Homeopathy is an art and a science of therapeutics that is based on principles of logical,
rational, and evidence-supported investigation in understanding the nature of disease, cure, and medicine.
According to Hahnemann, the vital entity constitutes the wholeness of the person. The vital entity possesses an unintelligent vital energy or vital force whose function is not to heal, but simply to function.
The functioning of this dynamic immaterial vital force can be influenced by dynamic immaterial causes, such as emotions and impulses. The dynamic vital force may become so affected in its functioning that it may eventually present a specific form of illness that homeopaths call a disease picture, meaning an idea whose unity of form can be observed by the trained homeopath to be similar
to some idea or unity of form that represents a living archetype of something found in nature.
The archetype or unity of form represented in nature may be that of a particular plant or animal or mineral. Although the living form or archetype functions harmoniously in its interrelationships in external nature, it can present as a disease picture when it upsets the harmonious functioning and unity within the human organism. When a “similar” homeopathic remedy is taken, meaning a homeopathic remedy sourced from an archetype from nature that is similar to the disease picture being expressed in the human organism, it re establishes harmonious functioning of the vital life force, based on the Law of Similars.