Hering's Law

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Hering’s Law and a

Deeper Understanding of Cure

“For truth is of the same eternal origin with the all-wise,

benevolent Deity. Humanity can leave it long unnoticed until the time ordained by Providence

when its ray shall irresistibly break through the mist of prejudices as rosy dawn at the break of day,

in order to brightly and inextinguishably light humankind to its welfare.”

– Hahnemann, 1810

Claude Monet, “Sunrise”, 1872

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Abstract

The objective of this work is to creatively demonstrate a redirection of perspective from the material to the spiritual that can disclose the inner dynamics of the homeopathic cure-process, with the lantern of Swedenborg’s inspired philosophy focused on Hering’s “Law of Direction of Cure” as a guide. This redirection of perspective provides scope to explore some important issues briefly touched on by Homeopathy’s founder Samuel Hahnemann in his inspired writings, such as the higher purpose of life, karma and its relation to the actual cause and cure of disease, the alchemical basis of potentization, the yogic mechanism of homeopathic cure, and the importance of faith, hope, and love in the curative process.

The history of Hering’s Law is a significant part of the general history of homeopathic laws, which are firmly rooted in ancient medical traditions, including those of Hippocrates and Paracelsus. The latter evidently used a form of what was later called Hering’s Law, with the most-central heart designated as the original source of the direction of cure. If we take the writings of Paracelsus as a starting point of reference, we are led towards a deeper understanding of what we nowadays call Hering’s Law.

A purely physical understanding of Hering’s Law is demonstrably inadequate, whereas a spiritual perspective can give depth to in-sight. Helpful spiritual insights are found in the inspired writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose teachings were incorporated into his homeopathic philosophy by noted homeopath James T Kent. Swedenborg’s insights are especially valuable when interpreted in the light of the direct guidance available in the teachings of contemporary spiritual Masters.

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From the spiritual perspective, it can be said that the source of chronic illness is the endless craving of the separative ego, which creates and maintains a false dichotomy within the central mind-heart. Transform-ative cure can be attained with the help of homeopathy through the progressive annihilation of the central delusion asserting separativeness, and the subsequent reestablishment of true inner harmony.

“Know Thyself”, the inner-transformative yogic practice that Hahnemann advocated, is closely related to the basis of his postulated mechanism of homeopathic action; a leap of faith may be required to recognize this fully. Yogic practice and homeopathy can work in synergy with the faith-enabled loving power of heartful prayer to achieve true healing, which heals the body, purifies the heart, and brings the individual closer to the Goal of Life, namely, union with the Infinite Source of Existence.

Acknowledgments

We render heartful thanks in gratitude to Meher Baba for all and every-thing; and thanks also to Bhau Kalchuri, Eruch Jessawala, Manija Irani, Dr Goher Irani, Dr Alu Khambatta, Katie Irani, and my wife Sarah Schall, for their heart-inspiring guidance and support; and to Dr Trevor Cook and Dr Vivienne Freeman for their help and encouragement; and to Gaby Rottler, Chris Ott, Eric Nadel, Stuart Shotwell, Dr Rajan Sankaran, Dr André Saine, Dr George Guess, Dr Leonard Fox, Dr Michael Carlston, Dr K-H Gypser, Dr Fernand Debats, and Dr KS Srinivasan for helpful actions and encouraging words. And there are many spiritually-minded writers (Jan Scholten, Jayesh Shah and others) newly emerging in homeopathy and elsewhere, to whom we extend our deep appreciation for their invaluable ground-breaking explorations in this remarkable field.

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1. Introduction

Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), the founder of Homeopathy, expressed the concepts embodied in his medical writings in the language of his day. His audience consisted mainly of would-be doctors, and in order to propound and promulgate his new homeopathic art of healing he was obliged to communicate with them in their own language, utilizing the conceptual framework of their largely materialistic perspective.

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Unfortunately, the materialistic perspective is unable to comprehend the causes of things not externally perceptible, because its focus is outward, through the physical senses. And laws in homeopathy are popularly held to be derivable by simple extrapolation from the known scientific laws of the external material world. However, Hahnemann spoke of diseases as most generally having a non-material basis (44h): “The material substances of which the human organism is composed… are regulated by the laws peculiar to vitality alone… in the condition of sensibility and activity necessary to the preservation of the living whole, a condition almost spiritually dynamic… Hence it is obvious that the diseases excited by the dynamic and special influence of morbific and injurious agents can be originally only dynamical (caused almost solely by a spiritual process) derangements of the vital character of our organism.”

Christopher Ott sums up the poverty of externally focused materialistic thinking (105): “Matter by itself simply is not sufficient to explain all perceived phenomena.” The redirection of focus away from the limiting materialistic perspective, toward the spiritual dynamic of disease and cure that is expressed and implied in Hering’s Law, is the subject of this paper. Hahnemann penned encouragement to the quest of truth (6), “I know well how much self-denial it requires to leave the old train of ideas, to suppress it, and to wipe out, so to say, from the whole memory all the apparatus of ideas required by study, in order to give ingress, free ingress, on the soil thus laboriously cleared to the truth.”

James T Kent (1849-1916), probably the most renowned homeopath of the last century, connected Swedenborg and his remarkable doctrine of correspondences with Hering’s Law (74d): “Through familiarity with Swedenborg, I have found the correspondences wrought out from the

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Word of God harmonious with all I have learned in the past thirty years. Familiarity with them aids in determining the effect of prescriptions.” Kent early on declared (74a), “I take it for granted that every physician in his heart is searching for truth.” But, as we find stated in Meher Baba’s

God Speaks (88), “The question of details is all the more important when

a subject is beyond ordinary human experience… In the absence of underlying experience, descriptions of the same one thing often sound contradictory. But in the light of relative experiences or the final realization of Truth, the very contradictions prove to be complementary expressions about the same one Truth.”

The following intellectually groping explorations of Hering’s Law and related matters may seem to be filled with obscurities and contradictions. Yet the very contradictions that challenge acceptance of the truth of Hering’s Law may actually be instrumental in helping us to find a suitable working formulation that is more accurate in the light of a higher Truth. And Hahnemann declared that there is indeed a higher Truth, in his Introduction to the Organon (41): “For truth is of the same eternal origin with the all-wise, benevolent Deity. Humanity can leave it long unnoticed until the time ordained by Providence when its ray shall irresistibly break through the mist of prejudices as rosy dawn at the break of day, in order to brightly and inextinguishably light humankind to its welfare.”

