Essays on Homeopathy in the Light ma Psyche re cul >| Substance R iy Edward C.Whitmont, M.D.Psyche and Substance Essays on Homeopathy in the Light of Jungian Psychology Edward C. Whitmont, M.D. North Atlantic Books Homeopathic Educational Services Berkeley, CaliforniaPsyche and Substance: Essays on Homeopathy in the Light of Jungian Psychology Copyright 1980, 1982, 1991 by Edward C. Whitmont, M.D. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechan- ical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permis- sion of the publisher. For information contact the publisher. Publishers’ Addresses: North Atlantic Books Homeopathic Educational Services P.O. Box 12327 and —-2124 Kittredge Street Berkeley, CA 94712 Berkeley, CA 94704 Cover art by Pablo Amaringo Cover and book design by Paula Morrison Typeset by Campaigne & Associates, Typography Psyche and Substance: Essays on Homeopathy in the Light of Jungian Psychology is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educa- tional and crosscultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Whitmont, Edward C.. 1912- Psyche & substance. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Homeopathy Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Jung, C.G. (Carl Gustav), 1875-1961. L Title. II. Title: Psyche and substance. RX78.WS 1983 615.5'32'019 82-22322 ISBN 1-55643 -106 -6 (pbk.)CONTENTS L jucti . li iucti he S Editi PART I: AN OVERVIEW, The Practice of Homeopathy...........+ssseeeeee eee ee 3 Towards a Basic Law of Psychic and Somatic Interrelationship. 13 The Law of Similars in Analytic Psychology 31 Constitution and Disposition 35 Nature, Symbol and Imaginal Reality . 41 Illness and Healing. ......ceccseesseeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeees 59 PARTI: HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES: AND THEIR ARCHETYPAL FORMS Non-Causality as a Unifying Principle of Psychosomatics— Sulphur. Lycopodium: A Psychomatic Study . Noatrum Muriaticum o.oo IB Calcarea and Magnesia: A Comparison. bevees Psycho-physiological Reflections on Lachesis.......... eee AT a 15 ADT LBB Polychrest Versus Less Frequently Used Remedy— Additional Symptoms of Lactrodectus Mactans...........+ 161Mandragora..... Aristolochia Clemat PART III: INTO PRACTICE The Problem of Soul-Body Relationship in Prescribing..... 181 Problems of Chronic Prescribing . Psychosomatics Impatience: A Differential Diagnosis. . Surgery: An Attitude of Present-Day Medicine . PART IV: CASE STUDIES Allergic Diathesis .... New or Forgotten Indications of Tuberculin. The Intestinal Nosodes . The Chronic Miasms .INTRODUCTION Aude sapere Tr remedy pictures in this volume, written mostly 25 to 30 years ago, were attempts to explore a new way of thinking which I would call imaginal and analogical as opposed to abstract and causalistic. By and large this mode of thinking has until recently been restricted to the artist’s domain. The sober halls of science have been closed to such thinking as they have been closed to a consideration of Homeopathy and its implications, practical and theoretical. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rationalists and posi- tivists, fellow travellers of mercantilism and industrialism, could think only in terms of mechanistic causation and survival utility. The idea that form and patterns are a play of nature with no pur- pose other than their own fulfillment was utterly foreign and unac- ceptable to them, Yet as we have discovered in microphysics as well as in Jung’s work in depth psychology, processes of form underlie the basic dynamics of both matter and psyche. Form implies pat- tern, analogy and even aesthetics. Hence the perception and recognition of analogical forms requires a special sensitivity that is not ordinarily a part of our scientific training. Yet it can prove itself an eminently useful means of unravelling functional interre- lations and pointing up directions of energy and manifestations. Over and above mechanical and chemical dynamics, form-pat- terns are expressions of symbolic correlations, correlations of anal- ogy or similarity, of “as if.” Similarly, nuclear physics uses symbolic images in order to create models of the behavior of ultimate enti- ties not otherwise describable; and depth psychology has discov- ered that symbolic images and correlations are among the most powerful transmitters of energy, capable of “moving mountains.” Imaginal and symbolic thinking is moreover eminently helpful in grasping the constitutional “remedy pictures” of the homeopath-INTRODUCTION ic Materia Medica. Beyond that it may open our eyes to a new view of existence, helping us conceive how psyche and soma, man and earth, function as different aspects of one integrated field. As such this view is no longer new today. It is talked about among environ- mentalists and those interested in humanistic and transpersonal psychology as well as Eastern religions. But in terms of specific application, this viewpoint has not advanced too far beyond a sort of new romanticism, a philosophy of life, which may be important and valuable, but with the exception of some brain research, it has had as yet relatively little influence upon practical scientific work. Homeopathy, on the other hand, presents us with a veritable treasure house of practical data, utterly confusing at first and mind-blowing to traditional scientific thought. If these data were accepted as verifiable they would call for a revision of many basic assumptions in physiology, psychobiology and pathology. Chemistry and mechanics could no longer be considered the fun- damental regulators. Form, images—as archetypal, autonomous, indeed transcendental patterns prior to and playing with sub- stance, directing the life force and hence biochemistry, physiology and psychology—would prove to be the basic regulators. These autonomous, form-patterns transcend as well as include what we are in the habit of separating into compartments of within, with- out, of soul and body, man and nature, of health and pathology, of solid substance and impalpable energy. “Everything transient is but a symbol. . . .” (J.W. Goethe, Faust, part 2). Yet such an imaginal science, willing and capable of thinking in symbolic patterns, is barely beginning in our day and was totally absent in Hahnemann's time. Hence the theoretical foundations of Homeopathy could not and “must not” be true according to orthodox scientists. They thought this way not because it does not work, but because it “could not possibly work” on a priori grounds of biased conviction. Medical and biological scientists consequently refused to investigate the claims of Homeopathy by clinical trial. Those few who tried became convinced homeopaths. One is reminded of the time of Galileo, Copernicus and Kepler, when the idea or possibility of the earth rather than the sun being the moving body was rejected out of hand as heretical. Galileo’s clerical contemporaries refused to even look into a tele- scope to verify the moons of Jupiter he claimed to have discov-INTRODUCTION ered. Scriptural tradition made no reference to Jovian moons, therefore they could not, must not exist. The human mind tends to cling to established views like a religion which promises security of order as over and against chaos. Any challenge to habitual views is a threat to this sense of religious security. This is as true in our “enlightened, rational” day as it was in past “dark” centuries. Only the name of the infallible dogma has changed. “Holy church teaches” has become “Science teaches.” And religions and existen- tial convictions change but slowly. Nuclear physicists have discovered that in the realm of the subatomic, nature behaves in ways entirely different from what we believe to perceive with the naked eye and our ordinary common sense. That which we call visible matter is but a symbolic percep- tion “as if” it were a condensation of something unknown, perhaps unknowable, but at best describable and operative in terms of images such as the model of an atom or a psychic stratum. It is “Formation, Transformation, Eternal mind's Eternal recreation.” (Goethe, Faust, part 2). Yet we continue to deal with everyday real- ity as if image and psychic dynamics were irrelevant and separate from “material” 2vents, which are still considered to be largely determined by hance. In our time of transition there is by way of compensation the opposite tendency of confusing holism with psychologism, of view- ing all patho.ogy as secondary to psychological attitudes. The old Cartesian dichotomy is still prevalent in such an approach but with reversed denominators. The body is here treated as an epiphe- nomenon of the mind rather than vice versa. Now a “right” attitude of mind is held to be the exclusive determinant in curing or pre- venting illness by avoiding stress and tension, While it is certainly true that a hopeless or pessimistic outlook on life, repressed psycho- logical conflicts and tensions do result in organic pathology, and that positive imaging helps in restoring as well as maintaining health, it is equally true that no one alive can wholly avoid tension, stress, conflict, repressions, depression and disappointment. Indeed, psychological complexes and crises are building stones of person- ality. Frustration and repression are the unavoidable conditions of ego-building no less than approval, success, satisfaction and joy. The capacity to become ill seems to be built into the ground plan of human nature regardless of mental efforts to the contrary. More-INTRODUCTION over, we are not merely free-floating minds but minds embodied. A genuinely holistic viewpoint cannot but sce the body as the visibility of the mind and the mind as the expression of the particular indi- vidual self's way of embodiment. Just as our psyches are open to and indeed participate in the energy patterns that surround us, so our bodies interact with substance and are parts of earth processes and nature. And nature is not only kind and life-supporting; it is also destructive and terrible. Natural living does not guarantee health. Indeed, a perfectly natural way of living would amount to a return to savagery. Primitive man also knew illness. Civilization undoubt- edly produces its own pathology but natural primitivism does also. Whichever way we turn we cannot avoid crisis, pain and disease. The tendency to illness appears to be an aspect of the earth dynamic, as is healing. They are the two sides of the same coin. “That which wounded shall heal” is the oldest known formulation of the similia similibus curentur,* wisdom of the unconscious or of the gods, and is ascribed to