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Eh Talk 2 Transcript Final
Eh Talk 2 Transcript Final
Hello everyone! So let’s carry on from where we left off last time. Last time we
spoke about we started with Hahnemann and we proceeded on from there with
my other teachers and I described to you, how it is very important to have basic
fundamental knowledge of homoeopathy. We are talking about the philosophy of
Homoeopathy with the ideas of individualism and holism, the idea of vital force
and dynamis and translated this into on the one hand to Case taking where we
understand the disease as a whole with Boenninghausen’s idea of generalization
and with the idea of individualization with the idea of peculiar and rare symptoms
of the patient and on the other hand the study of Materia Medica and the rubrics
and how this study is also fundamental in our understanding of Homoeopathy.
Now we will try to go a little deeper than that. Taking peculiar symptoms of the
case of the patient from the repertory, is easy with regard to physical symptoms.
You have a more or less a direct relationship. So you go to the symptom of the
patient in the repertory and study it in the Materia Medica. But when we come to
the emotional level, it becomes that much more difficult and then we need to
take not something directly, but what it means.
Here I would like to start with a case of a woman who came to me with
Rheumatoid Arthritis. And the story of this person was:
She was a housewife and she was from south Indian state of Kerala and she came
to settle in Bombay after her marriage, that was about 15 years earlier. And I
asked her was there any kind of stress or strain in her life after which these
ailments started. And the husband answered for her rather the woman didn’t talk
much. She was rather reserved and the husband said, ‘well, yes, she was very
much affected lost her friend a neighbour who was in this building, and then she
started after the death of this neighbour, this woman, she started getting
frightened. And she was even afraid to sleep alone. For example: when her
So how can we understand this situation? How can we understand it? We can do
one thing, we can take a straight rubric,
This is a straight rubric but if we take this rubric, you will find that the remedy
that helped her and we will be wrong.
Why is this so? Because straight away she is saying that I am affected by the loss
of my friend and when we take the rubric, the remedy is not there. The question
is we cannot take just one situation but we have to understand the sum total of
that expression. So we have to ask the question, ‘why is she affected? Who is she
that is affected by the loss of the friend?’ so I ask her ‘tell me something about
her?’
And the husband says, well she has come from the Southern Indian state of Kerala
and she has come and she has lived in Bombay for 15 years but she doesn’t have
any other friends here. And the entire apartment, the complex we live in, in which
there are several apartments, she has only one friend. And that is this lady who
died. And then what is the important thing about this lady who died, she came
from the same Southern Indian state of Kerala and she spoke the same language
as our patient. So what is it that she made only one friend in 15 years and that
also who spoke her language. She had not learned the local language which is
Hindi or Marathi or even proper English that she could converse with anyone in
the society, and that is the reason why she is so much affected by the death of
her friend.
She has lost somebody who she is very familiar with. So what does it tell about
her?
So here our rubric will not be ‘Ailments from death of parents or friends’ but our
first rubric will be ‘Mind; childish behavior’, and then we have another rubric will
be, ‘Mind; weeping, tearful mood, goes off alone and weeps as if she had no
friends’. And when we look at this rubric and when we look at the childish
behaviour, we come to the remedy Baryta carb, and that was the remedy that she
needed.
Baryta carb is a kind of childish dependence, a feeling that I am not able to learn
anything, I am not able to adapt to the circumstances, I am not able to learn a
new language. And then she becomes shy, reserved, inferior and incapable. The
feeling as if every one is like a stranger to her and that she is alone. So you have
the rubric, ‘Mind; Strangers, in presence of agg’.
So in this way we need to understand the patients, not only the plain rubrics, so
we have to go below the rubric, behind into the deep experience of the patient’s
life.
This is what we call as the delusion level or the sensation level and it is not only
the fact level or the rubric level. So we see when we come to the rubrics mind
part, we cannot simply stay with the plain rubrics but that we have to go deeper
otherwise we will surely be wrong.
Here the rubrics in the mind can mislead us. Because we are simply taking the
facts, just because she lost her friend, we assume the rubric “Grief”. We think it is
grief but we cannot stay there, this is an expression. We have to go deep to see
what is the individual emotion, what is the perception of the situation, where
does this perception arise from, who is she? Who has this perception and then we
see good results.
25] Case- Afraid that she will harm her husband and child; Kali brom.
Let’s see another case. This was a case of a woman, whose main symptom was
she had a fear and this fear was that she could do some harm to her husband or
Now here one way of dealing with it is to take the rubric, ‘Mind; kill desire to,
sudden impulse to kill, her beloved husband’ And one of the remedies is Platina.
But I didn’t give her Platina, because this is not the correct rubric. We have to
differentiate. What is interesting is: She never ever had the impulse to kill her
husband or her child; what she had was the fear of getting such an impulse.
Here we have to look into another rubric which is, ‘Mind; delusion, murder,
husband and child, she is going to’. And the remedy is Kali brom. A similar rubric
of Kali bromatum is, ‘Mind; delusion, crime about to commit’. So what we see
here is a fear, a fear of getting an impulse. A fear that she could do something and
not actually the impulse to do anything.
This is very interesting because later on when we will learn about the miasms, we
will realize this difference that Platina is syphilitic miasm. It is a heavy metal, and
it is in the last row of the periodic table, the 6th row. And it has syphilitic
destructive impulses to kill, to suicide like Mercurius, Aurum, Hepar sulph, etc.
these are all syphilitic remedies.
They actually have the impulse to kill and they can murder. They have no
hesitation in taking the life of themselves or others because they feel they are the
leaders and they are responsible and they have the right over life and death.
This is the feeling of the heavy metals. That they are in a position of making a
decision and their decision is the right one.