The long-awaited breakthrough is joyfully heralded (6) in his quotation of Gellert’s poem on the title page of Organon (1st edition, pub. in 1810):

"The truth we mortals need / Us blest to make and keep, The All-wise slightly covered o'er, / But did not bury deep."

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2. Major Laws of Cure

There are two major laws of cure generally recognized in homeopathy. The first is the Law of Similars, rediscovered and revitalized by Samuel Hahnemann in 1796 (44a): “We should imitate nature, which sometimes cures a chronic disease by super-adding another, and employ in the (especially chronic) disease we wish to cure, that medicine which is able to produce another very similar artificial disease, and the former will be

cured: similia similibus—likes [will be cured] with likes.”

Later in 1810, in his Introduction to the Organon of the Medical Art (41), Hahnemann verbalized the healing strategy of this new art and science of homeopathy: similia similibus curentur, “let likes be cured with likes.” He expressed this concept in action: in symptom compilation, similimum selection and dispensation, etc. The Law of Similars, previously stated in the medical writings of Hippocrates, Paracelsus and others, was thus re-discovered and implemented by Hahnemann, by “observation, cogitation and experience,” and its value actively demonstrated in his daily practice. Hippocrates (460-377 BC) is quoted in the Introduction to Hahnemann’s

Organon (41) as stating, in Greek, “Through the like, disease is produced,

and through the application of the like, it is cured.” But Hahnemann added that its wider application was a new development: “Hitherto no one has ever taught this homoeopathic mode of cure, no one has carried it out in practice.” Hahnemann further attributed this new development to our Creator: “It was high time that He allowed homoeopathy to be found.” Paracelsus (1493-1541) not only stated (12) similia similibus curantur (“likes are cured by likes”) almost three centuries earlier; he also stated

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the reversed declaration (25): contraria non curantur contrariis (“un-likes are not cured by un-(“un-likes”), thereby declaring the Law of Similars to be a bona fide Law. According to Weitbrecht (166c), a law (or “fixed principle”) is held to be true “if the reverse is valid as well”; but this is not requisite for a rule. This logic applicable to the Law of Similars has also been applied to the Law of Direction of Cure, as we shall see later. Kent stressed the vital importance of obedience to the healing law (74e): “Obedience demonstrates that homoeopathy rests upon fixed principles— a law—and is not a mere rule of practice to be changed for something better.” The complaint of homeopathic physicians that the Law of Similars doesn’t always work has been addressed by Jonathan Shore (139): “Faced with the fact that the similar remedy will invariably cure, we have no choice but to turn towards ourselves and the level of our skills, when, as so often happens, our remedies do not act as we anticipate.” Before blaming or belittling our Laws, we should strive to perfect our own individual skill level.

The second major known homeopathic law, the Law of Direction of Cure, was disclosed by Constantine Hering (1800-80) and later promulgated by Kent and his school as “Hering’s Law”. This so-called “law” has been the subject of endless dispute since it was first announced to the world as such by Kent. It’s the same argument, as cogently expressed by André Saine (126): “A law, if it is to be called a law, must explain all observable phenomena. It is unacceptable to use limited or even selected clinical phenomena to confirm a supposed law.” And he gave some instances in which the law as commonly formulated doesn’t seem to work.

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However, as George Vithoulkas (164) pointed out, “The fact that most cases do not [clearly demonstrate Hering’s Law] is not a reflection upon the prescribing ability of the homeopath but rather upon the severe nature of the cases which end up consulting a homeopath in the first place.” Still yet, in spite of the many attempts to make Hering’s Law work “as-is,” it seems possible that the commonly employed formulation may actually have been misapprehended, and is accordingly often misapplied (80,126).

Thomas Troward recommends further investigation (149): “When we first observe the working of the Law under conditions spontaneously provided by Nature, it appears to limit us; but by seeking the reason of the action exhibited under these conditions, we discover the principle and true nature of the law in question, and we then learn from the law itself, what conditions to supply in order to give it more extended scope, and to direct its energy to the accomplishment of definite purposes.”

It may be that misapprehension of the actual law or laws underlying Hering’s Law is the cause of the problem of its seeming unreliability, and the ultimate solution may be sought through a redirection of focus, from effect to cause, from the materialistic perspective to the spiritual.

3. Statement of Hering’s Law

Hering never claimed a “Hering’s Law” as such, but he did posit a “law of order,” as we shall see. What is commonly called “Hering’s Law” of direction of cure was proclaimed as such by Kent in 1911, and later in 1938 expressed by Kent’s former student and colleague Arthur Grimmer (1874-1967), as follows (38): “Hahnemann states that under the action of the homoeopathic remedy symptoms disappear in the inverse order of

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their coming, that is the last to come are the first to go. And Hering added to the above another observation concerning the order in which symptoms leave the patient when under the influence of the homoeopathic remedy, it is as follows: Symptoms, pains and disease processes leave the patient from above downward and from within outward, or from center to circumference.” The core direction “from center to circumference” is equivalent to the combination of “from above downward” and “from within outward”; these observations coupled with Hahnemann’s rule of sequence comprise what is called “Hering’s Law”. Hering’s Law is often used in clinical practice as a “rule of thumb” to distinguish between actual cure and palliation or suppression, and thus to determine prognosis and the direction that the case is moving, for better or for worse. Nilmani Ghatak (1872-1940) gave an example (33): “I have never cured a case of heart disease without appearance of some rheumatic or skin troubles, and whenever such rheumatic or skin troubles have appeared the patients have always felt better in their hearts proportionately to the skin and rheumatic affections that have appeared. If you remember that the process of cure is always like this—from the centre to the circumference, from the more internal to the external, and if you find that exactly the same thing is happening in your patient’s case you will be able to make sure that it is true cure that is coming.”

Kent gave a similar example to demonstrate his application of Hering’s Law in the situation when a positive prognosis is contraindicated (74d): “If you have a heart affection improving on your prescription and a desire to destroy life follows, you must antidote the prescription: the symptoms are taking the wrong direction. When rheumatic affections disappear from the extremities and go to the heart, and later the patient wants to

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destroy his life, the course is from without in.”

Although what is called Hering’s Law has often been stated as a law of nature, it is scientifically unproven, and perhaps not rigorously provable, since how can we be “scientifically” certain with our ordinary percep-tivity, that a given case of so-called cure was not really one of palliation or suppression? For example, Hahnemann wrote in Chronic Diseases (43) on the three original chronic miasms generative of human illness (psora, sycosis, and syphilis), that the most-original miasm psora may be latently present unbeknownst to all, “so that anyone, who does not know the signs of its latent presence, would suppose and declare such persons to be healthy and free from any internal malady.” One’s true state of health cannot be reliably evaluated by the superficial observer, and consequently Hering’s Law may be in effect “scientifically unprovable.”