the Delphic oracle in reply to the injury of Telephos. (Telephos means the far shining light.) The evidence of the homeopathic provingst and of the efficacy of the simillimum selected from the specific symptom totality demonstrates the fact that for every possibility of person- ality as well as organismic pattern, hence for every possibility of ill ness pattern, there is also a substance pattern “out there” which minutely duplicates it. The provings show that every existing sub- stance contains or embodies a disordering potential of human existence that can be activated by the process of potentisation, a desubstantialisation which turns even the so-called “inert” sub- stances into potent agents. The proving disorder is brought about by insistent repetition or simple overdosing of what in a single dose would heal. The proving disorder demonstrates the effect of imbalance, here deliberately produced, but spontaneous in natural illness. Discontinuance of the unbalancing proving process results in restoration of balance. (Unless the restorative power has been overwhelmed by injudicious use; then we speak of poisoning.) *Like may be cured by like, known as The Law of Similars in Homeopathy. For the definition of provings and description of their methodol- ogy, see the article entitled “Towards a Basic Law of Psychic and Somatic Interrelationship .”INTRODUCTION Medieval alchemists held man to be a microcosmic replica of the macrocosmos of nature. Hence Paracelsus felt that diseases should be classified as diseases of lead, silver, gold, Saturn, moon, sun or some other substance according to the cosmic patterns that correspond to and activate them. This contention is experimen- tally and clinically borne out by Homeopathy. Every disturbance of health, be it organic or merely functional, is a “cry for the rem- edy” or as Hering put it, a cry for the process that is its macrocos- mic form analogon and that can restore balance when brought into confrontation with the disease process. When the outer and the inner processes are brought into confrontation, they seem to cancel each other. Yet it is more than a cancelling: underactivity is stimulated, overactivity is calmed. Imbalance is illness, confronta- tion restores balance and heals. Yet that which eventually can heal can also make us ill. And only that which can make us ill can also heal. To be alive means to remain exposed to the tidal swing of balance-imbalance and to experience and confront both. No safe a priori middle ideal exists that would ensure perma- nent normalcy. The very attempt to cling to such a “safe” non-risk path that avoids experimentation and discovery creates its own compensatory pathology of unlived life and rigidity. We have learned that much from depth psychology, and the pathology of retirement seems to confirm it. Going out of one’s way to avoid trouble only calls it forth in another form. “Expect poison from stagnant waters,” warned Blake. Psychologically, growth of personality occurs through crisis and confrontation with archetypal, namely specifically typical human patterns, situations or problems such as dependence, sep- aration, togetherness, competition, aggression, love and the com- plexes of father, mother, child, the hero or of evil, to name but a few. Psychopathology ensues when the challenges of these pat- terns are not adequately met with awareness. Then they may threaten to overwhelm us. Conscious confrontation, deliberate working through with full emotional and bodily experiencing and symbolic realization as in psychodrama or encounter situations protects us from the compulsion of destructive “acting out” from being victimized by our complexes. The potentially destructive impulses are “attenuated” through deliberate confrontation tech- xiiiINTRODUCTION niques; and through symbolic “as if” experiences a dimension of meaning, a quasi-spiritual core, is activated which leads to a new balance between ego and drives. It is an amazing testimony to the unity of cosmic existence that the analogous dynamic is also to be found on the biological and organic level in temperamental, constitutional and “acute” adaptive imbalances in the form of illnesses which call for their archetypal counterpattern to be confronted through the similli- mum in its attenuated “symbolic” potency or dynamic essence. Health and illness are but variants of the same life dynamic, balanced or imbalanced, integrated or disintegrating, differenti- ated or undifferentiated expressions of archetypal form-patterns. Since the life process is a constant play of form fluidly grop- ing, experimenting with new possibilities and variants of differen- tiation, balance is ever and again shifted by risking imbalance. Normalcy and abnormalcy, illness and health, are the ways, seem- ingly, by which life reaches for ever finer differentiation. And spirit and life pertain to the “inwardness,” as Teilhard de Chardin called it, of substance, animate or inanimate, “out there” no less than within ourselves. Yet inward and outward, within and without, are at best symbolic images. They apply concepts of space to dimen- sions of reality that are beyond space and time and comprehen- sion. Through our concrete life and with the help of imaginal capacities we need constantly to encounter, confront and integrate them symbolically and experimentally. In conclusion I feel I must sound a warning from the angle of practical homeopathic prescribing. The remedy-personality pic- tures here attempted provide only one of many possible ap- proaches to the Materia Medica study. I would call it a bird’s- eye view of what otherwise can get lost in the maze of details. Yet this bird's-eye view may omit details of decisive importance in a given situation. The overview can help us see a context of meaning in the details which otherwise must be memorized mechanically; indeed, it may sometimes lead to an accurate prescription by itself particularly in chronic, constitutional states. However, due to constantly overlapping constitutional similar- ities, the step from the simile to the simillimum which alone will do the trick requires careful restudy of modalities and particulars which only repertorial and Materia Medica comparison can provide.INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION ‘he essays of the first edition of this book were written as initial steps to gain an understanding of the nature of the archetypal form-patterns that express themselves in the similarity between substance and psychosomatic dynamics. No attempt was made to explore why this similarity happens to be a basic factor of the heal- ing process. This question has continued to preoccupy me during the intervening forty years. I hope eventually to present a more exten- sive study on this subject. In the meantime an abbreviated summa- ry of my thoughts about the basic dynamics of healing, including the simile principle, is added to this book (“Illness and Healing”). It may help round out the book’s scope and might also stimulate discussion until a more extensive approach to a basic theory of healing becomes possible. Also included in this new edition is a a short essay on the archetype of gold, Aurum metallicum.Part | An OverviewTHE PRACTICE OF HOMEOPATHY jo first try to answer a question which I have been asked re- peatedly and which I have sometimes asked myself. Why is there such a lack of familiarity with, and acceptance of, Homeopathy by so many physicians? I believe there is a basic reason for this which should not be underestimated. The difficulty which at the outset blocks the understanding of Homeopathy lies in the fact that its approach is quite fundamentally at variance with the prevailing approach to science—and mark, I said approach to science; I did not say scientific approach—namely that method generally adopt- ed throughout the past hundred years. Homeopathy’s approach is finalistic and phenomenalistic rather than causalistic. Homeopathy does not evaluate the situation—an illness, for instance—from the standpoint of “what is the causative agent,” which is the standard procedure of modern medicine. It does not ask what infection, what abnormal chemistry, what change in struc- ture, and so forth, lies at the bottom of the disease and obviously, therefore, has to be removed; but it addresses itself to what we may call the phenomenon of constitutional totality. It considers the wholeness of the phenomenon in descriptive rather than causal- istic terms. Now it would seem that what I have said, almost by definition and by the condemnation of my own words, would brand Homeopathy as unscientific, for is it not obvious that one must seek out the cause of anything wrong and then remove it? Indeed, Homeopathy has been called unscientific for the exact reason that it declined to proceed in that manner, and many who have tried to grapple with it have found its approach rather peculiar. Here I shall present the testimony of a modern scientist— Robert Oppenheimer of the Institute for Advanced Study at Prince- ton—quoting from a speech that he gave in March 1956 to an assembled group of psychologists:AN OVERVIEW I would like to say something about what physics has to give back to common sense that it seemed to have lost from it, because it seems to me that the worst of all possible misun- derstandings would be that psychology be influenced to mod- cl itself after a physics which is not there any more, which has been quite outdated. We inherited at the beginning of this century a notion of the physical world as a causal one in which every event could be accounted for if we were ingenious, a world characterized by number, where everything interesting could be measured and quantified, a determinist world, a world in which there was no room for individuality, in which the object of study was simply there and how you studied it did not affect the object... This extremely rigid picture left out a great deal of com- mon sense... We have five things which we have got back into physics .. . with complete objectivity in the sense that we understand each other with a complete lack of ambiguity and with perfectly phenomenal technical success. One of them is . . . that the physical world is not com- pletely determinate. There are predictions you can make about it but they are statistical; and any event has in it the nature of a surprise, of the miracle, of something that you could not figure out. Physics is predictable but within limits; its world is ordered but not completely causal. . .