Mushroom. Fly agaric or amanita. Destroys flies. Very toxic. Made famous by the Vikings. They used to eat it and they would go berserk and they would kill, rape and pillage. Used in prohibition period. Two bits of mushroom and you get intoxicated. Mind alliterating substance of choice for American Indians and shamans.

Poisoning slight stimulation, which leads to extreme loquacity and cheerfulness. Secondly, when they are more intoxicated they become incoherent. Relative size of objects is lost. Lewis Carol - Alice in Wonderland. They take big steps and they jump over small objects as if they were trunks of trees. They have a lot of twitching and muscle spasms and their physical strength gets increased as well. Third stage goes into furious delirium - raving and screaming. Four stages in mental depression - they don’t want to work, indifference.

Mimics the alcoholic process. Barcelona and visit the architecture of Gaudi. Incredible buildings - shapes that make no sense. Round rooms. Tilting floors. Strange colours in a church. They view reality differently. Alteration of perception especially of time and space. They feel very alone in the universe and they feel a distance between them and the world. The possibility of relating between them and another person is impossible.

They overcome this in a mystical way by reducing concepts of time and space. I am the same as this chair. Death and the future then makes no difference.

Children:

Escape their suffering by separating themselves. Create beautiful things. Mushroom reality. Need to do this to endure their suffering.

Affinities: Spinal axis, nerves, spine, lumbar region (lower back), occiput, circulation, heart, and one-sided remedy.

Causation:

Sexual excess, fear coming from the death of a loved one, grief, vexation (anger), over excitement, over exertion, mental exertion, fright, sun, blood poisoning, frost, alcoholism.

Tubercular remedy.

A gradual separation, breaking away from reality. Breaking down of the will with neurological disorders. Characteristics by twitching and jerking and trembling.

Bell’s Palsy, Chorea (St Vitus’ Dance connected with Tarentism. Irregular spasmodic involuntary movement of limbs and facial muscles.) Multiple Sclerosis, Epilepsy.

Type of person: weak willed individual who needs the guidance and domination of a stronger person. They can’t act with initiative or accept responsibility. They don’t have enough will power to confront life’s situations.
Angry emotions are usually repressed and instead of showing anger their muscles in their face will twitch. Emotions hit central nervous system or peripheral.

Extreme anxiety about health. Tremendous fear of cancer. Overwhelming that can drive them mad. Triggered by a mild pain or a little nodule. Complain about it in an exaggerated way. They can sob in a self-pitying way.

Sleeplessness about thinking about cancer. Or they can be preoccupied with the diseases of people around them. Go to people’s homes to help with others. Especially with disfiguring diseases or in a hospice with dying people. Preoccupation with disease. They are absorbed in morbid thoughts. Their mind turns to death. They think about ghosts. They are interested in tombs, coffins and graveyards. Fascination with black magic. Could be morticians. They go lots of funerals.

They have out of body experiences. They can be religious. They enjoy the out of body experiences. Cannabis is frightened of them. Or they can become highly sexed. Two parts - expanding consciousness, contracting (killing and going berserk.)

They can behave ludicrously. Extreme loquacity. Silly hilarious. Incoherent talk. They embrace and kiss everybody alternating with anger for the same people. They write poems and recite them. They can’t perceive danger or recognise it. Things appear too big or too small. Manic depression. Delusion their arms and legs don’t belong to them. Delusion that a spoonful of water seems like a lake. Delusion that they are obliged to confess their signs at the gate of hell. Delusion a small hole seems like a frightful chasm.

They see deal people and ghosts and spectres. Delusion under superhuman control. Twitching comes on slowly. Twitching of left side of face. Receptive blinking of eyes. They stretch their mouth face left to right. Twitching can be so violent so you can throw them out of bed. Convulsions that come on after sex. Convulsions can come on after sex, from excitement or from fright, suppressed eruptions. Aura: warning sign, cold feeling all over.

One sided facial neuralgia. Pain as if cold needles. Eyes move like a pendulum from side to side. Affect of peripheral vascular system. Coldness especially in the extremities. Very sensitive to cold. Hands and feet turn blue. They feel icy cold and they burn as if on fire. No: 1 remedy for frostbite or never been well since frostbite.

As if frozen and as if frost bitten throughout the repertory.

No: 1 remedy for chilblains - swollen red toes from the cold. Tip of nose can be red, ears. They can’t stand touching something cold as all the blood leaves their hand and it is very painful (sxs of Raynaud's Disease.)

Like: salt, eggs
Averse: meat, wine, bread

Lumbago with sciatica. Worse for motion, sitting, try to raise their thigh whilst sitting, Ankylosing Spondylitis (arthritis of the spine.) Feel as if the back will break. Very limiting. Link with ulcerative colitis. Keynote: deep tingling in the spine and hot and cold spots in the spine.

They have fornication like little bugs crawling up and down back.