But Kali brom is not in the syphilitic miasm, it is not a heavy metal, it is actually in
the 4th row of the periodic table it is a sycotic miasm and what is the feeling of
Sycotic miasm is anticipation. …. what if I do something wrong? This kind of an
So Crime is related to the 4th row of the periodic table. Murder is related to the 6th
row of the periodic table. Syphilitic miasm is destructive, sycotic miasm is anxious
and anticipating. So what Remedy she got was kali brom and she did very well and
her syphilitic fear just went away.
So we have to read beyond the rubrics and try to really understand what is the
patient saying, what is the patient experiencing ok.
Now here you see that many a times a patient does not give rubrics. We have to
understand the rubrics.
For example: Here was a man who had Ischemic heart disease; he kept talking, I
asked him ‘what is your anxiety, what is your stress?’ and he says’ my stress
Doctor, is my wife.’ I said ‘tell me about it’. He said listen ‘I married a woman of
much lower economic status. Because I thought since she comes for a poorer
family and she would not waste my money and she would not spend a lot of
money and therefore I married her’.
But then I observed that ‘she always kept taking money from me, saying for
household expenses. I think that she was saving my money. I don’t think she was
spending my money. And one day, she says I have so much money in my bank
account. I said how do you have all this money. Well my uncle gave it to me. I said
how did your uncle give it to you. I don’t think your uncle gave it to you, I think it’s
from my money. And she kept saying oh it’s not your money, it’s my money. She
keeps talking about, your money, my money, your money and all the time, she
says your money my money, why doesn’t she understand that it’s all our money,
which she means it’s all my money. ‘ this is the way he spoke and you see the
anxiety that the great and the anxiety that he was so suspicious about his wife
that she was slowly taking away his money and making it her own.
The interpretation of this rubric is not necessary that there are real robbers in his
house but it is the people in his house appear like thieves. As if people in his
family they look like thieves. Once you understand this then you understand the
whole idea of Arsenic album.
Why does the Arsenicum album need to be avaricious, why does it need to be so
controlling? Why does it need to be so much to be fastidious? Why does it need
to be cautious and suspicious?
And then you understand, that’s the Remedy & that’s what really helped him out
& we saw a very very nicd result. This man had actually effort angina when he
used to walk, when he used to get pain, anginal pain, he was advised several
surgeries. Coronary bypass and all that. But with Homoeopathy and with Arsenic
he did very, very well.
I want to tell you about how Repertory helps us in discovering remedies and I
want to talk to you about, one particular instance.
27] Young middle class boys with nervous anxiety; Calc silicata.
I used to have in my office some young middle class boy who came as patient and
they were very anxious people. I used to get … they were around 17 -21 they
would have complaints like palpitation or they would be diagnosed as mitral valve
prolapse, or they would come with some vague abdominal pain , or vague
headaches and there was no pathology. But yet they would come with
complaints. And constitutionally they appeared to be quite lean and would come
and they would spend so much time coming to my clinic and they would be just
sitting and waiting out for ½ an hour to 45 minutes for very trivial problems.
I discovered that these guys were very anxious and usually their anxiety was
about some examination like they had to take, some test or some job interview.
I had several young men, esp boys, sitting in my office and wanting a medicine.
because this seemed to be the main thing. That they were so much anxious about
their health.
Because this was the another anxiety they had, one was about their health and
the second was money.
And when I combined these two rubrics, the only remedy that came out was Calc
silicata.
So just combining these two rubrics, I got Calc silicata and I gave it to them and I
found there was very good response. Their anxiety went down, their symptoms
went away, they became more confident etc etc.
Then I started observing them a little bit more and then there were some
interesting signs which was common in these boys. One of them their hands
would be somewhat moist but especially cold and moist were their finger tips. If I
would just run my hand on their palms, I would be slightly warm, and as I go
towards the tips, they would get very very cold. This was one. I mean this is like
Silica but in Silica the whole palm would be moist and cold. In Calcarea silicata,
more the tips of the fingers.
And thirdly, if you just once pull their lips open, downward, you will find on the
margins of their gums, a bluish purplish line. This I found was some clinical
observation.
So then from this a picture started building of these lean, thin, nervous,
hypochondrical young men who spent a lot of time in my waiting room with no
big problem. And very nervous about their capability to earn and with cold finger
tips and blue line on their gums. I found this so useful, that I used it many times
and got good results.
Now this is so familiar that if such a person walks into my clinic, I more or less
guess that he would need Calcarea silicata and indeed it often works very very
well.
Now what happened then, how to take this further? I was invited for a seminar in
Kerala which is the South Indian state of India and I thought if we do a proving in
that seminar. So I gave the remedy Calcarea Silicata with 400 people in that
seminar. And this proiving I published And what came out in that provings, was
some extremely peculiar symptoms. One of them was the dreams of pursued by
elephants. Very strange, very inexplicable. Of course Kerala has many elephants in
it. But this dream was so strange.
So what does the proving do? The proving brings out two things, the proving
brings out the broad and the specific.
Similarly with the clinical experience of the remedy also, you bring out the broad
and the specific.
What do I mean by broad? Broad means that qualities of the group to which the
remedy belongs. You can almost infer these qualities from their position in
nature?
For example:
Now, Silica comes from the 3rd row of the periodic table and which has to do with
identity, expectations of other people. And so the feeling of Calcarea silicata is, ‘I
am expected by other people to develop money and security.’ So a salt combines
the qualities of the two elements in it.
The miasm of this remedy is Ringworm miasm because there is constant doubt,
‘will I be able to do it, or will I not; can I can I not. Should I try, should I not try’.
And this creates the anxiety.
