“Getting Moot Pilled”
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Hello everyone,
And welcome back to the German Advent Calendar, day number 17.
And today, we’ll talk about a little piece of German culture that is not usually mentioned in videos about culture shocks, because it’s kind of niche, but it’s still a good showcase for a broader cultural current in the German speaking region.
The current I am talking about is a sort of romantic openness for the esoteric, and the piece I want to talk about today is…. drumroll…
Homeopathy
I feel like almost everyone in Germany has at least heard the word and maybe has a couple of ideas what it is, but I’m not sure how well know this is internationally, so let’s take a look real quick
What is Homeopathy
Homeopathy was invented in Germany by some guy toward the end of the 18th century and it’s an “approach to medical treatment” that boils down to “fighting fire with fire”. Or less drastically put –
like cures like
The core idea is that you treat a condition with a substance that causes similar symptoms to the condition, but you use LOW amounts of the substance.
So for instance, to cure a headache you’d listen to a beginner playing violin for an hour, but I’d have it on really really really low volume.
Okay, that’s not a real example of course, but that’s kind of how it works. Which, in a way, is actually similar to how vaccines work… you get a nerfed, weak ass version of the virus of bacteria and that makes your body prepare for the real deal.
The thing with homeopathy is that you’d take some chemical that would cause your symptoms but you use VERY little of it. Or even less. Or EVEN less. Like… sometimes, the dosage is so small, that you virtually have no molecule of the actual substance left.
Not sure, if you’ve heard the term homeopathic dose, but that’s where it comes from – you get very very very little of something.
Does Homeopathy work?
Well, I would say yes to that. It does work because of the placebo effect. You believe it helps, and that increases your chances to get better. So basically, a homeopathic treatment of a rash is scientifically as effective as, say, having a witch talk to the rash.
If you believe it, that might be enough to help your body get rid of it.
Which is not a bad thing. Placebo effect is awesome!!
So people who say that homeopathy doesn’t do anything … well… they’re wrong. It can at least be the focal point for your beliefs and help you that way.
But it has no actual provable impact beyond that and there is no real drug testing beyond healthy people taking a substance and then noting down what happens.
I’m not kidding… that’s how they conduct tests.
Now, Homeopathy blew up enough to still be very much alive and it has made its way around the globe.
But it’s particularly popular in Germany and parts of Switzerland. And at least in Germany, it’s a political topic at the moment.
Homeopathy in Germany
Homeopathy is not some fringe thing in Germany. It is accepted as a branch of alternative medicine, there are privately run master’s studies for it and doctors can get an extra qualification in the field.
And… and the Americans among you may want to sit down for this one… the costs for going to such a doctor are usually covered by health insurance.
Not the drugs, those have to be paid privately unless you have some crazy private insurance plan. But visiting a doctor who is an actual doctor and has done homeopathy on top and may recommend it as a treatment option… that is usually covered.
Oh by the way… the market for homeopathic drugs is somewhere in the ballpark of half a billion Euro anually. So these pills with fractions of something are NOT cheap, that’s for sure.
But yeah, the controversy right now is: should it stay that way?
Part of society is demanding that Homeopathy is NOT to be covered by health insurance anymore, because we have semi-state run health insurance here, and so essentially, money of people who don’t use it, don’t believe in it and who want the scientific method to be the primacy are paying for homeopathy too. The argument is that it’s a waste of public money and people who want it should pay for themselves.
And I have to say… I don’t know what my stance is on this.
My head say “Yeah, take it out.” but some part of me likes the fact that we’re accepting enough to partially pay for it. Even though I like science and so on. I feel like for some people it might be the right thing.
I’d have to look at some numbers to take a side, I guess. Like… how well does it work, how much do the drugs cost to manufacture, how much are they sold for and so on.
Like… if I ended up feeling like, it’s a bit of a grift, I’d be against it.
But yeah… it’s not a clear call for me, and that I think is kind of a German thing. Because Germans tend to have a soft spot for esoteric, alternative stuff. I mean… have you ever heard of Waldorf, Anthroposphy and Rudolf Steiner for example? This is HUGE here.
And even if I don’t think of me as “that type”, I might have some of it in me just because it’s somewhere deep down in the culture.
