Lac caninum
Anhängsel
[Rajan Sankaran]
A sycotic remedy. It is prepared from the milk of the dog (bitch). This
remedy has in it the nature of the dog, an animal that has been totally controlled
and civilized so that
it has to suppress its basic animal nature and can only express its
controlled, civilized side. It is dependent on its master for food and so it is
out to please him. Its survival depends upon keeping its master happy by its performance,
its affection, etc. It has to perform or it won’t be wanted anymore and its
master will kick it out.
This need to please is the animal side of Lac caninum, but the dog knows
that no matter how much it tries to please, it will never be equal to the
human. It feels inferior,
knows that it is at the bottom of the hierarchy. The animal side is also
malicious (if you pull a dog’s tail, it will bite you).
Very passionate, very lascivious.
They can be quite aggressive and defensive.
The main theme in Lac caninum is dominance (the bigger dominating the
smaller) and who is going to be on top. Can be irritable and ferocious, but if
someone is more
irritable and ferocious, they give up,
they submit. Then arises the
conflict within themselves: “Do I want to be what I am?” Develop a feeling of
low self-worth: “I am not good enough. I feel dirty and horrible”, and become contemptuous
of themselves. This dirty feeling is also common to animal remedies, and it is
similar to the feeling of Ambra grisea (prepared from the sperm whale).
But while Lac caninum feels: “I am not good enough, I am despised and looked
down upon”, Ambra grisea feels “like shit”. Lac caninum patients suffer by
comparison with others. They try hard to please, to be liked, cared for and
accepted because they feel left out and rejected. They can develop malice and
hatred because
they hold somebody else responsible
for their condition. These feelings can sometimes be accompanied by a history
of sexual abuse.
The Lac caninum situation is that of a dark-skinned girl child in an
Indian home. Her sisters are fairer than her. She tries hard to get
fair-skinned, but knows she will never
be fair-skinned. She is constantly being compared to her “better
looking” sisters, she soon begins to hate herself. People bring clothes only
for her sisters. Nobody listens to
er; she is just not clever enough – everything she says is stupid and
foolish. She feels she is uncared for and neglected because her body looks bad.
She starts feeling dirty,
and washes herself frequently. People disturb her almost as if they were
snakes and vermin
(“Delusion snakes in and around her”). She starts lacking in confidence,
becomes totally irresolute and believes that all that she says is a lie. She
loathes life and goes into tremendous depression, and nothing can be done to
make her feel better. She feels worthless and is disgusted with herself, thinks
she matters little, feels unimportant, like
an untouchable. She is sure she has an incurable disease and she will
die. She wants to commit suicide and put an end to her suffering. She blames
others for her condition
and can get angry with them for treating her the way they do – she can
develop hatred, and become revengeful. She feels she has been given a raw deal,
and she becomes mean (“Writing meanness to her friends”).
Jurgen Becker tells me that a common expression amongst African-American
blacks is “Mofo” (mother fucking son of a bitch) – surely a Lac caninum
expression.
The feeling of a black person in the U.S. even today must be: “I am
unlucky, I have been born with a black skin. I will try to perform, but I know
that ultimately I will still
be black”. This is also a Lac caninum situation.
Rubrics:
Contemptuous, self, of.
Delusion, despised, is.
Delusion, dirty, he is.
Delusion, diminished, short, he is.
Delusion, looked down upon, she is.
Delusion, thinks all she said is a lie.
Delusion, snakes in and around her.
Malicious.
Moral feeling, want of.
Rage, fury.
Rudeness.
Writing meanness to her friends.
Anxiety, success, from doubt, about, of.
Phatak’s Materia Medica:
Thinks himself of little consequence.
One’s own body seems disgusting.
Imagines he wears someone else’s nose.
Every symptom seems a settled disease, which is incurable.
Phatak:
Craves condiments.
Dirty, he is.
Fear of falling downstairs.
Lactation, milk absent.
Mammae before menses.
Self loathing.
Taste salty, only salty food tastes natural.
Thinking himself too little.
Kent:
Desires highly seasoned food.