4. Historical Origins of Hering’s Law

What we call Hering’s Law (and/or its various “rules”) has been known to perceptive physicians since ancient times. George Vithoulkas quotes (163) several examples of Hippocrates’ practical application of its core “center to circumference” rule: “One of those who have most clearly described the direction followed, if a cure is to take place, is Hippocrates himself. In the 49th of his aphorisms he writes: ‘In a person suffering from angina pectoris, the appearance of swelling and erythema on the chest is a good sign, for it shows that the disease is moving towards the circumference.’”

Hippocrates is not recorded as having propounded a “Law” as such, but he did simply and insightfully demonstrate by example the prognostic

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value of the direction of cure. Hahnemann exclaimed of Hippocrates’ wisdom (44b): “How near was this great man to the philosopher’s stone of physicians – simplicity! …It was owing to the simplicity of his treatment of diseases alone, that he saw all that he did see, and whereat we marvel.” Thus Hahnemann extolled the naturally intuitive simplicity of Hippocrates (105), as one’s guiding light for ascertaining Truth.

Hahnemann’s high appraisal of Hippocrates might equally be applicable to Paracelsus, whose work, however, he disacknowledged as a source of his inspiration (100). Hering (who corresponded with Hahnemann) was “deeply interested” in the life and works of Paracelsus (78); yet Hahnemann, who also had access to and must have seen the works of Paracelsus (100), never acknowledged any kind of indebtedness.

According to Robert Dudgeon (25), “It is impossible at this moment to say if Hahnemann was acquainted with Paracelsus’ writings... The resemblance of some passages in the Organon and in the minor writings of Hahnemann, to some parts of Paracelsus’ works is so very striking, that it is difficult to believe that Hahnemann did not take them from Paracelsus; and yet had he done so, would he not have acknowledged the fact?” But Hahnemann’s remarkably persistent lack of awareness of the teachings of Paracelsus may in itself amount to tacit acknowledgment. Hahnemann’s biographer Thomas Bradford (6) asserts that if Hahnemann borrowed his doctrines from Paracelsus, “he himself did not think he did.” Nevertheless, the remarkable parallels between the temperaments and medical teachings of Paracelsus and Hahnemann (25) are so striking as to make one seriously wonder whether the spirit of Paracelsus himself

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had not actually been brought back into the world by God, in the person of Hahnemann, in order to further his selfless work for humanity.

Goethe may have referred to Hahnemann (100) as a “new Theophrastus Paracelsus” for good reason. Is it purely circumstantial that the two God-inspired physicians so closely resembled each other in so many respects? In any case, the study of Hahnemann’s writings would certainly benefit from cross-comparison with the medical writings of Paracelsus.

Take for example, Hahnemann’s quintamillesimal potentizations which he described in Organon §270 (41): “By means of this mechanical processing… a given medicinal substance which, in its crude state, is only matter (in some cases, unmedicinal matter), is subtilized and transformed by these higher and higher dynamizations to become a spirit-like medicinal power.” Compare with this Paracelsus’ description of his spagyric “quintessence” (110): “The quinta essentia is that which is extracted from a substance… then freed of all impurities and all perish-able parts, refined into highest purity and separated from all elements… It is endowed with extraordinary powers and perfections, and in it is found a great purity, through which it effects an alteration or cleansing in the body.”

St. Exupéry wrote (128): “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” It certainly seems plausible that these preparation processes might be essentially equivalent. The processes of succussion and trituration could in essence generate increments of “subtle energy” from the fiery creative potential of the loving will-power, this duly imparted to the homeopathic remedy during successive potentization steps thereby raising it into the

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“radiant” state of insubstantiality (73). Thus the effectiveness of this empowerment process may depend on a kind of “alchemy” (116).

The great mystic saint Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) described the probably alchemical basis of potentization (77d): “The qualities of all things are to be found in their spirit rather than in the things themselves. Ancient physicians, knowing this, tried to extract the essence from certain things by grinding, by burning, or by washing them a great number of times. By doing this they were able to bring out the spirit of the object, and that spirit became a thousand times more powerful then the object itself. Those who are acquainted with alchemy know how to bring out the living part hidden within every substance, every object and even to some extent their essence; and when this essence is extracted, then all the benefit that can be derived from that object is derived.”

Paracelsus wrote (110): “What is accomplished by fire is alchemy… The same is true of medicine. It too was created by God, but not in its finished state, but still concealed in dross. To release the remedy from the dross is the task of Vulcan.” The homeopath is a modern apothecary or Vulcan. The sense of “fire” intended by Paracelsus may actually not be that of physical fire, but of Vedic Agni (35), the “inner Flame” corresponding to love-in-action (64), the “will in the heart” to with a loving effort of God-mindful will-power, prepare a subtle but curatively effective medicine. Aurobindo described the will-force empowering potentization (35): “That flame of Agni is the seven-tongued power of the Will, a Force of God instinct with knowledge. This conscious and forceful will is the immortal guest in our mortality, a pure priest and a divine worker, the mediator

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between earth and heaven. It carries what we offer to the higher Powers and brings back in return their force and light and joy into our humanity.” Das Gupta wrote (22) of the “close analogy of methods in the process of preparations of homeopathic and ayurvedic medicines—the same techniques of triturations [or succussions] with patience and will. You know that Hahnemann advises the physician to prepare his own medicine with his own hands and that with a will.” Indeed, the Paracelsian spagyric “quintessences” are often potentized as the intuitively guided last stage of preparation for their effective dispensation (37).

Paracelsus not only stated what we call the Law of Similars; he may also have stated the inner essence of what we call the Law of Direction of Cure. For instance, Paracelsus wrote of the inward direction of allopathic suppression, stating that (50) “violent drugs administered by the modern practitioner usually serve only to drive away effects by shifting the seat of the disease to a still more interior and more dangerous place.”

The “heart” is the most-interior place, as he elsewhere emphatically stated of the direction of cure (110): “The art of medicine is rooted in the heart,” and: “Every cure should proceed from the power of the heart; for only thereby can all diseases be expelled. Therefore, and take good note of this, it is particularly absurd to act in opposition to the heart. The heart wants to dispel the diseases, then why do you drive them toward the heart? ... After all, the curative power must come from the heart, and the disease must be driven into the remotest corner ... Every medicine should act outward from the heart, and not in the direction of the heart. It starts from the heart and is made to work by the heart’s own power.”

