Homeopathy

Use a Materia Medica.

Find your similicum.

Select remedies.

Promote Health.

A new and original method of homeopathic remedy selection - use homeopathy and the Materia Medica for prevention, cure and happiness.

Introduction

Many people are unaware that homeopathy can be used by healthy people to increase balance and well being. As physical illness comes from the mind, then happiness is also a preventative, not only making you a happier person but also restoring balance to your mind and thus preventing illness. Being unhappy isn’t really an option as science now knows that the immune system is linked to the mind and so everyday we are either making ourselves happy and thus healthy, or we are making ourselves miserable and, little by little, heading towards illness. We can make ourselves happy or sad but the effort required is the same.

      If you’re reading this in perfect health then it’s a good time find your similicum, that’s the medicine that matches the totality of yourself. Homeopathic medicines work on a theory of vibrations and each of us has a specific vibration. As none of us are perfect, then neither are the vibrations. Now you’re reading this page so I imagine you might be pursuing self-improvement. Perhaps you’re already trying to refine your mind, it’s workings, and your contentment. As you become a better person so then the vibrations will change and also your chance of ill health recedes. However, there’s no harm in helping the process along with a system of medicine that is safe, and very effective. Here I’m going to show you how to find the correct remedy, seemingly a simple thing until you wander into the plethora of information.

Materia Medica

So you're healthy now, though you know your mind isn't perfect. If you accept that happiness in itself can prevent ill health, you may decide to use homeopathy as well as the other methods at this site to clear the mental blocks to fulfilment. You will need a Materia Medica, that's a list of all the remedies, or medicines, what they are used for and which type of person benefits from them. The remedies are listed like people, so one remediy may be called Nux Vomica, and it's for stressed out, worrying-type people that like animals and feel better when it's raining, that's only an example - Nux Vomica isn't described like that, I'm just showing you how the remedies are described like people, so if you read that remedy and it sounded closest to you, then you would be a Nux Vomica-type person. That would mean Nux Vomica is your similicum, the remedy that matches your totality.

      The Materia Medica is a huge book and it would take too long to go through the whole thing so it comes with a reperetory, that's like an index of sorts. Each remedy describes the type of person it matches through likes and dislikes, favourite foods, aversion to heat, physical symptoms etc. - so it matches the whole person rather that any individual symptom, which is why it can be a preventative. Each description is a rubric, so say one remedy lists Aversion to heat, then that is a rubric. So the repertory is a list of rubrics which a homeopath goes through and each time they choose one that matches, they note it and list an abreviation for each remedy. For example, 'Aversion to heat' may list seven remedies. So in the end they've chosen lots of Rubrics and have listed lots of remedies, most of them repeated a number of time, so they score them. Each remedy is counted for how many times it was indicated and the highest scoring ones are looked up in the Materia Medica, and the closest match is selected. That won't necesarily be the one that scored highest, but that one that feels closest. The repertory (index) is divided into the three separate parts of Mind/Mentals, like a psychology of the person, what makes them happy, sad, any phobias etc. Part two is Body, physical ailments, illness tendencies etc. Part three is modalities, whast makes them feel better or worse, hot drinks, sunny days, solitude, consolation etc. When the rubrics are selected the homeopath is sure to include some from each section, if they were all chosen from the Body section for example, then the match wouldn't be a totality and thus less likely to work.

Sections of the reperetory

Part one is Mind, so it lists likes and dislikes, fears, unusual habits, food cravings and what like. I’m assuming you’re not seriously ill now and so for our purposes, to help us restoring balance and happiness to our lives, this will be the most important. Part two is Body, so anything wrong with your physical form. Even if you are well, then this is still important as each personality type has tendencies to certain illness. So for example, when you finish this diagnosis, going mainly by Mind, you end up with a medicine for a fast thinking, worrying, highly stressed kind of individual. Now when you read all about the selected remedy in the Materia Medica you’ll find that the Mind part matches you but also tension headaches and skin disease, which you do have. So you see the mind part gives that personality type a tendency to these problems, worriers get tension headaches and eczema. Now you read on and see palpitations and heart attacks, you don’t get these, but as that personality type, then this is what you would be prone too and this is what you’ll be preventing in the long term by balancing your mind with the correct similicum. The last repertory section is Modalities, this is the things that make you feel better or worse in yourself. It’s something that makes the remedy very specific to you.

      When you go to find the book you’ll find there’s a lot published about homeopathy that can’t really help you. Some books are very simple, I mean like a homeopathic first aid book, but many then to focus on one of the three spheres. Remember that the repertory is in the three parts of Mind, Body and Modalities and to find the correct medicine, then generally the chosen Rubrics come from all three groups.

