Wonderful plants
Two years of experience with Wonderful Plants, WP.
Working with plant families through themes, or their 'supremacy', as publicized in Wonderful Plants, is based on characteristics and an analysis that we were not accustomed to in the Kentian approach of analysis. Recognition and prescribing of remedies are based on parameters: themes, sensitivity, interest, environmental factors, experience (or 'world of experience'), and what is most usable, the 'atmosphere', an indication to describe the more abstract or difficult-to-name recognition points. Fortunately, many keywords are useful, providing an entry point for analysis. Furthermore, some experience is required to understand how to use a theme in understanding a case. A theme is unambiguous, but can be versatile in meaning regarding indication: it can be decisive as a characteristic, as a burdening factor, as a solution, or as a cause.
In an earlier stage, Jan Scholten published Plant Families for several years, from 2002 to 2006. The concept was simple and promising: similarities per family were collected, made recognizable, and supplemented with experience from new casuistry; great and specific observations provided new themes. At that time, not always easy to articulate, but Jan Scholten managed to convey it to colleagues. Despite the scant casuistry and premature knowledge, this was already a fantastic instrument for recognizing families at the time, and from there, making prescriptions using the stages as applied in 'Homeopathy and the Elements'. Various plant families have been well elaborated and appeared in dictation form as teaching material (see Plant families).
What was remarkable and decisive in doing a lot with it was the fact that you could work with it easily. The themes per family in an overview as a desktop gradually became more important than the repertory. One thing I must mention: I found the first plant seminar impressive, but I didn't understand how to apply it. I read through the notes weekly, and casuistic reports until I knew them by heart. It wasn't until a year later that I saw an Artemisia case in practice, which I recognized in the description. The penny dropped: take the instructions literally, but not the words! Through this example, I knew how a theme is recognizable: a common thread in the story, what people emanate, the provoking situation, how they feel and tell, how the 'atmosphere' of the person and the conversation is. This underscores the value of video casuistry in lessons.
From that moment on, I was able to apply the previously published dictations fantastically, even without having attended the lessons. I collected hundreds of cases with it. Healing s that 'go a step further' than the familiar way of prescribing for me, namely: fast-acting, healing, repetition not necessary, potency not important.
With this baggage of 10 years of working with Plant Families, I could easily understand the presentation of Wonderful Plants, WP, came in 2013, which you could call the 'supremacy' of the concept of Plant Families. It is a great advantage to have experience in working with themes and thinking in family themes. It is important to have a learned attitude: searching for themes and not for symptoms or interpretations by yourself or by the patient. The classification WP provides invites you to discover the similarities between families within a Class. As a guide, it is good to use a table published in the book Wonderful Plants as a desktop, where the classes are horizontally arranged and the phases are vertically ordered. Additionally, it is wise to have the table of elements ready, where the series (analogous to the classes) and the stages are also listed.
The Composites and Umbelliferae (nowadays respectively called Asterales and Apiales), both families have diverse and different characteristics, but what are the similarities? Both in the upper line 666 of the Campanulidae. What are the overarching aspects between the Labiaceae the Solanaceae and the Rubiales that have been described? Both in the second line, Gold series65 of the Lamiidae. The same principle applies to the large number of Fagales, Fabaceae, and Rosaceae I gathered in casuistry, all Fabidae Gold series44, these mentioned plant families are described in dictations and the themes are elaborated. What do the words mean, what is the feeling behind them,what are the recognition points? A common obstacle when working from a new perspective is that people have their interpretation, and give meaning to the chosen words themselves. This limits the application or understanding of this analysis system.
On the one hand, you must have an idiom from theme-oriented thinking, on the other hand, you must abstract this, and thereby you can extrapolate the respective characteristic to other families within the subclass or even further to the class. The big pitfall is to give an interpretation to the descriptions and the keywords, which often happens based on personal experience. This gives limitations and often misunderstandings, as also became apparent when learning to work with minerals and Lanthanides, stages and series, and Plant Families. Words are only a fraction of what is meant, the representation is only a shadow of reality. For myself, experience with and insight into Plant Families was a good basis for understanding and being able to apply WP. I find that this step, thinking in families, is also necessary for most colleagues, and I strongly advise everyone to delve into Plant Families before leaping WP.
Phases are a new concept, but very recognizable, although the interpretation and therefore the meaning of Phases is still in development. The themes of the stages of the minerals can be directly transferred, provided you use the abstract form: verbalizing the theme by the patient, which factors influence this, and how someone experiences or undergoes this. This information is often 'up for grabs' in an anamnesis.
The first year of application already gave miraculous prescriptions using this method: new, unknown medicines to me, sometimes still never described in casuistry, that worked excellently. These responses show the correctness of the classification used, and that for those of us who cannot, the only problem seems to be: 'translating' both the words and the impressions gained during anamnesis. Determining clade, phase, subphase, and stage to arrive at a prescription is the ideal situation (see example 1).
It is not always easy to see this directly. Often you come a long way towards the solution, and you can use a different approach or interpretation, analysis, or knowledge of families to further specify. More than once during the anamnesis, I am first gathering information for a while, have no idea where I want to go, just observing without wanting to interpret, to verbalize. Against that 'matrix' of information, you can then go through the scheme, go through series (analogous to the Classes), Phases or stages, and go through families. Is there anything I recognize? This is an analysis in the same way as how you can work with families, first determine the family and then scan a rubric. This seems too good to be true, but this is how I found many good prescriptions (see example 2).
It can be a repertory rubric that I go through, preferably a large one, which I then scan for possible choices in this 'matrix'. More than once, suddenly the penny drops, and I recognize the puzzle. Many medicines are ruled out because they do not fit the picture (Class, Phase, family), although they do score on the complaints (see example 3).
Working with WP can be learned by looking through a different lens, so to speak, because the parameters to be searched for are abstract, the meaning is often often still too narrowly defined about the extensive application. Louis Klein taught the analysis method described above and once made an important remark for me when describing the most reliable characteristics: 'It has something to do with' as the most exact description. Don’t forget that.
Over time, we learn what the Classes entail, and their areas of operation; we learn to name recognition points of homeopathic medicines, as they fit into the laws that can be found throughout nature. The proof lies in practice, regardless of the explanations or the starting points. The experience with this miraculous WP demonstrates its usability and applicability. This classification is undeniably a milestone in the development of homeopathy.
In the following examples, the plant, the remedy, followed the Class (underlined), the main family
or the 'order' (the Phase), and the subfamily or the plant family (the Subphase), all determined from the classification in botany, are stated, with the species, the plant in question, as the stage corresponding to the stages of the minerals.
(a good tool I find in underlining the class in the coding, as a visual anchor. Just as in the notes on a consultation, I also use a square for the Phase, and a circle for the stage to the number. Behind the name of the plant, I give analog orientation to the code: in example 1 Class - here 65, Phases - here 4 5, and stage - here 8. The classification can be found in the book WP and the follow-up, on the website Qjure. The notation in Qjure is always shorter, only the numbers, as a symbol for the names of plant families. Here: On Qjure, the abbreviation is used, for Cephalantes 3-665.45.08, after some training or habituation, you immediately read here the characteristics of the Class, Phase, and Subphase, with associations to the mineral table, series 1-7 corresponds to class 1-7, phases correspond to series 1,2,3,10, 15,16,17. Look at the tables.)