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We will take this latter statement of Paracelsus as a guiding precept of our investigation of the essence of Hering’s Law. But the question needs answering: what did Paracelsus mean by his use of the word “heart”?

5. The Central Heart of the Mind-Heart

In English, the word “heart” has several different but substantially inter-related meanings. Joan Ford summarized (31): “The heart of a matter is that which is central to its significance.” If we take it that the above-quoted statements of Paracelsus disclose the essence of Hering’s Law, we are taking the so-called “heart” of the matter to be the central direction-source, the source of healing from which the cure proceeds.

In an old commentary on the ancient Sanskrit Ayurvedic text Charaka

Samhita, the heart is central-most in its significance (10): “The soul

represents not the universal self but the animated self who enjoys happiness and misery. This soul together with consciousness and mind cannot but be located in the heart. That is why consciousness, happiness and misery are felt only in the heart. One actually feels pain in the cardiac region and nowhere else while he is in the pensive or unhappy mood… Thus, all that is felt and also the very act of feeling are dependent on the heart… if the heart is affected, all the normal bodily and mental activities are paralyzed. It is not so with other parts of the body.”

The central-most heart may be viewed from three different perspectives: physical, energetic, and mental. Homeopath Edwin Hale pointed out the use of applying multiple perspectives (46): “It is my conviction that but few physicians have realized the importance of the subtle relations of the brain or mind with the heart; or appreciate the connection between the

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soul and that centre of physical life. We might go so far as to assert that there is a physical heart, which is the life-giving centre of the body, so there must be a spiritual heart, which is the centre of soul-life.”

The heart may be regarded as a dynamic pivot of vital functions, energetically balancing the functioning of mind and body. Ralph Twentyman wrote (150): “Taking a physiognomic look at man, where the heart rises to its highest perfection, becoming even the organ for love and conscience, we find the heart occupying a central position... between the upper and lower poles of man... In the rhythm of systole and diastole the heart holds the balance between these upper and lower forces... Only when things are thrown out of balance by disease or unaccustomed exertion does the heart labour.”

The Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan voiced a high perspective (77b): “For a materialist the heart is the piece of flesh hidden in the breast, but for the mystic the heart is the center of the person round which the personality is formed…” Elsewhere he stated (77c): “There is a nerve center in the breast of man which is so sensitive to our feelings that it is always regarded as the heart… But a mystic's conception is that the heart, which is the beginning of form, is also the beginning of the spirit that makes man an individual. The depth of that spirit is, in reality, what we call the heart. Through this, we understand that there is such a thing as a heart, which is the deepest depth of man's being.”

From the highest perspective, the heart and the intellect or ego-mind may be understood to be opposite aspects of the greater “mind-heart” (94) or mental body. Meher Baba wrote (87): “The soul, which in reality is one and undifferentiated, is apparently individualized through the limitations

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of the mental body, which is the seat of the ego-mind. The ego-mind is formed by the accumulated impressions of past experiences and actions.” Meher Baba described the functioning of the mental body (119): “The mind has a dual function… The first function is that of thinking. The impressions that lie dormant have to be worked out, and so they appear as thoughts. This thinking function of mind is known to the Vedantists as

manas. The second function of mind includes all feelings and emotions.

This is called antahkarana. That means the heart. So what is known as the heart is actually the second functioning of the mind itself.”

The interwoven terminologies of mind and heart, used to describe the mental body and its mind-heart subdivisions, are too complex to deal with here, but the nonmaterial heart may be taken as an energetic nexus mediating the “mind-body” dichotomy, together forming the “spirit, heart and body” triad alluded to by Hahnemann in Organon §78 footnote (41). The nexus (mind-body linkage) concept is found in a variety of sources. According to Childre & Martin (11), “In traditional Chinese medicine, the heart is seen as the seat of connection between the mind and the body, forming a bridge between the two.” And Paracelsus seems to have depicted a spiritually energetic circulation through this heart nexus in these words (50): “the human blood contains an airy, fiery spirit, and this spirit has its centre in the heart, where it is most condensed, and from which it radiates, and the radiating rays return to the heart.”

Cyrus Boger (1861-1935) wrote (4c): ““Energy, as we understand it, is of a three-fold form, spiritual, dynamic, and physical… In the human body we have present all three forms of energy, the physical in the tissues, the dynamic in the brain and nervous system, and the spiritual in the mind.”

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Thus the nervous system may be considered to accommodate a second energetic nexus bridging mind and body.

Pierre Schmidt (1894-1987) described it thusly (132): “The neuro-vegetative system is the structural bond between the psychic and the somatic spheres; its paths and centres are graduated from the cortex to the major diencephalic cross-roads, to the bulb or to the spinal cord, and their ramifications extend to the vascular extremities and into the depths of the tissues.” And Ralph Twentyman (1914-2010) described (153) the polar processes mediated through these nexuses: “Within the complex processes or functions which constitute the human organism two polar processes stand in extreme contrast to each other. On the one hand there are those processes related to the nervous and sensory organs and functions and on the other those related to the blood.

“Reality is already mediated to us in analysed form through the sensory organization… and this process of analysis is prolonged into the nerves and brain… this nerve tissue or process tends to freeze, fix, separate and finally atomize experience. Within the living organism, however, this tendency is countered by the circulating blood process whose inherent tendency is to unify and bring back into wholeness any process or tissue which is separating itself out of the whole. We are all inclined to wholeness through our blood and it would be well to acknowledge that a balance between these polar processes, between analysis and synthesis, is what we should be aiming at in healing.”

These matters may be thoroughly explored by future investigators. But for now, we propose for our purpose here that the subtle or energetic heart referred to by Paracelsus as the actual Direction of Cure may be representable as an energetic nexus between mind and body comprising

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the feeling aspect of the supersensible mind-heart. The mind-heart nexus is thrown out of balance in disease, and restored by cure. With this in mind, perhaps a clearer understanding of the nature of the actual law of disease and cure underlying what is known as Hering’s Law may be attainable. This understanding should be compatible with the writings of Hahnemann, the source attributed by Hering to his Law.