« Classical science was differential. Anything that went on could be broken into finer elements and analyzed so... Every pair of observations taking the form “we know this, we then predict that” is a global thing; it cannot be broken down. Finally every atomic event is individual. It is not in its essentials reproducible. (“Analogy In Sciences,” Robert Oppenheimer, Institute for Advanced Study. The American Psychologist. March 1956) Translated into plain English, all of this means that in mod- ern physics we have come to realize that phenomena cannot always be explained in terms of a cause and effect chain in which a cause leads to a predictable effect, but that they have to be understood in an entirely different sense as quasi-individualistic parts of a grand total of an encompassing pattern. An example of this is what is defined as an energy field. Within the field pattern‘THE PRACTICE OF HOMEOPATHY the various effects are not causally dependent upon each other; thus they can be predicted in their arrangement only statistically; and a field is defined not as it “is” this or that but only indirectly —that is, descriptively—through the patterns and forms of mat- ter that manifest its influence. It is basic for our modern artifices. We cannot say what it is—we do not know. We can only say how it behaves. We do this by describing a number of phenomena and. facts which make up a patterned grand total—a picture. And this is precisely the way in which the homeopath goes about assaying what he deals with in illness. The homeopath arranges, assays, collects a picture. We speak and think in terms of remedy pictures. We assay the expression of an energy field of the illness, unknown per se, but found and mani- festing itself in the way it arranges the symptoms—or shall we say, the expressions of the disturbed physiologic functioning—and we compare this field effect, this grand total image, with a similar field effect which has been observed by exposing the organism to the energy field of the drug. Thereby we establish the exact drug action and drug energy in the form of a drug image. The thera- peutic thinking in terms of such a phenomenologically descriptive field thereby addresses itself, not to the cause and effect chain, but to the grand constitutional total manifested in the field phe- nomenon, resulting in what we call constitutional prescribing. In practical terms this means that Homeopathy never deals with an overt disease manifestation—with an infection, shall we say—but with that disturbance which enables the infection to take hold, which contains it as a partial element. It does not deal with an effect of changed chemistry, but with that energy, that ordering element, which permits this change of chemistry to occur. Perhaps now you see that this difference of approach has two very practical aspects, 1) in terms of how we go about it; and 2) what we bring about. The constitutional totality method differs from usual medicine in the way it sets about selecting the drug, and in what it expects the drug to bring about. To use an analogy, it differs in the same fashion as an attempt to ward off smallpox in olden times by burning incense or hanging up cloths soaked with disinfectant differs from modern immunization by vaccination. In saying this Iam neither advocating nor rejecting vaccination. I merely use the analogy in order to describe an approach that mobilizes theAN OVERVIEW defense forces, the immunizing forces, of the organism itself rather than one that attempts to stop an “invasion” directly. This immu- nizing defensive ability seems to be a general phenomenon and by far exceeds what is at present known to us from the limited field of immunology, which constitutes, after all, a very limited applica- tion of the homeopathic or isopathic principle. This does not mean, however, that because the symptoms of the disturbed condition are used in this descriptive fashion to arrive at a medicine, Homeopathy treats symptoms. This is as incorrect as it would be to say, for instance, that the Geiger counter indicates noises. The Geiger counter merely uses a noise phe- nomenon—a clicking—to indicate the presence of radiation not directly perceptible. Similarly, the symptoms are used to indicate the presence of an otherwise imperceptible energy disturbance, comparable to the radiation in the above example. Now what symptoms does Homeopathy use? It uses those symptoms that are indicative of the disturbed energy field, namely, of the individual physiological reaction or expression of reaction. In other words, it selects those symptoms— it directs itself accord- ing to those symptoms—that make the individual condition unique and at the same time are most expressive of the encom- passing wholeness of the individual under observation. Those symptoms are what we call general symptoms—symptoms that affect the whole individual, not only parts; mental symptoms, mean- ing symptoms expressive of the way the personality reacts; the strange, rare and peculiar symptoms such as are indicative of this particular individual's response; and also symptoms that are strange, rare and peculiar inasmuch as they do not logically fit into the expected clinical picture—for instance, when someone with an acute fever is very hungry and not thirsty. This is a peculiar symptom because in fever ordinarily one is thirsty and has no appetite, so it is rather unusual when a person is not thirsty but is hungry. It is typical of an individual energy field arrangement. Now in these few words we have in a nutshell what Homeo- pathy really stands for. That is Homeopathy. Homeopathy is not the prescribing of small doses. The question of dosage is incidental, purely pragmatic. It has nothing to do with the principal issue of Homeopathy, apart from the fact that Homeopathy does not actu- ally prescribe small doses but potentized medicines— substancesTHE PRACTICE OF HOMEOPATHY altered in respect to their qualitative, not quantitive, state. In order to make this as concrete as possible I will give you an example of homeopathic prescribing. We will consider the case his- tory of a patient seen for what is known as paroxysmal tachycardia. In this state there are attacks of extremely rapid heartbeat and a pulse rate up to 150 or even faster; these were the complaints for which this patient sought medical advice. The clinical workup showed that he was also suffering from valvular insufficiency, probably of rheumatic origin. However, the attacks themselves had come only relatively recently and had no obvious connection with the pre-existing valvular condition. He had been taking quinidin for a long time with fairly satisfactory success, but he wanted to see if he could not get rid of it perma- nently. In addition to the main complaints he had a history of intestinal spasticity, ringing in the ears and right-side sacro-iliac dis- turbances. The laboratory report did not produce anything else of interest except for the electrocardiogram, which more or less confirmed the cardiac diagnosis. So far this is a complete clinical picture which would indicate the drugs which had been pre- scribed—digitalis or quinidin. He had them. Now what does the homeopath do about this? The home- opath would answer: “Nothing, because I have not the case yet. With that history I know nothing whatsoever about the patient. In practical terms, it is a completely meaningless situation and I have not the faintest idea what drug he needs because the most impor- tant information has not yet been made available.” What is this missing information? We will consult my case sheet. 1 asked him first: “Tell me everything that bothers you— everything whatsoever, even the slightest and most irrelevant com- plaint, regardless of whether it has anything to do with your main trouble.” So he told me that sometimes his vision is blurred. Then he mentioned the rumblings in the abdomen and a tendency to loose stools; he said that he has ringing in the ears; he gets tired; and he has sacro-iliac trouble on the right side. There is also a feel- ing of tenderness in the abdomen—an X-ray fifteen years ago showed dropped intestines. He said also that when he is either tense or inactive his troubles begin. So I said to him: “It’s a bit bet- ter, but still I know nothing about you.” I inquired further and this is what I elicited.AN OVERVIEW He used to be very fond of sweets—would pick up any piece of candy he could find. Funny, is it not? And how apparently silly and irrelevant! He feels better when he moves around; is very logy after sitting but gets relief if he moves around vigorously. The buzzing sound in the ears is worse on the right side; I checked again on his sacro-iliac trouble—was that also on the right side? It was. So I asked him: “Are most of your troubles on the right side?” Well no, he didn’t think so. “What about your abdominal troubles,” I asked? Oh, yes, also on the right! I wrote down “right- sided.” Then upon questioning he remembered that much more often than not his attacks come on in the late afternoon. Which did not satisfy me—“What is the late afternoon—three, four, five, six, seven o'clock?” Well, it is from four o’clock on. Then, he is happier when he is warm, gets chilled easily, but also feels better in the open air. He does not like to have his abdomen pressed. When I first asked him about this, he said no, he didn’t mind. Then I looked at his pants—he was wearing them way down low. asked him why, and he said that he likes to wear his belt over the bones. Again, why does he like this? And he told me that he didn’t like the pressure. I had never seen him with a hat. Why? He did not own a hat. Why not? Well, he did not like hats—did not like the pressure around his head. After that I was satisfied. I had my remedy. How? Let me give you an example of a drug picture (you remember I spoke of a pic- ture) as it appears when observed and tested on a healthy person. I described the drug I used in this case in the following terms when I was teaching at the Postgraduate School of Homeopathy. The people who are most likely to need it are those who labor intellectually. They are intellectuals of a weak physical constitution. They are people who may lack assurance; who are introverted, with a tendency to brooding; full of fears, anticipation, looking prema- turely old, with furrowed faces; who are at the same time afraid of and averse to being alone but equally averse to having company around. In fact, they are happiest when they know someone is in the next room. They are irascible, quite irritable; and relapse easily into their brooding state. They live entirely in the head. They have low powers of resis- tance to infection, are likely to be dark-complexioned, turn gray early, and do not like to be fenced in either