So the broad picture of Calcarea silicata is ‘the expectation from the family that
you will earn money and provide security and this feeling that creates doubt in
the mind and anxiety. This is the broad picture. And the symptoms of this broad
picture will be there in the proving and they were.
But a remedy is not only the broad concepts. The remedy is also fine peculiarities.
As I pointed out in the earlier talk, with the case with Dr B N Chakraborty how he
knew exactly, what was the ulcer of Medorrhinum, how it looked like, the blisters
and where it is located, how painful it was.
It is these fine peculiarities for example the coldness of the finger tips, the blue
line in the gums, of Calcarea silicata, the pursuit of the elephants. This cannot be
inferred and this is the reason why we need two things: we need provings and we
need clinical cases and clinical symptoms. Because along with the broad concepts
of sensations, the groups of kingdoms, miasms, if we use these peculiar
symptoms, these characteristic symptoms, then we are rich, then we are well
equipped. But when we use only one exclusively we are handicapped.
That is a reason why I emphasize again and again the value of peculiar symptoms,
the value of repertory and the value of Materia medica.
And the only way you can really learn the repertory, is to use it.
For example: I can give you a case of a child, whose mother gave the symptom
that the child craves for burnt bread. Now I didn’t know where to look for in the
repertory. So I had to open it and start reading, all the cravings and all the
aversions and I came to the closest, which was craving for ashes.
This was the closest I could come to burnt bread. And the remedy was Tarentula.
And then I found out yes the child was exactly fitted the picture of Tarentula.
So the repertory often gives a clue about the remedy. All the remedies in our
Materia Medica, are not to be found in chart of sensations, obviously there are
many many more than what I have touched or covered. And if you want access to
these remedies, then you need to be familiar with the repertory.
My teacher, Dr. Sarabhai Kapadia, whom we spoke about last time, he had a
patient who said I feel hungry very often. And Dr Sarabhai asked him ‘how often?’
He said, ‘after every two hours’ and he said, ‘when I am hungry, the whole room
knows that I am hungry, because I get a very loud rumbling noise in my stomach
which everybody can hear’.
And then you understand later that Taxus is from the family conifer. And then you
can see if the patient gives you the sensation of the Conifer family.
The idea of a proving and the importance of proving is that it brings out the
specific fine data that is connected with remedies. It also confirms the broad
grouping of the remedy. First of all the proving will give you the broad symptoms
of the kingdom, of the miasm, of the remedy, but it will also give the fine data and
helps you understand the fine human expressions of that given remedy.
But later I was inspired by a friend of mine in Germany whose name is Juergen
Becker and he kind of, either he started or he did what was called as the group
proving. There a remedy would be given to a group and the group would meet, he
would have seminars, a particular remedy would be proved in that seminar in the
whole group and then people would share their experiences.
And he found that when a proving was done in a group, it enhanced the effect of
the proving rather than giving one dose to individual prover. Each prover would
be examined separately from a proving master and there would be no connection
between one prover and the other. This is one way whereas Juergen Becker’s
proving was done with a group and it seemed to make a difference.
I wanted to test it out. So when I invited Juergen Becker to come to India, we did
a seminar together in Mumbai, and I wanted to experiment with a proving. So we
did a proving of Naja, the Indian Cobra. There was a group of about 600 people in
the seminar and we sent them the remedy in advance along with the seminar
brochure. So they could come and they could write down their dreams, and their
sensations and everything and come and discuss it during the seminar. This was a
very valuable experience for me because I saw with my own eyes how the group
proving enhances the effect of a proving.
I will tell you one dream of a prover that I remember from this proving, which is
symbolic actually of the whole proving.
She was a paying guest of an old lady. She was staying in the old lady’s apartment,
paying her some money. And for no apparent reason, one day the old woman
came knocking at her door, and said you have to get out right now. I want you out
of this room right now and she didn’t give any reason at all. The prover who is a
medical Doctor, she said ‘well, where do I go at the middle of the night.’ And the
old lady says ‘I don’t care. I just want you out’. And so saying she just took her
bags and her luggage and her furniture and she just throw them down the stairs.
And as she threw them down the stairs, the old lady herself fell down and she had
a bad injury and she couldn’t move. And then she is shouting to the prover, ‘come
and help me, come and help me’ at this time in her dream, the prover had a
conflict in her mind, on the one hand she feels malicious because she feels
something unjust had been done to her and on the other hand she feels it is her
role as a doctor, it is her duty to go and help this person who is in distress and
wakes up actually from this dream with this duality, with this conflict in her mind.
This dream really stood out and kind of represented the whole proving.
So now you see how this dream is so well represented in the repertory and you
understand how through the proving, this rubric plays out in a human sense.
So on one hand there is malice, the feeling, I shouldn’t neglect my duty, there is
an intense feeling of duty and on the other hand, there is a feeling that ‘she has
done me wrong and I should not do good for her. I should do the bad’ and these
two things are the contradiction in her will.
This is a peculiarity which later we realized that no other snake has except Naja.
There are other snakes like the Elaps, Black mamba, Lachesis, they don’t have this
conflict. So this peculiar conflict between duty and conflict is very peculiar among
snakes and of Naja and this proving really helped us to understand it in a very
beautiful way.
What happened was, in a given proving, we found that 3-4 people did not take
the doses at all. They decided not to take the doses even though they belong to
the group. We met in a group, we decided to do a proving. Most of the people
took the dose, 4- 5 people didn’t take the dose.
What was astonishing was that the people who did not take the dose also
developed symptoms. And when we looked at those symptoms, we found that
they were almost the same symptoms, as the proving, as the people who took the
This is the data of observation, this is what we saw. Now you will say it cannot
happen or can happen or what is the logic? We are not talking about this at all.
