or a fear of adverse drug side effects (Ernst,
2002). This literature has made significant
contributions to an understanding of CAM’s use,
but the concept of magic provides additional
insight into beliefs and practices such as
homeopathy that defy easy categorization,
especially in contemporary health care.
Spiritual or religious identities (e.g., religious
affiliation or attendance, beliefs, or practices)
may predict the use of CAM, and increased
spirituality may result from the use of particular
therapies. More telling perhaps is that the choice
to use a particular modality is not as easy or
straightforward as that of choosing a brand of a
multivitamin or some other supplement.
Consumers’ investment in alternative treatments
is suggestive of a more profound attachment that
goes well beyond normal health-seeking
behaviors (Evans et al., 2007 Mao, Palmer,
Healy, Desai, &Amsterdam, 2011).
Complicating matters further, many
contemporary homeopaths both distance
themselves from mainstream medicine and seek
out scientific validation. Regarding the former
position, Hahnemann specifically developed
homeopathy in reaction to his concerns about
existing medical knowledge and practice, which
homeopaths refer to by the pejorative allopathy,
from the Greek meaning “other suffering.” For
Hahnemann and his twenty-first-century
followers, allopathic medicines produced effects
opposite the symptoms of an illness and
involved treatments such as bleeding a person to
reduce fluids, and induced vomiting (Boyle,
2013). Although many homeopaths
acknowledge the benefits of modern medicine,
they nonetheless describe evidence-based
approaches such as clinical trials as allopathy (or
more recently, biomedicine). The use of the term
allopathy may seem innocent, if perhaps archaic,
but it is often used as a pejorative (Levy, 2016).
Despite distancing themselves from mainstream
medicine (allopathy/biomedicine), many
contemporary homeopaths nonetheless seek
scientific and medical legitimacy (Vigano,
Nannei, &Bellavite, 2015). Several journals
publish research regarding homeopathy. One of
the more popular journals is Homeopathy
(formerly the British Homoeopathic Journal),
which is published by Elsevier, one of the
biggest companies in academic publishing.
Although some homeopaths have attempted to
convert homeopathy to rational medical science
through the appropriation of scientific
discourses, they have been unsuccessful in
escaping a “spiritual and metaphysical view of
healing” (Haller, 2009, p. 113). Contemporary