Plant Theory

Jan Scholten, MD

Similar to the June issue of LINKS, the theme of this issue is the Plant theory as explained in Wonderful Plants.[1] The Plant theory was published 4 years ago and gradually more homeopaths are getting acquainted with it and use it with good results. But it takes time. This is similar to the development of the Element theory.[2] It took most people a year or so to get a grip on that. But some people took it on directly, where others needed up to 7 years before they could master it. But once mastered, the Element theory is very familiar. One does not think about it anymore and uses it without thinking.

The same will happen with the Plant theory. It took me 2 years to transfer from the old way of analysing cases to the new one of the Plant theory, to analyse every case from the beginning with Series, Phases and Stages. The first reason is that Plant theory is more complex and thus more difficult than the Element theory. It has six ‘dimensions’ instead of the three of the Element theory. So one makes a mistake much more often, especially in the beginning. With one of the numbers or dimensions wrong, one comes to another remedy.

But the greatest problem of the Plant theory is the classification. With the Element theory, the classification was not a problem at all. The periodic system was straight, definite and beyond any doubt. It is finished and perfect. And it was and still is complete: all places in the classification are known. The classification of the Plant kingdom is very different. Complete classifications started to come during the second halve of the 20th century. The latest and best classification is the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) classification, which is based on DNA analyses. It was first published in 1999. Currently, there have been three revisions and updates of that classification. So the classification is under development. The nice part of it is that it confirms the majority of older classifications. The less nice part is that the classification is not fully reliable. This is due to the fact that the DNA is not the essence of plants or any living creature, although many biologists are adhering to that idea.

Another aspect is that the botanical classifications in general have no meaning to them. This is in contrast with the Plant theory, where the classification is built on Series, Phases and Stages which all have meaning. This makes the homeopathic classification of the Plant kingdom more precise. In practice, it has become apparent that this classification can only be done reliably when there is homeopathic information present, at least of some members of a family or order. So the Plant theory is a refinement of the APG classification. But that also means it is still under construction. Many remedies have become available during the past 5 years, but still many are needed to fill in the ‘empty’ places in the classification. And of many of the available remedies, the picture has to be developed further, to reveal the themes of the Family or that of the Stage.

The Plant theory is a process, a classification in development. It gradually gives more answers. And more and more cases are getting published to show how it works. This and the previous issue of LINKS are examples of it. It shows cases of often hardly known to completely unknown remedies. This is an aspect of the Plant theory; it opens the whole field of the Plant kingdom. But more in general, it helps one find better, more precisely fitting remedies. And that results in more and better healing. Last week a woman with rheumatic disease returned completely symptom free after Limonium delicatulum. I would not have known how to find the remedy without the Plant theory. That is the beauty of it: it brings understanding, and it brings healing.

I want to thank Sally Williams for gathering the articles for these two issues of Homoeopathic Links.

I wish you happy reading.

• References

• 1 Scholten J. Wonderful Plants. Utrecht, The Netherlands: Stichting Alonissos; 2013
• 2 Scholten J. Homeopathy and the Elements. Utrecht, The Netherlands: Stichting Alonissos; 1994