We are saying, just what we saw. This is exactly what we observed. And each time
we did a proving, I have done so many provings, may be total of 50 provings, we
saw the same effect each time. That the people who took the dose and people
who did not take the dose both developed symptoms and the symptoms were
very, very similar.
So the question is how does this happen? If you want you can try this thing
yourself and you will see that it happens, that’s the first thing you should know. It
happens and you should see it.
Group consciousness;
When you become a part of a group, somehow you become conjoined in a group
consciousness and there is an experience of the whole group. This is the
hypothesis, how to prove this hypothesis?
I tried several experiments and it’s quite interesting what I came up with and may
be you can try these experiments yourself.
Now we tried something else. We tried this with numbers. Again we would meet
it, first two would go out of the room, the others would intensely think of a
number, let’s say the number 8 or no 6. And then we would invite the person in
and ask him to guess that number. This was a failure too and it didn’t work.
Then we had to think of why didn’t this work? And the answer that came to me
was it didn’t work because it was purely at the level of thought, at the level of
mind. And it was not at the level of our vital force. It was we were trying to do
telepathy, mind to mind transmission. This was not group consciousness, it was
just trying out a telepathic communication. It didn’t work for us.
So we said we must try something which actually affects the vital force, the
consciousness of the whole group. So what I did. We did another experiment and
what we did is:
I took a case of a woman and this case of this woman, she was intense case. To
see this woman on the video was a scary experience. She would just look straight
in the camera or into my eyes and she would say, ‘I want to kill my Mother in law.’
This was cold, malicious woman. Her remedy which helped her was actually Elaps
corallinus which actually helped her, the snake. But the very look of her and the
tone of her voice was enough to make your blood cold.
So what I decided to do, is I decided to put up this video to the group and we had
two three people outside in the other room and the rest of us, just looked at this
And at the end of the session we called those three people who were outside and
asked them what did you experience and then what they narrated their
experience was almost the complete symptomatology of Elaps. They saw snakes,
some of them had fallen asleep, they saw snakes, they looked behind, somebody
was coming after them. They dreamt of heights, they felt as if they were falling
from high places into abyss and danger. And exactly almost what the experience
of the group was who saw the video.
So this was the first experiment where we succeeded and I repeated now this
experiment about 30-40 times, different cases, different experiences. And each
time, it kind of worked out. Because the kind of people who went out of the room
and came back after the group had experienced something almost exactly told us
what the experience was.
Experiences of Anhalonium;
I will give you one more example of this. One experiment that we did was, we just
sat in a group and I asked, again we asked two three people to out. And I asked
them, just anybody please tell me whatever comes to you spontaneously. So one
person told us, ‘I am thinking how fascinating Homoeopathy is. And I said ‘tell me
what do you mean by fascinating. What’s your experience here?’ and he said,
‘Homoeopathy is a huge mystery’. I said, ‘describe this huge mystery’. And all of
us were now trying to experience what he was experiencing. And he is saying, ‘I
feel this mystery as if it’s a huge space and it’s expanding. It’s all becoming big
and I feel as if I am such a small speck in this whole, I feel I am floating, I don’t
know where I am going, it’s all getting bigger and bigger and I am getting smaller
and smaller and smaller.’ And I have absolutely no clue what’s happening.
Now all of us, so we all started experiencing this and just experiencing this
mystery and the expanse of the space. And then we started discussing what could
this be in terms of a remedy. And when we looked in the repertory and the
Materia medica, we found the remedy to be Anhalonium lewini, which has the
feeling of the vastness and the expansion of space, like the whole space.
This was our experience. As if I am nobody and I am expanding and merging with
the whole environment.
So what is it, at a deep level in our consciousness, we connect not only to the
group but we connect to the source. The source of what is within us, the source of
the remedy within us. These experiments lead us to understand that there are
much deeper dimensions to us than the mind level. Just give it a thought. Much
deeper dimensions than the mind.
Now this must not be taken in a superficial way. It’s not the idea that Doctor, I
feel like wagging my tail and you are thinking oh this is Lac caninum. This will not
work, it’s not so silly.
Case taking;
So we can talk a little bit about case taking. Once we understand these
fundamental concepts about holism, individualism, about generalization, about
peculiar symptoms, about repertorization, about proving. These are the essence
The first thing about case taking is that there are two aspects of case taking,
The first aspect is just to know the facts of the case. The exact symptoms, the
location, sensation, modality and concomitants and eliciting it exactly. We have to
master this and if we do that many cases will be solved then and there and you
don’t require more rocket science than that then taking case in detail.
For example;
Last week there was a lady patient with psoriasis and joint pain and loss of sleep
at night; I keep getting belching at night. I said tell me about the belching and she
said you know the funny thing about it is I don’t get it during the day, I only get it
at night and then am forced to sit. I said why you have to sit up; she said if I lie
down. It just keeps coming up and I lie down it becomes better.
The remedy is Calcarea and I saw she beautifully fits into the picture of Calcarea
carb and I am quite sure she will do well.
It was not so interesting so I just persisted and said, tell a little bit about this and
she said it’s not a continuous heat, it comes and it goes, in seconds I feel hot and
it suddenly disappears.
So what she was actually saying was the heat in the soles comes in flushes.
The remedy was Cubeba. I also confirmed the remedy because she had great
cravings for nuts and that is specific to Cubeba - nuts, oranges and onions.
Now what is Cubeba, later on we will come to know that Cubeba comes from the
family of pepper, Piperaceae.
