Musings On Kent And Swedenborgianism

James Tyler Kent is a unique figure in the history of homeopathy. There were great homeopaths before Kent, and others have followed, but his role in the evolution of homeopathy has been pivotal.

Kent was important for his teaching and extensive writings, but he was equally important as a philosophical watershed. Under his influence, homeopathy became increasingly divided along methodological lines. Andre Saine labeled Kent as 'dogmatic', a label I find well-justified by his writings and the nature of his impact on homeopathy. I do not believe that Kent's dogma was, for the most part, harmful. In my opinion, Kent fulfilled the principle function of all fundamentalist movements - he pulled homeopathy back towards its essence as he perceived it. He purified the homeopathy of his time. Sadly, the inevitable result of such a process is not only purification. This is particularly true when fundamenalism becomes tainted, as it so frequently, by dogmatism. A schism opens between 'them' and 'us'; it widens from claims and counter-claims about whose thought is the most 'true'. For example, Kent unkindly labeled those who disagreed with his perspective as the "mongrel homeopaths." Most probably, they had similarly uncomplimentary things to say about Kent.

As a Kentian homeopath myself, I am sympathetic towards Kents work defining the "true homeopathy". In his time, homeopathy had expanded to such an extent that many homeopaths had no understanding of homeopathic principles. Homeopathy's very popularity had weakened it. This is a circumstance in which fundamentalism arises. When expansion pushes an entity beyond its natural boundaries, an urge to re-examine the defining characteristics - what makes that philosophy, religion or even an individual unique - inevitably develops.

Some would contest that what Kent did was not an inward turning but rather a perversion of homeopathic thought toward mysticism. In Francis Treuherz' wonderful article on Swedenborgian influences on Kent's homeopathy, he included this passage from Twentyman: "Kentianism is not thinkable without the Swedenborgian soil in which it grew to maturity, nor has it seemed able to grow or develop further since it largely lost contact with this nutrient and sustaining environment." Clearly Twentyman's comment has been disproved over the years of homeopathic resurgence since he wrote those words, but his perception of the intimate intertwining of Swedenborgian concepts and homeopathy in Kent's homeopathic philosophy is unquestionably correct. Was this a return to fundamentals or a distortion? I believe it was the former.

As a homeopath who first developed an interest in Swedenborgian thought after learning of Kent's enthusiasm for the philosophy, I must report that it has been difficult to determine the boundaries between the homeopathic philosophy of my training and Swedenborg's philosophy. Certainly there are differences, but those differences are principally a matter of focus rather than underlying point of view. Hahnemann never wrote about angels, as I know, whereas Swedenborg's experience of them was the basis of all of his metaphysical writings. Swedenborg's writings relevant to health are quite compatible with Hahnemann, although he did not discuss the essential principle of administering a medicine which causes certain symptoms to a person suffering with those symptoms. Nor does Swedenborg mention of the process of dilution and succussion which itself has been confused with the essence of homeopathy. On the other hand, one of the principle philosophic concepts of Swedenborgianism, the doctrine of correspondences, is an all-encompassing statement of the defining principle of homeopathy. There are parallels between all portions of every entity of the natural world, other entities in the world and other levels of existence. At their central core, the philosophies are one.

My own investigations were initially stymied by Swedenborg's arcane language and incredibly dense symbolism. It was very easy to understand how he was rejected as insane by anyone who made a casual attempt to understand his thought. I persisted through it all only because of my certainty that our wise homeopathic-Swedenborgian forebears could not have been led astray by a madman's ramblings.

When I finally did achieve an adequate understanding, I was tremendously excited by what I had found. Swedenborg's thought is exactly the same as Hahnemann's discovery, only more far-reaching. The principle of likes extends throughout existence, and, in fact, is the means by which the world is manifest. The excitement of discovering their own whispered convictions shouted back to them from an unexpected direction must have had a powerful impact on the 19th century homeopaths when they first learned of Swedenborg. In the words of Kent: "Through familiarity with Swedenborg, I have found the correspondences wrought out from the Word of God harmonious with all I have learnt".

Consider the following quotation from Swedenborg's most important (and voluminous) work
Arcana Coelestia (paragraph 3628):

"The whole man in general, and in particular whatever is in man, has such a correspondence, in as much as there is not the smallest part, nor even the smallest constituent of a part, which does not correspond ......... and further, that unless there was such a correspondence of man with heaven, and by means of heaven with the Lord, thus with what is prior to himself, and by means of what is prior with the First, he would not subsist a single moment, but would fall into annihilation."