Pain, mammae, menses, before.
Related
In "Homeopathic Drug Pictures
by M.L. Tyler"
Lac caninum [Lac-c]
In "Dictionary of Practical
Materia Medica by J.H. Clarke"
The Milks As Homoeopathic Agents
In "Leaders in Homeopathic
Therapeutics by E.B.Nash"
Lac Caninum [Lac-c]
In "Materia Medica of Nosodes
by H.C. Allen"
Lac Caninum
In "Lectures on Homeopathic
Materia Medica - James Tyler Kent"
About the author
Rajan Sankaran
Dogs evolved from wolves who are part of the canoidea family. Thought to
have first been domesticated in the Middle East, Europe and Southeast Asia.
They are pack animals, with one leader. To ancient civilisations the dog
was associated with death/afterlife.
The ancient Egyptians worshiped the dog-headed God of Death - Anubis.
The Old Testament scorns the dog as “unclean”. Islam associates the dog
with all that is utterly vile in creation = symbol of greed and gluttony.
mbiguity arises with the more common perception of dog as man’s best
friend. The alchemists used the analogy of the dog devoured by the wolf for the
purification
of gold by antimony, the penultimate stage of the “Great Work”.
Themes in the Remedy
* Dogs
* Disconnection/hovering
* Restlessness and
anxiety/guilt
* Self destruction
* Failure
* Sensitivity
* Low self esteem - thinks
that whatever she says is a lie
* Hypersensitive amounting to
hysteria
* Forgetful
* Aggression and rage
* Fears and excitement
(fainting/falling/snakes/spiders/insects/ghosts)
* Constant desire to wash
hands
* Hypochondria and fear of
disease
* Dependent victim
Physical Symptoms:
* Warm patients
* Alternating sides
* Ravenous appetite
* Des pungent things (pepper)
and salt
* > Cold applications
* < before and during
menses
* Parts glistening/shining
* Vertigo/“As if floating in
the air“
* Genital organs easily
excited from touch
* Painful, swollen breasts
before menses
Clarke: “This remedy represents a state in which the organism does not
have the resources to absorb and contain stress and teeters on the brink of
collapse”. Anger and rage directed at the self.
They can be introverted, exhibit excessive daydreaming and can seem as
if in a daze.
Active type: great sensitivity.
Passive type: hysteria.
[M.L. Tyler]
All drugs of very special and
unique action, are easily studied, and well worth learning. Polychrests (=
"the common drugs of many uses") serve us ordinarily; and when we
have mastered Sulph. Sep. Lyc. Calc. Nux-v. etc., etc.
But the less universally-useful drugs, of very peculiar and distinctive
features, are less frequently, yet amazingly helpful. Once mastered, they come
in brilliantly every time, and make prescribing an excitement and a delight.
Generally they do not "work out", unless for one who has mastered the
secret, that the best work is done with a few of
the "strange, rate and peculiar symptoms", fitting the case,
rather than with a host of somewhat indefinite general symptoms, which, if
politely given precedence, will often only suggest severe al remedies of the
polychrest type, and perhaps completely miss the one brilliant and
indispensable.
But, we must hark back to our subject, the peculiarities of Lac-c.:
Fears and terrifying imaginations (snakes) loom tremendously. The tissues it
can severely annoy and successfully comfort are: skin [ulcerations red and
glistening on mucous membranes (throat as in diphtheria, where it has been
found prophylactic as well as specifically curative), gland troubles, nerve troubles
and mental troubles.
The Lac-c. throat is very sensitive to external touch (Lach.), as well
as internally-terribly sensitive. If feels as if it were closing/wants to keep
the mouth open, lest he should choke. Swallowing is difficult-almost impossible,
yet with constant inclination to swallow, when pains shoot up into ears
(Phyt.). Feeling of a lump in throat which goes
down swallowing, only to return (Ign.). The worst pain is when
swallowing solids. Throat feels dry, husky,
“As if scalded”. Lac-c, is not only one of the great remedies of
diphtheria, but of syphilis when that attacks the throat; the throat has a
shiny, glazed, red appearance, or characteristic patches, that "look like
white china".
