Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Therapeutic Force and Healing

Therapeutic Force and Homeopathy [11]

I must say that X’s theories about disease are absurd, however successful he may be as a homeopath-physician.

You may say what you like about the homeopathic theories, but I have seen X work them out detail by detail in cases where he had free and unhampered action and the confidence of the patients and their strict obedience and have seen the results correspond to his statements and his predictions based on them fulfilled not only to the very letter but according to the exact times fixed, not according to X’s reports but according to the daily long detailed and precise reports of the allopathic doctor in attendance. After that I refuse to believe, even if all the allopaths in the world shout it in unison, that homeopathic theory or X’s interpretation and application of it are mere rubbish and nonsense. As to mistakes all doctors make mistakes and very bad ones and kill as well as cure — my grandfather and one of my cousins were patently killed by one of the biggest doctors in Bengal. One theory is as good as another and as bad according to the application made of it in any particular case. But it is something else behind that decides the issue.

Just hear what grave errors he has committed. He said to me that he used his drug to bring about the profuse menstruation in Y’s case. Then he asked me whether this profuse flow should be stopped. Yes, I said, it must be stopped.

To bring out the latent illness and counteract it is a recognised principle in homeopathy and is a principle in Nature itself. He misapplied it here because he was in ignorance of the full facts about the menstrual trouble.

3 October 1936