|
|
Homeopathy and Evolution
Too many of us it seems that the world of politics is collapsing from a more or less civilised state into something primitive, less evolved. Old orders are breaking down. We see countries that once embraced progressive, libertarian values reverting to strongman rulership recalling that of earlier eras. When things get too large, too cumbersome, too top-heavy, then breakdown to simpler components follows. And then people mistakenly believe that the strong man can save the day, returning things to a bygone time.
If the above process happens as an unconscious reaction to the difficulties faced when we try to do things collectively, when we think of the whole and not just the needs of the part, we bring about regression rather than evolution.
Nature has taken billions of years to produce the complexity and interdependence that we find in the natural world today. Based on the primal forces of nature (electromagnetic, gravitational, weak, strong) together with the subatomic quanta known to physics we see evolution from prokaryotes (single cell organisms without a nucleus), to eukaryotes comprising all multicellular organisms.
We see evolution from the most primitive plants to the complexity of evolutionarily modern flowering plants. In the animal kingdom we witness evolution from sponges and jellyfish all the way to mammals and humans.
In the current world situation of crisis and instability let’s remind ourselves that the progression of evolution in nature has been going on for billions of years. There is a depth of experience and integrity there which puts the current state of world politics into some kind of perspective.
Homeopathic remedies are derived from the many domains of nature, reflecting a progression from simple and unitary to complex and evolved, from infant to adult, from the laws of survival to conscious cooperation. When we think like this, in terms of correspondence and analogy, rather than in terms of linear cause and defect we understand that processes of evolving complexity or of disintegration can find expression on many levels – the natural world, human culture, and in the human individual.
Thus we might suppose that the disintegration apparent in public life might run parallel to changes in individual consciousness and vice versa. Given this scenario it’s not surprising then that many are arriving at basic existential questions: who am I? What's left if one removes familiar roles and identities – identification, place in family, role in the world of work, the meaning of creativity and so on.
It can be argued that we are seeing, on every level, the collapse of old structures (possibly especially in the West) that sustained societies and individuals over a very long period – perhaps even thousands of years.
Individuals no longer exist in the certainty of clearly defined structures and hierarchies. As the great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung, would have had it – the collective unconscious is being re-constellated. Or as the ancient sages that authored the masterpiece of Chinese philosophy, the I Ching, would say, in the language of the time, there is a new mandate from Heaven.
Times of disintegration and the emergence of the new. Perhaps the most significant of such transitions that the human species has faced so far. No guarantees, except for one thing – something new, for better or worse, will emerge. So where are we, who are we? Where are you, who are you?
Homeopathic remedies drawn from the evolving domains of nature meet the corresponding journey taken by every human from simple unitary cells to the complexity of the modern human. What a blessing it is that there are substances from the domains of nature which can meet and heal the wounds we sustain on this journey to wholeness and beyond. Remedies that can help us embody all that we are and maybe in this life, on this earth.
Domains of Homeopathic Remedies
Many people know something about homeopathic remedies derived from mineral, plant and animal sources. For example remedies like Calcium Carbonate (prepared from the middle layer of an oyster shell), Sulphur and Phosphorus from the mineral kingdom; Lachesis (a snake), Apis (honey bee) from the animal kingdom; Pulsatilla and Belladonna from the plant kingdom. However, there are many homeopathic remedies that are not derived from these kingdoms. What follows is a hierarchy of domains from which our remedies are derived.
The sequence represents a kind of progression from simple to more complex. For example one might say that the basic issue for mineral remedies is simpler than that for plants. Mineral people are concerned whether their structure or inner capacity is succeeding or failing. The issue is internal. With plants the issue is more external. It’s about my sensitivity to the world. How is the world affecting me or hurting me? And how do I react? Plants are more about sensitivity and reactivity.
Imponderables (remedies prepared from non-physical sources, often electromagnetic) are, in a sense, even more basic. Am I energy or matter?
Let’s look further at these domains.
Imponderables
These are the most basic. They are often derived from an electromagnetic source such as a magnetic field or sunlight (homeopathic remedy: Sol). They can also be derived from colours (electromagnetic frequencies of light). Einstein discovered that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa (E = MC2). It's possible that matter and energy appeared together at the Big Bang, or that energy proceeded matter. Scientists still don't know what happened at the instant of the Big Bang or in the first zeptoseconds of the cosmos. There is no observational evidence for any of this, only theory.
