Sankaran, way of repertorization

[Jan Klüssendorf]

Dear Jon, and others,

Your answer gives me the opportunity to ask a question to the group which I
have been wondering about for some time.
I only read until now Sankaran Spirit of Homeopathy and must say it's very
inspiring, that for sure.
But I also noticed his very 'liberal' and 'creative' use of the repertory.

Let me give some examples:
'... in a throat trouble with a mild infection, the patient wants to take
the strongest antibiotic so that it never comes again...'
is repertorized under: 'Desire to kill'.

"Doctor, I'm completely in your hands. I shall do as you suggest. Pls do not
ask me what I want. I leave it all to you. You know best what is good for
me"
is repertorized as ' Desire to be magnetised.'

'"A lady developed a problem of pain in shoulder and inability to move her
joints after the death of a neighbour......I found that this lady was quite
a reserved and shy type, and the neighbour was the only person in the
building with whom she was able to communicate because the neighbour spoke
the same language of the patient"
is repertorized as "Delusion, he walks on knees".

My question: isn't it dangerous to interpret our rubrics in that way or have
you the same positive experiences with such 'enlarged form' of
interpretations of the rubrics?
Just wondering what your opinion are on this (important) matter.

Jan
Dear Dave,

This remark probably comes from
Sankaran (Insight into plants). I don't have the original post of this
anymore, so I can't say with certainty if the quote related to this. In his
latest book Sankaran places Anhalonium in the Cancer miasm. In his
terminology this is related to the degree of 'struggle' and 'coping'.
In his words:
"The main feeling of the cancer miasm is that he has to put everything he
has and much more, in an intense struggle to survive; he must stretch
himself beyond the limits of his capacity."
Imo the miasm-classification of Sankaran is open to discussion, as Sankaran
himself acknowledges in his preface, so statements like the above should not
be made as categorically as (probably) has been done.
Sankaran's ideas could be useful, but not if taken to seriously too soon. I
don't think you should use the miasm classification of Sankaran as set in
stone. It can be a useful roadmap to help you find the way to a less common
remedy, but I think it is far too early to be used in any other way, and in
the long run we might find this system does not work as well as we would
hope.

So in short, there is not much evidence, but this does not mean we have to
throw these sort of ideas overboard. There is a chance that these ideas
might be helpful to find the simillimum in some cases, especially the harder
to find smaller remedies.

Jon van Hoffen

[Jon van Hoffen]

Dear Jan,

You have touched on a field that could give rise to quite a bit of
discussion. Sankaran is indeed fairly liberal with the interpretation of
rubrics.
In my opinion you sometimes have to be creative and liberal with
interpretation of certain rubrics. Often you won't be able to find the exact
rubric in the repertory, which means that you have to try to find if there
is another rubric that conveys the same sort of feeling. I guess that the
better you know your repertory and materia medica, the easier it becomes to
find a related rubric. The danger obviously is that of misinterpretation,
but that risk is always there. To use the desire to kill as an example, the
remedies mentioned in that rubric all have the desire to kill, but for a
number of different reasons. The choice of remedy is dependent on your
interpretation of the desire to kill in the patient.
When you use a rubric liberally, as Sankaran does with "desire to kill", you
still have to be able to relate this rubric to the remedy, and the total
picture still has to fit. If you come to a remedy through this process of
interpreting some key rubrics and the remedy doesn't cover the case, you
have to start all over again
If you are not aware of the pitfalls of this method, you could of course run
the risk that you will be completely fabricating your cases this way, but
your success rate would be abysmal, which would force you to reconsider your
approach anyway.
I for myself am not too confident with too liberal an approach yet, mainly
because I lack the experience and thorough knowledge of repertory and
materia medica. For me the main attraction in the work of Sankaran, and also
Jan Scholten, is in the addition of alternative ways to find a way into the
materia medica (especially to the smaller remedies), besides the repertory.
I still mainly rely on the traditional repertorisation, but when I become
stuck I will also make use of the inroads the newer techniques offer.

Jon van Hoffen

[Feras Hakkak]

Hello,

Sankaran's words are a bit strange but M.L.Sehgal's
words are really strange. Sehgal would claim that his
method works and it is possible to learn
revolutionized homoeopathy and practice acoording to
it. But it is nearly impossible to understand his
thought from his books (at least I couldn't). I think
we must go and attend his classes (now his sons'
classes) to understand revolutionized homoeopathy.

Twenty years ago (?) Sankaran came to know about
revolutionized homoeopathy and got interested in it.
The strange type of interpretation of the rubrics
comes from Sehgal's method. After that, Sankaran began
to mix different ideas and develop his own system. It
is interesting to know that late Dr M.L.Sehgal would
think that Sanakaran has lost the track and has
deviated from revolutionized homoeopthy. He didn't
believe in Sankaran's method.

Now, if we want to understand Sankaran well, we have
to study his books (Spirit, Substance, etc) and also
study M.L.Sehgal's books (Rediscovery of Homoeopthy
series). In this way we can have a better judgement
about his system.

Best wishes,
Feras

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[Rosemary Hyde]

Thanks, Feras, for enlightening us about the connection between Sehgal and
Sankaran. I think sometimes metaphoric interpretation of a rubric can be
helpful, especially in confirming a remedy as appropriate for a particular
patient. I personally always feel more confident relying on the rubrics
that I can absolutely verify in a case as my analytical starting point --
because I wouldn't want to base a prescription on my personal creative
interpretation of something. For a long time I thought some of those
delusional rubrics were pretty far fetched. As I gain experience, though,
I'm learning that anything is possible, and those incredible feelings
undoubtedly were literally experienced by someone.

Rosemary Hyde

[Dale Moss]

Jan, I too though Sankaran was playing fast & loose with rubrics when I read "Spirit of Homeopathy." But in his later books, particularly his newest, "An Insight into Plants," his approach has become both more creative and more refined. Yeah, you can quibble with the details -- and I'm sure lots of homeopaths will, even as they pour energy into further refinements -- but it also is an imaginative quantum leap. Sankaran and his disciples look for the "vital sensation," the feeling that permeates to the core of being, mind and body both. Seen in that light (and through the prism of the cases presented), you understand why his loose handling of rubrics makes sense.

Peace,
Cinnabar