RED

Summary

A case? A philosophical review? Serious entertainment? In this article the scientific and the artistic approaches are both used as support for the homeopathic process. To illustrate the need for co-ordinating the varied material currently available within thematic homeopathy, the author combines selected work from across the spectrum. A need to respect the “fuzziness” or “graded” non-logical nature of real life emerges. Some thinking about language, and quite a bit of etymology, provides an approach to material collated from numerous homeopaths, all luminaries.

Key words

Red - Prototype - Metaphor - Etymology - Thematic homeopathy - Differentiation

References

• 1 Brown P. A Visible Materia Medica. Calcutta; The Homeopathic Herald, in Encyclopedia Homeopathica; Vol. 6 1942
• 2 Farrington E A. Rubiaceae. Clinical Materia Medica. Reprint ed. New Delhi; B. Jain 1991: 363ff
• 3 Fatoula O. Thirty Degrees of Tranquility: A Case of Cadmium metallicum.  Homœopathic Links. 2004;  17 109-112
• 4 Geukens A. Belladonna: Boy, 11 Years Old. Göttingen; Homeopathic Practice: 2. in Encyclopedia Homeopathica 2007
• 5 Grimmer A H. Methylenum coeruleum. The Collected Works, in Encyclopedia Homeopathica. Assesse; Archibel 2007
• 6 Klein L. Cinnabaris, Mancinella. Clinical Focus Guide, Vol. 1. Vancouver; Luminos Homeopathic Courses, Canada 2003
• 7 Klein L. Anima: Grasping the Animal Kingdom. Vancouver; Seminar – Luminos 2007
• 8 Kurz C. Imagine Homeopathy: A Book of Experiments, Images, and Metaphors. Stuttgart, New York; Thieme 2005: 135-136
• 9 Mangialavori M. Remaining in a Safe Environment: The Sea Remedies, Notes by Vicky Burley. Matrix, Roma: 25 Oct. to 2 Nov. 2002; undated: passim
• 10 Marrs I. Mapping homeopathic space: a review of the resources.  Homeopathic Links. 2006;  19 130-135 199-204
• 11 Pamuk O. My Name is Red. New York; Alfred A. Knopf 2001: 186
• 12 Rosch E. Interview. http://www.dialogonleadership.org/Rosch-1999.html . 
• 13 Rozenberg V. The Vega Rozenberg Homeopathic System, ESSH, video (also in ReferenceWorks). 1996
• 14 Schmitt F. Etapes ultérieures: la roue de l'ennéagramme homéopathique. In Homeopathie et Enneagramme, http://homeoint.org/articles/schmitt/enneagramme.htm 2007
• 15 Sherr J Y. Androctonus. Dynamic Provings, Vol. 1. Malvern; Dynamis 1997
• 16 Sigwart H, Welte U. The favourite colour as a homeopathic symptom.  Homeopathic Links. 2001;  14 23
• 17 Vithoulkas G. Belladonna. Materia Medica Viva, reproduced in Encyclopedia Homeopathica. Assesse; Archibel 2007
• 18 Welte U. Colours in Homeopathy. Kandern, Germany; Narayana Verlag 2003
• 19 Welte U. Colour/Remedy List. http://www.homeo.de/en/colorsInHomeopathyLists.html . 2007
• 20 van der Zee H. Miasms in Labour. Utrecht, The Netherlands; Stichting Alonissos 2000: 109

1 As for light, “The process that generates red is a darkening of the light, as occurs when the sun descends to the horizon and sets in the evening, the sun being darkened by the earth's atmosphere. The experience of red reflects this darkening process – sometimes oppressive, sometimes intensifying and passionate.” (Brian Goodwin, following Goethe, from “Diversity, Health and Creativity: Lessons for Living from New Science”)

2 Putting red goggles on an athlete has an effect similar to “doping”. One year a country competing in the Tour de France, hoping to gain the advantage, had their team wear red goggles; the prolonged use brought on psychological disorders in the cyclists.

3 Eleanor Rosch is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in cognitive psychology and primarily known for her work on categorization. From field experiments she conducted in the 1970s with the Dani people in New Guinea, Rosch concluded that when categorizing an everyday object or experience, people rely less on abstract definitions of categories and more on a comparison of the given object (or experience) with what they deem to be the object best representing a category. Although the Dani lacked words for colours other than black and white, Rosch showed that they could still categorize objects by colours for which they had no words. She argued that basic objects have a psychological import that transcends cultural differences and, indeed, shapes how objects are mentally represented. She concluded that people in different cultures tend to categorize objects by using prototypes, although the prototypes of the particular categories may vary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Rosch).