Pain: fly about/change from side to side and back again. Pain may be
neuralgic/rheumatic/ovarian.
[Boger] (Synopsis) gives its special regions as
"NERVES/THROAT/female generative organs“. It not only affects the ovaries,
but inflames and conjests the uterus, haemorrhages bright and stringy. (dark
and stringy = Croc.) They come in gushes, but and clot easily. "Its sore
throats are apt to begin and end with menstruation“.
ammae: full, lumpy, sensitive to the least jar, very painful and must be
supported when going up and down stairs. . . required to dry up milk". In
this, and in its sensitiveness
to jar, it reminds one of Bell.
Lac-c. is an uneasy sleeper.
Cannot get a comfortable position. "There is no way she can put her hands
that they do not bother her: falls asleep, at last, on her face".
ALLEN sums up more of its
characteristic. For nervous, restless, highly sensitive organisms.
Very forgetful,
absentminded, makes purchases and walks away without them.
In writing, uses too many
words and not the right ones: omits letters or words: cannot concentrate to
read or study.
Despondent, hopeless:
nothing worth living for: her disease is hopeless: has not a friend in the
world. Could weep. Cross and irritable: child cries and screams all the
time (at night). Attacks of
rage; cursing and swearing. Intense "ugliness".
Coryza: one nostril stopped
up, the other free and discharging these alternate. Discharge acrid: nose and
upper lip raw.
Cant eat enough to satisfy;
as hungry after meals as before.
„As if breath would leave
her“ when lying down, must get up and walk.
When walking, seems to be
walking on air: when lying, does not seem to touch the bed.
Intense, unbearable aching
of spine: aches from base of brain to coccyx. Very sensitive to touch and
pressure.
His other important points,
we have already indicated.
"Like Lach. and many
other well-known polychrests in the Materia Medica, this remedy met most
violent opposition from ignorance and prejudice. it was for years looked upon
as one of the novelties or delusions of those who believed in and used the
dynamic remedy; yet its wonderful therapeutic powers have slowly but surely
overcome every obstacle.
It was successfully used by
Dioscorides/Rhasis in ancient times. Sammonicus and Sectus praise it in
photophobia, otitis and other affections of the eye and ear.
Pliny claimed that it cured ulceration of the internal os.
It was then used as an antidote to many deadly poisons.
The use of the remedy was
revived by Reisig, of New York, who, while travelling in Europe, heard it
lauded as a remedy for throat diseases, and on his return used it successfully
in an epidemic of malignant diphtheria.
Reisig potentized it to the
C 17. from which the potencies of Swan and Fincke were prepared. The profession
is indebted to the fatigueable labour of Swan for its provings, which were made
from the C 30, C 200 and higher. The provings of this remedy have placed it
among the polychrests of our school and verified and confirmed the clinical
accuracies of the observers of ancient times.
Dr. Allen gives striking
cases of its power even in what we have ventured to call "Chronic
Diphtheria".
NASH tells that he had
thought it disgraceful to try to foist dogs milk on the profession, as a remedy,
but after accumulated evidence, he tried it on a case of rheuma wandering from
joint to joint, that had resisted Plus., and where it not only wandered, but
crossed to and fro, in the manner of Lac-c. And the case cured very quickly.
Then a case of scarlatina with side-to-side-and-back pains and throat trouble,
and again Lac-c. scored over
Rhus-t., which had seemed indicated. Then a bad case to tonsillitis,
choking and struggling in effort to swallow, where alternate sides were worse,
and again Lac-c. cured within 36 hours.
He got 3 clerks in a store
to prove it: in C 200, taken two-hourly. They all got sore throats, one with
patches on both tonsils.
Nash finds it especially useful
not only for the inflammatory affections that alternate sides; but also for
breasts and throats that get sore at every menstrual period: and also in
mastitis, the great indication being, they cannot bear a jar; has to hold them
up stepping and going down stairs.
