The five miasms we have discussed this week are accepted by many Homeopaths around the world. However in more recent times there has been discussion about other miasms. Some of it is quite controversial, some Homeopaths believe that they fit in to the other five, or for traditionalists three, miasms. I’m not trying to convince you one way or the other, but present the information so you can have some understanding, and then use what fits into your world view. If this is distressing please feel free to skip and check in next week when I will go back to regular posts about therapeutics or remedies.
AIDS
Is a miasm that has been a suggestion by a number of Homeopaths, with the main published work by Peter Fraser. The themes of the AIDS miasm are around breaking boundaries. The parallel here is with the opening up of our world with digital communication and electronics, and also realising the connections between people beyond our close physical contacts and neighbours. While the ability to see and talk to people on the other side of the world is amazing and a blessing, there has also been a loss of boundaries, with people connected all the time, messages and emails 24/7 and an increased need to be online.
For traditional miasmatic theorists, AIDS fits into the syphilitic miasm.
The information about the AIDS Miasm I have gleaned from two sources: Peter Fraser’s book on the AIDS Miasm, and an article from Hpathy by Richard Pitt called Homeopthy, AIDS and its Miasmatic Identity. If you would like to more please read those as they are much more in depth.
Fraser compares the AIDS Miasm to the move into electronic age. Humankind’s foray into space (breaking the boundary of earth), the contraceptive pill (separating sex from procreation), psychedelic drugs, and even the first heart transplant, in 1967, a medical advance that the very heart of a person could be replaced, but one he likens to the confusion of identity of the electronic age.
Even more than these early expressions of the electronic age, it is the late 20th century’s development of the internet and todays Global Village that really highlight the lack of boundaries of the AIDS Miasm. Loss of intellectual property, and loss of local business because it is “cheaper” to buy direct or from a warehouse in another part of the country or world are both negative consequences of the global village.
The breaking of boundaries is seen in AIDS, how it breaks the body down, not by directly killing the host, but by destroying the T cells so that other diseases can take hold.
Pitt describes it as the Miasm of confusion and controversy. The virus is elusive and hard to isolate, and there has been controversy for years over whether the virus even exists. AIDS itself is a syndrome, and the two dozen odd conditions that are seen in AIDS also exist as diseases in their own right. Another controversy is whether the numbers are what they say they are.
There is also a big difference between the AIDS of Africa and that of the Western World.
The themes of the AIDS miasm are connection and disconnection, instability, confusion and tendency to extremes, vulnerability and a lack of confidence. There are also themes of motherhood and pregnancy and gender dysphoria. In the AIDS Nosode proving, there were feelings of fragility, anxiety and also feeling like an outcast.
Radiation/Radioactive Miasm
In Ian Watson’s book he discussed potential future miasms to include AIDS, about self in relation with society, and Radiation, as the responsibility of power. Radiation shows the interdependence of our global society, with effects from nuclear disasters seen much more widely than their local area.
In Richard Pitt’s article on AIDS he also references a Radioactive Miasm as even more destructive than Syphilis, and that includes of loss of identity. The radioactive miasm also has issues with genetics, recent and distant ancestry and magic.
The Actinides are the group of radioactive remedies including Plutonium, Uranium and Neptunium. They have themes of heaviness and darkness, and it feels like things are falling apart and they put a lot of effort into holding it together. Interestingly, the radioactive remedies and lanthanides have been useful in AIDS cases.
Jeremy Sherr, who is one of the founders of Homeopathy for Health in Africa, has combined these two proposed miasms and the Cancer miasm into what he calls FARC – Fungi, AIDS, Radiation and Cancer.
For more about the FARC Miasm please do Jeremy Sherr’s course, the second of “Surfing with Jeremy” or the 7Rs, available through The Quest For Simillimum.
Jeremy calls FARC the flowers and leaves of the miasmatic tree- Psora the trunk, Sycosis, Syphilitic and Tubercular as the main branches. The thing that all the four components – Fungi, AIDS, Radiation and Cancer – have in common is they all have a theme of decomposition.
Fungi are used to break down organic matter and return to the minerals, which can then be used again by plant life. They are an essential part of the life cycle.
AIDS is about decomposition in that the early stages of the disease were characterised by “slim” where people would emaciate and get thinner and thinner until they died.
Cancer is also about decomposition in that it will break down functioning parts of the body. There is some suggestion that fungus is a contributing cause to some cancers.
Radiation not only causes cancers but radioactive elements are not stable and themselves break down.
The migration of humans around the world has led to a lack of connection with their roots, and without a strong root base a tree cannot survive.
As part of this the challenge of the FARC miasm – or end stage of all the other miasms- is around identity and therefore immunity. If our immune cells do not recognise the difference between invading virus/bacteria/other and our own cells, they can attack our own cells, causing autoimmune problems. Autoimmune problems are therefore part of FARC, and are the body destroying itself.
Only time is going to show is whether there is an AIDS or Radioactive miasm, or whether FARC, looking at all these proposed miasms as the flowers and leaves on the other miasms is more likely. It is clear though that some of the things we are seeing collectively as humankind in the 21st century is a step on from the previous miasmatic themes.
Please come back tomorrow to finish off discussion of miasms, and then Tuesday and Wednesday for a look at two different systems of Homeopathy and the alternative way that miasms are being used.