4 All the ideas in the following section are, sadly, useless for purposes of homeopathic mapping if one holds that all the properties of “homeopathic remedy space” can be completely mapped by a regular grid consisting solely of mutually exclusive groups defined purely by categories meeting only at right angles – i.e., the limiting case of “exact structure”.

5 In any simple listing there are going to be etymological “red herrings” which are far from the heart of Red's case. I will not consider etymologically, for example, the following: krimi-jan (“worm-produced”), thence “crimson” vermilion, kermes, karmosin, karmine (Sanskrit: KRM/QWM: worm); scarlet (Persian: saqalat – a type of imported cloth, often red); alizarin (Arabic: al + acarah: the juice pressed out); cherry (kerasos, – from the place named Cerasus, in Pontus); rosy (florid, abounding with flowers); burgundy (French place name; etymologically, “highlanders”).

6 Rust, ferrugin-, rubigin-, is cognate with “russet”, “redness” and “ruddiness.” The substance most closely related to rust is iron (Latin, ferrum) a substance traditionally required for the bloody activity of war.

7 “The performing arts in India – music, dance, drama, and even poetry – are based on the concept of Nava Rasa, or “the nine sentiments.” Each artistic creation is supposed to be dominated by one of the nine sentiments. The more closely the notes of a raga conform to the expression of one single idea or emotion, the more overwhelming the effect of the raga. This is the magic of our music – its hypnotic, intense singleness of mind. It is now generally agreed that there are nine of these principal sentiments, although some scholars number them as eight or ten.” (Ravi Shankar)

8 The group of remedies made from blood – from eagle's blood or that of an AIDS patient – all spring to mind here.

9 Fire extends by connotation to ardent, burning, fever and heat. Modern science supports this concept in its laudable discovery of infra-red – that is, heat-related – wavelengths. When fire was described, by tradition there was an admixture of orange and yellow along with the red – for example, Greek, pyr, means “fire” but also “wheat”, while pyrrho- means “red, reddish, orange-coloured”… Fire, in the blacksmith's forge, is related to iron, and thence to blood and to war. The homeopathic proving of Ignis licks at the edges of our material, here.

10 Other real world objects and places – cherries, tomatoes, red wine, burgundy, rubies – give us a variety of other colours. Depending on how you read the text of Nature, these may or may not bear a metaphorical equivalence to, or offer an extension of, the concepts living in (and as) red.

11 Accordingly, I felt duty-bound to consider Jan Scholten's Iron series for this case – and I do so, below.

12 See Table [1]; for a list of words from which suggestive sequences can be drawn. For example: a: Body – Flesh, Meat. Rudhira, Blood, Red. Chyme, Haemo, Chymos – BHLA, BHLTO‐TO, blood: bloom, flow. Visceral. b: Impulsive, Impetuous. Stimulus, Goad. Anger, Passion, Ire. Divine Madness. Iron. Rust. c: Rape. Snatch. Grasp. Invade. Prevail over. Triumph. Thriambus.

13 If we focused instead on “fire” and “war” then we would see that these two are co-involved in many metaphors. Anger, for example, is habitually mapped using words derived from the domain of heat and fire, while lust is mapped using the metaphors “lust is heat and fire” and “lust is war”. Ideas of what constitutes rape are often constructed on word-maps supplied by both anger and lust (see Lakoff, Women, Fire & Dangerous Things, p. 414 – as I said to Red, a book no man should be without). Usage within two other domains – “dangerous animal” and “physical force” – closely correlates with this area.

14 This root for “raw meat” came to be used for the word “blood” in Balto-Slavic and some other languages.

15 See “Mapping Homeopathic Space”, Part II, for a discussion of polychrest as prototype.

16 Some excerpts from Jan Scholten's beautiful case of Rubidium (H & E, p. 535): “Rough, tactless”, “aggressive and negative, worse before menses …”, “… a caged lion … would like to scream and shout and run away. If only she could live in the jungle, in the natural rhythm of the world.” “If only the creative force would come again …” “She spent whole days lounging in front of the fire …” “She imagines herself like a soft rubber ball, floating in space [dd: Stage 18]. Attached to this rubber ball are all sorts of brightly coloured bits. These bits are her reactions to the environment, they are direct and very impulsive [Stage 1].” For two weeks after the first dose of Rubidium, like “an angry lion, roaring and fuming at everyone.” After the repeat dose, two months later, “she feels a tremendous heat in her stomach, heat radiating out to the front …”

17 I also recalled a case of Cadmium metallicum, presented by Olga Fatoula, MD, in “Homeopathic Links” (Summer 2004, Volume 17, pp. 109 – 12). Unfortunately for me, for all its redness, Cadmium is in Stage 12 (Silver series).