Anyway, I’d love to read your thoughts on all of this. Have you heard of Homeopathy? Do you maybe use it? How common is it in your country? I read that it’s very popular in India, for example, because they resonate with the approach. Would you say that consulting a doctor who works with it should be covered by health insurance?
And are you aware of this little eso-spiri inclination of Germans?
I’m really looking forward to reading all you have to say, so I hope I’ll see you in the comment section.
In either case, have a great day, and bis morgen :)
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As someone in the medical field in America, I don’t love Homeopathy. I’m also a very science/fact/evidence driven person. I see too many people who don’t get proper medical treatment for serious health issues, and they rely on alternative medical treatment only to their detriment. A lot of alternative medical stuff in this country is marketed as a “cure all”, and people really think that anything from a stuffy nose to cancer can be cured buy whatever product they are buying. I think there is a mistrust in doctors, and that they only want to push expensive medications, and that the medications don’t work or side effects are too risky.. and let’s not forget about the cost of healthcare in America. :( in the end… I feel I can be okay with it existing as supplemental care as long as that person is also seeing a traditional doctor as well.
Nothing wrong with natural, non synthesised remedies but homeopathy as some us like to say about such things “What a load of old bollocks”.
Do we have a similar German phrase?
Frohe Weihnachten.
I’d need to know the finer details and nuances of “load of old bollocks”. I get it from context of course, but the only thing I can think of is “Unsinn” or “Quatsch”, but I’m sure there are more creative options that capture more of the original :)
Naturopathic doctors use homeopathy, they are decently common here in the states in urban coastal areas at least. My friend from high school is a one, helped immensely discovering that I am celiac. I think insurance should cover naturopathic treatment, western medicine is great but not all encompassing for care. And my sister has been a Waldorf teacher for about 25 years, my boyfriend went to a Waldorf grade school.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned in the discussion that the British royal famiky have been big fans of homeopathy. That’s no recommendation in my view. I believe they were influential in the National Health Service funding homeopathy (for example at what was the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital) but I understand the funding was stopped in 2018. Randomised Controlled Trials are the best way to find out if a treatment has more than placebo benefit and at what risk of adverse consequences, so that is the standard of proof we should aim for in funding treatments and asking patients to invest their hope in them.
NHS funding homeopathy in the Thatcher years back then?? Wow, that’s a real surprise, but yeah, it does make sense of the Crown was into it.
I didn’t get ‘want the scientific method to be primate’. Is this a typo? A Germanism?
Homeopathy is nonsense-on-stilts. Please assign all that money to mental health care, which is always Cinderella. It certainly is in the US, where it is sorely needed.
In German, we have “das Primat” which means something along the line of “the single/main authority” and I thought English had the same. I changed the text to primacy now. Does that work better?
I get the meaning from the context, but if you want to use “primacy,” you’d have to say “people who want the scientific method to have primacy.” That sounds pretty formal. Some other ideas that come to mind:
People who want the scientific method to be
I think I’ll go with “have primacy” then. “the ultimate authority” sounds a bit too strict for what I have in mind. Like… I want the scientific method to be the clear boss that rules the pack but I don’t want it to make every single decision, if that makes sense.
Or on the more informal side, maybe “want science to be king” would work. Not sure if it’s just me, but the king is not an absolute ruler here. Like maybe he has a weak-ish parliament that’s on vacation a lot :) Not sure if that’s more authority than “Primat”.
Just noticed the calendar archive is called “unicorn nudes” now xD
Always has been. My hope was, that one day, someone gets here from Google and asks themselves starts learning German because they were searching for unicorn nudes.
It’s a lost cause though. There is a LOT of relevant content out there for that search term.
I believe in the conservation of truth. People say, “what’s the harm in believing in something that’s not real?” But I believe that every time you do that, you also embrace something that’s NOT true. You have to, right? And in America, it’s dragging us right to the bottom. Yes, little kids can believe in Santa, fine. But when we adults fill our heads with made up nonsense, progress stops or slows. And that’s great if you have an issue with ‘progress’ to be fair. But if I’m going to drive over a bridge, I’m going to drive over the bridge designed and built by people that understood math, physics, materials science, engineering, dynamic loading, etc… not people that believe that crystal power and astrology is holding the thing up. (Haters feel free to light me up, I can take it.)
“what’s the harm in believing in something that’s not real?”