physically or mentally‘THE PRACTICE OF HOMEOPATHY —this last indicated by the reaction to the pressure of clothes, to anything tight around them. Usually their complaints are on the right side of the organism, including a propensity to liver distur- bances. Easily chilled, they nevertheless cannot stand heat, are bet- ter in the open air and better from motion. Usually their troubles are worse in the late afternoon, between four and eight. One also finds them generally domineering, taciturn, averse to talking, greedy, miserly, and easily moved emotionally; very conservative, prone to suffer from wounded pride, hypochondriacal, over-dis- putative, oversensitive to noise, craving sweets, with a tendency to flatulence, worse from cold drinks. Perhaps I need not go into more details after this character- ization. One would only add that such people are very subject to chronic diseases. Mind you, this is the overall, the most important part of the remedy selection, because whether the patient develops this condition or that one—let us say a coryza or a sore throat or a hepatitis or a pneumonia—is less important. For these types, whenever this remedy is indicated, one finds a right-sidedness—a right-sided tonsil condition, right-sided pains, a liver affection, etc. It will be indicated in cases of pneumonia, and in all sorts of intestinal trouble. But the diagnosis is of secondary importance, because whenever the grand total of characteristic symptoms as described above is present, whatever happens to be the anatomical state or the name of the clinical disease, Lycopodium —which is the remedy indicated—will cure if there is no irreversible pathology. Therefore, to know that this is a case of paroxysmal tachycardia helps me as little as to know that the patient has a tonsillitis or a pneumonia. What I needed to know was how he reacted in terms of those apparently silly, irrelevant peculiarities which Homeo- pathy calls constitutional symptoms. Then I will give the remedy, whether it happens to be for tonsillitis or a boil on the back of his neck. This, of course, does not mean that I am not interested in whether or not he has pneumonia, but the fact that a certain clin- ical picture is present is significant only in that certain drugs have a greater propensity than others to affect certain organs or organ groups. For remedy selection, the exact nature of the condition may be of differential diagnostic importance. Perhaps I should remind you that in the ordinary pharma- copoeia Lycopodium is classed as an inert substance, therapeuticallyAN OVERVIEW ineffective. Old-time pharmacists used it as a powder to coat pills —a completely harmless, inert agent. And inert it is. If you take a small dose of it, it will be inert; if you take less Lycopodium, it will still be inert; if you take a smaller dose, it will be “inerter”; and if you take still less, it will be “even more inert”! If you decide, as has been ironically suggested, to “put a drop of it into the Hudson,” it will do nothing. Because this has nothing to do with Homeopathy. Homeopathy does something entirely different. Instead of making it into “less,” it somehow, by a specific process of surface dispersion, increases its energetic charge. We deal here with phenomena not yet sufficiently understood, theoretically belonging to some sort of electrical field, possibly something akin to surface forces. What mat- ters is that in terms of quantity it is not /ess of something—not less Lycopodium—but in energetic terms more surface effect, or perhaps an ionizing effect. All I can say is that it is analogous to this group of phenomena with which we are familiar. I do not know whether further examples are needed. Perhaps another one, in the care of acute conditions, might be simpler. This was a patient hospitalized with pleuro-pneumonia—also on the right side. Here the picture was a bit confused. I do not recall how it started, but when I saw her she had been taking achromycin for two weeks and was still feverish—apparently an antibiotic-resis- tant type of pneumonia, since she had had a number of antibiotics before. The peculiar symptoms were that she wanted to lie abso- lutely still; her pains were of the “stitching” kind; she was very thirsty; and she felt better when lying on the painful side. Now these three symptoms, these peculiarities, point towards a certain drug—Bryonia. It was given, and it had no effect. This shows the sort of problems we may run into—what the technical aspects of the situation are. Here we have a case in which the obvi- ous, apparently indicated remedy did not work. However, we are not yet through. This drug was selected entirely on the basis of the symptoms pertaining to the immediate illness. Which means that the symptoms I described—pain on the right side, improvement from pressure, etc., were those of the acute response to the pneumonia. They were not really generalities in the wider constitutional sense. They were still, in a way, the symptoms of the acute disease and not of the individual, and while sometimes that is sufficient, often it is not. So now practically speaking, what is the individual? 10THE PRACTICE OF HOMEOPATHY Well, this individual was a person of a generally pale, waxy, anemic appearance, extremely nervous and hypersensitive. She jumped at every noise—she would jump if someone looked or ‘squinted at her, if she thought they didn’t look pleasantly at her. And the symptoms had been changing a great deal during the last two weeks. She did not want meat, she wanted cold milk all the time—always had. Her general desire was for open air and yet she felt chilly on uncovering; and she always had a tendency, now increased, to perspire at night. This new picture, as you see, leaves the pneumonia picture completely behind. It gives us something different. It adds up to a picture of a constitutional peculiarity which is to be found in the provings of Tuberculin, and a dose of that remedy did, in forty-eight hours, what the preceding two weeks of antibiotics—and Homeopathy—did not. It is worth not- ing that in our listing of the Tuberculin indications—the Tuberculin symptoms—we find: “failure to respond to the seemingly well-indi- cated remedy.” Thus her lack of response to what we would call the acute remedy was in itself a constitutional sign pointing to another definite drug. In conclusion, I will offer you one other example. This is a case of a manic-depressive psychosis. Should there be any doubt about this, the date I have here of the first interview is May 2, 1945, which means that the case has been followed and observed for over thirteen years. At the time the patient was first seen, she had just been dismissed from a state hospital after her third or fourth sojourn there. The manic attacks occurred at intervals of about every eight or ten months. This state, you know, is one in which the patients go from deep depressions into states of exhil- aration and even violence. She had had to be hospitalized because she became quite threatening to her family, and the procedure had to be repeated regularly for three or four years. She would be hospitalized; then dismissed with remission of her symptoms; then within a short time there would be evidence that she would need hospitalization again. This time the question arose whether this endless cycle could be stopped. This is the way I took the case. First she was asked to tell me everything that bothered her. She said she has pains and aches over all the body all the time. She has throbbing headaches at the base of the head. She is dizzy on standing, has sciatica, arthritis of llAN OVERVIEW the spine and sometimes interference with vision—blurring. When she has a mental disturbance, she has pleasant thoughts about world peace. When in that state she cannot sleep, but keeps walking and talking. I saw her at such a time. Walk she did—and also, talk she did. In addition, she says her joints are getting stiff, she feels a cracking in the back of the spine; her neck hurts when she begins to move it; and there is numbness of the hands. The sockets of the eyes feel very tender. She has eructations, sour taste and heartburn, a tendency to constipation; and a very poor appetite with an aversion to coffee. There is aversion to sex rela- tions; aversion to strong light; she is better indoors; and she is very impatient. Her menses are weak and short. She feels worse before the menstruation and is very depressed before and during men- struation. She is sensitive to touch—hates it if someone touches her. She has a constricting sensation in her throat, is intolerant of anything tight around the waist, and is afraid of and averse to tak- ing a bath. She sleeps deeply, and cries easily, particularly about beautiful things. She has an aversion to company, has indefinite fears and worries, as though something may happen, a poor mem- ory, and a feeling of frustration all over. She is very chilly, some- times with sensations as if she had chills running up and down the spine, and she catches cold very frequently. She is worse in a damp, cold place. She has a great dislike of milk, but likes sweets and has a desire for salty food. Now let us see how the case worked out. I used the symptoms of aversion to coffee; depression; sadness before the menses; men- struation scanty; worse from touch; lack of vital heat; deep sleep; desire for sweets; desire for salty things. Here I used what is called the repertory method. We have a book—the book, which lists for every symptom observed in the proving all the remedies that show it. So that when we have a very puzzling case, we can play those symptoms against each other and see what drugs have all of them. Whereas the first symptom—aversion to coffee—is found in about fifty or sixty different drugs, after running through all of the symptoms, only two drugs stood out. One was lime—carbon- ate of lime—and the other was sodium chloride—table salt. Like Lycopodium, table salt is classed as an inert substance. Unless of course it is subjected to that same peculiar process as the other—that is, the repeated rhythmical process of dispersion, thus 12TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP increasing its surface energy. Now we still have the question —which of the two drugs? So I looked carefully at the patient. She was rather small of stature, very fat, roundish, plump, dry skin, fair complexion. This is how we describe the picture of Calearea carbon- ica; this is the type. The Natrum muriaticum type is rather thin, scrawny, very active and tense—not at all like the rather phlegmat- ic Calcarea carbonica. Calcarea carbonica was the remedy here and it was given at varying intervals. It is now thirteen years since she first had it, and there has not been a single hospitalization. This patient is a music teacher and is working in the West. She writes and reports occasionally, and I last saw her a year ago when she was in New York. To all intents and purposes she is well—neither a manic nor a depressive—though I wouldn’t say that she doesn’t talk much! I used potencies from the 200th up, and there has not been any intervening psychosis, although there was one light spell six months after starting treatment for which she was almost hospitalized. Of course this could be pure coincidence. But thirteen years is a pretty good period for observation. TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP Were not the eye to sun akin The sun it never could behold Filled not a God's strength us within How could the divine hold us enthralled? Goethe: Zahme Xenien. 