From our homeopathic perspective we can place imponderables first on the list – energy is more basic than matter. Or last on the list – energy is somehow beyond matter. We can think of power or force that isn't held in physical form.
Sensation: desire to be immaterial, to be energy/movement in contrast with the painful opposite feeling of dense materiality and immobility.
Imponderables Subclass – Symbolic Remedies
Imponderables can even be of a more symbolic or psychic nature. For example the remedy Berlin Wall. The homeopathic picture of Berlin Wall suggests it comes from the symbolic meaning of the wall and not from the fact of it being made of concrete! This symbolic meaning is carried by the morphic field of Berlin Wall (for more on morphic fields, see Julian Carlyon, One Earth | Three Worlds, 2022).
Mineral Kingdom
These remedies can be derived from solids, gases or liquids. The remedies can be made from simple substances such as the elements of the periodic table, as well as more complex substances such as salts or hydrocarbons.
Sensation: The mineral person is concerned with structure and inner capacity.
Fungi
This domain includes mushrooms, yeasts and moulds. Fungi have plant-like and animal-like characteristics. Like arthropods they have chitin in their cell walls. Plants have cellulose. Like animals they are heterotrophs, meaning that they cannot produce their own food. They cannot photosynthesise, as plants do. While they are more closely related to animals, they do also have plant-like characteristics such as cell walls for structural support and non-motility.
Sensation: sensations such as invasion, spreading and encroachment described by a patient can suggest a fungi remedy.
Monera and Protista
The term monera denotes single cell organisms that lack a nucleus (prokaryotes). The term is no longer used and the kingdom has been divided into two domains – Archaea and Bacteria.
Protists are mainly single cell organisms with a nucleus. They form a kingdom within Domain Eukaryote, which includes all multi cellular organisms as well as protists. All Eukaryotic organisms have membrane-bound cell nuclei. Protists are often found in aquatic or moist environments. The Protist kingdom is considered a paraphyletic group, meaning it includes the ancestors of animals, plants and fungi, but not all of their descendants.
It should be noted that viruses do not really belong to any kingdom. They are generally not considered as living organisms because they are acellular and require a host cell to replicate. They are grouped as a distinct category and sometimes thought of as a separate kingdom.
Bacteria and virus remedies in homeopathy are often derived from disease sources and are classified as nosodes (see below). However homeopaths, Bhawisha and Shachindra Joshi differentiate the themes of nosodes from those of bacteria and viruses (Joshi’s, 2013). Not much is known currently about remedies derived from bacteria and viruses (I'm not including here the well-known group of remedies, the nosodes of homoeopathy, which are derived from diseased tissues that have been invaded by pathogens). But we can speculate that a person needing such a remedy would feel as though they were barely here, being completely dependent on others. They might be hypersensitive to the environment, easily overwhelmed or invaded, with little or no boundary.
Plants
Most plants are multicellular. The chief characteristic of almost all plants is the ability to produce their own food and energy directly from sunlight via photosynthesis. Parasitic plants are an exception, deriving some or all of their nutritional requirements from another living plant.
Organisms that photosynthesise and are thus classified as plants range from single celled green algae right through to the most evolved plants, the angiosperms or flowering plants, which make up about 80% of all known living green plants (Viridiplantae).
All land plants (Embryophytes) are said to be monophyletic, meaning they are derived from a common ancestor, namely a freshwater green algae.
Plants, being non-motile, must especially be able to “sense” and adapt to their environments.
Sensation: sensitivity and adaptability are key for patients requiring plant remedies.
Animals
Animals are multicellular organisms of the kingdom Animalia. Animals are heterotrophic, meaning they get food from other living (or dead) organisms – mostly plants or other animals. Some animals are parasitic.
Most animals are mobile, take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide. Most animals belong either to phylum Chordata (vertebrates such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) or are invertebrates (such as insects, spiders, crustacea, mollusks, worms, jellyfish, sponges).
Insects and other arthropods have no internal skeleton, but have an outer protective skeleton, the exoskeleton. Invertebrates account for the vast majority of animals, 95 to 97%.