Compare this now with Kent's Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy (page 48):

"Each and every thing that appears before the eyes is but the representative of its cause, and there is no cause except in the interior. Cause does not flow from the outermost of man to the interior.......Causes exist in such subtle form that they cannot be seen by the eye.....They are so immaterial that they correspond to and operate upon the interior nature of man, and they are ultimated in the body in the form of tissue changes that are recognized by the eye. Such tissue changes must be understood as the results of disease only or the physician will never perceive what disease is, or what the nature of life is."

In this last quotation it is difficult to tell where Hahnemann's influence ended and Swedenborg's began. In Kents Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy (page 42):

"The animal kingdom has in itself the image of sickness, and the vegetable and mineral kingdoms in like manner, and if man were perfectly conversant with the substances of these three kingdoms he could treat the whole human race."

Congugial Love: "A married condition is preferable because it comes from creation, because its source is the marriage of good and truth.......In addition, marriage is human fulfillment because a person becomes fully human through it........No celibate people are fully human."

He believed that married, sexual love was the highest expression of human love in the world. It is the closest we come to God.

Arcana Coelestia 5052: "The innermost heaven is the one through which the Lord instills marriage love. The people there are in peace more than other people are. Peace in the heavens is quite like springtime in the world, which touches everything with rejoicing: it is utterly heavenly in its origin. The angels in this heaven are the wisest of all. They love little children far more than their own fathers and mothers do. They are present with infants in the womb, and through them the Lord takes care that infants are nourished and developed there. So they superintend the womb during the process of birth."

Probably his conviction of the penultimate importance of love appealed to the homeopathic physicians of the 19th century as love is at the heart of all healing. This belief is very attractive in today's world also.

The number of homeopaths who were also Swedenborgians is surprising until you understand the inevitable attraction. Homeopathy came to America in the medical bag of the Swedenborgian Hans Burch Gram. Boericke, Hempel, Hering, Holcombe, Kent, Farrington, Tafel, Wesselhoeft, and Ward were only some of the homeopathic Swedenborgians. Even as recently as three years ago, a Tafel was President of the Swedenborg Foundation in the United States.

John James Garth Wilkinson is famous in Swedenborgian circles for the first English translations of Swedenborg. He was introduced to homeopathy through his friend Henry James Sr. He is famous in homeopathic history for spreading the homeopathic ìgospel" among the upper class in England, in no small part because of his gift for communicating homeopathic and Swedenborgian ideas. One of his friends, Ralph Waldo Emerson praised his "rhetoric like the armory of the invincible knights of old". In the following letter to Henry James, his Swedenborgianism is apparent . Furthermore, in my opinion, it is one of the finest passages in homeopathic literature:

"The matter of doses depends upon the fineness of the aim. In everything there is a punctum saliens so small, that if we could find it out, a pin's point would cover it as with a sky. What is the meaning of that invisible world which is especially versed about organization, if there be not forces and substances whose minuteness excludes them from our vision? We have not to batter the human body to pieces in order to destroy it, but an artistic prick - a bare bodkin - under the fifth rib, lets out the life entire. Nay had we greater skill of delineation, a word would do it. The sum of force brought to bear depends upon precision, and a single shot, true to its aim, or at most a succession of a few shots would terminate any battle that was ever fought, by picking off the chiefs. If our gunnery be unscientific, the two armies must pound each other, until chance produces the effects of science, by hitting the leaders; and in this case a prodigious expenditure of ammunition may be requisite; but when the balls are charmed, a handful will finish a war. It is not fair to count weight of metal when science is on the one side, and brute stuff on the other; or to suppose that there is any parallel of well-skilled smallness with ignorance of the most portentous size. The allopathic school is therefore wrong in supposing that our ëlittles are the fractions of their mickles'; the exactness of the aim in giving the former a new direction, takes them out of all comparison with the unwieldy stones which the orthodox throw from their catapults.

But again there is another consideration. Fact shows that the attenuation of medicines may go on to such a point, and yet their curative properties be preserved, nay, heightened, that we are obliged to desert the hypothesis of their material action, and to presume that they take rank as dynamical things. A drop of Aconite may be put into a glass of spirit, a dreg of this latter into another glass of spirit, and so on, to the hundredth or the thousandth time, and still the Aconite-property shall be available for cure. Here then we enter another field, and deal with the spirits of things, which are their potential forms, gradually refining massy drugs, until they are likened to those sightless agents which we know to be the roots of nature, and feel as the most powerful in ourselves. How such delicate monitors be looked at from the old point of view, as assimilated to the violence that is exercised by materialist physic? If the latter would stir the man, it does by as much main force as it dares to use; whereas the former moves him by a word, through the affinities and likings of his organization."

