36 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 10, 2019
everyday enchantment (Mäkelä &Petsche,
2013, p. 415). Consumers also may combine
esoteric practices with more rational pursuits,
drinking from the well of science while also
recognizing the need for powerful potions and
spells.
Homeopathy’s Magico-Religious Roots
Vitalism as an explanatory style extends far
beyond archaic medical practices and is central
to many spiritual beliefs and practices (Heelas,
2014). Vitalism refers to and energy that courses
through biological entities (Clarke, 2001).
Today, the vitalistic term energy also is used for
a wide variety of unusual but everyday
experiences. These vitalistic elements aside,
Hahnemann takes credit for finding the truth in
homeopathy, even if he also acknowledges that
the “truth is co-eternal with the all-wise,
benevolent Deity” (Perry, 1984, p. 2).
Consequently, the melding of scientific truth and
divine truth was built into homeopathy from the
beginning. This characteristic of homeopathy
should not be surprising, given that Hahnemann
was as influenced by alchemy as he was by the
religious climate of the day. Whitall Perry
(1984) compared sections of Hahnemann and
Dudgeon’s Organon of Medicine (2002/1810)
with the writings of Paracelsus (1493–1541), a
Swiss-German Renaissance physician and
alchemist. Perry found great similarity between
these sources in both sentence structure and
ideology (Borzelleca, 2000).
Like Hahnemann, Paracelsus emphasized the
spiritual plane of healing and the spirit-like
power of alchemical medicines. Even the
principle of dilution engrained in homeopathy
has an antecedent in alchemical writings (Perry,
1984). Besides alchemy, Hahnemann likely
appropriated techniques associated with other
spiritual systems, including “mesmerism,
hydrotherapy, and massage modalities to
accomplish a transformation from material to
spiritual levels” (Haller, 2009, p. 102).
Mesmerism, in particular, seems to have
fascinated Hahnemann. He described
mesmerizers as possessed with “an abundance of
the subtle vital energy” (Haller, 2005, p. 74).
Some of Hahnemann’s followers borrowed from
his lineage of influences and sought to combine
homeopathy with Swedenborgian philosophy.
Swedenborgianism refers to several spiritualistic
sects with Christian underpinnings that involve
prophecy, communication with spirits, and the
ushering in of a new era (similar to the later
New Age movement).
A Swedish mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg
(1688–1772) believed Jesus Christ had selected
him to reveal the spiritual truth of the Bible
(Williams-Hogan, 2016). The relationship
between Swedenborg’s mysticism and
homeopathy lies in the metaphysical rationale
offered by Swedenborg, who saw the spiritual
principle within the material world. Under the
influence of Swedenborg’s writings,
homeopathy transitioned from a false empirical
practice to a “religiously based belief system
sporting a myriad of competing interpretations”
(Haller, 2009, p. x), but intent on improving
well-being.
Homeopathy began to decline in the nineteenth
century. Advances in medicine, biology, and the
other sciences pushed out many vitalistic
practices, but homeopathy reemerged with vigor
in the late twentieth century, riding the coattails
of New Age1 beliefs and practices into the
contemporary health care system. Homeopathy’s
metaphysical conjectures were muffled, and the
homeopath as shaman became a marginalized
identity among physicians. Contemporary
homeopathy tries to establish a more sterile
laboratory identity, but its romantic and spiritual
elements never disappeared entirely. It is both a
core component of integrative and holistic
medicine and an esoteric tradition. Further
complicating matters, homeopathy is submerged
in the broader trend of self-help and often is
confused with herbal medicine, natural health
products, and even some scientific interventions.
Homeopathy As Practical Magic
Homeopathy’s maintenance of a magico-
spiritual component is consistent with other
forms of practical magic that employ sectarian
and religious claims (Manca, 2012). As other
1 New Age refers to a diffuse assortment of beliefs and practices
that combine esotericism and Eastern thinking (Hanegraaff, 2002,
p. 293).

International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol.10, 2019 37
scholars have observed, certain alternative
medicine traditions may even function as
postsecular religious practices (Barrett et al.,
2004). For example, consider that homeopathy
resembles faith healing,2 given homeopathy’s
emphasis on dilution and shaking rituals (Shaw,
2014). Although homeopathy does not rely on a
traditional monotheistic God (like many forms
of faith healing do), Hahnemann made many
references to God in his work. Additionally,
during homeopathy’s development, practitioners
often combined the system with other religious
healing practices, and some even connected
homeopathy to Christian teachings (Brown,
2013).
Despite some similarities with faith healing,
homeopathy is distinct from other practices
because of its emphasis on the body’s vital
spiritual force. Without this vital force,
advocates argue, people would lack sensation,
function, and self-preservation (Perry, 1984).
When someone is sick, it is the vital force that is
affected, and the only way to remove a spirit-
like disease is through a spirit-like cure (Scofano
&Luz, 2008).
Explaining homeopathy’s continued relevance to
health consumers is challenging, especially
given that the underlying vitalistic principles of
its approach to treatment have remained mostly
unchanged since its invention. To help explain
the continued existence (and in some cases, the
thriving) of New Age spiritualities and holistic
healing practices, some scholars describe what
they refer to as modern culture’s “subjective
turn” (Hanegraaf, p. 293). Paul Heelas et al.
describe the subjective turn as “states of
consciousness, states of mind, memories,
emotions, passions, sensations, bodily
experiences, dreams, feelings, inner conscience,
and sentiments—including moral sentiments like
compassion” (Heelas, Woodhead, Seel, Tusting,
&Szerszynski, 2005, p. 3). We can use the
subjective turn as an analytical category to help
explain the transition of the New Age from a
counterculture movement to a diffuse form of
modern magic that has invaded numerous
2 Faith healing refers to the unscientific belief that faith and prayer
can cure physical ailments (Flamm, 2004).
domains, including health care. For example,
care for and interest in patients’ lived
experiences reflects a change in the notion of
what constitutes health and encompasses “life
beyond physiological functioning” (Sointu,
2006, p. 332). Even though many CAM
modalities often do not work from a scientific
perspective, the choice of a particular remedy
reinforces in health consumers a feeling of
control and empowerment (MacArtney &
Wahlberg, 2014).
The empowered health consumer and the
religious consumer have much in common. Both
are responding to instability and uncertainty,
turning to beliefs and practices that imbue the
everyday with symbolic significance. Just as
patients choose CAM to manage uncertainty
about their bodies, religious consumers choose
beliefs and practices to manage spiritual
uncertainties (Lyon, 2013/2000). Although the
identities of health and religious consumers are
not synchronous, they do overlap, especially as
old distinctions between science, culture, and
religion continue to blur. Traditional institutions
no longer satisfy the majority of people’s
everyday needs like they once did and in such a
climate, it is easy for people to turn away from
both mainstream religion and orthodox medicine
toward clusters of beliefs and practices that
emphasize inner experience and holism. In the
area of religion scholarship, these hybrid and
marginal religious practices have given rise to
terms such as spiritual supermarket (Lyon,
2013/2000), religion a la Carte (Sigalow, 2016),
and perennism or syncretic spirituality
(Possamai, 2003), just to name a few. Although
scholars who study health are less enamored
with the religious or spiritual significance of
changes to health care, they end up at a similar
place as the sociologist of religion.
Conclusion
One of the chief appeals of homeopathy is its
holistic focus on the uniqueness of the
individual, and homeopaths often match
remedies to a patient’s particular symptoms. The
consumer’s need for the sacred in health is part
of a more general project of the self, and a
response to actual problems found in the
everyday. The overlap of magic and health in