One of the main sensations of the pepper family is the desire for entertainment
and desire for some spice. Because everything seems so boring, so bland, so
tasteless that they need something that is spicy. Desire for nuts, oranges … so
many desires you will see in Cubeba.
They desire nuts to just munch when they are bored. It’s not food but just
entertainment, stimulants like onion.
So one part of case taking is the detailed examination of the case and of the facts
whether it is mental or physical.
Exploration of states;
The second part of the case taking has to do with the artistry. And this artistry
especially has to do with the mind states. Here the exploration has to go deeper,
much deeper into the expression, so that you get the entire picture.
It comes with experience. But the basic case taking, detailed examination of the
facts. We should get it very clear before, don’t attempt to go to the next step
before you know the facts.
One of them is the observation; as the patient walks in you observe certain things,
the way the patient narrates the complaints, you observe it. The way they
behave, you observe it. And then you question and then you go in and you see
whatever you have observed, that you can understand at a deeper level, as an
expression of what is there.
One of the milestone cases I had in my life was a woman who came to me and she
stood there near the door of my consulting room and she says just like that,
pointed a finger at me and said, ‘Are you going to video record my case’? Because
I said why do you ask? She said if you insisted, if you are going to record my case, I
don’t want the case taken. I said ‘ Please sit down, we will not record you. If you
don’t mind can you tell me please, you will not be recorded. Let’s forget
everything I said, just talk about this’.
So you see one of the ways of case taking is that when you see something really
standing out, something really expressing itself, you can start taking it to
exploring more about this peculiar thing and you can go deeper and deeper into it
till you come at the centre.
So she said to me, if you are going to record my case on video, then I will feel
exposed’. I said ‘what do you mean by exposed?’ She said by exposed ‘I mean my
secret will be out to everybody’. I said ‘what do you mean by this?’ she said ‘it’s
very important for me that nobody should know something about me what I
don’t want them to know.
So she said to me, if you are going to record my case on video, then I will feel
exposed’. I said ‘what do you mean by exposed?’ She said by exposed ‘I mean my
secret will be out to everybody’. I said ‘what do you mean by this?’ she said ‘it’s
very important for me that nobody should know something about me whatever if
they will know even though it will be trivial. I like sweets. I don’t want anybody to
know that they should not know it’. I said ‘can you tell a little bit more, about this,
that they shouldn’t know about it?’ she said ‘OK, for example: if there are people
who I don’t know, they are strangers, then I don’t care if they know about me or
not.
But especially people I know or people who know me. They should not have any
of my secrets.’ I said ‘what do you mean by this?’
Slowly what happens is from one thing, which is don’t record my case, we slowly
entered into the whole being because now she is not talking about this one thing,
but that one thing which is a deeper expression of. You have to be clear now, to
understand what is going on over here. What is specific, what is peculiar, what is
it that is her perception?
So first she said my things about me I don’t want people to know, then they
should not know. Especially people who know me, especially people who I know
things which I don’t want them to know. I said ‘ok, tell me little bit more about
this’.
Then we shifted from here to her interests and hobbies, and she said one thing
that affects her the most that she finds it really horrible are the horror stories of
Nazi Germany and the holocaust and of what happened to the Jewish people.
Now when you imagine the whole story of Nazi Germany and the holocaust, the
most interesting thing and the most horrible thing was off course that the Jewish
people were being taken away but they were betrayed by people who knew that
they were Jewish. So what they were always afraid of was to be betrayed by
people who knew them rather then people who didn’t know them.
or
And her remedy was Hyosycamus. And she did so beautifully on this remedy that
not only her asthma got better but her mind changed.
And 6-8 months later, when I asked her if I could record her case and she said
what's the problem. I told her don’t you remember the things you told me in the
Now what is interesting here, is when you read the proving of Hyosycamus there
is something very very interesting.
‘ Delusion that he is being watched by the members of his family with whom he
had some slight misunderstanding; to avoid being recognized by them, he clothed
himself differently each day, and seldom left his house.’
So the whole main symptom of Hyosycamus is panic; it is very suspicious and this
panic of Hyoscyamus is a part of its Family sensation. Hyosycamus comes from
the Solanaceae family, remedies like belladonna, Hyosycamus, Stramonium,
Mandragora and the main symptom of this family is panic, terror, escape, hide,
run away, danger, threat, that he could be killed, delusion about to receive injury,
delusion about to be murdered, delusion sold as if would be.
People used to take money in Nazi Germany, if you exposed one Jew; you got
money. It was this being betrayed.
So what is interesting over here, the symptom he dresses himself differently not
to be recognized by his relatives, this is written in Hering, in Hering’s Guiding
symptoms, years and years before holocaust and it is true. So delusions basically
are not time restrained, are not time bound. They occur in different phases of
human history. They are beyond time.
But there is even a level that is deeper than delusion. In Hyoscyamus, there is a
delusion is to be betrayed, delusion is to be sold, the delusion is that he would be
hurt or he would be murdered. But beyond that is a sensation, the experience,
and that experience in Hyosycamus is of terror, panic, of needing to escape. And
that experience of panic and terror is beyond time then the delusion. And that
experience comes from the source in nature. In this case, the source is from the
family Solanaceae, that shares it’s experience.
So I was talking to you about the Case taking - the artistic form of case taking.
Let me give you another case. Here is a woman who came to me with eczema on
her both feet and she was a middle aged Christian woman who held very high
executive job in a company in Bombay. In this job, she was known for her extreme
efficiency, for a very professional attitude, but she maintained a very very straight
face and hardly showed any emotions in her office. She would just say hello and
good bye and that’s it. She would not socialize in any parties, any picnics or any
event in which her office colleagues took part. She went to Work and home, she
went to home to work, that was it.