6. The Attributed Source for Hering’s Law

Constantine Hering first described a “law of order” in his preface to Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases, and he attributed the source of this concept to Hahnemann. Here are some points relevant to what is now called Hering’s Law, which were extracted by André Saine from Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases (126), with an addition in brackets: “All diseases, acute and chronic of non-venereal origin, come from the original malady called psora... A skin eruption is the first manifestation of psora. The skin eruption acts as a substitute for the internal psora... and prevents the breaking out of the internal disease... The more the skin eruption spreads the more it keeps the internal manifestations of psora latent... But when the skin eruption is suppressed with an external application or other influences the latent psora goes unnoticed and its internal manifestation increases [its symptoms become gradually more troublesome, or develop in more important parts of the organism]. Then it originates a legion of chronic diseases…”

“During the treatment of chronic diseases of non-venereal origin with antipsoric remedies, the last symptoms are always the first to disap-pear, but the oldest ailments and those which have been most constant and unchanged, among which are the local ailments, are the last to give

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way... If old symptoms return during an antipsoric treatment, it means that the remedy is affecting psora at its roots and will do much for its thorough cure... If a skin eruption appears during the treatment while all other symptoms have so far improved the end of the treatment is close.” The bracketed addition provides Hahnemann’s hierarchy of importance, the logical source of Hering’s sub-directions. We will see in the next section Hering’s “law of order,” probably based on some such compil-ation of the statements of Hahnemann. They represent the most-essential concepts from which Hering distilled the law which he presented in his preface to the American edition of Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases.

7. Hering’s “Law of Order”

In Chronic Diseases (43), Hahnemann addressed the differentiation of true cure and homeopathic palliation, which is “a kind of a cure which brought back the manifest [original cause of disease] psora into a latent condition and thus produced a kind of healthy condition, especially with young, vigorous persons, such as would appear as real health to every observer who did not examine accurately.”

It may have been simply to provide the homeopathic practitioner with a working tool to make this practical differentiation that Hering in his preface to Chronic Diseases extracted his prognostic “law” from Hahnemann’s work. Hering stated (78) that “All of what Hahnemann had left undetermined, or vaguely said, I ground to a finer edge, or made more pointed.” And so from Hahnemann’s vague “direction of cure” indi-cations in Chronic Diseases, Hering extracted a definite “law of order”.

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In his introductory preface to the 2nd edition of Hahnemann’s Chronic

Diseases (Hempel’s American translation) published in 1845 (57), Hering

inserted the following pertinent extract from an otherwise unpublished essay, entitled “Guide to the Progressive Development of Homoeopathy”: “As acute diseases terminate in an eruption upon the skin, which divides, dries up, and then passes off, so it is with many chronic diseases. All diseases diminish in intensity, improve, and are cured by the internal organism freeing itself from them little by little; the internal disease approaches more and more to the external tissues, until it finally arrives at the skin.”

“Every homoeopathic physician must have observed that the improvement in pain takes place from above downward; and in diseases, from within outward. This is the reason why chronic diseases, if they are thoroughly cured, always terminate in some cutaneous eruption...”

“The thorough cure for a widely ramified chronic disease in the organism is indicated by the most important organs being first relieved. The affection passes off in the order in which the organs had been affected, the more important being relieved first, the next important next, and the skin last. Even the superficial observer will not fail in recognising this law of order. An improvement which takes place in a different order can never be relied upon… The disease may take a different turn, it may change its form and, in this new form, it may be less troublesome; but the general state of the organism will suffer in consequence of this transformation.” (italics added)

“Hence it is that Hahnemann inculcates with so much care the important rule to attend to the moral symptoms, and to judge of the degree of homoeopathic adaptation existing between the remedy and the

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disease, by the improvement which takes place in the moral condition, and the general well-being of the patient…”

By “moral”, Hering probably meant “mental/emotional” (159), i.e., characterizing the “psychological” heart-center of the human being. Hering essentially seems to have boiled down the theoretical part of Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases, and began his introductory preface by stating his core direction concept based on Hahnemann: that during the cure of chronic disease the illness shifts its manifestation in the body, from center to periphery, terminating in a skin eruption. Then he introduced the up-down and in-out sub-directions, which add observer perspective relativity to the center to periphery core direction concept. The core direction conforms to the hierarchy of importance. Verspoor & Decker (159) wrote that “Hering (as Hahnemann) had a qualitative understanding, which was hierarchical in nature, linked to the idea of ‘nobility’ [i.e., intrinsic importance]. This, of course, requires a deeper understanding of the qualitative ranking of the different organs…” The qualitative ranking is thus paramount. The innermost psychological state of the patient, the “most important in terms of nobility,” is to be cured first, proceeding thenceforward in the order of importance. This is the center to circumference rule of Hering’s original Law, which has been commonly considered to describe the spatiotemporal movements of the cure through the organs of the body. Not only did Hering call it a “law of order,” but he also stated that a different order “can never be relied upon,” thus implying that the reverse may be valid – i.e., he considers that it may be truly called a Law, and not just a useful rule of practice.

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8. Hering’s “Three Rules” of Practice

Twenty years later Hering wrote a second article on the same subject (55), “Hahnemann’s Three Rules Concerning the Rank of Symptoms.” This article, published three times before 1900 (1865, 1878, and 1888), was certainly seen by JT Kent, who in turn gave his own version of these ideas wide dissemination. In it, Hering stated the following “rules”:

“RULE 1-- The characteristics of the case must be similar to the characteristics of the drug (Organon, par. 153 et al.)…”

“RULE 2-- Hahnemann has given us a second rule in his Chronic Diseases... The quintessence of his doctrine is to give, in all chronic diseases, (diseases which progress from without inwardly, from the less essential parts of the body to the more essential, from the periphery to the central organs, generally from below upwards), drugs which act from within outward, from above downward, from the most to the less essential organs, from the brain and the nerves outward and down to the most outward and the lowest of all organs, the skin...”

“RULE 3-- Hahnemann gives us a third rule… in his Chronic Diseases: Symptoms recently developed are the first to yield. Oldest symptoms disappear last. Here we have one of Hahnemann’s general observations which, like all of them, is of endless value, a plain, practical rule of immense importance… It was never observed before Hahnemann, nor was it ever stated as a rule…”

“The second rule of Hahnemann… is also of great influence when one arranges the symptoms of the sick. All symptoms of inward affections, all the symptoms of the mind or other inward actions, are, according to it, of much higher value than the most molesting or destruc-tive symptoms on the surface of the body. A decrease or an amelioration

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of outward symptoms, with an increase of inward complaints, even if the latter apparently are of little importance, will be an indication that the patient is getting worse, and one must try to find among the symptoms those indicating another medicine which will act curatively.”

