A Celebration of Provings

27 Remedies, Hardback, 400+ pages, Colour Pictures, Diagrams, and Cases

The School, being in its 40th year in 2021, offers this text to the profession as a celebration of its ongoing work in the field of provings. Particulars in the book were seeded by the accumulating proving material that has matured in the garden of the School of Homeopathy. The book’s purpose is to provide you, the homeopathic reader, with an overview of the remedies, providing an engaging walk through a garden of delights – and, being remedies, a garden of suffering too – that you may encounter new agents for the healing of your patients.

Each substance has a core synthesis derived from the provers diaries, a short history of the substance in nature and mythology, themes, rubrics, miasms and mappa mundi.

27 Remedies - AIDS, Antimatter, Arizona basaltic lava, Atlantic herring, Badger (European), Buckminsterfullerene, Desert locust, European mole, Goosegrass, Holly, House sparrow, Indian pipe, Kauri, Labradorite (Finnish), Latex (condom), Lightning, LSD, Meadowsweet, New water, Oak gall, Peregrine falcon, Red campion, Reindeer moss, Serotonin, Slate, Sloth and Southern marsh orchid.

Contents
Foreword xi
Acknowledgements  xiii
Preface  xv
Proving overviews  xvii
Introduction  1

5-hydroxytryptamine - Serotonin 16
Agathis australis - Kauri 28
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome - AIDS  40
Andricus quercuscalicis - Oak gall  52
Aqua nova - New water  54
Carbo fullerenum - Buckminsterfullerene  76
Choloepus hoffmanni - Sloth  88
Cladonia rangiferina - Reindeer moss  100
Clupea harengus - Atlantic herring  112
Dactylorhiza praetermissa - Southern marsh orchid  124
Falco peregrinus - Peregrine falcon  136
Fulgurite - Lightning  148
Galium aparine - Goosegrass  160
Ilex aquifolium - Holly  172
Spectrolite - Labradorite, Finnish  184
Latex vulcani - Latex (condom)  196
Lava (Arizona) - Arizona basaltic lava  208
Lysergic acid diethylamide-25 - LSD  220
Meles meles - Badger (European)   232
Monotropa uniflora - Indian pipe   244
Passer domesticus - House sparrow   256
Positronium - Antimatter   268
Schistocerca gregaria - Desert locust   280
Silene dioica - Red campion  292
Slate (Welsh) - Slate  304
Spiraea ulmaria - Meadowsweet  316
Talpa europaea - European mole  328

Selection of cases  341
Bibliography  399
Index  405

Book forward, Jeremy Sherr
I am honoured to be writing the foreword to this latest publication from The School of Homeopathy. Misha was one of our first teachers in the London College of Homeopathy, 1980, and had a huge influence on the development of homoeopathy in the UK and beyond. He taught us to think broader, to see further, to use the art of analogy. I have often taught at the School of Homeopathy, enjoying the classes and after-school evenings with Misha, his family and the students. This is the undergraduate school I feel most affinity to, and I am proud to be among its patrons. Many of the School’s graduates have completed the Dynamis program. In 2012 I taught my ‘Dynamis’ program under the excellent management of Mani. After school Mani, Amanda and I passed the evenings with a good chat and meal, a walk with the dog, and a whisky in the pub. Thus, I am a friend of the dynasty, and as a result am closely acquainted with most of the School’s provings, many of which I use in my clinic on a regular basis.

Among these I must mention my good friend, the AIDS nosode, which we frequently utilise in Africa, never for pathological reasons but always based on the proving. This remedy heralds a perfect, harmonious world, and its constricted, constrained and miserable opposite. I have had much success with the invaded acorn, the misaligned LSD, the parasitic moss, the C60 container, the giant kiwi and above all, the diving falcon. There are many more gems to be discovered, and this book will undoubtably facilitate their study.

These, however, are not the only reasons I am pleased to see this book come to light. My satisfaction stems from the quality of the School of Homeopathy provings. It is provings of quality that are used by the profession, that heal thousands of patients and become pillars of our materia medica. Low quality provings, on the other hand, become chicken feed that merely fatten our books, providing rare and occasional contributions.

What differentiates a poor or mediocre proving from one of excellence? While high-quality raw data is imperative, it is the art and science of editing a proving that makes the difference. The precise and demanding work comes after the initial proving, and it is what will separate immature provings from a ripe remedy picture that can be used to heal in a clear and rational way. Conducting a proving, i.e. dishing out a remedy, suffering a little, and recording symptoms, is the easy part. It is in the long follow-up where so many provings get stuck, languishing at the bottom of a hard disk or seeing the light of day in a half-baked form that is of little use to the homoeopath. Hence Kent states, ‘You cannot count twenty-five decent provings since Hahnemann’. (New Remedies, Clinical Cases, Lesser Writings, Aphorisms and Precepts.)

