Synergy in Homeopathy

Review

This book review is reprinted from Volume 25, Number 3, Year 2012edition of the Homoeopathic Links - International Journal for Classical Homeopathy

Reviewed by Harry van der Zee, Netherlands

This is an important book in which the author intends to illustrate how the Sensation Method he and his colleagues have developed over the past years can be and should be integrated with traditional Classical Homeopathy. Throughout the years I've regularly asked authors of Sensation Method cases to show how their prescription could be supported through repertory and mate ria medica. In the excitement of using a new method that allows a fascinating journey with the patient, solidifying the prescription through trusted tools was often lacking. I remember discussing this issue with Rajan some years back so I was happy when I heard that at the Toronto Summit in 2011 the integration of the traditional way of analyzing a case and the Sensation Method was the main topic. "The Synergy in Homoeopathy" is a result of that process.

This integration was dearly needed as without an anchor in our fundamental sources homeopaths could easily lose track, for which the patient would pay the price. Also the colleagues that watched this new development with scepticism deserved to have explained how "the two approaches, traditional and Sensation approach, are not divergent, but convergent." [p. 39]

The book discusses a wide variety of topics and summarizes the author's current views in the following chapters: Symptoms and System; Techniques in Case-Taking; Approaches in Different Situations; Repertory; The Genius. The book ends with Illustrative Cases, while throughout the chapters many case examples are given.

An important misconception Rajan clearly corrects is that Sensation Method can be used in all cases. It is one of the tools a homeopath can use and in its application the homeopath should be flexible by following the patient as "... probing can be a cumbersome, laborious - even torturous - process..." [p. 81]

A reliable prescription should be based on a triangle consisting of GENIUS (essential nature and pattern of the remedy), SYMPTOM (rubrics, toxicology, materia medica) and SYSTEM (kingdom, miasm, source, sensation). So any remedy that comes up by using the Sensation Method (which includes determining the kingdom and the miasm) should where possible be confirmed by the Genius of the remedy (for which Boger's Synoptic Key is a recommended source) and the Symptoms (repertory and MM).

An interesting observation is that most of the steps the author has made throughout the years can be traced back in the works of Hahnemann and other masters and is firmly based in them. The main difference with traditional sources concerns the topic of miasms. Not so much the number of miasms identified, as an expansion beyond Hahnemann's initial three had already been suggested a long time ago and is widely accepted. It is more the way in which the term miasm is used and applied in the selection of the remedy. Sankaran describes miasm as "the attitude, which arises from the depth of desperation that being infected with that particular disease brings about in the sufferer. This attitude, along with the pathology, makes up the pattern." [p. 33]

Based on several years of experience of Sankaran and many leading homeopaths it is clear that using miasms in this way can be a useful tool to find a simillimum. Selecting a remedy on similarity to the pace of a disease may though not automatically mean that any miasms existing in the patient as such are then also treated. The attitude of a patient can for instance be syphilitic whereas a history of recurrent malaria may also suggest an underlying malaria miasm, and the malaria may only have started after gonorrhoea, suggesting again another miasm. Will Sankaran, like Hahnemann in "Chronic Diseases", at some point concludes that focussing on the individual simillimum alone may leave collective roots - the miasms - untouched? The different sensations have one thing in common. They are all expressions of trauma. Is it actually trauma that is underlying the miasms? Are (epidemic) infectious diseases expressions of (collective) trauma? I don't think Kajan's journey has finished with the present book and I look forward to his next step.

The main question now is whether the book succeeds in keeping those applying Sensation Method on the right track while showing the fraternity it is firmly based on the main principles of homeopathy. In general I conclude it does, and besides that the book contains lots of practical tips and observations that should be valuable to any homeopath.

I'd love to make a few recommendations for a next edition:
- Follow-ups are at times short and reduced to "he did remarkably well"; for the explanation of the method more may not be needed but if bridging the gap with traditional classical homeopaths is a motive, long-term follow-ups including clinical data are recommended.
- Although the book highly advises basing a prescription on the triangle mentioned above, this is missing in many of the cases in the book; again perhaps not needed in the given example as such but recommended to underline the method.
- The index of remedies is not complete.
- The index of terminology is very limited and for the fourteen selected terms some important page numbers are missing.
- There are several typos and some passages are even unclear (e.g., case on pp.94-95).

I highly recommend this book to any homeopath, including those that are under the impression that the Sensation Method is in discord with Hahnemann's writings. "The Synergy in Homoeopathy" intends to show that the new ideas summarized as Sensation Method only complement and not replace time-tested methods. Synergy means in this context the interaction of methods that when combined produce an effect that each individual method alone could not obtain. In daily practice it simply means more cured cases. As it is our job "to restore the sick to health" we cannot ignore any serious development that can improve the results in our practice. "The Synergy in Homoeopathy" is therefore a must-read for any serious homeopath.

This book review is reprinted from Volume31, Number 1 , Year 2012 edition of The Homeopath

Reviewed by Francis Treuherz

Synergy: a noun of Greek origin; the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. It was in March 1986, on my last evening of several months in India. A PanAm plane on its way to Bombay was bombed between Rome and Athens, Reagan was just about to bomb Gaddafi and Tchernobyl was about to explode. That night I was to fly PanAm to Cairo, thence to Jerusalem, Athens and Alonissos. I faced Rajan Sankaran at dinner before going to the airport. I invited him to the Society conference at Loughborough for that autumn. The synergy of Rajan and his first lecture outside India has carried on, becoming more and more effective as his ideas and his audiences have grown, through his clinical work, seminars, books, his own software, and now his rescue of MacRepertory following the tragic premature death of our friend David Warkentin. In 1986 I greeted Rajan with a bouquet, in 2006 with a garland, and now he is greeting us with a library.

Since 1986 the titles of his books encapsulate his journey, Spirit, Substance, Soul, Provings, System, Plants, Schema, Sensation, Song, Structure, Survival, and now Synergy. He has come full circle to the point where he revisited the foreword of Boger's Synoptic Key- I found that he has said everything I wanted to say, only in much better, more concise and exact words!' He also acknowledges his teacher Phatak. Sankaran emphasizes the need to integrate knowledge of Organon, materia medica and repertory with his own teachings, which do not replace but enhance the traditional sciences of classical homeopathy. In this new book he attempts to unite the 'genius, symptom and system' through renewed strategies of case taking and analysis: All this is elaborated in much detail as the author outlines his journey, so that these words take on meaning and are not only headlines to captivate or baffle the reader. We have already had a foretaste of the second chapter of Synergy in The Homeopath, Spring 2010 28:4, which was the final issue that I edited.

The main body of the book demonstrates that Rajan believes that there are many ways of being right. There are 38 short chapters, which go deep into explanation and interpretation of the variety of ways of taking the case, analyzing using the information in so many different ways, when and how to use a repertory and software like ReferenceWorks. We are as full of jargon as any other discipline and he unpacks it all through detailed candid case examples - throughout the book he shows flexibility of approach, according to the needs of the patient or even if he gets it wrong first time. He refers several times to his own case-taking form and here it is, freely available, www.sankaransclinic.com/dininf8.htm. I found his insights refreshing, honest and most of all extremly useful.