Remedy Pictures, Development of

"If you can cure everyone, you don't have to develop your knowledge."

Introduction
Regularly, people ask me how I came to the ideas that I have explained in my books and seminars. Where is the information coming from about remedies, stages and series? What is the logic behind it? To what extent does it follow the rules and ideas presented by Hahnemann and in which aspects does it depart from that? Brita Gudjons asked to write an article about it. Questions of Brita Gudjons were:
1. How you found out about the similarities of the elements and their compounds.
2. How you started your idea and theory and proved the facts.
3. How you continued to set up the characters of the known and less known elements (like the Lanthanides)
4. How you manage to find the right remedy for your patients, like what is the special in your anamnestic set-up.
5. What can you recommend doctors to do if they want to follow your system and ideas.


Fluorine as example

I think the best way to explain things is by following an example. The primary remedy pictures are often showing only the negative sides, often in such a way that it is a caricature of the whole picture. It takes time and effort to find out what is behind all the strange and peculiar expressions, to find out what is the essence or problem of a remedy. In this case I will discuss Fluorine and its compounds as an example of how the ideas and themes are developed and brought to an essence.
The Fluorine compounds known in the past were Calcium fluoratum and Fluoricum acidum. In the physical realm they were known to have many destructive (syphilitic) symptoms. In the mind we see the fear of poverty in calcium fluoratum and as typical symptoms in Fluoricum acidum the adulterous behaviour . It is about sex and money. Another expression would be "sex, drugs and rock and roll". This picture shows Fluorine in a quite negative way.


Fluorine in Homeopathy and Minerals
In homeopathy and Minerals, the above picture was mostly repeated. Money and sex were the main themes. Added to that were glamour and glitter in the form of cars, clothes and jewels. This was an extension of the money aspect, with a desire to have money and a fear to have poverty. Added to that was also the hard superficial quality of Fluorine. This came from the nature of fluorine, which is used in the body for the enamel of the teeth. The enamel is hard and smooth and things don't adhere easily to it. The same quality is also found in Teflon, the anti-stick of pans, which is polytetrafluoroethylene, or polyfluoretheen. All the hydrogens in this chemical are replaced by fluorine atoms. The physical quality of Fluorine of not making contact, not being attached is reflected in the psychological behaviour of superficial contacts, easy sex, adulterous behavior that was known for Fluoricum acidum. When the superficial quality is exaggerated it comes even to psychopathy, a lack of empathy. This can lead to hardness. This picture of fluorine was confirmed in cases were fluorine compounds acted well. It was shown that it could be extended to unknown remedies like Magnesium fluoratum, Kali fluoratum, Natrum fluoratum and Barium fluoratum, a good confirmation of the themes. So the picture of the Fluorine element was extended, but it was still quite unclear were it came from, what is the origin of it.




Fluorine in Homeopathy and the Elements
In homeopathy and the Elements The picture of Fluorine was further developed by it's place in the periodic system: column 17 called Stage 17, row 2 called the Carbon series.

The themes of these 2 are:
Carbon series: Individual, Person, I, Value, Meaning, Self-worth, Ethics: Good and Bad, Body, Life, Lust, Possessions, Hero , I weakness , Magic, Myths, Child.
Stage 17: Exit, Letting go, Holding on, Loose, Demanding, Climax, Condemning , Banned, Fleeing.

The combination of those two classes leads to :
Group analysis
Letting go of values: immoral.
Letting go of values: breaking taboos.
Holding on to self-worth: recognition.
Holding on to the self: glamour.
Demanding self-worth.
The end of the self.
Feeling of emptiness in the self.
Wanting to get a lot out of life.
Holding on to possessions.
Condemning physical goods: glitter, money, sex.
Taking everything that is of value.
Letting go of property: gambling.
Giving away possessions.
Holding on to the physical: sex.
Taking in order to prove self-worth: sex.
A demanding and aggressive person: hard.
Letting go of values: psychopathic.
Letting go of the essence: superficial.
Letting go of the personality, giving up.
A fleeting personality.
Letting go of the ego: the hero.
The demanding borderline: narcissist.
Letting the body go: lust, passion for life.