“Very frequently one will see ineffectual attempts of the inward actions to throw out and bring to the surface that which attacks the center of life. The physician must try to assist such attempts… he must inquire principally for the hidden inward symptoms, and study them with the utmost care to find medicines which correspond exactly to the subjective or inward symptoms.”

In this second article, Hering presented three “rules” (n.b: a rule can be a law) to be obeyed in homeopathic practice. Rule 1 is the well-established Law of Similars, and Rules 2 & 3 comprise Hering’s “law of order.” The parallel statements in Rule 2 (“from within out, from above down, from most to least essential organs”) suggest a dynamic correlation between the quality of essentiality and the “direction” sub-rules (the hierarchy of importance). The up-down correlation may be considered tangibly demonstrable through the hierarchical organization of the central nervous system, with the brain topmost, and the in-out correlation more subtly, with the qualitatively most-important “heart” in the center, and the least-important skin layer at the outermost periphery.

But while the two directions physically seem to be centrally offset from each other, Hering may have actually envisaged a most perfect correlation between them, manifesting from the central mind-heart nexus, which would accommodate all three aspects of a single unified rule 2. Thereby united in spatiotemporal functional combination with rule 3, the three rules would form a unified law of direction of cure.

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Kent later regarded Hering’s spatial sub-directions to form (combined with the temporal direction) a unified whole in essence, stating that (75f): “Higher means interior in quality.” Vithoulkas explains the concept of unification (164): “It is not that there are merely four specific directions of cure; there is in reality only one direction of cure which language can only describe clearly in terms of four specific observations.”

So now we will look at the spatial and temporal direction rules of Hering and their reformulation by Kent, and consider how they might all be seen to function together within the unified law of direction of cure.

9. The Spatial Direction Rules

Recall Boger’s assertion (4c) that energy is “of a three-fold form, spiritual, dynamic, and physical.” At the lowest physical level, the sub-directions of energy flow may be treated as orthogonal (at right angles) vector components of the center-periphery core direction, as may have been intimated by Pierre Schmidt (134): “These two actions: from within out and from above downwards, in accordance with the Law of Hering, are two indications which express the centrifugal evolution given to the morbid processes when a true cure is taking place. The interdependence of the actions which take place in accordance with the Law of Hering, and their common character which is the centrifugal direction of cure, accounts for the fact that they are so often intricated.” Thus a spiral-like centrifugal (“center-fleeing”) flow of energy might have a physical basis as Hering seems to have speculated by implication in his “Rule of Sides” (56); the spiral-like basis might be dynamic and/or spiritual (144d,158).

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It has been stated that Hering’s physical sub-directions do not perfectly correlate with each other in clinical practice (126). Perhaps this is due to the imperfect nature of such a purely physical interpretation. A dynamic interpretation expressing a higher perspective would probably make more sense. Weitbrecht (166a) wrote that “[Hering’s] law only makes sense, if we assume a hierarchic structure being the basis of man.”

The sub-directions may thus be considered as relating to complementary dynamic aspects of the biological hierarchy described by Hahnemann (44h): “The exciting causes of disease rather act by means of their special properties on the state of our life (on our health), only in a dynamic manner, very similar to a spiritual manner, and inasmuch as they first derange the organs of the higher rank and of the vital force, there occurs from this state of derangement... the inevitable consequence of the altered vital character, which now differs from the healthy state.”

The concept of “higher rank” thereby introduces the up-down direction as an aspect of the biological hierarchy. And the in-out sub-direction may be the quintessential complementary aspect of this hierarchy. Vithoulkas wrote (164): “The idea of hierarchy is actually the idea of the Oneness from which all else has been created. All entities and all levels are connected throughout the universe by this concept, therefore it can be considered a universal law.”

The biological hierarchy may thus be considered to have two distinct aspects, logically depicted as orthogonal to each other: one separative and the other wholistic or unitive. The up-down separative aspect asserts discrete levels of functional dominance and subordination (i.e., relative

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importance). The in-out unitive aspect ties everything together into a functional whole with a common purpose: “all for one, & one for all.” The dynamic hierarchy concept may be more conceptually consistent than the usual spatial concepts, but the pragmatic value of this is not yet clear. Hans Weitbrecht pointed out (166d) that the spatial sub-directions were not stated in so many words in Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases: “There is no mentioning in Hahnemann’s works [as] regards direction from inside out or from top to bottom. These directions are found in Swedenborg’s spiritualistic teachings (Heaven & Hell, 1758).” A “very similar” spiritual interpretation based on Swedenborg’s teaching might make the dynamic hierarchy concept more pragmatically applicable. Both Hering and Kent were members of the spiritualistic New Church of Swedenborg (148). Hering is considered to have kept homeopathy and Swedenborgianism “quite separate” (169), never directly alluding to Swedenborg in his medical writings. Indeed, he considered direct allusion unnecessary (114), and declared pragmatically: “While there is good reason why Swedenborgians might prefer homeopathic treatment, there is none at all that all homeopaths be Swedenborgians.” However, Kent went on to openly adopt Swedenborg’s philosophy in his own medical practice (73): “All my teaching is founded on that of Hahnemann and of Swedenborg; their teachings correspond perfectly.”

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), a scientist turned mystical visionary, had used the terms “higher” and “lower” in his writings to referentially denote the “inward” spiritual realm intergrading with the “outward” material realm (158). We find in Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell (144a): “We use the words ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ as a way of referring to more

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inward things and more outward things.” The relevance to Hering’s Law is implicated by Swedenborg’s Paracelsian teaching (142) of the correspondence of microcosm and macrocosm, namely (144a): “Within the human individual, the inner person is structured in the likeness of heaven and the outer in the likeness of earth.” Swedenborg’s teachings are indeed worthy of study, and can be illuminative in the context of a deeper spiritual understanding.

According to Swedenborgian philosopher José Pacheco (108), Sweden-borg’s directions maintain perfect correspondence with each other:

“Swedenborg divides reality, in a universal and hierarchical way, into three great areas (the degrees) that act analogically (in correspon-dence) in all the orders of reality…”

“Swedenborg divided the series of degrees into two classes: degrees of height and degrees of width. The degrees of height are successive and discrete (that is, separate); they go from the greatest to the least, if you start from the top, and from the least to the greatest, if you start from the bottom. The degrees of width are simultaneous and continuous, and go from the innermost to the exterior…”

“There exists a correspondence between the higher and the innermost, between the middle and the interior, and between the lower and the exterior. All of reality that one finds in a degree of height participates at the same time in a specified degree of width.”

