Signatures, Miasms, Aids

Review

This book review is reprinted from Volume 17, Summer 2004 edition of Homoeopathic Links with permission from Homeopathic Links.

Reviewed by Dr. J. Roczenzwaig, MD, Ph.D, New Zealand

If ever a new book on miasms was needed, it is this one. Instead of repeating what everybody else has already written about miasms, Misha Norland takes a fresh look at them and at the Doctrine of Signatures.

Going through the different philosophies and religions, he interprets the miasms according to those, showing how they belong to our daily lives, no matter what our beliefs, or lack of, are.

Miasms become actual entities we can recognise no matter through which prism they are looked at, they become real and alive and not just a theoretical scaffolding.

The Doctrine of Signatures is also approached that way, although not in such depth. It is clearly emphasised as a means of learning, of memorisation and explanation, not as a scientific instrument to discover hidden qualities of a substance.

Thirteen polychrest remedies are then reviewed and analysed in the light of their multi-miasmatic belonging, clearly demonstrating that there is not a single remedy exclusively covering a single miasm, although there are predominances, some of them being major, like Sulphur and Psora. This will very much rejoice those of us who claim that a remedy, as well chosen as it can be, will never destroy a miasm; but that is another huge discussion…

The book continues with an analysis of the new AIDS miasm and its proving; the interesting approach here is the parallel drawn between the clinical and biological evolution of the disease AIDS and the appearance and behaviour of the miasm, as reflected in the proving too.

The interesting proving of Palco Peregrinus is thrown in as an illustration of a remedy belonging to the AIDS miasm and the Doctrine of Signatures is used to illustrate the choice of the substance for the proving: well done!

In its conclusion, there is a 'Developmental model of miasms' where the sociocultural presentation of miasms is reviewed; absolutely fascinating!

The appendix of the book relates potencies with elements: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. This was explored in detail earlier on by David Little, but although it makes an interesting reading, I am not sure I would adopt it as my potency selection, it is too speculative for my personal taste.

This is a well-written book, and I would certainly recommend to everybody who is studying miasms, without hesitation.

This article is reprinted from the November 2003 No.91 Edition of The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths.

Reviewed by Nigel Summerley

A few days before I received this book, 1 had to give a talk on homeopathy at the launch of a new low-cost clinic in the East End of London. At question time, one man said: "I liked what you said about the mental, emotional and physical. And I liked the fact you didn't start talking about the spiritual. When therapists start doing that, it always puts me off."

Apart from the danger of putting off potential patients, venturing into the spiritual aspects of homeopathy seems to raise the possibility of meandering off at all sorts of tangents, and for all sorts of 'meaning' to be found.

This book appears to come with three titles plus a subtitle - which suggests from the outset that it wasn't quite clear what it was to be about. In fact, it's more like three or four books in one, with little feeling of a unified whole.

After a quick skip around the doctrine of signatures and the 'eternal philosophy', we get the largest, most impressive and most accessible section of the book: portraits of a dozen polycrests, with the accent heavily on their homeopathic signatures, themes and miasmatic significance.

These portraits are at times joyfully reminiscent of the best of Catherine Coulter's work, but more concise and often sharper. The chapters on Pulsatilla, Natrum muriaticum, Lycopodium and Thuja are particularly recommended, both to students and to seasoned practitioners.

Then comes an excellent section on the AIDS miasm and the provings of the AIDS nosode and Falco peregrinus. Here everything really gels in a challenging and informative way, largely untrammelled by. any 'spiritual' spin.

And finally there is a look at the evolution of the miasms from Hahnemann's time to the present day, plus worthwhile notes on potency selection.

There is often a lack of rigour in the language and in what is accepted as established fact: "Boehme had a series of divine revelations", rather than "claimed to have had"; or, "the shamans, bards and wizards of ancient cultures sang objects and beings into existence" rather than "were said to sing".

And there is also some carelessness of editing, evidenced, for example, by this quotation: "as we have seen, Mercury is the amalgamating metal", which is placed 30 pages before the section on Mercury's amalgamating properties.

It's noticeable too that Norland and Robinson have a penchant for the word 'shit' which is employed six times during the book. But when it comes to sex, the seven-letter word they embrace is 'coition' rather than one beginning with 'F'. Curious.

In the end, much of the investigation of signatures seems to prove one thing that you can take almost any two things and make a connection between them. Lachesis, for example, we are told, has a left-sided or 'sinister' tendency - and the dramatic villain always used to enter from stage-left. Spooky or what? But then stage-left is on the right if you're in the audience. So where does that leave us?

However, Norland does go along with Hahnemann in rejecting the old simplistic use of the doctrine of signatures which related the appearance of an object to its medicinal uses. Instead, he puts forward the idea of signatures as "a direct path though the myriad proving symptoms". The remedy pictures he paints so beautifully certainly offer the reader such a path.

And he does makes a crucial point in support of the doctrine of signatures: "Even if we don't accept the concept of signatures, they make excellent mnemonics to help us remember the 'shape' of a remedy."

Spirituality is vital if we are to fulfil our 'higher purpose', but do the samplings from the likes of mythology, alchemy, theosophy and symbology referred to here have any relevance to true spirituality? Or might they be a ragbag of second-hand, second-rate concoctions from the limited human imagination? This may sound uncharitable but surely these are questions we have to go into with great care.

Unless we do, won't so many of our potential patients - like my East Ender - go on being ready to turn and run at the very mention of the word spirituality?