Well, for one thing this leads to the philosophical question of what’s “real” anyway.
And also, some things that might be “true” might at the same time be impossible to measure or quantify with the scientific method.
I’m team “objective reality”. I believe such a thing exists. But we do not know the extent of that, so we can’t be too dogmatic about what we can measure so far. “God” has not been proven, and yet we wouldn’t forbid people to go to church or donate crazy amounts of money and try to pray their ailments away. If there’s room for church at the center of society, there should be some room for stuff like homeopathy too, I’d argue.
Hi yes, I understand there is the definition of what’s ‘real’. I have a friend with a philosophy degree that has Hegel and signifiers burned into my brain. I’ve never, ever, heard him reach a conclusion on anything. I grew up in math and science, and yeah, you can say it’s a religion too, but who develops vaccines? On a deadline? Who do you want operating on you? Do you want someone debating if cancer is real if you’re dying of it? Steve Jobs looked to alternative medicine. Didn’t seem to help much. I heard a woman say ginger cures cancer. Hmmm… does it? I asked for any studies done on that, she couldn’t name any. Seems weird since people have ginger and still die of cancer. Science has problems. Science gets it wrong before it gets it right. It’s a process, with peer review. It frustrates people. It’s messy. I get it. People can believe what they want, that’s their right I guess. The earth is fine, sure. Climate change isn’t real. Trump is right about everything. But I wish they’d acknowledge that they are giving up something in the process. If you believe something that’s been disproven over and over (and over and over), you’ve given up on a bit of reality, of truth. We don’t have the luxury of doing this much longer. I wish there were a sober acknowledgment of things that people have in their minds that have absolutely *zero* proof of existing. I grew up Christian. When I see the way that religion has been rammed down people’s throats, destroying native cultures, it makes me sick. No harm in religious beliefs? Check out the middle east. I don’t mean this as a critique of anything you wrote, or anything that anyone writes here. The odds of me being right about things are just about zero, and I admit that. I’m learning all the time, I’ve been wrong. I adjust. I have a ton of respect for civil discourse. And I have a mountain of respect for you, your work, everything you’ve done for the community of people that are out here on the internet looking to learn. I’m just one old man shaking my fist and telling people to get off my lawn. From the bottom of my heart I wish everyone peace, love and happiness going forward.
But I wish they’d acknowledge that they are giving up something in the process.
This is a really interesting and important sentence. Everything comes with a “price” in life and feelings over facts does too.
I’m totally with you about scientists and so on. I want proper bridges and proper medicine.
I just wanted to say that in my opinion, it’s important to give the non-scientific things room to breathe and flourish to an extent. You never know what interesting impulses may come from there that can move humanity forward. I think we have to live with the tension :)
The placebo effect is not a substitute for medical treatment. Not sure why this needs to be said.
In the US, these quack remedies are not at all regulated, so there’s no proof that your magic fake medicine actually follows the magic fake rules that it is supposed to follow. Which is how hundreds of people lost their sense of smell after using a homeopathic nasal spray which contained zinc.
First I’d like to say that I had to look up the word ‘grift’. Kudos I learned a new English word while studying German:)
My friend in Berlin had Cancer. She explained how her doctor taught her how to do ‘Affirmations’ and to visualize her body fighting the cancer. I’m sure this was in conjunction with Chemo and other therapies but I thought it strange at the time. Unfortunately she died at the age of 55 leaving a husband and their 13 year old daughter. As a dying wish, my daughter lived with them for 6 weeks to help in their grief.
Homeopathic treatment worked wonders for my migraines – and seem to have reduced the number I get as well.
I have been an Anthroposophist for my whole adult life and a medical doctor for 42 years and I can tell you that homeopathy works, but that most people in America are not ready for it, and that most doctors are not intuitive enough to deal with it. But your use of the word science is not quite right. It means clear-seeing, clear-thinking, not just about material stuff, but also about esoteric stuff. That is why there is a School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. And of course there is the issue of how much time and personal attention it takes to make a biodynamic preparation both for the garden and for individual people.
But your use of the word science is not quite right.
Hmm, that’s a debate over definitions. The “science” I mean is the scientific method, the main purpose of which in my opinion is to transcend the indivdiual and their perspectives.
It’s our best attempt at finding something resembling truth. Not perfect. Imbued with all the flaws humans bring to the table.
