BIRDS—Homeopathic Remedies from the Avian Realm

Jonathan Shore, Judy Shriebman and Anneke Hogeland
Homeopathy West: Berkeley, California, USA, 2004
Price: £39.00, ISBN: 0-975-4763-0-0

This is the book serious homeopaths around the world were waiting for, a reference book dedicated to the Bird Remedies, one of the fastest growing group of ‘new remedies’ introduced to homeopathy over the last decade. There is no other comprehensive book like it, although information has been published about new provings and cases of individual bird remedies. I remember buying ‘Birds’ hot off the press in late 2004 in Canada, and reading it avidly through the night on the return flight. Since then I have referred to it many times, and it has helped my prescribing in several cases.

The book starts with an introduction to Bird Characteristics and features of the Avian Realm in general, and is then organised into three main sections, Key Features, Provings and Cases. Each one of the 15 bird remedies is discussed individually in each section, which I find to be one of the drawbacks of the book. One is always having to flick through to another section to link up the information when studying a particular bird. The different remedies are sequentially marked on each page edge with name and picture to facilitate the search, but it is rather cumbersome nonetheless.

Jonathan Shore and his co-authors have synthesised information from many sources, covering themes from classical provings done by others of better known bird remedies like Peregrine Falcon (Misha Norland) and Whooper Swan (Jeremy Sherr), to lesser known remedies like Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) and Brown Pelican (Pelicanus occidentalis), introduced by Jonathan Shore. The provings of Heron, Pelican, Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) and Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) were done in what Shore terms ‘modified classical’ manner, as a trituration proving. This entailed 7–10 participants sitting around a table, in turn grinding the substance to be proven (the bird feather) as directed in the Organon. The substance was triturated up to C3 potency, during and after which each prover related their experience. It was then potentised up to C30 by Hahnemann Laboratories in California, and given to each participant to take or not, as they wished, before a meeting two weeks later, where each prover gave an account of their experience.

Other provings like those of Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus), Ring Dove (Columba palumbus) and Saker Falcon (Falco cherug), were done by Elisabeth Schultz in Germany, where the remedy was triturated up to C4 potency. This seems to enhance the precision of information perceived by the participants during the trituration, and there is also quicker resolution of the proving state. The proving of Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) by Todd Rowe was done under supervision in the more classical way using C30 potency. The themes of Greg Bedayne's proving of Raven's blood (Corvus corax) are described in detail, although the methodology is not specified.

The Key Features section of the book again takes each remedy in turn, describing Core Idea, Key Aspects, Prominent Rubrics, Natural History and finally Mythology and Symbolism for each bird. Some remedies like Great Blue Heron, Great Horned Owl and Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) are considered in detail in this section, including many rubrics pertaining to physical symptoms, which is very helpful when using the book to find the similimum for a particular patient. However, detail is much more sparse on Humboldt Penguin (Spheniscus humboldti). Some of the key aspects given are rather non-specific, like ‘Sensitivity/Hypersensitivity’ for Turkey Vulture, ‘Vision’ for Great Horned Owl, ‘Breathing Constriction’ for Whooper Swan, features which seemed to be common to the bird remedies anyway. As this is the first definitive book on homeopathic bird remedy pictures, I am sure that the differentiating features between the various remedies will be clarified with time. My experience is that Jonathan Shore's work has helped hugely towards understanding when a bird remedy is indicated, but finding the exact similimum is not always as easy.

The final section on Cases includes clinical case studies from many different prescribers all over the world, including Shore. It is interesting to see the information described earlier in the book really coming to life as these ‘bird people’ express themselves … their spirituality and need for freedom, hatred of feeling caged; often a history of abuse, victimisation and domination by others; dreams of birds, flying, finding feathers; love of air sports, climbing high mountains, etc. Physically there are often problems with neck pain, stiffness and tension, often extending to shoulder or arm. Unfortunately, a minority of the cases have a very short follow up period of only one or two months.

Overall, I think this is a very helpful book about an increasingly important group of remedies that are very much part of our time. Interestingly, we discover that the very first bird remedies ever prescribed were by Divya Chhabra (Indian Eagle) Jonathan Shore (Bald Eagle) and Misha Norland (Peregrine Falcon) in the 1990s. In all three cases, the patients gave such clear descriptions of their state that it was clear that this was not matched by any known remedy, because what they described was bird energy. So the bird feathers and/or blood had to be procured, the doctrine of signatures would settle for nothing less.

Since its publication, many more bird remedies have now been prepared by various pharmacies, often without a proving having been done. We need more reference books like this to fill in the detail as our collective clinical experience with bird patients expands, and I hope that more bird provings will be done by Jonathan Shore and others.