Co-ordination problems: clumsy, awkward, lead forward walking stumble. Intermittent claudication - middle aged or elderly, cramp like pains in legs after walking a certain distance. Due to alterio sclerosis. Spasmodically they fingers can fly over and they can drop things.

Alcoholics twitching, neurological problems, trembling. Kids are retarded, stammering, slow to walk and talk due to slow development of the brain and nervous system. Very attached to their parents, dependent, convulsions if they are reprimanded. If they faint their body will twitch. Poor co-ordination.

Modalities:

• cold, open air, freezing temperatures, exhaustion, sex, alcohol, pressure, touch, period, morning.
• gentle motion, evening.

Look like a mixture of Cannabis or Lachesis. Or Lachesis and Stramonium.

Bufo Rana

Made from the Toad. Covered in warts. Live in damp, dark places. They don’t croak. They protect themselves by keeping still. Remedy is made from the poison that has been expressed from the two parotid glands. Toad of Toad Hall was bossy. The juice was used by witches and warlocks. Put in their husbands’ drinks and they became impotent. Known culturally all of the world.

Affinities: brain, heart, blood, circulation, sexual system especially ovaries and uterus, glands and the kidneys.

Picture: breakdown of integrity, moral, intellectual and physical. They are living out a very animal nature. Primitive unconscious takes precedence over the conscious mind. Intellectual faculties are very weak. Mind remains childish, only the body grows.

Like the toad that makes no noise, the mind is passive, blank and not there. Result of drug abuse. Excessive masturbation. Leads to an early breakdown in health and they go senile very early. Childish, silly, laughing at inappropriate times. They talk nonsense, stammer and stutter. Angry if not understood. They desire to hide. Most of them will be passive and placid. With a tendency to bite. They bite their fingers, their arms, pots and pans. They bite chair legs. More of a sexual act.

Living out an animalistic state. Strong sexual side. Desires solitude to practice masturbation especially in children. Men are always handling their genitalia. Into porn. Moral depravity. Loose all sense of decency. Swearing. Cheat out of innocence. Liars. Moral depravity due to bad inheritance. Bad blood or interbreeding. Useful in incest cases. Caught in an emotional unresolved knot due to sexuality - children.

Key area is epilepsy (brainstorm from the past, so heavy it gives them a fit.) Epilepsy in children with delayed development. Take on toad like aspect. Head drawn to one side, mouth open, thumbs drawn in. Ushered in by a jerk in the nape of the neck. Pupils dilate before an attack. They fall down unconscious. Blood curdling scream. Followed by profound sleep. The fits can occur during sleep at night. When they wake they have this horrible headache. Fits during menses. Lack of menses in teenage girls, convulsions instead.

Convulsions during sex or a man during masturbation. They can be fat and flabby people. Eyes popping out, squints (strabismus.) They bite their nails. They are constantly licking their lips. Chilly. Craves alcohol.

Burning and blisters and ulcers. Remedy for septic lymphangitis due to injury rises up in red streaks. Bubo - syphilitic swelling with inguinal gland.

Modalities:

• warm room, sexual excitement, during sleep, awakening, noise, light, during menses, injuries
  bleeding, cool air, cold bathing, feet in hot water.

Cuprum

Cyprus - island sacred to Venus. Metal associated with Venus. Rules Taurus and Libra. Copper is blue, green and red. When it burns it burns with a blue/green flame. First metal used by man as he emerged from the Stone Age. Next to iron it is the most useful metal in the world. Useful as a channel for electricity. If you get poisoned by it, the poison hits the GI tract. Vomiting and colic. Vomit is blue/green. Nails go blue. It affects the nervous system and they get vertigo, cramps, spasms and convulsions (2nd stage.)

Affinities: Nerves, digestive tract, muscles, blood, left side.

Causations:

Suppressed emotions, anger, fright, overwork mentally, loss of sleep and getting wet. Anti-psoric remedy.

Nine Cs - closed, cramps, convulsions, cough, coldness, cholera, collapse, cyanosis (lack of oxygen, blueness), control.

Central idea is cramps on all levels. Cramps and spasms appear in every system. If you get cramps in the respiratory system you get asthma. Cramps in GI tract causes vomiting in spasms and colic. Cramps in muscles causes pain. Most important it hits the nervous system and they get seizure and epilepsy.

Stifled emotions, rigid, closed and inflexible. Onset in adolescence from fear of their sexual thoughts. Their imagination around sex gets distorted and they get wild imaginations and they start to get frightened by this. They think what they are feeling is bad and they get a strong sense of guilt and they close down that side of themselves. Strong feeling of guilt. To keep those emotions down takes a lot of control. More severe than Nat Mur.

They close down so much that they become dull in the mind, their thoughts move slowly and they answer your questions very slowly. They sit in front of you and they talk but you feel that you are never going to get anything from this case. They don’t talk a lot. You have to coax a symptom picture out of them. Fear of being out of control.