3. Buch | ndependently of each other, medicine and psychology have accu- mulated a considerable amount of information in their particular fields. Much less progress has been made towards an understand- ing of how these two fields could be systematically correlated. The diagnosis of a disorder as psychosomatic still implies the absence of “real” organic disease; that psychological difficulties might have very “real” physical manifestations is seldom considered seriously. ‘The general trend of medical thought is still strictly dualistic; psy- 13AN OVERVIEW chic and somatic happenings are treated as mutually exclusive rather than inclusive. Even where there is an inclination to look for a oneness in the dual expressions, there is no understanding, as yet, as to where and at what level a synthesis can be found and how one could advance from general philosophical speculations to a really scientific method. A truly scientific method must be able to explain the cor- relation of specific physio-pathologic and psychologic facts in each given instance; in addition it must enable us to predict facts and connections not yet actually discovered. Instead of this we have only empty words of psychosomatic or psychophysical parallelism which utterly fail to render any specific help or information when put to the practical test. In attempting to formulate the modest beginnings of such a theory, the bare experimental and clinical evidence so far known is made the starting point for finding the basic laws into which those facts can be fitted. In doing so, we must be aware, however, that the mode of thinking applicable to mechanic and inorganic functioning does not do full justice to the expressions of life. Life evolves not in straight progressions but has a peculiar, often apparently self-con- tradictory forward and backward motion of polar oppositions, complementary expressions and circles. Complementation of two entities means that only both togeth- er represent the whole; the same road is travelled, the same ends are accomplished by what on the surface may appear as different or even opposite means and ways. Whereas any evolutionary goal is never considered for the physical organization, modern analytical psychology has shown that psychic events, even in their pathologic manifestation as neu- roses, represent definite stepping stones in an evolutionary pattern which strives towards the fulfillment of a potentially inherent ideal personality, a wholeness growing out of the resolution and integra- tion of opposing elements. Once such an evolution is recognized for the psychic half, its physical counterpart, if truly complementary, must necessarily be subject to a corresponding, complementary evolution. Our task would seem to lie in being able successfully to demonstrate somat- ic events as part of a correlated psychosomatic total evolution, and 14‘TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP in finding the dynamic categories or laws which represent the common elements of these complementary psychic and physical evolutions. In short, we are looking for a “generalized field theory” of psychosomatics. In order to avoid mere speculative theories, we must base our hypothesis upon observable or, still better, upon experimental material which would encompass psychic as well as somatic phe- nomena. Since the psyche of the animal differs fundamentally from that of the human, only experiments with human beings can render reliable information for this purpose. The only such large-scale controlled psychosomatic experi- ments upon human beings are to be found in the so-called home- opathic “provings.” The evidence of psychosomatic interaction gathered from these experimental drug provings may serve as the starting point for our investigation. In these experiments human “provers,” namely people of average health, take repeated doses of drugs until subjective or objective symptoms of a disturbance appear. Those symptoms which are observed with a certain regularity in the majority of peo- ple proving a given drug are considered to express the character- istic pathogenetic effect of this drug. When, in turn, the symptom complex of any case of spontaneous illness is compared with the artificial symptom complexes produced by drugs, there will always be found a resemblance, often extraordinarily close, between the disease picture and the picture of the effects of some drug on healthy persons. The drug whose own symptomatology presents the clearest and closest resemblance to the symptom complex of the sick person has clinically been found to be the most successful drug for the treatment of this condition. (Hahnemann’s Law of Similars: “Like should be treated with like.”) A detailed study of the Homeopathic Materia Medica, which is compiled by collecting these artificial drug pictures and clinical corroborations, shows that every such drug effect is characterized by specific alterations of the total personality, namely by emotional and mental changes which arise in addition to the disturbance of the general vitality and of the special organs. Some examples may explain what is meant by this and at the same time may illustrate the close similarity between the experimental and the actual, spon- taneous derangement of the psychosomatic personality. 15AN OVERVIEW When a person is subject to dammed-up grief and anxiety for a long time, a condition may ensue characterized by depression with irritability, brooding, listlessness, hopelessness and possibly an addiction to alcohol or even suicidal tendencies; gradually the state may progress towards lack of appetite, chronic indigestion, bilious disorders, etc.; there may be headache, a rise of blood pres- sure and a disturbance of the heart function. Such a state is dupli- cated to the most minute detail by a healthy individual who, over some length of time, repeatedly ingests attenuations of metallic gold, prepared according to Hahnemann’s method of potentiza- tion. For no apparent reason he starts brooding and becomes depressed, irritable, anxious and melancholic; he may experience suicidal tendencies or develop a craving for alcohol. He suffers from intense headaches, his blood pressure becomes elevated, and he develops symptoms of heart, digestive and liver disorders. As soon as he stops taking the gold, these symptoms disappear, leav- ing him as healthy as before. However, in those provers who per- sisted in taking the drug beyond the onset of functional symptoms, actual organic changes, often of an irreversible nature, have been observed. When, however, a patient who spontaneously— not as the result of a proving —suffers from the “Gold-like” disease of melancholia, hypertension and cardiac derangement, etc., takes infrequent or only single doses of potentized gold, instead of the continuous rep- etition of the proving, an improvement or removal of mental as well as physical suffering is initiated. We may mention further examples: Lachesis, the venom of the bushmaster snake, depending upon dosage and repetition, produces in the prover and corrects in the patient a condition characterized by jealousy, hatefulness, depression, deliriousness, vasomotor, inflammatory and even sep- tic states. Calcarea ostrearum (carbonate of calcium, derived from the middle lining of the oyster shell), though chemically a normal constituent of the organism, when taken in a proving in potentized form slows the mental functions, makes the provers dull, introvert- ed and phlegmatic, yet at the same time oversensitive, apprehen- sive, fearful and anxious, and renders them subject to catarrhal, allergic and inflammatory states. Salt (Natrium chloride) in poten- cy produces and corrects states of introversion, anthropophobia, tearful depression, as well as increased oxidation, disturbed nutri- 16‘TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP tion of tissues, and altered electrolyte balance with water retention, hyperthyroidism and emaciation. These few examples may suffice to show that the homeopath- ic literature provides a vast amount of experimental data and clin- ical observations which tend to suggest that every substance represents a force complex that produces the exact duplication of certain spontaneous psychic as well as somatic events. Moreover, in every instance of experimental as well as spontaneous pathol- ogy, we deal with a characteristic complex of combined mental or emotional and organic physical symptoms. This complex is abso- Iutely constant and specific for each different drug, and since each drug can be functionally matched to a certain state of a “similar” spontaneous disorder, it is equally specific for each instance of spontaneous pathology. The only variations within the set pattern lie in the intensity, prevalence or completeness of the various groups of symptoms as presented by the individual prover or patient. Thus, one case of the “Gold-like” disorder might, for in- stance, present itself as dominated by hypertension with cardiac disorder while the melancholia, though present, remains in the background and is brought out only by a careful study of the patient. Another “Gold” case may be an extremely depressive type of patient, at the verge of suicide, while the digestive, circulatory and cardiac symptoms are rather incomplete or may be elicited only upon detailed questioning and examinations. At this point, it may not be out of place to emphasize that the discussion is not intended to address the controversial issue of the homeopathic versus the customary method of treatment. The justification for the use of the homeopathic material in this essay is found exclusively in its peculiar experimental arrangement and, consequently, its almost specific usefulness