The AIDS Miasm
by Peter Fraser
The Miasm as a concept may relate to a disease that has been previously experienced, by the patient himself or by earlier generations, and never cleared from the system. However, just as other, corresponding systems of thought can be used to inform and develop the theory of miasms; so the miasmatic concept can be used to inform our understanding of other areas of thought where there is some basic correspondence.
An example of this is looking at the history of society through the theories of Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan noted that any technology or invention had the property of extending one of the faculties of the people who use it. This extension of one faculty is at the expense of all the others that are left behind. The body and psyche attempt to restore a balance by numbing the extended faculty and enhancing the others. This means that any technological advance has a profound effect on the society in which it occurs that reaches far beyond the practical use of that technology. The technologies that have the most profound effect are those involving communication. The changes in humanity and in human society that were caused by, and came with, the inventions of speech, of writing and of printing permeated every level of human action and ways of thinking. The changes brought about by these three “inventions” share in the most important qualities of the three classic miasmatic diseases. The one for which we have complete historical information, the invention of printing, can be clearly seen to have led to the industrial society, the Protestant religion and the nation state, which encompass qualities that correspond to the destructive qualities of the syphilitic miasm. Not only this but the actual disease of Syphilis came to Europe in the years that closely followed the invention and spread of printing.
One could look at miasmatic diseases as diseases that are needed by societies in order to deal with the stresses of change and development; just as individuals need diseases to deal with the stresses and changes in their lives. Just as the individual’s disease is concentrated in particular organs or systems, so the society’s disease is concentrated in particular individuals and groups of individuals. Sailors, who explore and expand society, are the particular focus for sycotic infection while soldiers, who enforce the features of the industrial world, are the particular focus for syphilis.
There is a disease that has appeared in the last 25 years that has many of the features of the classic miasmatic diseases. AIDS is a contagious venereal disease that carries many of the features of syphilis to a deeper state. It is a disease that has a metaphorical importance out of all proportion to its actual effect on the general society. Many of the important issues that are found in the disease and which arose in the proving of the AIDS nosode and of new remedies that seem to be related to it, correspond to the issues that have affected society through the last decades of the twentieth century. These in turn correspond to the things that have come out of the invention of electronic communication. It was these issues that started McLuhan on his investigations and the accuracy of his insights is all the more remarkable in that he died in 1980 before the personal computer and the internet truly expressed the nature of the electronic age.
The principal issue that came out of the electronic advances is a lack of boundaries. Communication and knowledge are instantaneous in their effects; thus there is a breakdown in the boundaries of time. They are also instantaneous across space communication and information cross the world with no difference to that which comes from the next room. Air travel takes us from one place to another without any interaction with the intervening space. The boundaries that previously existed between countries and races, between castes and classes and particularly between the genders have also significantly dissolved. This is not to say there are not considerable reactions against the prevailing current and extremes of national and racial hatred that are also to be found. A lack of boundaries leads to substantial vulnerabilities. Not only are individuals and societies vulnerable to all sorts of effects that are outside their control; but the planet itself and everything on it is vulnerable to changes and affects that have run out of control. In the disease of AIDS this lack of boundaries allows all forms of opportunistic infection. A similar state exists in the world today where events half a world away can impinge on us almost immediately and in completely unpredictable ways. Scientifically, this is explored in quantum physics, in chaos theory and in fractal mathematics. The gay community expressed many of these confusions and vulnerabilities, particularly the breaking down of gender boundaries, and it is informative that this community was the one in which the first major expression of AIDS was to be found.
Many of the newer remedies, particularly those from the animal kingdom and the gases, drugs and imponderables have features that correspond closely to what can be called the AIDS miasm. These remedies are needed in a way that they never were before and so it is important to understand the overall picture of the miasm if these remedies are to be clearly differentiated from each other.
The electronic age is also one that requires the same form of approach and types of thinking that homœopathy does and we are particularly well equipped to understand and explain a complex and difficult world. There is an opportunity for us to make an important contribution to philosophy and civilization that extends far beyond the field of medicine.
These issues are explored in much greater detail in The AIDS Miasm: Contemporary Disease and The New Remedies, published by Winter Press.
Peter Fraser practices homeopathy in Bristol England. www.hominfo.co.uk
