The charm of Homeopathy
Language
English
Type
Paperback
Publisher
B. Jain
Out of stock
€19.95
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This is the first book in English, addressed to professional homeopaths, where Anne Vervarcke explains her view on the vital disturbance. As disease is nothing but a concept-like disturbance of the vital level, the challenge is to understand and perceive the coherent, symbolic pattern, displayed by the patient. When we manage to recognize this pattern we are looking in the eye of the disturbance and at the same time, we have the answer for a cure. When this happens, the Charm of Homeopathy is at its best.
Excerpt:
The capacity to symbolise is unique and specifically human.
We do it constantly and have an inherent talent to recognize patterns and translate them into a system of symbols we use to communicate. Homeopathy fits into this process of symbolising, because whatever is true within homeopathy must be true outside it. This symbolising means that we start off with a polarity: me and not-me. This is the first illusion. Next, we divide the world into an inner and an outer world. In the outer world we place the visible reality, the facts and phenomena that are symbolised, idolised, simplified, reduced and moulded into formulae. They are just as symbolic as the inner world which is invisible: the world of language, feelings and meanings. The classifications which are thus formed from these laws, formulas and definitions are not real categories or kingdoms, but patterns with sufficient recognizable characteristics.
A pattern is a sufficient amount of characteristics to define an object or a phenomenon.
page 40:
Science has shown that the earth is round and circles around the sun, not the other way around. Still to us the sun keeps rising and setting. We live in more than one reality at the same time: one in which we know what happens and one which we experience. The first has to be taught to us. A large part of our education is based on this knowledge and later on in life it can be useful to start an academic career or to 40
take part in a quiz on television. The reality we experience is the way in which we observe with our senses, although we often ‘know’ that things are not as they ‘appear’.
It is the reality we experience in which we live and it is this reality homeopathy deals with.
Page 75:
I consider the disturbance of a human being exactly like that: his best remedy.
Minerals want to be bound into larger, more coherent structures until they have achieved the ultimate unity.
Plants are the basis for all other life on Earth, for animals and humans. They sustain and feed them and are the link between Earth and her inhabitants. They serve every domain of the life of animals and humans and have to learn to respect themselves and manifest themselves as a goal in themselves.
Animals must learn to find the balance between instinctive needs and the wants and goals of the conscious mind.
| Subtitle | About life in general and homeopathy in particular |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9782874910029 |
| Author | Anne Vervarcke |
| Type | Paperback |
| Language | English |
| Publication Date | 2009 |
| Pages | 235 |
| Publisher | B. Jain |
| Review | This book review is reprinted from The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths. Reviewed by Ralf Jeutter These books set out to introduce the reader to a homeopathic method, which is 'if not innovative, certainly complementary to the existing theories', and which allows the practitioner to arrive at 'prescriptions that are 100% correct'. The author takes us through an evaluation of what she calls 'the existing theories'. Among them we find the use of the kingdoms, the miasms and the doctrine of signatures. She finds all of them wanting and shares her insights. Vervarcke believes 'We have a better chance of winning the lottery than to find a remedy using kingdoms'. Yet she maintains that the kingdoms have their specific language which is recognisable in remedies, and should therefore be of help. Her examples of the language of the kingdoms are vague and self defeating: 'Animals must learn to find the balance between instinctive needs and the wants and goals of the conscious mind.' Scientific categorisation into kingdoms is largely arbitrary (like medical nosology). Her potted but sketchy history of the theory of miasms, makes the valid point that the theory alone does not help us to find the simillimum on the basis of the symptomatology. But despite these reservations she offers boldly but with no clarity: 'All animals appear to be situated between the cancer miasm and the syphilitic miasm.' She is clearly sympathetic yet critical of the theories outlined. She recognises 'the meaningful coherent pattern' and is 'sensitive to the inherent poetry in it.'....'I propose that this method helps us in every case...'. She assumes that 'we live in a world of experiences in which the elements are composed of coherent, meaningful and symbolic patterns', and that these patterns will arise inevitably (given the right degree of persistence on the part of the homeopath) in the course of the anamnesis. The chapter headlined 'How do we recognise the pattern in every patient!' is unfortunately not specific or helpful. She can only approximate what she means by this pattern, for example by saying that the patient is in the 'realm of his deepest convictions' in which 'he'll often talk in an irrational language', or that he becomes more 'immersed into his disturbances until he truly 'becomes' the disturbance', and at this point the 'substance' he needs. The author is too contradictory: on the one hand she urges her students to be alert to the most individual of utterances of the patient ('what has your patient told you that you have not heard anyone say like that before?'). But on the other she states that 'a single thought of a single individual is practically meaningless or barely recognisable as a pattern, and as such is not a very good tool, and that only thoughts that have been shared by thousands form a powerful energetic pattern.' The second volume presents cases, which are intended to illustrate her method. Many cases presented are inadequate: most have only few follow-ups over a short period of time. Much worse, six out of twenty-eight cases have no follow-ups at all: (cases 7 & 12 in volume 1; cases 8, 12, 15, and 16 in volume 2). The style reads straight out of the seminar room, as if we are witness to the author's thinking aloud, which is often engaging, but has the drawback that many of her statements are either inaccurate or too generalised. The translation of section 148 of the Organon is based on the old Boericke translation, and her subsequent reflections on it therefore miss the point. She speaks about the 'South Americans' and their theory of miasms, as if there is coherent group of 'South Americans' who espouse a particular miasmatic theory. The books are brimming with vitality and curiosity which would benefit from critical editorial advice. And it would be very advantageous to see the followups to what are undoubtedly interesting cases and prescriptions. |
Review
This book review is reprinted from The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths.
