Repertory of the Elements

From the Book

Arrangement
The arrangement of a repertory should make retrieval of the desired information easy. When that would be only goal an alphabetical ordering would be perfect. The second objective of a repertory is to show alternatives. And that makes ordering of the symptoms by subject necessary.

The old repertories have succeeded in this ordering for the body, but not that good for the mind.

In arranging this repertory many questions arose.

• The first was how to place all the new information coming from the Element Theory.
• The second was how the concept of "Basic symptoms" would influence the arrangement.
• As a third, the division of symptoms in three parts, subject, thematic and dynamic, had to be accounted for.

Informative Concepts
Studying remedies with the aid of repertories can be very helpful. The rubric that turn out to be the most informative are: aliments from, delusions, dreams and fears. There we find the specific, the characteristic symptoms. But the arrangement in those rubrics is alphabetical, there's no structure.

For example we look for a symptom with cats. In the repertory we can find "Mind; dreams; cats" and "Mind; delusions; cats".

There might also be a symptom "Generals; animals; cats; aggravate". But the 'cat" is the moist informative part. It would be easier to have a rubric "Mind; animals; cats" with sub rubrics" delusion", "dream", "desire", " aggravate" etc.

The same has been done in the past with the foods. In Kent's repertory the food desire and aversion stand in the chapter "Stomach", whereas the food aggravation and amelioration were in the rubric 'Generalities; food". In the "Complete Repertory" the desires and aversion are transferred to the food rubric in generalities.

It has been shown often that a desire for salt can often change into an aggravation from salt, or an aversion. So it's easier to have the salt symptoms together.

New Information
The Element Theory in "Homeopathy and the Elements" has added many new concepts. New information is:

1. Profession.
2. Family: mother, father, brother (sister and sibling), husband (and wife, spouse), relatives.
3. Friends and other persons.
4. Culture: music, novel, art, science.
5. Action: the dynamic aspect of a state. This important aspect is often a reflection of the stages. The old homeopathic literature contains static concepts. For example challenge, daring and maintaining are not part of the old repertories.

Resulting Arrangement
These considerations led to a new arrangement. The division of basic symptoms in 3 parts can be seen back in 3 chapters. The thematic part is found in "Mind, thematic", the subject part in "Mind, Subject" and the object part in "Generalities".

Big rubrics are:
Mind, Thematic: Action, Character, Profession.
Mind, Subject: Family with all the family members, Persons, Animals.
Generalities: Times, Weather, Food, Motion.

In the chapter "body" the same sequence is used. The "Table of Contents" will show the sequence more fully.

One has to take into account that the distinction between these parts is not definite. Especially the distinction between Subject and Object is ambiguous.

For example, "Mind Subject; Family; Mother; Adapting" can have as a meaning "My mother is adapting to everything" where "my mother" is the subject. It can also have the meaning "I'm adapting to my mother", where my mother is the object. So in 'Mind; Subject" we can find many objects.

Some rubrics are placed twice as a consequence of the change in ordering. For example, the "Mind Thematic; Action; Adapting; Mother" can also be found as "Mind Subject; Family; Mother; Adapting". This is done for convenience of retrieval and finding alternatives.

Many rubrics have an "Explanation", For example, the "Mind Thematic; Action; Adapting; Mother" has as an explanation: "I am adapting as a mother / I am adapting to become a mother / I am adapting to my mother / I am adapting because of my mother / my mother is adapting",

These are alternative situations that reflect the same symptom. They can look quite different, depending on where the problem is projected by the patient. But experience has shown that they have the same underlying meaning. This meaning can be expressed as "There's adaptation in the relationship between me and my mother".

Explanations are added as a reminder of how a symptom can be expressed. They have been added here and there, not everywhere, as suggestions.

Following the above rules, Chapters and Sections were generated as listed in the table of contents

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Details

The Repertory of the Elements shows the information from the books of Jan Scholten Homeopathy and Minerals and Homeopathy and the Elements, combined with numerous additions from later discoveries. It's a very valuable source of information to find the information in these books.

Furthermore it's a good tool to learn the way of thinking of the "Element Theory". It helps you to differentiate the stages and series by showing the different nuances of them.

This repertory has special features. Most of the entries are families instead of remedies. For instance the rubric "Homesick" has "the phosphoricums" as an entry instead of "phos".

It helps you to think in families, which gives you a wider range of applying homeopathy. The second is the arrangement of rubrics. It's done on the most informative concept, for instance "mother" instead of "delusion".

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Author

Jan Scholten, MD

(1951 -     )
 
 

Jan Scholten was born on December 23rd, 1951, in Helmond, The Netherlands.

Jan studied chemistry, philosophy, medicine, acupuncture and homeopathy. In addition, he studied many other alternative health disciplines, such as orthomolecular medicine, herbalism, and Bach Flower remedies. From 1985 onward, he has had a full time classical homeopathic practice.

Jan studied with many renowned teachers, including Roger Morrisson, George Vithoulkas, Alphons Geukens, Künzli, Bill Gray and many others. In 1988, he founded the "Homeopathic Doctors Center Utrecht" together with Maria Davits and Rienk Stuut. The Center has grown ever since and now hosts eleven working homeopaths.

Jan is known worldwide through his books "Homeopathy and Minerals" and "Homeopathy and the Elements". Further developments of Dr. Scholten include explorations into the plant kingdom, particularly studying botanical families like the Compositae.

Jan Scholten has lectured all over the world, including Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Norway, Ireland, Poland, Tsechia, Hungary, Italy, Israel, India, the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand.

He is affiliated with the SHO Wageningen. He is the president of Stichting Alonissos and the advisor of SHO.

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Contents

Introductions

Colofon -- 2
Acknowledgments -- 4
Table of contents -- 5
Introduction -- 6
Basic symptoms -- 7
Arrangement -- 9
Remedies and nomenclature -- 11
Use -- 13
Development -- 14
A model for a new repertory – 15

Mind: Action, Thematic -- 21
Action -- 21
Character -- 81
Emotion -- 96
Mood -- 98
Quality -- 102
Profession -- 114
Preposition -- 119

Mind: Subject, Setting -- 120
Abstract -- 120
Mind -- 129
Family -- 130
Person -- 173
Animal -- 185
Nature -- 185
Thing -- 188
Region -- 192

General: Object, Dynamic -- 195
Time day -- 195
Weather -- 197
Food -- 199
Motion -- 205

Body: Action, Thematic -- 207
Build -- 207
Sensation -- 209
Disease -- 211

Body: Subject, Setting -- 213
Tissue -- 213
Head -- 215
Nerves -- 217
Eye -- 219
Face -- 221
Nose -- 223
Mouth -- 225
Arm -- 227
Neck -- 229
Chest -- 231
Stomach -- 233
Breast -- 235
Genital -- 237
Genital female -- 239
Rectum -- 241
Leg -- 243
Skin -- 245
Acupoints -- 247

Families – 251

Names -- 279

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