Understanding the Different Kingdoms

When we listen to a case, everything a person says, every gesture they make, including what they wear, will be an expression of the vital force. If we are unprejudiced observers, we can then see the language of a person's dis-ease. This language will many times tell us quickly from which kingdom their dis-ease resides. We can sometimes quickly discern whether the best remedy will be from the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, or the mineral kingdom. If we are clear about seeing the metaphor of the dis-ease within the appropriate kingdom, we can often make our remedy selection much easier by eliminating the kingdoms that the dis-ease does not belong to.

There are some general guidelines for understanding the kingdoms. I will give a few here but really each kingdom needs a book on its own. I will give a brief overview of each and a more in-depth look into them in later blog posts.

• The animal kingdom is all about survival. Animals are either killing or being killed. It is the threat of being hurt or the hurting of another that is the root basis for most animal behaviors. When a person speaks their story and they need an animal remedy, they will often speak to the energy of the animal and its natural behaviors. They will tell of particular stories that correlate to themes that the animal naturally expresses. We have remedies from mammals, reptiles, insects, birds, and creatures from the sea. Each has its own story to tell. But something that is common to all of them is the comparison to another and competition with a struggle for survival. If you find this theme in any of your cases, you should really consider the animal remedies.
• The plant kingdom is about sensitivity. This can be expressed in many ways; lack of sensitivity or expression, overreaction, hypersensitivity, or reactivity. Plants cannot move so their experience is one of being sensitive to their external environment. Because of this, they need to adapt ways to survive. Considering the natural history or botanical information about plants helps us understand their ways of adapting. As an example, plants that thrive in the desert have the ability to hold water. In the absence of water, they shrivel and contract. In the presence of water, they expand. This would lead to the sensation of expansion or contraction. I have found that Vermuellen’s Prisma Materia Medica has excellent information about natural history and has been very helpful in learning about the substance of the remedy.
• The mineral kingdom is about structure. Minerals are dictated by physics and chemistry and are defined by the periodic table of elements. All minerals are made up of one or a combination of the elements. Either the creation of structure or the loss of structure.  So a person needing a mineral remedy will tell a story of their dis-ease in relation to the structure in their life and the need to create it, maintain it, or about its loss. This often appears within relationships, either familial, intimate, or occupationally. It can be at the level of personal, familial, community, or in a bigger world view. The periodic table is a map of all of the elements. It is the relationship between all of these elements that make up the physical structure of all things on earth. It is also about the beginning to the end of time and physical matter. It also correlates to the structure of our life from beginning to end. By understanding the rows of the table and the different positions across the rows, we can understand the themes and individual placements of each element and how that is representative of the human living condition. Jan Scholten’s book, Homeopathy and the Elements, is an excellent work in regards to understanding the mineral kingdom.

Each of the kingdoms has its own story to tell just as each person has their own story to tell. By understanding the kingdoms better, we can understand Materia Medica better and be better prescribers. There is order in the physical universe. It has been described in many ways in each of the kingdoms. The beauty of homeopathy is that we can use this order and extract the vital energetic essence of many different substances to inspire healing when they are of similar vibrational essence.  Understanding each kingdom will help to narrow our focus on remedies in a fairly quick way when we truly understand what is asking to be healed in the individual.

Keep the conversation going! I would love to hear your questions and thoughts below!