On the 23rd of July 2003, in the afternoon, Doctor Alfonso Masi Elisalde died suddenly during a consultation with a patient, just like many great homeopaths, whose lives were dedicated to homeopathy and who lived like monks. He was born into homeopathy. He admired his unicist father who had enjoyed a good reputation in Buenos Aires. At the age of four he could recognise his aunt Sepia and his neighbour Lycopodium.
When he started to use the repertorium, his father told him: “Yes, there are the symptoms, but there is not the essence of the remedies”. He then studied all the full pathogeneses trying to discern the essences of the remedies. That is how he discovered “the loss” and its nucleus, the miasmatic dynamic, the notion of the leitmotiv which colours the whole of the life, the perception and the behaviour of the person. He devised a precise and rigorous methodology to study the pathogenesis and cured cases.
Armed with his findings he had the courage to confront the medical world which was still very ‘scientist”, to re-introduce into the medical perspective the spiritual dimension, whether normal or pathological, of man the human reality that is so transparent in the pathogenesis. He proposed the objective study of the pathogenesis as well as all the human behaviour independent of faith, which is an aspect of another order.
Few have understood him. Many thought he mixed medicine and religion, while with a rare discernment, based on the pathogenesis, which he called the ‘scanners of the human soul”, and with great acuity, he made the distinction between the two different things which are often confounded in daily life: the spiritual aspect of man which is within the observational exercise of the doctor as much as the sensitive and vegetative levels are, and faith, which is a submission of man to a revelation which surpasses him and has nothing to do with his psora, even though the whole of man is coloured by his personal psora, and therefore also the way he lives his faith or refuses it.
Hence he established a doctor-patient dialogue of great depth and intimate comprehension which has rendered our profession even more fascinating, favouring the intuitive qualities of homeopathy through a reliable intellectual tool which is communicable, clear and logical.
Masi was a master. He was great, he was exigent, because his goal was not to flatter our desire for success by offering brilliant superficial (restrictive) images of such and such a remedy, but to teach us to always deepen “the why of the symptom”, and go ourselves in search of the key-word which supports and explains the whole of a pathogenesis, the whole of a case, founded on a realistic philosophy and universal concepts.
He has given us a taste of structuring our thoughts to improve our thinking, not to be satisfied with “approximate”, vague symbols. He did not offer us the fish but the fishing line, to use his own words. Those who like the menu to be served warm, did not come to his seminars. But the homeopathic world has been profoundly influenced, even in veterinary homeopathy, regardless of scepticism, criticism and materialism.
Our gratitude will be to continue his work, about which he did not leave us many personal notes, but of which we carry the treasure in our minds and will pass on to future generations of homeopaths to come.
—————————–
Dr. SML. Fayeton is President of the AFADH created in 1984 to develop pathogeneses using Masi’s conceptions.