Now she had come to me with eczema and I asked to her about eczema. And her
eyes were very shifty she kept moving her eyes here and there, not really looking
me in the eye, and she said to me, I think … the eczema is because I used some
lotion, some ointment without checking for the expiry date. Which means she
was more or less blaming herself for the eczema, putting the cause on herself.
I said to her, ‘Do you have any stress or tension in your life?’ and she said, ‘yes, I
have some tension. ‘Yes’ some tension, I asked, ‘what tension?’ She said some
tension, some family tension. And she would not elaborate on it. I wouldn’t say
anything more. I said ‘tell said tell me about this tension?’ and she said ‘well, it’s
So I asked her about her dreams. And she said reluctantly … I get dreams of shit.
And she said now I must tell you that my son is a case of delayed development,
delayed milestones and he gets convulsions. And I noticed that each time, that
I dream of the shit, my son gets a convulsion. And she said this with her eyes
looking down and moving her head here and there, her eyes here and there,
something like that, very reluctantly. And I said to her ‘what do you feel then? She
said ‘I feel so guilty because even in my pregnancy; I saw a dream in which there
was a lot of shit and the child’s head was coming out. And I feel as if I am
responsible for his illness. For his convulsion because when I get the dream, he
gets a convulsion. And she sounded extremely guilty.
This was a woman who not only suppressed her grief silent, not she not only kept
her dream quite but nobody in her organization even knew she had a son like
that. That she had a problem like that. So not demonstrated.
As if applying lotion for her was like, checking the expiry date, dreaming of the
shit, was wrong and that’s why her son got convulsion. So all this was her guilt.
And when you combine these two rubrics, and the rubric:
Interestingly if you check the rubric, ‘Dream of stools’ you will not find Cyclamen.
Because this is at a dream level, you have to go deeper than that as to what this
dream is an expression of. In her case, it’s an expression of a guilt feeling, in her
I have seen some cases with cyclamen and they have done very well.
So I was trying to illustrate the idea of Artistic case taking. And how that on the
one level you have to deal with the facts, feelings, and eliciting in one hand and
on the other hand, how you have to at a mind level go very artistically.
I will give you one more case example. It was a case of a girl of 24 with knee joint
swelling and pain. And she couldn’t move. She went to 4 different rheumatologist
and they had 4 different diagnosis. One said it is rheumatoid arthritis, one said it
is osteoarthritis, one said tuberculosis of knee joint and the fourth said you need
to be operated and actually did a surgery on her.
But it didn’t help her and the pain and the swelling was quite bad and excruciating
and she couldn’t move it. And now she was already had began with about 3-4
days of Anti tubercular treatment. But somebody had advised her to see me. And
she came to me and said ‘can homoeopathy help me?’ I said ‘sure, let me
understand your case’
Because I understand that the chief complaint with which the patient comes to us
is the crystallization of the person’s state. Why should this particular patient
develop this knee joint pain? What is the significance of it? What does it shows us
about who she is? So I told her tell me about this and she said I am afraid, that I
might lose the limb and I am afraid that they might amputate my limb. I said ‘Tell
me a little bit more, about losing your limb about amputation of your limb.’
And she said, well sometimes I get dreams of losing my father. I said what is it for
you to lose your father? She said well very very anxious. For example, I am
working in a bank, and my job is to count the money and I am always conscious
that if I make a mistake in counting & if they find money lesser, then they will take
the money out of me.
That I will lose it. So everywhere you saw anxiety, losing her limb, losing her
father, losing money.
I don’t want to ever be in this situation where I am simply thrown out. That I don’t
want you anymore. I feel marriage is unstable. Because my experience with other
people’s marriage is like that the relationship is unstable and can be lost anytime.
So what you find is, in this case, you find different expression in the chief
complaint which is her knee joint, with her father, with her fear which is with
money, her future which is the loss of a relationship, everywhere you see it’s loss
and more loss and instability. You come to the same core. This is what should
happen in case taking.
Every expression of the patient should basically come to the same core sensation,
to the same central experience, and here the central experience of stress was the
fear that things are not stable’. The fear that the knee joints are, her parents will
go away, the father she depends upon can disappear. The money on which she
depends can go away, the relationship on which she seeks support can let her
down, can disappear one day, will not be there anymore.
And the remedy that I chose for her was from this rubric was Calc flour, because it
is also a great remedy for joints and bones especially for the knees.
Now we can understand Calc flour from a totally different angle which is from the
sensation approach.
The 2nd row has to do with being together and being separate. The process of 2 nd
row is the process of labor and the process of separation of mother from the
So the idea here is the relationship, security; Calcarea is security, money, job etc.
the security can come apart anytime, it is unstable. The Calcarea is security,
money, job, relationship. And the fluoric is separation. So you cannot depend on
it, it’s unstable. That is the idea of Calc flour. So the idea of Calc flour people is ‘I
cannot be stable in my security. Security is unstable. I can lose my job, I can lose
money. My son on whom I depend can throw me out of the house, what will I do’.
This is the fear. This is the anxiety.
So I told her I am sure of your medicine, now you can stop your allopathic
medicine, you can stop your anti – Koch’s treatment. The anti tubercular
treatment they started can be stopped but she didn’t want to stop the medicine
and said ‘I am afraid. I can’t, I can’t leave it’. She was very insecure which was a
part of her state. Trust me she couldn’t depend on me. It’s even I was unstable for
her. So ultimately I had to frighten her little bit and I had to tell her ‘you better
take my medicine otherwise you could land up in very bad complications.
I could to bargain with her to try out my medicine without allopathy for one week
at least.
& luckily With Calc flour worked on her, her pain was better, her swelling was
better, she was off the anti-tubercular treatment after that.
