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About a year and a half ago my colleague Pascaline Phillips asked me about my experience in preparing remedies that did not yet exist. She had a case she thought required the yellow boxfish. After the remedy had been prepared, Pascaline asked me again for help, but this time regarding a Hahnemannian proving of these fascinating fishes. |
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We had both taken part in a proving of the surgeonfish — another beautiful coral-reef fish — under the direction of Louis Klein. Lou had preceded Pascaline in that he had successfully prescribed the remedy and only afterwards carried out the proving. Even before the provings of these two fish remedies, Louis Klein’s surgeonfish case had confirmed his hypothesis of a common theme among the fish remedies: these remedies act on neurodegenerative disorders of the brain such as Alzheimer’s. His surgeonfish case in progressive dementia and earlier his cod-liver-oil case in advanced Alzheimer’s disease were particularly convincing. |
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| Louis Klein has a striking way of crystallising highly relevant links between disease development and the natural history of the remedy sources, which enables him to form hypotheses for remedy affinities that can later be tested clinically. As regards the theme of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, lesions occur in the brain in both that are presumed to have arisen through prion formation(1).
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| Prions are infectious and apparently misfolded proteins that cause brain lesions disrupting neuronal communication(2). The equivalent disease in cattle is mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The cattle epidemics were caused by feeding infected meat from sheep and cattle which had been used as animal feed. Essentially, mad cow disease was propagated through enforced cannibalism. Louis Klein suspects that most of the cannibalistic animal species known in nature — as one might guess — are fish.
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| It was interesting to compare the outcomes of the surgeonfish and boxfish provings. The results confirmed the clinical observation of brain disorders. Both provings showed in common memory disturbances and a feeling of isolation. The latter appeared in the provings in a relatively socially acceptable form. | |
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Another “inside–outside” experience, and probably an expression of the source, appeared with prover No. 2, who came in with the following words: “I dreamt I was in a glass house and many people were staring or gaping at me while I was jetting up and down in an anti-gravity machine.” When we consider the various provings, it becomes clear that this disconnection is a general fish theme and perhaps should be understood as the best symptomatic expression for the neurodegenerative disorders. |
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| When the symbolic aquarium is broken and the boundaries are gone, the outer side of the yellow boxfish comes strongly to the fore, as with prover No. 10: “I am open to new energy, new thoughts ... my crown chakra opens to the universe ... it feels as if my skull opens, as if I shed an armour ... like a cracked egg ... consciously I feel enormous ... expansive, but limited by my physical self.” Oleum jecoris (cod liver oil) might fit here, because he senses he is losing his memory. |
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| The boxfish (Ostracion) is a solitary fish, but that may also represent one pole of the group dynamics shown by all fish. In prover No. 2 interesting dreams occurred regarding the challenges of group decisions. Fish and birds are comparable in that they live in shoals. Perhaps the underwater world reacts by drawing or lifting boundaries to ensure survival in life-threatening situations. The idea of threat is very prominent in the boxfish. Prover No. 8 took the initiative and separated from the others in an aggressive, callous, cynical, arrogant way: “I say and do what I want ...” |
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| He behaved uncontrollably, used coarse language; he stared at women, but when he himself caught looks he thought: “What the hell are you looking at?” Other provers became violent or dreamed of war and fighting; they also dreamed that they had been captured by Ugandan soldiers and had escaped and felt free. | |
| This kind of defence, which occurs in the form of swelling, appears in the boxfish proving in a very particular way. The danger arises when it is driven into a corner. As a result it feels small or inferior, and feels easily ostracised (ostracized, as the name “Ostracion” suggests). | |
| This leads to a need to match the greater danger. This even fed into the expansiveness of prover No. 10, as we see when he sets out the contrasts: “My consciousness embraced the vastness of the universe, while at the same time I became aware of the insignificance of my physical being in infinity.” | |
| Prover No. 11 wanted to become bigger and stronger and hoped to achieve this by spending frequent time outdoors in nature. He felt both large and small in his primary and secondary reactions. Before the proving he had felt rather small: “Now I will defend myself, my standpoint is just as important — they are not authorities.” And another remark: “I feel equal, not inferior. Not like a child in front of a powerful adult. To be free, to be adult. I hope it lasts.” | |
| Prover No. 1 says: “I feel magnificent! As if I had outgrown my childishness and finally become an adult. I am equal! I am focused. Everything comes easily to me. I am productive.” | |
| Prover No. 8 dreamt he was like the show-off (Pitbull) he had seen; he drove around in his sports car and picked up girls. There were many dreams of dogs and cats, and of having to eat an ugly fish. | |
| On the physical level we see symptoms that possibly relate to the toxicity of the fish. It may turn out that Ostracion is a good remedy for food poisoning with nausea and stomach cramps. The goldfish swimbladder and liver are also used for nausea, pain and malaise. | |
| On the day of the final meeting, when all the results were collated, three large blisters — like from poison sumac — had formed on my wrist, although as far as I knew I had not come into contact with it. That was like a proving for me. Another prover’s Crohn’s disease had worsened. | |
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I am of the opinion that fish remedies have so far been underused in homeopathy; but the proving of the yellow boxfish will, together with other more recent fish provings, pave the way for further cases and expand our understanding of this remedy group. |
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| (1) proteinaceous infectious particle (abbr.: prion) | |
| (2) protein-misfolding disease | |
| The full proving can be found at: www.homeopathycourses.com |
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| Categories: Provings Keywords: cognitive disorders, Alzheimer’s, dementia, Creutzfeldt–Jakob, prion, fish remedies, Tetraodontiformes (pufferfish relatives) Remedy: Ostracion cubicus (boxfish) |
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Photos: Shutterstock - Yellow Boxfish (Ostracion cubicus) © Hans Gert Broeder
