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| Hpathy Ezine - September, 2008 | ||||
Removing the Guesswork from Potency Selection
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| Abstract. Finding the right remedy is one thing, the most important one. Then comes the question of which potency, in which system (C, X, LM/Q) to select the potencies and how to find the proper ones. Articles, books and treaties have been written on the single, frustrating, issue of which potency to use and when to use it. In a recent book “What about the potency?” the author has interviewed many masters of homeopathy about their ways of using potencies; no consensus emerged, everyone had another very successful but different system and was committed to it. David Little teaches us to evaluate the sensitivity of the patient on a scale of 1 to 1000 and “prescribe accordingly”; more precise than what others suggest but still very subjective as it is based on a “guesstimate” by the practitioner and is then very much a function of the practitioner’s own health and state of mind. Kent’s Harmonics of 6C – 30C – 200C – 1M – 10M is widely used and based on his and his follower’s experience, but what is its logic, except for habit and availability? The French series of 3C – 5C – 7C – 9C – 12C – 15C – 18C – 24C – 30C has been useful to generations of patients and has proved its usefulness, but again, what is its logic? LM/Q potencies are purely linear, and remove a lot of trials and errors by starting at the lowest and climbing the potencies one after the other; even if you jump a potency, the progression is still linear, but straight lines are rare if at all present in Nature and this is often a protracted slow process, which is perfect when this is what is needed. 4 I present a new approach to the use of C potencies that is based on a mathematical concept found everywhere in Nature; this removes completely the guesswork and has proved so far to be easy to use, deep acting, fast acting, but needing an intense collaboration between the patient and the practitioner (although this could only be the method’s teething problems). Moreover, it has the added advantage of using low and medium hand-made potencies, avoiding another piece of guesswork: what is it we really give above 30/200C?
Genesis: those nagging doubts and questions….. You will recognize here a few of the many recommendations we are given as students and beginning practitioners in the Colleges and by seasoned practitioners:
All claim to have good results, and there is no reason to doubt them, honestly, but none has any real logic except that “It works for me”. The LM/Q series is said to be gentle, adaptable and having less aggravations; indeed it is, and a very useful technique with sensitive patients; yet it is nothing but a linear increase in potencies, modified by variable adaptation within each potency; but in the end, as you can see in the graph, it is a straight, slow, linear progression. I have renamed the LM/Q progression ”the Meandering Potency”.
Kent’s Harmonics of 6, 30, 200, 1M, 10M or 6, 12, 30, 200, 1M, 10M are based on his experience and confirmed as useful by generations of homeopaths, but what are they based on? As you can see on the graph, the progression is haphazard with huge gaps in potencies and no clear logic.
Still this system is so much used that I needed to examine it through different angles. Here it is when converted in Logarithm 10, used for simpler mathematical analysis:
In Neperian Logarithm, used for scientific calculations:
Even though those graphs are not proportional between potencies, we can see the irregularities and the disproportionate jumps between them. The French technique of low potencies is more regular and appears almost exponential, especially when limited to a maximum of 30C. 9 But there is still a big jump after 30C and there is no logical rule in the choice of the potencies.
Why not 11C and 13C instead of 12C, 17C instead of 18C, 23C instead of 24C, go to 31C and eliminate 9C? What remains would be prime numbers, prime potencies and a case could be made for the use of those remarkable numbers; but what determined the choice of the actual series? It is a mix of prime, decimal and duodecimal numbers in incoherent progression…. The Quest. This blurred and imprecise approach to potency and dose has annoyed me for the last 20 years! After all, I come from a school where posology is a major issue, not something that every practitioner can build according to his perception, which can vary at any time. It is beautiful to have this type of freedom to adapt one’s practice to each patient; but all my readings, and studying with different schools and teachers showed me in fact an important amount of rigid prescription methodology within each school of thought and little leeway to integrate other methods. Moreover, what mostly irritated the Cartesian scientist in me was the lack of logical, scientific and physiological explanation for any of the systems. Another issue was apparent at the same time: the preparation, dynamisation, of the remedies, which I found out to be in a total state of anarchy. Do we really know which potencies we prescribe? Hahnemann described the Centesimal Potency, 1: 99; that is fixed, clear, and simple. When we go to the Korsakovian system, we have “the residual part in the vial, assumed to be one drop” + 99 drops. That “residual part” will change with the time of inversion of the vial, the volume of the vial, the quality of the vial (simple glass, silicone, anti-wetting coating, etc,…). I was not able to find any standardisation by looking up the different manufacturers (maybe there is) and no one bothered to