Indeed, you are absolutely right. But how do you compare what is like another thing? The original idea of homeopathy was more straightforward in this sense, it wasn’t “like cures like”, it was more “if you were poisoned with x, then a solution of that x element in really small doses will cause you to recover”. With all the shit I give to homeopathy (because nowadays anyone thinking homeopathy works has no excuse), I have to admire it just a bit in its historical context. At a time when “actual” doctors were trying to heal people with bloodletting and washing hands was not really a thing before stuffing them in someone’s wound… Someone came up with an idea that actually was causing less damage than the doctors themselves were, and the idea, ridiculous as it is with our current knowledge, is not far from the actual idea of vaccines. We just know that a small dose won’t heal you, but it might make your antibodies adapt and learn how to fight something negative. If you think it through, it is not entirely far from that basic starting point in homeopathy. Of course they took it to the limit and then became bullshit. I don’t remember who am I quoting but here goes “the alternative medicine that has been proven to work has a name, medicine” (I’m paraphrasing, can’t remember the exact wording, but I’m thinking maybe it was the amazing Tim Minchin in one of his songs/acts?)

From that point it all went to shit and homeopathy became completely absurd because they started loosening the concepts. “Like cures like” ends up working as “I’ll make some shitty comparison and because it kinda works because I say so, it is similar and will cure you”.

Which is how you end up with the real fun stuff in homeopathy. I’ll be talking from memory from many years ago, so take this with a grain of salt, maybe those products where fringe stuff but I’m pretty sure they were all real and sold.

Are you feeling stuck? Maybe when you are working on something? Maybe your stomach? Maybe you are stuck in a bad relationship? Don’t worry, here’s the amazing homeopathy remedy, a dilution of pieces of the wall of Berlin. If they managed to break through, why wouldn’t you? (yes, there is a homeopathic remedy based on the wall of Berlin)

Are you feeling sad? Glum? Unhappy? Is there an idiom for it? Like for instance “are you feeling blue?”… Don’t worry, here you have a dilution of the color blue in homeopathic pill form. (Yes, there’s a bunch of color based homeopathic remedies).

OK enough funny shit descriptions because I cannot really see how I can even begin to describe the one based on dinosaur bones. Or my favorite, black holes. Yes, somehow they sell the idea that they have diluted a black hole effect in water… Don’t ask me. I can’t understand it either.

So yeah like heals like… But when you can make up the comparison it really doesn’t matter.