But personal clarity can never be the same thing. Humans are fallible and no matter how clear someone thinks they see things, maybe they’re just way off. It’s also possible of course that someone thinks they think clearly, and they in fact do see clearly, but you can never know. Just because something feels true or resonates, doesn’t mean its truth goes beyond this one person’s very individual life.
So no… I don’t think I am using the word science wrong. I’m using it in a sense that is a pretty widely agreed upon consensus of what the word is. You can have a different understanding of it, but you can’t call mine “wrong”, because who’s to decide that anyways.
“who want the scientific method to be the primate” hahaha
(I think you meant primary, but I love the monkey science)
Aren’t Waldorf schools and Steiner tied to Homeopathy? I read once that he was a large proponent of homeopathy. Also, the family behind the Vitalis “health food” stores.
Also, foremost or pre-eminent would work better, no “the”
Ohhhh, I fell for a false friend there. I meant “primacy”. In German, we have the word “das Primat” which is what I was going for. “der Primat” is the ape, “das Primat” is the primacy.
Yup, Waldorf and Steiner are homeopathy adjacent I would say, though I know next to no details. But I’ve always thought of them as somewhat related.
So do Germans buy into dietary supplements as well? In America the market is HUGE, and with very few definitive studies supporting their effectiveness. I’m not a big believer in either homeopathic remedies or dietary supplements. On the other hand I have read that there have been some developments in the area of allergies where people are given micro-doses of the things they are allergic to and working up from there. Supposedly some folks with a peanut allergy may be able to tolerate (don’t quote me) a single peanut? But I don’t think that’s really homeopathy in the typical sense.
I think it’s called “Desensibilisierung” this allergy approach. It’s probably not part of traditional homeopathy, but the underlying logic or line of thinking does seem similar.
And yes, Germans do buy supplements. They’re actually comparatively cheap here compared to Bulgaria for instance.
It is definitely nothing like homeopathy, I have had the immunotherapy for allergies against pollens and dust mites, which exposes you to larger and larger amounts of allergens until you become used to them. It works. Homeopathy only works with the placebo effect, which is fine if it’s nothing serious. It’s used here in France too, but not as much as in Germany
The nonsense a lot of people are prepared to believe in often freaks me out completely, and my two-word take on homeopathy would probably be “total scam”. But is it a *harmful* scam? Well, that depends. If someone’s seriously unwell, but instead of going to receive treatment that’s well-tested and efficacious they spend weeks trying a homeopathic cure that is, as you say, essentially an homage to a miniscule placebo effect, then I’d say that’s potentially very harmful. That is, a “medicalised” presentation that gives the impression of being a serious and scientifically valid treatment option, and thus might tempt those without the ability to see through the window dressing (“Oh, all I have to do is come here for a few sessions and add a few drops of this in a glass of water for a month? That sounds amazing, and so much easier/cleaner/healthier/less-intrusive than what those boring old *actual doctors* were prescribing to me!”(#))
The “anecdata” folks also seem particularly strong in this domain, and you see mountains of confirmation bias at work in allocating the credit for the return to a healthier state. So, yeah, my take is pretty cynical and dull-edged here: do the studies (hey, they’ve been done, and it’s basically useless, surprise, surprise), demonstrate the efficacy (good luck with that!), and then we can talk about being part of the nationally delivered health care plan.
(#) ((I’m tempted to throw in a “learn from Steve Jobs’ arrant stupidity in refusing standard treatments for pancreatic cancer when it was first diagnosed, instead heading for alternatives such as acupuncture, juices and supplements”, but let’s leave that inside the protection of double parentheses.))
“anecdata”
Wow, English has done it again. What a great word :D
Just a quick editing note. The following sentence is repeated in the article:
“Which, in a way, is actually how vaccines work… you get a nerfed, weak ass version of the virus of bacteria and that makes your body prepare for the real deal.”
Thanks!! Someone else mentioned it but without actually mentioning which part it was and I couldn’t find it :D. This was it!
Australian here. Homeopathy is quite well known – but I would say we consider it a joke. I have never heard of anyone actually using homeopathy. On the other hand there are quite a few Rudolf Steiner schools and an Anthroposophy society. Interestingly Theosophy (which for some reason I link with Antroposophy) was quite big last century and one of our founding Prime Ministers was a follower. I believe the Theosophists still own a building in the Melbourne CBD.