It turned out that the basic themes of sex and money were general themes of the Carbon series. The sex is the expression of the vital energy and the desire have physical contact, the experience the sense of touch. The money is an expression of having the desire to survive, to have money for food, clothing and housing, to be able to pay a doctor when needed. We see the fear of poverty also in other remedies of the Carbon series, in Oxygen and the oxydatum like Silicea, Arsenicum album and Alumina, we see it in the Carbonicums. So the theme of money was generalised over the Carbon series, but it also became clear that the basic need behind it was survival, a fear a death. The Carbon series strongly has the identification with the body and thus the fear to die when the body dies.
The money theme in Fluorine is colour by Stage 17 which makes it come to a climax. The fear of losing the money is at its maximum, there is a fear to loose their money any moment, it is almost over. They have the feeling that they need money fast, as life can be over any moment in Stage 17. So they have a tendency to take (stage 17) what they need, they have a tendency to steal and gamble. Here we see the immoral qualities of Fluorine, they let go ( Stage 17) the moral values (CS).
The aspect of value and meaning, morality, is typical fro the Carbon series. This has the meaning of wanting to be of value oneself, one not only just wants to be, but also wants to be good. They want to be seen by their parents as good, so that they won't leave them alone. In Fluorine this aspect of morality is often lost. They have the feeling that they cannot be good, that they loose their goodness and will be seen as bad. This goes together with their immoral quality in the sense of "when I am bad anyhow, it doesn't matter if I do bad deeds or not".
In the Elements also the positive side of Fluorine came to the front. besides being a bad guy, they can also be the hero, the hero that offers himself to rescue the princess from the dragon. They can be the dragon, but also the prince. It can be the prostitute who offers herself for others. The highest aspect of fluorine is the to give themselves away and see that their body can be given without any problem. They let go of the idea of their body being them.
So in Elements the picture of Fluorine became more full, deeper and also the positive sides arose.


Fluorine in Secret Lanthanides
The picture of Fluorine in Secret Lanthanides is in essence not very different from that in Elements, but in practice other themes became more prominent, making the picture more precise. Basic for Fluorine is the feeling of being rejected (Stage 17) as a child (Carbon series). This can be in the situation of unwanted children, or children having lost their parents. It gives them the feeling of being abandoned (Stage 17) by life (Carbon series), by God (Carbon series). Very typical expression for them turned out to be "I have to do it alone in life", "There is no-one who will take care of me when I need it" or "I can only trust myself". They feel very alone basically and that is where the hardness comes from. They feel alone in the world and cannot trust anyone.
So fluorine people don't have to be immoral, criminal, prostitutes and so on. They can be very nice and moral people, but with they feeling that they have to do it alone in the world. The criminal aspect is just a primitive and caricatural aspect of Fluorine. It is just an expression, although very typical, but isn't needed to prescribe a fluorine combination.


Fluorine in society
Recently I heard of a homeopath prescribing for children in an orphanage. She prescribed many remedies known for orphans like Magnesium carbonicum and Natrium muriaticum. But for 50% of the orphans she needed Fluoricum acidum. It is very typical: totally (hydrogen) rejected (Stage 17) and abandoned (Stage 17) children (Carbon series).
A year ago I read a very nice book of Steven Levitt "Freaconomics". Chapter 4 is: The controversial role legalized abortion has played in reducing crime. Levitt explored this topic in an earlier paper entitled "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime." The dramatic rise in crime in the sixties and seventies in the United States and the even more spectacular decline in the early nineties. Many explanations for the decline were proposed by sociologist such as more policy, higher penalties and better social care, but the author brought it back to the legalisation of abortion in 1973 in the United States. He showed that in the few states where the legalisation was 3 years earlier, the decline in crime rate also came 3 years earlier. He also showed that the decline was especially the result of the decline in crime of man between 17 and 20. His conclusion was that the legalisation resulted in less unwanted and together with that deprived children. It is a big confirmation for the fluorine theme of rejected and unwanted children.




Lanthanides
The development of the picture of the Lanthanides needed another tool. As they were completely unknown in homeopathy I started with doing provings of them. I did a proving of all of them as a metal, except for Europium as an oxydatum, as Europium is too reactive to be potentiesd as a metal. The form I choose was that of meditation provings, as they can be done quite fast and can give good hints of the remedy. I did them on my own for reasons of ease. In those provings I got hints which I then used in prescribing in cases. The cases made the pictures of the remedies more full and precise.
Another starting point was the class of the Lanthanides, that of the Gold series, as they are part of it.
So gradually the themes became more clear. The physical qualities of the Lanthanides also added to it. They have strong electric and magnetic qualities and are used electro-magnetic equipment. They are also used in a lot of video equipment like colour televisions and LCD screen, lasers and optical camera's. They give colour to the screens. Here we see the connection with the visual theme of the Gold series and the connection with the eyes.
Gradually it became clear that much of the diseases were auto-immune. The immune system as a control system (Gold series) was out of order. There was a confusion between what was self and not self. Mentally this is expressed as a desire to go their own way. The power theme of the Gold series is specialised in the Lanthanides as a desire to have power over themselves, to be in control of their own life. This central issue of the Lanthanides was also expressed in the provings, but it only became clear as a central and unavoidable them in the clinical case. The logic of the similarity with the auto-immune system made the picture a whole, a rounded picture.


