Homeopathy. (Sometimes spelt homoeopathy – "oeo"? Ugh! Also "homœopathy" with the oe ligature, but almost no one these days knows that symbol exists.) A New Age and occult "medication" made by successively watering down a substance (which itself is often toxic) way past the point where not a single molecule of the original substance remains, while shaking it with each dilution. No reliable studies to date have shown homeopathic treatments work any better than placebos (think "sugar pill"). Browse through the Quackwatch archives for more information or their offshoot Homeowatch. Keep an eye out for their article that mentions the $20 million duck – one duck is killed per year by a certain company and its liver is diluted into US$20 million worth of products. (That's pretty dilute, by the way.) Skeptic James Randi has offered a US$1,000,000 prize to "anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." That includes homeopathy. No researchers have yet applied for the prize even though many claim to have proof that it works. So the BBC's documentary programme Horizon had a go at winning it. It made for another great Horizon documentary, and James Randi still has his money.

The New Zealand Cult List is of the firm opinion there is no published evidence to support the use of homeopathy as anything other than a placebo but homeopathy is assigned a Danger rating here because of the incredible amount of money wasted on it and because the blind faith that many homeopathy believers place in it causes spiritual blindness in other areas. Lives have also been put at risk by people relying on homeopathy to protect them from disease.

In August 2005 a significant study appeared in the British medical magazine The Lancet which shows homeopathic treatments are no more effective than a placebo. (As if we didn't already know that.)

Clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects
The evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies is weak, according to a study. The investigators conclude that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are compatible with placebo effects. Aijing Shang and colleagues compared randomised placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy with matched RCTs of allopathy. When the analysis was restricted to large trials of high quality there was no convincing evidence that homoeopathy was superior to placebo, whereas for conventional medicine an important effect remained.

A review of the study appeared in the Guardian newspaper and an article appeared in Time magazine, which stated (emphasis added):

Chances are that The Lancet is somewhat premature in announcing the "death" of homeopathy, which involves a large and very profitable industry and the loyalty of many of the consumers it has duped. In fact, The Lancet notes, ""the debate continues, despite 150 years of unfavourable findings. The more dilute the evidence for homoeopathy becomes, the greater seems its popularity."

But there are encouraging signs. The Swiss Government, after a five-year trial, has withdrawn insurance coverage for homeopathy. Even the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which has been criticized for being too open to spurious alternative medicine claims, has little good to say abut homeopathy. Its website states, "Systematic reviews have not found homeopathy to be a definitively proven treatment of any medical condition."

Now, The Lancet concludes, it's up to the doctors, who "need to be bold and honest with their patients about homeopathy's lack of benefit." For scientifically-literate physicians, that shouldn't be so difficult to do.

Some embrace homeopathy as a treatment that won't cause any harm, since homeopathic remedies are widely proclaimed to not have any side effects. However, such is not the case. In July 2006 the New Zealand Herald published an article warning of the dangers of relying on homeopathic remedies for treating malaria, a potentially fatal disease. Last year some British travellers contracted malaria after doing just that.

Professor Nicholas White of the University of Oxford said: "This is very dangerous nonsense and needs to be stopped. The prescribing of homoeopathic remedies to prevent malaria is a reprehensible example of potentially lethal duplicity."

Ron Behrens, director of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases Travel Clinic, said: "The misleading travel advice being given by homoeopaths is not a trivial problem. We have treated people at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases who thought they were protected by homoeopathic medicines and contracted malaria. The messages given by some homoeopaths are inaccurate, counter productive and place lives at risk."

...

Peter Fisher, clinical director of the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital said: "Malaria is a life threatening disease and there is no published evidence to support the use of homoeopathy in the prevention of malaria."

Also, the UK Skeptics has this to say on homeopathy:

Another danger lies in the fact that many homeopaths believe in what they call a "healing crisis". This is where a person who takes a remedy will actually get worse before getting better. This is put down to "toxins" being expelled from the body. Of course if someone is seriously ill and their condition is getting worse then they may not seek proper medical treatment as they put their declining physical state down to a healing crisis.

Other medical problems have arisen when homeopathic treatments have not been diluted sufficiently to avoid side effects. For example, there have been incidences of arsenic poisoning (arsenic is a common ingredient in homeopathic treatments), and hundreds of people lost their sense of smell after taking zinc gluconate in a cold remedy.

In homeopathy, diseases are said to be caused by miasms, a "peculiar morbid derangement of [the] vital force". The vital force, or vitalism, is the Western equivalent of the Eastern qi, or life force. Being strongly occultic, this gives Christians in particular another reason to keep well clear of homeopathy. Wikipedia's article on vitalism mentions the occult teachings of the founder:

The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of disease: "...they are solely spirit-like (dynamic) derangements of the spirit-like power (the vital principle) that animates the human body." [...] the view of disease as a dynamic disturbance of the immaterial and dynamic vital force is taught in many homeopathic colleges and constitutes a fundamental principle for many contemporary practising homeopaths.

It is also interesting to note that in 1803 Hahnemann published a paper in which he proposed that most diseases are caused by coffee. Understandably that idea did not catch on, so he tried different angles (including in 1827 that most diseases are caused by scabies), eventually settling on the vital force explanation mentioned above, in 1828.

	Danger: The group/person or belief/practice is considered dangerous due to mind control or particularly bad doctrine. These groups (or people) have a strong tendency to damage their members/followers.
	Hot Topic: The group/person or belief/practice has recently featured in the secular news media, has generated notable correspondence, is a popular conversation topic, etc. Note that this rating has nothing to do with the "cultishness" of a group.

Printed on 20 January 2021 at www.cults.co.nz.
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