Strange dimensions

For adversaries of homeopathy, our science is a strange contradiction. Their world is limited to matter and this something that has “no-thing” in it cannot have any effect. So when they see an effect they immediately have to resort to “explanations” like “placebo”, “statistically insignificant” or “fraud”. “Placebo” is a beautiful explanation. It is beautiful because it doesn’t explain anything. “Chance” is a similar kind of explanation that only hides that one doesn’t know something happens, but because it looks like an explanation, one is excused from looking further and deeper into the case. It even “shows” that further research is useless and thus stupid.

One can draw a parallel with the thought experiment of “Flatland”. Flatland is a country where there are only two dimensions for the creatures living in it, at least they can only perceive two dimensions. In the third dimension things happen that sometimes cross flatland. The creatures in Flatland see things suddenly appearing and disappearing, without understanding where they came from or where they went. For them such things are accidental, happening by “chance”. The explanation of “chance” will give a kind of reassurance, as if the things that happen from the third dimension are understood and under control. Of course they are not at all understood as they don’t see or understand any of the third dimension.

The controversy between homeopathy and “hard science” is very similar. Flatland is like the material world and the materialism paradigm is the conviction that it is all that exists. In that frame of reference there is no place for another dimension, the mind or spiritual world. That dimension is not seen and is denied in hard science, but it is an essential part of the universe, it is the dimension from which the diseases originate. When one can see (part of) that world; diseases make sense. When one only sees the material world, diseases are accidental, bad luck, generated by “chance”.

It sometimes looks as if we really live in different worlds. I prefer the world and dimension that gives more understanding of life. I imagine you as a reader are in the same position, even when a lot of people blame or ridicule you, which is understandable from their point of view.

I wish you much reading pleasure and a good holiday.

continued from June 2009 -358- Bism and suicide / two cases

3. Bism-c: The father of a suicidal daughter.
He is the father of a problematic child. As a young women she is admitted to a psychiatric ward several times for depression and suicidal tendencies. He suffers from urinary retention and kidney stones and is considered to be a difficult patient. It is as if he is a prisoner of his own thoughts and he clings to fixed ideas in a forceful and awkward way. Out of a few bismuth salts given, he responds best to Bism-c 1000. His second colour choice is 24c, which is bism.


4. Bism-mur, Bism-sulph.: the husband kills himself.
The female patient became bulimic and suffered a serious swallowing disorder due to the narrowing of her oesophagus, after she found her dead husband in the garage. He gassed himself to death with the c02 fumes by directing the fumes into his car from the exhaust. It was his intension to do so in the garage because he thought she would be to the first to find him and that way he could for a final time punish her. He did unfortunately succeed with this intention. He often beat her. She was difficult to handle and she demanded a guarantee that her treatment would heal her else she would leave immediately. Bism-mur 1000 made her swallowing difficulties better after which she could eat normally for several months. She was also more able to deal with her dominant mother. This has to do with the muriaticum part of the salt. But this was not the problem. It really was about her husband who’s suicide had such a strong affect that she became ill. This part of the case was originally missed. Unfortunately the patient was angered by a minor psychological error and did not return. It was only later realized that she would have required bism-sulph. Her comments regarding this point were noted in the first consultation but were over-looked: I don’t want to marry again and I would rather live alone. I do not want a relationship to do this to me again. This is sulph not muriaticum.


5. Bism-mur: the aunt drowns herself; the mother is heavily depressed and suicidal.
The Psoriasis the patient suffers from is improved by bism-mur. She used to dream that having stones tied around her feet and then thrown into the water drowned her. She makes the connection between her dream and her aunt who drowned herself in the local pond. She suffered from bulimia as a youth until she became pregnant (muriaticum). The disorder ceased after she became pregnant. Even though she cannot manage her children she wants to have more. She clings (stage 15) to her role as a mother. (mur). When she spends time in the area of the town that she used to live in as a child she still is treated like the little girl she used to be. The remedy that followed was mag.mur. As a result her psoriasis disappears. This remedy had a deep effect on this insecure patient. Now she feels secure even in her role as a mother.


6. Bism-met: I am going to jump out of a window.
The patient was depressed even as a child. Due to learning difficulties she received Ritalin for a while which gave her a little bit more energy but it did not take away the depression. Instead she became more and more insecure. Aurum muriaticum was a remedy that seemed to help her the best but it was then revealed that at the age of 10 she confided with her mother that she often thinks of jumping out of the window with the intention of killing herself. She was then given bism-sub 200 and this helped a lot. She stops the suicidal tendencies and her mother ceases giving the Ritalin. After 3 months she received bism-met LM6 daily and this has had the effect of making her a lot more balanced. But as soon as she stops taking it she slides straight back into her old condition. Two years pass and she has not had a remedy for a long time. Her parents forgot or suppressed that phase and now she is back again with the same problem. She was given Bism –met 1000 and she has a temper tantrum. Usually she is quite passive and relaxed had a temper tantrum in her room and cried, after which her suicide thoughts were blown away. On the 4th day she was happy and could laugh. This is something she could never do before. She said finally something is really helping me. In the meantime she has done an apprenticeship and her suicide thoughts have not come back for years. Her colour preference has even as a child been 24c,yellow green.


7. Bism-sub nitricum : wants to take his life because he has immense pain.
This case is an example of the suicide themes of bism discussed in classical literature. A 24-year-old man has suffered from a severe facial neuralgia for the past 24 days. The pain was so intense that he has hardly slept for the last 3 weeks and has wanted to take his life on several occasions. He achieved slight improvement by forcing himself to walk and having cold water in his mouth. 90 minutes after he took Bism 30 his pain improved and subsided after an 11-hour sleep. After a small set back the following day another dose was given and he became healthy for good. Sadly the case was not fully worked up like so many of the old cases. The case was only prescribed on symptoms, but with success. Luckily Homeopathy has many ways to reach the goal.


Ulrich Welte

Case
In the month of April 1999 a female farmer of 52 years old came to visit our clinic in Bhaktapur. Since 3 years she had problems with her respiration. These problems obstructed her in her work on the fields, so it was very hard for her to make a living. She felt short of breath especially during sleep, the complaints waking her up>in knee-chest position, >bending forward, >in the sun and < in cold air, < in winter (in Bhaktapur winters are humid, around 0degr.C) < eating oily food. She was also troubled by a cough for more then 10 years, a dry cough < on exposure to dust and after eating sour food. Another problem of hers was the irregularity of her period, happening every 12-15 days, or once in 6 weeks. Since 3 years she had an oedema all over her body esp. on face, chest and abdomen, < from cold. There was no specific history of family or personal illness. She is chilly, has a desire for sweets, oily foods and an aversion for meat, fish, garlic and onion. By physical examination we find a lot of wheezing over both lungs, on all lung-fields.


Conclusion: A 52 years old women with a severe COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), which prevents her from doing her work well, so it is hard for her to earn enough money for her family.


She was married when she was 7 years old and had to move to her husband’s home. There she was neglected and abused by her husband and his family. Her husband loved another woman. When she was 12 years old he married this other woman. Then our patient left her husband’s house and came to stay at her mother’s place and worked at her mother’s farm. She tells now,she was too young to understand the situation then. Later, when she was older and understood what had happened, she felt forsaken. From being 12 years old she stayed with her mother, working on the farm. Six years ago her mother died. It felt for her as if her life ended too. Her brother doesn’t give her any support. She had had a relation with her husband only between the age of 7-12. Her husband has children only with the other wife. Asking her how she feels about this all, she responds with; ”What to do, there is no use in feeling unhappy. There is a lot to worry about, but I don’t”. So she has accepted her life and adapted herself to her situation. She is a shy, yielding person. She cannot remember having wept. During consultation though, she is swallowing as if tears are present. She likes company, but she has adapted herself to being alone. She looks very sad. She has fears for thunderstorms. Since the last 10 years she feels weak.


We gave her a dose of Berylium-metallicum 200K.


First follow up-after 8 weeks
She feels much better. Asthma-problems improved by 85% . Cough better in the morning and in the evening. Oedema much better, Energy much better, sleep and appetite were good. Menstruation of 7 days, normal.


Second follow up after 10 months
Much better, all of her problems improved by 90%, even during this winter there was only a slight relapse. She is able to work again to make herself a living. She feels very energetic. Also emotionally she feels much better.


Third follow up 1 ½ year
She has received Beryllium-metallicum every now and then. She is doing fine


Inspiration: Jan Scholten; Homeopathy and the Elements, Stichting Alonnissos
In this book, Jan Scholten writes about the Beryllium person as someone, that is insecure. They feel vulnerable, as if they are not allowed there place and space. They don’t dare to confront, to stand up for themselves, they are afraid to be stopped or punished. They rather withdraw. They are not able to live up to their own values. Their personality still has to develop. They are passive, yielding personalities.
We believe this description is very well fitted for this woman, especially in the situation of her youth.
The Scholten continues: They feel standing aside life, like standing at the sideline. Their life is without any colours, they live a withdrawn life.
This sounds as the life she lives, when she visits our clinic.


Dr.Rob Brik

Nepalproject
http://www.homeopathic-cases.blogspot.com

Male 29 yrs


alopecia areata

He came to me in October 1998.
Since February 1998 he had seborrhoic eczema under his hair at the front-side of his head and locally on the scalp with some bald spots diagnosed as alopecia areata. These spots were perfectly round and situated at the backside of his head. The biggest one 5 cm in diameter. The dermatologist gave him corticosteroid crème and some special liquid for the scabby eczema. The result was that he lost the hair at these treated spots too. The eczema extended to his abdomen and arms in spots.
He went to the dermatologist for the first time in 1992 and called this doctor ‘socially disturbed’ because he made some humiliating remarks about the anxiety of the patient. He never went for another consultation.


Observation: He is a rather tall nice looking man. He answers carefully and waits for my questions, he doesn’t talk freely.


He has been healthy all his life, but as a child he caught the flu regularly which used to end in bronchitis, this was treated with a mucus solvent. He is the youngest of 3 children, he has a brother and a sister.
I asked for his latest stress period.
In 1997 he finished his studies in Political Science and did a post doctoral degree in the U.S. He had to look for a job when he came back. In February 1998 he had 2 jobs. One he didn’t like so much, so he was looking for another one and at the same time his relationship broke up. She walked away with another man. “my self confidence went down. Actually I am a rather rational person. It came unexpectedly in fact, it was painful to me”. At the age of 22. He was in a relationship and she too broke the contact suddenly and he felt very powerless at that time. “I feel often under estimated in contact with people”.
I asked him about anger.
“Mostly I tell how I feel, but ironically I give a verbally exaggerated reaction” he says. No memory of anger in his childhood, he had a ‘safe’ home. He states that his self confidence is okay after all. At school he experienced some difficult situations at the age of 9-11. A sports teacher used to humiliate him “because I was not good at the ball. I swallowed the humiliations for a long time. When I start rowing and being very good at it and also at history, it stopped. After that I didn’t accept this kind of behaviour any more and protested against it.” For example? “I didn’t want to join the military service and for an alternative I had to work in a hospital in stead, with ‘irresponsible management’ I reacted by writing letters. It was a dramatic situation there, it still comes to my mind from time to time. The relationship with my parents was good. Ma was for the harmony model, Pa refused to talk. Together they didn’t go too well.”
Fear as a child?
“Not much. I thought about death and existential questions.” His parents are living in Germany were he grew up and lived till he came to Holland after the hospital period as a volunteer for a German reconciliation program. “I wanted to leave Germany and I wanted my work to have a real meaning. I have been studying German history a lot and asked myself ‘how could it happen’.. that people can just follow the commands… Befehl ist befehl !!” On one side he has a sensitivity, kind of fear of being a German, on the other side “I don’t feel too German after all”.
In the U.S. he did Post Doc., Peace studies and Philosophical dimensions. ”It was not easy, a lot of work. The campus was boring. The students were living together in a house were not allowed to cook, there was a lack of privacy and unrest day and night. The most important to me was that there was no sharing of ideals. This was irritating me. I tried to be of an influence. What is important to me is responsibility by commitment.”
Ambitions?
“To be happy. To have a certain role in society, to change things in the world for the better. To realize ideals without violence. I’ll see.”
At this time he is working as a freelance translator just for the time being. His option is to join a big welfare organisation.
Prefers warmth, hot weather.
Likes to travel all over the world.
Digestion? Good, doesn’t eat meat, sometimes fish. Not thirsty. His energy is okay, so is his sleep. Doesn’t remember his dreams. Lives alone.

I gave him Staphysagria MK
(at the time I did not know the real core of Staphysagria or the Ranunculaceae).


Follow up - November 1998
Feels okay, as if the hair starts to grow a bit. The eczema came back for a short time. The most remarkable after the remedy is that he sleeps more and is more thirsty. The last consultation brought him to think..to decide .. to some new ideas. “Clear, I need a base and a challenge. I see things more relaxed, more matter of fact.”
Dreams? “I remember mostly the atmosphere, extreme things about an outsider with a group, I am observer. I thought by myself, why wandering all the time, who or what am I fleeing for? My ideal is to keep it pure and honest. How far can I go to compromise? I don’t want to give the impression that I know better and that I have the only truth. I am no missionary!”

Staph. MK repeated.


Follow up - December 1998
Feeling of displacement. “I have a need for a supporting environment. As soon as I feel in a comfortable position, I feel, This cannot be IT. I want to achieve more.”
A Family? “Why not, has to be carefully thought over, it is a big responsibility. I am reluctant to a relationship.” No further changes.

I gave him Alum. Met. 200K


Follow up - January 1999
Feels fine. Had a dental treatment last month. Stayed at his parental home for Christmas holidays, had discussions with his family. ”I tried to imagine myself in their way of thinking and living“.
Is busy to apply for a new job. Feels well in himself, no more feelings of displacement.
As a freelancer he likes to work in the evening and at night. “There are less people ‘alive’, but the contacts are more personal. He likes to go through the city at night, nature is more present at that time and the idea that people are asleep is romantic." He feels himself more pure and more easily touched.
Observation: The bald spots diminished these months by 30%, but after the second consultation he told me that it didn’t bother him anymore.
I myself had the feeling that there had to be a better remedy and tried my best to find the appropriate one. Then in January 1999 I saw the similarity of the alopecia spots of a former patient (see edition April 2009) and the ideals and principles in both men.


Follow up - February 1999
So by this time I knew that I would give him Ang. Archang.
I just wanted him to tell some more about his philosophy.
He feels fine. He plans about the realization of his ideals. He committed himself to a big welfare organization and stopped his freelance work. His job will be to teach etc. He feels the need to change things in society. He hates materialism. He is no member of any church because this is too much of an institution. He is brought up in a Christian environment. “As a young child I wanted to be a clergyman, now I feel Taoism is what I like, its practical philosophy”. He has a clear point of view on what is right or wrong. Now he is ready to search for the pure life and pure deep contact with people. He has no T.V. “is humbug”.
Cloistre? “Seems very nice to me, to be there with people in a warm community, in contemplation and sharing ideals, ideals to life and one another."

I gave him Ang. Archang. 200K


Follow up - 3 weeks later
He wrote to me that because of his job he couldn’t come for the next consultation. And he wrote “the remedy must have been very effective because my hair grew rapidly since I took it.”


I called him in August 1999 to ask permission for this publication. He is going well, no complaints and so some months later.


Anne Wirtz 
park@annewirtz.demon.nl

INTRODUCTION
… psychological response patterns representing aspects of the human life-drama are duplicated in the structure and life activity of the earth’s substance. The psychosomatic totalities of ill person and medicines appear as “similar” field patterns, mutually inclusive of human organism and nonhuman, “external” and supposedly “inanimate” substances (Whitmont, 1993:4).
Within this “similar field patterns” unfolds the mystery of healing and of life. What Whitmont has written sums up the fundamental principles of homoeopath and its essence succinctly. It describes the essence of life on Earth in a nutshell – “as above, so below” - without separation. Yet, in the development of human consciousness, we became steeped in viewing life, the world, and everything else in the universe as fragments, separate from one another, which, arguably, has led to our present day’s emphasis on a quantitative and mechanistic determinant reality at the expense of a qualitative, unseen and immeasurable part of life - the essence and the vital force that animate life.

Descartes, the influential seventeenth century philosopher accentuated this split by considering the universe and body as machines. From the perspective of body health, this separation of mind and matter has not only subjected humanity to fear based manipulation, but also given rise to the piecemeal approach to health. As a consequence, this provided the foundation and greater credence to the development of allopathic medicine, and its subsequent systemic dominance over healthcare worldwide.

Allopathy considers human bodies to be machines, embedded in which is an ideology fixated on prolonging life by any which means possible. “Allopathy” is more than just a word that encapsulates a philosophic approach to medicine, critically, it reflects a world ensnared in a dualistic conflict - “us and them”. Following of which, it naturally entraps all aspects of life and subjects it to a constant state of warfare, power struggle and dominance over one another from the national and societal level down to the small unit of the individuals’ body. The ethos of allopathy is to divide, conquer and destroy. Healing and health become territorial to the exclusion and subjugation of all other holistic oriented medicines. Such metaphoric use of the military phrases, “we must fight to win the battle against cancer,” reflect a state of internal conflicts and disarray of humanity as a whole. Resultant is our dire dissociation with the body, and the fragmentation seen in every aspect of life is evidently mirrored in the state of our health, which keeps the population dependent and dis-empowered.

In contrast, the perspective of a holistic medical system (e.g. homoeopath) is to consider the illnesses as the externalisation of an inner state – disharmonious and out of balance. This means that one’s illness, to a large extent, may have less to do with “bad luck” or unsound genetic inheritance and more so with abdicating responsibility to care for one’s mental, emotional, and physical hygiene. The word “responsibility” in its Latin root means “the ability to respond” to a given situation. As such, being responsible for oneself leads to independence and empowerment. Healing, in this sense, has to do with the healing of the emotional, mental and spiritual patterns rather than drugging oneself to the hilt in an effort to suppress body’s innate self-healing ability.

Illnesses are only one among many possible manifestations. They, like life’s crises, accidents, and traumatic experiences, are encoded information communicates that certain changes are required in the unfolding of life and of ego-consciousness. Whereas in the absence of creating a conscious relationship with our body, mind, and spirit, we destroy our health (e.g. war against our own body with the indiscriminate use of antibiotics) and quality of life, as well as our environment, in the single pursuit of material greed and gratification. Over time, this modus operandi (effects of the sycotic and syphilitic miasms in humanity) becomes the norm, while other more subtle aspects of life are subjugated and shunned.
This one-sidedness exacts a costly price; resulting from the drug therapy to health is that the majority of humanity has long forgotten what it feels like to be vital and alive. Instead, life has become a series of broken down episodes of “coping” strategies managed by “animated corpses” (a phrase borrowed from Grossinger) rather than the unfolding of one’s splendid self, innate beauty and creative potentials that are meant to be experienced through encountering the many challenges presented by living a vital life.

Having said that, the point here is to accentuate the necessity to create balance within our selves as well as between the holistic and the allopathic approach to health without the dominance of one over the other as each of the health modality possesses strength in its own specific spheres of application. Homoeopathy has the potential to heal individuals at the deep soul level that brings about the integration of opposites and of inner conflicts. As we begin to heal individually at this deep level, the healing of the Cartesian split of body and mind becomes a real possibility where healing of the physical is the manifestation.

This article explores my reason and thought in considering the element theory to possess the intrinsic qualities to heal humanity in great depth and integration of all levels. In order to do this, I will explore it from the perspective of Jung’s concept of archetypes. As Scholten has written in his book, Secret Lanthanides, “An archetype is a basic element of the psyche, … can be expressed with more than one concept” (2005:20).

Therefore the focus here is to chart the close relationship between an individual and the healing substance at their “implicate archetypal order” (Whitmont, 1993), the essence, as they share a similar field pattern that is both the source of disease manifestation and its ultimate healing. Scholten (2005:21) defines the “essence” thus:
"The essence can be formulated on many levels (see chapter “Seven Levels”). Most often it’s formulated on the Thought Level because that level is the language level. But the essence is a disturbance that can express itself on all levels. … The essence is the source of the problem. It starts at the Archetypal Level and emanates through all the levels and finally into the physical body. The symptoms are expressions of the essence.” (emphasis is mine)

First, a discussion of my reason for writing this article is in order. Second will be an exploration of the meaning of implicate archetypal order in relationship to homoeopath and to the element theory in particular. Third, I will consider the psychological complexes and the somatisation of illnesses. The last part explores the archetypal aspects in the concepts and the language of the element theory. At a fundamental level, this article examines the element theory from a deeper implicate order of our life where disease as information in the development of consciousness. Healing is a question of consciousness.

WHY THIS ARTICLE?
The journey of my becoming a homoeopath traversed thus far is literally beyond my wildest imagination. When I first wrote the article, in 2005: “Is Scholten’s Element Theory the Future of Homoeopathy? An Address to Students,” I had an inkling of the breadth and the depth of the element theory’s significance and the potential impact on homoeopath as a healing modality. Now four years hence, that sense of awe has not diminished and continues to expand and deepen with an increasing sense of freedom for me as a homoeopath and a healer.

The precision and accuracy of remedies selected by way of the element theory is breath taking and awe-inspiring. Healing can be deep when the elements required converge in a singularity: the individual’s deep desire to be healed, the keen insight and perception of the practitioner, and the methodology (e.g. the Element Theory, Sankaran’s Miasmatic Approach, Family Constellation, etc.) applied is appropriate to that therapeutic relationship. The element theory is thus much more than just a theory based on the periodic table. It is fundamentally a way and a tool of perceiving the essence and the theme of an individual (case) systematically that lead to the selection of the remedy required in each case. Whether the remedy we search for is derived from the mineral, the plant or the animal kingdoms, the underlying principle is the same – understanding the theme.

For me, the element theory comes in a neat package. It is comparable to that of Doctor Who’s TARDIS (anything that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside) that can be explored endlessly. Our ability to locate a remedy by way of the element theory, freed from the constraints of traditional drug provings, describes the (archetypal) essence of both the remedy and the individual. In other words, they share a similar field pattern where the law of similar can be truly realised in its great breadth and depth.

My experience in healing with the homoeopathic mineral remedies has shown that they are capable of reaching deeply into the individual soul. This is for reason that the elements of the periodic table are the fundamental building blocks of the universe and of human beings. Unlike the plants and the animals, the elements are not “individualised” therefore can be combined to bring about very precise and powerful elemental forces and unique patterns that simultaneously and synchronistic mirror our own.

Nothing stands still; life is constantly in a state of flux and dynamic change. It is two hundred years since Hahnemann and the inception of allopathy. Since then, and especially over the last twenty-five years, development in all areas of human activities have altered beyond recognition, so have the disease manifestations, as everything is integral to who we really are.
The diseases, in the developed countries, are no longer the simple uncomplicated acutes as of the epidemics in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries but are of those that ravage our immune system at a much deeper level. Children, with the implementation of vaccinations, do not get measles, mumps, or chickenpox anymore. Instead, have bargained these away for those florid autoimmune diseases that kill insidiously in a slow and painful manner – childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes, even Alzheimer’s, the list goes on.

As such, the time-honoured polychrests, while relevant to the societies of the bygone era with simpler structures, now lack the complexity in their power to heal deeply and to meet the necessity in addressing the fundamental spiritual issues of individuals living in the twenty-first Century. My understanding is that the changing social structures over the past one hundred years, coupled with the underlying ideology regarding health and human life, power and profit, have greatly influenced and changed the nature of diseases. At the same time, they have generated much greater need for the mineral remedies to heal humanity than the remedies derived from the plants or the animal kingdoms. The reason being such is that our life and everyday living is much more complex, more structured and unarguably is organised with certain rigidity and control – we live and die by the ticking of the clock.

Scholten’s element theory is a timely revolution to meet the challenges of changing human consciousness and the aetiology of disease manifestation (Makewell, 2006:June). It bridges what Grossinger (1998) considers the struggles between “ and futurism” in the homoeopathic profession. Datedness, according to Grossinger, is the attempt to “re-establish Hahnemann’s original orthodoxy and archaic characterology” (1998:10) on the one hand, and on the other, the hope that the quantum physics and psychology (particularly the Jungian) may vindicate its far-reaching capacity in healing the sick and the mentally disturbed. My experience shows that the depth and the breadth of the element theory have every potential to take the homoeopathic profession into the uncharted mysterious psychic waters in deep healing and that the true healing of the physical is a REALITY. In this context, homoeopath is markedly beyond what the prosaic materialistic oriented and the so-called “scientific medicines” could possibly comprehend.

The significance of the element theory to homoeopath is manifold. First, it brought homoeopath from the first stage of its development as a science to the second stage (Scholten, 2004, Autumn; Makewell, October, 2008). Secondly, it took homoeopath from the piecemeal approach in case taking (repertorisation) to perceiving patterns and essences. Thirdly, not only has it opened up a whole range of previously inaccessible and unknown remedies, it has, more importantly, freed homoeopath from the information constraints derived from traditional drug provings to limitless possibilities via the perception of patterns, themes and essences reaching into implicate archetypal order.

With the above stated, I am not suggesting that the traditional proving be made redundant. Rather, that this manner of obtaining information is limited in its scope, as it lacks the capacity to reach the archetypal level of the human psyche. The language and words used by the individual patient to relate his/her experiences and life situations describe patterns of instinctive psychological urges and archetypal images. These cannot be captured by the traditional drug provings, as via which the information obtained is fragmented and incoherent. Moreover, provings are reliant upon the conscious perception of the provers to relate the sensations from the effects of the potentised substance. What is known and described by the provers can only be the tip of the iceberg so to speak. If we change how we perceive our patients from our accustomed way (repertorisation) to perceiving patterns and essences (implicate pattern or archetypes), then, we are entering into the unfathomable depth of homoeopath and of human psyche where the healing of the soul with the homoeopathic remedies becomes possible.


IMPLICATE ARCHETYPAL ORDER
Whitmont, as far as I know, coined the phrase “implicate archetypal order” in his book - The Alchemy of Healing, following the quantum physicist David Bohm’s concept of implicate order. For Bohm, the universe is an entangled wholeness where everything is a seamless extension of everything else in a dynamic interconnectedness. Implicate, enfolding, order is a deeper level of reality underlying all of the manifestations, explicate, unfolding, order, including the continuum of health and disease. Implicate archetypal order can be equated with what Jung considers to be the collective unconscious (the deepest layer of the unconscious) in the human psyche, the primordial instincts and archetypes. Spring from which are the expressions of life in their unequivocal glories at one end of the spectrum and abject inhumanity in the other.
Instincts are psychological urges and inborn behaviour patterns with an inherent drive to become conscious. They make known to the ego through archetypal images where they are experienced in the form of complexes, e.g. father, mother, inferiority, Oedipal or God complexes, etc. The ego is also an instinct created spontaneously and automatically when born. Its development is in accordance with a pre-existing pattern and time table, the entelechy (the inherent drive to fulfil the wholeness of life pattern), which can be perceived by way of the “enforced” changes and crises one encounters in life or through the symbolic language of the astrological birth chart.