KENT: All the milks should
be potentized, they are out most excellent remedies, they are animal products
and foods of early animal life, and therefore correspond to the beginnings of
our innermost physical nature.
If we had provings of monkeys, cows mares and human milk, they would be
of great value. Lac-d. has done excellent work and so has Lac-c. Lac-c. is in
its beginnings yet, although it has made some marvellous cures . . .
It is deep acting and long-acting; the provers felt its symptoms for
years after the proving was made. It abounds in nervous symptoms . . . The
mental symptoms are prolonged and distressing. It makes ulcers very red, and
has cured such ulcers: ulcers are dry, glistening, as if covered with
epithelium. An important remedy in complaints following badly treated
diphtheria, in paralysis and other conditions dating back to diphtheria . . .
oversensitive violently hysterical, and causes all sorts of strange and
apparently impossible symptoms. For example, a woman lay in bed with fingers
abducted, and would go wild if they touched each other: not < hard pressure, but she would scream if they touched . . .
This state is difficult to cure outside Lac-c. and Lach.
A strange and peculiar vertigo:
as if floating in mid-air, or not touching the bed . . .
Then, the changing sides: in
throats, rheumatic affections, headaches and neuralgias . . . Ambulating
erysipelas attacks first one side, then the other, then back again . . .
inflammation sore throats do the same.
Full of imaginations, and
harassing, tormenting thoughts. No reality in the things that be: thinks that
everything she says is a lie. (Alum.) . . . she is not herself, and her
properties not her own, „As if wearing somebody
elses nose“. And so on: we have already emphasized most of the points.
Putrid mouth. Wherever there is mucous membrane, there will be exudate: a grey,
fuzzy coating, like that piling up on the tongue . . . We have already given
the characteristic symptoms of throat, mammae, etc.
BLACK LETTER SYMPTOMS.
Swallowing very difficult,
painful, almost impossible.
Soreness of throat begins with a tickling
sensation, which causes constant cough; then a sensation of a lump on one side,
causing constant deglutition; this condition entirely ceases, only to commence
on the opposite side, and often alternates, again returning to its first
condition; these sore throats are very apt to begin and end with the menses.
Tonsils inflamed and very sore,
red and shining, almost closing throat; dryness of fauces and throat; swelling
of submaxillary glands.
Diphtheritic membrane white
like china; mucous membrane of throat glistening as if varnished; membranes
leave one side and go to the other repeatedly. Desire for warm drinks, which
may return through the nose.
Post-diphtheritic paralysis.
Serviceable in almost all
cases where it is required to dry up milk.
When walking seems to be
walking on air: when lying does not seem to touch the bed.
Erratic disposition of
symptoms: pains constantly flying from one part to another.
[David Lilley]
For thousands of years, dogs and humans have walked the same path as
intimate companions, in love and devotion, in kindness and cruelty, in work and
play, in adoration and contempt and, oft times, in suffering and death. Their
entwined destinies have etched shared emotions, experiences and images into the
universal memory of the collective, canine unconscious, which reflects these
parallels and are dynamically imprinted in the milk of the dog. Ancient medical
tradition recognised the healing potential of bitch’s milk: Pliny and
Dioscorides recommended it for the removal of the dead foetus and Pliny further
claimed that it could cure ulceration of the uterine cervix and ease and
quicken the birth process; it was also considered an antidote to deadly
poisons, including snakebite. But, it is only a homeopathic potency of the
milk, given for purposes of proving or cure, that can plumb the depths and play
upon the keyboard of the deep unconscious of the human psyche to fathom all
that lies in the heart of “man’s best friend”.