answer my questions. So Korsakovian potencies are anything but Hahnemanian Centesimal (CH); they are centesimal within their own system, assuming that all the aforementioned criteria remain unchanged between potencies. Moreover, some people have claimed that in the Korsakovian system, there could be residual earlier potencies remaining in the container, making the final remedy a chord or plasma potency, although the only way I could imagine how this would happen is that previous residual potencies are adsorbed on the glass wall and not affected by further succussions. That would explain the assertion by some practitioners that K potencies are more effective than strictly CH potencies…more questions… When looking at higher potencies, many different methods have been used. I have extracted this list from Julian Winston’s book, The Faces of Homoeopathy:
How does that relate to a Centesimal Hahnemanian Potency? What are we using today? Who knows? Indeed they work, as every practitioner can testify but in honest reality we do not have a clue as to what REAL potency we give. We need to revert to a simple, reproducible and standardized method. As if that was not enough there is the issue of the number of succussions at each dilution. This would probably better be discussed in a separate paper, but let me introduce the subject here: Shui Yin Lo of the California Institute of Technology (and many others) has demonstrated that water plus a substance, when shaken, forms clusters; those clusters are different in shape and configuration for each substance; therefore, Silica, monoatomic, would form smaller clusters than more complex substances like salts, tinctures, nosodes. Using the same number of succussions, the concentration of clusters in the Silica solution would be less than that of a more complex substance, which would be relevant for the next succussion and increasingly so with each succussion. At the final potency, there would be less information in the same potency of Silica than in a salt or tincture; this might explain why Silica is considered as a slow remedy; but if it were succussed a lot more, it might become a fast acting remedy. Or to write it differently, the same potency would have a different intensity, depending on the number of succussions. We need to study the cluster concentrations according to the number of succussions and find the optimal number that will certainly be different for each substance. The Revelation. So I was looking for a way to administer remedies that would be rooted in a Law of Nature the same way the Law of Similars or the Law of Gravity are natural, unchangeable laws of nature. It had to be found under the microscope like for DNA
or in an artificial microscopic engineering creation like those patterns of silicone and silver
In the plant world - From top down: Column 1: Bud spruce under electronical microscope | Brassica Romana
| Roman Broccoli | Cauliflower
In the animal world Nautilus | Sea shell | Chameleon tail | Butterfly with the Golden Ratio
In the human body Inner ear, cochlea | Phalanges
In the meteorological world Low pressure system
In the astronomical world a spiral galaxy | another galaxy | Meissier 51
In the world of human creations, arts and the human body and as related to the Golden Ratio number, Phi, 1:1.618, the “Sacred Number”, known and used since antiquity by many different civilisations. Boticelli’s Golden Ratio | Leonardo’s Golden Ratio
In architecture The Parthenon | Staircase | California Polytechnic
In music Tchaikovsky | Beethoven
In Modern Mathematics Chaos, fractals in Mandelbrot’s Equation
And the unexplained too…. Crop circles…….
In the stock market
and even in your pocketbooks, purses and handbags Golden Ratio in the credit card
This Law has received public exposure in this book
And was discovered by this man
Leonardo Fibonacci 1170 -1250 As shown, you will find the Fibonacci series and the Golden Ratio everywhere you look, from microcosm to macrocosm, so why not use it in Homeopathy? The Fibonacci Series. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377,….is constructed by adding one number to the previous one, which forms the next in the series:
The Golden Ratio which can be seen in the rectangular picture leading to the Fibonacci Spiral is the most harmonious proportion between width and length, always equivalent to the ratio 1:1.618 In the Fibonacci series, every number divided by the preceding one “vibrates” (is approximately equivalent) around this ratio. How does that relate to potencies? 0 is the crude material, which we do not use 1 would be the Mother Tincture, which is in fact a 1:10 dilution, therefore a 1C is in reality not a one hundredth dilution but a one thousandth, just to make things more complicated
Although costly and time consuming, it is easy to prepare those potencies by hand as described by Hahnemann up to 144C or 233C; those are real Centesimal Hahnemanian potencies although the number of succussions is a variable (Simillimum 10 succussions, Helios 40 succussions, some others 100 succussions or anything inbetween), meaning that you should use the same provider and decide about a fixed number of succussions so cases can be compared; later on we can start comparing the relevance (or lack thereof) of different number of succussions. For higher potencies, we would resort either to Korsakovian ones or any of the machine-made ones, but as I tried to demonstrate, we would not know what potency we give as a matter of fact. I will come back to that in a moment and you will see it is not relevant at all. Using that mathematical progression, I postulated that I could achieve an exponential action of one dose after the other.
