Differentials in the Sky

by Peter Fraser

There are certain qualities of a remedy that can be linked to the Realm (Earth, Sea, Underworld and Sky) from which it originates. This is most obvious to us in the Realms of the Sea and the Earth from which most of our remedies, especially the well established remedies, are derived. Remedies from the Sea such as Natrum muriaticum, Sepia and Calcarea carbonica have certain qualities in common including those that relate to fluidity, the maternal and the Moon. Remedies of the Earth, which include most plants and minerals, form the largest part of the Materia Medica and so it is more difficult to distinguish the qualities that are particularly of the Earth. However, if you look at some of the best known of these remedies, for example, Silicea, Lycopodium, Carbon and Aurum; there are features that they have in common that include masculinity, dryness, fixity and the Sun.

The symptoms of the Realm indicate it but do not help differentiate between the remedies of that Realm, while the symptoms that are not of the Realm are useful in such differentiation. To give an example, the three most important remedies for states that involve an imbalance of female hormones come from different Realms: Pulsatilla from the Earth, Lachesis from the Underworld and Sepia from the Sea. In Sepia the maternal and hormonal aspects of the remedy are to be expected in a Sea remedy and the things that distinguish it from other Sea remedies are qualities that we would expect in Earth remedies. These include mannish characteristics and a need for activity. Pulsatilla has Earth qualities, including ambition and restriction, but can be differentiated from most Earth remedies by its overwhelming fluidity which is generally a Sea quality. Lachesis has the magical qualities and a connection to what is going on beneath the surface that are found in all Underworld remedies but it has them in a particularly feminine way which links to the Sea Realm. The Realms can be a very useful way of distinguishing which symptoms are important in differentiating between the possible remedies.

In the past the Realm of the Sky is one that hardly mattered at all in the practice of homœopathy but in the last twenty five years the large number of new provings and the development of group analysis have led to many remedies from the Sky Realm being introduced into general usage. We do not have a great deal of experience with these remedies and the information we have on them is of varying quality so it is important to develop tactics and methodologies that will help us understand them better and so use them more effectively. One of the useful techniques is to understand the differentiation between the different groups that make up the Realm of the Sky or have many symptoms from it. These groups include those that are of the Sky, primarily the Gasses; or come from beyond the Sky, usually referred to as the Imponderables. There are also groups that travel to the Sky, aspire to it or are moving from it. These include the Birds, the Insects, the Drug remedies and the Lacs or Mammals. In these remedies there is a particular point of transformation or movement between the Realms and the exact quality and nature of this point can be specific to the remedy and so is a clear place of differentiation, which makes it very useful.

The Realm of the Sky is associated with that part of the body that develops from ectoplasm and particularly from the neural crest. This is primarily the nervous system and especially the Central Nervous System. The role of the CNS is to bring together the Judgement (Understanding) that originates in the Enteric Nervous System (Endoderm), the Affections and Actions (Will) that originate in the Cardio-Genital Nervous System (Mesoderm) and the Perceptions that originate in the sense organs. Thus it is responsible for Perception, Synthesis and Communication.

This means that on a physical level the first affinity of the Sky remedies is to the nerves, the nervous system and the intellect. Peripheral neuropathies and neuralgias are all common. On the metaphysical level the affinity is to perception, communication and connection. Of course the important contraries in these remedies involve both these things and things that are opposite to them. Thus an inability to connect and difficulties in communication are the most important expressions of disease. The connection is found in many different ways. It is to people and to the community but this tends to be in a somewhat rarified form. It is not an earthy and grounded form that would encompass gossip and communal activity focused on sport or entertainment, (except perhaps in the Insects) nor is it in any way superficial. Rather it has a more spiritual dimension and focuses on individual connection at the deepest level. There is a connection to the Divine that is a personal and spiritual connection rather than a conventional religious one. Again organized religion is more connected to the structure of the Earthly Realm. The other important connection is to nature, not the earthy nature that the farmer is familiar with, but the spiritual and often romantic idea of nature. The ease with which connection and communication occur means that the Sky remedies are extremely sensitive and become pathologically hypersensitive. Almost all the Sky remedies have floating, flying or falling states, the individual states being more prone to one or other of these sensations.