And what is interesting is off course, within six months her knee joint was as good
as new and then she decided to get married and she got married and she settled
down and it worked out very beautifully.
Now we can talk a little bit about the evaluation of the case.
After you take a case you need to evaluate. To need to know what to give value
to?
Traditionally we known that we have to give value to the mentals and generals
and that they are more important than particular symptoms.
Earlier after the Kent, we had the Synthetic Repertory. In 1975 -76 I think it was
published which has 3 volumes, it was by Barther and Klunker. The first volume
had mind, the second volume had modalities, cravings and aversions and the third
volume had to do with menses and sexuality. So this is the mentals and generals
of Homoeopathy.
The nerves have to do with all the modalities of the cold, of the heat, the taste,
the cravings, the aversions, symptoms of the nerves. The endocrines have to do
with symptoms of the weight or the height or the constitution types. Height and
obesity, weight. Sexual symptoms, hormonal, and menstrual symptoms have to
do with the endocrine glands. And the immune system has to do with tendency to
cold & cough, low resistance and allergies..
So the symptoms that have to do with the nerves, the endocrines and the
immune system and the mind are important. These are called the psycho, neuro,
endocrine, immunological axis what we call the PNEI axis. So what is this PNEI?
When we try to understand it and we see that is the central controlling systems of
the body.
All the parts of the body are regulated by the nervous system, by the central
nervous system, the sympathetic, the parasympathetic and they organs are
regulated by the hormones and by the immune system.
The symptoms of this main controlling system we can call this as the central
disturbance. The central disturbance then causes disturbance in organs systems.
The symptoms of the central controlling system or the central disturbance are
therefore of primary importance because this is what comes first. This is what
comes first in the patient, this is what comes first in a proving. And then there are
symptoms from the different organs … you know this thing from your own
experience. When we fall sick, we fall sick as a whole, by experiencing it in our
mind state, in our moods, we find changes in our general energy level, in our
nervous system, we find changes in our hormonal system and then after that we
find changes in individual organ systems. So therefore, we know these changes
precede and they are of much higher order in evaluation than local or organ
symptoms.
Similarly, in a proving you will find that the mind state and the general symptoms
will be common in all provers but the particular symptoms will differ from prover
to prover according to his organ susceptibility. It is therefore less important that
the particular symptoms have to match than it is more important the mind
symptoms and the generals have to match.
What is a Sensation?
A sensation is what you feel and what you perceive. It’s what you actually
experience. So in the case of the Hyosycamus woman what she felt and she
perceived was fear and panic. The desire to escape, the desire to hide, the desire
to run. This is her experience. She always wanted to hide behind something.
When you ask her what is it that you feel? What is it that you experience? Then
for example in Solanaceae: the experience is of violence, sudden violence which
causes you a fright and a flight reaction. We see that experience in all Solanaceae
What is Miasm?
A Miasm is the depth and pace of that sensation. How is this fear and panic? To
what depth is that panic perceived? To what pace is it perceived?
- Is the penic something that comes suddenly and goes suddenly? That is acute
miasm.
- Is it experienced like this is a danger period, this panic lasts for certain critical
period and if you pass this critical period somehow then you safe. This is the
feeling in typhoid. The feeling is as if I have to struggle very hard through this
short term period and this danger passes and everything is fine. This is in
Hyosycamus in the Solanaceae family, the typhoid miasm has this pace.
- In some other person the same panic is experienced in a different pace. For
example somebody can say there is panic and fear but I must not express it but I
must be in total control in a panicky situation. I must not express it, I must control
it. This is cancer miasm, the remedy in Solanaceae family in Cancer miasm is
Tabacum. The feeling of Tabacum ia feeling of panic but one has to be in total
command and control in that panic situation. One must not allow the panic to be
chaotic or unruled. One must be in complete command and in control.
So that’s how Tabacum people behave, if they are in an anxious situation, they go
out and smoke. The wife is giving birth to a baby and he is smoking because it
sees in that situation like he is out of control, he can’t do anything. That is the
whole idea of tobacco. And tabacum is a great remedy for effects of tobacco.
The materia medica doesn’t come from planet Mars. Coffea, the main idea of
coffea is stimulation. When do you drink more coffee? You drink more coffee
when you want more ideas, when you want to study for the exams? When you
want to keep awake you don’t drink coffee, when your wife is giving birth to a
baby, you smoke. When you want to get ideas, you drink coffee. When you want
to control, you smoke. So it’s not rocket science and it’s common sense and it is
reflected in our Materia medica.
But the depth of it, the pace of it can be sudden – suddenly coming & suddenly
going. That’s acute miasm.
Belladonna is acute of solanaceae. Here the panic comes suddenly and disappear
suddenly. And the only reaction you have, it’s instinctive, you just have the react
instinct.
I remember a case of a child, he must have been about 10-12 yrs old and he was
the son of two allopathic doctors and He had recurrent attacks of malaria & each
time he would be given antimalarials every month and still he was getting attacks
of malaria and after doing this for 6 -7 months so they got him to Homoeopathy
because they couldn’t stop the recurrence. I asked him ‘describe to me, during
the fever, during the heat, what do you really experience? And he said ‘I feel as if
a train is just approaching me and it is going to hit me and I really have to run fast
from there. I feel really panic’. And I said ‘tell me little bit more, what are the
things that bother you in life?’ He says, ‘for sure it’s my sister’. And I said ‘what
does your sister do?’ he said ‘my sister is a few yrs older to me. And what she
does is she really frightens me from time to time. I am sitting & reading a book
and she just comes and she coils a snake toy/ figure into my book. I get so scared.
And she keeps troubling me, harassing me with this kind of fright situation.