Because homeopathy is an unchanging science, what works works, so the best books are well-established ones. Big, thick expensive things you’d try and get a library to order for you. These can do the job but even though the principles of homeopathy don’t change, society does. So you’ll find the best books that most professional homeopaths use are also dated, in language use but also some of the Rubrics mentioned. So when it talks about hysteria, it uses she, but for over-work always he. Also they might mention problems of self-abuse of bachelors or mental derangement of long term spinster! Well, O.K. that’s pretty weird. The thing is that these classics are, generally, the best books. I think if you bear in mind the times that they were written and what was accepted 'fact' at that time, then you can just make allowances.

Using the Book

Right, lets assume you’ve found your book. If you’ve got a good, serious and comprehensive work rather than a chatty useless one, then it can look pretty intimidating. It isn’t; This is what to do.

      First turn to the repertory. Don’t worry that it looks a huge, complicated mess. The first section will probably be Mind. Each entry might look something like this :

Weeps easily at music. Bell; Ars; Arn.n; Caust; Rhus. T; Zinc M; Calc.c.

So the first thing you have to do is to go through the book and decide which Rubrics you are going to choose to point you towards your totality and thus similicum. There are some very important points to remember.

Concamitants

In the repertory, after some rubrics there’s often a list called contaminants. A contaminant is a Rubric that arises with another one without being linked to it. So for example you might be going through the fear section and it’s listed fear of dogs. So you choose this. But in the contaminant list afterwards you’ll pick what makes that fear specific to you and this will bring you to a greater totality. Many people are afraid of dogs so picking this on it’s own isn’t so specific to you alone. Yet in the contaminant section it lists all the things that may make that fear specific to you. To return to the dog example, You choose fear of dogs as a rubric from the mind section, but you don’t have a fear of dogs you know, only strange ones, the fear is worse when you’re menstruating as you’re more on edge, and if the dog barks then your fear also increases, then you would select all of these concamitants. First the fear of dogs in the fear section, then the three contanitants that make that fear specific to you. Now in the fear section another person might have chosen fear of falling asleep due to the expectation of night terrors, fine, they select that rubric, yet the contaminants they choose to go with it could be that same as another person chose to go with the earlier dog example. They worry more of night-terrors if there are strangers present, during menstruation and loud noises. They would check a different fear but the same contaminants. I hope you understand me so far. It's a mix and match kind of thing, not choosing pre-selected rubrics but linking them to make the selections closer to you and you alone.

Understanding the Language

Now some Rubrics are really weird. You have to remember they way homeopathy developed, on the basis that like cures like. So if there’s a poisonous plant that causes a skin rash on the left hand, then in a minute dose the same plant will cure a rash on the left hand. So when the first pioneers wanted to know what a medicine or plant would cure in a small dose they did a proving. That is, they took the substance in massive doses as an experiment, so they discovered what it caused in a large dose, and would cure in a small one. So you can imagine that some of the symptoms they may have had would be bizarre. So in the Rubric section in your repertory it lists the most extreme forms of Rubric and the wording will look strange, especially in the Mind section. Let me give you a few examples.

Imagines they are in possession of two noses.
Imagines there is a separate consciousness inside of them telling them what to do.

      So what you’re looking there are the most severe version of what the substance would produce in massive doses during the proving. If you suffer from these Rubrics as they literally described then an orthodox doctor and Thorazine may be in order; you would scale down the severity. For example, if you had a very domineering mother who was always barking orders at you, and you now feel that often, even though your mother died years ago, you still feel obliged to do the things she would have told you to do - she’s like an inner-voice - then you could pick

Feels as though there is a separate consciousness inside telling them what to do.

The other example is applicable to myself. Often when I drink from a cup (it’s not the same from a glass, God knows why) I imagine I can smell fish in it, though no one else can. So I could choose

feels in possession of two noses.

Actually that would be a good Rubric as it’s very unique to me and so would help find a similicum very relevant to myself. I may also look up,

imagines smell or aversion to fish.

      So before I write about the scoring system of the ones you have chosen I’ll just say some points how best to select the Rubrics, otherwise you may choose half the repertory and be there for days (like the first time I did it). One thing, as I’ve already mentioned, is to give stress to very unusual or specific Rubrics. For example, I chew weird things, I always have. I’m sure Freud would say it was an oral fixation. When I was at school I used to tease thread out of my tie and chew them until it had holes in. When I read a novel, I tear off the top two millimeters of each page to chew without knowing I’m doing it. Now that’s a great Rubric because it’s very specific to myself, but looking through the repertory then I’m very unlikely to find a Rubric called Ate his own tie when at school so I’d go for something that can be interpreted as this. So in my repertory there’s a Rubric listed:

Desires to eat indigestible things, like chalk, pencils etc.

