It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
… Moliere
We are sharing here 3 studies as examples of the many errors in our repertories. As we illustrate we would like to share with our readers that at CHRC we have thoroughly studied all the remedies in the ‘Dream’ chapter of the repertory and made corrections and additions in all the remedies listed. What is intended through this study is not a criticism, but a revelation of how much gets distorted and misrepresented as it enters into the repertory.
Study 1.
The Repertory Our Tool?
It is all up to you as to how deep you want to dwell. One can swim just skimming on the surface or one can dive deep. It’s your choice and accordingly will be your experience, a superficial or an in-depth revealing one.
As we begin we urge you to read one column at a time … don’t lose concentration for what we will be sharing through this study will surely make you aware, and we leave that to your individual derivation.
KALI NITRICUM (Kali-n.) SINGLE SYMPTOMS Body, parts, cheek, swollen11, 16 parts, face, swollen4 parts, penis breaking off11 Disease, swelling, cheek11 swelling, face 4 Poisoned, by herself 11 COMMON SYMPTOMS Amorous Anger Anxious Beaten, being Body, emaciated, becoming 11 parts, teeth breaking off Children beaten, being Danger water, from Dead, of the 4 Death friend, of a Dirt, dirty linen 11 Disease poisoning 11 teeth breaking off Disgusting 4,16 dirty linen 11 Exertion, mental 3 Falling 3 height, from a 11 Fantastic Fights 4 Fire Friends, death, of Frightful Intellectual 4 Invention, full of 4 Journeys Many 4,16 Men, following to violate her 11 Misfortune Nightmares Places, high, falling from high places 11 Pleasant Pursued, man, to violate her, by, a 11 Quarrels Rape, pursued for rape, being 11 Restless 4 Rousing the patient 3,4,16 Snow 11 Teeth breaking off Things, growing 11 Unimportant 11 Urinating, desire for 11 Vexatious Visionary Vivid Water |
KREOSOTUM (Kreosotum) SINGLE SYMPTOMS Body, parts, penis, glans penis breaking off 4 parts, throat, stoppage of the throat 11 Disease, emaciation Disease, stoppage, throat 11 Growing things 4 Poison, having taken Snow, snow storms Storms, snow storms COMMON SYMPTOMS Accidents Amorous erections, with 4 Anxious Beetles 10,13,14 Body, emaciated, becoming Bugs 10,14 Dirt 4 dirty linen 1,7 Disease poisoning Disgusting dirt 4 dirty linen 1,7 Falling height, from a Fire Frightful Laughing Many 3,4,7 Men, following to violate her Misfortune 4 Murder Murdered being 2 Nightmares 10,13,14 Places, high, falling from high places Pleasant Poisoned, being Pursued, being man, to violate her, by a. Rape 4 pursued for rape, being Rousing the patient 4 Snow Things, growing 4 Urinating desire for 4 Vexatious 3 Weeping |
(Symptoms as under Kali. Nitricum and Kreosotum in the Synthetic Repertory Vol. III by Dr. Medorrhinum Horst Barthel and Dr. Medorrhinum Will Klunker under Dream chapter.)
Have you read both the remedies accurately? Do you find anything peculiar about them? This is a study and if you participate you will learn and grow. If one reads them carefully, there are twelve dreams under which both Kali Nitricum and Kreosotum are listed together. Let us innumerate…
Body, emaciated, becoming 11
Dirt, dirty linen 11
Disease, poisoning 11
Disgusting, dirty linen 11
Falling, height from a 11
Men, following to violate her 11
Places, high, falling from high places 11
Pursued, man, to violate her, by a 11
Rape, pursued for rape, being 11
Snow 11
Things, growing 11
Urinating, desire for 11
(Single symptoms under Kali. Nitricum)
Body, parts, penis, penis breaking off 11
Poisoned, by herself 11
You see the enormous benefit of studying two remedies together through the repertory … you come to understand how the remedies are related, they have so many symptoms in common and that too at the level of the subconscious! From this similarity, can we deduce that they are complementary remedies? Or could it be that they are inimical like Phosphorous and Causticum, which also have many things in common?
Now let us understand the relationship between these two well-proved remedies. We found they are not complementary, they are not related, they are not inimical, and they are not remedies that follow well! What do we call their relationship? We had to discover a new relationship for these two remedies and we found the term erroneous relationship best suited to them!