So here is this case … you see that this child also experiences a panic like
Solanaceae where he has to run or he has to escape. But the pace of it is
intermittent. He has malaria which is intermittent. He has a sister who is
intermittent and the problem is persistent and keeps coming up from time to
time. Whether it be his fever or his sister. This kind of pace that is always there
and keeps coming up from time to time in Malarial miasm. So here you see the
same experience of panic is found in a pace that is Malarial. The remedy for this is
So now I hope ,I would make it to you clearer the difference between sensation
and miasm. The sensation is the experience and how much, how acutely, how
chronically, in what pace. In what depth, and what desperation that is the miasm.
35] Case of a marasmic child who would bite and hit; Abrotanum.
This child of another Allopath, a surgeon, 3-4 years of old. He came with fever for
some weeks; persistent fever that was lasting for weeks and was losing a lot of
weight despite a good appetite. The child was hyperactive and he could not sit in
one place. He would often hit people and bite people if he was stopped from
doing what he wanted to do.
Now here was a case which seemed like a case of Tuberculinum because the child
was very hyperactive, very restless, he was eating well but losing flesh and he was
having fever for a prolonged period of time. This looked like a picture of
Tuberculinum. I gave him Tuberculinum, nothing happened it didn’t help him.
Then I thought he is a cranky child, hitting people, biting people ; this could be
Cina but Cina didn’t help him earlier.
And then I didn’t know what to do. These two remedies I gave didn’t help with
fever still persisting. So I took the family Compositae family, because here was
hitting, biting to causing injury. And injury you know is from the family of Arnica,
the Compositae family. And then you had the pace which was long lasting fever,
losing flesh and very very restlessness and hyperactive. This was like Tubercular
miasm here.
And the sensation or the experience here, he was demonstrating here through
action was surgery. Therefore, I thought could I choose for him a remedy from
Compositae family but which has the pace like Tuberculosis. Then I looked in the
repertory and I found Abrotanum, which has this idea of Tuberculosis and it has a
feeling of Compositae family. So, thinking this, I gave Abrotanum and within
The sensation and miasm represent the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of a phenomenon.
For example; when we say that a giraffe is a tall animal, we are identifying it by
two things, we are identifying it by tall and animal. A giraffe is not a mixture of tall
and animal, you cannot separate the tall or the animal part from each other.
Similarly, the sensation and the miasm describe the; what and how of
phenomenon, you cannot separate them.
For example: if You say milk is a white liquid, then you will ask, is the milk white or
is the milk liquid, I would say both. the liquid represents the consistently and
white represents the color and the milk is white liquid, it means it has a certain
consistency and a certain color. In the same way, a person’s experience has a
certain the pace and depth which is the miasm, and the certain experience or the
feeling which is the sensation and they are always together.
In every major general sensation, delusion, dream, situation, feeling and local
sensation, we must see if the patient comes to that sensation and the miasm.
In every major expression of the patient, you must find the same pace and the
depth and you should find the same experience and the same miasm and the
same sensation. And what is important is that in a given sensation we must
always find it together. You cannot find the miasm till you get the sensation.
When you come to the sensation, then you ask the question, what is the pace,
You cannot take the sensation from one part of the case and miasm from other
part of the case and mix it together. This doesn’t work.
For example:
The patient says ‘I like to control things’ in one part of the case and in another
part of the case, she said ‘I feel the constricting sensation’. So you cannot say
here, she said controlling there so this is Cancer miasm. And she said constricting
here. So it is Euphorbiaceae. So now … I will choose Cancer miasm, Euphorbiaceae
family. This kind of marriage does not work. You must find the control in the
sensation of constriction or you must find out the sensation of constriction to
what pace and depth. Constriction is experience. Once you get the experience
then you can get the miasm, not otherwise.
Now the 3rd thing is our system. Besides sensation and miasm is the levels.
What is a level?
The level is the Level of Experience. Where exactly do you experience the
sensation. You do experience the level of sensation at a level of local parts; that
means you are in level 1 / 2. Or do you experience it at the level of the mind and
body, in which case you are at level 3. Or do you experience it at an imaginary
level at a level of delusion, level 4 and dreams or do you experience the level of
whole being at a general level of level 5 which is the sensation and at what level
you experience it that decides the potency of the remedy that you will give to the
patient.
The miasm and the sensation together helps you select the remedy. The level of
experience helps you select the potency. Because if the level of experience is at
the level of pathology, you could select the 6th potency. At the level of facts is
local symptom, the 30th potency. At the level of mind and body, emotions and
body is level 3, 200 potency. At the level of delusion or imagination, is the 4th
level, 1M potency. And at the level of general sensation which is the 5 th level, you
select the 10 M potency.
And we shall continue to talk about this in our future talks. I shall conclude here
with this talk.
One is that within a couple of days, we shall be putting the lecture, this whole
lecture on the Archives, so that if anybody of you had problems with sound or
with picture or with any pauses, you could see it with very good quality in the
Archives. We shall also be posting the entire transcript of this lecture in order to
help you understand better or follow it better.
And I invite from you to send on the email some questions or comments or
discussions or your cases or rubrics from the Repertory that you have used,
peculiar symptoms that you found. If you could share it on the forum. We shall try
to answer your questions on the forum also. And in the next talk I shall take it
further and what I shall talk of, the summary of it also I shall post it on the forum.
So that you read it also the summary. You can see the references what you have
to read before and what you should have with you when we have the talk.
And the next topic will be Integration of the Repertory and the Materia Medica on
the one hand and on the System of Kingdoms and Miasms on the other hand; and
how it all comes together. We shall see on the next talk with more examples and I
wish you a great week and