I was worried though that I would remain in the realm of low and medium potencies, unable to achieve the deep action we want from the 10M, 50M, CM, MM or higher LM/Q potencies. But looking at the Nautilus
and after a short trial with a few patients, I soon realized the fact that the potencies were boosting each other, not by addition but in a real exponential progression, by multiplication. If the first potency used is a 3C 3 = 3C 5C is 3x5 = 15C equivalent 8C is 15x8 = 120C equivalent 13C is 120x13 = 1560C or 1.5M equivalent 21C is 1560x21 = 32760C or 33M equivalent 34C is 32760x 34 = 1113840C or MM equivalent 55C is 1113840x 55 = 61216200C or 61MM equivalent If the first potency used is a 5C (3C not being available or not recommended for toxic substances) 5 = 5C 8C is 5x8 = 40C equivalent 13C is 40x13 = 520C equivalent 21C is 520x21 = 10920C or 11M equivalent 34C is 10920x34 = 371280C or 370M equivalent 55C is 371280x55 = 20420400C or 20MM equivalent Of course to obtain that progression, you must follow the order of one potency after the other. You cannot skip any potency, they have to be taken one after another in the proper order. Are those jumps logical and not haphazard? Look at the graph when those numbers are converted in logarithms.
Those are almost straight lines, showing that the progression is regular and mathematically logical. The small irregularities are explained by the fact that, as written earlier, the numbers of the Fibonacci series are not exactly within the Golden Ratio, but slightly different in the lower decimals (5:3=1.666; 8:5=1.60). But doesn’t the use of potencies that build upon each other to reach activities akin to extremely high potencies contradict my previous question about the jumps between 30C to 200C then 1M and 10M as being too big and exaggerated? Let’s have a look at those potencies in logarithmic form:
and it appears that not only are they sufficiently close to each other, but the logarithmic progression is itself slowly exponential, which makes it mathematically sound.
By itself, each and every potency is low or medium; the combination with the previous one produces a depth of action equivalent to the value of the multiplication. Compare it to the launch of a space shuttle; the first rocket lifts it somewhat from the ground, the next one puts it in the atmosphere then the boosters come in and propel it into the stratosphere and the empty space. Theoretical and practical questions and management of a treatment. I must admit that I hesitated for some time before starting offering this system to my patients. I assumed that:
I had some anxieties:
The patients. All patients were informed that this was an experimental methodology, but that the remedy was decided upon according to the usual methods of repertorisation and selection through Materia Medica reading. The prices were quoted and they agreed on the expenses. Email or phone contact was to be made with me after each dose, describing what was happening and not taking the next dose without consulting me. They all gave verbal consent to use their progress for this work, although I will not describe the full cases. Each dose was provided by the Simillimum pharmacy in Wellington as an individual powder. Each powder was to be either dissolved in a teaspoon of water and taken on a clean mouth or dissolved in a 250 mls glass of water and repeated aliquots taken as indicated. The test of reality. First and foremost, I have again to repeat that finding the right remedy is the most important part of the treatment; without it, no matter how you administer it, if it is not the correct one, it will not work. We all know that but it is better to reaffirm it clearly. Statistics. As of July 2008, 32 patients were included totalizing 45 prescriptions and 28 different remedies; 3 patients disappeared and could not be contacted, 6 patients just started the treatment and about half of the remaining patients are still currently under treatment to fine-tune the results. Remedies. Amethyst 1, Arnica 2, Argentum Nitricum 1, Arsenicum Album 2, Aurum Arsenicosum 1, Aurum Muriaticum Natronatum 2, Bromium 1, Calcarea Arsenicosa 1, Calcarea Phosphorica 4, Calcarea Silicata 1, Causticum 1, Coriander 1, Ignatia 1, Lac Humanum 2, Lachesis 1, Lycopodium 1, Natrum Muriaticum 3, Natrum Silicata 1, Phosphoric Acid 1, Phosphorus 1, Platina 1, Pulsatilla 3, Sanguinaria 1, Sepia 3, Silica 3, Stramonium 2, Tarentula Hispanica 2, Thuja 1. Safety. No patient experienced any proving of any remedy, yet the number of patients is too small to have any statistical significance. There were few aggravations and not serious ones, of the same kind we can expect from any other method of prescription, dry dose, liquid dose or LM/Q. Here are the major ones, with their presenting complaint:
What would happen if the wrong, incorrect, not simillimum remedy is taken?
What would happen if the doses were taken too close to each other? Remember the hypothesis that each dose needs to develop it’s whole action before giving the next one, the shuttle analogy.
After all, we might not need to be too strict about the question of timing; what happened then when the doses were taken too far apart? Quite a few patients emailed me “Ooops, I forgot to take the next dose, should I take it now?” and then resumed treatment, some of them to forget again, and nothing happened even though I thought they would “fall back” or revert to previous symptoms; apparently, with that system, you can “remain in orbit” at the level of the last dose taken for some time. If symptoms recur at the end of a series, you might need to continue with a high LM (D.E. Amethyst 5C to 89C, was OK while on the remedy, recurrence after the 89C is now on a LM7) or more probably you need to prescribe another remedy (I.E. skin and behavioural problems, Stramonium 5C to 55C, OK while on it, recurred 2 weeks after the 55C, Tarentula picture appeared clearly). Speed of action.