for the purpose of psy- chosomatic investigation. Admittedly, to anyone confronted for the first time with this material it may sound fantastic or even incred- ible. Yet, since it is the result of repeated controlled experiments, it could be rejected only upon the evidence of similar experi- ments, under the same rigid conditions, which would fail to pro- duce those results. To the best of this writer's knowledge, any such experimental refutation has never taken place. Since, on the other hand, he is aware of experimental confirmations from nonhome- opathic sources (Schulz, Bier) and also was himself able repeatedly 7AN OVERVIEW to confirm the experimental evidence, the admissibility of this material appears justified to him. What could be predicated concerning the functional relation- ship of the mental and the physical symptoms as produced in these experiments? The qualitative specificity and individual character of the mental symptoms, giving what almost amounts to a personality aspect to so many drugs, seem to speak against the assumption that those mental symptoms are merely the result of a primary disturbance of the physical functioning. Moreover, the mental symptoms not infrequently are expressed in an inverse ratio of prominence to the physical symptoms and often precede them in time and order of pathological development. Therefore it appears more correct to state that a uniform biologic stimulus (the individ- ual drug) produces a specific response, simultaneously, on the psy- choemotional as well as the biological level. Gold, for instance, causes weakness, listlessness, melancholic depression and sadness. The prover of Opium also develops weak- ness and listlessness; but he is in a state of euphoria rather than melancholia. If merely the generally depressive action upon the nervous system common to Gold and Opium were to account for the mental effect, there would not be this essential difference. Similarly, both Aconite and Belladonna are irritants to circulation and temperature regulation. Both produce acute states of gener- alized congestion. Yet, whereas the typical mental state of Aconite is one of marked fearfulness, Belladonna is characterized by raging irritability with an absolute absence of fear. [gnatia and Staphisagria both have a general constrictive tendency. However, the /gnatia prover turns into a tearful, moody, hysterical person, whereas the prover of Staphisagria becomes particularly touchy about what oth- ers think or say of him; he develops an oversensitive pride and is concerned about his dignity and reputation. Such fine differentiation and peculiarities could hardly be fit into the hypothesis of a generally depressive or irritative effect, arising solely from disturbed organ functioning. Moreover, symp- toms as strange and, at the same time, as uniquely linked to the “picture” of a definite drug complex as the jealousy of Lachesis, the malicious wickedness of the prover of Anacardium orientale, or the sentimentality of Antimony would hardly be assured to be caused by 18TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP the disturbance of some organ. ‘As mentioned, mental symptoms often seem to be empha- sized in an inverse ratio to the actual organic disorder. In cases of poisonings or in provings carried out with rather substantial doses, the mental symptoms are not well defined. In these instances, where the deranged organic functioning actually dominates the picture in an etiologic way, the mental symptoms show nothing characteristic beyond a general depression, irritation or anxiety. When, however, the provings are carried out with the finer dosage of the higher potencies, thus avoiding any gross interference with organic functioning but rather, in a gradual way, affecting the total constitution, the more characteristic and specific mental symptoms begin to unfold. Sometimes in this type of proving, mental symp- toms may even appear before the first physical manifestations are discerned; sometimes their intensity is in inverse proportion to the physical symptoms. Furthermore, mental symptoms often appear first and are fol lowed by conditions which we clinically associate with the results of such mental states. Aconite, for example, produces a state of anxiety and fright which often dominates the picture long before the appearance of organic symptoms. Later, nervous, circulatory and digestive derangements (tachycardia palpitations, faintness, restless- ness, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.) may develop, such as we generally associate with the effects of fright or shock. According to the simile principle, Aconite has clinically been found to be indicated for the ill effects of shock and fright but also, conversely, for acute conges- tion or circulatory disorders, attended or followed by marked fear. Thus, what we might call in our example the “Aconite disorde namely the functional complex established by frequent doses (in a proving) or corrected by infrequent doses (in spontaneous illness) of Aconite, presents itself as a psychophysical complex which can be set into motion from either direction, the physical or the mental ‘one, or from both sides simultaneously. It includes circulatory dis- orders, etc., resulting in fear, and also fear followed by circulatory disorder, as well as simultaneous circulatory disorder and fear. On the basis of these observations, we cannot very well con- sider the mental symptoms, from the viewpoint of the one-sided causation, as merely the effect of organic disarrangement (except for the cases of massive poisoning as outlined above). Rather, we 19AN OVERVIEW must assume a primarily bipolar effect of the drug upon the two different levels of expression, the mental and the physical one: A uniform biologic stimulus (the individual drug) is capa- ble of producing a specific response, simultaneously, on the psychoemotional as well as on the biological level. These two levels of expression appear to be in a relation of what we may call associated coexistence or synchronicity, rather than of one-sided, fixed causation. (Jung, who introduced the term, speaks of synchronicity in connection with parallel phenom- ena which “simply cannot be related to each other in a causal way but must be in a different genetic relation.”) Yet, since on the other hand our experiments also showed a definite, close, mutual influence of one level upon the other, we cannot be satisfied with this “one-sided” dualistic explanation. For a better evaluation of this phenomenon we might com- pare it with a relatively simple analogous one, the discharge of atmospheric electricity which produces lightning and thunder. Although lightning and thunder are experienced as distinct phe- nomena of light and sound, their difference lies only in the man- ifested form of an identical process (electric discharge) which they bring to our experience. We usually do not perceive lightning and thunder as simultaneous and often may even observe one to the exclusion of the other. However, since we understand the proces- sual, qualitative correlation of lightning and thunder, we do not question the basic identity of their underlying force process. Similarly, in our experimental proving we perceive two different manifestations (psychic and physical symptoms) resulting from one stimulus (drug); in analogy to lightning and thunder, they may be observed simultaneously or in a timely sequence. At times one type of expression may be so feeble as to escape notice, so that we observe only the physical or only the mental phenomenon on superficial examination. But never is the characteristic qualitative pattern changed which is typical of the given drug. Thus we are justified in the conclusion that the two responses, the organic and the physical, to the one specific stimulus must be functionally identical, though in the mode of their manifestation they certainly do differ. Clinical experience seems to bear out this assumption. We 20‘TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP_ know that mental and physical symptoms are largely interchange- able. Emotional suppression leads to physical disorder; physical suppression (e.g. menses, lochia, etc.) may produce hysterical and even psychotic states. In psychiatry even the term “conversion” state is used to denote somatic manifestations of mental or emo- tional disturbances. Reich has shown that the dissolution of certain muscular inhibitions and tensions often leads to the spontaneous dissolution of characterological inhibitions. This characterological shift is attended by vegetative symptoms like trembling and jerking of muscles, itching, gooseflesh, sensations of hot and cold, etc. Reich concludes that “all these somatic symptoms are not the result, nor the causes or the accompaniment of the psychic pro- cesses” but that “they are these processes themselves in the somatic sphere.” Upon careful observation, every mental disorder reveals definite characteristic organic symptoms, even as every patient with an organic illness has his characteristic mental symptoms. Thus the actual instances of clinical disorders fit into the con- cept of the fundamental identity of the processes which present themselves in a dual manifestation in the psychic and somatic spheres. So far, our hypothesis has rested on the experiment based upon the introduction of a third factor, the drug. The proving experiments have shown that under proper experimental condi- tions any and every existing substance of mineral, plant or animal origin is able to call forth a qualitatively specific biologic response in a human prover. From the drug originates the stimulus that calls forth the ambivalent response which is always qualitatively specific for each substance. Consequently this “medicinal” sub- stance itself, though it is a part of the nonhuman realm, must obviously partake of the force-pattern—namely, the specific psychophysical disturbance—which it sets into motion. On the other hand, the actual instances of emotional or physical disorders differ from our experiment in not ensuing, as a rule, from a drug stimulus. Yet even spontaneous illness is linked to a specific exoge- nous drug pattern, inasmuch as for every case of illness a drug pat- tern can be found for which the experimental proving symptoms are an exact replica of the patient's state, thus suggesting, again, the functional identity of the biologic mechanisms which underlie the disturbances. 