Reviewed by Ralf Jeutter
These books set out to introduce the reader to a homeopathic method, which is 'if not innovative, certainly complementary to the existing theories', and which allows the practitioner to arrive at 'prescriptions that are 100% correct'. The author takes us through an evaluation of what she calls 'the existing theories'. Among them we find the use of the kingdoms, the miasms and the doctrine of signatures. She finds all of them wanting and shares her insights.
Vervarcke believes 'We have a better chance of winning the lottery than to find a remedy using kingdoms'. Yet she maintains that the kingdoms have their specific language which is recognisable in remedies, and should therefore be of help. Her examples of the language of the kingdoms are vague and self defeating: 'Animals must learn to find the balance between instinctive needs and the wants and goals of the conscious mind.' Scientific categorisation into kingdoms is largely arbitrary (like medical nosology).
Her potted but sketchy history of the theory of miasms, makes the valid point that the theory alone does not help us to find the simillimum on the basis of the symptomatology. But despite these reservations she offers boldly but with no clarity: 'All animals appear to be situated between the cancer miasm and the syphilitic miasm.' She is clearly sympathetic yet critical of the theories outlined.
She recognises 'the meaningful coherent pattern' and is 'sensitive to the inherent poetry in it.'....'I propose that this method helps us in every case...'. She assumes that 'we live in a world of experiences in which the elements are composed of coherent, meaningful and symbolic patterns', and that these patterns will arise inevitably (given the right degree of persistence on the part of the homeopath) in the course of the anamnesis. The chapter headlined 'How do we recognise the pattern in every patient!' is unfortunately not specific or helpful. She can only approximate what she means by this pattern, for example by saying that the patient is in the 'realm of his deepest convictions' in which 'he'll often talk in an irrational language', or that he becomes more 'immersed into his disturbances until he truly 'becomes' the disturbance', and at this point the 'substance' he needs.
The author is too contradictory: on the one hand she urges her students to be alert to the most individual of utterances of the patient ('what has your patient told you that you have not heard anyone say like that before?'). But on the other she states that 'a single thought of a single individual is practically meaningless or barely recognisable as a pattern, and as such is not a very good tool, and that only thoughts that have been shared by thousands form a powerful energetic pattern.'
The second volume presents cases, which are intended to illustrate her method. Many cases presented are inadequate: most have only few follow-ups over a short period of time. Much worse, six out of twenty-eight cases have no follow-ups at all: (cases 7 & 12 in volume 1; cases 8, 12, 15, and 16 in volume 2).
The style reads straight out of the seminar room, as if we are witness to the author's thinking aloud, which is often engaging, but has the drawback that many of her statements are either inaccurate or too generalised. The translation of section 148 of the Organon is based on the old Boericke translation, and her subsequent reflections on it therefore miss the point. She speaks about the 'South Americans' and their theory of miasms, as if there is coherent group of 'South Americans' who espouse a particular miasmatic theory.
The books are brimming with vitality and curiosity which would benefit from critical editorial advice. And it would be very advantageous to see the followups to what are undoubtedly interesting cases and prescriptions.