Ego is a vehicle for the development of consciousness. Via the mechanism of ego projection and our ability to reflect we are able to transform and integrate, to a certain extent, the unconscious instinctual patterns to evolve into greater consciousness. Without the ego consciousness to mediate the instincts we are of little difference from the instinctual behaviours of animals.

Instincts create archetypal images, which create our psychological complexes. At the core of complexes are archetypes they are not pathological, nor are they negative or positive. How the complex develops in an individual is in accordance with their inherent personality, childhood environment, and subsequent life experiences that shape its expression either in positive or negative ways. However, traumas (e.g. sexual/physical abuse in childhood) can contribute negative personal associations to the archetypal core of the complexes. Our personal complexes are the cause of ego disturbance of which can be understood in terms of Sankaran’s idea “disease as delusions.”

Just as the DNA is an encoded container of the physical hereditary so the psychological complexes are the encoded energetic container of the psyche (Whitmont, 1993; Laughlin, 1982). In our development of consciousness, our complex makes itself known by way of projection through which we come to know our wounding as well as the necessity in its healing. Our woundedness is reflected in our emotional reactions, ideas/ideals, belief systems, imaginations, and worldview. In turn, the patterns of these create our personal reality and its physical manifestation. If change takes place on one level it affects changes on other levels too. Similarly, the continuous suppression of physical pain will eventually drive those disease symptoms into emotional pathology (e.g. depression) and perhaps mental illnesses (e.g. confusion) also. Therefore, healing of the physical begins from the healing of our psychological complexes and damaged instincts.

Where instincts are damaged (e.g. through physical and/or sexual abuse) it creates damaged behavioural (many forms of addiction to a greater or lesser degree) and perceptual patterns (e.g. surrounded by enemies) - often expressed in our behaviours, actions and reactions as well as in the way we formulate what we imagine. As such, healing is to heal all the way from the damaged instinct, negative psychological complexes to the ego disturbance (delusions). It is only then possible to restore the ego to a proper relationship with the Self, which is also an instinct. This same process, reflected in the physical healing, begins at the deepest level and work its way back out from the most important organs to the least, symptom by symptom.

From the Jungian psychoanalytic perspective, an analyst can only assist to activate the self-healing function in a patient if he or she possesses a thorough understanding of each instinct of its form and meaning represented by the archetypal images (Laughlin, 1982). In the same manner, for a homoeopathic remedy to stimulate the self-healing capacity of the vital force to heal at the deep soul level the remedy must reflect a similar pattern of the damaged instinct. This can be perceived via the words and the concepts laid out in the element theory.
It is at this implicate archetypal level that all life on Earth - humans, animals, plants, nature, etc. are connected, share similar field patterns – the Oneness of all. As such, at the core of our potentised remedies (spiritualised via the process of succussion and dilution) is archetypal, in a similar way, found at the core of human complexes. Soul healing becomes possible when resonance between a remedy and an individual reaches deeply into implicate archetypal order.
Scholten’s element theory, perceived from this archetypal level, is an encoded system. The words and concepts belong to the eighteen stages and the seven series assist the practitioner to perceive an individual life’s deeper reality – implicate archetypal order. It is from this level that springs the manifestations in life as well as where the healing must also begin. The elegance of the element theory is its intrinsic capacity to perceive the patient and the remedy simultaneously – both at implicate level. Essentially, that which can cause harm can also heal. Such is the paradoxical nature of healing.


COMPLEXES AND THE SOMATISATION OF ILLNESS
At the archetypal core of a complex are levels of reality – spiritual, mental, emotional and physical – they share similar archetypal essence, “similar field patterns,” though experienced as different realities to our present awareness.
The spiritual level relates to the ultimate purpose in the development of personality and the evolution of the soul in fulfilling a grand evolutionary design. The next is the mental level that involves thought patterns, belief systems, and perceptions, which are at the core of how we experience life. The emotional level is concerned with our feelings and emotional responses; typically, when a complex is activated there often accompanied by emotionally charged reactions. The last level is the physical manifestation of the dynamic energy.

Along the process of unfolding one’s life, with its many punctuations, pauses, starts and stops, we are required to transform the instinctual patterns into consciousness. It is when the necessity to change and grow is met with ego resistance, then, the outcome is often an impasse (e.g. depression). Something, then, must give involving a kind of sacrifice or giving up of something held dear such as an ideology, entrenched belief system, a compulsive relationship, or as in illness in order for one to move beyond it. Jung (1978:71) states:
The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.
The unconscious inner situation demands recognition as to establish a more conscious relationship on the part of the ego with the Self. Therefore, the development of physical problems often has to do with suppressed emotions where one has difficulty in acknowledging those unacceptable feelings and conflicts. Symptoms of illnesses or diseases are thus “channels” for discharging the obstructed energy flow and when inner situations are denied their proper expression or fail to reach consciousness. Somatisations are ways of “acting out” the inexpressible. This is also the reason why we often experience stressful times in life through illnesses – so the dammed up psychic energies could be transformed. What one experiences as illnesses, accidents, or emotional traumas are the reflections of an inner state; they are of non-causal connecting principle – synchronistic and mysterious.
All illnesses are thus somatised complexes. Healing, consequently, is a question of consciousness and is always about healing one’s psychological complexes and the damaged instincts. The reason for the mineral remedies to heal so deeply is because the element theory has enabled us to perceive the individuals from implicate archetypal order where the remedies are the other side of the same coin.


ARCHETYPAL ASPECTS IN THE ELEMENT THEORY
The words and concepts of the eighteen stages and the seven series in the element theory are those that reflect a particular set of value systems, worldviews, and the way of perceiving “reality.” Words such as success (stage 10), doubt (stage 3, 4, & 5), challenge (stage 6), retreat (stage 13), destruction (stage 15), extinguish (stage 17), etc. carry specific feelings and emotions that are imbued with certain feeling tones of the complexes. When one’s complex begins to heal so will the language and words the individual communicate also change to reflect the healed inner state – the inner and outer are seamlessly connected, and are mirrors of each other. Healing of the complex is a process and often the remedy required to heal one’s particular complex may change (from one series or stages to another) as one evolves and develops through the unfolding of individual consciousness.


THE EIGHTEEN STAGES
The eighteen stages are a bell-shaped curve of life’s progression from the beginning to the end, from birth to death. Although this developmental curve describes the natural development of a human being, each stage could indicate WHERE one is potentially “stuck” unable to progress further safe the issues related to that stage are addressed consciously or healed. The stages tell how one is relating or dealing with the life-task (indicated by the series). They are not clear-cut in a regimented way and contained within each are fragments of the previous one and the links to the next. Additionally, these stages may also be perceived as spiral in nature - death, at the closing of life, signals a new beginning, another cycle of life on a different level.

I will now sketch a brief outline of the stages of life mapping these from the natural development of an individual to the eighteen stages.

A separate physical life begins at birth, during which, one is in a symbiotic existence with mother - awareness of others is virtually non-existent. The focus is on one’s instinctual needs for survival (the first stage). Then, the awareness of oneself in relationship to others expands as one grows, albeit in a self-conscious way (second stage). Next, feeling uncertain about where one fits in relationship to others as one ventures outward from a small family oriented environment to the larger external world, the third stage. At this stage of development there is still the doubt and the uncertainty regarding the boundary - where one ends and others begin – scanning the surrounding environment.
As the bell shaped curve rises higher through the stages it culminates at the tenth stage – the height of one’s achievement, the summit of success. One is self-assured, full of confidence and self-satisfied. An air of superiority and haughtiness often accompanies the tenth stage as those feelings of self-doubt (2nd stage), the hesitation of what to do (3rd stage), and the trepidation of being a novice starting a new job (stage 4) filled with doubt and uncertainty about one’s ability in “making it” (stage 5) are no longer present.
The sixth through to the ninth stage relate to the qualities that are required to achieve success in the external world. The sixth stage relates to a sense that one must take the plunge - courageous and foolhardy - in spite of how one feels, whether competent or not. What follows this stage is the acquisition of more skill while on the job – teaching, learning, and cooperating with others (7th). Next stage comes the struggle and hard work (8th) to ensure success as one climbs higher and higher to reach the summit. The stage nine has a sense that the hard work is almost paid off, success is in sight.
After achieving the goal of one’s desire, the summit of success, the way from the top is a downward slope – the start of steady decline. From attempts to preserve and holding onto what have been achieved (11th stage) to over shooting the mark because one tries too hard to keep things as they were at the tenth stage – this is the twelfth stage.
The stage thirteen relates to a sense of time passes by too quickly; one can no longer keep up with the tide of change. Subsequently, the feeling of being discarded (14th stage) rises up into one’s awareness. The responsibility attached to a career at the height of success (stage 10) is slowly eroding; the feeling of loss (15th) that one is almost made redundant ensues. Thus the decline has truly began only the memory of what it felt like to be important and successful remains and the time is now spent reminiscing the past glory (16th stage). A sense of futility (17th stage) accompanies this stage of life although one still has a great need to hold onto that, which is slipping away, letting go may be the only option. The last stage, the eighteenth, is inevitable and irrevocable when life comes to its natural conclusion all the strivings and hard work, self-doubt and certainty, love and anguish, successes and failures, power, exploits and possessions are no longer relevant – death frees all attachments. The conclusion of one life cycle heralds the beginning of another.


THE SEVEN SERIES AND THE ELEMENTS
The seven series are aspects or spheres of life experiences that form the background, or the stage, upon which unfolds one’s life drama – psychological complexes, inner potentials and creative impulses. They account for WHAT we intend to master, the life task, which is also our focus in life. Essentially, it is the life-task one is “assigned” to undertake so it also furnishes one with a sense of meaning and purpose for one’s existence. Niobium (Silver series), for example, belongs to stage five where one feels doubtful of one’s creative ability and talents. Therefore, in order to develop one’s innate potentials the inner feeling of self-doubt (delusions that one lacks talents/abilities) must be overcome and laid to rest if one is to fulfil one’s life purpose as a creative individual in one’s chosen field.
When the focus of life sphere is on the family and personal relationships (Silicium series), for example, we meet the archetypal patterns of our fate embodied in our family, which is also about the ancestral psychological inheritance passed down the generations (Greene & Sasportas, 1987). It is in this sphere of life experience one is learning and healing the ego disturbances (delusions) and damaged instinct so that one comes to embody the greater meaning of “family” and human relationships - the family of humanity.
Although we experience the different spheres of life and the stages of development in a personal way, underlying these are the archetypal patterns, vividly dramatised in theatre plays and portrayed in the mythologies of various cultures and civilisations.


CARBONICUM, CHLORINE, AND SULPHUR IN THE ELEMENT THEORY
A discussion of the archetypal meaning of the elements, Carbonicum (Father), Chlorine (Mother), and Sulphur (Marriage) in the element theory is in order here. I consider these three elements constitute the core of one’s development of personality and the eventual healing of the wounded self. The archetypal Father and Mother are images of the masculine and the feminine self respectively; they also symbolise our creative process within, the (parental) marriage. Any disturbance in the parental marriage affects each individual in different ways owing to it being perceived selectively in accordance to one’s own inner pattern. As such, relationship issues, either with oneself or others, occupy a central place in one’s psyche, and the tendency to meet the same pattern throughout life encounters of those issues relate to triangles, betrayal, hurt feelings, abandonment, etc. re-enact itself repeatedly. Therefore, it becomes urgent for one to make conscious a pattern through harking back to one’s relationship with the parents if one is to fully live one’s own life.

In homoeopathy, the elements of Carbonicum and Chlorine represent the archetypal parents. They are at our disposal to heal the experienced disturbances relating to the parents – Carbonicum and Chlorine take us to the source of the disturbance. This is where homoeopath differs from psychoanalysis, as healing with the potentised remedies is much more direct without subjecting one to the lengthy analysis required. These two elements thus represent a process of integration of the masculine and feminine aspects within oneself if the remedy selected is the simillimum.

The element Carbon in homoeopath encompasses a father complex at its archetypal core. Carbon has to do with the Father Principle and the life force relate to the concept of self-worth, personal value systems, integrity, inner morality, inspiration, purpose, etc. These are influenced by one’s personal relationship with the father either in positive or negative ways; subsequently, it also impact on how one relates to one’s inner masculine, the creative spirit, and men in general.
Father symbolises the spirit and the creative power. The archetypal images are the Hero, Wise Old Man, Saviour, etc. As with all things there are two poles associated with this archetype; one is Father as the spirit, authority/authoritative figure, bright, shinning, and creative. The other is the Terrible Father who is the dictator, tyrant, the oppressor, etc.

The mother complex can be associated with the element of Chlorine (Muriaticum). The archetypal Great Mother who embodies the spectrum of nurturing and Mothering. She is the vessel of form, the giver of life, the incarnation of the spirit – essentially, spirit in manifestation. One’s relationship with the personal mother can greatly affect how one relates to this aspect in oneself and to women in general whether positively or in a negative manner. The nurturing capacity in oneself relates to one’s ability to make manifest one’s own creative spirit (symbolised by the father) – the ability to nurture one’s inner creativity or externalised in nurturing the children and others.
The Mother archetype also has two poles. One is the nurturing, life giving, protective pole that we associate with the good mother and the nurturer. The other is the Terrible Mother; the dark, chthonic figure symbolised by the Gorgan-Medusa who strikes fear and terror – a goddess of death, the counterpart of the life womb (Neumann, 1963). She is the womb of death - devouring, destroying, castrating, etc. In other words, she who gives life also takes away.

The element Sulphur in Scholten’s theory may be considered the archetypal marriage pattern in the varied relationship dynamics between two people. The marriage of Hera and Zeus, in Greek mythology, is archetypal and symbolises a particular marital pattern with specific set of value systems, behavioural patterns, and psychological dramas. However, in homoeopath, irrespective of the nature of the relationship problems or issues brought to the consulting room by the patient, the dynamics of relating when belongs to the spectrum of matrimony or as in intimate personal relationships, are contained by Sulphur.

CONCLUSION
In Homoeopathy, we find the concept of unbroken wholeness of spirit, soul, mind, body and substance – a universe in itself, in a dynamic continuous interplay between the two orders, implicate and explicate, to create a living reality.
The reason for the homoeopathic mineral remedies to heal individuals deeply at implicate archetypal order is because Scholten’s element theory has opened the door into the archetypal realm of both the individual and the remedies via the eighteen stages and the seven series. Healing at this level is the unfolding of life’s innate purpose and the true self. What we can expect from this process is that the changes are coming from deep within, rather than the cognitive level. As such, there may be the changing in attitudes, recognising certain outmoded behavioural patterns, letting go of toxic relationships that impede one’s growth, or accepting certain conditions in life as given, being our fate and destiny. In other words, one’s awareness expands far greater than before as one heals to incorporate new awareness or new essence into life. More importantly is the unmistaken sense of loyalty to obey one’s inner laws.

Illnesses, like many of life’s happenings, are explicate manifestation reflecting the underlying implicate order. Once we can perceive and understand the meaning or the symbolic representation of an illness via potentised remedies, we begin to heal. My experiences in many cases, while applying Scholten’s element theory, have shown that healing with the mineral remedies jumpstarts the integration process that brings the unconscious energies of a negative complex into ego consciousness. Although the patient may not have the knowledge or understanding of how this is achieved, the sense of whatever is happening within oneself feels RIGHT is ever present. Such healing generates changing patterns of perceptions, emotions, and behaviours over time.

Whether this healing of the deep psyche be permanent, or have the capacity to assist individuals to continue evolve beyond the healing brought forth by homoeopathic remedies, remain to be seen. This willingness on the part of the individual to participate must also be taken into the equation. However, it is healing at the realm of implicate archetypal order that the healing of the Cartesian split becomes possible for humanity. At the same time, this deep healing launches an individual on his/her way to know “who one really is” – beautifully integrated in a seamless wholeness – with the realisation that there was never any separation between body and mind.


References:
Greene, L. & Sasportas, H. (1987), The Development of the Personality: Seminars in Psychological Astrology, Vol.1. Samuel Weiser, INC. York Beach, Maine.
Grossinger, R. (1998), Homeopathy, The Great Riddle. North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California.
Jung, C. G. (1978), Aion: Research into the Phenomenology of the Self (Trans. R.F.C. Hull). Bollingen Series XX, Vol 9, Part II.
Laughlin, T. (1982), Jungian Psychology, Vol 2, Jungian Theory and Therapy. Panarion Press, Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.
Makewell, A. S. (2006), “Is Scholten’s Element Theory the Way of Future Homoeopathy? An Address to Students.” Interhomeopathy Journal. Interhomeopathy.org! http://www.interhomeopathy.org/
Makewell, A. S. (2006), “Secret Lanthanides: Commentary, Reflection, and Book Review.” Interhomeopathy Journal. Interhomeopathy.org! http://www.interhomeopathy.org/
Makewell, A. S. (2008), “Element Theory Revisited.” Interhomeopathy Journal. Interhomeopathy.org! http://www.interhomeopathy.org/
Neumann, E. (1963), The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (Trans. R. Manheim). Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley.
Scholten, J. (1996) Homoeopathy and the Elements, Stichting Alonnissos, Utrecht, Netherlands
Scholten, J. (2004), “Homoeopathy and Science” Homeopathy Links Journal, Autumn, Vol. 17 (3).
Scholten, J. (2005) Secret Lanthanides, Stichting Alonnissos, Utrecht, Netherlands
Scholten, J. (2006), “Diagnosis Yellow Flower,” Interhomeopathy Journal. Interhomeopathy.org! http://www.interhomeopathy.org/
Talbot, M. (1991) The Holographic Universe, Harper Perennial, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. New York. U.S.A.
Whitmont, E.C. (1993) The Alchemy of Healing: Psyche and Soma, Homeopathic Educational Services, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California.


Ai-Ling Su Makewell
email:

We are very used to the name homeopathy, but in a way the name is a bit strange. I will try to explain why it feels strange for me in some ways.

The name homeopathy is derived from the Law of Similars: curing with the same substance that can cause the disease, the diseased state. Some call this Law a rule, a rule for prescribing, but I prefer to call it a Law. A law that says how cure will take place. When it is a law, a scientific law, it means that it will always be the case and it applies to all situations. Like gravity in physics, it is true always and everywhere, it is universal.

Whether the Law of Similars is universal is not completely known. This is because the way to test it is not straightforward. To ascertain if a remedy is “similar” to a disease is exact, we don’t have an exact procedure for it. It is fairly impossible to produce exactly similar “test situations” that can be done easily in physics. Life is too complex to be molded in test positions. Tests cannot be repeated because the original situation will always be changed in essential ways after prescribing remedies or after life has passed for some time.

But there are quite convincing arguments for the universality of the Law of similars. First, homeopathy is quite successful in treating patients, even with inexact procedures. The law is also seen in other fields, an example is the "flooding" in "Behaviourism". In psychotherapy paradoxical strategies are often used and seen as very effective. There are even scientists who claim that the effective part of many psychotherapies is its paradoxical part (Jay Haley).

Now the strange thing is to name the science after one of its laws. Why should one name medicine or healing after the Law of similars, so "homeopathy". That would be similar to naming physics “gravitationism” or something like that. Healing is healing and when the Law of similars is universal, one just uses it in the science of healing. Just some philosophical considerations. For practical purpose the name homeopathy is of course, very good.
We wish you pleasant reading with this issue of Interhomeopathy.

The Future of Homeopathy
Homeopathy for Epidemics, Collective Trauma and Endemic Diseases – Part 3

Harry van der Zee, MD

This article consists of three parts:
1. The History Of Homeopathy
2. Building On The Past
3. From Theory To Practice
Part 1 and 2 were published in previous editions of Interhomeopathy.


From Theory to Practice

In part 2 of this article I have given several suggestions that the homeopathic community could pick up to further unfold the potential of homeopathy on a global level. Both quality and quantity count if the intention is to create a wave of healing that is strong and specific enough to create lasting change in the collective.
In the following I will share some personal experiences and initiatives that have strengthened my belief that we as homeopaths can indeed extend our healing practice beyond individual pathology.

Global Proving
In 2005 with the help of Jürgen Becker I initiated a global proving. To this proving homeopaths from all continents participated and each took the remedy at the same local time, so you could say the remedy was unfolding going from East to West with the speed of the turning Earth. Three substances were proven with several months in between and the analysis of the first substance proved – Himalayan Salt – is almost finished and will be published in 2009. The analysis of the other two substances – natural silver and Arizona clay – will follow. One can imagine that hundreds of diaries make a huge amount of information and that processing these carefully takes a lot of time. The idea behind this kind of proving is that not only can a proving be used to get to know a substance but also to bring about an effect. From group provings we know that often more people besides those that take a physical dose of the remedy show symptoms. Besides that regularly synchronicities are reported occurring in the world that have meaning in the context of a proving being conducted. The larger the group of provers the wider the ripple caused by the proving substance will be. With some 200 homeopaths participating this was still a relatively small group and to study an effect beyond the participating individuals may be hard to determine, let be a global effect. (Follow the upcoming issues of Homoeopathic Links for an article on this first phase of the global proving.)
More could follow this first global proving and I invite those interested to pick up the challenge. Global provings involving a sufficient number of participants can awake the collective subconscious and thus bring the light of consciousness to a humanity that, based on the enormous suffering throughout the world, is in desperate need of it.

Amma

To create the kind of impact necessary to bring about real and lasting change many more people will need to be treated with homeopathy and in my experience the PC Resonances are ideal for that as their efficacy for some of the main conditions, like AIDS and malaria is I believe unparalleled. Treating HIV/AIDS, malaria, gonorrhoea, hepatitis etc in Africa has become incredibly simple. Based on this experience ARHF (Amma Resonance Healing Foundation) has requested Helios Pharmacy to compile a basic PC kit that includes a manual– the Amma Kit (available at www.helios.co.uk). The manual in a condensed and clear way explains the fundaments of treating epidemics, trauma and endemic diseases with homeopathy and how to apply the disease specific PC Resonances contained in the kit. A medically qualified person can be learned how to treat 14 conditions in a couple of hours. In Congo the concept has been tried out in a first clinic that now proudly wares the name Amma Clinic. Alongside the regular medical care they were already providing the PC kit is now used and more and more patients are coming and demand for this new treatment as they hear about the wonderful results. The experience with this simple, practical, cheap and effective concept is very promising and the amount of supervision needed to evaluate results with the nurses is limited. The ARHF does not have the intention or capacity to run clinics itself but wants to make this program available to all African countries and offers training and free remedies as support. Existing homeopathic clinics can easily add it to their programs but as said before any health worker can learn how to treat the major conditions the African people are suffering from in just a couple of hours. A strange notion, also for me, as like you I have walked the road of years of study and doing practice to be effectively able to stop a running nose. And here in just a few hours people can learn how to treat AIDS, malaria, war trauma, rape trauma, diabetes etc.

The first pages of this article I wrote in November on my way to Congo and Burundi. Now it is the end of January and I’m in Kenya and am just back from my second trip to Congo and Burundi. I cannot hide my excitement about the results I’ve seen there, nor do I wish to. Potentially this Amma concept can grow very fast as the investment in terms of time and funds to implement it in a clinic is minimal. The clinic in Congo is already planning to start mobile clinics for villages and to open more clinics in larger communities. Connections have been made from Burundi to Tanzania and Rwanda to also start clinics there. Among the nurses the interest to know more about homeopathy grows and a program with advanced courses to learn to also use classical homeopathy for all those cases where a genus epidemicus approach is insufficient will hopefully follow soon.

For a variety of reasons some homeopaths have reservations regarding Peter Chappell’s remedies. I hope in the interest of those that can benefit from them that their need for help and the results I share with you will outweigh these reservations. Those interested in supporting this work in Africa, either by going there to teach health workers to use the basic kit, or to provide a second phase training in homeopathy, can contact the ARHF by writing to info@ARHF.nl. Together we can make a huge difference.

Amma4India Kit
The intention is to create a similar kit for India where literally hundreds of thousands of homeopathic doctors are running clinics. The vast majority of them use clinical homeopathy, have no books, and work with a handful of remedies. A Amma4India Kit will improve their results considerably especially for the many epidemics present in India for which their present arsenal of remedies and knowledge is often insufficient. But also the small group that have developed themselves as classical homeopaths could help many more patients effectively if they would use disease specific PC remedies for malaria, dengue fever etc and safe the time consuming individualise treatment for the symptoms and conditions that are not suited for this approach.


Cases of Epidemics, Trauma, and Endemic Diseases

I will just give some short cases and will draw on those I have seen in Africa most recently. Many hundreds of cases I have treated with PC Resonances by now and their data collected. Altogether colleagues that have discovered their usefulness have treated thousands of cases of epidemic diseases with them in African countries as also India. The experience with PC Resonances for chronic diseases as a complementary or second simillimum mainly comes from Europe and the USA, but the results in Africa with what we could call endemic chronic diseases like diabetes are so stunning that these promise to become as important and useful there as those for epidemics and trauma.
The cases below were treated in Burundi and Congo where I went on invitation by Floribert Kazingufu of Cherezi foundation who is setting up clinics in Congo, started an educational project for child soldiers and created a school for 600 children called Land of Hope. It is people like him that make a true difference and can stop the ongoing tragedy of killing and rape.


A Case of HIV/AIDS:
Daniela is a seven-years-old girl born from HIV-positive parents that are both on ARVs. She herself was tested positive in 2004. Since 2006 she has symptoms. The last CD4 in June 2008 had gone down but the parents don’t know the exact number. She uses bactrim. Her appetite is bad, she has an eruption in the mouth, and lacks the energy to play with other children.
Prescription: PC1 (HIV/AIDS for female*) once daily 5 drops.
Follow-up two months later: the eruption in the mouth is gone. She is eating normally now, has gained two kilos and plays with other children. She used to be sick all the time but now she is well. Also her sleep has improved. She is just like any other child.

Comment*: because of the very different social situation for men and women in Africa in relation to AIDS two different remedies have been designed for men and women.


