It’s been a long time since I wrote here, and while I am not happy about the length of time it took me to go back on track, it’s long due to pick up where we left. We already discussed the mental outline of the three calcium salts in Schuelssler toolkit: Calcarea fluorica, Calcarea phosphorica and Calcarea sulphurica. Of this last one there was little to say, since its mental symptoms are quite mild (jealously, anxiety, fears, and an array of other non-specific quirks).

In the quest to find how the calcium psychologic traits would manifest themselves when combined with Sulphur, I went and try to find one remedy that combines these two elements, even if they do not bond into a salt. And what I found was a polycrest, and one that was used by Samuel Hahnemann himself, that puts together these two elements: Hepar sulphuris calcareum. So I went and wrote an article about that, which ended up eaten by Windows; and that was frustrating but I am glad it happened. Otherwise, I would not have gone researching again or run into this little book by Dr. Zalman Jaime Bronfman called Money in the Homeopathic Materia Medica [1]. Long story short my (not quite) brilliant exposition on Hepar sulfuris will have to wait until I think of another series to do, and instead I will have to correct my previous take on Calcarea sulphurica.

Dr. Bronfman did work with Dr. Eugenio Candegabe, one of the sacred cows of the Argentinian school of Homeopathy, and describes Calc-s as “a great polycrest, rescued from oblivion”. Dr. Candegabe did rediscover it while treating a child for whom his first prescription did not work. This prescription happened to be Sulphur, and for the benefit of the uninitiated I will say that Sulphur is the everyman remedy per excellence (that’s called Psoric in Hahnemann’s jargon). Please excuse the hyperbole, but it’s like the go to remedy for the boring people that have boring imbalances since they never managed to wreck their health with awful decisions in the first place.

I cannot tell if anyone documented how Candegabe jumped from Sulph to Calc-s, but I suspect he saw one or more Calcarea traits polluting his Sulphur case and ran with it; at the end of day the intuition paid off and he decided Calc-s needed a reappraisal. What Bronfman discusses is one of the little dirty secrets of Homeopathy: not every symptom in the Materia Medica come from provings. So, the Argentinians have documented a richer image of the remedy, more out of clinical experience rather than experimentation, which includes a number of keynotes of great interest to us.

The first batch of traits described by Bronfman mirrors my own approach to this cell salts project. He uses the image of a child who has inherited some traits from his mother and some others from his father. From Calcarea carbonica, Calc-s inherits fear, apathy, coldness (not emotional, but actual lack of animal heath); on the other hand, from Sulphur it inherits anxiety, impatience, rage, but also attention to detail. This comes more or less in line with my previous analysis in 2019, which itself came from Vijnovsky (whose work may be ultimately based in Kent’s repertory, but homeopath authors are lacking in terms of citations, so it is only a guess on my part).

However, Bronfman takes the metaphor one step further. Just as the child is a unique individual who displays traits that do not necessarily come directly from either parent, Calcarea sulphurica does have a set of eight unique mental symptoms that I reproduce here, verbatim:

·        Absorbed, imagines misfortunes.

·        Illusion of ghastly images, by night while trying to fall asleep.

·        Hates people who disagree with him.

·        Wails for lack of appreciation.

·        Sitting and meditating.

·        Desire to walk, but as soon he starts, the desire disappears.

·        Happy at 16hrs

·        Bitter sadness.

In an attempt to summarize, Bronfman offers 3 pillars that drive the image of Calc-s. The first one being fear, specially of death but also of other ghastly images. This I see as a symptom or consequence of the second, which is the most characteristic of this type of personality: feelings of abandonment or lack of appreciation. I have come to think that a healthy relationship to fear is derived of a sense of protection in our formative years. Even if there are scary things out there, the confidence that our parents will keep us safe is the seed that grows into the confidence that we have the ability to deal with scary realities ourselves. To borrow a line from one favorite piece of fiction: “adults have more courage, not less fear”.

A child that grows without that certainty, who perceives himself as abandoned or not loved (regardless of the actual feeling of their parents/guardians) will grow into an anxious, grouchy adult. As a coping mechanism for this situation, our third pillar arises. Egotism: Trying to do everything by themselves and being unreceptive to others opinions and needs.

And that concludes this exposition. I did sit on this piece for well over a year, but I do wish to do better. I will try to continue with the Cell Salts project, but may need to diverge and talk about other things that catch my interest in the interim. I must find my own rhythm and my own voice, but a comment from a reader (thanks, eco_space) led me to think this effort is not all a waste of time.

[1] Bronfman, Zalman J. El Dinero en la Materia Médica Homeopática. Buenos Aires:Albatros: 1990