Swedenborg thus asserts perfect correspondence between the directions in his interpretative framework. Swedenborg stated that all things manifest will & understanding (love & wisdom) in degrees of “width and height” (144b). The degrees of width are interrelated continuously, as in the jugglery of diametrically opposing states of good & bad qualities,

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etc.; the degrees of height discretely, as in the stepwise-pacing progression of cause & effect (144b). Spiritual insights borrowed from Swedenborg’s teachings are thus of value in implementing the so-called spatial rules of Hering’s Law. It may be that the spatial sub-directions will be seen to emerge in a twisting spiral of quality and pace (129) from the central heart-focus, as depicted symbolically in the mystical Dance of Shiva (17), and schematically in the dynamic interplay around the mias-matic triangle of Gurdjieff’s “enneagram of perpetual motion” (47, 107).

10. The Temporal Direction Rule

But how can there be any kind of “space” in this relativistic universe without “time”? Motion & position are relative. The temporal direction rule addresses the sequence of the emerging spatial disease/cure signs & symptoms, and the associated processes (metaschematisms) manifesting them. Sequence is a temporal function which uniquely interconnects the inner and outer perceptual realms, covering the full range of cause & effect accordingly recorded in the memory aspect of the mind.

Temporal functions excepting sequence seem conceptually inexplicable. “What then is time?” queried St. Augustine (354-430 AD), as quoted by Paschero (111f): “I know what it is if no one asks me what it is; but if I want to explain it to someone who has asked me, I find that I do not know.” Thus he voiced the outward indefinability of the inner dynamic. The 20th century Russian physicist Kozyrev affirmed (80), “Time is the most important and most enigmatic property of nature. The concept of time surpasses our imagination.” He continued (80), “In reality, the exact

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sciences negate the existence in time of any other qualities other than the simplest quality of ‘duration’ or time intervals, the measurement of which is realized in hours. This quality of time is similar to the spatial interval.” But Einstein jocularly demonstrated the elusive relativity of subtle duration perception (29): “When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.” And he concluded, “The state of mind of the observer plays a crucial role in the perception of time.” Perception of duration is thus a relative function of the psychospiritual state. As Swedenborg wrote (144b), “A pleasant state makes time seem brief, and and an unpleasant one makes it seem long. We can therefore see that time in the spiritual world is simply an attribute of state.”

Duration, though not directly addressable as such by Hering’s Law, is referenced indirectly in terms of serial sequences of events (26), a sequence being a continuity of the unbroken flow of instants, the ultimate particles of time (84). The events themselves are strictly determined. Meher Baba wrote (87): “Time in the semisubtle world [of inner perception] is not the same as time in the gross world due to the increased subjectivity of the states of consciousness. Though time in the semisubtle world is thus incommensurable with time in the gross world, it is strictly determined by the impressions accumulated in the gross world.”

Kozyrev observed (80), “causality comprises the most important quality of the real world.” Biological events thus occur in strictly determined sequences of cause and effect: cause-effect relationships thereby manifest the existential purpose sustaining the biological hierarchy. True cure has obviously the same directionality as the life force: according to Kent (73),

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“if the patient is cured from cause to effect he must remain cured.” Thus he emphasized the importance of recording the cause-effect sequence of disease signs & symptoms for prognostic evaluation of cure.

“Metaschematism” was Hahnemann’s term in the Organon (41) for the underlying “changes of form” of a disease, the cause-effect sequences of abnormal alterations of structure and function expressed as spatio-temporal transformations. Recall Hering’s statement (57): “The disease may take a different turn, it may change its form and, in this new form, it may be less troublesome; but the general state of the organism will suffer in consequence of this transformation.” But disease metaschematisms evaluated for the sake of prognosis are not restricted to negative changes resulting from symptom-suppression; they can be either progressive or retrogressive, as in the orderly recurrence of previously experienced symptoms during the course of a cure (1, 132).

For implementing his working rules of Direction of Cure, Hering stressed the importance of documenting disease metaschematisms by recording the exact order of the presenting symptoms. As late as 1875 he wrote that (54) “because the cure has to aim at curing the entire person, this only can be achieved from inside out, or from top to bottom. Likewise the physician has to find out the exact order of the symptoms [as] they came about. This is also one of the great laws Hahnemann found: that in each patient the different complaints which arrived one after another always have to [be] removed in reverse order of their occurrence, therefore the most recent first and the oldest ones last, and it cannot be changed; if the physician and patient don’t work in that way, the cure then will not come about, and the patient will either not recover, or not for a long time.”

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The concept of metaschematism was reviewed by Fernand Debats (23), who concluded: “Diseases should no longer be formulated in terms of states, but the only correct way is to define them in terms of processes that occur in time. This time dimension in disease can be much better understood when we apply the concept of morbid substitution and syndrome shift.”

Space and time are inseparably interconnected. Hahnemann’s original concept of metaschematism provides an impetus towards the formulation of a fully integrated expression of the Law of Direction of Cure capable of accommodating all of the spatiotemporal phenomena of disease and cure. For this purpose we will explore Kent’s version of the Law of Direction of Cure which he coined as “Hering’s Law,” and see how it complements and expands the implications of Hering’s version.

11. Kent’s Tripartite Formula

Hering’s Law of Direction of Cure was picked up and promulgated by JT Kent and his school shortly after his death. But Kent did not actually start calling it “Hering’s Law” in print until 1911 (74d). Was there some specific impetus that led him to start calling it that: for example, Hering’s reference to a “law of order” in his preface to the Hempel translation of Hahnemann’s Chronic Diseases? But according to Pierre Schmidt (133), Kent may not even have known of Hering’s early preface.

However, the preface was cited by Kent’s colleague JH Allen in Chronic

Miasms in 1904 (1). Kent only began to refer to the Law of Direction of

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point shortly prior to 1911 (74d). He may have learned of Hering’s preface directly from Allen’s work, and his discovery of Hering’s reference to a “law of order” in this early preface may thus in turn have led him to attribute the “Law of Direction of Cure” to Hering in 1911. Kent’s succinct tripartite formula version of Hering’s Law is reproduced in his student Robert Gibson-Miller’s booklet (revised by Kent and published at his request in 1909), Synopsis of Homoeopathic Philosophy (36), as follows: “Direction of Symptoms during Cure. 1. From within out. 2. Usually from above downwards. 3. In the reverse order to that in which they appeared. This process goes on until the primary manifestations of the disease appear, whether it be the chancre of syphilis, the gonorrhoea of sycosis, or the eruption of psora.” The Law of Direction of Cure (not yet called Hering’s Law) was thus expressed by Kent as a tripartite formulation of spatiotemporal direction rules, and extended to include all of the three chronic miasms. Kent would elsewhere use the core “center to circumference” direction as a short form to refer to this tripartite formulation (73).

