About Potencies

Homöopathie für Skeptiker

About Potencies is Ms. Plouvier-Suijs' attempt to shine some light on questions related to potency. Although a discussion of this sort is needed, I am not sure whether this article manages to shed nearly as much light on the subject as it attempts.

In 100 pages and 15 sections, the author discusses remedies and cases according to potency grouping. For instance, in ‘C/K6, LM/Q2’ (a four-page section), the author suggests that C/K6 is equivalent to the LM/Q2 and after a single-page introduction presents two cases entitled ‘Feel, sense, perceive’ and ‘Undermine’.

I offer that entire introduction for your edification:

In Chronic Diseases, Hahnemann explains that he gives 30C, 12C and 6C one after another in a case. In the Banerji protocols, we find Ruta 6C given to patients with a brain tumour or with multiple sclerosis. I discovered that these potencies change the deep-seated inner feelings of a patient. These feelings are deep inside, and when I ask a patient about them, it takes time to reflect, go inside and find the answer. These feelings are not related to words. The process before the answer is to dive into yourself (the eye contact is lost) to feel, to search for the right words, to emerge and then formulate the answer (at that moment there is again eye contact). I have to wait and observe this. It is my observation that these deep-seated inner feelings have their origin in pregnancy. During the pregnancy a lasting emotional state of the mother will be incorporated into the cells of the child. Normally our emotional state changes all the time and after birth the state of the mother can be changed or not. When the state lasts, it will be remembered and be part of the child's history. But when the state is gone, it is difficult to find. An example: during pregnancy there is a threat of financial loss because the father loses his job. After 3 months, he finds a new job nearby, even better than he had before and everybody is happy. The threat is gone, there is no need to move, etc. So at the moment of birth everything is back to normal.

‘The inner feeling of the child (and later on this individual) will be related to this threat of financial loss. Every time he hears about it, even when he is not personally involved, he will be overwhelmed by these feelings of threat, which undermine his wellbeing. The remedy he needs will be found in the history of his parents during his pregnancy, and the potency he needs is C/K6 or LM/Q2’.—ibid, p. 29

Does this material make much sense: to me it makes some but not enough. The author, Margriet Plouvier-Suijs, mentions Hahnemann and Banerji (and Chaim Rosenthal, Tinus Smits and Rajan Sankaran in the other sections) but does not cite or provide references. She even mentions Rudolf Steiner and a couple of his insights but again fails to provide proper citings.

These two cases, as well as the others, have no repertory charts nor hard material related to the remedies as sourced from the various Materia Medica.

From the ‘Undermine’ case:

‘A boy of 12 is unable to leave the house and go to school. He is doing sports and he goes there by himself, but finds it impossible to go to school. When he is taken to school, at school he has no problem. His mother is unable to take him to school all the time and it happened that he didn't go to school many times for this reason. He is a good student. When he has to give a presentation, he feels nervous, but once he has started he likes to do it. These problems started when he was in the last class of primary school. The teacher started his lessons by telling the pupils that they had to begin studying immediately because this was the last year before high school: in doing so he put a lot of pressure on them. He was very strict and talked about punishment as well. In the morning when the boy wakes up, there is no problem. It starts during breakfast: he has a strange sensation in his abdomen and he has to visit the toilet six times. He doesn't show off and he is not concerned about children that show off. He feels embarrassed about his anxiety, but he is just not able to control it. He likes sweets, he prefers warm food and his thirst is normal’.

‘He is the third child. After the first and second deliveries, the mother lost a lot of blood and she had an out-of-body sensation. During the second pregnancy the mother lost her father. The third pregnancy was unexpected and she was still in mourning. She was afraid of the loss of blood again and wondered: will I reach the end’?

Prescription:

‘I gave Lycopodium 30C: only the first dose had some effect: Lycopodium 12X with the same result, then Lycopodium 6C. This was the right remedy in the right potency: he was able to go to school without any problems. Some months later he started to visit high school. He was going to school by bike with some mates. The boys started to tease him and then he decided to go to school all alone. He felt firm and no longer needed any support’.

Analysis:

‘In this case the mother has the idea that she might “not reach her destination” during the pregnancy of the child. The child takes on this idea within his cells. When he is confronted with the pressure that the teacher puts on him, he literally shows the feeling of never reaching his destination and feels totally undermined: it is simply the transfer from home to school that he is unable to perform’.—ibid, p. 31, 32

The author's narrative, in my opinion, seems to be mostly conjecture based on observation. I comprehend some of her ideas, but they need to be further rationalised and discussed. It is as if the reader has come upon a disorganised desk that must be cleaned to gain clarity. The reader should not have to do this; thoughts are helpful only when they are clearly presented. Perhaps it is more a question of style and editing.

Perhaps in a future edition or revision, these points will be addressed.