A Case of HIV/AIDS:
Juma is a six-year-old orphan boy (Africa today has 1,5 million AIDS orphans!). He was tested HIV-positive in May 2008 and was immediately put on ARVs. His last CD4 count measured in September was 110 units. His weight is 21 kilos. He suffers from skin eruptions that get infected, and has many times malaria or angina. He has lack of appetite, headache and pains all over the body.
Prescription: PC1 (HIV/AIDS for male) once daily 5 drops
Follow-up after 4 weeks: weighing 22 kilos now. The angina, bronchitis and fever are gone and he has no more malaria.
Three weeks later: his CD4 has gone up to 175 units and his Karnofski score has gone up from 40 (disabled, special care needed) to 90 (normal, minor symptoms).
Two weeks later: all symptoms have now disappeared. He is a normal child.

Comment: HIV-positive AIDS orphans have to deal with AIDS as also the loss of the parents due to AIDS. As losing loved ones is part of the symptom totality of the epidemic it may be expected that PC1 as a genus epidemicus remedy for AIDS also covers the loss and grief. My impression with infected AIDS orphans is that PC1 does that as these children turn into happy children that play with others and enjoy themselves. A complementary remedy to PC1 can be PC309g (adoption trauma), which has been successfully used for orphans in general.


A Case of HIV/AIDS:
Zagabe is a 53-year-old woman that developed the first symptoms of AIDS in 2002 and was diagnosed HIV-positive in 2004. With a CD4 count of 170 units she started using ARVs in 2005. She is also using septrim. Before she started with ARVs she was weighing 45 kilos. Since on ARVs she gained weight up to 62 kilos. Since June 2008 however she is losing weight again and has developed other symptoms of AIDS: tiredness, weakness, cough and chest pains. Clearly the ARVs are no longer working for her (therapy resistance, an increasing phenomenon) and again she is losing weight. Her weight at present is 57 kilos.
Prescription: PC1 once daily 5 drops
Follow-up after 4 weeks: tiredness, weakness and cough have gone, but the chest still pains.
Three weeks later: now also the pain in the chest is gone. Her weight has increased with 5 kilos to 62 kilos.

Comment: an initial aggravation is one of the signs indicating that a remedy works. If there is an initial aggravation in AIDS patients this is often expressed as diarrhoea, as the following case illustrates. Also remarkable is the very rapid cure as in just two days she is restored back to health.

A Case of HIV/AIDS:
Consolate is a 40-year-old woman tested HIV-positive in 1998 and probably had the first symptoms in 1992. She had been using ARVs since 2003 but she has become allergic to them and therapy resistance has set in. So she is losing weight and has all the typical symptoms: tired, weak, lack of appetite, muscle pains, joint pains, headache, pain in the abdomen and pain in the chest. Her weight is now 54 kilos.
Follow-up after two days: shortly after the first drops she gets more abdominal pain and that same night had a lot of diarrhoea – from 6 PM to 12 AM. Since taking the remedy she is sweating again, also at night. Ever since the symptoms of AIDS had set in again she had stopped sweating. Now she is sweating normally again and doesn’t need to cover herself up at night any longer, as she is no longer cold (at night in Bujumbura it is usually still quite warm). She is also thirstier now. The pain in the abdomen and chest has already subsided considerably and for the rest she feels completely fine.
Two months later: no symptoms whatsoever and gaining weight.


A Case of Gonorrhoea:
Jikito is a 36-year-old woman and is scheduled for an operation in two weeks. For three months already she is suffering from intense pains in the womb and continuous bloody discharge. It disables her considerably and she cannot work. An ultrasound she had with her showed cysts in the womb. On inquiring it appeared that two months before all this started she had an infection, which based on the symptoms and the prevalence of the disease, I assumed was gonorrhoea.
Prescription: PC180g (gonorrhoea) once daily 5 drops
Follow-up after 8 days: after the first dose she discharged great lumps of blood that looked like meat. The next day the pains were practically gone and she went back to work. Four days later she was beaming and cancelled the operation. Pain and discharge had completely stopped. On a new ultrasound the uterus appears completely normal now.
After 10 weeks: doing well, no complaints. In church she stood up and testified about the wonderful cure she experienced.

Comment: in Africa I observed the onset of a chronic complaint following an acute infection much more clearly than in Europe. Here the time between the infection with gonococcus and the onset of a chronic complaint was short as also the existence of the chronic complaint. Many more cases have been observed of complaints starting ever since an infection occurred; often 10 years are more ago. Recurrent bladder infections and/or vaginitis following gonorrhoea is very prevalent and PC180g (gonorrhoea) is extremely effective. Of course the partner is also advised to take it, and a partner having urinary complaints is a good confirmation of the diagnosis. I’ve seen lots of cases of infertility with a history of vaginitis, most likely gonorrhoea. We’ll have to wait and see on the long term how many of these women will become pregnant. Starting with a bottle of PC180g (gonorrhoea) is a standard approach with infertility unless it is very clear there is another cause.


A Case of Gonorrhoea and Malaria:
Christelle is 35 years and has malaria 10 times in a year, has a range of chronic malaria symptoms and besides that suffers from vaginitis with itching and discharge since 5 years.
Comment: I’ve observed several cases in which there is a relationship between malaria and gonorrhoea. In area’s where malaria is endemic the immune system of healthy people is strong enough to prevent them from getting malaria. Gonorrhoea, and likely also the treatment of it, is one way of weakening the immune system, and several cases have been observed where people reported that they never had malaria until a couple of months following gonorrhoea. In those cases it is advisable to start with PC240m (malaria) to be followed by PC180g (gonorrhoea).
Prescription: a combination of curiosity and lacking dropper bottles made me combine PC180g and PC240m in one bottle. Lots of opinions about that, including my own, but let’s see what the experience is here.
Follow-up after 5 days: in response to the medication she felt a pain in her right shoulder extending to the head which then went away. The pain she had in the lower abdomen doubled for a short time and then went away together with the discharge. The itching is a lot better since the discharge has stopped. The headaches and vertigo have improved as also cramps she used to have all over her body. The pain in her joints is completely gone. Her head is still sensitive to the sun
After four weeks: all symptoms of chronic malaria and chronic vaginitis have gone. No malaria as yet.
After ten month: is completely fine. No malaria.

Comment: despite the combination she responded according the laws of healing. She had a short aggravation, and then was relieved of all symptoms and shows increased health by having no malaria as to now.

Comment: next to PC1 for HIV/AIDS the PC Resonance for malaria has the one that has been used most in previous years. Hundreds of cases of acute and chronic malaria have been treated with great success. Besides curative the remedy clearly also works prophylactic. At a school with 600 pupils the teachers treated a group of children that had malaria a lot for two weeks early November 2008. Their chronic symptoms resolved and they had no malaria any more until now (end of January 2009). In the not treated group malaria was still there so now all children in the school will be treated following the following protocol. PC240m once daily 5 drops on school days for two weeks. One month later once daily 5 drops for one week. After that once a month 5 drops. By the end of 2009 we expect to have a good impression of the results.

Comment: in acute malaria PC240m should be given every 30-60 minutes until clear improvement sets in and the intervals can be made longer. Although an acute attack is supposed to last 72 hours, once the treatment has started patients are normally well within 12 hours.

Comment: I have observed that in many cases of chronic malaria also typhoid is present. On PC240m the majority of the symptoms disappear but pain in the abdomen may remain for which complementary treatment is needed. PC302v is an option for that. It is not included in the Amma Kit and should be ordered separately.


A Case of Tuberculosis:
Marie is a 70-year-old woman having chronic pulmonary tuberculosis since three years. In the beginning she was treated with antibiotics for six months and was okay for some time but then the complaints came back. She has a painful cough and coughs up blood every day. The abdomen has become painful from all the coughing.
Prescription: PC300t (tuberculosis) once daily 5 drops.
Follow-up after 5 days: on coming home after the first dose she coughed up a lot of blood, much more than normal. That was the last time she coughed up blood. The cough started to become less painful and since yesterday (fourth day) the cough has completed stopped.
After ten weeks: is reported still being well.

Comment: despite her age this woman shows a remarkable cure with an aggravation within hours after the first dose followed by a very rapid cure. Usually it takes longer for a patient to become well and my advice now is to take the remedy 2-3 times daily. Especially in AIDS-patients that often also have TB, as also lots of other infections, the patient may need more time to recover. If in an AIDS-patient TB is most prominent we advice to start with PC300t and to also give PC1 as soon as the TB symptoms are clearly subsiding. In cases where AIDS-symptoms are most prominent we start with PC1 and have observed that often the improved immune status is enough for the patient to clear tuberculosis on PC1 alone.


A Case of Rape and Gonorrhoea:
Marcelline is 38 years old and was raped by two soldiers four years and became pregnant. It was an extra-uterine pregnancy and the foetus was aborted. Now during intercourse she has a lot of pain, “as if they are trying to put a tree inside”. She has vaginal infection regularly. Every time she has pain she thinks about the rape, and every since the rape she is fearful on seeing a man. The joy of sex is gone, and instead she is afraid of it because of the pain. During intercourse anger comes out.
Prescription: PC435p (rape and sexual abuse) once daily 5 drops.
Comment: I had used this remedy only once in Holland with good results but had no idea whether and how it would work in Congo, where thousands and thousands of women have been raped by rebels or soldiers.
Follow-up after 10 weeks: “the thoughts about rape have disappeared. I have no longer an aversion to sex but desire it very much now. No more fear; I enjoy it now. When I see men I’m no longer afraid. No more anger even though having sex is still painful.”
Nevertheless there are still the physical problems of pain with intercourse and vaginal discharge. The pain though doesn’t raise anger anymore and doesn’t prevent her from enjoying intercourse. Most likely this is caused by gonorrhoea due to the rape.
Prescription: PC180g (gonorrhoea) - no follow-up yet, but as many women with similar complaints improved on it I trust it will help her.

Comment: I am so happy with this wonderful result. On video you see the lady beaming with joy and to me it is amazing to see how just a few drops could rid her this past trauma. During my first trip to DR Congo, entering from Burundi into Kivu province, she was one of the few cases of rape that I saw, and all cases responded well. We were advised not go deeper into Congo, but on my second trip it seemed to be more quiet and we went to Bukavu, a city that saw the number of inhabitants double due to streams of refugees. There I treated more women and we hope to be able to set up a permanent clinic there. The women that shared their experiences with me made me aware of how the act of rape is only part, sometimes even a smaller part, of their trauma. Let me compile the typical story:
Rebels enter the house and demand the women to undress. She refuses after which they torture her with guns, knives and sticks. Many still carry scars from the severe wounds inflicted. Then several of them rape her in front of her children, or the children have escaped the house and try to hide in the woods. Elderly children they may take with them and kill them later or use them for their purposes as child soldiers. If the husband is there they first kill him. A way is to lock him into the hut and to set fire to it and then rape his wife. If the husband was not there and finds out about the situation he usually chases his wife and the (remaining) children away. They walk to the city where she tries to earn some money by carrying heavy loads. She earns just enough to pay some food for herself and the children, but as she cannot pay school fees her children are expelled from school, and have, as the women express it, no future. So many of these women experience trauma piled on trauma and end up doing the heaviest work for the lowest fee while their children roam the streets.
Although PC435p (rape) and PC304x (genocide/war trauma – see next case) give a wonderful healing response it may be clear that on a very practical level more is needed to improve the fate of these women and their children.
Not only in the war torn region of Rwanda, Burundi and Congo is rape a huge issue. In South Africa for instance a girl has a higher chance of being raped than to be taught how to read! One could say that rape is endemic to most of Africa making it a symptom of a collective derangement. The long term effects are of course huge, AIDS being just one expression of the underlying trauma. To stop this we can contribute by treating all victims of it, rapists and raped alike.


A Case of War Trauma:
Zuwena is diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and dilatation of the heart. It all started in 1997 during her 4th pregnancy during the time that the war broke out. One day she woke up and found many dead bodies in the street and saw a dog eating from a dead body. That image has ever stayed with her. “Maybe”, she says, “that cause my depression”.
Prescription: PC304x (genocide / war trauma – a remedy made by Peter in Rwanda when he was confronted with the effects of the genocide of 1994) once daily 5 drops.
Follow-up after 6 days: after the remedy she first had an aggravation with pain in the chest. That pain is now gone. She is still easily out of breath but the images of the war are gone.
After 2 months: When a few days ago the police were searching the house looking for illegal immigrants the fear came back and she felt as if her heart broke into two. The images of the war never came back and she no longer dreams of the war. The heart symptoms are the same.
Prescription: repeat PC304x daily for one week and then start with Cactus 200K one dose per week.

Comment: since the focus of the paper is on collective issues the impression may arise that the normal homeopathic remedies no longer matter. That is far besides the truth and the above case shows how regular homeopathic remedies and PC Resonances can complement each other.

Comment: many more cases like this have been treated with PC304x with good results. It is the war, the genocide, that is the true totality of the disease and each patient has experienced a part of the horror and expresses a part of the totality of the symptoms.
In the same school where children were lined up to get 5 drops to treat malaria we also treated several children that had lost parents in the war (400 of the 600 children are orphan!) or had been recruited against their will (dragged from their parents’ huts) to become child soldiers. Trauma is all over their faces, their eyes turned inside or staring into a void. When I returned to the school two months later I interviewed them and they told me how they had improved. That the tormenting thoughts and dreams had stopped. Their teachers told they could concentrate now in class and looked so much brighter.

Comment: many traumatised patients on narrating their symptoms say they have hypertension. What it boils down to is that they have anxiety with palpitation and hyperventilation and often fear of death.
In the Amma Kit there is a remedy for hypertension included because of the very positive experiences with it in a clinic in Kenya. There they have treated lots of cases with true hypertension with good results. My personal experience with hypertension in Holland using classical homeopathy is not very positive, but PC423z (hypertension) works very well in Africa.


A Case of Diabetes:
Zaituni is a 51-year-old woman that was diagnosed having diabetes in 1993. She injects insulin. She complaints of pain in the lower back, she has to urinate very often and sometimes the urine doesn’t come immediately. Glycaemia 345,9 mg/dl (N55-115) or 19,2 Mmol/l
Prescription: PC158n (diabetes mellitus – all forms) once daily 5 drops.
Follow-up 10 weeks later: “I’m no longer urinating a lot of times. The mouth is no longer dry and I don’t need to drink a lot of water any more.” Her blood sugars have become normal! Already two weeks after starting the remedy the blood sugar went down from 19,2 to 5,6 Mmol/l.

Comment: I had little to no experience with this remedy and my general experience with treating diabetes with homeopathy was simply not as I would love it to be – free from symptoms and back to normal blood sugars. So these results in Africa have been a big surprise for me. We can have all kinds of convictions and theories but cannot deny reality. I used to be a strong believer of the dogma that a case of diabetes as many other chronic diseases should be individualise. The clinic in Congo has now treated more than a dozen of cases and a response as in the above cases is their general experience! We cannot ignore that and need to understand that an ideal treatment for a chronic disease combines a disease specific simillimum with a patient specific simillimum. With diabetes in Africa just the resonance for diabetes alone appears to be enough. Diabetes could be called endemic in Africa and is based on a genetic preposition as also culture and diet. My impression is that there is a very simple rule that will usually hold true: the more common a disease is the less it is necessary to individualise for the patient.
The following case simply left me silent.


A Case of Diabetes:
Zakia is a 40-year-old woman. She was diagnosed with diabetes in 2005 and takes insulin since 2007. Despite the insulin her blood sugar is still 189 mg/dl.
Prescription: PC158n (diabetes) once daily 5 drops.
Follow-up: she has been followed up by the nurse who reports the below after 10 weeks treatment. Her tiredness improved quickly and is now completely gone. Before she could only walk short distances but now there are no limitations and she is much more active. Due to this and to the fact that her appetite is no longer increased her weight went down from 75 to 68 kilos. Without consulting the nurse she decided to stop injecting insulin, as her simple reasoning was that she was feeling fine. Without insulin she keeps feeling well and on checking her blood sugar this appeared now to be normal - 78 mg/dl.

Comment: in large parts of Africa people need to pay their medication themselves. With diabetes we have seen people telling that sometimes, when they can afford it, they take a tablet or an injection. Others can never afford it. With an effective remedy that hardly costs anything this provides a wonderful alternative.

Conclusion

I could include many more cases. They would all add to the same conclusion.

Yes We Can!

1. We can treat endemic and collective trauma effectively and thus by using a genus epidemicus approach heal the collective and prevent whatever else would have grown out of the trauma – repeated trauma, epidemic diseases, chronic diseases.
2. We can treat epidemics effectively. Easier than with one remedy for one disease as in the above cases it can hardly be imagined. The consequence is that in countries lacking homeopathic skills nevertheless all suffering from epidemic diseases can be treated homeopathically. All that is needed is a short training.
3. Yes there are diseases that do respond well to a diseased oriented prescription, ideally complemented with individualise treatment.
It means that classical homeopathy and clinical homeopathy are allies instead of foes and together can successfully answer to the needs of our time.

For More Information

Amma Resonance Healing Foundation – www.ARHF.nl
www.aidshealing.org
Peter Chappell, The Second Simillimum, Homeolinks Publishers – www.homeolinks.nl
Amma Kit plus Manual (small edition) – www.helios.co.uk
Amma Manual (larger edition) available for €3,99 (no mailing costs) at www.homeolinks.nl

© Harry van der Zee 2009

First consultation Sept. 11, 2006

Female 50 years old.

Presenting complains:
Acne Rosacea for about 25-30 years. Mainly in eyes, a little bit of redness on cheeks; had inside of eyelids scrapped.
Doxi Cycline 100 mg a day, steroid eye drops.
Symptoms:
Bright redness, < morning.
Soreness, feels like grain or sand in eyes < morning.
> Massage and compress.
Dry eyes < morning, glands not clean cannot secrete properly.
Vision: changed, deteriorated, can’t see things far away.

"It is affecting my life I am conscious about taking the antibiotics. Overall I feel pretty healthy. Good childhood, very normal nurturing, lived in midsize town. I didn’t have a date for Graduation. I had Encephalitis around Graduation and complications from Mumps, but recovered from it completely. I am shy and I don’t participate in a lot of conversations when I am in a group of people. I prefer to sit back and listen. I went to University and then got married, never really used the career. I’d rather be a stay at home Mom then a career person. I worry about all my kids."
Dreams: “Used to have a dream that I didn’t study an exam, that stopped now. Has to do with the fact that I am an organized person, sometimes have a dream that I am not prepared for things.”
Fears: Heights (had a recurrent dream of falling of a bridge as a child, and I would wake up from falling). Had to walk across the bridge to get to town, was looking down. Flying.

Causticum and Rhus Toxicodendron are the two main remedies for Acne Rosaceae. In this case I felt the eye symptoms were covered by Causticum, also her caring nature, choice of family over career and worries for children lead me to the Causticum.

Prescription: Causticum 6 CH daily.


Follow up March 12, 2007
"There was some improvement, my eyes didn’t always feel as sore in the morning. My cheeks were about the same".

Continue with Causticum 6 CH daily.


Follow up May 17, 2007
"I don’t think I noticed any difference. My skin is even worse then it used to be, my cheeks are more irritated then ever. Some kind of rash has developed on my lips, I thought it was eczema. Irritating, just really dry as if I was licking them all the time, almost feels puffy, but it isn’t really."
Antibiotics: Started to cut down to 50 mg for a couple of weeks, eyes were just not doing that great. Now 50 5-6 days a week, 100 mg once a week. Still drops now maybe once a week.

Prescription: Causticum 12 CH daily.


Follow up June 18, 20’07
"I thought it was going great, I thought we hit the target here. My skin was clearing up and my eyes felt great. Still have an eruption on my lip, more along the eczema type of eruption, red and dry. Sensations have also improved, last couple of days my eyes were not so sore when I woke up. For about 3 weeks they weren’t bothering me at all."
Antibiotics: Still taking 50 mg a day, not doing the 100 mg anymore, have been doing that for the last 3 weeks.

Prescription: Causticum 12 CH daily.


Follow up July 9, 2007
“Pretty up and down, for a couple of weeks after I saw you, my left eye was pretty blood shot. Acne on my face was coming back, was really volatile for a couple of weeks, this week seems to have settled down.”
Antibiotics: Still taking the 50 mg’s, haven’t done the 100mg since started on the 12 CH.
Outbreak on cheeks was probably as bad as it was before. Soreness in eyes: doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue anymore, still better then before on the remedy. Dryness not too bad.

Prescription: Causticum 30 CH once a week plus 12 CH daily.


Follow up Sept. 30, 2007
Roller coaster, would be good for a month and then all of a sudden it flares up overnight, will be like that for a couple of weeks and then settle down again.
Now reduced antibiotics 50 mg 4 x a week, 25 mg 3 x a week.
Flare up’s: definitely not as bad as it has been before < first thing in the morning, eyes burning, then gets better as the day goes on. Lip it is funny, was keeping it under control with a tiny little bit of cortisone cream in the morning. For a couple of months there was nothing there then stopped the cream and it came back again. Once in a while have restless legs at night.

Prescription: Continue Causticum 30 CH once a week and 12 CH daily.


Follow up Nov. 15, 2007
Up and down. Couldn’t figure out what was going on, left eye was just terrible. Eyes were really dry at night, felt good for a few days, then they started to be really irritated from it.
Still taking 50 mg. 4x a week and 25 mg 3x a week. Eyes now pretty much normal, feels like back to where I was before the remedies. Lip still started to flare up again, puffing up. Restless legs at night more often.

At this point I knew I needed to find a different remedy, based on the Acne Rosacea and the recent restless legs at night Rhus Tox was the next choice.

Prescription: Rhus. Tox. 30 CH once a week.


Follow up Dec. 27, 2007
"I think it’s a little bit better, still having up’s and down’s."

Prescription: Rhus Tox. 30CH every 3 days.


Follow up Feb. 28, 2008
"I can’t say that my eyes have been all that good, unfortunately."
Developed a patch of itchy skin on hip, left hip, just redness and itchy, no oozing or bleeding, no modality. Once in a while it will be itchy no pattern to it. Eye symptoms worse in the morning, yesterday it was sore all day, sunshine makes them teary, hadn’t really experienced that to the extent of yesterday. Usually quite red in the morning, then get better during the day.
Antibiotics now: 4 x 25 mg, 3 x 50 mg, if it is really bad for a couple of days I will take a 50.

At this point I was getting frustrated with the case, so I went back to study it again and also the Encephalitis as a complication from Mumps which lead me to the following Prescription:

Parotidinum 30 CH once a week for 6 weeks.


Follow up April 18, 2008
"I think my eyes have been the best for a long, long time, just this week started to cut back on my antibiotics again, take 25 mg. now. The first couple of weeks were about the same as they were before, then the next 2 weeks were terrible, my eyes were bright red, my lip thing has been terrible, my hip thing was terrible. Skin patch on hip is gone, it’s fine. The last 2 weeks have been great, stopped putting on the cortisone on my hip and hasn’t come back at all. Also stopped putting it on my lip and has come back just a little bit, but seems to almost be going away on its own. My eyes are still a little bit red, maybe that is due to the dryness we have. I find that I am not even using as many drops for the dryness anymore. The whole vision seems to have stabilized and leveled out as well. Eyes: no tearing, when I initially get up they look really good, then within the next hour they will get a little bit irritated and now when I go to bed they are white which is very unusual for me."

Prescription: Parotidinum 30 CH once a week.


Follow up Oct. 7, 2008
"I haven’t taking anything since July, I started to gradually reduce the antibiotics and drops after I saw you last time and had no flare ups. In July when we went to Europe I completely stopped and I have been fine. My eyes are absolutely fine, no problems anymore, my skin is great. The little lip thing I can feel once in a while, but it doesn’t bother me at all. I haven’t taken any remedy anymore since July either. I am very happy it seems to be the miracle cure, it paid out to be patient."
Her skin and her eyes look absolutely normal and healthy.


Follow up April 3,2009
"I am good, had a rough winter with a death in the family. My eyes had flared up a little bit, but not to the point where I felt I needed to take anything, haven’t taken any antibiotics or steroid drops since early last summer."


This case is just another example of how beautifully Homeopathy can clear up long lasting, chronic complaints that are considered incurable. It took me a while to get to the right remedy, but thanks to partial ameliorations with remedies the patient was willing to follow through.


Katharina Riedener

Dec. 29, 2008
47 year old male.


"I’ve had allergies for the past 5-6 years. They’ve increased over the past 3-4 years. It’s mostly a cough that doesn’t abate when I go outside. It’s worse in the evening. I have a stuffy and runny nose, and cough at night. The problem is worse at home. The stuffy nose is like nasal passages are being shut, sometimes for all day. The cough is an irritating feeling around the throat area. It’s better going outside, or opening the window. The cough is worse at home, evenings, and overnight. It’s an itchy feeling at the bottom of my throat. You cough to relieve it, but the worse it gets. I get phlegm, watery eyes. The bouts of coughing last twenty to thirty minutes, sometimes longer. I can hear faint wheezing. It starts like an irritation, the cough becomes intense, and then stays there awhile. Although I feel very irritated, I try not to cough. The faint irritation remains. I lost this feeling away from home. It’s a willful suppression of irritation—sometimes it goes away. It takes a willful effort, or some other change to take place. I try not to cough. I try to suppress the irritation. I try to mentally concentrate on something else. It’s irritating—I try not to cough. I try to distract myself. The cough interferes with what I’m doing. It’s inconvenient—I have to pause and stop. When I get irritated emotionally, I try not to react, I try to understand what’s happening mentally. I avoid a knee-jerk reaction, I suppress my emotional reaction.

My 9 year old daughter is not always rational. She doesn’t always behave. Regardless of whether I’m irritated or not I have to stop the behavior before it propagates. I ignore it for a while, allow things to calm down, try not to show irritation. At times you have to act right away. I try to approach the situation as calmly as possible, unless she’s doing something where damage could take place. You have to stop what she’s doing right away. You can’t approach it calmly—for example, she could damage the computer. It’s difficult when I have to raise my voice, or act physically, for example take the computer away from her. After I do this, I spend a lot of time and effort to calm things down. Most of the time the rational approach works—we talk about it.”


(Because the client talked about the cough interfering with what he’s doing, as well as the rational suppression of emotion, I asked about his type of work.)