Now when it says that it doesn’t mean in the extreme, like someone chewing up a couple of pencils a day and putting chalk in the microwave with the pizza. I can chose that Rubric for myself because it’s a possible interpretation. Don’t take the Rubric sentences literally, because unless you’re in Bedlam then you’ll end up choosing nothing! Obviously if you have a very severe Rubric then you would give that a lot of extra weight. So, if your fear of dogs stopped you going out the house, then that would be important.

      Another important Rubric choice is to go for the most recent thing. So if you’ve always been scared of dogs it’s significant. If you developed that fear in the last couple of months, then it’s much more important as it’s an indication of your current Rubric picture, or vibrational state.

Marking the Remedies

Now the complicated part. The following is going to take you some time, but nothing that’s worth anything is quick, I guess. You’ll have to go through the whole repertory. Rather than mess about writing a million things on a piece of paper I did it like this for the first stage. I got two highlighting pens, a red and a green. I opened page one and read each Rubric. When a Rubric applied to me then I would mark it in green. When it applied to me but I wanted to give it more "strength", for one of the reasons listed above, like it was recent, or very unusual, then I would mark it in red. Next, occasionally, there was something very, very specific that I felt was extremely important, so I would mark in red, but put an asterisk by it. This made it an "elimination Rubric". I’ll tell you about that later.

      So you see what we’re doing at this first stage. We’re going through the repertory and choosing our Rubrics and grading how much we want to choose them on a scale of one to three. Now you might be the kind of person who doesn’t like writing in books, my repertory was second-hand and falling to bits, or perhaps your copy is from the library. So you could do this in pencil in the margin. When you want to pick a Rubric then you could write the number 1 in the margin. When you want to strong pick it, then you could write two. And an asterisk is an asterisk. So this is the first stage.

Scoring the Remedies

Next you need to make a table to score the remedies. On the left hand of a piece of paper you will have to list each remedy. Now don’t worry because a lot of remedies will only get one mention so they will be eliminated in the next stage. Along the top you’ll write the scoring in three separate sections. This is getting really complicated. Let me give you an example. Say you want to score "fear of dogs" and it lists the remedies . Bell; Ars; Arn.n; Caust; Rhus. T; Zinc M; Calc.c. You’ll notice the remedies are either normal, underlined, boldface or italics. That means each one gets a different score. This can vary with repertories so check in the introduction, but generally noirmal=1; italics=2 Underlined=3 Bold=4. That's because they're more indicated for that Rubric. Now according to the method I’ve developed, you’ve also marked everything as strong or normal (red or green) so if you’d marked it green (normal) then each remedy would get a score as above. Yet if it’s marked red (strong) then the marks are doubled i.e. Normal=2 italics=4 Underlined=6 and Bold=8. You see, this way I do it is much better than the way anyone else says it should be done because the standard way is, either you don’t choose a Rubric or you do. What we are trying to do here is to pick something very specific to you. With my Rubric system of you giving a higher grade to the ones you wish to emphasize, then you will be picking something much more specific to yourself. So you understand this now? You’ll go through and you’ll tally each point into the table. Some remedies will get lots of mentions, and some only a few. The scoring part is in three columns. Mind, Body and Modalities. So if one remedy got a 4 in the Fear of dogs list, then you would mark it in the Mind column. It’s important to separate it like this because the remedy you end up deciding is your similicum will ideally be represented in all three sections, or it doesn’t represent a totality. Now you remember the asterisks? That doesn’t count as an extra mark. You just asterisk the remedies on the chart to let you know they’re eliminating Rubrics, that means that it’s very desirable that the remedy you pick has an asterisk.

Culling the Remedies

Next stage is to get the calculator out and add up all of the numbers each remedy obtained to give each one a total. Now you can do a little culling. First, cross out any low scoring remedies. Glance at the totals columns and get a feel for what the average is. Anything less than 20%of the average can go. Next check for remedy that isn’t represented in all three columns of Mind, Body and Modalities; unless it had a very high mark in the mind section, scrub it. Right, that’s stage two. I’m putting a sample table here.