When the remedy is correct the speed of action is remarkable, there is no need to wait for months especially in deep mental/emotional situations; if by the end of the series there has been no result, the remedy was obviously wrong…but nothing happened and not too much time was wasted. When I write “cure” at this stage of the development of the technique, it means that there were no more complaints whatsoever, no recurrences, no need for further treatment for the time being, less than a year at most and a few months in general. Depth of action. At the Physical level the treatments removed the effects of physical events many years back and are a clear indication for NBWS situations where the past has to be cleared before treating the present:
At the emotional level the results are even more apparent:
Increased efficiency as “case openers” or “obstacle to cure removers”.
Use with the so-called constitutional remedies. There is no theoretical reason not to use this series when dealing with constitution, whatever that term means to each practitioner. The following patients received the remedy that was most appropriate for their actual situation and was at the same time deemed to be their constitutional, with the exception of the first one, where the remedy was prescribed without taking the clinical status into account. - I.V. suffers from a very complex endocrine problem; most of the treatment was “running after the symptoms” over the last few years, without getting to the bottom of the issue; we decided together to look at stabilising and rebalancing her constitution so that the picture becomes clearer and hopefully a cure can be achieved with further treatment. Platina 5C to 89C was prescribed and taken diluted in water (250 mls) because of her medical condition; liquid doses in teaspoons were repeated as needed and during that time there was less muscular pain, the breathing is better, the mind is quieter, there is a diminution of buzzing in the ears, of burning sensation (GERD) and of fears and anxiety as well as helping to keep recurrent infections under control or make them easier to treat. Although this amelioration is maintained, the physical, endocrine, pathology has not been touched and is clearly a one sided disease, but it has made the whole picture clearer and less confused and has allowed the selection of a little known remedy that seems now very well indicated…results are pending.
I need to write again that “cured” must be completed by “until now” as the time frame is at best one year, and often less. Administration of the remedies. My way with powders is according to the Organon 4.5: not a strictly dry dose as in the Organon 4, not in a glass of water and repeated doses as in the Organon 5, but dissolved in a teaspoon of water as a single dose. For sensitive patients in general when I do not use LMs, and specifically with this series, I followed the Organon 5, dissolve in a glass of water and repeated doses as needed with succussions.
Water potencies are recommended for sensitive patients who would otherwise be using LM potencies, but are ready to try to go faster and have enough energy and courage to sustain possible aggravations. Better be on the safe side, as I wonder if P.S. could have gone onto a destructive rampage in his office if I had given him a single full dose….gladly, I will never know. Provisional conclusions. It works well. It works fast. It works deep. It is not as “aggressive” as I thought it could be despite the speed and depth: proper timing is still needed in my opinion for optimal action but does not seem to be too big a problem; the Simillimum stays in “orbit” and there is no falling back; if it is a Simile or “goodenoughicum”, it will fall back but then we let it do its full job and move on to the Simillimum. It can be used as per Organon 4, dry dose (untested) It can be used as per Organon 4.5, in one teaspoon of water (well tested) It can be used as per Organon 5, in one (or more) glass of water, giving more adaptability and plasticity to dosing, if need be, being still faster than LM potencies It can be used for presenting complaints, for constitution, for the removal of past diseases, obstacles to cures, NBWS situations. Advantages.
Disadvantages.
Nomenclature. I would like to suggest the following shorthand when using this method: if we take for example the remedy Silica, we would write Silica 5-89FiCHs meaning the remedy Silica from 5C up to 89C (without the need to write the intermediate potencies) in a Fibonacci Centesimal Hahnemanian series. For more precision we could add D for a dry dose, W for a dose in a teaspoon of water, L for liquid dose in a glass of water, xS for the number of succussion used for the preparation of the remedy so that we can compare the action of same potencies of the same remedy prepared with a different amount of succussions. If you do not like patronyms in your prescriptions and do no want to use the name of Fibonacci, Centesimal Hahnemanian in Progressive Series could be used instead so you would write Silica 5-89CHiPS. And YES, I am aware of the impending joke that I am treating my patients with FiCHs and CHiPS… A final word. Just try it out. Maybe this will be the next step forward since the LM/Q potencies. Maybe this will be a wet petard, a nice idea but not working out for most of the practitioners. Or maybe you can improve it. Only experience will tell. Let me know. ---------------------------------------------------- Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD. New Plymouth. New Zealand. Copyright Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD. |
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It
appears that used in that manner, those are not static potencies,
but like in the Fibonacci spiral every potency builds its action
upon the previous one, filling a full “time-space” volume (continuum)
progressively before the next one is to be introduced.
