Spectrum of Homeopathy 2017-1, I and You, Silicon series, the third row of the periodic table

This issue of SPEKTRUM will surprise your readers, as it offers a wealth of new insights and discoveries about well-known remedies such as sodium, Sulphur or phosphorus. Many elements and compounds of the silicon series were already examined by Hahnemann and have been successfully used in homeopathic practice to this day.

However, when these polychrests are considered systematically, thematically or on the level of sensation in addition to the materia medica, astonishingly new perspectives open up. Our authors analyse the remedies of the 3rd row on the basis of the periodic table of the elements, which Jan Scholten has translated into human developmental periods, phases and stages.

"I and You" is the overarching theme of the 3rd row. According to Jan Scholten, the silicon series corresponds to the life stage of a teenager, with the central theme of relationships within the family and with friends. To the body-centred self in the 3rd row are added contact and communication with a "you" whom we want to please, whom we love or hate.

The position we take in a relationship and the feeling of belonging to a group characterise the respective stage in the development toward the "you". In his contribution Scholten describes these phases of the silicon series and points out parallels with the plant world, as Martin Jakob explains in more detail in his article.

With his case examples of salts from sodium to Sulphur, Markus Kuntosch provides an overview of the development of the relationship theme. Its breadth becomes particularly clear when one — as Renate Paschmanns does — considers the two poles sodium and argon.

Homeopaths working according to Rajan Sankaran place a different emphasis on the systematics within the silicon series. Sankaran sees the 3rd row developmentally in the preschool years, when the child begins to make its own decisions. Here too the theme is "I and You", but the development of identity is at the centre.

Bhawisha Joshi demonstrates this in her overview article and brings her ideas of an organising periodic system to the plant and animal worlds as well. The process of identity formation concentrates for sodium in the statement "I want to be like you" (Jörg Wichmann / Angelika Bolte) and for phosphorus in "I am not you" (Rajan Sankaran). Thus we can understand the elements of the silicon series anew: Dinesh Chauhan does so for Nat-mur., Tali Levi for Nat-s., Bob Blair for Mag-s., Ose Hein for the other magnesium salts and Wyka Feige for the combination of magnesium and Silicea in soapstone. The identity question "Who am I?" receives entirely new and surprising aspects in Ulrike Schuller-Schreibs's exciting study of aluminium, for even in aluminium's uncertain position in the periodic table Alumina's well-known confusion about its own identity becomes apparent.

SPEKTRUM offers another very special novelty: Andreas Holling publishes for the first time his long-developed, sophisticated and practice-tested dimensions model of the periodic table and thus for the first time also captures the sensation level of minerals.