Autonomy, Integration, and Trauma: the Asteraceae Family

In October 2012, Louis Klein and Luminos hosted Jan Scholten for two enlightening seminars. His long awaited new book, Wonderful Plants is near publication and the seminar revealed to us, once again, Jan Scholten's brilliance. In this issue of Interhomeopathy, Carol Jones will present a review of his seminar and the plant system.

During Jan's visit to Toronto a group of homeopaths came together to prove three new plants from the Asteraceae family. The Asteraceae, at one time more commonly known as the Compositae family, are of the flowering-plant order Asterales. With more than 1,600 genera and almost 24,000 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees distributed throughout the world, Asteraceae is one of the largest plant families. Based on the discovery of well-preserved fossils, Paleo-botanists suggest that the first members of this family may have evolved in Argentina some 50 million years ago.

Despite being vast, the Asteraceae family has been well represented in our materia medica with familiar remedies such as Abrotanum, Chamomilla, Echinacea, Taraxacum, and others, but a depth and breadth has been lacking in our understanding. In Jan's article on this complex plant family, he compares the Asteraceae to the Lanthanide series of elements, giving us a broader, well developed picture. Along with Jan's article, we also feature the three trituration provings conducted in Toronto: Cosmos, Moonbeam coreopsis and Gaillardia aristata. The three provings beautifully illustrate the themes of the Asteraceae: autonomy, integration, and trauma.

To round out this issue, Nancy Frederick presents a superb case of a little documented snake root, Nabalus sepentaria, and Marty Begin provides a unique perspective with a case of the classic Bellis perennis.

I hope you enjoy this issue as much as we have enjoyed bringing it to you. I want to thank the authors of the wonderful articles presented this month and the courageous provers that brought three new beautiful remedies to our materia medica. Finally, many thanks to Robert Muntz and Remedia for generously potentizing these new remedies to a 200C.  We wish you happy reading and – as always – successful prescribing!