Homeopathy worked on my dog when he got stung by bees.
The remedies are made of things like salt, herbs, bees—so there’s not much money in it. Pharmaceutical drugs are given much more often here in the US.
Valid and reliable tests/studies have documented homeopathy’s efficacy but, again, it’s not mainstream, and it’s not too profitable.
The market size is 777 Million anually in Germany alone, with next to no R and D cost and very questionable production costs (which is also true for big pharma).
Health insurances’ payout was apperantly around 15 Million, the rest is private payments. Considering this low amount from health insurances, I think I’m now for leaving it covered. It’s a drop in the bucket and it makes some people happy and healthy.
I also read that some study found that homeopathicly treated adults cost the health insurer more than people who only use “normal” medicine. The higher costs are mainly due to people who try homeopathic remidies being sick for longer and eventually often needing conventional care.
Anyway, I don’t know their numbers but I think it’s VERY profitable for the producers of the pills.
Ha, interesting timing. My wife had a really rough bout with possibly two separate pneumonia infections (still not sure what went down), and at one point in the saga, she had to pick up a pretty expensive pile of prescriptions from the Apotheke.
Apparently out of sympathy, the pharmacist gave her a bottle of something on the house. When we got home, I took a look over the ingredients: homeopathic doses of wolfsbane, deadly nightshade, and mercury cyanide.
She did not try it.
I almost never hear the “it works because the placebo effect works” line of reasoning here. America seems pretty well divided between the “silly pseudoscience meant to separate fools from their money” camp, and …well… fools. There’s a strong “I want to believe” culture that rejects everything that experts in their fields agree on.
Modern politics is part of it. Ever since fossil fuel companies found it useful to their bottom line to teach climate denialism, rejecting every kind of fact has become part of the identity of the political right. Belief in homeopathy has a lot of overlap of belief in so many things that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
I’d love it if more people who believed in such things believed in the placebo effect.
Kash Patel’s “reverse the vaxx” pills come to mind or Russel Brand’s amulet against evil WIFI and 5G radiation.
Or anything sold on former Info Wars.
This is not the same lane as homeopathy though, imo. I think it’s important to not conflate flagrant scamming and a legit and earnest approach. Intent matters, and I don’t think homeopathy was invented as a grift, even though some in the field probably do that. People are people after all.
I am so sorry people outside the US know who kash patel is
I am also sorry people inside the US have to know who he is but more so the former
I don’t know… I find it kind of interesting. Him rising to this position while also peddling scam pills and writing children’s book about King Donald and Hillary Queenton… it’s an honest expression of where we are as humanity currently. We’re trying, but we’re also deeply conflicted and victim of our woes and desires.
Yes. I think it should be covered by health insurance even if it only works for only some people. After all, I pay for people to take weight loss medicine when they could just eat healthy and exercise. I pay for lung cancer chemo and surgery for people that choose to smoke. I pay for type-2 diabetics who take a drug to avoid correcting their eating habits and for cholesterol meds for 90% of people that could fix it themselves. I pay for gender reassignment surgeries and a lifetime of hormones to keep them in that new gender. But we don’t want to pay for a harmless med that gives the body or the mind a boost on correcting itself?
I think the main line of argument is that whatever is paid for has a scientifically provable chance of working and that’s where the debate is.
Based on your line of argument, any spirit healer, schaman and witch treatment should be covered as well, because it works for some people.
All very interesting. I have three grown children and when they were little I found the right homeopathic remedy would stop them coughing… I also knew about Steiner schools, and I still find alternative theories of education comforting. I am American but have lived in the UK for 38 years. Not everyone is ready to break the reading code at age five. There are other things to learn.
An ex girlfriend of mine was on a Waldorfschule (and her parents were both DEEP into the Steiner stuff). She said, that it was good for her, because the school gave her the time she needed and she’d probably suffered more or fallen off on a normal school.
I think the schools in west Germany are pretty good, they’ve been around for a while and they know what they’re doing and how to ready people for the state exam that they have to take eventually.
From what I hear from Finland or from elementary schools now is that some concepts are becoming mainstream without actually being associated with Waldorf. Like giving the kids no grades, or having them learn while moving (Finland is doing a lot of interesting stuff there).