A high-standard proving demands collating into an ‘As If One Person’ schema, followed by editing according to affinity, subject, prover, and chronology. It requires arranging the symptoms to suggest a picture without imposing it, without losing the multi-dimensional possibilities waiting to be discovered, and avoiding the prejudice of over-emphasised signatures, zoomorphism, and one-line essences. A quality proving delicately displays the strange and unexplained, and gives equal weight to physicals, as to emotional and dreams. Finally, it demands a comprehensive substance report and the most precise repertorisation. A united team is needed to produce such provings, and the School of Homeopathy has certainly excelled at this. I must especially commend the work of Peter Fraser, whom I have often wished to headhunt for my own proving team.

Even after all this work, a pure proving will never be an 100% accurate document, but is still merely a suggestion for materia medica. Over many years it must mature from the infantile raw symptoms to a well-edited child, to taking its first independent steps as a teenage remedy. Only many years later, succussed by clinical use and diluted by study, does it become an adult, on an equal footing with the whole materia medica community. There are no short cuts.

I believe this book represents the graduation of the School’s fine provings, each according to its age and stage of development. The School of Homeopathy team has done due diligence and walked the talk. Their provings are matured and have arrived at their destination.

This is a celebration indeed. Congratulations to all involved. The World thanks you for this enormous contribution.

• Author: School of Homeopathy
• ISBN: 9780954476663
• 440 pages
• Hardback
• Published in 2021
• Printed in United Kingdom

Reprinted with the permission of The Society of Homeopaths, from the 'New Homeopath' Journal. Reviewed by Francis Treuherz.

This is a truly remarkable collection of 27 provings. They have been conducted as an integral part of the curriculum of the School of Homeopathy which has just celebrated its 40th anniversary. Students become provers in their 3rd year (provided they meet certain clinical criteria) and then act as supervisors in their 4th year. The book and the provings are edited by a team: Misha Norland, founder and former Principal, with Luke Norland and Mani Norland, his two sons, and Peter Fraser. Many of the potencies were created by John Morgan of Helios Homoeopathic Pharmacy. Many other homeopaths have contributed to various provings and are identified. All spheres of nature are represented, animal, vegetable, mineral, nosode, and imponderable.

In an initial chapter, each remedy is mentioned in a short overview, with a woodcut-style drawing. named in English, Latin and an abbreviation. The source, staffing. and creation process are detailed. As examples of fortuity, a domestic cat killed a mole and another killed a sparrow and so specimens were taken. A locust was obtained from a pet shop. LSD was purchased in California in 1970. Meadowsweet was growing in a local water-meadow.

After a detailed explanation in the introduction, each proving has its own chapter, following a full page photograph. Themes are identified and the Mappa Mundi - earth, air, fire and water - is used as a heuristic device. The final chapters are a selection of cases from many homeopaths, references, and an index.

Efforts
Great and successful efforts have been made to adhere to ethical and conscientious principles, procedures and explanations. Training of supervisors, influences on group members who did not take the remedy, identification of other homeopaths who were teachers and became involved in some of the remedies and much more. Those who edited the repertory rubrics for each remedy are identified. Links are provided to a website with many more pages for each remedy and access to the rubrics, which have also been freely distributed to computer software repertories.

The book design is superb and the binding is solid. Unfortunately, the san serif font is grey rather than black and in a few important pages reduced in size so that a magnifying glass is required. The continued emergence of our principle of the law of similars is there, and best displayed with an extract from one of the case studies, this one by Dr Jonathan Hardy. A 40-year-old female has psoriasis on her fingers:

"It feels very tight. The skin feels it will break underneath the plaques. As if the skin is extremely stretched. (Hand gesture her hands pulling apart). It is like a sock that is really full or it's like trying to get skin off a chicken - you have to stretch it - it's so tight - there is no elasticity."

The remedy is Latex vulgaris made from a condom.

The whole book is a successful team effort and deserves careful study. Take one remedy at a time and the experience will be enjoyable and rewarding. This work should become an essential modern classic on every homeopath's bookshelf.

Francis Treuherz in practice since 1984, Fellow of the Society, former journal editor, Board member for 20+ years; taught many seminars; wrote two books. Former trustee of the British Homeopathic Association and the Homeopathic Action Trust. An incurable collector of homeopathy books and artefacts.