A Sample Table

Now we’re on the last stage. After the culling there shouldn’t be too many remedies left. Maybe 20 - 25, don’t worry if not. Now the point isn’t to pick the highest score. The whole repertory rigmarole isn’t to pick the definite similicum. It’s to pick the likely so that you don’t have to read the entire Materia Medica.

Marking the Materia Medica

You now have the most likely candidates you can start looking up their descriptions in the Materia Medica. Go through and see if any really stands out or hits you. If it does - fine. You’ve got it. If not, and that’s most likely, we go on. Remember, when you read the descriptions of the remedies, none will match you completely. Even a very close remedy have Rubrics, modalities, etc. listed which won’t apply to you; fine, try and get the closest match. If you can narrow it down to five or so but can’t quite get it, no worry. Out with the highlighting pens again and do a scoring of it. So you read each sentence, and each sentence can either be marked STRONG YES; NORMAL YES; STRONG NO; NORMAL NO.

 

STRONG YES = RED HIGHLIGHT

 

NORMAL YES = RED UNDERLINE

 

STRONG NO = GREEN HIGHLIGHT

 

NORMAL NO = GREEN UNDERLINE

      So if, under a remedy you see "fear of dogs" and that’s a very severe Rubric for you, highlight it in red. If it’s mild, underline it in red. If you love dogs and they’re your entire life, highlight in green. If you quite like them, underline in green. When you’ve gone right through then you can give the remedy a second mark. Strong yes (red highlight)=+2. Normal Yes (red underline)=+1. Strong no=-2 (i.e. Minus two, you take two off the score) Normal no=-1 (minus one). Again, if you don’t want to mark the book then invent some pencil codes or whatever. Another way if you don’t like this is to simply read each sentence and grade how true it is on a scale of one to ten, and then just add them all up. The problem with this is that you don’t actually minus out the negatives and so a remedy could get a very high score just because it’s entry in Materia Medica was a long one, where actually a smaller, lower-scored remedy is the true similicum.

      Right, from all this you should really have a choice. Don’t get paranoid, spend weeks doing this or visit psychics if you have trouble deciding between a few. Go for the closest, or hell, as long as it’s a fair match, then toss a coin. If it doesn’t work you move on to the next one.

      Now to buy the medicine. It comes in various strengths, 6x is the lowest strength you can really buy in pharmacies and really the best to start with. Next 12x and so on. This is the decimal scale. The centecimal scale is stronger still. It goes 30c which is the weakest, 60c, and so on to 1m. The stronger the remedy, the further diluted it is. Beyond 12x there’s no actual medicine that can be measured in the tablet but it’s been potentised more by vigorous shaking, so it’s stronger (really). At any one time you only take a single medicine, don’t do multiple doses or it complicates the vibration picture. You need really to try something for about 40 days to judge it’s effect. When you start taking it then often there’s an aggravation, this means you feel better in yourself but any physical symptom gets worse. That’s a good sign, as is a physical symptom returning that you had in the past, this is a healing crisis and means the imbalance is working itself out of you. The aggravation shouldn’t be too severe if you’re taking less than 30c and it shouldn’t last longer than ten days. It really shows you that the diseases or health problems you had before were never really cured in your mind (where they began), but were only suppressed. Now you shall be free not only of those but also of whatever their long term suppression would have led to (serious illness?). If the symptoms last longer than ten days, or if you have a new physical symptom you’ve never had before, then it’s a proving and indicates an incorrect remedy selection. Stop it and try the next one after a short break and when the proving symptom/s have gone. Each remedy has an antidote, another remedy that cancels it’s effect. If you are worried at all then when you buy the main remedy, buy a very small antidote. There’s no need really but if it makes you feel better, why not?

      The medicine itself comes in various forms. Hard sugar pills have the potensised medicine mixed in alcohol, dropped into them. The pills, four each time, are dissolved under the tongue - three times a day. Some people buy tincture, that’s a liquid that’s dropped straight onto the tongue with a dropper, some homeopaths prefer this. The form doesn’t really mater, just buy whatever you feel best with. Don’t keep opening the bottle to smell it and keep it away from strong odours. When you take the remedy, things like strong food, tea, alcohol etc. can antidote it, so try not to eat, drink or smoke for twenty minutes before or after taking the remedy. It’s important to keep records of your symptom picture, how it changed with each medicine. It may take up to five or six medicines before you find your similicum. The best thing is to write a small journal entry each week noting any changes. This also makes it easier if you ever want to see a professional homeopath as you won’t have confused the symptom picture.

      That's about it. I could write about history or whatever, but that's all elsewhere so I'd be repeating it all. This scoring method is my own and the only really original thing I have to say on the subject, let me know what you think.

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