The Gasses are the remedy group that belong entirely in the Sky and have no need for any connection to the other Realms. They are formless and unbounded, thus they are everywhere and connected to everything. When they are found elsewhere it is generally in combination with other elements and in making this connection they often then lose their gaseous nature and become part of the Sea (Muriaticums and other Halogens; Hydrogen and Oxygen in water) or part of the Earth (many Oxides and Nitrogen compounds). The remedies that best represent the Gasses are the Noble Gasses. Chemically these are the contented elements. Unlike the rest of the periodic table, they have no need to form a connection to any other atom, not even one of their own kind. This contentment acts against any sort of progress and the Noble Gasses are renowned for a state of being stuck and unable to move on to the next stage of development. The Gas state could be described as of being in a bubble. The floating sensation in the Gasses can be that of a balloon or bubble floating away. Hydrogen is the first and most basic element and like the Noble Gasses it is indecisive about moving on, in its case the indecision is at the most basic level and concerns whether even to incarnate. Some of the Gasses show the opposite property of needing to connect. Fluorine is the most reactive of all the elements though we know very little about the gas as a remedy. Oxygen, Ozone and Chlorine are also extremely reactive and are used as bleaches and disinfectants and the issues of purity and dirt are found in a number of Gas remedies. Nitrogen is found in many explosives and in substances and remedies that have a sense of compression and the potential for decompression. This represents a feeling of needing to break free of restriction and to expand or spread without boundaries which is also more general to the Gasses.

The Birds are the group of Sky remedies that have had the most impact over the last few years. Although unknown thirty years ago, scores of these remedies have been proved and used since then. Birds are beautiful, intelligent and spiritual in nature. They have great appeal to provers, practitioners and to patients and though they can be profoundly effective, they are undoubtedly overprescribed and need to be better understood. The differentiating point about the Birds is that though they are creatures of the air (although not all birds fly, they are all descended from ancestors that could), they are still tied to the Earth. Even the Swift which spends most of the year in flight, eating and sleeping while still airborne, has to come to the ground in order to breed and to feed its young. Thus although the Birds have the Sky qualities of communication, connection and particularly empathy; they also have major issues around appetites, especially those for food and for sex. These appetites are substantial and powerful and can cause great shame and disgust but cannot be ignored. They need a great deal of food because they use a great deal of energy but the energy is always a nervous energy. The main point of differentiation within the Birds is around the way that these appetites and needs trap them and prevent them from reaching the Sky. This restriction is different from that in the Gasses where it is best described as compression. In the Birds it would probably be best to describe that restriction as a sense of being thwarted, of being prevented from reaching the Sky. For the Birds the Sky is significant for its connecting and spiritual aspects but for them its most important factor is the freedom that it represents and it is this freedom that is denied them in the pathological state. There is some difference in this between the Raptors, Birds of Prey, and the other Birds. In the Raptors the thing that thwarts them is external, something outside themselves and the control it exerts prevents them from attaining the freedom of the Sky. For the other Birds it tends to be an internal feeling or weakness that prevents them from achieving freedom. The Birds in general, but the Raptors in particular, have amazing vision. In the remedies this is found not only in physical issues around the eyes and vision but also in metaphorical vision. They are able to see the bigger picture and have a wider overview of any situation. The Birds' most important connection is an empathetic one. Except for some of the flocking birds, they are not particularly sociable but they do have a deep connection to people; he feels his brother's pain. For this reason Bird remedies are never malicious, it would only hurt them just as much. The Corvids (Crow family) are often very mischievous but their mischief is without malice.

The Insects are in many ways the very opposite of the Birds. They are seen as dirty and disgusting and treated as pests. No one really wants to prove them or to give them to their patients and they are as underused as the Birds are overused. Yet they are overwhelmingly important in our world. There are more species of Beetle than all the other animals put together. Ants form perhaps the largest biomass of any animal. More importantly, many aspects of insect behaviour correspond closely to the situation of mankind in modern, industrial society. The Insects are not of the Sky as the Birds are, but are of the Earth. They aspire to reach the Sky but know that they can only do so if they transform from the larval form into the adult form that can fly. This need for transformation is the differentiating point for the Insect remedies. The possibility of transformation is always there but there is usually something in the nature of the remedy that prevents it from happening. What that thing is can help pinpoint which particular Insect is needed. There is a duality in the Insects. This reflects the difference between the adult and the larval states, but goes much deeper. They tend to see things as one thing or another, very much in black and white and without any shades of grey. The earthy nature of the Insects and this black and white perception can mean that they look like Minerals, the difference being that they have aspirations to something more which Minerals do not tend to. Like the Birds they have powerful appetites but these are expressed in a physical rather than a nervous way. They put their energy to work and are extremely industrious. Appearances are important to the Insects and they put a lot of energy into how they look. Within the Insects the Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths) are the one group that are able to fully transform and take to the Sky. However, they are still Insects and as the group as a whole is all about the transformation, when it is made they do not know what to do and they feel completely lost.

The Spiders stand, or rather hang, suspended between the Sky and the Earth. They know what is going on in both of the Realms but they themselves are not part of either of them. Generally they can appear to have some Sky properties but there are enough differences, especially a complete lack of empathy that they are hard to confuse with Sky remedies.