18 “Ogou master of fire, master of iron, Nago man,
Ogou no-nonsense.
What could we do without you, Ogou?
How could we go to battle without you, Ogou?
And to win the battle, without you,
Ogou, we are nothing.
Saint James, Ogou fe, Ogou Balendjo,
Ogou Badagri, the whole Ogou family squad, Achade, Chango, Saint John the Baptist, we respect you all.
Nago Fe, man of ire, man of war!
War against whom?
Against ourselves.
War against the old man in us,
War against exploitation,
War against all that shackles our mind.
War against all those who want to show us that the world is normal as it is, that pollution is normal, and selfishness is normal.”
Theodore (Lolo) Beaubrun (as given by Phyllis Galembo)

19 The Red group crosses aslant the Sea Creatures, a group that as a whole has sexual aspects.

20 Note that “Syphilis” is, thematically or symbolically, red according to both Joseph Reves and Misha Norland.

21 The Red group crosses aslant the Sea Creatures, a group that as a whole has sexual aspects.

21 Note that “Syphilis” is, thematically or symbolically, red according to both Joseph Reves and Misha Norland.

21 Note, however, that “hot and dry” is the combination Norland assigns to the colour “orange” along with the following traits: Summer; 3 pm; explosive; lava, kiln, furnace, oven; inflammatory processes; dynamic, forceful, decisive, aggressive; irritable, explosive rages; intolerant of contradiction. (This recalls the orangey-red in Androctonus.) Science is quite receptive to this combining of “hot” and “dry”: there are substances that thrive only, or best, under this very combination. Cherries, hawthorn berries, blueberries, and other dark red-blue berries are rich sources of anthocyanidins and proanthocyanidins. These compounds are flavonoid molecules that give fruits a deep red-blue colour. Anthocyanin (Diane Ackerman further tells us) is “the pigment that gives apples their redness and turns leaves red or red-violet; [it] is produced by sugars that remain in the leaf after the supply of nutrients dwindles … [It] varies year to year, depending on the temperature and amount of sunlight. The fiercest colours occur in years when the fall sunlight is strongest and the nights are cool and dry” – nights, therefore, with the greatest disparity between the heat of the day and the cool dryness of the night. Likewise, hot and dry weather favours the growth of lichens the excrement of which has (or is) a reddish patina. It is this pinkish red that used to colour the Acropolis in Athens, and which no longer does so because of changes in that region toward a damper and cooler climate. These instances correlate the degree of redness with a degree of hot dryness: the two qualities together, it seems, can create an environment producing certain characteristic effects. The hotter and drier it is, the more redness is present.

22 A list of further options would include the following groups:

• Rubiaceae family (E. A. Farrington).

• Blood-derived remedies (Louis Klein) – AIDS, Falco, Haliaeetus …

• The “Fire” box (Vega Rozenberg).

• Nitrites (Otto Leeser).

• Red Dyes (including food additives numbered E120 to E129; Eosinum; Saxitoxinum) – “All the dyes are cancer-producing agents” (A. H. Grimmer).

• The Mars group (Leon Vannier): Lycopodium. Nux vomica. Chamomilla. Anacardium. Colocynthis. Aurum. Sulphur. Gelsemium.

• The “Enneatype 8” group (Frederic Schmitt): Androctonus. Mercurius, Nitric acidum.

• The Insects: heat, feeling heat intensely; violent anger; highly sexual; lack of morals; imperialistic, enslaving; talking loudly; increased activity (Peter Fraser, Mangialavori et al.).

• The Snakes (an old wives' tale has it that “the venom of snakes is red”).

• Alcohol, with its themes of amplification and intensification (Klein, Luminos).

• Teenager group (Klein, Luminos) and ADD remedies (Judyth Riechenberg-Ullman and Bob Ullman).