Kent’s first recorded mention of the Law of Direction of Cure occurs in an article published in 1885, five years after Hering’s death (74b): “It must be understood first of all that all diseases when leaving the body— when cured or self-cured do so under unvarying rules or laws… Nature operates under fixed principles. Now it must be known first of all that diseases recover from above downward from within outward and in the reverse order of their coming. When the phenomena of disease do not follow this circumscribed limit of directions the disease is growing worse or at least progressing.” From the beginning Kent thus declared that the three rules have to be taken together (circumscribed) in a law of cure.

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In Kent’s Lectures on Homoeopathic Philosophy first published in 1900 from lectures given as early as 1896 (73), he is more expansively explanatory: “You would naturally expect, if it is the interior of man that is disordered in sickness, and not his tissues primarily, that the interior must first be turned into order and the exterior last. The first of man is his voluntary and the second of man is his understanding, the last of man is his outermost; from his center to his circumference, to his organs, his skin, hair, nails, etc.”

“This being true, the cure must proceed from center to circumference. From center to circumference is from above downward, from within outwards, from more important to less important organs, from the head to the hands and feet. Every homoeopathic practitioner who understands the art of healing knows that symptoms which go off in these directions remain away permanently. Moreover, he knows that symptoms which disappear in the reverse order of their coming are removed permanently. It is thus he knows that the patient did not merely get well in spite of the treatment, but that he was cured by the action of the remedy.”

Hands and feet are basically equivalent in the phrase “from the head to the hands and feet,” which Kent used to exemplify the preceding phrase in the hierarchical relation of more-important head to less-important extremities. And Kent put the mind, conventionally situated in the “little grey cells” of the brain, whilst actively emanating from the feeling heart-source (121), at the top-center of his hierarchy of importance.

Kent explained it in this way in Lectures on Philosophy (73): “A man has within him by endowment of the Divine a supreme centre of government

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which is in the grey matter of the cerebrum, and in the highest portion of the grey matter. Everything in man, and everything that takes place in man, is presided over primarily by this centre, from centre to circumference… Considered more internally, we have the will and understanding forming a unit making the interior man; the vital force or vice-regent of the soul… which is immaterial; and then the body which is material.”

Modern Homeopath Tomás Paschero (1904-86) wrote (111a), “Soul is not separate from body. The soul gives meaning to the body and the body is the vehicle through which the soul expresses itself.” The soul, seated in the immaterial heart, presides over the supersensible will and understanding which together with memory form the unit of mind, served by the brain and so on, in hierarchical order of descent. The will and understanding are aspects of the innermost supersensible higher mind or mind-heart, which are expressed as feeling and thinking.

Gautama Buddha (563-460 BC) stated of the memory aspect (123) that (in paraphrase) “the mind of each human being is centered in the heart and… extends into every live cell and molecule in his or her body.” An all-pervasive cellular mind could conjecturally form the third “mind-body nexus” mediating between the other two nexuses; and memories would be accessed through the form of the imprints recorded in the cellular tissues of what has been experienced in this life, comprising the memory aspect of the super-sensible higher mind.

Swedenborg said that memories are inscribed in mind and body accordingly as they take form (144a). The three aspects of Kent’s tripartite formula directly relate to the three supersensible aspects/organs

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of the mind. Kent considered disharmony between these organs to be the ultimate cause of chronic disease.

12. Swedenborg’s Innermost Supersensible Organs

The voluntary will and understanding intellect are located in the super-sensible abode of the “innermost”. Hahnemann wrote of supersensibility in a footnote to Organon §11 (41): “Only someone who is cultivated and therefore exercised in comparison and abstraction can form a kind of supersensible idea, …keeping far from his thoughts all that is material or mechanical.” Thus by supersensible Hahnemann meant non-material or “spiritual”, which is innermost according to Swedenborg (108).

The supersensible aspects/organs should function together in health, in a balanced and harmonious way. According to the ancient Ayurvedic text

Charaka Samhita (157): “Whatever act is done by one who is deranged

of understanding, will or memory is to be regarded as a volitional transgression (prajnaparadha). It is the inducer of all pathological conditions.” Prajnaparadha (literally, “crime against wisdom,” or “sin” in theological terminology) thus comes from wrong thinking resulting in inharmonious functioning & immoderate behavior, and is in correspon-dence the ultimate cause of chronic disease (cf. Swedenborg, 144c).

Again according to the Charaka Samhita (10): “Desire is the root-cause of all miseries.” Meher Baba wrote (65): “People suffer because they are not satisfied. They want more and more. Ignorance gives rise to greed and vanity. If you want nothing, would you then suffer? But you do want.” And desire produces volitional transgressions with all of their dire consequences, as listed in the ancient Hindu text The Bhagavad Gita

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(143): “When a man dwells on the objects of sense, he creates an attraction for them; attraction develops into desire, and desire breeds anger. Anger induces delusion; delusion, loss of memory; through loss of memory, reason is shattered; and loss of reason leads to destruction.” The wrong thinking “central delusion” induced by the anger resulting from frustrated desire (130) splits the originally undivided mind-heart, and creates disorderly, unbalanced functioning. Kent said (72), “Health is the result of harmony between the will and understanding. Disease is the result of disorder between the will and understanding.”

The optimal harmony between will and understanding is described in the teachings of Meher Baba (92): “When the intellect discards the dictates of conscience, or when the heart does not respond to what the intellect says, there is disharmony. So discretion and emotion must go hand in hand … If discretion (head) and emotion (heart) act together, it is better. But if preference is to be given spiritually, it is first to the conscience. If your heart says it is right to love God in everyday life, and your intellect says it is not wrong, you are to decide immediately to act in preference to your heart. Real happiness is within.” Hahnemann gave the same value to the dictates of (40) the mind-heart harmonizing and integrating conscience, when he characterized it as being “the sole arbiter of real worth.”

13. Correspondence of Outermost with Innermost

The will and understanding functions of the heart and mind are in the supersensible innermost of man. The correspondences linking innermost with outermost organs were explored by Kent in a remarkable contri-bution towards the implementation of what he coined as Hering’s Law.