Delusion he is a general. Delusion he is a person of rank. Delusion he is an officer. Dictatorial. Spiritual exploration. Heavy disciplines for self-development. They respond well to it. They become very serious and want to delve into themselves. Over committed into spiritual progress. Feel heaviness in clinic. When you come to a spot of vulnerability you can see the thoughts going through their mind and then they will cough or even a convulsion. A response from the body rather than the mind.

Tightness of the nervous system with energy that needs to be discharged creates convulsions and spasms. Also sudden anger. Violence runs right through the picture. Eventually they will explode. They rage like a mad bull.
Emotionally instability where they can fly off the handle. Delirium with biting. They bite the bedclothes, their hands, and other people’s hands.

They bore into the pillows. They can bellow like a calf. Very malicious. They have a strong desire to make grimaces with their face. They are very conscious of doing it. They feel it coming on so they make a joke to make it not look so weird.

Children have big behaviour problems. Destructive, striking and biting. They want to spit in people’s faces and laugh about it. Malice. Tricky. They hold their breath from anger until they go blue in the face. Their hobbies are martial arts, judo and karate.

Convulsions: Nash says spasm is the one word that characterises this remedy. Twitching of little muscles spreads to the major muscles and then they get convulsions. With epilepsy their aura begins in the knees. Fingers and toes cramp and curl. The finger goes into the palm and then they clench it with the fit. Legs shoot out and lock. Violently brought up to abdomen.

Violent convulsions: They can bounce up and down on the floor as if body would be torn to pieces. Convulsion is preceded by a shriek like the bellow of a bull. Face goes blue and head goes back and they froth at the mouth. Tongue darts in and out rapidly. Involuntary urine and faces with their convulsions. Eyes role upwards and outwards or inwards.

Convulsions from fright. Epilepsy from a blow to a head. Always ask about head injuries. Epilepsy with any diseases (meningitis, whooping cough, during labour.) Convulsions followed deep sleep and exhaustion and prostration. Appear almost dead after convulsion. Deep stupor. Or in a state of ecstasy. Or in stasis. Mind can’t move but muscles twitch and quiver.Touch can set off another convulsion.

Cramps: violent, from a single part, radiating from a single part. Especially in limbs of elderly. Elderly that get up to walk out cramps, rub their cramps away. Cramps before sex, during sex.

Labour pains can be so severe they start convulsing. Hands and feet cramp up and labour stops.

Cough: spasmodic and violent. So violent is almost suffocates the patient. Whooping cough remedy. Keynote is that they arch their back and clench their thumbs and they cough until their face turns blue. Breathing ceases. Then they vomit tough gelatinous mucus. Cough can have a gurgling sound. Like water is being poured out of a bottle. Cough is in three attacks. Mother’s know that their child’s cough will get better with sips of cold water and worse at 3am. Asthma from strong emotions and 3am.

Coldness: icy coldness of whole body with blueness.

Cholera: SH used it as a prophylaxis against cholera. Indians hang copper on their belly buttons to prevent cholera. People who work in copper mines rarely get cholera. Cuprum 30, one dose per week. Three remedies for cholera, Veratrum, camphor - try Cuprum first.

GI tract gets affected. Retching, vomiting and high fevers. Second stage of cholera with cramps, collapse and blueness.

Vitamin B1 against mosquitoes. And Citronella oil. Garlic too. They like people who eat sweets.

Modalities:

• emotions, suppression, loss of sleep, hot weather, getting wet, cold air, wind, touch, new moon, evening and night.
• cold drinks, perspiration.

The Madness of King George. Blue urine - porphyria.

Cicuta

Water hemlock. Looks like parsley, grows by the rivers.

Affinities: Brain, nervous system, skin, GI tract, left sided remedy.

Indicated mostly in cases of convulsions and especially when there is a combination of late development and epilepsy.

Childishness. Estrangement from society. A want to return to a happier state of childhood. Delusion thinks he is again a child. Black type for childish behaviour. Horrible things affect him profoundly. They get frightening nightmares. Aversion company.

Convulsions are very violent with prolonged unconsciousness. Convulsions with a spasm that moves downwards. Bazaar contortions. Howling. Grinding their teeth. Opisthotonos (Apis, Ipecac). Sometimes they have multiple convulsions one after the other. The aura solar plexus - above belly button. Shriek before convulsions. Post ictal state (after convulsion) - very long - hazy, dreamy, nervous. Can be hours or days compared with a normal seizure of 5 - 10 minutes.

Everything seems strange from the attack. They confuse the past and the present.

Causation:

Trauma cases after head or spinal injury. Fright. Teething children. Worms. Tetanus and for drug overdose (convulsions.)

Stesbismus - squint going in - after fright or blow/injury. Chronic affects of concussion when Arnica has failed. Chilly. Skin symptoms when opisthotonos is present. Same with meningitis. Craves indigestible foods.

Modalities:

• injury especially to head. Noise, touch, jar, cold, draught.
• heat, quiet, dark room.