"I work in design for a medical engineering company—I have to consider ‘what are the needs of the people who use the equipment’? There’s a lot of innovation—it’s a creative environment. I sit back, reflect and think about how to do things differently. I like challenges—they’re an opportunity. They can either be immediate needs or long-term problems. Most of the time it’s not difficult to figure out what needs to be done. It’s a whole process—we have a set of tools, and have to use all sorts of different tools to make that happen. The most fun part is figuring out what to do, but the more difficult part is figuring out how to do it. You figure things out, and yet it needs to be implemented with people who don’t even know a problem exists. It’s a process of educating them about problems they’re either ignoring or don’t care about, to help them act on it. There’s a frustration—sometimes people are sitting on their hands. Unless we push and push, nothing will happen. There’s an internal frustration—the company is too conservative. My main focus is doing the right thing—the customer is my focus. My goal is to understand the customer, and I also have to understand the patient. We are providing means for our customers to provide better services. The central focal point is the patient. What we do is extremely important because we directly observe what’s going on. We provide extremely solid evidence. Customer feedback is essential—the measure of success is results from studies, feedback from physicians."

(The client also stated a fear of heights, very warm body temperature, and that his office work space is disordered).

Assessment:
The client adopts a very “rational” approach to problems, but in doing so suppresses a great deal of frustration and irritation. The irritation expresses itself through his cough and the cough is worse at home with an ‘irrational’ daughter. Similarly, he runs into obstacles at work, as he theorizes about problems which need fixing and yet he has to ‘push and push’ against the internal structure of the ‘too conservative’ company he works for and convincing people of the need to fix problems which they ‘don’t even realize exist’. As he said, ‘The most fun part is figuring out what to do, but the more difficult part is figuring out how to do it’.

He has a fear of heights, which is common with performance remedies coming from the periodic table. The work is very creative and he relies on feedback from customers to affirm that his efforts have been successful (creative, innovative ideas; desires to reflect well to others = silver series). The challenge is not pursued as a test of his potential (stage 8; ruthenium), nor is he desiring the “limelight” (attention) with final, detailed efforts reaching to perfection (stage 10; palladium). Rather his focus is one of perseverance over extended periods of time to achieve his end (stage 9; rhodium). He runs warm, has a good conceptual imagination, is somewhat disorderly and has a subtle egotism relative to issues relating to his work—that others aren’t able to recognize or grasp the importance of his ideas (sulphur).

Plan: Rhodium sulphuricum 1M single dose.


Follow-up March 2, 2009:

"The symptoms increased for about two weeks after taking the dose, then I had no symptoms. It’s a relief to not have to use anything else for my nose. The cough is gone. Even though the financial climate has changed for the worse, I’m not feeling any more frustration. Actually, new opportunities have opened up—for example, using existing technology to the best of our abilities. I’m very pleased with the response. After so many years, it’s nice not to be coughing!"

David Johnson

Characteristics of Bismuthum
The leader of an organization (gold-series) fails and loses (stage 15) his power (gold-series). He either correctly assesses the situation and voluntarily gives up his position to his successor where by he would solve the problem, or, he responds frantically and desperately tries to save his hopeless position but fails.
The suicide issue is a proven indication for Bismuthum, more as even Aurum. Loss (stage 15) of life by one’s own power (gold-series).


Bismuth and Suicide
The combination of stage 15 and the themes of gold series creates the typical bismuth situation where for example the leader of an organization fails and loses his power. He either correctly assesses the situation and voluntarily gives up his position to his successor where by he would solve the problem, or, he responds frantically and desperately tries to save his hopeless position but fails. In situations like this, some of these power brokers commit suicide because the responsibility is connected with honour, and loss of honour is particularly painful at the level of the gold series. They identify with power and honour, they have the power and they don’t want to let go of it. They are accustomed to making grave decisions in regard of the life of others so they also feel justified to make decisions about taking their own life. These individuals can take their own life in the desperate phase of stage 15 because loss of power or honour is too painful for them to bear.  Loss of power and dignity and falling from high status can be so bad for some of these people that they would rather die than make the best of the situation and continue living. Suicide becomes either their last triumph or the circumvention of losing power through a final desperate attempt of wielding power that ends one’s own life.
We are not talking about people that use suicide attempts as a cry for help as is often found in tragic love affairs in puberty and other relationship issues. So if you have a case where a girl takes 5 sleeping tablets after losing her boyfriend and calls the ambulance at the same time, you won’t be thinking of bismuth. People that are serious about suicide seldom talk about it. In this case the therapist must feel into what is going on and then these patients will tell you what is going on. The method used to commit suicide is also important. Typical gold series would think of jumping from great heights, death by hanging or being hit by a train. Even shooting oneself with one’s own hunting gun (hunting is a typical gold series theme) belongs here. Bismuth helps in these situations if applied in the nick of time. In our practice we have observed 8 cases of which some we would like to briefly describe. It is noted that mostly they are not constitutional prescriptions but a proven indication. It is a vital one though, since it is about life and death.

Case Examples

1. Bism-c: father has committed suicide
By Markus Kuntosch
The 45 year old woman was heavily depressed for 8 years, worse in the afternoons, and she often suffers from vertigo. She frequently forgets what she wants to say and then she wipes her forehead as if to brush off something.
It all started after her husband had a nervous breakdown. All of a sudden the whole responsibility had fallen on her shoulders. It lay heavy upon her like a huge burden, but she is strong, and the worst thing for her is if she loses control over a situation. So she handled her situation well but when her husband recovered it was her who fell to pieces: “the hammer always strikes after the event”. Her hands tremble when she stretches them.

Her father, who was very important to her, had committed suicide when she was young.
She is very afraid of spiders, she she loathes the very sight of a house-spider. She likes to eat raw liver and raw fish, especially herring and salmon in sushi dishes. Her colour preference was dark green 23E. But nowadays it changes, with a preponderance of orange 5C.

Analysis
Previously one would have given aurum (the burden of a sudden responsibility, heavy depression) but bismuth is more similar in this case according to the element theory: her father (carb) has committed suicide (bism). This was not the direct cause of her depression, but the event still lingers in her memory as a dread. The desire for raw fish and especially herring confirm bismuth. Her body type is carbonic, heavy set, not fat, bony yet rounded. She appears masculine and her father was very important to her. This confirms a carbonicum on the constitutional level.

Prescription and effect:
So she receives Bism-c 200. That evening she is all wound up. For 2 days she cannot think clearly and her joints are painful as though she has a bad flu. She awoke several times from her sleep. Then she begins to stabilise and her mood improves.
One week later she was given Bism-c 1000. After 10 minutes she has a short migraine with dizziness and she sees silver dots in front of her eyes. Then everything improves. The dizziness stops and also her hay fever disappears.
3 months later depression returns in a milder degree. It is worse in the afternoon. Bism-c 1000 is repeated, and this time she recovers quickly without aggravation.

One year later:
The remedy helps her with depression, even after a year her mood is rather cheerful. But still she frequently complains about dizziness and she still loses train of thought. She often wakes up at 4 o’clock in the morning. Her head is then “as if filled with foam or it seems foggy, like a thick dense mist. It is as if I’m turning around in circles.” Please explain.What is this fog? “It is like a thick net… viscid like honey… but it is not liquid… it feels like a spider web…”

She had already mentioned her strong fear of spiders earlier. In the repertory one can find waking 4am, tela aranea.
She has named her remedy herself, and the repertory helped in verifying it. It is Tela aranea. So she receives Tela 1000, the potentised spider web. It works better than bism-c. Her sleeping pattern normalises, her voice becomes higher and clearer and her dizziness stops. The fog disappears and her head is free of the mental cobwebs that have formed in her memory over the years. She finally wiped them away with the aid of the remedy. She can think clearly and since 7 months she is doing well.

Commentary:
Our best bismuth cases have the colour preference of 23 to 24 c in yellow green. Since the colour and therefore the emotional sphere of our patient is perhaps orange and not yellow green one already new in the beginning of the case that bismuth could hardly be a likely simillimum since only very few tendencies resonate with each other. Even though, the remedy did what it was supposed to do, it helps her on a particular level and opens the window for a deeper remedy. Since tela works better but has not been proven one can assume that the favourite colour for tela is around 5c. That is also in agreements with other spider remedys who mostly like orange and olive. We don’t have any cases to compare. Only more tela cases will prove this. Through this method, our knowledge about the colour of remedies has expanded. A project we have been trying to refine for the past 18 years. One can find these colours or remedies as repertory rubrics in “COLORS IN HOMEOPATHY”.
http://narayana-publishers.com/Colors-in-Homeopathy/Welte-Ulrich/b4523?factfin=color~4523~2~2~1~93.76 .


2. Bism-p: his brother commits suicide
by Ulrich Welte
The patient is a middle aged businessman and is suffering from sclero and mixed collagenosis during the last 20 years. He has severe back pains and can hardly get out of bed in the morning. He is so stiff and painful that he needs a 15 minute ritual to rise from lying position like in slow motion. He also suffers from Raynaud-Syndrome during cold season. He says that he can deal with his difficulties through mind control. But for the last 6 weeks his back pain has become so unbearable and out of control that he seeks help from homeopathy, because it had helped his father in a chronic rheumatic disease. His emphasis of self-control from the very outset of the anamnesis and an autoimmune disease is enough to think of a lanthanide. Indeed his whole story would it: he was an outsider at school, he likes to stay in the background during social events, he has vision abnormalities (lens opacity), and he used to relax with cannabis.

But then he narrates that his troubles all began after his older brother had committed suicide after a fight with his father. This event had changed his life as he felt under obligation to live up to the high expectations of his parents: his brother was the great hope of the family and he should not fail like his brother did. From that day he stopped smoking hash and tried hard to be someone. He shouldered the responsibility and became a successful businessman. But this was also the beginning of the first signs of his disease. He had been quite OK before that.

He is under the usual immunosuppressive treatment of methotrexate and cortisone.

His colour preference is 24D, a yellow green with a slightly olive tinge.

We would like to spare you the details of the full consultation because our main topic is Bismuthum and Suicide. In this case it was his brother who committed suicide. The event was so central for him that he received Bismuthum phosphoricum (a phosphoricum is often indicated when the problem is with brothers and sisters) and not a lanthanide.

Usually we are guided to the remedy by its characteristic materia medica issues. But if the remedy also shares the colour preference of the patient, we can expect deeper effects. This is because it mirrors the basic emotional state. It is beyond particulars. His very energy vibrates with this frequency. Our patient prefers 24D, which is very close to the exact colour of Bismuthum 24C. So his basic mood also falls within the field of Bismuth.

With Bism-p 1000 he made a 70% improvement in the first week. He never experienced such an effect of a medicine before. He developed a skin eruption on his elbow, which was present in childhood but had disappeared long ago. The stiffness in the morning lessened much and he can get up much easier. Bism-p 1000 is repeated every month and he continues to improve. In a cold November his fingers turn white again, but it is not as bad as usual. After some more months he is much better and he starts with a daily dose of bism-p LM. After this new potency his white fingers get much worse as well as his thumbs and toes which is unknown to him. Back pain also returns for several days. But then he improves dramatically. Usually the winter months were his worst period and now he can even sneeze vigorously without the feeling that his back is about to break. He says the LM potency acts deeper and quicker than the C1000. One year passed and he stopped taking the remedy in the summer because his symptoms subsided completely during this period. But then the old symptoms came back in a milder form. He took the remedy again and he was fine again.
For the sake of curiosity, Thulium-p and Erbium-p were tried but he feels that Bism-p is more effective and he stays with it. Three years after the beginning of treatment he feels well and moves freely. His rheumatologist confirmed there is no rheumatic activity and considered stopping methotrexate and cortisone, which the patient had already done on his own. He continues doing well.

Ulrich Welte

Next month some more cases are to be presented.

Female, born in 1956

She comes to me because, as she puts it, she suffers from ‘extreme emotions’ in a very short period of time, which is confusing. Feelings of guilt, rage and frustration after the death of a female friend and a few hours later a nice feeling of freedom and trust. The intensity of life, with fear, grief and rage, she feels as a ball in her solar plexus, as if she has been chopped into two pieces.  She has had this feeling for a very long time, but in the last 10 years it got softer. She has a strong sense of humour, which gives her life power. "I contacted my dead friend and got permission to be who I am. She was suffering from MS and died before I could visit her. This made me feel guilty and I was devastated. Then I became angry with myself and the world till I told myself not to drown in details and keep the eagle’s look, which is a state of being. I talk a lot to myself to help me reflect. I am impulsive, which originated in injuries and pains in my life, I like the conqueror’s feeling.
My childhood was not easy. I had two fathers and 3 brothers, 2 from the 2nd father. When I think of it I can get a feeling of warmth which suddenly changes into a wave of cramps and misery and a feeling of being replaceable.  Every little detail of my life passes in front of my eyes as if seen from a distance. I do not feel grounded or connected with myself compared to other people I know. After the break-up of my relationship (of 11 years) I decided to cleanse myself of the old shit.
From the age of 11 I was interested in sex. I started sleeping with men in my early puberty. I wanted to take part in life and I did not know what I was doing. It did not feel OK but I did it because I wanted to be someone. 
Somewhere I have a memory of a sexual assault by my brother and we were caught - luckily. My childhood was unsafe. My father, who was adulterous, left when I was 7. I was very judgmental about him through mum. My stepfather was very explosive and he abused my mother, I had to protect her and I once threatened him with a knife and became his enemy.  During that period I cried a lot in bed and made up some imaginary friends. I passed over my youth really.  There was always fierce and extreme drama. The one with the biggest mouth was the winner. At school I was maladjusted and I had semi-criminal contacts for a while.
I feel that I carry love and light inside of me though. My family situation is a sewer-pit. Professionally I continued to be a social worker. I feel responsibility as a super saviour and I am sensitive to the needs of people. I am always taking care of everybody but I am an irritable person. I can be explosive when criticized or when they try to diminish me, it feels like being caged. I had to learn to adapt to avoid being condemned to being unable to be in a relationship. Some years ago I had my own business, just me, but I prefer to work with people and I found a job. After a while they fired me because I was not productive enough, but I had other ideas about work quality. There should be space for creativity and I was forced to do the job without my own approval. It felt like selling my soul to the devil. I am a freedom-loving opinionated person with my own vision and I hate situations of abuse and injustice, terrible, then I feel the impulse to escape and just cut off. Trying to adapt drained my energy, although my colleagues were very friendly. Authoritarian behaviour can make me take-off.
I was born with a defect, an undeveloped oesophagus. It was swallow or suffocate. I grew out of it.
I have a very basic feeling of guilt, which makes me vulnerable to criticism and it can throw me totally out of balance. I feel a strong symbiosis with my mother. I live through her sorrow. My whole life I look at her with the knowledge that some day she will be gone. I never had a child of my own. I would have liked to but I lived with a woman for 11 years and I travelled a lot, my need to wander is quite strong, like a gypsy. The relationship exploded at last, she withdrew and I became aggressive and helpless which was a recurring pattern. There is a voice inside me that tells me that I am no good at relationships. I am bisexual and with men I can be small and weak, but not with women."


Food?
If there is too much tension it’s not good, as long as it glides it is OK, but I seem not to swallow, I chew endlessly. Eventually I’d rather spit it out because I will not digest it well. The stool is mostly soft.
The menstrual period aggravates the mood swings.
The skin is dry and a bit ridged just like mum’s.
The back feels weak especially from the shoulder-blades extending to the elbows (included)". (Now she moves her arms up and down like wings) "It is a neuralgic pain and I get physiotherapy for it but it hasn’t been successful up till now.
Sleep is good.”

Dreams
I was looking for my mother with my granny, we went all the way through a container full of corpses to search for her. I met granny outside again and we went to the school theatre and we asked the schoolteachers, who were sitting there with their spectacles, if they had seen my mother but they had no time for us. When I asked again they listened to us and they brought my mother in cross-form, as if she were dead and they put her down in front of me. Then, suddenly she took my hand.”

Periodically I have sexual dreams with easy orgasms.

About fast vehicles, trains or aircrafts.

About an underwater city like an astral vision, as if I came there through the middle of the earth.


After I told her that I thought about giving her a bird remedy, namely;
GYPS HIMALAYENSIS 200K (=one of the vulture family), she was excited and told me that she felt honoured. "I keep stones and feathers in my house and when I go to the Zoo I ask for the fallen feathers of the condors"(=part of the vulture family). 

Analysis
The bird theme is very strong in this case, see the bold sections, and her use of the words dirt, sewer, cleansing the shit and the dream of the corpses made me choose a vulture and I happened to have GYPS HIMALAYENSIS (Pharmacie G.Goyens Namur Belgium).
So I gave it to her.

Follow Up 5 weeks later
"After taking the remedy my solar plexus relaxed completely, which extended to the throat. It feels like a big change. I could leave the restlessness outside of me.
I had a nice celebration of the ‘summer solstice’, met beautiful people and got some old astral information. It has to do with an Indian pipe, white bison and wisdom.
I saw a photograph of the Titicaca lake and I recognized the underwater city from a former dream.
Everything comes together. I experience a spiritual growth, a different consciousness is forming. I feel more strongly in contact with the invisible world through a grounded feeling. This is in contrast to an early clairvoyant period when I was about 23. At that time I was in love with a clairvoyant woman and I saw her changing into a bald man from her earlier incarnation. I almost went out of my mind that time. Now I feel much more stable to use this kind of information.
At the summer solstice, during a ritual, sitting at the side of a lake I ‘saw’ a mound of dirty misery pollution going through a funnel into the lake, being purified in a glass town under the water and spirally ascending out. It was moving me from very far and deep, it almost felt older than this world and my tears flooded just like that.
My left shoulder and arm are still stiff as if broken-winged, it has been gone but came back this last week. I got fired (again) from a job which I had only just started, They accepted me because of my openness, apart from my professionalism of course, and my boss promised me a contract the same week. After 5 weeks I still did not have it, despite repeating my request, because I had to make arrangements with the social services. The boss is of the authoritarian, do-not-bother-me type and I seem to confront people without knowing it, which seems especially threatening for certain men. I got this very old feeling of not being seen and being manipulated at the same time. I was very careful but it felt all the more like an anthill. I am very sensitive to power- games and hate it. I really wanted that job, my colleagues were nice and I liked the work.  He, my boss, took my job away. I’m becoming cynical and hard in myself and l am losing faith that there are any possibilities for me without selling my soul to the devil. What to do? I did my very best. It is like my early childhood, I wanted to share but stayed an outsider. I find having so little money restricting, I feel like a broken-winged bird in an open cage."

Advice; repeat the remedy if needed.


Follow Up:  4 1/2 (9 1/2) weeks later
She has tried to communicate with people from her last job about why things went the way they did. "I do not understand that type of management. Someone from the personnel management asked me to work the conflict out and I got the feeling that she was trying to let me clean their rubbish within the organization. I asked for an exit talk with my ex boss. At first he agreed, but later he changed his mind. Now I am uncertain whether I have to let go of it. I just want an explanation for how I have been treated.
I am more active again now after that depressing period. I am a passionate woman but my passion was totally gone.  At times I felt dull and without any perspective. Now I am looking for my destination. I am less extrovert, more introspective and I have a lot of free time.
I am fascinated by subservient leadership. It has to do with compassion. It has been part of my life from young age.
I am looking for a new job again, asa funeral leader. Two years ago I conducted a ritual during the funeral of my father and I told the people about his view on life, then I read the piece I had written to him. Later one of the undertakers asked me if I was willing to do rituals for other deceased. Now I am indeed considering this.  These rituals arise from love and connection.  I felt compassion even at the funeral of my stepfather."
Arms are still a bit stiff but the pain is almost gone.

Advice; wait and call if necessary.

Follow Up next month
summary
She went through deep old pains from former relationships. “I am always the giving party. I need recognition for who I am and want to be needed. I take care of my mother but she tempered me in going my own way. I still need her confirmation, but I do not get it.
I have felt lonely and I had a longing to be carried like a baby.
I am furious with people who ignore me and at myself that I do not stop smoking. I have to go to the pit, to deserve to live. I am aware of my fear of life, of death, of loneliness.”

6 months after the Gyps Himalayensis I gave her Lac Maternum MK (because her extremely strong bond with her mother).

Follow Up after 1 month
“I have had a miraculous time, feeling connections as love streams through and around me. I recognize my own form and am more capable of saying yes or no. I feel intermediary in my family. I restored communication with family members and I felt recognition. It felt like healing the contact. I started to air my grievances in all my relationships and the effect is positive.
In my professional life it is not easy to find a suitable job for my experience and vision about quality and how to treat people and work with them in respect, making optimal use of their qualities.
Quite soon I feel that I am misused and lose respect for the bosses.”
She was offered a job in a Reintegration project for addicted, abused an isolated people and she took it.


Follow Up 1 year after the first remedy
It was confrontational to work and compare herself with her colleagues and she recognised her own manner and mask, and how easily she acts the clown in uneasy circumstances.
“I threw old convictions out, like my enormous resistance to adapt. I convinced myself I must accept the situation if it were not too repulsive. I am experimenting instead of panicking. But I still feel inner resistance to the representatives of the pragmatism of the system.”
Dreams about being chained to the wall, feeling caged.
“I went deep into the pit in a continuing inner dialogue and I feared that I could be submerged within the system, or leave, or not accomplish the task. Very stressful. Lately I feel more part of the team."

She has taken the GYPS HYMALAYENSIS at times when she felt the need.


NB.
The reason that I wanted to publish this case was the latest edition of the ‘LINKS’ (Spring ‘09) where a couple of bird cases like Cathartes Aura / Turkey Vulture, have been published.

The Gyps Hymalayensis unknown in our Materia Medica, happened to be the ‘Vulture” I could lay hands on at the time.


Anne Wirtz

Chemical Algebra:
Enjoying the fruits (and salts) of Jan Scholten’s invention

Part Four

Not patched but whole
With the developments in thematic homeopathy examined in the previous three parts of this paper, the contemporary practitioner is not looking to revert to the mixology of the medieval compounders and their modern pharmaceutical inheritors, the purveyors of over-the-counter (OTC) ‘combination remedies’ (in that other crude and senseless sense of the word ‘combination’):

‘[Medicine] lies in the knowledge of what is inside and not in composing and patching up pieces to make it. What are the best trousers? Those which are whole; those patched up and pieced together are the worst ones. Who is so stupid as to believe that nature has distributed so much of a virtue to one and so much to another herb, and then commissioned you doctors to put them together?...Nature is the physician, not you; from her you take your orders, not from yourself; she composes, not you.’
Paracelsus, cited in Philip Ball, The Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2006


The homeopath must seek the emergent and particular individuality of that pattern which currently rules the individual (a pattern that can be approached by arranging together those themes that revolve around its central verb). It is this pattern that seeks to displace the patient’s human individuality with its own, riding it to ruin just as Louis Klein paints a picture of Mancinella ridden by the spirits of vodoun (Clinical Focus Guide, Volume 1), turning a potential human into the behavioural semblance of something much less so.
For these reasons, ‘combination remedies’ in the senseless (OTC) sense are not part of the homeopath’s high endeavour. Conversely, the use of combinatorial thinking, of thematic algebra and groups, rightly occupies a central place within our current renaissance, a star that has re-arisen within our contemporary vision.
With regard to the sales of OTC combinations named for disease categories, we find ourselves currently competing with an interest group that has a vested material interest in reading the practice of homeopathy at a few octaves lower than actually homeopathic practice. Like Hahnemann after him, Paracelsus (above) long ago focused on the crux of this matter, as have others whose thought and practice were also to influence our continuing evolution in understanding homeopathy:

‘Truth is… like a garment; when not being worn, it is merely pieces of material adapted for a body, but when it is put on, it becomes clothing with a human being inside it.’
Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, paragraph 150, cited in Wilson van Dusen, The Country of the Spirit, J. Appleseed & Co., San Francisco

Statements formulated according to the rules of thematic group, or algebraic, thinking are garments but, when we witness the individuality of a patient shining through these garments, such material becomes clothing. The homeopath who prescribes a curative remedy does so with the intent of enabling the patient to divest themselves of that which the patient may regard highly (at the very least they are ‘attached’ to it) but which we view as mere rags in comparison to what he or she, you or I, could be clothed in:

Rabbi Jechiel Meir of Gostynin had attended the Festival of Weeks with his teacher at Kozk. On his return home, his father-in-law asked him,
“Well, was the Law received in a different spirit where you were than elsewhere?”
“Certainly!” came the reply.
“How do you mean?” asked his father-in-law.
“How would you here understand, for example, the commandment ‘Thou shalt not steal’?” asked Rabbi Jechiel in return.
“Well, naturally,” replied his father-in-law, “one may not steal from one’s neighbor.”
But Rabbi Jechiel responded: “In Kozk they interpret it as follows: ‘One may not steal from oneself!’ ”
Buber, Tales of the Hasidim


The metaphor of clothes fits the subject matter of this essay well enough: the difference that makes a difference is when we learn to see, in our own practices, individuality shining through the combinations offered by the scaffolding of the algebraic material.
There are, as ever, those who will say, “Oh, a new fashion… You know what I’m like with new stuff…” (Generals, Environmental allergies; Mind, thought, averse new) and thereby keep themselves the much poorer – but it is only by actually wearing these new clothes that we manage actually to enrich ourselves, our practices and our patients.
What, then, can go wrong? Jan Scholten can help us here:

‘Seduction through presentation: clothes…
A game of fantasy: theorizing…
Another possibility is that they start to pay a lot of attention to their appearance, dressing up in beautiful clothes and parading in front of their loved one to try and impress them. They love beauty and harmony and order….
The other side of the coin is that they may neglect their relationship. They feel that is fine the way it is and they don’t have to make any effort to maintain or improve it…
Sometimes their fantasies run away with them and they lose all sense of reality. But they can also philosophise about elemental issues...’
(Sulphur, in Homeopathy and Elements, pp.296-98)


In sum, we are greatly aided by thematic group and algebraic thinking but, as ever this is only if we dare to know its fruits (and salts) in ourselves: thereafter we will be much better equipped to acquit our responsibility to our patients. What behooves us, also, is to continue to seek the most expeditious ways of using such tools (or theoretical instruments). Once the idea of combining themes is ‘on the map,’ as it indubitably has been for some time, then where one draws such themes from – how one reads experience metaphorically to derive themes and how, thereafter, one performs algebraic analyses upon those themes to form that runway which allows or enables the flight of metaphor to take off on its trajectory toward particularity – where one draws such themes from is not circumscribed by any text but that of Nature. It becomes, rather, a matter of developing the art of metaphor and algebra for oneself and then (by whatever means possible) communicating it, as Jan Scholten has done in his books and seminars, so that others may benefit and do likewise.