"Each and every thing that appears before the eyes is but the representative of its cause, and there is no cause except in the interior. Cause does not flow from the outermost of man to the interior.......Causes exist in such subtle form that they cannot be seen by the eye.....They are so immaterial that they correspond to and operate upon the interior nature of man, and they are ultimated in the body in the form of tissue changes that are recognized by the eye. Such tissue changes must be understood as the results of disease only or the physician will never perceive what disease is, or what the nature of life is."

"In considering simple substance we cannot think of time, place or space, because we are not in the realm of mathematics nor the restricted measurements of the world of space and time, we are in the realm of simple substance. It is only finite to think of place and time. Quantity cannot be predicated of simple substance, only quality in degrees of fineness. We see the importance of this in its special relation to Homeopathy, by using an illustration... When you have administered Sulphur 55m. in infrequent doses and find it will not work any longer, you give the c.m. potency and see the curative action taken up at once. Do we not see by this that we have entered a new series of degrees and are dealing entirely with quality?"

Kent believed that higher doses were more powerful and needed later in the treatment as disease is "finer" or even spiritual in nature. As the patient improves, the treatment must be at a more fundamental level. In other words, a remedy that is more spiritual will work better.

Today, many homeopaths believe that higher potencies act at subtler levels. For example, a psychotic patient needs a 10M, whereas a 6c won't help that patient very much. This idea is from Kent and a part of what has been labeled his mystical (Swedenborgian) homeopathy.

Swedenborgians have been remarkably disparate in their points of view and allegiance to organized Swedenborgian churches. Many who have considered themselves Swedenborgians have rejected Swedenborgian churches. This is not surprising as Swedenborg himself held that the interior understanding was important, not attending religious services. Many of his writings contain severe criticisms of organized Christianity's perversion of what he thought should be its proper teachings.

Much like his role as a homeopath, Kent was, perhaps, a fundamentalist among Swedenborgians. He was disposed towards strong and very 'black and white' opinions. Kent's most relevant comment on the interface of homeopathy and religion was, "A man who cannot believe in God cannot become a homeopath". In contrast is Constantine Hering's, "While there is good reason why Swedenborgians might prefer homeopathic treatment, there is none at all that homeopaths be Swedenborgians." Hering was himself a prominent member of the Philadelphia Swedenborgian church. He, however, believed that scientific proof was independent of religious dogma.

In lectures to classical-Kentian homeopaths, I have stated my belief that we are the late twentieth century version of Swedenborgians. The rising interest in metaphysics in the Western world has coincided with the homeopathic resurgence. I believe that our interest in mysticism and belief in spiritual well-being as the highest good are the preconditions for acceptance of Kentian homeopathy. For this reason, Twentyman's declaration of the demise of Kent's homeopathy was premature.

In another parallel, it is becoming apparent that the expansion of homeopathy could lead to the rise of a new fundamentalism to purge homeopathy of extraneous influences. If the usual dogmatic tendencies accompany this movement, the resulting schism would likely, once again, destroy many of our gains. My hope is, that by remaining aware of the potential, we can avoid this trauma. If we perpetually consider each step ahead in light of the essence of homeopathy (homeopathic doses of fundamentalism?), maybe we can trade frequent minor course adjustments for a major upheaval.

It is important that we provide excellent teaching to those coming behind us. Remaining true to the fundamental principles of homeopathy, we must avoid dogmatism by rigorously reappraising and improving our own practice of homeopathy. It is important to teach homeopathy to all who desire to learn, as much as they are able/willing to learn. New practitioners can help many patients with even a small fund of homeopathic knowledge. Their inexperience or part-time use of homeopathy should not be condemed as heretical. They should be cautioned against overstepping their limitations while we help them broaden their homeopathic skills. By counterbalancing diversity and fundamentalism homeopathy can move forward effectively.

Suggested Reading

Resources

Swedenborg Foundation P.O. Box 549, West Chester, PA 19381-0549 1-800-355-3222.
Publishers of Swedenborg's works since 1849 they publish a periodical Chrysalis and make Swedenborg's writings available inexpensively.

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