A portrait of inferiority and corruption
In a medicine derived from the milk of the domestic dog, we would expect
a portrait of loyalty, courage, self-sacrifice, obedience, forgiveness and
unconditional love to emerge from the provings: all those admirable and even
heroic qualities that dog-lovers revere and extol. Instead we are faced by a
testimony of degradation, ignominy and abuse, resulting in retaliatory
resentment, rage and hatred. Yes, the nobler traits are there, but so recessive
they constitute a mere glimmer in the surrounding gloom. The picture is
threaded through with evidence of abject humility, a pervasive sense of inferiority,
failure, guilt and shame and a feeling of being diminished and degraded. The
self-denigration can reach such a pitch that it becomes revulsion, disgust and
intense self-loathing. This was experienced by a female trialist who
graphically reported the feeling as follows: “She woke at daylight feeling that
she was a loathsome, horrible mass of disease; could not bear to look at any
part of her body, not even her hands, as it intensified the feeling of disgust
and horror; could not bear to have any one part of her body touch another, had
to keep even her fingers apart; felt that if she could not in some way get out
of her body, she should soon become crazy.” Such abhorrence can only be matched
by the Thuja archetype, which experiences itself as soiled, tainted and
defiled. Both archetypes may need to wash their hands compulsively to cleanse
themselves ritualistically or to absolve themselves of some unconscious shame.
This form of self-revulsion indicates that the sycotic miasm is dominant in the
constitution, which may externalise in the pathological symbol of
self-rejection: an autoimmune disease (the production of antibodies against
one’s own tissues, for example rheumatoid arthritis).
A distorted hybrid
Prompted by the stimulus of the potentised milk, from the abyss of the
canine unconscious comes the anguished cry of the abused, a cry that stills
protestations of reciprocal love and companionship and asserts the truth of
accumulated violation, humiliation and suffering experienced by a species, now
far removed from its wild, ancestral mould and exposed to the manipulation and
exploitation of humanity. The collective imprinting is not an image of
friendship and sharing, but one of domination, deprivation and bondage. The
free, proud and fiercely independent grey-wolf, the superbly efficient and far
ranging progenitor of all dog breeds, has been largely transformed by the
Frankenstein-like manipulations of breeders into an unnatural species -a
distorted hybrid- a mutant wolf! Due to disadvantaging, anatomical changes,
some breeds are scarcely able to breathe, others to conceive, give natural
birth or care for their young, natural instincts are blunted or lost, and most
are beset by diseases as diverse and as destructive as those of the masters who
warped them. The genetic destinies of two species, that have escaped the purifying
and ennobling influence of natural selection and survival of the fittest, are
forever bonded. It is not surprising that we find mirrored in the remedy
picture of Lac caninum so much that reflects human suffering, deprivation and
abuse in a “dog-eats-dog” world; a world of harsh and extreme polarities where
affluence and want exist “cheek by jowl”.
A disfigured identity
Bearing in mind the transformations required to change from wolf to dog,
while still possessing the same DNA, one can imagine the shock and horror of a
wolf, wishing to admire itself in a mirror, being confronted by the visage and
physique of a chihuahua or a bulldog. Significantly provings of bitch’s milk
reveal: “aversion to herself”; “contemptuous of self” and, most telling, “feels
she has somebody else’s nose”. Lac caninum subjects are known for “errors of
personal identity”, often, like Thuja, seeing themselves in a distorted way. In
practice, both medicines have proved valuable in the treatment of anorexia
nervosa and bulimia (the individual perceives herself as fat even when
dangerously emaciated), especially when there is a history of abuse or victimisation.
When the physical identity has been traumatised by severe injuries to the face,
by multiple operations (often orthopaedic), or by procedures involving the
reproductive organs, which leave the patient feeling disfigured, mutilated or
diminished, especially after mastectomy and hysterectomy, Lac caninum, or
Staphysagria, may be indicated for the emotional consequences, even many years
later. Likewise, we always need to bear Lac caninum in mind when a person is
obsessively dissatisfied with some body part, often the nose or breasts, and
needs to “improve” their looks by cosmetic surgery.