By way of concluding, some quotations on combining, correlating and connecting

‘In fact, what is mathematical creation? It does not consist in making new combinations with mathematical entities already known. Any one could do that, but the combinations so made would be infinite in number and most of them absolutely without interest. To create consists precisely in not making useless combinations and in making those which are useful and which are only a small minority. Invention is discernment, choice.
How to make this choice I have before explained; the mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a mathematical law just as experimental facts lead us to the knowledge of a physical law. They are those which reveal to us an unsuspected kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another.
Among chosen combinations the most fertile will often be those formed of elements drawn from domains which are far apart. Not that I mean as sufficing for invention the bringing together of objects as disparate as possible; most combinations so formed would be entirely sterile. But certain among them, very rare, are the most fruitful of all.’
Henri Poincare, ‘Mathematical Creation,’ Chapter III, Science and Method on the Foundations of Science, trans. George Bruce Halsted, Science Press, NY, 1929


‘If one studies the interconnections of living processes in nature, one soon finds that one cannot stop short at the rigid forms, nor allow oneself to be restricted by systems. Inner relationships and metamorphoses must be sought wherever they occur, for life is a whole, and illuminating connections are to be found even between the different kingdoms.’
Georg Grohmann, The Plant, Volume 2


‘The significant insights in therapy ... are not solutions but connections - connections drawn between previously unrelated events.’
Edgar Levenson, The Ambiguity of Change, New York, 1983


‘If one found a complex of, let us say, seven ingredients in a man’s motivation, the Freudian tendency would be to take one of these as the essence of the motivation and to consider the other six as sublimated variants… The proportional strategy would involve the study of these seven as a cluster. The motivation would be synonymous with the inter-relationships between them.’
Kenneth Burke, ‘Freud and the Analysis of Poetry’ reprinted in The Philosophy of Literary Form, New York, Vintage, 1957 [author’s italics]


‘The concept of science as fields of practice also highlights the importance of skills and best knowledge, which are often overlooked or suppressed when the purely theoretical is emphasized. Skills and tacit knowledge are modes of knowing the world that exemplify Wittgenstein’s forms of life. They depend on givens that cannot be spoken of, in the same way that you cannot explain how to ride a bike. If we had to wait for a theoretical explanation of bike riding, nobody would ever get on the saddle. If maps are shared examples of practice, perhaps science can be thought of as a compendia of maps, that is, an atlas, as an example of the way in which people have to work to make the whole hang together. Ultimately maps and theories gain their power and usefulness from making connections and enabling unanticipated connections. Science is an atlas not because all its theories are connected by logic, method and consistency. There is no such logic, method or consistency. Science is riddled with contradiction and disciplinary division. Science is an atlas because the essence of maps and theories is connectivity.’
David Turnbull, Maps are Territories: Science is an Atlas, University of Chicago, 1993 [my underlining]


‘The divine model of the earth corresponds to the heavens: everything is just as above. Rav Abba wept as he saw the fruit of a tree turn into a bird and fly off. If men knew what these things meant they would rip their clothes down to the navel – in grief, for having lost this wisdom. Even more so in relation to the rest of creation…
All things in this world have a mystery of their own. Since the divine one chose not to reveal it, he gave to each species a name; he made them, however mysterious, discrete.’
Zohar 2: 15b-16a, translated by David Rosenberg (cited in David Rosenberg, Dreams of Being Eaten Alive)


This is the final part of a four-part article.

Iain Marrs practices homeopathy in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and - like all practitioners – in practicing he researches both its art and its science.

Recently Michael Quinn passed away. I see this as a great loss for the homeopathic community. In the seventies he was one of the pioneers of homeopathy in the United States, together with people like Roger Morrison and Bill Grey. Michael went into pharmacy and founded the Hahnemann Laboratories and made many remedies, old and new, available for homeopaths. I have met him a few times and have come to know him as a very honest and honorable man. He made his remedies with much precision and perfectionism.

Michael once told me the story of doing a proving during triturating Platina.
He developed symptoms without thinking of doing a proving, it just happened. Now it is very obvious to people who have done trituration that it is very hard not to do a proving as there is a mist of fine milk sugar hanging in the room and one will inspire it constantly. Michael’s most remarkable symptom was that he felt “very big and tall, much taller than other people”. This symptom is symbolic for the essence of Platina, being the best and greatest person, the king or emperor. This experience showed the power of "trituration provings".

He also did research with Arnica in plastic surgery. His double blind study showed without any doubt that Arnica was very effective in reducing ecchymoses after plastic surgery. He showed the results on conferences of plastic surgery, so that by now many surgeons are using Arnica in the United States. I am still wondering how many of those surgeons really know what they do, but it helps very well, so they use it.

That study alone demonstrated and proved the effectiveness of homeopathy. One only has to google "arnica plastic surgery" to see how widely it is used. Homeopathy has proven itself in practice. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

We wish you much pleasure in reading this issue of Interhomeopathy.

The Future of Homeopathy
Homeopathy for Epidemics, Collective Trauma and Endemic Diseases – Part 2

This article consists of three parts:
1. The History Of Homeopathy
2. Building On The Past
3. From Theory To Practice

Part 1 was published in the previous edition of Interhomeopathy.

Building On The Past:

Infectious diseases and miasm.
Before discussing how I perceive homeopathy can constructively address the collective issues of our time - as expressed in epidemic diseases, collective trauma, and cultural illnesses – let’s go back to history again.

In his Organon at §78 Hahnemann declares that true natural chronic diseases are those that arise from a chronic miasm. In his analysis Hahnemann defines three miasm: Psora, Sycosis and Syphilis, of which in modern terms Psora could be seen as the mother of all chronic diseases. According to Hahnemann uncured miasm cannot be eradicated by the life force (§79) and only homeopathy can do this. A too bold a statement I believe for the like cures like principle is broader than homeopathy but a general law underlying all creation. More miasm have been recognise since Hahnemann. Not all homeopaths are accepting them that easily, but I have no doubt that somewhere in the future it will be broadly accepted and recognise that many influences besides infectious diseases, let be only the three Hahnemann pointed out, determine the state of health and can cause a miasmatic disturbance. It is very clear to me that our understanding of miasm needs to be updated to be able to bring homeopathic treatment of collective issues to a higher level.


Miasma’s and Process:
My own understanding of the miasm underwent a revolutionary change based on an accidental observation that I made. Knowing the work of Stanislav Grof (psychiatrist) on the birth experience I noticed a marked analogy between Hahnemann’s miasm and the stages of birth (See the books ‘Miasm in Labour’ and ‘Homeopathy for Birth Trauma’). I’m not going to repeat all of what I’ve written on the subject here but will summarise some conclusions relevant to this article:
• The birth process shows us life in a nutshell. All phases of human development and of the individuation process are represented. Analysis of an individual birth shows amazing similarity to the state observed later in life, so the birth experience already displays the central theme of an individual. Birth is not causing that state but expressing it, since in cases where there is information from pregnancy, conception or beyond the same patterns can be observed.
• All the miasm we have come to recognise – psora, sycosis, syphilis, tubercular, cancer, leprous etc - can be clearly retraced as belonging specifically to a certain phase in the birth process, and the main remedies representing them can be understood using the symbolical language of that aspect of the birth experience. Since birth is a process it became clear that miasm are related to development, and each of them to a specific phase or theme in development, both on an individual as also a collective level.
• Miasm have a role and serve a purpose. In homeopathy we have only highlighted the pathological side of them, the results of something going wrong during development.
• Disease induces change within an individual, and miasmatic diseases that we could also call collective diseases, induce change within society, the group, tribe, nation or mankind as a whole.
• Diseases and miasm induce the development of qualities within an individual and within humanity. Miasm are subconscious Archetypes. Only if the normal process of development and growth is blocked diseases can come forward to bring this to awareness and to induce the change needed.
• Diseases and miasm are both the problem as well as the key to growth. Actually diseases and miasm are the teachers of mankind, and in infectious diseases microorganisms carry the message.
• 95% of our DNA stems from viruses and bacteria. This means that these germs bring pieces of information to us and that integrating these pieces is what drives evolution. This also makes very clear why killing the bug, allopathy, can never support the role and purpose of the disease, and forces the organism to own the same lesson following a different route, one that can be expected to involve more suffering. This is the deeper meaning of suppression.


Logics of Miasm:
• Symptoms are a sign of the Dynamis restoring balance (Hahnemann)
• A disease is a combination of symptoms
• A disease is a sign of the Dynamis restoring balance in an individual by bringing it to a higher level of functioning. That balance is restored does not mean that the individual is brought back to a previous state, but rather moved on to a new one that includes the qualities induced by the disease.
• An epidemic disease is a sign of the collective Dynamis restoring balance and inducing growth and awareness in a group
• Miasm can be expressed in humanity through a variety of afflictions
• Miasm are a sign of the Dynamis restoring balance and inducing growth in the collective
• Epidemic outbreaks are acute collective manifestations of this process involving a large group, whereas miasmatic diseases are more of a chronic expression of the same energy afflicting those individuals that apparently work on the same issues in their individual development.
• Epidemics that are endemic for long periods of time, like malaria and TB, are concerned with major shifts in humanity that take many generations.

Since 2004 I got more and more involved with the treatment of epidemics in Africa. This started with AIDS, but gradually has come to include many more epidemic diseases as also collective trauma. It was Peter Chappell’s work with AIDS and the spectacular results I witnessed with his remedy PC1, first in Malawi and later also in other African countries, that made me decide to make the treatment of collective diseases my main focus. Doing so I came to understand that in homeopathy we overemphasize the individuality of problems a patient comes with. The majority if not all so-called individual problems are expressions of universal themes, and the collective roots of these themes can often be traced back in the life of the individual and his/her family or culture. The expression in the patient can be unique asking for an individual simillimum, but there are many cases where if we look deep enough we can discover roots, miasm if you like, that are collective. Let me give you an example.


55-year-old woman with a deep pain
This patient has as long as she can remember suffered from a deep pain, a grief that is bottomless. In the history of her personal life there were certainly reasons for grief and pain, as her mother had been severely depressed and therefore absent for her throughout her youth. And many of her symptoms could be well understood in the light of this history. But somehow the depth of her pain was of a completely different league. As I experienced it in interviewing her it outweighed by far the lack of motherly support and love.
She said: “It’s like a very old well of pain. As if I was losing grips. As if I was losing contact with reality. Going to a deep place where this was lying. It is a completely different world, with strong emotions and loneliness. Being cut off. As if everything is useless. As if I can already see the end of things. The grief and pain there are so huge and I don’t dare to feel the depth of it.”
When she later told the whole family had been extinguished in the Nazi concentration camps, the depth of her pain had found a match. She was clearly suffering from something that was lying beyond her personal history, the collective trauma of genocide.

When in 2005 Peter Chappell was in Rwanda to treat AIDS he soon found out that on top of AIDS people were especially still suffering from the genocide that took place ten years before. He recognise this to be a collective trauma that should be dealt with using the genus epidemicus approach. He prepared a resonance that he called PC War/Genocide Trauma and gave that first to his patients that responded remarkably well. This feeling as if it had happened yesterday, the flashbacks, nightmares and all other ways in which this traumatic miasm was being expressed in them, all of this subsided rapidly. (PC Resonances are not the subject of this article and could be replaced with other remedies based on an analysis of genocide or any other disease or trauma totality. See www.peterchappell.com and ‘The Second Simillimum’ for more information on PC Resonances).

So I decided not to individualise this case but, to start treating the genocide trauma using the above mentioned PC Resonance: PC304x 5 drops daily. The response was wonderful!
Five weeks later: “I am very much surprised. There is a change I had never expected to be possible. I feel a completely different person. A dramatic change. For a short period I continued crying but since then it has not come back. It is a completely new period. I feel optimism, trust, love for life. It is miraculous. This weeping has travelled with me all of my life. The last couple of years it was constantly there. Before that in episodes.
I dream again, quite lucid, remember them better. My sleep is much deeper and I waken up less. On waking up in the morning I am okay.
No more panic or fear of being abandoned. I can continue with my life like this. I’m no longer afraid to move on, to be forsaken. A great trust has come. It is okay what happens or is about to happen. There is more peace inside. I can enjoy the simple things of life again. Before this all joy was lacking.
Before I started taking this remedy I had the feeling being wiped out, taking no space. I just as well might not be there. Now I take a space and that has meaning.”

Two months later there was no further improvement and we discontinued the drops. She says now: “A complete layer has been dealt with, this layer of collective grief. The insecurities I have now have to do with every day practicalities. Like building my house. Then I feel a lack of stability and go back to the time our family was broken up. Like a sea without borders. I love the sea because it gives space, quiet and openness.
In the morning I have a bit troubles starting the day, a little sadness. In the evenings I am feeling great. What I didn’t tell you before is that I have a strong fear of spiders. Since the last couple of months my menses has returned.”

So she’s free now from the collective trauma and the complaints she still has now she relates to her own history, for which now a personal simillimum is indicated.
Regarding her personal trauma the broken relationship with her mother is essential. She was disconnected from her mother, causing feelings of forsakenness and insecurity. This definitely happened at the age of nine when her mother could no longer cope it, but also before that time her mother was depressed and not the source of warmth and comfort she needed. Later in her life we see a tendency toward bulimia with a desire for sweet dairy products, including ice cream and chocolate.
In short, she received one dose of Lac humanum MK and eleven weeks later she reports:
“I’m beautifully out of the dependency in my recent relationship (a friend she got after her divorce). I’m on my own feet now. There have been no dips any more and my base has become firmer. All the symptoms that have improved on the first remedy never returned. Since this last remedy my asthma is a lot better, my stomach problems are gone and I no longer have abdominal pains.
I dream about my recent relationship. I dreamed of getting a clear view by literally putting on other glasses to be able to see further away.”
Three months later: “I’m totally fine and suggest to cancel the appointment. I’ll contact you in case anything new will come up.”

Of course we do not know what would have happened had I started with Lac humanum, but I honestly doubt whether she would have responded as she had done now. By fully clearing up the collective trauma just one dose of her simillimum was enough to clear up all the remaining symptoms and to my knowledge a repetition of either remedy has not been indicated until today.


Trauma and Miasm
Let us look at an example of collective trauma in our time:
Kashmir (Washington Post September 2008)
“The number of patients seeking mental health services surged at the state psychiatric hospital, from 1,700 when the unrest began to more than 100,000…
The patients have insomnia, learning disabilities, anxiety disorders and what Kashmiri therapists call the ‘midnight-knock syndrome’, a fear stemming from the many pre-dawn raids by Indian security forces aimed at rooting out suspected insurgents…
Mental health groups estimate that 60,000 Kashmiris committed suicide last year, a record number, said Mushtaq Margoob, head of the Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital in Srinagar…
More than 15 percent of Kashmiris are afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a recent study by Margoob … In January, the army recruited 400 psychiatrists after more than 100 soldiers, including officers, killed themselves … “etc.

The symptom in all these people described above may differ, but it is very clear to me that an as-if-one-person approach would be very effective in a fast majority of the cases. And this is only Kashmir. I’m writing this part of the article on my way to Burundi and East Congo, another area full of heavily traumatised people. Just watch the news for some time and you can see that many millions of people are suffering from collective trauma. It’s the collective that is ill, out of balance, and it’s the collective that needs to be treated. If we don’t see that and act accordingly we will never be able to heal these collective derangements. For in the time we need to treat one single traumatised patient using individualised treatment ten new ones get traumatised. It is also a lot more practical to start with a genus epidemicus remedy – genus traumaticus if you like – and to later individualise those cases where the collective approach is not enough. Following such a strategy we would be able to help many more patients and perhaps even be able to induce a real change in the collective.

It seems as if unresolved trauma lies at the basis of many chronic conditions. If we look at the language of Vital Sensation these are all expressions of trauma. These are sensations fitting a traumatic experience to a life form.


Some ideas on the role of trauma:
• An Individual Trauma can express itself in an Individual Disease. This is something we know from experience. For instance an unresolved grief can be expressed in recurrent throat infections, or as a result of sexual abuse a woman can have recurrent bladder infections.
• Trauma is hereditary. See the case above. See also the work of Hellinger. If we go a few generations back there are lots of traumas that can be at the root of symptoms we come across in our patients. These include wars, periods of starvation and crashing stock markets, stillborn babies, rape, incest etc.
• A Collective Disease can follow a Collective Trauma. A good example is cholera following the horror of war. Interesting to see that for instance Cuprum is a remedy fitting both war (the typical Cuprum state is that of a soldier) and cholera. Of course there are also circumstances on the physical level like lack of clean drinking water etc but that doesn’t mean that trauma at the energetic level is not an essential part of the expression of the disease. By looking solely at material manifestations and circumstances school medicine denies energetic disturbances in many conditions. Let’s not make that same mistake. Besides that we know from research that traumatic events cause malfunctioning of the immune system, so circumstances and susceptibility come together to create disease.
• The language of the Vital Sensation is the language of Trauma. If we read all the different ways a vital sensation is expressed this becomes very obvious. Whether it is being pressed together, falling to pieces, torn apart, exploded, scattered etc. These are all very physical expression of ways in which the integrity of an organism can be threatened.
• There seems to be a chain reaction:
    o Trauma ⇒ Miasm
    o Miasm ⇒ Infection
    o Infection ⇒ Genetic damage (genetic trauma)
    o Genetic damage ⇒ Chronic Disease
• Collective trauma ⇐⇒ Epidemic; a collective trauma can be both cause and effect of an epidemic; if for instance due to Avian Flu millions of people die that causes a trauma to many more million survivors. And staying with that example the fear and panic that comes up if such an epidemic is broad-casted is the first symptom of the epidemic, the first way in which the collective shows signs and symptoms before or without the virus itself ever reaching the individual.
• Trauma seems to be Primary. So in the chain of diseases and traumatic events - a limited two-dimensional way of cause and effect - it seems with that the wheel starts turning.
• Separation, the delusion that we are separated instead of one, the mythological departure from paradise, is the Basic Trauma.


Follow the river to its source:
If we look at the role homeopathy can play in the world it makes sense to analyse what would be the most effective way of using our resources – the knowledge on how to heal using the law of similars that is present in a considerable but limited number of homeopaths.
• Treating individuals and their miasmatic diseases alone is clearly not enough.
• Besides treating miasmatic effects we can and should treat the causes.
• These causes start as trauma or infectious and epidemic diseases - often based on trauma.
• The roots of miasm lie in collective themes as the infectious and epidemic diseases causing them, or the bacteria and viruses instrumental in them, have nothing to do with the individual.
• To be able to effectively address miasm at an earlier phase, we need to understand and treat the totality of these collective diseases.
• The totality on which we base our prescriptions to treat collective derangements of the vital force (trauma and epidemic diseases) should include the symptoms & the role and purpose of the disease.
• Chronic diseases that prevail in a certain culture or era have strong collective roots. The more prevalent they are the less important an individual approach becomes, and the more important it is to treat the collective issues. E.g. obesity and diabetes mellitus in our time and age.
• Ideally we always do both if one approach doesn’t fully cure – treat the individual and the collective picture.
• Practical is to start as early as possible with the collective before it branches off in a variety of individual expressions.


Homeopathy for the World:
So I feel that homeopathy needs to develop a practical approach to make its best asset top priority. Treating the collective is what we do best and is what has a larger curative and prophylactic impact on humanity. Treating the collective is like using a wider filter that will take out the big chunks effectively. The smaller chunks that it lets through can be filtered out using the more refined filter of individual treatment. By overemphasising the individual expression of collective issues our filters are clogged by a lot of collective debris and the effects of individual treatment is therefore often limited.
• The higher purpose of homeopathy on a global level is to know what needs to be cured in the world, a continent, country, society etc.
• For this we need to be able to read the signs and symptoms of our time.
• An epidemic is an expression of a need for collective change.
• Treating today’s trauma is preventing tomorrow’s epidemics.
• Treating today’s epidemics is preventing tomorrow’s chronic diseases.
• Healing today’s collective diseases is preventing tomorrow’s individual diseases.


Impossible?
This sounds very ambitious, and it is. It may take decades to make this vision a reality. Impossible? Here are some quotes from the past that history falsified:
• “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” (Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, 1895)
• “Unworthy of the attention of practical and scientific men.” (British Parliamentary Committee report on Edison’s electric light bulb)
• “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” (Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, 1883)
To use a more contemporary quote: “Yes we can.” With the emphasis on we. In theory this is what homeopathy can; to make it a reality it needs dedication and doing by us, homeopaths. At the end of the article I will give some short cases showing what is already a reality using this approach in Africa.


Homeopathy Should Take Its Responsibility in Epidemics!
The easiest and most practical way of starting to address collective derangements of the vital force is by treating epidemics. There are lots of reasons why this is a more than good idea and why luckily several homeopaths are practicing this, especially in developing countries:
• Because it creates no side-effects
• Because it is safe for pregnant women, babies and elderly people
• Because it is not expensive
• Because production, storage and distribution is simple
• Because it does not induce therapy resistance
• Because it does not create more dangerous viruses and bacteria
• Because it has been effective in many epidemics in the past is effective in today’s epidemics


Strategies that need to be developed:
• For treating collective trauma
• For treating epidemics
• For treating chronic diseases in the case the individual Simillimum alone is not sufficient
• For inducing Wellness and Spiritual Growth – this is another step we can make to enhance peace and health. Without it being the main reason for performing them doing provings is an expression of this possibility. Hahnemann himself already said that doing a proving is beneficial for the prover. It awakens people. By doing provings on a larger scale, meaning including many individuals world-wide, and by selecting substances that address the needs of our time, collective wellness and spiritual growth can be stimulated.


Genus morbicus:
We need to broaden the genus epidemicus principle to include other collective conditions that can be approached using the ‘as-if-one-person’ principle, either with or without complementary individual treatment. The following terms we could use:
• Genus epidemicus
    o Based on the totality of the symptoms of an epidemic disease
• Genus traumaticus
    o Based on the totality of the symptoms of collective or endemic trauma
• Genus endemicus
    o Based on the totality of the symptoms of an endemic disease
• Genus chronicus
    o Based on the totality of the symptoms of a chronic disease


Super Simillimum:
The ideal simillimum for a patient would include all typical symptoms:
• Those that individualise the patient, including the vital sensation, and
• Those that individualise the disease.
In some rare indications we see this in patients, like in a Mercurius case of colitis ulcerosa, where the characteristics of the patients as also of the disease all fall within the totality of the remedy.


Chronic diseases: prescribe for …
The reality of homeopathic practice is that a super simillimum is only rarely found. In all other cases the homeopath has several options to prescribe on:

1. The patient
2. The causal factor (infection/trauma)
3. The consequence (miasm)
4. The expression (chronic disease)
5. Any combination or sequence of 1-4

A simple and workable motto in where to start if indeed several totalities are discovered in a patient is: start with what is staring you in the face! In advanced cases of chronic diseases as also in epidemic diseases and serious trauma starting with that is to be advised for several reasons:
1. The individual simillimum is often hard to discover as the energy of the condition is overruling it.
2. The individual simillimum has only very limited or even no effect because of the same reason.
3. It works in practice and is the reason why also clinical homeopaths have their success cases.


A New Source:
In homeopathy until today remedies have been used coming from material sources. These include the imponderables like Sol and Magnetis as also these originate from material sources.

Immaterial sources have to my knowledge hardly been used, and if so met with great skepticism. Their basis is consciousness and since nobody can see that under a microscope or put it into a mortar the reserve is understandable. This doesn’t mean though that this source can and should not be used.

I’m sure there are many ways, either based on spiritual practice or technology, in which remedies based on conscious purposely design can be made. My personal experience is limited to those prepared by Peter Chappell. In his search for a simillimum for AIDS in Africa he couldn’t find a suitable remedy in the then existing materia medica and found a way to create a simillimum without the use of material substance (see www.ARHF.nl).
He has named his first remedy PC1 and developed many others later, which together are referred to as PC Resonances.


The last part of this series of three will follow in the next edition of Interhomeopathy.
Part 3 From Theory To Practice


© Harry van der Zee 2009

Magnesium Fluor case
THE MAGIC BULLET

Oct. 29, 2001
Female 19 yrs old
Customer Services Clerk.

Neatly and fashionably dressed. Well presented and with meticulous make up, with quite a lot on her face, she has some spots underneath. Blonde, brown eyes. Wears very high heels. Fairly short stature 5’4’’. Shapely figure. Clothing shows her shape.
First job. Not particularly ambitious. Did not like college. Hates education. Went to college because it was the right thing to do. Sick of books, sick of trying, sick of not getting anywhere.


Case: Been taking Dothiepin. Previously Paroxetine, but these gave her insomnia. Miserable coming off them.
P/c
ME. TATT.
"I work hard. I am not a slacker. I’m such a sensitive person. I give a lot to others, particularly boyfriends. I’m easy going. I feel at a loss. I can get attached to one person. I am an outgoing person. Able to talk well to people. I hope people think I am not a bad person."
Likes people to think well of her.
Naïve about sex. "At school I was a swot. I was paranoid about getting into trouble." Fear and ashamed of getting into trouble and letting parents down. Nobody fancied her at school because she did not have a fanciful image.
She went to college knowing nothing.
First sexual relationship was not relaxed about it. She was frightened. Sex was painful. The boyfriend ended the relationship, then he told all his college mates, because she did not expose her body.
She wondered if all relationships were going to be like this.
The next boyfriend thought a lot of her, showed her a lot of affection. Sex still hurt. During sex the condom split. Had to go to family planning clinic for morning after pill. Felt ashamed.
Developed anorexia, binging, dieting and starving herself. She could not control her eating habits.
Tried to commit suicide – took an OD of her drugs.
Mother – bad tempered. Not easy to live with. Frightened of her.

Entered a beauty competition and became third. She felt special.
Dressed up to look good for her boyfriend. They have split up.
Can’t get over this boyfriend even though he is mean to her, and abuses her… it’s the image he represents of being successful, a star, glamorous. "I punish myself so much. I need make-up on to help my self confidence. Otherwise I won’t go out."
"I struggle with learning. No ambition. No point in studying."
Went to private school. Then to A level college. Was happy the first year there. Went out with “sporty” boys. Her first boyfriend really.
Devastated when that relationship ended. Felt depressed and worthless for a long time. Felt she had be tougher than she use to be.
Mum does not like weakness in people.
Didn’t feel good enough. Boyfriend told her how she should look. "These looks attract a certain type of person." Next boyfriend, a basketball player. Seemed they did not have any commitment. They’re looks matched them – they were hard. I am soft and have old fashioned values. She shows an image of hard, blonde. "If I don’t look like this I don’t feel worthy, self conscious, ugly, not striking enough."

Went to a model agency. Competitive about looks. Looking for perfection – in herself. In search for the perfect image. Was hard on herself.
She says she has bad skin -whiteheads –she pulverises her face squeezing spots. Gets aggressive with them trying to get them out. Has some moles, but cant get them removed because they will leave a scar.
Needs to have the best of everything –anything that can make her look better she wants. Needs to be superior to other people.
"I hate fading into the background." Likes to be noticed and stand out from the crowd. Hates not to be the best looking, the most intelligent.
Does not take compliments onboard – thinks she can be better than what they say. “I want to be outstanding."
"I don’t like being nasty to people, that’s why I have so many friends." Friends come to her in a crisis – usually boyfriend trouble. She is able to calm them down. They ask her advice about style and looks. I can never do enough to help them.
She likes shiny sparkly things, diamonds. (Hobbies?) Shopping. Wishes she had more money. Try to become the girlfriend of a neighbour who had won some money on the lottery. Uses her looks to feel superior to more intelligent people. Very sensitive about what others say about her looks or her personality.
Not fair to Dad to spend his money. Okay to use neighbours lottery money. She would be doing him a favour going out with him.

Rx Mag-Fluor. 200. i OD 4/7 Stop if response.

A routine questionnaire I give to patients confirmed a number of keynotes symptoms of Mag-fluor.

Nov. 23, 2001 1st Follow up
Feels more balanced and level headed. Less obsessed. Felt different the day after started the remedy. Not been bothered about material or body enhancing stuff, teeth whitener coloured contacts etc.
Been a lot happier in herself.
Last week or so some of the feelings coming back.
Skin appears to be worse. Spots on her back and chest – hardly gets those. Seem to be an unusual amount.
Has met a new boyfriend. – he’s a lot different from previous one’s. Not macho, not glam type at all. He gives her the support she needs.

Rx Mag-Fluor 1M, phone in 6 weeks.

Telecon follow up 6 weeks later
Better in herself. Happy. Relationship going well. Not bothered about the glam look any more although takes care of her appearance not obsessed about it like she used to be. Energy normal!!! Sleep – no problems.
Rx wait. Phone prn.

One year later she is fine after response to routine enquiry. Spots a lot better – still gets some, but not to same extent as before. Not aggressive with them now!!

References
Complete Repertory 5.5
Jan Scholten – Homeopathy and Minerals
Jan Scholten – Homeopathy and the Elements.


Alistair Dempster

Case Praseodymium bromatum

D.P. age 38 y., male.
First visit: Oct. 2007.

"I have a lot of neck, shoulder and back pain. I had a whiplash injury last summer, and gradually re-gained my mobility.”

  Retreat is in order . . . Go back, re-group, a leave is in order.
  The time to fight will come again. Be prepared
  A new life is waiting. Forget the past.
  Tomorrow never comes, today is passing by.
  Seize the gift God have given, the flame will burn eternally.


Analysis:
This patient has a pattern of “two steps forward, two steps back”, but most of this is happening internally, rather than in the external world. He’s not manifesting what internally he believes he’s capable of, which is to express a “silver theme toward a golden ideal”.


In other words, he wants to make a difference in the world, but he’s conflicted by the fact that if through exercising his inner power he becomes “visible”, then he becomes a target for persecution.

Remedy: Praseodymium bromatum LM 2


Follow-up Jan. 2008

"Things started to come together. I was feeling pretty good. It was nice to get through the holidays. I was getting more focused.”

“In the past, there was a whole period of time where I was accused of being better than everyone else. I’m scared of my power. It took all of my power to do the things I did. It’s like Merlin drawing up the power to change the world. I feel “I need to shut down to re-coup a bit”.


The client had clearly made progress, but had some continuing symptoms with the same themes. Because he would often forget to take the LM remedy, he was switched to a single dose praseodymium bromatum 1M.


He’s continued to do well on this remedy, repeating the dose every 3-6 months, and notices an immediate response of improved confidence and decreased fear and anxiety after taking the remedy. His most recent repetition of the remedy was in January ’09. He readily agreed to having his history published, because he’s hoping his experience with praseodymium bromatum might ultimately help others.


David A. Johnson
email:

Calcium nitricum - short case:


History First visit Aug. 2005:
A lady in her forties working as a secretary in an office came August of 2005 because of chronic fatigue and excessive perspiration.


Disturbances in Chronic Fatigue syndrome


Short story:
She is very scrupulous about her work. She is always doubting whether she is it doing correctly and she is working overtime so she can afford an acceptable apartment and a car. In the last years she was working too much for her husband and family. Since her divorce 3 years ago she cares for her 2 teen children and all the work and sorrows about family and money take her energy.
Symptoms:
Excessive perspiration (odorless) under axilla, especially on excitement; exhausted from work and sorrow; feeling tired, hanging eyelids, bearing down when standing. I gave her Sepia C 200 and perspiration and exhaustion got better; she seldom gives a call and Sepia LM6 or C200 helped more or less.


Retaking case history 2008:
June 2008 she is complaining of severe exhaustion on the phone; I advised to try Sepia C200 first. There was not any reaction to Sepia, so we decided to take the case newly on 21.06.2008; meanwhile I studied more on Sankaran books and we try this method.


The case is written rather condensed. Uninteresting parts and many recurrences are eliminated; literally translated parts are in “... “ ; [HG] means hand gesture; comments are written cursive; some important words are written also (in Deutsch).


Case history 21.06.2008:
She is very much exhausted; morning going to work she is already nervous and bears the breaks in mind. She has the sensation she can not take a good breath, not inspire. She feels overstressed;

D: Explain not good breathing.

P: “On sitting all is tense; sensation like laced up (zugeschnürt) [HG]; ... takes all energy of life, makes me incapable. Then deficiency of air, takes all the energy, is totally tensed, laced up. Pressure develops (Druck baut s auf), coming from inside and from outside. Inside is the tension from outside comes pressure.It is a matter of survival. Nervous tension is that much, that I don’t know how my body can enforce space (wie s m Körper Raum verschafft).” [HG]



P: "Need human contacts, need communication; if talking and air is taken away, I feel very bad; then I shrink (da geh ich ein)."
D: Explain air.
P: "I am often lacking air. In my home I have air; ... air to be alive is taken away; as like not allowed to breath." If she gets out of the office of her boss "I get bigger again. Inside (in office inside the room of her boss) I am very small, insignificant, totally tensed, tensed as the pressure from outside, sensation as if looked at, the presence of an other person (her boss) makes pressure. Sensation as if looked at; pressure makes me smaller, increasing less respiration [HG].” If she feels observed; “ I want to be invisible [HG], then I could make everything, pressure could ooze; invisible feels good; do what one wants to do. Then I can live like a human being, not so decided from outside.”
P: “Sensation I did not work enough, working too slowly, have not done enough, this makes pressure again. Pressure is sometimes hard to bear; internal tension, pressure to perform [HG]. Fear tearing the body, body has no space, wants to get out [HG]; the tension wants out [HG].” Now tension, pressure and the wish to get out several times with different words and many HG.

P: “I was confined in my parents house and during business training; constricted if others force me. If I am inferior, there comes rage or resignation. In resignation I want to withdraw, withdrawing is best alone in my room (at her home).”
D: Explain exhausted.

P: “Over-strained, can not afford my work anymore. I want to withdraw, want do what I want, than I want to go home.”
D: Explain home.
P: “At home I feel secure (geborgen). I like to be at home, I feel like human being, I feel free.”


Follow up:
First remedy Limenitis bredovii (a butterfly) in June; 10.07.2008 no reaction at all.
After working over the case again 12.07.2008 Calcium nitricum.
17.07.2008
After taking the remedy the very first day she was happier, more relaxed; every day more power, less fatigue.
Until 17.02.2009 she needs every 3-6 weeks Calc-n in the beginning C 200, then after 3 repetitions C 1000. In the beginning she felt less guilt and could recognize improper demands. Now she can better confine herself from the requirement of work, of her demanding mother and from requests of her partner. Jan. 2009 she enjoys her work more and she starts to feel fulfillment in the work. If there is no time for recreation (retraining or meetings on weekends) she still gets exhausted; repetition Calc-n M is still working.
I am doubting whether I will need a higher potency in the future, or a mollusc.


Discussion:
On first consultation in 2005 I could see exhaustion from caring about her family and excessive labour. Appropriate to repertorization and keynotes I gave her Sepia LM6 and C200 with fairly good results for 2 years.
Second time, starting newly with Sankaran´s sensation, I first got the idea for the animal-kingdom from the expression "a matter of survival" and the feeling of being inferior to other people, to be oppressed from them. I searched for a butterfly because I connected her sensation with a butterfly cocoon and the liberation of freedom in the open air. I gave her Limenitis bredovii C200 without knowing the remedy picture, but because of the air with her sensation. My mistake was that she doesn’t talk about enemies; the "laced up and then deficiency of air. Pressure develops, coming from inside and from outside" all is in herself, it is her own structure.

Now I did a new analysis: she wants to get out of something narrow. Her own body wants to expand, she wants to be free and breath freely the air. That is Sankarans concept of second row - stages of birth. Now it was easy to see the tightness of Nitrogen and the air-hunger and liberation of Oxide NO3. After understanding that I recognized the idea of NO3 according to Scholten; she needs recreation-time, a nice home and a car to enjoy life after her work. If she cannot enjoy life she gets exhausted and breaks down.


Crystal Structure with NO3

Next step: what makes her constrained, gives her pressure? The problem comes when she was observed in her work. To be observed is stage 2 of the periodic system. Her work is routine, she works very conscientiously and done with feelings of guilt; that is the iron-series according to Scholten. Iron-series from the point of view of Sankaran is security; if she feels pressed she wants to go to her home, there she feels secure. Her work (the problem that fatigues her) is to secure her life, her work was not fulfilling (silver, gold or lanthani) when we started therapy.

Two concepts have a different look to the same thing; in some cases I can recognize the symptoms better with the concept of Scholten, in an other cases I can perceive better with the concepts of Sankaran. Unfortunately, many cases I can not catch either way and repertorization usually gives very superficial results.


Johann Josef Kleber

Case: Angelica Archangelica


Male, born 1951.
First consultation: March 1988.
Complaint: asthma.


As a child he suffered from it till he was thirteen years old. After an anti-allergy treatment he was free from it in this form. His mother died at the age of 54 in an asthma attack, also his sister suffered from it, but after she got married she out grew it. The problem now started after he moved into another house caused by the floor covering and the dust in the house. Ventolin spray ameliorates partially. Some months ago he came back from a long trip to India. He got anti-biotics. Then they started this anti-TBC treatment and he got an allergic reaction. (Heat in the upper half of his body with very red discoloration and diarrhoea). He was very worried about this and came to see me.


Observation:
He is a medium height slim man with big eyes (not quite exophtalmic) and a bit anxious look. He talks fast, stumbling over his words and he has a quite strong French accent, coming from the south of Belgium. I have to listen very attentively to be able to follow the flow of his words. He has a deep smokey voice and has regular coughs during the interview. He stopped smoking one year ago. The asthma comes in attacks, always at night, he wakes up with a shortness of breath, is never anxious with it, has to sit up. This is about 4 to 5 AM. He doesn’t tolerate polluted areas. He is not chilly but prefers warmth. He has had many vaccinations as he traveled a lot as a mariner and later on his own. The last months he feels stitching pains in his chest, wandering. Sometimes, if left-sided the stitches extend through his left-arm. He is the youngest of two children. He says that his childhood was nice. He comes from a working-class family. His mother was sickly and this had quite an impact on the atmosphere at home. His father drank a lot and the relationship of the parents was not easygoing. As a young kid he had to take responsibility to decide what had to be done when his mother had an asthma attack, because his father was not at home. He worked in business for some time, now he is painting, self-trained out of necessity, in a project, which he calls ‘Exchanging Cultures from a spiritual view’. He is living alone now, (before he lived in a student house) and sees this as a way to overcome solitude. Relationships are a problem to him. It is impossible to establish a family, ‘I have nothing to give’, and is looking for another kind of development. His sexual desire is low. ‘I am looking for the mystical way’, and feels well with it. He has a strong sense of responsibility and is busy thinking how to find activities to help people to find their spiritual path. He sleeps flat on his abdomen with little cover in an unheated room. Food: Nothing special. He used to like wine but stopped drinking alcohol, likes to drink cold milk. He travels out of special interest not out of restlessness. He says that he has no problems to express his emotions, doesn’t look for consolation if sad. He has no fears.
I gave him Thuja 200K to start with because of the extensive vaccinations.


Follow-up after one month:
In the meantime he got the result of the x-ray made of his thorax, which was not good, there was a shadow and a kind of white ball to be seen on the photo. He himself thought that he had a lung cancer. They plan to operate him after the lung capacity test.
After the Thuja he was ill for three days with a heavy very productive cough with greenish discharge, which relieved him a lot. After three weeks a dry cough disturbed him from time to time. He is more sensitive to dust and odours, these make him sneeze for half an hour with nasal discharge. No eye problems. The dry coughs come esp. in the morning for about fifteen minutes or after talking. No other changes.
I repeated the Thuja 200K.


Two months after the first consultation he phoned me and told that the lung spots were vanishing on the x-ray and that he felt fine.


In June 1992 he came back with a persistent otitis started left then right and vice versa.  I gave him Lachesis just on the clinical symptoms.
One week after Lachesis he was totally free of complaints.
He told me about his spiritual evolution. In 1991 he got a so called: ‘Post Integration’ treatment to get more in contact with his body. He was working on ‘a project with India’, which proved too extensive. He studied a lot and ‘was going deeper into his own culture’. He was living on unemployment payment for a long time, which is okay for him. He needs time to write his book on ‘The total aspect of tradition in relation to the Divine’, acting on the connection between tradition and religion. Since 1988 he is a member of the ‘Free Masons’. He is disappointed. ‘There is too much vanity at the loge, the spirituality is there to be awakened, but they don’t pick it up.’ He is busy to retranslate the Bible from Hebrew looking for deeper knowledge. This changed him, he stopped Tai-Chi ‘because it doesn’t fit our culture.’ ‘Kundalini is weird, too much of meditation is not good.’ In 1990 he went to Santiago de Compostella as a pilgrim. He is experiencing more and more inner vibrations and felt that he was ready to go into a higher form of communication, for example with an angel. He wants to be of significance to human community. He feels as if swimming in the Ocean, ‘quite a lonely situation.’ His life situation was difficult because of his homosexual interest. He wanted to sublimate his sexuality. He needed to be strict to himself. (This part of the picture fits the remedy that I will prescribe in January 1999).


In October 1997 the patient came back again because his asthma returned. He was pressed to take a job as an assistant-amenuensis at a large school. In his free time he is busy with spiritual things and at the Free Masons loge. He is frustrated because the ‘elder don’t want to change’. He has Tibetan contacts and got initiated by the Dalai Lama. He smokes a few cigars a day because of the stress. ‘My lungs are too weak, I have to stop’. He needs at least twice a day Ventolin, is worse in the evening and on waking. Yoga is a bit of help. He lives celibatair, with homosexual feelings. ‘European women are asking too much time and energy, they are too claiming.’ He prefers a monastery-life within the society. ‘I need rest for my spiritual things, things should be changed at the source. It is nice to help people but in another way. I am aware of my sexual longing but try to control it.’ In Compostella he experienced a stream of energy like balsam, an inner shower, Grace. Now every evening during his Buddhistic meditation he experiences the same ecstasy with vibrations at his heart chakra.


In December 1997 he went to an international spiritual Congress in Thailand, ‘against the new God of the money’. The past year his regular colds worsened into asthma very easily. He then has to cough a lot and after about three weeks it lessens. He suffers from varices and a burning circulation in his calfs, with swollen legs. Walking or putting the legs up relieves. In his dreams he is in contact with the Dalai Lama.

I gave him Conium 200K.


He called after two weeks and told me that his lung capacity ameliorated quite fast.


In November 1998:
His allopathic medication is very much reduced, but he still needs it from time to time.
Legs? Sometimes he feels the stream and a kind of hardness. No more cramping or burning in his calf. Cough is nearly gone. Once or twice a week he takes an inhalation dose. He got emotional once he heard a small boy calling for his daddy. It hurt a lot because suddenly he realised that he never would have the experience to be a father. ‘People think that I hide behind abstract theories but I feel very much connected to the suffering in the world.’
I gave him Conium 1MK.


In January 1999:
Right after the remedy he had a lot of coughing and diarrhoea. It was like purification. He felt more emotional. Is busy at school. He took a friend, who had problems with his (3) wives and children, in his (small) house. He is a Rastaman and member of the Free Masons. ‘He helped me a lot at the lodge and I feel a bit responsible for him like a kind of father, financially too.’ ‘I want to help him to find his own track. My ideal is to help to educate young people to be spiritually strong and responsible in society. In my job I could do more and I want to be paid better.’ ‘The asthma is much better the last three weeks. In December I had some colds and a lot of coughing, with yellow discharges. My energy got much better since past year. I feel much older, closer to 50.’ ‘I discovered a bald spot at the backside of my head.” (observation: It is a perfectly round alopecia spot right occiput. 5,5cm Diameter.) Sleeps well, no coughing at night.
I felt that Conium was not the totally correct remedy although quite close.
I restudied the case and what struck me more than before was his monk-attitude.
This happened to be one of the essential points of our dreamproving (‘homeopathen Gilde’) on Angelica archangelica, one of the Umbelliferae family, like Conium.
So I gave him Angelica archangelica. 200K.


Angelica archangelica


Follow-up after one month:
‘The remedy works very well. Breathing is better, easier. The working of the remedy is different than before, softer and more agreeable. The bald spot is almost gone, soon after taking the remedy the hair started to grow again.’


June 1999:
Till the end of April everything went fine, then he got a cold with allergy. The Ventolin caused tachycardia. In June he is still coughing from time to time. In the morning he is short of breath, as soon as he gets out of bed, his legs swell a bit during the day, especially the left side.  From about noon he feels tingling in both his legs. ‘At the end of April I was attacked by a high-ranked person. I think he has bad intentions regarding the Loge. It makes me ill. He knows that I see what he is trying to do and he says that the Brotherhood is being injured by people like me.’
I repeated the Angelica archangelica 200K.


One week later:
he called me twice to thank me for the remedy with the message that it helped him at all levels.


July 1999:
After the remedy the asthma disappeared rapidly. He could walk the stairs right away. Now there is only some coughing in the morning with little discharge. Concerning his writing: ‘Everything gets more clear. The understanding of the essence regarding the healing of tradition and communication with the spiritual stream, which has been disrupted centuries ago.’ He is busy now to write a book, concerning: ‘Exercises and rituals, a kind of Hebrew mantras’ and he is translating codes, how to experience contact with the Higher self and keep it pure.’ At home he had a confrontation with his house-mate. ‘I got angry, I want structure in my house!!!’ . Concerning the Loge: ‘I want to start my own division on a esoteric base. That is the base for real change. I can keep better distance if necessary. I want to be Monk in the society to propagate ideas. In Greek “Mono oikos” means; icon from the one is mirror to the other.’

December 1999:
Still going well, he had used his spare remedy and came to ask for another one. A cold doesn’t go down into his bronchi anymore. He feels strong physically and emotionally.


February 2000:
Still going strong.


In January 2009:
He asked me for the paper case because he lost his copy.
In the last 9 years he had gone through a lung operation where a part has been taken out.
He recovered and converted to and is an active member of the international Soefi community these days.


Then he mailed me;
“Thanks; curious to realize how you look and describe ‘my chaos’ and relate it to Angelica archangelica. I was kind of obsessed with this plant after being to Santiago de Compostella, I took seeds from the waterside and planted them in my garden and took them with me when I moved to another home, which was in the beginnig of the nineties. Now I see the connection in your report. Amazing.”


Amazing indeed!


Anne Wirtz

Chemical Algebra:
Enjoying the fruits (and salts) of Jan Scholten’s invention

Part Three
This is the third part of a four-part article.


The Combinatorial Approach, continued

The combinatorial approach is not only the basis upon which Jan Scholten’s books are founded and the core of ‘analyzing the constituent parts,’ it arises as soon as we think in chemical – or, indeed, in constituent - terms:

‘The materia medica of the [mineral salt combination] remedy has been presented as a simple combination of the symptoms of each original remedy, and symptoms particular to the remedy itself. But I think that if you look deeply into these cases or have treated enough patients with each of these remedies, it becomes clear that there are at least three subtypes of symptoms associated with each of these combination remedies: those nearer to one remedy, those nearer to the other remedy, and those more in the middle that share equally from each parent remedy…
Many cases will look a great deal like one of the remedies, let’s say Sulphur, and yet when you give the remedy it does not act. That’s because the patient needed Natrium sulph, but has 90 percent of the symptoms in the Sulphur pole and only 10 percent in the Natrium pole. Even with most of the symptoms pointing to Sulphur, Natrium sulph is the needed remedy…
[Homeopaths] often tell me that they missed the remedy because they expected to find a 50/50 split of both remedies in order to consider a combination remedy. It never occurred to them to look for a 90 percent majority of one root remedy and a 10 percent portion of the other.
And, just to make things a bit more complicated, Natrium sulph is a combination of three root remedies: Natrium muriaticum, Sulphur, and Medorrhinum.’
Paul Herscu, 1992 IFH Case Conference, pp. 69-70


How could this mineral substance have caught a sexually-transmitted disease - where does the Medorrhinum aspect come from? We ask such (odd) questions in the attempt to assimilate Dr. Herscu’s clinical insights. We ask with the intent of undoing certain prejudices in whose grip we may unconsciously be held.


One prejudice relates, firstly, to whether the world will be arranged ‘like my textbook version of it, with one list of themes on the left and another list on the right…’ Dr. Sankaran’s case (of this ‘same’ remedy, Natrium sulph - see Part One of this essay) extended this challenge into a question of how many thematic columns there should be on the page (answer: sometimes more than two, but Jan Scholten’s inclusion of Ammonium already told us that).
Secondly, Paul Herscu’s insights should remind us,
a), that ‘miasm thinking’ was the first (and still, in part, contested) version of thematic (group) thinking and,
b), that there needs to be a ‘column’ on the page for miasm grouping that is neither on the left nor on the right of the page and may not even be aligned in that direction at all… (The position taken up within Rajan Sankaran’s algebra of ‘family crossed with miasm’ is, of course, related to the matter at hand. As has been suggested elsewhere, however, the model drawn from the Periodic Table following Scholten, of a precise and exclusive intersection or crossroads, as of two axes at right angles, does not necessarily describe the complexities of the natural world. As many myths and some musicians have warned us, more things happen at the crossroads than can be predicted…)


The combining of themes is a form of scaffolding from which, in every instance, various buildings, each particular, can emerge. In chemical algebra, the themes of ‘Natrium’ and ‘Sulphur’ combine and one building emergent from this scaffolding is the building we call “Natrium sulph” which, it turns out, is an example of the sycotic style of architecture (as observed by Paul Herscu, et al) and which, it turns out, also has an ‘Oxygen’ dimension (as observed by Rajan Sankaran). Who’d have guessed it from the scaffolding? Well, fortunately it is possible, initially, to practice homeopathy by looking at the scaffolding, at the ‘chemical address,’ with a bit of help from Wikipedia! However, although helpful, this can all play out merely at the ‘technical’ level (Technetium?). The combining of constituent themes must gradually lead the attentive mind – one willing to marry left and right brains, or perhaps ‘male’ and ‘female’ aspects - toward a deeper understanding of that which is emergent and particular.


‘Emergent properties are ubiquitous in nature. The classical example of emergent properties concerns the individual properties of hydrogen and oxygen as atoms versus the unique properties that emerge when hydrogen and oxygen unite and become the molecular system called water. The unique properties of water expressed as a liquid at room temperature cannot be predicted by studying the behavior of hydrogen and oxygen independently (i.e., un-united) as separate gases at room temperature. ... [The] properties that are unique to water can only be revealed (i.e. discovered) when the particular components are allowed to interact as a unique, integrated system.’
Daniel B. Fishman et al, Paradigms in Behavior Therapy: Present and Promise, Springer, New York, 1988


‘I don’t believe at all that if a remedy is combined by two substances that you can take the symptoms of the one and the symptoms of the other, mix them together and have the symptoms of the combination. Knowing the single substances can give you good suggestions on the mixture but not more. I remember my first cases of Ars sulfuratum flavum: Every time I had clear symptoms of Ars and clear symptoms of Sulphur, and I had very good results prescribing Ars sulfuratum flavum. But at the end, after six or seven patients like this, I arrived at the point of having very good information of the remedy itself.’
Massimo Mangialavori, Interview, Links, 1996, vol. 9 (4)


Within thematic homeopathy, then, what rules can we apply to our combinatorial or algebraic thinking which might best allow our thought to evolve, as Mangiavalori’s did regarding Ars-s-f and as Herscu suggests we evolve, instancing Nat-s? The answers to this question are a work in progress but, in addition to the systematic implications of Herscu’s comment above, we have already been offered some pointers:

‘… [The] basic theme that emerges in the metallic salts is (like other salts already studied) the combined feeling of the two components. This “combined” feeling has an intensity and depth which lies in between the two, not greater – this is my experience.’
Rajan Sankaran, The Substance of Homeopathy, Bombay, 1994, p.196

‘This alternation between positive and negative is a sign of a salt. Being one way one time and changing completely is a salt.’
Rajan Sankaran, Structure, Mumbai, 2008, p.333

‘NH: So you’re looking for a structure in the periodic table?
JS: A structure, yes absolutely, not emotional pictures or something like that, but the deep inner structure, the verb, the motion. It’s there, if you’ve got the end of each period you’ve got the key to the grid, and if you’ve got all the nobles, you’ve got the key to what changes from period to period, not only within the period but also how all the seven develop from one to the other. But to do that, the way I work, I need to see the proving, because I’m looking at the inner structure of what makes a remedy tick. And that’s something that’s collected through physical symptoms, through generals, through mentals, all the way along… But the only way to find a common denominator is to go to the most simple element, you have to go simple because complex will never be a common denominator. Like if you’ve got 1/32 + 3/16 + 7/8, you can’t add them together unless you come to the most simple. So it really means potentising the understanding to simplicity.’
(Jeremy Sherr, interviewed by Nick Hewes)


‘Basic symptoms have three parts: the subject part, the object part and the relationship or action part.’
(Jan Scholten, Secret Lanthanides, p.22)


Viewing all these statements together – just those cited in this article from Herscu, Mangialavori, Sankaran, Scholten, and Sherr – we find seemingly opposite intents, either implicit or explicit. As the physicist Niels Bohr observed, “The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement, but the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth.”


The other voice to which we must attend is the voice of our own experience. I know, for example, from my own clinical experience, a), that there is a combination and an alteration of constituent elements in the behavioural presentation of an individual for whom a mineral combination remedy is homeopathic. And, b), I have also confirmed for myself that particularity is an emergent quality – where the particularity ‘n,’ is not exhaustively described by data at the previous level, ‘n-1’ - when striving to understand many aspects of life, including one’s own behaviour or that of another individual. Accordingly, from these two simple observations confirmed by experience, I make a cognitive leap, as follows: the evolutionary flight of metaphor, taking us to ever higher levels, must coexist with the runway of algebra. As noted in the previous part of this essay, constituent and emergent co-exist even though they pull in different directions.


‘A thousand years ago, the masters of the Sufi brotherhood known as the Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethren of Purity) or Khillan al-Wafa (Friends of Sincerity) were articulating the same message. In their writings they tell the story of a disillusioned worshipper who is brought to the point of attributing malice to God for ordering his creation in this way. Seeing that he is pulled apart by opposing forces, all equally embedded in God’s creation he cries out, “O God, Thou hast brought together contradictory elements, mutually pulling and repelling forces! I know no more what to do or how, lost as I am between them!” God responds first by pointing to the moral faculties he has given man that enable him to steer a middle course in life. He then reminds man of the Namus, the revealed law, which he has sent down to man through his prophets. But, as for the deepest and most fundamental contradictions of existence, he instructs man that they have been placed there not to be resolved but to be lived in full consciousness of their contradictoriness.’
Jacob Needleman, Consciousness and Tradition, Crossroads

Iain Marrs practices homeopathy in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and - like all practitioners – in practicing he researches both its art and its science.
Iain Marrs

Probably everybody in the homeopathic world knows James Randi, the “famous” debunker of all “alternative crap”. For several years James Randi has had one million dollars on offer to anyone that can demonstrate paranormal or supernatural powers or events. Vithoulkas and a group of Greek homeopaths have set up a trial, fulfilling all the conditions he has set. This process has been continuing since 2003 and Randi keeps postponing and retiring from the project. Now 6 years later he claimed on his website (www.randi.org) that the homeopaths had withdrawn from the experiment. This accusation is strenuously denied by Vithoulkas. Robin Logan has written about it at http://www.naturalnews.com/z025627.html .


It is as always,homeopathy is said not to work, but the adversaries are too afraid to really put it to the test. It is like the the astronomers in the time of Galileo; they refused to look through his telescope to the moons of Jupiter because there couldn’t be moons of Jupiter.


Sometimes for some, or should I say many, scientist’s science has become like a religion. It is a belief system that adheres very strongly to the materialism paradigm, that there is nothing else in the world other than matter and physics. One could call it a paradigm, but just as easily, it can be called a belief, axiom or dogma.


I wish you much reading pleasure with this edition of Interhomeopathy.

The Future of Homeopathy
Homeopathy for Epidemics, Collective Trauma and Endemic Diseases – Part 1


This article consists of three parts:
1. The History Of Homeopathy
2. Building On The Past
3. From Theory To Practice


The History of Homeopathy
Before discussing future ways of applying homeopathy on a world-wide scale it is interesting to go back in time to the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In terms of public acknowledgment and scientific recognition as also in terms of clear and significant results was the period during which homeopathy was at its best. The reason for this is because homeopaths were using homeopathy’s best asset – the treatment of epidemics.


Genus epi - A remedy for a disease
Hahnemann himself already laid down the foundation for successful treatment of epidemic diseases. The rule is very simple:
• Take a good number of cases and put their symptoms together
• Include all disease specific symptoms
• Exclude all patient specific symptoms
• Select one or more remedies based on the disease totality


In the American Homeopath (1998 – ‘As If One Patient’) Greg Bedayn describes how Hahnemann discovered how to treat epidemic diseases:
• ‘In 1799 Hahnemann first applied the genus epi; the single homeopathic remedy to treat a similarly affected population, during a scarlet fever epidemic he treated in Königslutter, Germany. The story of how he accidentally discovered the genus epi is interesting: There was a large family that had members with scarlet fever.
Hahnemann noticed that one of the children who had been taking Belladonna for another reason did not have symptoms of scarlet fever. He discovered that by giving the other members of the family Belladonna, as a prophylactic, they did not get scarlet fever. Hahnemann concluded that a remedy that rapidly cures at the onset of an illness would be the best preventative.
This serendipitous discovery led Hahnemann into developing the principle of genus epi - where if one takes the symptom-totality from each person in a epidemic population and then puts those features together into one case, as if one person, and gives the indicated simillimum to the entire affected population - that it will cure.’


This approach, as Hahnemann found out, worked well. Bedayn continues:
• ‘The curative results of the genus epi were so positive during the epidemics in the ensuing decades that they not only cured the majority of those affected where nothing else had worked, but they also drew international acclaim towards homeopathy, the new, the rational, medicine. There is something intrinsically powerful about the success of homeopathy in curing large populations that is undeniably attractive to anyone gifted with the power of observation, and it was through these early cures with epidemics that Hahnemann was able to quickly and widely spread the word: Homeopathy. It was from his discovery of the genus epi that Hahnemann later developed his theory of miasms; the taints that color and shape all family trees, as representing the basis of chronic disease.’


Hahnemann later writes about the genus epi principle in his ‘Organon’ §101:
• ‘It is possible that a physician meeting with the first case of a certain epidemic should fail to perceive at once its perfect image, because every collective disease of this kind will not manifest the totality of its symptoms and character until several cases have been carefully observed. But after having observed one or two cases of this kind a physician may approach the true condition of the epidemic that he is enabled to construe a true characteristic image of the same and to discover the true hom remedy.’


Hahnemann broadens this general principle in §102, when he says the complete knowledge is only to be obtained in a perfect manner by observations of the affections of several patients of different bodily constitutions.


Using this as-if-one-person approach homeopaths impressed the medical establishment with their results. Here are a few quotes to illustrate this:
• Epidemics in general: “In epidemics the mortality per 100 patients is 1/2 to 1/8 in homeopathic hospitals compared to allopathic hospitals.” (Dr. Thomas L. Bradford’s ‘The Logic of Figures ...’ (1900)
‘Homeopathy had become very popular in North America during its early years due to its amazing successes obtained by the “old guard” during the epidemics - epidemics of diphtheria, scarlet fever, cholera, malaria, yellow fever - especially yellow fever; the death rate for that was 55% when allopathic treatment was used, but less than 5% in cases with homeopathic treatment; and it was the same for cholera. It is here with the “old guard” that homeopathy obtained its golden letters.’ (‘From its Roots Upwards’, Interview with André Saine, N.D., D.H.A.N.P., Vienna January 1994.)
“Ever since Samuel Hahnemann homeopathy has time and again been able to successfully treat epidemics/pandemics with a small number of remedies.” (Stahl, Hadulla, Richter, AHZ 2006)
• Cholera in Europe: “In den Ja 1830 und 1831 wurden in Russland in den von Cholera ergriffenen Gouvernements Saratoff, Tambtoff und Twer 1270 Patienten homöopatisch behandelt: 1162 davon genasen, 108 starben… d Verhältnis dem Ergebnisse der homöopatische Behandlung der Cholera in Ungarn, Mähren und Wien fast ganz gleich ist.” (Gebhardt 1929) (Of 1270 Russian cholera patients treated with homeopathy only 108 died which is ± 8%)
“When in the year 1854 cholera came to Palermo 1513 soldiers fell ill ... Of these 902 were treated with allopathy of which 386 died, a bit more than 42%; 611 were treated with homeopathy, of which only 25, so almost 4%, died.” “In the abovementioned years cholera also visited the Caribbean, and on the ‘pearl’ of these islands, Barbados, 2113 people fell ill. Of the 346 treated with allopathy 154 died, but of the 1767 treated with homeopathy only 370.” (Gebhardt 1929)
• Cholera in USA: 3% of the cholera patients under homeopathic treatment died (Cincinnati 1849). Mortality rate of cholera patients under allopathic treatment was 40-70%.
• Spanish influenza: Homeopathic treatment of the Spanish influenza during the pandemic of 1914-1918 was effective (Isaac Golden, Vaccination & Homeoprophylaxis? A Review of Risks and Alternatives).
“Homeopathy has been used with great degree of success in influenza and other epidemics for 200 years … In 1918 flu pandemic homeopaths reported around 1% mortality in their cases, while conventional doctors were losing 30% of their patients.” (www.life.us/flu)
NB! The Spanish influenza virus we know now was an avian virus. ±40 million people died in just 18 months.
“Dr.TA McCann from Dayton, Ohio reported that 24,000 cases of flu treated allopathically had a mortality rate of 28.2% while 26,000 cases of flu treated homeopathically had a mortality rate of 1.05%. This last figure was supported by Dean W.A. Pearson of Philadelphia (Hahnemann College) who collected 26,795 cases of flu treated with homeopathy with the above result. Dr. Herbert A Roberts from Derby, CT, said that 30 physicians in Connecticut responded to his request for data. They reported 6,602 cases with 55 deaths, which is less than 1%.” (The Journal of the American Institute for Homeopathy, May 1921)
“The most severe epidemic of all time was the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Twenty percent of the entire world population was infected and 20-40 million people died. The epidemic was so devastating that the average lifespan in the United States was decreased by ten years. During this epidemic homeopathic medicines were used widely both for treatment and as prophylaxis. The average mortality under standard treatment ran from 2.5-10%, while 1% or fewer patients died under homeopathic treatment.” (Homeoprophylaxis Fact or Fiction - Todd Hoover MD)
• Yellow Fever in USA: The success of the homeopathic treatment of yellow fever was so great that the report of the United States Government’s Board of Experts mentioned several homeopathic remedies, despite the aversion to homeopathy of some of its members. (Haris Coulter, ‘Divided legacy’). (Treated in allopathic hospitals the mortality was around 55% and homeopathy decimated that percentage!).
These are clearly impressive figures, certainly if we compare them with the results of contemporary studies. If homeopathy could come up with similar significant results in our time and age general acceptance might follow a lot easier.


Why is there such a huge difference in the outcome of old and new studies. One reason is that these old figures concern epidemics, whereas more recent studies mostly concern individualized treatment of chronic diseases. The great advantage of the homeopathic treatment of epidemics is that the individuality of the patient is not an issue, nor is the skills of individual homeopaths. Once a successful (group of) remedy(ies) is identified any homeopath will be successful. The case is a lot simpler and the skills of the homeopath have less influence on the results. Another reason why these amazing figures come forward from ancient records is that penicillin had not been discovered yet, so the means to treat epidemic diseases was largely absent in allopathic hospitals. And as we know from Hahnemann, a lot of what they did rather speed the process toward death.


What happened since 1918?
With the US taking the lead homeopathy went into a decline. Homeopathic hospitals were closed. The light of homeopathy was kept alive by smaller number of homeopaths, but many lost track of what we call Hahnemannian homeopathy and as a science little progress was made. This changed in the last decades of the 20th century. Homeopathy flourished again and especially in the treatment of chronic diseases and in the understanding of the materia medica great advances were made. Soon the materia medica started to expand, many new remedies were introduced, and new approaches to case analysis and materia medica research saw the light. We all know this because we are all in the middle of this development.


If we look at homeopathy today the use of the as-if-one-person approach for epidemic diseases is marginal. Partly because in the west epidemic diseases like those mentioned earlier hardly play a role anymore. If we however look at the state of health in the whole world we see that epidemics still influence and take the lives of millions. With people migrating as never before and with virologists warning for a new avian flu pandemic also the west has to bring back epidemics into its consciousness.


It has also become very clear that Big Pharma does not and will not have all the answers and actually creates many of the problems we are facing today. More and more virulent strains of bacteria and viruses are created as a result of the war against them. The WHO is aware of this and so should any doctor, but an alternative is not recognized because the alienation of the diseasing agent as an enemy that should be extinguished is deeply seated in mainstream medical philosophy.


The following parts are to follow in the next two editions of Interhomeopathy.
Part 2 Building On The Past
Part 3 From Theory To Practice


© Harry van der Zee 2009

FEMALE AGE 13


FIRST VISIT Oct.16, 2000
Acne, poor concentration, congestion, coughing, yellow secretion - thick lumps, cough - lasts 3 days.


Patient’s Mom said “Her daughter when she came back from a visit to Mexico wanted to sleep with a light on. She was needy and she asked why was she sent away? It was just 3 weeks, while I had new baby and then I started working full time, I couldn’t take care of her too." Her Aunt brought her back. She tried to hit her head on the floor when her mother was pregnant with her brother.
She was very attached to her mother, “I remember nothing, but I cut baby brother’s hair, yelled at him, jumped on his stomach”.
Mom said “of course new baby brother needed a lot of attention",
Mom said “we never explained it to her - we assumed she was OK and independent”.


I ask about her Dreams.
Dream #1 “Last year I saw a man, cross red eyes, fever - hallucinations. After vaccines, I saw shark coming through the window”.
Dream #2 “At Physical ed. the ground was moving toward me, clouds moving in the other direction, then I saw a black woman in ski mask, then I saw something on TV movie - in the story a clown, did bad stuff to children”.
Since the movie she is now unable to go back to her room, now she wants to sleep with mom.
Dream #3 “Dead bodies by a pond; people eating hot dogs; a man eating animals; a really long snake.”.
Headaches - car sick when reading, writing or I have to get mad. I get nauseous, > lying down, < new plastic smell of toys bad. She has to smell food before she eats it, very sensitive to unique smell.
Dream #4 ”Falling for hours; fears - I’m popular at school, I wanna stay the queen, I don’t like it when new people come, I hope they are geeky”.

First Rx - ACONITUM NAPELLUS 30C; 2 pellets daily for 10 days and apply Hamamelis water topically on greasy, facial acne areas.


Follow Up June 15, 2001.
In person follow-up , (better without Mother’s filter in reports on emails).
"My face is better from the Hamamelis water, but I’m still scared of that clown - though I haven’t dreamed of it, I fear that’s still there. I think he’s gonna pop out round the corner. I didn’t like science camp, only 2 hours a week, but I had to get up early in morning. The beds are very uncomfortable. The clown has red hair, a face white with a red nose and red lips. Then he changes to sharp teeth dripping from blood, 1980’s film “It”, he would eat children.
I’m craving cheese and milk - but not eating them, I argue with my little brother - like are you cheating, silly things”.


Q: How do you get on with Dad ?
A: “He’ll get annoyed when I don’t get math, art and history are my best subjects”.
Q: Dreams?
Dream #1 “Eating at McDonald’s with my friends (3 weeks ago)”.
Dream #2 “I was downtown Los Angeles at night - Dad had a chainsaw and cut up babies in half and I woke up crying”. Mom says she wakes up sweating. She is trying to be independent; don’t embarrass me in front of my friends. Head had a tick - movement, her head twitches only at camp. Her attitude is I don’t care. She leads her group, she gained weight and her skin got worse. She went off her diet at camp. Teacher’s said she’s a leader and would do better in a smaller private school. Fear of heights. She passed year grade 50 pass - 66%. She’s a great designer, designs dresses, She wants to call the shop White, she wants everything perfect, we are gonna buy new car, she wants it to be a BMW, (we said no). She loves bread. She’s unmoved by parent’s requests.


2nd Rx - TUNGSTEN METALLICUM 30C 2 pellets once daily for 2 weeks


Follow Up July 14, 2001
E-mail from mother: she says, “with the Tungsten Metallicum you gave me I am not scared at night, no nightmares, cravings for dairy gone, no coughing, no phelgm. I even go to sleep right away, even facial acne clearing. I think the Tungsten metallicum was just right!”


replied:
That’s excellent… stop remedy now and only repeat the same dosing if symptoms come back.
@ April 2003 no symptoms returned.

SOH Cases Conference 1997

First Consult:
July 10, 1996
50 yr. old woman who works in NHS management referred by her GP since she was finding life generally stressful and had recently developed chest tightness and a sensation of her throat being pulled upward. She became distressed during the night and used a hot water bottle to help the symptoms. Generally feels tense. Also has complaints of retro-sternal chest pains as a result of esophageal discomfort. This had been a long standing problem and has sought help from relaxation tapes, counselors etc.
Generally stressed and worried and easily disturbed. Coped well with situations. Slept well, but woke tired. Had lost her enthusiasm for other interests and also had not the mental energy for them.

PMH - Car sickness, Hay fever. Hormone Replacement Therapy finished 4 years ago.
OCP 1967 - 1972 with some adverse reactions
MMH - diabetes mature onset. CVA with partial paralysis
FMH - ECT after WW2 - for what is now termed Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
One brother - he lives at home.

P/c Tension. Jaw clenches. Gets tension in the back of the neck. Has poor sleep. Gets tension in the Right side of the throat which extends into the throat pit and chest. Tension between the shoulder blades, < pressure.
Always had a problem getting tense.
"It all started 3 months ago - I was bullied into a promotion". She had to take on another role on top of her existing one. But she did not want to go any further at her age - things got worse since then. She had suffered with this type of problem before, but not as bad as this.
Work involves responsibility in co-ordinating audit programs - bit of a one woman band. "Work takes 90% of my life with a lot of volume of work involved." Has to take work home.


Mentals:
She a perfectionist. Needs to get things just right. Doesn’t like making mistakes. Does not like being criticized about her work. In fact she does get praised for her work, but this ends up with her having more responsibilities. Feels embarrassed by praise and plays it down. She finds it difficult to say “No”. Does not like admitting to herself that she has done a good job. Has low self worth - because she is overweight. Doesn’t like people to think of her as bouncy or glamorous – “it’s false I don’t like it”. Wants to be valued for her work not for how she looks.
(She is smartly and fashionably dressed, is well made up and comes across as open and friendly with an easy smile and ready laughter. She is overweight and rounded - no angular features anywhere).
She can feel that people are not looking any further than how she looks - they’re not listening to HER.

Her husband had retired early and was enjoying himself. She felt resentful that she might end up working when she does not want to. She didn’t expect to be working where she is today. She spent a lot of her life being unsure of herself. She would not speak unless 100% sure. Wanted to avoid contradiction, making a fool of herself, being ridiculed, or being put down.
She values her spare time, but now finds she has less of it now. She needs her spare time to enjoy herself.

She was brought up in a rigid, regimented culture by her domineering father. She was raised on fear. Her father had psychological illness from WW2. He used to punish her with a leather strap. She did rebel against his strictness. She hated the regimentation.
She remembers an episode of agoraphobia where she felt she was no longer restricted. Free of the domination; there were no imposed boundaries any more. She makes her own now. She had escaped from an insular existence.
She became a survivor and self reliant.

Her first marriage did not work out. She was pregnant before the marriage. Married 23 years before it ended.
She notices a pattern of trying to break free from restricting circumstances, but got into situations which prevented her. She then lived on her own for 4 years trying "to balance herself" - then went into career mode to provide for herself.
At this stage she met a man destined to be her second husband. She was able to provide for herself and didn’t need anybody to support her, or to control her, or seek their approval. She had doubts about the 2nd marriage; letting go of her self reliance. She wants to be part of a couple, but work gets in the way. She feels the need to be careful. When she comes home from work she had to mentally go through the day again- then she feels less screwed up. She feels jealous of her husband because he is at home and because of the freedom he has.

Her energy and motivation is not good. She can be lethargic, even on holiday. She is not feeling anything anymore - can’t be bothered. She is indifferent - finds it difficult to cry.
She needs confirmation that she is capable then has the confidence to continue.
She feels she has wasted a lot of time in her life because of anxieties, panics, phobias (heights, boats, sea -can’t swim, coaches - not being able to go to the toilet when she wanted to), as if the control had been taken away from her.

What would she most like to have?
"The freedom and money to choose whether or not I want to work or spend the time with my husband or friends."


Physicals:
Temperature - Warm. Cold hands and feet.
Desires fresh air. < becoming warm.
Sleep; Bad at getting off to sleep. Waking 4-5.30 unable to get back to sleep. Tired in mornings. After felt better before bed than in the mornings.
Desires -Watercress +++
Aversion - Rich, cream, fish - nightmares
Agg… - Fat, tomatoes, strawberries, oranges, shellfish- gets diarrhea, acid reflux, pain under Right ribs.

Rx Ferrum Iodatum one OD 3/7 stop if response. Phone.


First follow up:
Aug. 14, 1996
Took remedy mid-day. Mid evening was wound up and rigid. Tense. Clenching fists. Day after got weepy and depressed. Then later was very energetic. Went to work and felt that the clock had been slowed down. Experienced some nervous diarrhea - usually when anticipating something. (Something she used to get a lot of and was always debilitating.) Has been feeling well since. "I am feeling again". Feels she is at a stage where she is not as hard and rigid as before.
Uneasy about food - digestive system feeling unsettled, but feels better overall. Has gone off watercress, has not touched it. Has more energy. Not felt depressed, feels more positive. Chest and throat problems gone. No tightness in neck. Able to relax more. The clock has slowed down - not having to deal with EVERYONE. Sorting out her priorities. ” I have to steel myself to the process of change"
Rx - wait.


Second follow up Oct. 9, 1996
Been generally okay. Thinks might be slipping a bit but has taken steps to sort out work problems. Felt better for doing so. Energy levels sunk a bit at work, fine at home. Work is dragging her down. getting off to sleep getting worse again. Has lost weight. Keeps thinking of things from the past -breakdown of first marriage, mother’s death a couple of years ago. Had a long talk with her father!! Actually stood up to him and told him what she thought of him and what he had done to her - for the first time in her life. Getting lots of painful memories about a relationship that "never worked out". This relationship was similar to that between her father and herself -a cat and mouse game of being controlled. Her reaction at the time was to end the affair and throw herself into her work. Feels a victim of her own success. "why do I keep punishing myself?"
Rx .................... One dose stat prn - ring (= a single dose as required) if feels need to take remedy


Third follow up Nov. 8, 1996
Didn’t need the remedy. Since last “talk” with me felt much better. More confidence then ever had before because she now believes in herself. Her confidence had been driven out of her all through her life, she had a fear of getting things wrong, had to get things right first time (there was no second chance with her father) she had been programmed as a child to expect punishment if she did not do as she was told.
Needed to get things right to avoid punishment - whatever form that took. The need for praise fostered over conscientious approach to work etc. She would do more than the requirements of her remit to elicit praise. The presentation was important. It had to look good or right in a creative way.
Physically still doing well. No return of chest or throat sxs. Energy good, sleeping well, more in focus as regards work. More balanced about work and leisure time allocation. Enjoying life more. “Has got things into perspective” Review 6 weeks.
Rx ..................... wait


Fourth follow up Dec. 20, 1996
"I’m so laid back I can’t believe it"
Only thing bothering her is an irritable bowel (??) << fat, strong green vegetables - gets trapped wind << rich cakes, fruit.
Always had episodes of irritable bowel << periods of stress. It's the first thing to go when feels under pressure. (This is very interesting since she has never mentioned it before)
Onset at 4 yrs - diarrhea from excitement, then later before exams. It can take her by surprise - "like a spasm". Sudden urging to stool >> afterward. Have had this before but not for some time now. Normally bowel movements once daily.
During the week of taking the remedy had a memory about getting excited about a trip to the park.
Losing bit more weight - not unhappy about this. Feels better about herself. Hates the word glamour - she’s changed, more comfortable about the way she is. She used to get dressed up to go shopping!! Now getting away from this "Up front" image. Used to be a bit of a competition between a friend and herself about clothes. Feels more confident about the way she wants to be rather than how others think she should be.


Fifth follow up Feb. 7, 1997
Feeling fine, continuing to feel better. it feels like there are layers coming off. Managing life and work better. Not getting stressed by work - it’s about the way I manage things. More assertive in relation to work.
Feeling positive, well motivated.
Looking back on phases of life and has developed an understanding of how events determined the person she has become - her upbringing, severe rigidity of father, raised on fear.
Has been able to get father to talk about his own childhood- where he had to work hard, do well etc.
She has even been researching her family history.
Eating things not normally eats -eg spicy. Interestingly eating watercress again, but as a choice this time as oppossed to a craving, and for the nutritional value.


Analysis:
Using themes of Ferrum: Solid , hard worker, dutiful, under pressure, forcing herself, beatings, suppression of her feelings, Anxiety of Conscience.

and Iodatum: seeking freedom, food issues (craving Water cress -high iodine and iron content) and weight gain, right of existence - felt she had lost who she was, restless in body and mind - needs to be busy/occupied.
(from Jan Scholten’s book Homeopathy and Minerals (Stichting Alonnisoss 1993)


Alistair Dempster

This 20 year primi (first time pregnant woman) came to the hospital in labour.
She has not been very regular about the anti natal treatment.
She came to the hospital at about 9.30 p.m. and was complaining of pain and a reddish discharge per vagina. On vaginal examination which she allowed with great difficulty as it was painful it was found that the os of the cervix was 2 finger dilated and the head had fixed. She was advised admission for further management as she was obviously in labour.
By 10 p.m. I could hear shouting and shrieking from the ward and I rushed to find it was this patient, the pains intensified and she was shifted to the labour room for a re-examination. She did not allow the vaginal examination. However it was noted that she was having intense labour pains and was not willing to lie on the labour table, she started shouting and shrieking with pain, and calling her attendant ladies (about 8-10 of them) in a loud voice saying please do something, I can’t bear this. Moments later she was rolling on the floor as the pain became more intense. She was behaving like a mad women, shouting screaming and rolling on the floor, then getting up and running to the door wanting to go out, so much so that the attendants had to hold her, and we had to close the main gate of the hospital. It was a real scene with this woman now rolling on the floor in the waiting area of the hospital surrounded by 4-5 women each trying to pacify her and the remaining party outside the main gate assuring her don’t worry this doctor will help you. Then she started vomiting.


Analysis
This whole case the patient presented at the energy level and I was just observing the whole phenomenon.

What this case highlights for me is aphorism 210 & 211 of organon:
Those who were patient when well often become obstinate, violent, hasty, or even intolerant and capricious, or impatient or desponding when ill; those formerly chaste and modest often become lascivious and shameless. A clear-headed person not infrequently becomes obtuse of intellect, while one ordinarily weak-minded becomes more prudent and thoughtful; and a man slow to make up his mind sometimes acquires great presence of mind and quickness of resolve, etc. and in all cases of disease we are called on to cure the state of the patient’s disposition is to be particularly noted, along with the totality of the symptoms, if we would trace and accurate picture of the disease, in order to be able therefrom to treat it homeopathically with success.
This holds good to such an extent, that the state of the disposition of the patient often chiefly determines the selection of the homeopathic remedy, as being a decidedly characteristic symptom which can least of all remain concealed from the accurately observing physician.
The whole picture pointed out to a state that was violent, sudden and spasmodic.
The pains were so intense that the patient was rolling on the floor and wanting to escape this led to the prescription of Belladona: Solanaceae , acute miasm.