The Drugs are the other major group of Sky remedies that need to be differentiated. Like the Birds and the Insects they are about the movement from the Earth to the Sky, the key difference being that they go through the Underworld. The Underworld represents the subconscious and death. As is seen in the Birds and the Insects it is the body that holds the individual to the Earth. One way around this is to, metaphorically, leave the body behind and allow the spirit to freely wander the Sky. This is, however, a dangerous tactic as it can result in becoming stuck in the Underworld. This state of being stuck in the Underworld is strongest in the Solanaceae and the Deliriants. Those that make the journey out of a desperation to escape an intolerable world tend to correspond to the Narcotics, Analgesics and Anaesthetics. They would willingly risk death in order to attain a state where they don't feel the pains, both physical and mental, of this world. The Entheogens, most of which are Hallucinogens, are a group of Drugs that give access to the Divine. They have a long history of usage by shamans and in religious ceremonies but in these circumstances they involve a regime of training and mentoring in order to master the skills necessary to use them safely and productively. In contemporary society they are used recreationally, which negates their usefulness and increases their danger. There are also a whole set of drugs that are not so extreme, although they are of enormous power, that are used to bring a little of the freedom and connection of the Sky down to Earth. These are the Stimulants and Socializing Drugs. Many of them such as Tea, Coffee, Chocolate, Alcohol and Sugar are pervasive in everyday life. A feature of all these groups, but especially the last which relate to the adrenal hormones, is that they create a natural state of borrowing from the future, such as fight or flight, but do so without the natural feedbacks and failsafes. The result is that these states are maintained at an unsustainable level and become destructive. The objective of the Drug remedies is connection, whether it be with the Self, the Divine, or Society but the state often comes out of a failure to achieve this and the result is great disconnection. The Drug remedies are particularly known for alternating or contradictory states. There is a “doubleness” in the Drugs but it is not the either/or duality of the Insects, rather it is a splitting into two personalities that coexist together. The Drug remedies are materialistic and often the state is linked to feelings around money and possessions. They feel entitled and unlike the Insects they do not feel they should have to work for things. Everything in the Drug remedies seems unreal and illusionary and the people needing them tend to feel very isolated. There is a connection with art and creativity of all kinds and especially music. Drug use among artists, writers and musicians has always been much greater than in general society. The Drug experience is often described as a trip or a journey and exploration is important, though being in an unfamiliar place often leads to disorientation and confusion. There are sensations of floating and flying but the most characterisitic of them for the drugs is the feeling of falling. War, violence and crime are closely entwined with the use of drugs and with the Drug picture.

The Lacs or Mammals and the Matradonals have similarities to the Sky remedies but they are in fact moving in the reverse direction. The unborn spirit resides in the Sky and is having to incarnate in the physical world of the Earth. It does this by moving through the maternal Realm of the Sea. Having been born and leaving the watery womb, the infant needs to become grounded and does this through nutrition, especially milk, which gives it substance and fixes it to the Earth. The themes will be the same as in the Sky remedies but they will be moving in the opposite direction. They need to leave behind the spiritual connection of the Sky and form the structured social connection of the Earth. They may appear to be disconnected and spacey and may have floating and flying sensations but this is because they are trying to move on from them, rather than that they are new to them and unable to control them as in the other Sky remedies.

The Imponderables are the remedies that do not have normal physical substance. They are radiations, magnetisms, electricity, the light of the stars and planets, etc. They go beyond the Sky and are part of the Realm of Space. As such they are really beyond our normal human comprehension and so are difficult to use and understand. The patient him or herself often does not understand what is going on though they will have insights and knowledge that come to them as if by magic. When a Gas, Bird or Drug does not work and there is something deeper about the patient, it can be worth looking at the Imponderables.

The Lanthanides are not part of the Sky Realm, they are Minerals and known as rare earth metals so are definitely part of the Earth Realm. However, they are unusual and this often makes them look like Birds or Drugs. The main difference lies in that the Lanthanides are autonomous. They are not about connection at all. The Sky remedies often fail in connection but it is what they need and aspire to. The Lanthanides do not connect and, though this may make life difficult for them, they are not trying to connect. They are self contained; even their diseases are autoimmune and come from within not from outside. They do have a benevolence that appears Sky like, but this is often about using their skills and powers rather than connecting with others.

This is a brief introduction to the Sky Realm and the remedies within it. These remedies are new and not well known so it is useful to be able to differentiate between the groups within the Realm. This is doubly useful in the remedies that move between the Sky and other Realms because the nature of that point of transformation also helps to differentiate clearly between the individual remedies in the group.

Peter Fraser's books include one on the Realms and Materia Medica of the Birds, Insects, Spiders and Snakes. His new book on the Drug Remedies will be available in early 2015.