A metaphor of contempt
Contrary to our personal experience with our canine friends, and in
conflict with our love and esteem, it is startling that inherent in our unconscious,
archetypal evaluation of the dog, invariably expressed
in our idiomatic, language patterns, is the same image that emerges from
the provings: an image of inferiority -
something to be scorned, disparaged and vilified. Habitually, in our
day-to-day vocabulary, we link the dog to negative connotations. We speak of “a
dog’s life”, of being treated, feeling and working “like a dog”, of food “not
fit for a dog”, of being in “the dog-house”, a worn book is
“dog-eared”, a place that has fallen upon bad times has “gone to the
dogs”, we are “dog-tired”, and, indeed, who has ever heard of being “dogged by
good fortune” or “hounded by success”? We are also inclined to associate
inferior human qualities with dog-like characteristics: “hangdog” describes someone
who is downcast and despondent or furtive and guilty in appearance or manner;
the craven coward cringes and cowers, crawls on his belly, ears down, tail
between his legs; the fawning sycophant “licks the hand that beats him” but may
also turn on his master and “bites the hand that feeds him”. Even “puppy-fat”
and “puppy-love” are often derisory expressions, and who can doubt that “dog”
and “bitch” become extreme forms of insult, particularly when barbed with a
sexual expletive.
Despised and rejected
It is not surprising to find in Lac caninum symptoms which evidence
terrible feelings of inferiority: “feels despised, diminished, smaller”; “feels
insulted; as if she is being looked down upon by everyone” (unique to Lac
caninum); “he is dirt”; “he is dirty”; “despondent, hopeless, thinks her
disease incurable, has not a friend living, could weep at any moment”; that
they feel incapable and incompetent: “everything is doomed to fail”; “he is a
failure”; “doubts her ability and success”; “want of confidence”; that they
fear life and those in it: fear of violence, abuse and rape; “fear and mistrust
of people”(humanity); certain people, men, authority figures, strangers; “fear
of ridicule and humiliation” and “fear of rejection, abandonment and
separation”. What a sad litany coming from the deep repository of canine
heartache and what a sad commentary on the distorted pattern of human thinking,
both unfortunately stemming from life experience. From constantly entertaining
such ideas of mediocrity and powerlessness, depression and despair are never
far away, and are vividly portrayed: “chronic, ‘blue’ condition, everything
seems so dark that it can grow no darker” and “heavy dark clouds seem to
envelop her”. It is a heaviness of spirit; even “the clothing seems too heavy”.
This despondency is increased by the short days of winter and by grey, dismal,
overcast weather, especially if it appears interminable.
A symbol of duality
In myth and symbolism, the dog is also portrayed as a metaphor of
extreme duality. Christian and Celtic traditions revere the dog as the
embodiment of fidelity, unswerving devotion, companionship, protective
vigilance, nobility of spirit and love that survives death. In Semitic
iconography, however, it accompanies the scorpion, serpent and other baleful
reptiles, and is evil and demonic; in Judaism the dog was held in contempt as
an unclean scavenger, an eater of vomit, associated with “whoremongers,
sorcerers, fornicators and idolaters”. Islam sees in the dog all that is vile
in creation, a term of opprobrium for unbelievers, the very symbol of
uncleanliness, greed, gluttony, and gross materialism – the sole exceptions
being the saluki and the greyhound, which were used for hunting. On a
profounder level, the dog shares in the ambivalent symbolism of its ancestor,
the wolf. Its image in the human psyche is essentially dark. It is equated with
the devil – fierce, insatiable and evil. As incarnating all the dark,
destructive aspects of nature, the wolf, when worshipped, becomes one of the
dread deities, embodying ferocity, cunning, greed, cruelty, and wickedness. However,
its fierce, noble qualities can also be protective, loyal, courageous, and
victorious, and therefore venerated. Lac caninum, the remedy, covers the entire
spectrum of these great contradictions and opposites, all of which lie within
the sphere of sycosis. This duality, or doublesidedness, is symbolised in the
wagging tail, hallmark of both the wolf and dog, which is carried forward in
the cardinal modality of Lac caninum: symptoms and signs move from one side of
the body to another (often commencing on the left – the side of the emotions,
creativity and imagination). But, the starkest paradox and duality of all lies
in the capacity of the dog to either heal or kill. In Hellenic times, the ill
and infirm would travel, in search of a cure, to the shrine of Asklepios, the
God of Medicine, at Epidauros. At the sanctuary, sacred snakes and dogs were
used to lick the wounds and ailing parts of the sick and many instances of
healing were recorded. Yet, it is the domestic dog and its near relatives that
are particularly responsible for propagating the dread disease rabies.