Setting the prank aside and addressing this very serious point, if we tell you that the above mentioned twelve plus two dreams listed under Kali nitricum (Allen’s Encyclopedia as the source) are those that belong only to Kreosotum and that this is a mistake in the repertory that happened nearly a century ago and no one, absolutely no one has ever bothered to correct it … not even the Synthesis at least up to the 8.1 or the Complete! All have simply carried forward the mistake. (This study we had published in our News letter ‘Homoeopathy First’ in the year 2005 as we had completed our intense study of the Dream chapter and by then, we were urging the digital repertories to do the needful corrections. Hopefully now as you read this, the corrections must have been incorporated.) Our repertories are loaded with multiples of these mistakes and the like. They have now started getting involved with putting in a lot of information, which is half-baked and not even well proved, in this valuable tool. Our repertories are getting fatter and fatter with multiple remedies i.e. the quantity is more but the quality of additions is making it a ridiculously hopeless tool.
As we have corrected all the remedies from their sources under the Dream chapter, the stark reality stares ominously into our view. Further, the amount of distortion that goes in the process of converting symptoms from text to those listed in the repertory as well as from one source to another is phenomenal! To site an example: in Hepar Sulph. is listed Dreams of Fire, but the text reads it as Anxious dreams of a conflagration; well to us as we have studied the dreams to their utmost detail there is a lot of difference between the mere mention of fire to the accurate representation in the word conflagration. Conflagration means a destructive fire, usually an extensive one. When one studies Hepar Sulph., one understands the significance of this symbolic expression of the essence of this remedy through it; whereas if represented as fire, as is done in the repertory (… well fire has nearly 54 meanings listed in Webster’s dictionary!) is completely misleading. The point that we want to drive home is – by listing just the word fire, one is unable to unravel the symbolic meaning that is expressed on the subconscious level, whereas the word conflagration takes us directly to the essence of the remedy.
Repertory is supposed to aid us in our efficiency to reach a similimum; but if one sincerely and conscientiously studies it, there won’t be any doubt left that carrying forward such serious mistakes is nothing but a self defeating process for a homoeopath.
Thank you Drs. Shetye & Khariwala. I always knew there were inaccuracies in the repertories, but never realized they were so extensive. I applaud your hard work in discovering these errors your attempt to make corrections. It is a great service to our community.
Good article in the sense that it makes me aware that there are bad repertories, I and I’m sure many others don’t have the time to investigate each and every medicine of the thousands and etc. that I give. If the article would give a specific reference book that one could refer to for all the errors of all the repertories. then maybe that would be more practical.
Now it makes some confusion: how to select\choose a good repertory; which is good repertery. Above all how many of us [homeopaths] following repertory[ies] promptly.
Every repertory after Boenninghausen’s Pocketbook 1846 is full of mistakes. I share the concern about the overgrowth and under-accuracy of the modern repertory. But to criticise ‘dreams of fire’ because the materia medica says ‘anxious dreams of a conflagration’ is going too far. The repertory is only meant to point to the materia medica, not be a full expression of it. That’s asking too much of it and leads to the addition of too many rubrics. For example to satisfy this distinction with Hepar would require the addition of ‘dreams, anxious, of conflagration’ or some such, and in this way the repertory becomes overgrown.
As the authors of this article rightly pointed out, we have fatter and
fatter repetories of questionable reliability. To make our repertories
free of all such errors is a herculean task. If only the students in our
homeopathy colleges are involved in this huge exercise, making it
mandatory for every student to atleast trace out one error (not so
far discovered) then eventuallally, we will be able to get a totally
error free repertory of good old kent atleast.
The other side of this same coin is that out there a lot of material is
lying in our standard MMs, yet not found its way into the repertory.
And a third urgent need is to update the repertories with modern
clinical syndromes, like for ex; Absence seizures and while reading under
Plumbum one day, I was surprised to find this in ample detail mentioned
though not in that terminology.
Dear dr,
Proving in homeopathy is very difficult. As proving is done on human beings who are different subjectively and objectively. Their ratio of miasms are different so the impact of medicine administered on them are bound be different and termenology they use in their description may also be different. So the errors are bound to come in repertory and in mat.medica also. That is why we should always take totality of symptoms and not only dreams[ unless we are treating dreams only]. in fact lot of research is required in proving and reproving of every substance required to be used as remedy. We are multiplying medicines . in fact along with this we should try to make truthful and faithful 100% description of the medicines already given in repertory and materia medica to remove the errors left in them.
thanks and regards
dr shekhar
Thanks to elaborate difference
thanks for the hard work. some additions made, some corrections made, fortunately not too many. Let us not forget the repertory is no replacement for MM
Dear Dr.
The new word ” erronous relationship” is not carrying the true meaning like complementary etc.I like to coin anew word as ” erratic relationship “. Thank you sir.
and i have always thought ( and said amny times) that Cann-s and cann-i are swapped, i.e the wrong way round