21AN OVERVIEW The pathogenetic symptoms of the various medicinal sub- stances thus offer the most precise method of describing or sum- marizing, rather than defining, the dualistic (soul-body) manifestations of the uniform functional entity. The human dual psychosomatic unit appears in a synthetic replica upon a third lev- el of manifestation: the nonhuman substances and their force patterns. ‘An analogous situation presents itself in analytical psychol- ogy. In the activity of the psyche, inner events are summarized and symbolized in the form and appearance of outside objects or functions. Many of these symbols are of a strictly subjective char- acter and depend upon the individual patient's variable associa- tive patterns. Other symbols, however, are of an almost objective and invariable nature. They have retained an immutable identity of meaning throughout recorded history regardless of person, sex, language, race, nation, or epoch and individual understand- ing. They appear not generated by the individual person but to be objective, a priori, existing entities, independent of the individ- ual’s understanding. We might feel almost that they, at times, impress themselves upon a person who, usually, is absolutely unaware of their meaning. For this reason Jung calls them collec- tive symbols. In symbol formation, the psyche carries out a process of iden- tification which links objects and functions of the outer world to the inner soul process upon the basis of what we may call appear- ance. For instance: the sea is the symbol of the collective uncon- scious “because it hides unsuspected depth under a reflecting surface.” Green is the symbol of growing, because growth, as found in its purest form in the plant, is invariably characterized by the color green. Birds are thoughts and flights of mind, etc. Appearance, namely the morphological and behavioristic manifes- tations of living or lifeless objects, thus plays the same role of link- ing the inner process to the outer as do the biochemical and physiologic properties of a drug which, as we have seen, link the outside substance to biologic happenings. What reality, if any at all, stands behind this linking of inner and outer process upon the basis of like appearance? The fact of the regularity and basic invariability of the associated patterns, regardless of epoch or individual, suggests that an objective factor 22TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP_ must be common to the soul event as well as to the nature process or object which furnishes the symbol picture. At first, we might be tempted to assume that green, for instance, appears as the symbol of growth simply because it is the color of plants and our mental process associates it with growth on the basis of mere superficial resemblance. Yet not only do we associate green with growth but it actually is the color associated by nature with growth, namely in the plant where growth appears in its purest and least impeded form. Whenever green is replaced by a different color it means that growth has come to a standstill, as witnessed in the termination of the plant in the varicolored blossom (seldom green) or in the reverse action of growth, namely wilting. When, in the ascending evolution, the abounding power of growth is restricted by the appearance of a soul life, the green of the plant gives way to the red of the blood, the color of emotion. Thus our subjective associative processes, far from establishing any arbitrary connections, seem merely to follow what is intuitively grasped as already objectively associated by nature in a creative totality. Even as the symbol is the image and expression in terms of form and appearance of specific psychic energies, so is the mor- phological manifestation or appearance of an object or function in nature the expression and image in the world of sense percep- tion of its intrinsic functional dynamism. The conclusion is obvious that whenever the two energies, the psychic and the outer one, are linked by the identical morphological image, they must somehow be objectively associated (namely, functionally identical), although this identity manifests itself in a different language, depending upon the particular level of expression—in our example in plant growth, soma or psyche. In our biologic research we have shown litte inclination, until now, to consider an objective connection between appearance or morphology and inner functioning. But in terms of strictest bio- logical reasoning there is no real justification to exclude structure, form, color and characteristic behavior from our acceptance as objective manifestations of an inherent force pattern, and, arbitrar- ily, to limit this acceptance to biochemical properties alone. Inas- much as the laws of nature nowhere permit any arbitrariness, the morphological and behavioristic appearances of a substance, plant or animal must represent expressions just as characteristic of the 23AN OVERVIEW totality of the intrinsic law of their being as do their chemical and pharmacodynamic properties. An example might illustrate the practical implications of this assumption. Jung describes the dream of a patient in which the dreamer saw a glass filled with a gelatinous mass and points out that, unknown to the dreamer, the glass corresponds to “unum vas” (one or unique vessel) of alchemy and its contents to “living semi- organic mixture from which the body of the lapis, endowed with spirit and life, will emerge.” In this patient's case, his unconscious mind, in order to express the “bringing into life” of a new entity in his soul, associated or identified this state of spiritual pregnancy with what “translated” into physical shape would appear as a vessel filled with a gelatinous mass. That this association is not arbitrary but bears out an objectively set pattern is shown by the fact that the same archetype of form appears, with some variations but iden- tical meaning, in different times, cultures and traditions. It appears as the alchemistic unum vas, the hermetic vessel,” the vessel from which the homunculus is born,’ the vessel as the symbol of the matrix,‘ the enveloping element within which things originate and receive form, which therefore is identified with the uterus,* but also with the head;! as the egg symbolizing the prima materia® which is the aboriginal chaos or the creative cosmos, as the holy grail’ conferring eternal life and faith, and as the vas spirituale and hon- orabile, namely the Virgin Mary? Our enumeration showed that the conceptual symbolic con- text of the vas principle includes the head as well as the womb and the egg, since these are the physical organs of birth of spirit and body, respectively. At first we might look at this identification as but an allegorical play. What do we make of the fact, however, that both head and uterus are actually morphological replicas of the typical form principle expressed in the unum vas? Both skull and uterus have the shape of an overturned vessel (our barbarian ancestors even used the skulls of their slain foes as drinking cups). The head contains in its hard shell the soft, gelatinous, structurally little-differentiated brain, swimming in the cerebrospinal liquor; the pregnant womb, with its tough, rigid muscular shell, encloses the soft, gradually differentiating gelatinous matter of the fetus, swimming in the amniotic fluid. The same morphological pattern we find expressed in the 24TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP structure of a flowerbud, a seed and an egg, as well as in the shape and organization of the oyster: a hard shell encloses a more or less gelatinous, undifferentiated body. Moreover, the provings and clin- ical effects of Calcarea ostrearum, the oyster shell (Calcium carbon- icum), reveal a dynamic pattern which in the human organization specifically affects head and creative-reproductive function and the process of solidification and tightening of the structure from the liquid medium; thus lime furthers and maintains the biological differentiation of form and structure from the undifferentiated, half-liquid medium; and psychically, it is indispensable for the development of consciousness and mental activity. We cannot but surmise now that a basic archetype of form expression or appearance is represented by the pattern of the undifferentiated matter in the shell; wherever in nature this pattern appears, it is not only “symbolic” but is the objective expression of a definite entity or functional force-principle. In our example, it operates as creating, form-giving and differentiating, be it in the evolution of a psychic personality, as a mental process, as the differ- entiation and solidification of tissues, or the differentiation of plant, animal or human shapes from the primordial chaos of seed and egg. From our understanding of this shell-forming principle as the lime forces, we are able to make a scientific prediction: everywhere the processes of differentiation and germination, etc., will be de- pendent upon a proper functioning of the dynamic forces of lime. Arriving at a general statement from our specific example, we might say that form expression and appearance are objective man- ifestations of a definite creative entity. The soul process, when it expresses inner happenings in the visual form of the symbol image, repeats and duplicates the formative process of nature. The symbol ion is identical with the nature process; creative nature is the great symbolizer. Soul contents, expressing themselves in symbols, are identical in their genetic pattern with those physical or biologic pro- cesses which are manifest in the same prototype of appearance, namely morphological form pattern. This being the case, a tech- nique similar to the one used by analytical psychology for the unrav- cling of the symbol context of a patient ought to be applicable to the interpretation of the morphological, biochemical and pharma- cological material. The studies of Natrum mur, Phosphor and Sepia in which this attempt is made seem to bear out this hypothesis. 