Wotan – the god of wolves and dogs
In Norse and Teutonic mythology, the wolf is sacred to Wotan (Odin), the
king of the gods. Two ravens and two wolves, Skoll and Hati, repulsion and
hatred, always accompanied Wotan into battle. He is often depicted riding a
huge wolf. It was believed that these wolves persist ently pursued the sun and
the moon attempting to swallow them so that the world might be plunged into
primordial darkness. They achieve partial success at the eclipses and it is
said that they will finally succeed at Ragnarok, the Norse Doomsday, when Wotan
will close in mortal combat with the monstrous wolf Fenrir, his own dark
aspect, and die.
Although primarily a god of war, Wotan was a multifaceted deity with a
rich diversity of roles. He displays multiple personalities and was capable of
seemingly endless transformations, revealing a complex and often contradictory
nature. In keeping with its ruling deity, Lac caninum can be indeterminate and
fluctuating in behaviour, emotions and character, showing a lack of fixed
identity; a tendency surely due to the selective breeding methods that have
produced such glaringly different breeds that they could easily be confused as
different species. Certain Lac caninum types are able to don different
personas to suit the company and circumstances they find themselves in – people
of many faces and many masks, human chameleons – able to be whatever and
whoever the other person would like them to be, or what would ingratiate and
profit them best. They are often troubled by an inability to sense who they
truly are. Others are very susceptible and overimpressionable, easily influenced
by dominant individuals, even to the point of adopting their identity,
personality traits and mannerisms (Pulsatilla). These role models may be
idealised even when intrinsically wicked or evil. This resonance is an
important quality of the archetype, further evidenced in the frequency with
which a breed is unconsciously and preferentially selected as a projection of
some dominant trait of the owner, so that owner and dog look alike.
God of wisdom and frenzy
Most important in the mythology of Wotan was his great initiation, when,
pierced through his side by a spear, he hung suspended on Yggdrasill, the World
Ash Tree (the Norse Cosmic Tree – like Thuja, an arbor vitae) for nine days and
nights without bread or water.
He was rewarded with a vision and understanding of the runes, which
embody the esoteric knowledge of the northern tradition, enabling him to access
the wisdom of the underworld (the Shadow) and travel freely through the
dimensions of spirit. He became a necromancer capable of summoning the shades
of the dead in order to obtain arcane knowledge. Myth also relates that on
another occasion he sacrificed an eye (the eye of intellect) in order to attain
wisdom. Wotan’s sacrifice on the tree echoes the passion of Christ on the
cross. He, like Jesus, became a fount of all wisdom, which he sourced from the
realm of the dead. But, at the opposite extreme, swinging from the sacred to
the profane, Wotan was also God of Frenzy and Lord of Ecstasy. In 1936, Carl
Jung wrote an essay Wotan in which he prophesied the return of the ancient god,
reactivated “like a dormant volcano” from the collective unconscious of the
German nation under the Nazi party, which was soon to lead it to a disastrous
war. He saw the frenzy of Wotan manifest in the rabid ravings of Hitler,
delivered whilst seemingly in a state of possession.
Artistic, religious and hedonistic rapture
It seems impossible to reconcile these contradictions of the god and the
archetype, either morally or logically, unless one understands the contrasting
energies of the sycotic miasm and of Lac caninum. The “frenzy” of Wotan, and
therefore of Lac caninum, is not just the battle fury of the Viking Beserks,
which rendered them invincible, it is also the passion of the creative mind: of
the poet, the artist and the musician. In the pagan world, myths, heroic
exploits and noble deeds were extolled by bards at the courts of kings and
chieftains through the medium of poetry and song and reenacted through dance.