As with plants, it is believed that all animals diversified from a common ancestor. This organism, being soft-bodied, has left no fossil record, but is hypothesised through the study of genetics. This ancestor may have been similar to a choanoflagellate, a unicellular eukaryote, capable of movement and morphologically similar to a certain type of cell found in sponges.
For homeopathic use Mahesh Gandhi has created evolutionary charts going from simpler to more complex organisms for both invertebrates and vertebrates. Invertebrates go from Porifera (sponges), to mollusks, crustaceans, insects and spiders. Vertebrates passed from fish, amphibians and reptiles, to mammals and birds.
Sensation: themes of competition, hierarchy, me versus you, prey and predator, kill or be killed, are apparent to one extent or another in animal remedies.
Nosodes
Now we come to the human realm. Nosodes are the class of homeopathic remedies prepared from diseased human tissue. For example, Psorinum is prepared from the pus of a scabies vesicle; Medorrhinum from a gonococcus infected urethral discharge; Syphilinum from a syphilitic spirochete infected genital chancre.
Some important nosodes are prepared from diseased animal tissue. For example the Tuberculinum bovinum that Kent used came from a TB infected cow. Pyrogen is prepared from a bacteria infested piece of decomposing beef. Whatever the source, the nosode represents the immune systems fight with an infectious agent. It represents tissue that is in a fight with, or has been overcome by, an infectious agent.
In the animal kingdom the conflict is with something, or especially someone, external. For nosode remedies the sensation is one of conflict with something internal that has infected you or weakened you.
Sarcodes
Sarcodes are the class of homeopathic remedies prepared from healthy organs, glands or hormones from a human or animal source. Examples are folliculinum, prepared from an ovarian follicle (ovarian follicles produce and release oestrogen); thyroidinum, prepared from the thyroid gland of an animal; disci, prepared from a vertebral disc; placenta, prepared from a human placenta. Lac humanum/maternum (human milk) is a healthy human product which can become a remedial substance when an individual’s relationship with early nourishment and bonding is disturbed. At the essential level repeated themes of function, harmony or imbalance may dominate the sarcode case. The symptoms of human milk as a remedy constellate around the idea of incarnation, and of whether or not I can be myself as well as being accepted by the group (animal milks in general).
Use of fungi, mineral, plant, animal remedies compared with nosodes, sarcodes, imponderables
Most homeopathic remedies embody or symbolise an individuals relationship to something from the natural world. These remedies represent a mode of being, functioning or reacting that is appropriate for a specific element, compound, plant, animal or fungi, but inappropriate and maladapted in a human being. A normal way of being in the macrocosm of nature is reflected as a maladapted way of being in a human being.
Nosodes are by and large prepared from infections or diseases that affect large numbers of the human population. These can be common mass infections such as influenza, SARS, or specific infections such as HIV or STDs, or childhood epidemics such as measles.
Nosodes thus represent the human fight with infectious agents (even cancer, it is now postulated, is caused by a virus). Homeopathic theory, from Hahnemann’s day to modern times, has postulated that infectious diseases, particularly the ones that infect large numbers (epidemics), when not allowed to run their natural course or are thoughtlessly supressed, give rise to the great patterns of physical and psychological dysfunction found in large numbers of the human population (chronic disease).
It could be said then, that nosodes represent an individual’s relationship to the great collective patterns (archetypal patterns or miasms) of unconsciousness and dysfunction found in human beings, that manifest in the form of mass epidemics.
Homeopathic theory, from Hahnemann’s day to this, has suggested that fundamental patterns of disease, with their associated infections, arise as the consequence of egoism, putting ourselves first, forgetting the whole of which we are a part, and generally losing our way.
Sarcodes, on the other hand, are indicated when the whole homeopathic picture is dominated by the dysfunction of a particular gland or hormone. A particular endocrine imbalance is the source of ill health. It is also probable that this imbalance has risen in a constitution already disturbed. Thus a sarcode will not as a rule be a constitutional remedy. It will be a remedy for an imbalance that has obscured a more basic state or susceptibility in the patient. This more basic state will sooner or later require a remedy from an animal, plant, mineral or fungi source. (The same can be said for nosodes. A battle with infection, or the inherited results of infection have created a condition in the mind/body of the patient which, unless treated, will prevent further progress through the use of mineral, plant or animal remedies.)
There is another view of sarcodes. Sarcodes often come from an endocrine or hormonal source. Some esoteric traditions have linked the endocrine system with the ancient Vedic understanding of chakras. These are the spiritual energy centres or portals that are found from the base of the spine to the top of the head.
For example, the thyroid gland is associated with the throat chakra. The Vishuddha chakra is positioned in the throat region near the spine. It is known as the purification centre, where the nectar amrita drips down from the Bindu chakra and is split into a pure form and a poison. It is associated with higher discrimination, creativity, and self expression. It is associated with the element Akasha, or ether, and the sense of hearing, as well as the action of speaking. In some thyroid cases it may be that the thyroid/throat chakra imbalance needs to be addressed before more obvious constitutional (mineral, plant, animal) remedies can be successfully used. Just as the vital organs need to be working well so the chakras, the portals through which cosmic vital energy nourishes the individual, need to be cleansed and opened.
What about imponderables? In physics matter is composed of fundamental particles and their associated fields, or fields and particles. Particles are located and fields are spread out so the person needing an imponderable maybe too "spread out". They may feel themselves to be an energy field more than a grounded person. The theme of matter and energy will dominate the whole case. There may also be sensitivity to electromagnetic fields. There may also be an association with the socio-cultural fascination with the mysteries of quantum mechanics, gravitational fields, spacetime, black holes, dark energy, dark matter and so on.
So, in summary, mineral, plant and animals correspond to constitutional remedies and chronic dispositions. Nosodes for when results of infection in the individual’s history or ancestry dominate the picture. Sarcodes for when imbalance in the whole is centred around dysfunction in a particular organ gland or hormone. Hormonal dysfunction could also point to corresponding chakras.
Imponderable cases are about energy rather than matter. This duality must run through the whole case. In other words it must be the core issue (vital sensation), and not just something that’s a manner of speech or way of talking, which can be common in modern patients.
Imponderables, nosodes and sarcodes are not as a rule deep acting constitutional remedies. But they may be needed to open the way to mineral, plant and animal (as well as fungi) remedies.
Julian
Too many of us it seems that the world of politics is collapsing from a more or less civilised state into something primitive, less evolved. Old orders are breaking down. We see countries that once embraced progressive, libertarian values reverting to strongman rulership recalling that of earlier eras. When things get too large, too cumbersome, too top-heavy, then breakdown to simpler components follows. And then people mistakenly believe that the strong man can save the day, returning things to a bygone time.
If the above process happens as an unconscious reaction to the difficulties faced when we try to do things collectively, when we think of the whole and not just the needs of the part, we bring about regression rather than evolution.
Nature has taken billions of years to produce the complexity and interdependence that we find in the natural world today. Based on the primal forces of nature (electromagnetic, gravitational, weak, strong) together with the subatomic quanta known to physics we see evolution from prokaryotes (single cell organisms without a nucleus), to eukaryotes comprising all multicellular organisms.
We see evolution from the most primitive plants to the complexity of evolutionarily modern flowering plants. In the animal kingdom we witness evolution from sponges and jellyfish all the way to mammals and humans.
In the current world situation of crisis and instability let’s remind ourselves that the progression of evolution in nature has been going on for billions of years. There is a depth of experience and integrity there which puts the current state of world politics into some kind of perspective.
Homeopathic remedies are derived from the many domains of nature, reflecting a progression from simple and unitary to complex and evolved, from infant to adult, from the laws of survival to conscious cooperation. When we think like this, in terms of correspondence and analogy, rather than in terms of linear cause and defect we understand that processes of evolving complexity or of disintegration can find expression on many levels – the natural world, human culture, and in the human individual.
Thus we might suppose that the disintegration apparent in public life might run parallel to changes in individual consciousness and vice versa. Given this scenario it’s not surprising then that many are arriving at basic existential questions: who am I? What's left if one removes familiar roles and identities – identification, place in family, role in the world of work, the meaning of creativity and so on.
It can be argued that we are seeing, on every level, the collapse of old structures (possibly especially in the West) that sustained societies and individuals over a very long period – perhaps even thousands of years.
Individuals no longer exist in the certainty of clearly defined structures and hierarchies. As the great Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung, would have had it – the collective unconscious is being re-constellated. Or as the ancient sages that authored the masterpiece of Chinese philosophy, the I Ching, would say, in the language of the time, there is a new mandate from Heaven.
Times of disintegration and the emergence of the new. Perhaps the most significant of such transitions that the human species has faced so far. No guarantees, except for one thing – something new, for better or worse, will emerge. So where are we, who are we? Where are you, who are you?
Homeopathic remedies drawn from the evolving domains of nature meet the corresponding journey taken by every human from simple unitary cells to the complexity of the modern human. What a blessing it is that there are substances from the domains of nature which can meet and heal the wounds we sustain on this journey to wholeness and beyond. Remedies that can help us embody all that we are and maybe in this life, on this earth.
Domains of Homeopathic Remedies
Many people know something about homeopathic remedies derived from mineral, plant and animal sources. For example remedies like Calcium Carbonate (prepared from the middle layer of an oyster shell), Sulphur and Phosphorus from the mineral kingdom; Lachesis (a snake), Apis (honey bee) from the animal kingdom; Pulsatilla and Belladonna from the plant kingdom. However, there are many homeopathic remedies that are not derived from these kingdoms. What follows is a hierarchy of domains from which our remedies are derived.
The sequence represents a kind of progression from simple to more complex. For example one might say that the basic issue for mineral remedies is simpler than that for plants. Mineral people are concerned whether their structure or inner capacity is succeeding or failing. The issue is internal. With plants the issue is more external. It’s about my sensitivity to the world. How is the world affecting me or hurting me? And how do I react? Plants are more about sensitivity and reactivity.
Imponderables (remedies prepared from non-physical sources, often electromagnetic) are, in a sense, even more basic. Am I energy or matter?
Let’s look further at these domains.
Imponderables
These are the most basic. They are often derived from an electromagnetic source such as a magnetic field or sunlight (homeopathic remedy: Sol). They can also be derived from colours (electromagnetic frequencies of light). Einstein discovered that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa (E = MC2). It's possible that matter and energy appeared together at the Big Bang, or that energy proceeded matter. Scientists still don't know what happened at the instant of the Big Bang or in the first zeptoseconds of the cosmos. There is no observational evidence for any of this, only theory.
From our homeopathic perspective we can place imponderables first on the list – energy is more basic than matter. Or last on the list – energy is somehow beyond matter. We can think of power or force that isn't held in physical form.
Sensation: desire to be immaterial, to be energy/movement in contrast with the painful opposite feeling of dense materiality and immobility.
Imponderables Subclass – Symbolic Remedies
Imponderables can even be of a more symbolic or psychic nature. For example the remedy Berlin Wall. The homeopathic picture of Berlin Wall suggests it comes from the symbolic meaning of the wall and not from the fact of it being made of concrete! This symbolic meaning is carried by the morphic field of Berlin Wall (for more on morphic fields, see Julian Carlyon, One Earth | Three Worlds, 2022).
Mineral Kingdom
These remedies can be derived from solids, gases or liquids. The remedies can be made from simple substances such as the elements of the periodic table, as well as more complex substances such as salts or hydrocarbons.
Sensation: The mineral person is concerned with structure and inner capacity.
Fungi
This domain includes mushrooms, yeasts and moulds. Fungi have plant-like and animal-like characteristics. Like arthropods they have chitin in their cell walls. Plants have cellulose. Like animals they are heterotrophs, meaning that they cannot produce their own food. They cannot photosynthesise, as plants do. While they are more closely related to animals, they do also have plant-like characteristics such as cell walls for structural support and non-motility.
Sensation: sensations such as invasion, spreading and encroachment described by a patient can suggest a fungi remedy.
Monera and Protista
The term monera denotes single cell organisms that lack a nucleus (prokaryotes). The term is no longer used and the kingdom has been divided into two domains – Archaea and Bacteria.
Protists are mainly single cell organisms with a nucleus. They form a kingdom within Domain Eukaryote, which includes all multi cellular organisms as well as protists. All Eukaryotic organisms have membrane-bound cell nuclei. Protists are often found in aquatic or moist environments. The Protist kingdom is considered a paraphyletic group, meaning it includes the ancestors of animals, plants and fungi, but not all of their descendants.
It should be noted that viruses do not really belong to any kingdom. They are generally not considered as living organisms because they are acellular and require a host cell to replicate. They are grouped as a distinct category and sometimes thought of as a separate kingdom.
Bacteria and virus remedies in homeopathy are often derived from disease sources and are classified as nosodes (see below). However homeopaths, Bhawisha and Shachindra Joshi differentiate the themes of nosodes from those of bacteria and viruses (Joshi’s, 2013). Not much is known currently about remedies derived from bacteria and viruses (I'm not including here the well-known group of remedies, the nosodes of homoeopathy, which are derived from diseased tissues that have been invaded by pathogens). But we can speculate that a person needing such a remedy would feel as though they were barely here, being completely dependent on others. They might be hypersensitive to the environment, easily overwhelmed or invaded, with little or no boundary.
Plants
Most plants are multicellular. The chief characteristic of almost all plants is the ability to produce their own food and energy directly from sunlight via photosynthesis. Parasitic plants are an exception, deriving some or all of their nutritional requirements from another living plant.
Organisms that photosynthesise and are thus classified as plants range from single celled green algae right through to the most evolved plants, the angiosperms or flowering plants, which make up about 80% of all known living green plants (Viridiplantae).
All land plants (Embryophytes) are said to be monophyletic, meaning they are derived from a common ancestor, namely a freshwater green algae.
Plants, being non-motile, must especially be able to “sense” and adapt to their environments.
Sensation: sensitivity and adaptability are key for patients requiring plant remedies.
Animals
Animals are multicellular organisms of the kingdom Animalia. Animals are heterotrophic, meaning they get food from other living (or dead) organisms – mostly plants or other animals. Some animals are parasitic.
Most animals are mobile, take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide. Most animals belong either to phylum Chordata (vertebrates such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) or are invertebrates (such as insects, spiders, crustacea, mollusks, worms, jellyfish, sponges).
Insects and other arthropods have no internal skeleton, but have an outer protective skeleton, the exoskeleton. Invertebrates account for the vast majority of animals, 95 to 97%.
As with plants, it is believed that all animals diversified from a common ancestor. This organism, being soft-bodied, has left no fossil record, but is hypothesised through the study of genetics. This ancestor may have been similar to a choanoflagellate, a unicellular eukaryote, capable of movement and morphologically similar to a certain type of cell found in sponges.
For homeopathic use Mahesh Gandhi has created evolutionary charts going from simpler to more complex organisms for both invertebrates and vertebrates. Invertebrates go from Porifera (sponges), to mollusks, crustaceans, insects and spiders. Vertebrates passed from fish, amphibians and reptiles, to mammals and birds.
Sensation: themes of competition, hierarchy, me versus you, prey and predator, kill or be killed, are apparent to one extent or another in animal remedies.
Nosodes
Now we come to the human realm. Nosodes are the class of homeopathic remedies prepared from diseased human tissue. For example, Psorinum is prepared from the pus of a scabies vesicle; Medorrhinum from a gonococcus infected urethral discharge; Syphilinum from a syphilitic spirochete infected genital chancre.
Some important nosodes are prepared from diseased animal tissue. For example the Tuberculinum bovinum that Kent used came from a TB infected cow. Pyrogen is prepared from a bacteria infested piece of decomposing beef. Whatever the source, the nosode represents the immune systems fight with an infectious agent. It represents tissue that is in a fight with, or has been overcome by, an infectious agent.
In the animal kingdom the conflict is with something, or especially someone, external. For nosode remedies the sensation is one of conflict with something internal that has infected you or weakened you.
Sarcodes
Sarcodes are the class of homeopathic remedies prepared from healthy organs, glands or hormones from a human or animal source. Examples are folliculinum, prepared from an ovarian follicle (ovarian follicles produce and release oestrogen); thyroidinum, prepared from the thyroid gland of an animal; disci, prepared from a vertebral disc; placenta, prepared from a human placenta. Lac humanum/maternum (human milk) is a healthy human product which can become a remedial substance when an individual’s relationship with early nourishment and bonding is disturbed. At the essential level repeated themes of function, harmony or imbalance may dominate the sarcode case. The symptoms of human milk as a remedy constellate around the idea of incarnation, and of whether or not I can be myself as well as being accepted by the group (animal milks in general).
Use of fungi, mineral, plant, animal remedies compared with nosodes, sarcodes, imponderables
Most homeopathic remedies embody or symbolise an individuals relationship to something from the natural world. These remedies represent a mode of being, functioning or reacting that is appropriate for a specific element, compound, plant, animal or fungi, but inappropriate and maladapted in a human being. A normal way of being in the macrocosm of nature is reflected as a maladapted way of being in a human being.
Nosodes are by and large prepared from infections or diseases that affect large numbers of the human population. These can be common mass infections such as influenza, SARS, or specific infections such as HIV or STDs, or childhood epidemics such as measles.
Nosodes thus represent the human fight with infectious agents (even cancer, it is now postulated, is caused by a virus). Homeopathic theory, from Hahnemann’s day to modern times, has postulated that infectious diseases, particularly the ones that infect large numbers (epidemics), when not allowed to run their natural course or are thoughtlessly supressed, give rise to the great patterns of physical and psychological dysfunction found in large numbers of the human population (chronic disease).
It could be said then, that nosodes represent an individual’s relationship to the great collective patterns (archetypal patterns or miasms) of unconsciousness and dysfunction found in human beings, that manifest in the form of mass epidemics.
Homeopathic theory, from Hahnemann’s day to this, has suggested that fundamental patterns of disease, with their associated infections, arise as the consequence of egoism, putting ourselves first, forgetting the whole of which we are a part, and generally losing our way.
Sarcodes, on the other hand, are indicated when the whole homeopathic picture is dominated by the dysfunction of a particular gland or hormone. A particular endocrine imbalance is the source of ill health. It is also probable that this imbalance has risen in a constitution already disturbed. Thus a sarcode will not as a rule be a constitutional remedy. It will be a remedy for an imbalance that has obscured a more basic state or susceptibility in the patient. This more basic state will sooner or later require a remedy from an animal, plant, mineral or fungi source. (The same can be said for nosodes. A battle with infection, or the inherited results of infection have created a condition in the mind/body of the patient which, unless treated, will prevent further progress through the use of mineral, plant or animal remedies.)
There is another view of sarcodes. Sarcodes often come from an endocrine or hormonal source. Some esoteric traditions have linked the endocrine system with the ancient Vedic understanding of chakras. These are the spiritual energy centres or portals that are found from the base of the spine to the top of the head.
For example, the thyroid gland is associated with the throat chakra. The Vishuddha chakra is positioned in the throat region near the spine. It is known as the purification centre, where the nectar amrita drips down from the Bindu chakra and is split into a pure form and a poison. It is associated with higher discrimination, creativity, and self expression. It is associated with the element Akasha, or ether, and the sense of hearing, as well as the action of speaking. In some thyroid cases it may be that the thyroid/throat chakra imbalance needs to be addressed before more obvious constitutional (mineral, plant, animal) remedies can be successfully used. Just as the vital organs need to be working well so the chakras, the portals through which cosmic vital energy nourishes the individual, need to be cleansed and opened.
What about imponderables? In physics matter is composed of fundamental particles and their associated fields, or fields and particles. Particles are located and fields are spread out so the person needing an imponderable maybe too "spread out". They may feel themselves to be an energy field more than a grounded person. The theme of matter and energy will dominate the whole case. There may also be sensitivity to electromagnetic fields. There may also be an association with the socio-cultural fascination with the mysteries of quantum mechanics, gravitational fields, spacetime, black holes, dark energy, dark matter and so on.
So, in summary, mineral, plant and animals correspond to constitutional remedies and chronic dispositions. Nosodes for when results of infection in the individual’s history or ancestry dominate the picture. Sarcodes for when imbalance in the whole is centred around dysfunction in a particular organ gland or hormone. Hormonal dysfunction could also point to corresponding chakras.
Imponderable cases are about energy rather than matter. This duality must run through the whole case. In other words it must be the core issue (vital sensation), and not just something that’s a manner of speech or way of talking, which can be common in modern patients.
Imponderables, nosodes and sarcodes are not as a rule deep acting constitutional remedies. But they may be needed to open the way to mineral, plant and animal (as well as fungi) remedies.
Julian