Sacred plants, human voices

Review

This book review is reprinted from Volume 97 Number 1 Spring 2004 edition of American Journal of Homeopathic Medicine with permission of the American Institute of

Reviewed by George Guess, MD, DHt

Sacred Plants, Human Voices is a humbling piece of work.The incredible amount of labor, attentiveness, devotion, and creativity that went into its production is inspiring and, especially to those of us who have yet to do a proving,humbling.The homeopathic community owes Ms. Herrick and those who worked with her a huge debt of gratitude for the volumes of information contained in the book.

In her introduction, Ms. Herrick, no doubt stung by some of the criticism leveled at her first book of provings, Animal Mind, Human Voices, lays out precisely the methodology employed in these provings as well as her procedure to identify the themes she ascribes to these new remedies. [ find little to criticize in this methodology.

Herrick's proving method is thoroughly described in the introduction.Ten to twenty provers were used for each proving; all provings were conducted doubleblind, and lasted three to four weeks (would a longer period be better?). If no significant symptoms resulted from the first dose of the proving substance, with a supervisor's approval, up to two more doses were allowed. (Ms. Herrick neglects to mention what potencies were given and the length of the initial period of observation for a drug's effect.) Daily journals were maintained for three to four weeks.

While proving supervisors were provided, their use was left optional.At the end of the three to four week period, a meeting was held with provers, proving supervisors and the proving master present Transcripts were made of these meetings.The remedy was revealed to the provers only at this stage. Once the remedy was revealed no further symptoms were taken. Two to five homeopaths or homeopathic students worked with the proving master to develop themes for each remedy, which were derived from repetitive themes, words or main points appearing in the proving.The selection of remedy themes had definite criteria: 1) Each theme had to be confirmed by proving entries from at least three different provers, 2) Themes had to come exclusively from the words of the provers, 3) No theme was based on study of the substance proved, 4) A theme was considered very strong if confirmed on multiple levels; i.e., emotional/mental states, events (more about this later), dreams, and physical sensations.

A number of what I feel to be important issues were not raised in the book.There is, regrettably, no mention of whether or not provers were discouraged from discussing symptoms with one another, or whether they even associated with one another.There is no comment relating to any proscriptions placed upon the provers; eg, other remedies, coffee, certain foods or drugs, etc. Neither is there mention of whether or not provers' cases were taken initially - a procedure I believe necessary to elicit as much information as possible from a proving; such as, complementary remedy relationships, pre-existing symptomatology that might be cured or aggravated by the proven remedy or incorrectly ascribed to itThere is no comment about the use of control subjects, which can be a sticky issue itself in homeopathic provings; i.e., what does the master prover do with control symptoms? Eliminate them? Eliminate them as well as all similar symptoms appearing in provers taking verum? Include them, as some have done? Of this last strategy I am highly skeptical, even were one to accept the possibility of some group mind phenomenon induced by the proving influencing controls.

As mentioned, themes were determined by a consistent repetition of symptoms in provers' journals. It was only subsequently, while writing up descriptions of the proving substance to serve as prologues to the provings themselves, that she noted that many of the themes reflected the remedy's source. Thus, Herrick's provings are not testaments to the Law of Signatures, as some have asserted, but rather to the "Law of Circumstance" (for the skeptic) or the "Law of the Essential Nature of Things" (for those who acknowledge some connection between a substance's nature and the symptoms it might produce). Ms. Herrick, as she states, wishes to make her proving information more accessible to practitioners. Every homeopath has experienced the daunting challenge of extracting useful prescribing information from a new proving. It is Ms. Herrick's hope that the themes she provides will aid the reader's assimilation of the material and its utilization in practice.

While some feel that remedy themes should be relegated to subsequent publications and not included with the original presentation of proving data, I, for one, appreciate the author's efforts in this area.After all, if not the author and her assistants with their deep familiarity with the proving material, who can better provide such information? The themes help to provide a basic starting point when studying these, principally new remedies. Depending upon the reader's preference, they can be either ignored or utilized as a memory and focusing tool, helping one to grasp the possible overall image of the remedy. My only complaint is that the themes seem quite general, which is probably the best that can be achieved with such preliminary information. An example - "Emotional" is part of one theme of Ginseng. Further refinement or alteration of these themes will come with clinical experience. In a couple of cases, though, a bit of fine tuning of the themes seems possible from just reading the proving. For instance,some of the themes for Rosa gallica include "Loving Feelings/Compassion," "Heart," "Relationships," which are quite broad; however, one prover's curative experience (which carries extra significance to my mind) suggests one better delineated theme might be the "angry, aggressive pursuit of love." In the case of Mandragora, the general theme of "Animals" is identified, yet much of the symptomatology reveals the more specific theme of "sympathy and affection for animals." among other possibilities.