These were as important vehicles of communication and knowledge as the media
are today. Religious and magical fervour was also connected to Wotan, often
assisted by chanting and dancing and the use of psychotropic substances and
alcohol. The priests of Wotan were known to carry a leather pouch that contained
hallucinogenic herbs used in the rituals associated with the god to induce
psychic states and vision of other dimensions. Chief amongst these was black
henbane (Hyoscyamus), the antirabies acute of Lac caninum. Both recreational
drugs and alcohol can lead to licentiousness, promiscuity and sexual frenzy,
none of which are foreign to either Wotan or Lac caninum. The Lac caninum
subject is hypersensitive to touch, especially to the throat, breasts and
pelvic region, all of which are powerful, erotic zones. They are very sensual
and easily aroused, even to excessive levels of sexual transport and rapture:
“hysteria and madness during sex – worse at the height of orgasm”.
Heightened senses; intense emotions; powerful urges
Lac caninum is hypersensitive and overreactive on all levels. Their
desires and impulses can be canine and therefore inordinate in a human being.
Like the wolf, all their faculties are keen. They are intensely alert to their
environment and the people in it, gifted to pick up instinctively on “vibes”
and atmosphere, their sixth sense enabling them to apprehend thoughts, emotions
and motives. They are intensely passionate and the emotions they experience are
excessive and extreme, out of proportion to circumstances and context and too
prolonged, lasting even a lifetime. Their fear is terror, their dislike is
detestation, their anger is rage and their love is adoration. They can hate
with an alarming intensity and a vengefulness that is dogged, vicious and
frightening. They gnaw at their grievances, their hatred and their desire for
revenge, like a dog gnaws at a bone, never satisfied until they have destroyed
the object of their enmity or vented the energy transpersonally on society or
by scapegoating others (Hitler). Their fears and phobias are intense, often
dominating their lives. Snakes, spiders and dogs, particularly large dogs,
terrify them and they are haunted by fear of disease, especially cancer, and
the dread of dying. Thunderstorms petrify them, the flash of lightening and the
crash of thunder causing them to cringe with fear. They are so imaginative that
the images born out of their fantasy assume reality, appearing before them,
threatening and terrifying. They have only to think of their ailments for them
to be intensified. Even their natural urges tend to excess: insatiable thirst,
often for milk; craving for salt and spices; an appetite that cannot be
appeased; and an insistent, sexual hunger.
Repressed traumatic memories
Sometimes a history of sexual abuse is responsible for their fears and
phobias. In both Thuja and Lac caninum, this may have been suffered
repetitively and over an extended time, often at the hands of those who should
have been protective caregivers. In some Lac caninum victims, the memory of
the abuse may have been repressed in amnesic response to experiences too
terrible for the young mind to hold in the light of consciousness. Only dreams
and imaginings remain: “visions of creeping things”; “horrible visions; afraid
they will take objective form”; “dreams of snakes in her bed” and most
significantly – “feels she is lying on a large snake” and “sees faces in the
dark; the face that haunts most is the one she has really seen”. This
unconscious repression of unwanted memory may impair normal recall, causing
them to make mistakes when speaking or writing, and to become absent minded:
leaving behind items they have bought in a shop, or forgetting to retrieve
their credit card after a purchase.
The homeopathic guide dog
Lac caninum is a remedy of indispensable value to the practitioner of
“depth homeopathy”. The ancients quite rightly understood the dog to be
guardian of the underworld (Cerberus), guide of souls from one realm to
another, and the intermediary between different levels of consciousness. When a
patient’s emotions and feelings are deeply repressed, when dreams have ceased
or never been, when the personal shadow is heavily burdened with unresolved
emotions and experiences, it is often the dog that leads the physician into the
deepest realms of the unconscious and releases the pains of the past. Lac
caninum can rescue the wounded child in the depressed adult. When in doubt,
give Sulphur we are taught, but more frequently, when we stand nonplussed,
before a complex, emotional state due to past or present trauma, a severely
repressed state, a paucity of symptoms, an ever shifting presentation, or a constitutional
picture simulating various polychrests and revealing the influence of more than
one miasm, Lac caninum is often the remedy which, true to its canine nature,
will open up the case and guide the physician with devotion and fidelity out of
the darkness into the light.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum