There's an old Chippewa saying:

"There's two sides to every story—
and then there's the truth."

Homeopathy/Acupuncture Debate: Views from within the Homeopathy Community

from The Vexed Question of Antidotes by Miranda Castro, FSHom (faculty member of Bastyr University, Seattle, Washington)

"I remember reading about the old French homeopaths who would send their women patients home with a dose of Nux vomica for a drunken husband and instructions to put it in their unsuspecting spouse's soup. And it worked. I remember reading this and hearing my mind skid to an abrupt stop. I wasn't concerned about the ethical issues. I was amazed at how a remedy administered in hot soup could work. My patients were timing their 30 minutes before and after each dose with something approaching religious fervor, in order to take their remedies according to the rules about having a "clean mouth."
 
I started experimenting. I crushed remedies and sprinkled them in my dog's food. They worked. I told mothers not to worry about whether their children ate before or after a remedy. The remedies worked. A friend put her child's remedy in his macaroni and cheese. It worked. Another patient was desperate to give her elderly parent a remedy. Her mother didn't want a remedy. Her mother was suffering. I struggled with the ethics of this and finally relented. I suggested she put the remedy in her mother's morning tea. It worked.
 
And then I reflected on my practice and the relationships I was building with my patients and added into my reflections my hopes and goals for these relationships. I realized that the many rules I had built up around my treatments were acting as constrictions and sometimes as traps. I also realized that the very notion of enforcing them made it difficult for me not to persecute my patients when they "messed up," and this put them into an unpleasant victim-like position. Not the sort of healing relationship I had in mind."

from "Diet Regimens and Cancellations" webpage on Hahnemann's theories:

What did Samuel Hahnemann think about the use of the natural healing arts and their application during homeopathic treatment? Is there anything in his writings that could give us a clue?

The Complementary Therapies in The Organon
The Organon is the true foundation on which homoeopathy is build. In this classic work the last five aphorisms are dedicated the proper usage of the healing arts in general. Hahnemann includes in his treatise the use of mineral magnets, electricity, Galvanism, Mesmerism, massage, and hydrotherapy. Hahnemann was a practitioner of Mesmerism. He speaks of this healing methods in § 288 & 289 of The Organon. The Mesmers viewed the human organism as a biomagnet with vital centers and meridians of vital force. They saw disease as a mistunement of the vital force that circulates throughout the human nervous system and aura. A Mesmer seeks to restore the state of health by harmonizing the circulation of vital energy and transferring the pattern of health to the suffer. There are personal letters in which we find Hahnemann recommended the use of complementary therapies with homeopathic remedies. The Hofrath was a very careful observer who knew how to integrate the beneficial healing arts. The problem is not with these healing modalities but how they are applied and when?

Hahnemann wrote that a Mesmer possess a priceless gift from Almighty and notes in The Organon that some Mesmers could heal at a great distance The techniques Hahnemann is recommending act direct on the dynamic plane. That is why the Old Master used them. One well known homeopath claimed that psychic healing was the worse type of suppression. Are we to asking individuals to give up prayer? Hahnemann also recommends use that psychological counselings is very important during the treatment of mental disorders by homoeopathy. One who is practicing these arts still follows Hahnemann's teachings if they follow the philosophy of The Organon.

We homeopaths all know that too many therapies, too many therapists, and too many techniques are counter productive. If we practice by The Organon we believe in the minimal dose and minimal intervention. So many new age eclectics do too many things too fast. If one allows ones client to see such healers it is impossible to manage the case. Nevertheless, if complementary methods can help remove obstacles and speed the cure why not skillfully use them? Let us not confuse the two issues. We still have too many homeopaths who do.

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