Development of Remedy pictures
The above shows that I use many aspects in the development of remedy pictures. Of course there is first the literature, the knowledge of homeopathy in the form Materia Medica and repertories. Then there are provings that have been in the past and recently and provings that I have done myself, but the provings are for me mere hints, I don't see them as providing definite pictures. The form of the provings is for me likewise not so essential as the result is not definite at all. So I tend to do easy provings like dream provings and meditation provings. And my experience is that they often give very valuable and reliable results. But one has to sort out what is reliable and what is just accidental rubbish.

Very essential for the development are the clinical cases. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Patients can tell you often very precisely what a remedy does, what it can cure. They can you the essential difference between before and after the remedy, especially when the remedy is a very deep acting one.

I have learned most of the remedies from my patients. In my experience the Materia Medica and repertories are very often very superficial, expressing symptoms that hardly have any differential value. Of course one has to be careful here too in deducing the remedy picture from cured cases. One has to sort out those cases which are just palliation. One has to sort out the symptoms in cured cases that were coming from another problem, another remedy, but the essence of a cured case is often very reliable.

Another source is knowledge of the remedy. The physical qualities of a substance often have an expression in the remedy picture. The translation of those qualities into health and disease symptoms, into mental and emotional problems can be quite difficult. It is a symbolic language, but in the end is has to make sense. Like the use of the Lanthanides in light and colour equipment is reflected in eye and vision symptoms physically and view and vision symptoms mentally. The name and cultural use of a remedy is part of the knowledge of a remedy too and can be used also. The mythology can be used as I have done with the similarity between the Lanthanides and the works of Hercules, or the voyage of Odysseus.

There is a strange phenomenon in homeopathy that knowledge outside of homeopathy was almost completely discarded. As if the substance and the remedy picture had nothing to do with each other. Most homeopaths didn't even know what the remedies were, what they were made from. It arose out of paragragh 21 of the Organon, where Hahnemann states that symptoms can only be deduced from provings. I have shown (Dogmatism in homeopathy) that Hahnemann is incorrect in this, but a big part of the homeopathic community still sticks to this statement.

One of the problems is that it sets homeopathy apart from the other sciences. It makes homeopathy as a science completely estranged from the rest of science, which is a contradiction in itself.

A very important source of information is classification. Remedies belong to classes and as such share qualities. This is so in physics, chemistry, botany, zoology and all sciences. As I have argued in "Homeopathy and Classifications" and "Homeopathy and Science" classifications are essential for science. Science doesn't even exist without classifications, as language is impossible without classification. Classification give logic to essences and symptoms, they bring them into perspective, make them understandable. And they make things predictable, in our case remedy pictures. Classification has helped me enormously in the development of homeopathic knowledge. Without it I wouldn't produced one tenth of what it brought me now.
I know it is also attacked by many homeopaths as not being homeopathy, not being "Classical homeopathy", but I cannot understand how someone who presents himself as scientific can be opposed to classifications. It is for me a fundamental contradiction.


Literature
Hahnemann S., Organon of medicine, Edition 6B, New Delhi, 985.
Hahnemann S., Chronic Diseases, 985, New Delhi.
Kent J.T, Lectures on homeopathic philosophy. Thorsons Publishers Wellinborough. 979.
Scholten Jan, Homeopathy and Minerals, Utrecht, 1996, ISBN 90-748-70-7.
Scholten Jan, Homeopathy and the Elements, Utrecht, 996, ISBN 90-748-705-X.
Scholten Jan, Secret Lanthanides, Utrecht, 2006, ISBN 978-90-74817-16-5.
Scholten Jan, Families and Perfinity, Homeopathic Links, 2004.
Scholten Jan, Homeopathy and classifications, Homeopathic Links, 2004.
Scholten Jan, Dogmatism in Homeopathy, Interhomeopathy, September 2008.
Scholten Jan, Homeopathy and Classifications, in Secret Lanthanides.
Scholten Jan, Homeopathy and Science, in Secret Lanthanides.
Scholten Jan, Theory of Provings, Interhomeopathy, January 2007.