Follow-up:
After one dose of Belladonna 10m (I should have given her a dose in 50m but I did not have it at that time) within 5 minutes the patient was very quiet and relaxed. 10 minutes after she was much relaxed, walked back to the ward, allowed vaginal examination which revealed that the dilatation had increased to 5 centimeters.

She was given another dose of Belladonna 10M for the dilatation to progress.

At 10:55 p.m. she delivered a healthy baby boy.


Abhay Tawalkar

Cerium Phosphoricum case of Crohn’s disease


A 45 year old man came with M. Crohn as well as slightly raised blood pressure.
Because of his work as an airline pilot he needed to be in excellent health, but he did not want to resort to the traditional allopathic medication for relieving either complaint. “I’ve always sought methods that encourage me to heal myself, such as homeopathy, relaxation techniques, and diet. I like to work things out for myself rather than being told what is right or wrong for me. I am spiritually inclined, and have made a conscious choice to have my kids at the Steiner School, as it coincides with my beliefs.”


He is of slight build, medium height, and has sandy red hair and freckles. His expression is one of almost boy-like eagerness, yet reticent at the same time. He tells of himself: “I used to be so terribly shy, it was painful. My parents were shy, too, they were not comfortable in contact with others, and kept pretty much to themselves. They were afraid of many things, and did not encourage us kids to mix with other children. If there was a party at school, for instance, we were only allowed to go for an hour or so, and then we would be picked up. They did not want us playing rambunctious games, anything where we could get hurt, and I never developed a good “body” sense. I would stay inside and watch the other kids playing soccer and such, and wish I could be with them. I felt shut off from friends. At school I was teased a lot, as I was bright and wore glasses, and not at all sporty. They called me “little professor”. I had one good friend, but at a certain point even he betrayed me, and went along with the teasing of the others. I was too shy to ask girls out, even though I felt very attracted. I married the second woman ever I dated, we are a very good match.”
“My illness started when I was training to fly large airplanes, a step-up from the smaller ones that I had been flying. I was nervous about the huge responsibility. These days I fly domestic flights (in New Zealand) rather than international ones, as I don’t like to be away from home so much, and I don’t like the atmosphere of the flight staff, with all the wild partying.”
“I know that my illness is playing up when I get blood in my stools, or a very uncomfortable belly. I can usually bring it back to some stressful event or period in my life. It is not really food-related. I can become nervous about small things, and suffer terribly from a lack of confidence. I just can’t seem to make decisions when it comes down to personal matters. I can go about six times around the same round-about on my way back from work, wondering if I should first go to the dry-cleaners or pick up my wife. I am hesitant to make contacts, even to phone the electrician for instance, and I avoid confrontations at all costs. My illness flared up badly when I knew that I should be asking for a pay rise – I never got up the nerve to do it.”


Analysis:
The auto-immune disease M. Crohn points in the direction of a lanthanide, as does his desire to heal himself from within, and his spiritual beliefs. His build, hair colour and his eager expression point to a Phosphorus remedy, as do his issues around friends and making contact, and his tendency to bleed. His lack of confidence places him on the left side of the periodic table, where one is still building up confidence rather than exuding it. Due to his history of being teased at school, and his extreme lack of confidence in making decisions I first gave him Lanthanum Phosphoricum 200C. On returning he reported feeling physically much better, no more belly problems despite a lot of pressure at his work. But he was still concerned about his blood pressure, which had not changed, and still mentioned feeling quite shy and reserved. The next remedy was Cerium Phosphoricum 200C, another lanthanide, one to the right of Lanthanum. It was given once per month for three months, then once in a 1M potency. Of this remedy is written that it is like being under a glass dome, unable to make contact with the outside world. All the capacities are there, but they are not put to use, as one is retreating into oneself rather than daring to move outward. After this remedy he improved markedly, both physically and emotionally. There have been no further complaints of M. Crohn’s now for over two years, and his blood pressure has normalized. He is finding a sense of ease within himself that is new to him, a confidence and assertiveness he had longed for but never achieved. “I no longer feel so plagued by the little things that would bother me, it seems strange to me now that I could have let myself get so wound up over things.”


Deborah Collins

Chemical Algebra:
Enjoying the fruits (and salts) of Jan Scholten’s invention

Part Two
This is the second part of a four-part article.


Evolving
All the while that we have being benefiting from Jan Scholten’s books and from subsequent work in this lineage, homeopathic practitioners have kept on practicing homeopathically – as well as sometimes taking some research time off, all the better to assimilate the many developments currently on offer. Accordingly, clinical results have continued to emerge. Teachers whose practice is guided by other metaphors have, in turn, conveyed their insights regarding remedies made from elements and from minerals. For example, in Massimo Mangialavori’s Precious and Base Metals – An Alchemical View (2005), we find an approach that recuperates for homeopathy a variety of ‘esoteric’ approaches (alchemy, anthroposophy and even a spot of tarot). In all such offerings there are overlaps and differences to be noted between the new work and that which is already on the table (for example, Mangialavori places his themes in a hierarchy, as does Roger Morrison in Carbon). Each such work illustrates the practitioner’s own version of chemical algebra. In Mangialavori’s work we witness the recuperation of much material from ‘outside Homeopathy’ (a meaningless phrase that self-destructs as soon as it is spoken: as a universal science and art there is no ‘outside’ to Homeopathy) and this is a sign that everyone also continues to draw ideas from every possible source in accord with the only law (sic) known to the unconscious – to wit, ‘use whatever resonates…’ - so as to woo the alert practitioner into a homeopathic prescription. The presence of such material in Mangialavori might also remind us of the ‘door’ aspect in Jan Scholten’s stage 4 and its resonance with the Hebrew letter dalet, which has the numerical value of 4:


‘As we follow the clues - stars, numbers, colors, plants, forms, verse, music, structures - a huge framework of connections is revealed at many levels. One is inside an echoing manifold where everything responds and everything has a place and a time assigned to it.’
Georgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, Godine, Boston, 1969


Given that resonance is the reality of how our minds actually work (and how evolution works, how Nature works), and given that experimentation and new discoveries proceed apace (after all, in homeopathy, we are living through a golden age, a renaissance or period of cultural evolution), the users of homeopathic algebra are thus faced with the continued task (necessity) of also evolving our art and science - along the Stages and the Ages! (Seven Ages, with the Lanthanides and the Actinides as well…)
Such evolution surely pivots around one basic idea which itself is a corollary of group or thematic thinking: if the themes drawn out (educed) from substances can and must be combined somehow when those elemental substances are combined, then the practice of such thematic combining is not dependent on the themes stated by, say, Jan Scholten or indeed by any one particular teacher. It is not necessary to slavishly follow (and has he ever asked it of us?) Jan Scholten’s theme for a given remedy. Such rote copying or parroting of themes would merely show our own fixed state or stage, also making it impossible to have such insights as Rajan Sankaran’s regarding the remedy formerly known as Natrum sulph (see Part One of this article). Yet Sankaran’s insight confirms the algebraic approach itself. This is how things develop in science: an evolutionary leap is made and although numerous details may be changed over time the leap itself remains incontrovertible. As thematic (group) thinking has evolved, through its application in clinical practice, we have necessarily seen a cultural evolution occur within homeopathy. Considered as one whole, this is a shift of paradigm. It is not, then, the work of Jan Scholten and of Rajan Sankaran or of other teachers which has to be reconciled, each with each: it is we who have to reconcile ourselves to the mutual effects of the whole, and thus of what every such teacher offers us – we who need to grow into these new clothes. Yes, some will continue to say that these are the “Emperor’s New Clothes” – but the human aspect within us named ‘pride’ will often not allow us to express enthusiasm for the work of others - work which we feel compelled to criticize before we can, begrudgingly, say yes to it. (I should add that there are also other voices which, conversely, always exclaim - like Elizabeth Taylor, regarding each of her marriages - ‘This one is really the one!’)


Unpacking the import of thematic algebra
Simply put, I suggest that if we ‘unpack’ thematic algebra it potentially changes everything about the practice of homeopathy. The most basic example is this: no item of data bequeathed to us by the years of experience (via clinic, toxicology, or proving) and included in that body of work called ‘homeopathic materia medica’ – no such item is now solely itself. No item of data is exhausted (emptied) by simply being read as applicable to the remedy to which it is nominally attached. To repeat, we can no longer be assured, regarding any item of data, that the item belongs uniquely and solely with the remedy to which it has traditionally been attached. If a symptom is given ‘for Sepia’ or ‘for Lachesis,’ yes, it may be “true of that remedy” but the truthfulness of this statement pales in comparison with the dawning realization that it may also be true of a whole class of remedies of which the individual remedy (Sepia; Lachesis) is but one member. Given that a class may be as large as ‘Animal,’ or as particular as Viperidae or as newly mapped as Cat-like, this means that each item of data must needs find its proper level in a hierarchy of thematic groups so that we realize the full prescribing options implied once we identify a given thematic as actively present within a given patient who sits before us.
A second facet of this example: If a homeopathic practitioner teaches (demonstrates, illustrates by cured case, convinces us of) aspects of a remedy that no-one else has noted before, then for that practitioner who uses the algebraic method or who analyzes cases using thematic group thinking, this discovery now awaits (requires) assimilation to (reconciliation with) the current algebraic understanding of the remedy in question. That is, if we think in thematic groups, we must endeavour to place the newly discovered (or longstanding) aspect of any remedy under one of the existing headings, or understand a conjunction of themes afresh, or supplement the thematic aspects that we had previously gathered in regard to that remedy.
If we trust homeopath Y - who, it so happens, does not practice a systematic approach to thematic algebra but is a teacher/practitioner whose work we respect, then that thematic insight offered by homeopath Y has to be capable of assimilation to our thematic understanding of the remedy in question. It is no good saying, “Well, Y doesn’t agree with our way of thinking so we need not form an interpretation to explain Y’s clinical observation!” In the working out of such, one consequence may be that the systematic frame which we have used to approach thematic work on the remedy in question is altered, in this or that detail. If such is the outcome then we can rest easy knowing that we, as homeopaths, are now practicing Thomas Kuhn’s ‘normal science,’ that phase which ensues after the ‘revolutionary science’ which itself instituted the new paradigm (Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
As new clinical evidence is produced, a ‘gap’ may open up between the established algebra for a remedy – let’s take as an example, Merc iodatum flavum - and a fine case of that remedy, a case where the patient’s behaviour and symptomatology is clearly organized by the metaphor ‘tiger’ (as in a case by Mangialavori of this remedy) -


“I dream that I’ve got teeth like a tiger… But I have to be careful how I close my mouth otherwise I’ll make holes in myself and then I’ll get mouth ulcers…”
(9 year old girl, in Mangialavori, Precious and Base Metals: An Alchemical View, p.84)


Such a gap – between algebra and case - may continue to exist for many years (or only for a few months: after all, there are lots of us whose practice may bring forth a solution for any particular problem posed by algebraic metaphor) but eventually, unless the insight (‘tiger’) can be understood by thematic (group) thinking, then our approach will have failed to grasp this aspect of particularity and, accordingly, will not have comprehended that which it is our task to comprehend (the particularities of a case and of a remedy) for the purposes of enabling cure in our chosen manner (that is, through the homeopathic algebra of metaphor).
The position taken in this essay, by the way, is that thematic (algebraic, group) thinking is an inevitable part of our engagement with experience. Likewise, metaphors and analogies share a condition with homeopathy: not only do they work but their function is itself an ineluctable part of reality. Given this fact, like everything else which wants to survive, the algebraic approach must continue to evolve – which brings us to a central task facing us.
The main problem that an algebraic approach presents to the homeopath, I suggest, is the task of distinguishing (in any given analysis) between that which is emergent and that which is constituent. ‘Tiger’ is emergent (given Mangialavori’s cured case cited above) from the homeopathic action of Merc iodatus flavus, the homeopathic constituents of which are mercury and iodine, each understood thematically.
It is incumbent upon those who teach the thematic approach that they keep reminding the homeopathic student not to apply the method superficially, and such reminders are now an abiding presence within this approach. In Structure we find Dr. Sankaran warning the reader not to be triggered by the apparent arrival of an animal theme in a case that, in fact, may require a mineral. These comments have the same import as Jeremy Sherr’s wise old saw that ‘Helium looks like an eagle…’ Now, after Mangialavori’s case, the next time we see what we think is a tiger we will have no excuse not to consider Merc iodatus flavus, alongside anything else that might look like a tiger (tiger mosquito; tiger’s eye, a variant of crocodilite) and, sadly, everything else that may act like a tiger but not have ‘tiger’ in its name (just as Merc-i-f does not). Similarly, after Scholten’s Rubidium case (H &E, pp.535-36), when we see lions (clinically!) maybe we should give a look at some or all of the ‘Stage 1’ mineral elements – and in both these examples I have not even mentioned the homeopathic remedies prepared from cats… Massimo Mangialavori added Zincum phosphoricum to the Snakes because he clinically observed this remedy acting like one. Divya Chhabra finds a thematic presence of lizards in Strontium and related remedies. Vega Rozenberg’s ‘Plastic’ box is full of arsenic!
Not only are there countless clinical examples that expand this point, there is also ample advice from elsewhere as to the many and varied consequences of this one important, underlying fact - the fact that there is no single fixed interpretation or translation for a given symbol or metaphor – and such advice has traditionally been both negative and positive, examples of which now follow to conclude this part of the article.

On Analogy

‘Thinking homeopathically is thinking metaphorically. If we don’t think in metaphors we are lost.’
Misha Norland, ‘Some excerpts from Misha Norland’s July 1995 Seminar,’ Homeopathy BC, volume 2 (1996), #2


‘There are a hundred thousand minerals and plants and a hundred million animals and insects. Curing like with like is about metaphor and analogy, not sameness, so there cannot be one simillimum and we don’t want there to be a simillimum either, just like there can never be only one perfect poem for each person.
Homeopathy is poetry or music because it is analogy. You don’t say to somebody, “Your eyes are beautiful, like eyes!” You say, “Your eyes are like the lake in the spring and your hair is like the wind blowing through the soft leaves as they fall to the ground in the autumn.” If it is the right music, rhythm and words, it will touch. So, many poems touch you and they will do so in different ways. Some poems will be better than other poems, and they will touch deeper and longer and carry you further. And some will be crap and not touch much at all!
We want to work “in the image of” and it is better that way because it means that every level of practitioner can get results. It allows practitioners the possibility of not being perfect.’
(Jeremy Sherr, interviewed by Rowena J. Ronson)


‘Fast intuitions depend on the ‘undermind’ taking a quick look at the situation and finding an analogy which seems to offer understanding and prediction. These unconscious analogies surface as intuitions. Whether they are right or not depends not on how “intuitive” they are, but on the appropriateness of the underlying analogy. Often we are absolutely right. But sometimes the ‘undermind’ is fooled by appearances, and then it leads us off in the wrong direction.’
Guy Claxton, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind


‘We may note that, in these experiments, the sign “=” may stand for the words “is confused with.” ’
G. Spencer Brown, The Laws of Form


‘Well, it must be acknowledged quite plainly and frankly that the method of analogy presents many negative sides and many dangers, errors and serious illusions. This is because it is entirely founded on experience; and all superficial, incomplete or false experience is bound to give rise to superficial, incomplete and false conclusions, by analogy, in a direction parallel with the experience from which they are the outcome…
It must be concluded, therefore, that the method of analogy on the one hand is in no way infallible but on the other hand it is qualified to lead to the discovery of essential truths. Its effectiveness and value depend on the fullness and exactitude of the experience on which it is based.’
Valentin Tomberg, ‘The Magician,’ Meditations on the Tarot


‘The poet and critic Matthew Arnold, during his time as an inspector of schools, used to tell of a colleague who boasted of thirteen years’ experience – whereas, as Arnold would comment, it was perfectly clear to anyone who knew the man that he had had nothing of the sort. He had had one year’s experience thirteen times.’
Guy Claxton, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind

Iain Marrs practices homeopathy in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and - like all practitioners – in practicing he researches both its art and its science.
Iain Marrs

The remedy doesn’t care how it is found

Regularly people ask me about the “Scholten school”. I have always found that an amazing question. Similar kinds of questions are what is difference in school of the classical ones, that of Sankaran, or Masi, or Paschero. Those questions made me amazed. I have never seen “schools” and I see what I discover as just homeopathy. I don’t even recognize a school. Remedies have their picture and that picture is independent of any kind of “School”. That doesn’t mean that are many points of view described in our literature, but I see those points of view as complimentary and not contradictory. When aspects are contradictory that can only be the case when there are incorrect aspects described, which is of course possible. Different views can also look contradictory without being so, as an expression of the paradoxical quality of nature and our remedies.
Thus arises the statement: The remedy doesn’t care how it is found. Otherwise said, the effect of a remedy is independent of the way how it was found and this can only be logical, otherwise homeopathy would have a very big problem in explaining itself. That doesn’t mean that the way a remedy was found doesn’t also have an effect. Case taking is a process that is always influential in itself. The effect of case taking can range from from very superficial to very deep.
An analogy may make the above statement more clear. It would be very strange if there would be different schools in relativity theory or in quantum mechanics, or Newtonian mechanics. It would be regarded as not only strange, but also a sign of weakness of the theory. It would not be consistent. In new developments though there are often different directions that are tested and put forward. In the end one of them is chosen or they might turn out to be all correct, just different expressions of the same thing. A nice example is in sting theory; at a certain moment there where about 6 different forms and there was much debate about which was the correct one. Till it was found out that all 6 were just different expressions of a more general form, which was called M-theory.
From the above it will be obvious that our journal will promote any form of homeopathy. We won’t promote just one “ school”, favor one over another. The only criterion is that the articles must be scientifically valid. So everyone is invited to send in their articles.
We wish you a good and enjoying your time reading this issue of Interhomeopathy.

CASE
FEMALE AGE 70
FIRST VISIT - Jan. 19, 2001 (FIRST AND ONLY REMEDY)


COMPLAINT:
Gastro-intestinal pain and general discomfort in the whole area that changes location.

Her appearance was hippy, long gray wispy hair, no make-up, looked worn, but wise, dowdy loose clothing, flat shoes.

"I have intestinal pain changes, I’ve been taking care of my son - he is quadriplegic, paralyzed from his neck down. He broke his neck in a surfing accident and my daughter had a breakdown, she got married to someone we don’t like. I fall from grace over it, feel it from my stomach all the way down - the GI tract is trashed. I’m taking alfalfa, cut down on coffee to one cup, doing a fast walk every other day. In the early 1960’s I started getting anxiety attacks. My Dr. put me on Stallazyne, he told me it was glue; I stopped that. I have had a lot of spiritual path experience. My daughter is in a mutually abusive relationship and she’s still with him. I feel I’ve been to hell and back, this illness is pulling me back to myself and pain discomfort. I have never had an ulcer, but it feels like it."
> cayenne and peppermint, aloe vera helps, no dairy or wheat, no animal products, lots of tofu, soy, very little fruit, > warm drinks, < cold drinks. The pain is 1/2 hour to 45 minutes on left side stomach.
"We were in divorced 1970, their father lives locally, our son has to be on an intermittent catheter."


Q: Dreams?
A: "Yes, lots of journal work and support groups, we have a sacred circle of women that re-connect when seasons change. I have black medicine women come to me in my dreams - Tibetan guide in a waking dream - he zapped me in my heart chakra. I usually get dreams that tell me where not to go. An African Masai woman; she had scar from ear to ear - it was healing, I was so sorry for her, she made a beaded cover for a lamp and gave it to me. It meant put a cover over your stuff, don’t tell everything. My daughter came to me in dream and said I’m sorry about your pain, but mine is worse so that helped me. She’s going through the metaphoric woods, I recognize that stuck pattern she’s doing, way up ahead I see an opening. I show it to her, I don’t condemn or condone her addictive personality, I feel her personality is locked up in Bluebeard’s closet.
My father was an alcoholic, he spent all the money. I was an eldest child, mother just waited on him and spent her time in the kitchen. Through group therapy work I transmitted my co-dependence. I am in Alcoholics-Anonymous as adult child of an alcoholic; it bounces off of me now. As a child I made things, art work and felt connected to “the something”. When I was alone I could go there, when I got to 16 I thought I was going to be a nun or a prostitute -prostitute meaning do what everybody wants, but I got married and had 2 easy pregnancies. I’m very artistic, in my 30’s my marriage seemed like a farce to me. I had a meltdown, as a child I felt like I was in a box and it was hard to participate. In the 1950’s I joined a Hopi Indian reservation, I felt myself coming home. There’s a way to make a difference, this world is in big trouble. I just turned 70 and I feel like my life’s just beginning, I don’t have to answer to anyone. It’s a farce, my husband was addicted to sex. He pushed the kids away, he never acknowledged them and he was cruel to them. He was ex-naval officer - like Dad, I can’t look back with regret, he wanted me all to himself without the kids. My daughter has done the same, but he’s like Dracula."

Q How are you financially?
A: "I have a trust fund, I don’t see my future as bleak at all. I’ve been writing folk tales for years and I was getting good reactions, but my son’s accident stopped that. I did a series of paintings of New Mexico, I’m trying to make this river crossing in healing."

Q: Fears?
A: "For others - and abandonment. If you don’t take care of your crazy parents, there will be no one to take care of you. I’ve been terrified for my daughter, I’m doing this inner work with her. I feel I was a medicine woman too, every time I walk the labyrinth there is a hawk is above me. I live near a lot of wildlife, I walked around a huge snake the other day. I sobbed for weeks and read about damage done to the planet. Then I come out of that, it gives me faith that it’s in our own genetic coding to re-align with nature, it’s reconnecting with our own true mother. I gave up meat and bananas because of the production of mucous in my throat."

Q: Bladder infections?
A: "Yes in the past. This stomach thing, it’s holding onto stuff. Having to rescue everybody and take care of them. My daughter having 3 kids made me scream like a whale! I know there’s another way now, I don’t feel like alcohol and coffee is poison for me. I feel they are blockages, I can’t do my artwork either."

I was considering a bird remedy when I asked:
Q: What does the word freedom mean to you?
A: "Freedom to be honest, not being afraid."

Q: Vision disturbances?
A: “yes”

Q: Eye pain?
A: "No, I’m a hiker, upper thigh pain, left knee pain, lower back pain."


Then I thought of the SILVER series because she is an artist at heart, but as a child that was her escape (Iodatum). She’s really all about task, work and duty, which led me to the Iron series. So I prescribed Manganum Iodatum because of restlessly helping her son and herself and the Iodatum part fitting the fleeing / i.e. Hopi Indian reservation/ needing to escape from the family.

NOTE: I find Iodatum on it’s own or as a salt is useful for patients that had abusive cold parents that neglected them. Unwanted kids. (Compare Nitrogen(s). I often hear these lines in other Iodatum cases:
"Where are my people?”
“Am I from this planet?”
“I just want to leave.”
(which really means searching for new family and a sense of belonging somewhere).
Also Iodatum can look like acid cases because they often look worn out.


PHONE FOLLOW-UP - Jan. 22, 2001.
No twitches, finished 2nd vial, felt a HUGE shift.


PHONE FOLLOW-UP - Feb. 5, 2001.
All symptoms 90%, better!
Rx - Continue same remedy Manganum Iodatum 30C - one more vial.


IN PERSON FOLLOW-UP - March 30, 2001.
“Intestinal symptoms” better. Spider veins, spasms in my neck (I see as direction in life), knees will lock. Only the second year I got allergies, before I met you I put myself on walnut essence now 2 times a day for 2 weeks, I’ve discovered yerba matte tea instead of coffee. I am maintaining the environment, caring for my son and I’m working multi-dimensionally. Lots of activity. “

Q: Dreams?
Themes of getting organized....
#1 I ran into the actor Anthony Hopkins in a bookstore, he’s an icon. I’m attracted to him, we embraced, but it was not night time. I had a tortured life growing up.
#2 My daughter is on plane - she told me she landed the plane - she was all right.
#3 My grandson’s in drug rehab and doing well.
I feel I got a lot of energy back, my appetite and sleep’s good. I can just feel this enormous change in attitude - more proactive than reactive."

Q: Left knee pain, lower back pain?
A: "I’m accident prone, but I can handle it. I am not in pain now, all my symptoms are connected to moving along with change. I have one group of friends (that we travel spiritually together) we are all going through heavy things. It’s just blowing my mind. I have fear of abandonment and isolation, a fall from grace. I guess it’s part of the journey back."

Q: Do you have other supportive friends?
A: "Yes, very serene and guarded and supportive women’s group we drink tea together and camp."

Q: Fears?
A: "I get a sense of where are my people? Like; am I from this planet?

Q. What’s the fear and abandonment?
A. "Early childhood stuff, I was neglected in my crib, my cries weren’t answered. Sometimes they weren’t kind, I tried to follow Mom when she drove away. So as long as I care-take, they won’t abandon me."

Q: Why did you leave Missouri?
A: "I left with my friend, I had to get away from parents that remarried and I don’t miss it at all. The last thing I want to do is hang out with right wing politics and ‘w.a.s.p.s’!"

Rx - MANGANUM IODATUM 30C 2 pellets once daily 10 days.


FOLLOW-UP- May 14, 2001.
Finished remedy, took 3 1/2 weeks to get it. I made a huge shift.
Itching in the mid back section, all around neck. Knee pains better.
Rx - MANGANUM IODATUM 30C for 10 days.


FOLLOW-UP - May. 31, 2001.
Feeling much better, mid back itch gone away. She felt a huge transition and discarded relationships that she didn’t need!
Rx - Great! Plan; wait, call in a month.


FOLLOW-UP - June 29, 2001.
All symptoms disappeared, one symptom flared up, foggy headed
Rx - MANGANUM IODATUM 30C once a day for 10 days.


FOLLOW-UP - July 6, 2001.
Last day of dosing tomorrow, felt well, head clearing.
Rx - MANGANUM IODATUM 30C once a day for 10 days.


FOLLOW-UP - April 2003.
Had discontinued remedy 7/7/01, no symptoms feeling completely well. "Thank you so much, this remedy was healing magic".


Wendy Hewland - email: