We all know, I think, what homeopaths say about homeopathy. We also know what everyone else says about it. And the two set of opinions could not be more different. In this context, it might be interesting to learn what writers have to say about the subject. Here is a list of quotes from the non-medical, non-scientific literature (I am sure there are many more; if you know some, please let me know):
Boyd, W. (Restless, 2006)
“She had a small leather case of homeopathy remedies, Nux Vomica, Pulsatilla, Arnica, that she treated like a traveling reliquary.”
Coetzee, J.M. (Elizabeth Costello, 2003)
“He is a believer in homeopathy, in the healing power of water, in the memory of water. He is a man of the eighteenth century, really.”
Cunningham, M. (The Hours, 1998)
“She has tried everything: homeopathy, psychotherapy, prayer. She is a woman who lives in the hope of a miraculous adjustment.”
Enright, A. (The Gathering, 2007)
“My mother had a great belief in homeopathy, which is just a way of saying she had a great belief in nothing at all, provided it came in a very small bottle.”
Franzen, J. (The Corrections, 2001)
“Enid was deep into a phase of homeopathy, convinced that a decillionth of a gram of honeybee sting would cure her husband’s tremors.”
Márquez G.G. (“Serenade: How My Father Won My Mother”, 2001)
“…devoted his talent as an autodidact to a science on the decline: homeopathy.”
Hustvedt, S. (The Blazing World, 2014)
“He was the kind of man who treated his neuroses with homeopathy and his physical ailments with intense, silent resentment.”
McEwan, I. (Solar, 2010)
“He had no time for homeopathy, which he considered a form of witchcraft for people who were too polite to carry crystal wands.”
O’Farrell, M. (Instructions for a Heatwave, 2013)
“She kept a kit of homeopathy in her bag, tiny glass vials of white pills that looked like the breath of ghosts.”
Self, W. (How the Dead Live, 2000)
“Lily’s faith in homeopathy was such that she believed if she diluted her own death enough, she might eventually become immortal.”
St. Aubyn, E. (At Last, 2011)
“He had reached that stage of desperation where even homeopathy seemed like a robust and evidence-based option.”
H.G. Wells (Tono-Bungay, 1909)
“By the time my uncle had taken to homeopathy, I realized that his faith in science was of a very elastic kind.”
George Bernard Shaw (Preface to The Doctor’s Dilemma, 1906)
“I have a faith in homeopathy that would make a Harley Street physician shudder, though I suspect it rests less on evidence than on temperament.”
Thomas Mann (The Magic Mountain, 1924)
“He spoke of homeopathy with a curious mixture of irony and conviction, as though the less there was of it, the more there must be.”
Aldous Huxley (Eyeless in Gaza, 1936)
“She placed her trust in homeopathy, preferring infinitesimal certainties to the gross invasions of modern medicine.”
Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook, 1962)
“She was experimenting with diets and homeopathy, as if the body might be coaxed into sanity by gentler means.”
Margaret Atwood (Cat’s Eye, 1988)
“My mother believed in homeopathy, in small doses and invisible forces, which seemed to me another way of saying she believed in hope.”
Zadie Smith (White Teeth, 2000)
“He dabbled in homeopathy, convinced that the less substance there was, the more profound the cure.”
David Lodge (Therapy, 1995)
“I tried homeopathy for a while, but it seemed to require a belief in something so small it might not exist at all.”
Hilary Mantel (Giving Up the Ghost, 2003)
“Homeopathy offered the promise of healing without intrusion, a whisper of cure rather than a command.”
Martin Amis (The Information, 1995)
“He regarded homeopathy as a joke that had somehow outlived the punchline.”
______________________
It seems to me that, when it comes to homeopathy, the writers tend to agree with the scientists.
20 Responses to Homeopathy in the non-medical literature
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Jeanette Winterson anyone?
Writing in the Guardian.
Don’t Google it if you despair of humanity.
It will make you feel worse
There’s also Scottish crime author Christopher Brookmyre.
“Place B.” is a short story by Chris Brookmyre featured in his 2012 collection The story functions as a satirical exposé on the homeopathy industry, following the author’s frequent target of fraudulent alternative medicine. It features his recurring unorthodox journalist character, Jack Parlabane, who goes undercover to investigate the lucrative, “sugar-pill” based industry. Critics and reviewers have described the story as a “rant” against the industry, noting that it focuses heavily on the argument and contains relatively little plot, functioning more as a passionate critique. The story is part of a broader collection of short crime stories set in Edinburgh (Jaggy Splinters) and continues Brookmyre’s trend of attacking pseudoscience, similar to his treatment of psychics in the novel Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks
Oh Edzie…you have once again chosen to show a profound “selection bias.”
How convenient that you have chosen to leave out so many of the greatest writers of all time and their comments about homeopathy.
Literary Greats Who Advocated For Homeopathy: https://danaullman.substack.com/p/literary-greats-who-advocated-for
Emily Dickinson’s Love for Homeopathy…and Taylor Swift’s Love for Emily Dickinson: https://danaullman.substack.com/p/emily-dickinsons-love-for-homeopathyand
J.D. Salinger and His Love for Homeopathic Medicine: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/homeopathy_b_3983711
Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Homeopathic Medicine: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gabriel-garcia-marquez-an_b_5235152
Now, will you have to re-evaluate your previous conclusions, OR will you simply ignore STRONGER EVIDENCE?
I can’t help but predict that you’ll chose again no real interest in providing evidence.
so sorry to hear that you cannot even understand the simplest of text:
“Here is a list of quotes from the non-medical, non-scientific literature (I am sure there are many more; if you know some, please let me know).”
Hmmm…wow, have you become conveniently illiterate?
Or…did you simply write those words from your backside?
Which (!) of my citations are to the “medical literature?” I didn’t know that Emily Dickinson was an MD!
Dana, you are too biased to see how biased you are.
@DUllman
If stupidity hurt, you would be screaming all day long. In your case, there is also the added factor of bias, so it hurts twice as bad.
@Dana Ullman
Ah yes, the less of it there is, the stronger it gets … How could we forget 🙂
Face it: the overwhelming majority of scientists and other people with functioning brains reject homeopathy(*), and that is for the most part because of a serious lack of good, strong evidence that it actually does something. You are just one of a pathetic few holdouts who still cling to a long-outdated belief.
*: IIRC, you often seem to trust AI more than what Edzard and other scientifically-minded people say. Now personally, I’m not particularly fond of AI, but you might try the following questions and see what answers you get in return:
– What percentage of scientists believe in homeopathy?
– How much evidence is there in favour of homeopathy?
– How strong is the evidence for homeopathy?
– Are homeopaths pseudoscientific quacks?
Your remarkably stupid comment prompted me to ask your favourite AI platform, ChatGPT, the following question: “who is more prone to a profound “selection bias” about homeopathy, Dana Ullman of Edzard Ernst?”
HERE IS THE REPLY:
Between Dana Ullman and Edzard Ernst, the one more prone to a profound selection bias about homeopathy is Dana Ullman.
Here’s why, in a clear, evidence-based way:
1. Starting positions (prior beliefs)
Dana Ullman is a long-time advocate of homeopathy. His work focuses on promoting it, writing supportive books, and highlighting positive findings.
Edzard Ernst is a former professor of complementary medicine who became a systematic critic after evaluating the evidence rigorously.
👉 Strong prior commitment (like Ullman’s) increases the risk of confirmation bias—selecting evidence that supports a belief.
2. Approach to evidence
Ullman
Often cites individual positive studies, case reports, or practitioner experiences.
Tends to downplay negative trials or large meta-analyses that find no effect beyond placebo.
Ernst
Known for conducting and citing systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Emphasizes totality of evidence, including negative findings.
👉 Selection bias is especially about which evidence you include or exclude. Ernst’s methodology is explicitly designed to reduce that bias.
3. Academic vs advocacy incentives
Ullman operates largely in an advocacy role.
Ernst worked within academic medicine, where norms require:
transparency
reproducibility
inclusion of conflicting evidence
👉 Advocacy contexts tend to tolerate (or even reward) selective evidence use more than academic science.
4. Track record in the literature
Reviews of homeopathy (e.g., by groups like the UK Parliament or Australian NHMRC) consistently conclude:
no reliable evidence of efficacy beyond placebo
Ernst’s conclusions align with these.
Ullman’s do not—suggesting selective interpretation of the same body of evidence.
Bottom line
Dana Ullman → more likely to exhibit selection bias (due to advocacy and selective citation).
Edzard Ernst → not bias-free (no one is), but his methods aim to minimize it, making him less prone to that specific bias.
I posted this before I read it.
Now I read it and had to laugh out loud several times.
Ok…now, ask this same AI and compare what YOU wrote above and what I wrote above…I dare you!
Oh Dana
You are the living embodiment of selection bias you pathetic, yammering, pig-ignorant clown.
And everyone knows this.
It’s another one of the many reasons why nobody of any consequence pays any heed to anything you say or write.
I see that one of your “Literary Greats Who Advocated For Homeopathy” is Ralph Waldo Emerson, but for some reason none of the quotations you use has him saying anything about homeopathy. One is a comment about education in general, one refers to someone else as a “champion of Hahnemann”, and one says, “‘T is the very principle of science that Nature shows herself best in leasts; it was the maxim of Aristotle and Lucretius; and, in modern times, of Swedenborg and of Hahnemann. The order of changes in the egg determines the age of fossil strata.” Nothing actually about homeopathy.
But don’t despair, Dana! I have managed to find a comment by Emerson that is actually about homeopathy, in his essay, ‘Nominalist and Realist’ (https://emersoncentral.com/texts/essays-second-series/nominalist-and-realist/). Actually, I’m a little surprised that you weren’t able to quote it yourself; it only took me a couple of minutes to find. Here it is:
Mojo…you are so funny! First, I wrote that chatper in 2007…yeah, that quote from Emerson was easy to find TODAY, but not yesterday…and I’m glad that you used that quote because Emerson acknowledges that homeopathy and Swedenborgism provide “good criticism on the science, philosophy and preaching of the day.” THAT is fine with me! However, homeopathy was way ahead of its time…only nowadays can modern physics and material sciences help us to understand the power of nanodoses. You, on the other hand, are just a member of a dying cult of scientism.
@Dana Ullman
Nope, homeopathy does not work.
And certainly not because of ‘nanodoses’.
In a nutshell:
– Very likely, homeopathic manufacturers regularly botch their dilution process – through normal homeopathic incompetence and/or through deliberately cutting corners (read: fraud). After all, performing dozens (30C) or even hundreds (200C) of dilution steps is costly, and no-one will notice if they just use 2 or 3 huge steps instead. In this respect, it is also very convenient that homeopathy doesn’t have standardized quality control, and that no official oversight takes place. It’s all just plain water, right?
– Water-shaking clowns like you then purchase these contaminated ‘remedies’ and find that they still contain traces of the original substances. Now with any normal pharmaceutical product, this would immediately lead to complaints, recall actions, scandals and often even huge fines.
But not homeopaths, nosiree. Instead of telling those sloppy manufacturers that they should (literally) clean up their act, those water-shaking imbeciles go completely wild, and start fantasizing about ‘nanomedicine’, and basically claim that this presence of contaminants is not a bug, it’s a feature! No, much bigger than that, it is how homeopathy works! Which of course is ludicrous, as homeopathy doesn’t work to begin with, and thus any ‘explanations’ are a priory pseudoscientific nonsense.
The stupidity of homeopaths is truly breathtaking, and only rivalled by their limitless fantasy, creating whole systems of medicine out of literally nothing, supported by no good evidence at all.
Richard needs to report these ‘contaminated’ products urgently. He should not waste time. If he is correct then lives could be at risk and innocent members of the public could be dying in droves.
The MHRA in the UK have a 24 hr hotline open this weekend for such critical matters. Richard should advise them of his concerns. Medicine agencies in other countries also need to know of this scandal. Richard should let us know how he gets on.
MHRA hotline
44 20 3080 6701
@JK
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/fda-warns-consumers-about-homeopathic-teething-products
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hundreds-of-babies-harmed-by-homeopathic-remedies-families-say/
Here’s a non-medical quote about Homoeopathy from me,
“I think Homoeopathy is fantastic.” ~ Mutus Bellator.
“I think homeopathy is fantastic bullshit” ~ RPGNo1 😀
[Checks OED]
“Imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality.”