While reviewing themes, I have to comment upon one category of data that Ms. Herrick uses to confirm themes, namely events occurring during the proving. There were times when I was struck by the sheer ordinariness of some of the events and the provers' reactions to them that were taken as proving symptoms.An example: one prover commented that it sprinkled immediately on taking the remedy; this was taken as a symptom confirming "Weather" as a theme of Rosa St. Francis. I think it would have been better to enter the specific effects of the weather in the generalities data, where it seems far more appropriate. In another case, a prover's experience of some difficulties incurred one day while traveling are included as confirmation of the"Travel" theme of Ginseng. There are several similar examples. So, should events occurring during a proving be included? I suspect Ms. Herrick, in doing so, is honoring Carl lung's observation of the principle of Synchronicity in nature,of the seeming relationship between events which might otherwise be viewed as only circumstantial. But are we ready to acknowledge Synchronicity as a scientifically objective fact? Granted, when apparently unrelated events occur in such a manner as to establish an unusual pattern of occurrence and do so repeatedly, it tends to give one pause; one might concede that a synchronous phenomenon is occurring. But it is quite a leap to proceed from such a common sensical concession to the incorporation of a single event, a possible chance occurrence, as relevant data in a scientific experiment! It is my feeling that symptoms noted during a proving, and the themes developed from them, must be based on unassailable raw data from the provings; thus, we should be highly circumspect about what we include as valid symptoms.

And while raising a yellow caution flag regarding proving symptom selection, I feel the need to mention another example of questionable symptom inclusion. On page 189, while describing Mandragora, the first symptom to appear under the theme "Mental Illness" is a description of the rather aberrant behavior of the prover's brother. Publication of this symptom really surprised me. The behavior of another individual, one not participating in a proving, has no place in a proving report In fairness to Ms. Herrick, who I am sure had some justification for including that "symptom," I can only surmise that she did so because the prover, when describing the brother's behavior, used terms alluding tomental illness, which established a connection with the theme. Nonetheless, I feel in this specific instance that she overreached.

The remedies covered in this volume include: Nelumbo nucifera (Sacred Lotus), Ginseng, Mandragora, Rosa Galliea, Rosa St. Francis, Ayahuasea, and Anhalonium - all substances that have "sacred" connotations in a broad sense, in that they either have a history of ritualistic use based upon their psychotropic properties or some magical, spiritual, religious, or mythical associations.A thorough description of the plant, including its history and "sacred" associations, precedes Ms. Herrick's listing of remedy themes with supporting proving symptoms; next follows a detailed listing of rubrics based on the proving; and lastly the text from the provers' journals appears. No index is provided. With the exception of the last remedy, Anhalonium, the physical symptoms produced during the provings appear only in the rubrics section and the provers' journal entries, where they are quite difficult to extract. This, I feel, is a major shortcoming that I hope is corrected in any future provings Ms. Herrick conducts. I would like to see physical symptoms listed separately under body sections,a format with which most of us are familiar. Failure to do so gives the mistaken impression that the provings concern themselves only with psychological symptoms.

It's my impression that the rubrics selected or created based upon the provings are accurate and valuable additions to our repertory. Additionally, Ms. Herrick endeavored to keep the creation of new rubrics to a minimum. I did find, though, that in a few instances some appropriate rubric selections were overlooked. For example, on page 124 in the chapter on Ginseng one finds symptoms suggesting all of the following rubrics (some new), none of which were selected by the author: "Unfriendly," "Lack of self-confidence," "Lack of control," "Fear of intimacy;" on page 128, still describing Ginseng, good evidence exists, I think, to include this remedy in the rubric "Reproaches self."

For each remedy Ms. Herrick also identifies a corresponding miasm. However, she offers no explanation for her choices, which, I think, would be a useful addition to the volume.