25AN OVERVIEW To the identity of outer substances as medicines, and the iden- tity of physical and mental symptoms, we have added the identity of the natural form process in the outer substance as symbol image as well as the inner psychic and biologic happening as symbol meaning. We thus have established an identity throughout of a certain archetypal creative functional force principle which brings itself into actual manifestation in the most diversified forms—as the biologic and morphologic characteristics of the various organisms, as the form patterns of the psychic elements, and as the pharmacodynamic, chemical, biologic and morphologic characteristics of any sub- stance in nature. ‘We may now attempt to find a general phenomenological law into which these facts can be fitted. The first to undertake the correlation of analogous yet diverse phenomena, using the concept of underlying archetypal entities, was Goethe. In contemporary modern science Jung has demon- strated the “archetypal structure” of the unconscious. We shall see that Hahnemann, a contemporary of Goethe's, also instinctively applied the archetypal concept. Goethe, in order to systematize comparative anatomy, pro- posed the assumption of an “anatomical type,” namely a basic pat- tern of an “archetypal animal” (also of an “archetypal plant”) “as a general image in which the shapes of all animals would be con- tained as potentialities and according to which one could describe every animal in a definite order.” Those qualities which upon comparison of the different forms are found to be similar or com- mon would fashion the abstract image of the archetype. Hahnemann used exactly this method in comparing the symptoms common to most of the provers with those of the most similar diseases; out of those common or similar qualities he fash- ioned the abstraction of the totality of a drug picture. This drug picture contains every special instance of a proving or similar ill- ness as a potentiality. It is an archetypal image according to Goethe's postulate, since neither any single prover nor any single patient can ever actually exhibit all the characteristic symptoms predicated of a drug totality; every actual case presents but a rudi- mentary and varied aspect of the ideal conceptual totality. While Goethe and Hahnemann compared shapes with shapes and symptomatology with symptomatology, respectively, Jung com- 26‘TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP_ pares soul impulses with pictorial images; their common qualities lead back to the archetype that expresses itself through symbol and soul impulse. Our study in this essay suggests the possibility of an extension of this method—used independently in morphology, psychology and medicine—towards a synthesis of these hitherto relatively isolated fields. We might hypothetically consider it a fact of general validity that phenomena which are isomorphic—essentially similar but of varied manifestation—can be correlated with each other in the most practical fashion by establishing the “archetypal phenome- non” of which they represent the special instances of manifesta- tion. Whereas the comprehension of the archetype establishes the common connecting idea, the individual variations which account for the manifoldness of natural phenomena can be understood by what Goethe describes as “metamorphosis.” As a generalization he states: In the fact that that which is of similar concept may appear in its manifestations as like or similar, yet even as total- ly unlike and dissimilar, in this fact consists the ever-changing life of nature . . .' We find that the manifoldness of shapes is accounted for by the fact that a preponderance has been granted over the others to this or to that part. For instance, the neck and the extremities are favored at the expense of the body in the giraffe, whereas the opposite happens in the mole. Upon this consideration we at once meet with the law that nothing can be added to one part without having it subtracted from another one and vice versa." Any intensification of certain qualities necessarily means the abridgement of others, thus leading to a polarity of apparent oppo- sites. Whenever the blossom of a flower is enhanced by cultivation its reproductive ability suffers; conversely, grasses which tend towards particularly abundant propagation have only very diminu- tive blossoms. Persons who live in a world of ideas may do so at the expense of their sense of practicality, whereas the more practically minded people often care little for abstract thought. Underexpression of one aspect means a compensatory emphasis of another function. Thus the utterly practical and ratio 27AN OVERVIEW nal businessman may fall victim to inexplicable romantic or erratic whims as his unconscious soul compensates for the drabness of his “practical” daily life, Plants of very stubby, short growth often sur- prise us by the extensiveness of their roots. Suppression of physical manifestations of a disorder leads to an accentuation of the distur- bance on the mental level, whereas the most violent physical suf- ferings may show but few mental symptoms. Thus one basic pattern can be varied endlessly by means of extension and intensification with complementary contraction and diminishment, leading to ever-new tensions of polar opposites. The law of complementary balance is the law of metamorphosis. In his work on the metamorphosis of plants Goethe demon- strated that the manifold forms of the various plants, as well as the different parts within the same plant—namely root, stem, leaf, blos- som, fruit, seed, etc—represent but variations or metamorphoses of one archetypal plant. Similarly, he demonstrated that various animal and human skeletal forms are variations of one basic form. Yet the interplay of complementary or compensatory qualities may also encompass entirely different fields of expression. Goethe draws attention to the fact that by regulating the composition of the soil, either the longitudinal growth or the flowering can be enhanced in plants;"* thus growth may metamorphose into repro- duction and vice versa. We have also seen that somatic expressions metamorphose into physical ones and vice versa. The manifesta- tion of identical impulses upon different media of expression may be assumed to belong, fundamentally, in the same phenomenol- ogy of metamorphosis that underlies the comparatively simple morphological phenomena Goethe described. Thus, archetype and metamorphosis may appear as basic dynamic principles of manifestation. Our own finding of a com- mon functional force—manifesting itself on the diverse levels of psyche, soma and outer substance—is but a special instance of the broad law of archetypal manifestation through metamorphosis, the law of creative nature. The archetypal principle itself, however, is as such inaccessible to our direct sense observation, We can see only its manifestations, €.g. root, stem, leaf, blossom, etc. By means of reasoning abstrac- tion we proclaim the existence of the common primordial force principle which manifests in those elements. Similarly, we can 28TOWARDS A BASIC LAW OF PSYCHIC AND SOMATIC INTERRELATIONSHIP describe only manifestations of the spiritual entity that metamor- phosizes as soul images, body functions and shapes, as well as ani- mal, plant and mineral forms. The very direct experience of this creative entity itself is not possible for us, as yet. However, exactly the same situation prevails in our understanding of any other force or energy (e.g. gravity, magnetism, etc.). We experience only its effects and deduce by reasoning abstraction its inherent laws of manifestation. In the investigation of phenomena which we consider isomor- phic, it becomes essential, then, to grasp the underlying concep- tual entity which more or less perfectly brings itself to appearance in the various forms of manifestation. As Goethe says: “In the deeds of men like those of nature, the intentions deserve our fore- most consideration.”* The method of uncovering these “intentions” lies in the com- parison of the circumstantial evidence of analogous phenomena (e.g. extracting the similar elements of drug and disease, symbol and morphology, symbol and psychological problem, etc.). To avoid mistakes it is essential that only total phenomena be compared with one another. Goethe compared skeletons with skeletons and shapes with shapes, rather than single qualities. Hahnemann compared the totality of proving symptoms to those of the patient, not isolated symptoms. (The old doctrine of signa- tures, which represents an instinctive recognition of our basic law becomes a scientific absurdity when applied on the superficial basis of single attributes, e.g. yellow for bile, instead of total phe- nomena.) On the other hand, a totality is represented not by an endless number of details but by the peculiar, unusual and char- acteristic general qualities which typify the phenomenon. By application of the concept of metamorphosis we resolve the moot question of causation in related phenomena. Neither does the chicken cause the egg, nor the egg the chicken (if we wish to avoid logical absurdity), but chicken and egg are different phases of the metamorphic manifestation of one organism. Thus the various phenomena of living nature are, all too frequently, linked not by causality but by virtue of their being different phases of manifestation, of a “creative intention” of evolution. Since this evolutionary intention underlies psychic as well as somatic phe- nomena, we may well look even upon a person's illnesses and con- 29AN OVERVIEW stitutional problems as but one aspect of the evolution of his total personality in the same way that we look at his psychological problems. By applying the concept of a basic archetype to a practical problem, Goethe was able to claim the existence of the intermax- illary bone in man as a scientific postulate, in spite of apparently obvious evidence to the contrary. Subsequently it was actually dis- covered. By applying the same law—in terms of the therapeutic law of similars—Hahnemann could indicate effective remedies for the new disease of cholera before he himself had ever seen or treated a single case of it. Therefore we may consider this concept of basic archetypal entities not a poetic notion, but an eminently practical approach to a basic, encompassing, natural law which includes the therapeutic law of similars, the psychic evolution by symbolization, the laws underlying morphology and biologic evo- lution, the law guiding psychosomatic relationships and probably many more phenomena not yet comprehended. Progress in science depends upon finding relatively simple basic approaches that can encompass in a living way the funda- mental principles common to the confusing array of diverse phe- nomena, specialties and particulars. For, as Linné aptly states, “Nature is always similar to itself, though to us, owing to our inevitable defects of observation, it often may appear to dissent from itself.” Notes: 'C.G. Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 12, Princeton University Press, 1968, paragraph 243. 'bid., par. 338. “Ibid., par. 243. ‘Ibid., par. 338. ‘Ibid., par. 116 and 376. “Ibid., par. 306. “Ibid., par. 246n. “Ibid. J. Wx. Goethe, Morphologie, Collected Works, I.G. Cotta, ed., Vol. 14, Stuttgart, 1874, pp. 173, 206. "Ibid., p. 5. "bid., p. 176. "“[bid., pp. 9-139.