A Contemporary Repertory Meditative Provings

A Contemporary Repertory Meditative Provings
Rubrics written in modern English using provers own words.
Charts for chakras, astrological signs, remedy relationships and combinations.

• Author: Karan Main, Paula Leszczuk
• ISBN: 9780955492105
• 1184 pages
• Hardback
• Published in 2007
• Printed in United Kingdom

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Reprinted with the permission of The Society of Homeopaths, from "The Homeopath" Journal, Autumn 2007 edition. Reviewed by Robert Bridge.

This formidable book is the culmination of three years' work by two colleagues, Paula Leszczuk and Karan Main, who met whilst students on Madeline Evans' postgraduate course in York. They set themselves the task of collating the 83 remedies from the two volumes of Meditative Provings into a repertory format, consisting of 58 separate chapters, including the less usual ones of Astrological, Chakras and Esoteric/Exoteric. With symptoms transferred word for word in their entirety and unabridged from the original provings, and given multiple entries under different keywords for ease of reference, there is enormous considerable repetition. With the addition of an appendices of astrological and chakra charts, remedy relationships, combination formulae, proving data and a substantial index, the final volume is huge. 'Comprehensive and detailed' writes Madeline Evans in her introduction. There is no arguing with that, and as a piece of private study it is an immense achievement. Whether it will make these 'new remedies more accessible and easier to use', is another matter for debate.

Repertories are all about finding words that will meet the language of our patients halfway. A repertory created from what is no more or less than the reordering of information from just two books is obviously hugely dependent on, or will inevitably be judged by the language of those books. Those original meditations must have been an extraordinary experience for the provers, charged, as remedies that could not only do what remedies had done before - address the nitty-gritty of everyday practice - but also find ways to help the journey of the soul, the unlocking of ancient karmic patterns, and the healing of global discord. Little wonder that the provers responded with intuitive claims that, a decade on, seem pretty wild. The words, as soon as they move away from simple physical descriptions, are not easy: a mixture of nebulous New Age vernacular, the stilted inflection of channelled speech, and the simply baffling. To take one example from so many: whilst Leszczuk and Main have faithfully transcribed the Winchelsea sea salt rubric -'touches pathology and karma from aeons ago which involved both Atlantis and Lemuria, especially British karma' - and scrupulously entered it under at least four separate keywords, I am no clearer and have no idea what it means, how I could apply it in practice, let alone evaluate the effect of the prescription.

There is a danger that there are practitioners who will be seduced by the invitation to become guide, seer and magus to their clients with the inevitable snares of projection and spiritual self-importance. These may be important remedies but ones that are overdue for a tough review, to disentangle the useful and the plausible from the grandiose and far-fetched, to counterbalance the aspirations of the provings with tangible clinical experience, and to move these remedies out of the half light of the meditation room and into the glare of the outside world. Sadly this book will not assist the process.

Reprinted with the permission of The Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, from the Journal Homeopathy in Practice, Spring 2008. Reviewed by Meg Brinton MARH.

This repertory covers all 83 remedies in Madeline Evans' Meditative Provings, Volumes 1 and 2 (reviewed in HIP in Novem­ber 2001 and Summer 2006). The authors met whilst on their postgraduate course and Madeline has been forecasting its appearance for the last year or so.

The authors' aim is to make the infor­mation about these new remedies more accessible, and so easier to use. For this reason they have kept to the original wording in Madeline's books as far as possible, so that the original meaning of the word used by the prover is not lost. The format is therefore in modern English; they have elected not to use 'traditional' repertory syntax, where rubrics read backwards; and they have purposely not translated any word into another commonly used repertory word, for exam­ple: 'tired' is not translated into 'weak­ness' or 'weariness'. This means that entries are sometimes repeated in the same chapter, as well as in more than one chapter.

There are 58 repertory chapters (alpha­betically, from Abdomen to Vision). The shortest only have two pages of informa­tion, for example; Bladder, Hearing, Liver, Spleen, Stool and Vertigo; a few are con­siderably longer, for example: Chakras (30 pages), Esoteric/Exoteric (176 pages), Generals (66 pages), Mind (270 pages) and the rest range from three to 19 pages. Three of these chapters, Astrological, Chakras and Esoteric/Exoteric, are not typically found in other repertories. There are also chapters that might be useful additions to many repertories, such as: Breasts, Dying, Emergency, Puberty, Sensa­tions as if, and Toxicity. Two chapters, Arms, and Legs, replace the usual Extremities chapter.

After the repertory section are some useful chapters: an Astrological chart allocates 17 remedies to nine of the astro­logical signs (Cancer, Sagittarius and Aquarius don't have an associated remedy); a Chakras chart; a small section on some useful Combinations many of which also include 'traditional' remedies; and a section on Remedy relationships. Next, a Remedy database explains how the authors approached their task, and gives interesting background information about the provings (but the complete remedy pictures are in Madeline's books).

Last but not least is the Index. I use this section a lot. Here's an example of where it takes you: 'Blood pressure' has one mention in the Circulation chapter, which just refers you to hypertension and hypo­tension without giving the page numbers. The Index has three entries for hypertension: one general rubric and seven sub-rubrics are also in the Circulation chapter; the same information is in Diseases & Conditions; but the only rubric in the Emergency chapter is 'lowers blood pres­sure quickly, good in acute situations' - the remedy is Snowdrop. Hypotension has two identical entries (Sandalwood) in the Circulation and in the Diseases & Condi­tions chapter's.

All the remedies are among those in the Alphabetical Repertory of Meditative Remedies by Marion & Peter Joyce (re­viewed in HIP Summer 2007). I think the information in the Contemporary Reper­tory is more extensive (but that bit of my research is still ongoing). Also, this reper­tory is organised in chapters, whereas the Joyce repertory is one long alphabetic list, with sub-rubrics. 34 of the 83 remedies are in Colin Griffith's New Materia Medica (Golden beryl and Latrodectus mactans are exceptions, being in Colin's book but not in Madeline's books and therefore not in this repertory).

Whether or not this book is useful to you depends on whether you use, or want to use, these remedies. It's incredibly useful if you do, and may even be a 'way in' if you don't, yet, because reading a particular rubric - in the language of the proving - may resonate better than other 'repertory-speak' when analysing a particular case. It's less easy to see how this will com­pliment your practice if you only use a computer repertory program as they don't (yet?) include these remedies and, if they did, you'd have to make a different choice of rubrics.

The book is a bit bigger and heavier than the Purple and Green books (Medita­tive Provings Volumes I and 2) combined, so vou would need to allow that much space again on your shelf, and in your briefcase. It's beautifully produced, and certainly seems sturdy enough to stand up to the type of use required for a repertory.