A divorced woman came in initially complaining of some mild skin and genital itching. But that was mostly a pretext. Actually, she was frantic. Her ex-husband had just filed a suit that, if successful, could result in their sixteen year old son having to live with his father instead of her. He had tons of money and she had very little.
“I fear Sam (her ex) is railroading me,” she said. There was more than a trace of panic in her voice. “I feel helpless, that I’ll always be under his control.” The stress of having to hire herself an attorney and prepare for yet another legal battle (there had been others) was taking its toll. “I have to nap every day because I’m emotionally drained.”
What was her underlying feeling, I wanted to know.
“It’s fear. He has brainwashed my daughters. They used to send me hate mail.”
What did she mean by “hate mail,” I asked.
“One of them once wrote, ‘I want to take your name off my birth certificate.’”
In order to prescribe effectively in homeopathy it is necessary to know as graphically as possible how the person is reacting to his or her stress.
She said she felt “paralyzed.”
“I can sit on the couch and do nothing. It’s like a spider web that Sam has woven and I’m in the web. I’m caught—and the spider is coming after me and I can’t move. I’m scared of him and I’m angry.”
She had unconsciously lapped into metaphor. She was talking and making reference to a web and a spider. Perhaps, I thought, she needed a medicine from the animal kingdom.
Homeopathic medicines are prepared from three “kingdoms.”
- The plant.
- The mineral (metals and salts).
- The animal (sea creatures, snakes, insects, etc.)
I looked into the Repertory, the huge reference book containing thousands of symptoms and the medicines that can cure those symptoms. I started with “paralysis.” There were many entries, too many to be of use. Then I found “Paralysis with consciousness.” There were only two medicines listed, curare and naja.
Curare is a paralyzing poison used by indigenous South American people when hunting. They used to take arrows or blowgun darts and dip the points in curare. When these entered the prey the curare acted to paralyze the voluntary muscles. Respiration stopped as the lungs could no longer contract. Before they died, the animal was fully conscious. Curare, made into a homeopathic preparation, has been reported to bring comatose persons unable to breathe out of coma and restore respiration.
Naja is made from the venom of Naja tripudians, the hooded cobra of India. Naja, in its proving symptoms, is known to produce a mental state of brooding over wrongs and misfortunes. People who have benefited from homeopathic Naja are convinced they have been wronged by another person or by life generally.
All the snake venoms used in homeopathy create an intolerance to tight clothing, especially about the neck. People needing a snake medicine avoid shirts that button at the collar and hate turtlenecks. Some women will even avoid wearing necklaces.
I asked her about blouses that button at the collar. “I never wear them,” she said. She also disliked necklaces unless they were very long.
Naja was becoming a strong candidate. (Curare was not even close.) It also has in its symptomatology the feeling of being trapped. In the repertory, Naja is listed under “Delusion, he is trapped,” under “Delusion, is under superhuman control,” and “Delusions, has suffered wrong.” As a bonus, Naja is also listed under “Ailments from being abused in marriage.” How perfect, I thought.
She received Naja, a single dose.
When seen four weeks later she reported her ex was probably going to drop the suit. “I’m not really worried about it,” she said.
“Did you stop worrying before you heard the good news or after?” I asked as I wanted to know if Naja had acted.
“The fear went away and I became relaxed before I heard he was thinking of dropping the suit,” she said. “I no longer care.”
Her energy was up. She was no longer napping.
I reminded her of how she had described her ex as a spider and herself as a fly caught in his web.
She laughed. “I now think of him like a miniscule bug instead of a big tarentula.”
Oh, and her itching went away two days after the Naja.
Like Cures Like. It’s the homeopathic way.