Fungi, Spectrum series Vol. 2

Language
English
Type
Hardback
Publisher
Emryss Publishers
Author(s) Frans Vermeulen
5+ Items In stock
Delivery time 24 hours
€57.00
The Materia Medica of Fungi is as elusive and mysterious as the fungi themselves. The repertories list 72 fungi, of which 27 have less than 20 symptoms; 40 exist in name only, and perhaps 13 might appear in a repertorization. Our knowledge, themes and signatures have to date come from the alphabet of Agaricus, Bovista and Claviceps [Secale].

In The Hollow Men T. S. Eliot wrote:

Between the idea
And the reality,
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

This is where we find the fungi. They are the critical link in the biological cycle of life and death. They exist in the penumbra, of our fields and forests; our homes and rafters; our literature and folklore; our medicines and drugs; our fridges and foodstores; our living and dying.

In Spectrum Fungi we are led ineluctably down the road of excess, to a palace of homeopathic wisdom. We begin to understand the evolutionary role of fungi in plant life, as in Monera we learnt that bacteria form the engine of human evolution. We walk in the shadows of the transformative nature of the fungi, without which we should be forever swamped in the unrotting debris of our own making. As fungi deliquesce our solid flesh, fertilising the waiting earth and delivering us back to the silent depths, so they also transubstantiate the grape into wine and the flour into bread.

With speed and strength, the fungi penetrate, like an invisible fifth column through the soil of our being, the Psora of our materia medica, hydra-headed, bizarre, unexpected, infiltrating, colonizing, absorbing and decomposing. Sinister? Infinitely so, in their hidden power.

This book contains all the fascinating details you need to make a prescription in this strange, chameleon-like kingdom. Fungi, Moulds, Yeasts, Lichens. They are all here some as well-known drugs ~ Cyclosporin, Penicillin ~ some as the scourge of lung diseases ~ Aspergillus ~ some you love to eat and drink ~ Camembert, Roquefort, Beer, Alcoholus, Lager, Quorn, Agaricus campestris, Cantharellus, Bovista ~ and some to blow your mind ~ LSD and Psilocybe.

Vermeulens library of books about fungi expanded from one single book to 80 during the course of his research. As the homeopathic materia medica of fungi is far from complete, most of the information is synthesized from other sources. In the past, the fungi have been grouped into the Kingdom Plantae, and sometimes as excrescences of the earth! Now, however, particularly with the means of DNA testing, it is important that these organisms, and also the fungus-like moulds and yeasts, take their place in their own Kingdom. We must desist from making any comparison between the plants and fungi.

Much of the classification used in homeopathy is incorrect, and for this book, and to be continued throughout the coming Spectrum Volumes on Plants, Frans has adopted the current standards.

As well as the extant information available to the homeopathic world on Fungi, Yeasts and Lichens, the book, hardcovered and Fly Agaric red, contains a Glossary to help you through the sometimes arcane terminology. Other useful information, all placed at the back of the book, makes connections between fungi and minerals; fungi and pathology; fungi and trees and fungi and insects. There is the usual extensive index, a sprinkling of black and white drawings and a few recipes to whet your taste buds. The book leaves enough space for your own important jottings.

Fungi, the second book in the Spectrum Materia Medica series, continues the fastidious research and production standards that we expect of Emryss Publishers. As well as being a valuable materia medica, it also makes fascinating reading.
More Information
ISBN9789076189208
AuthorFrans Vermeulen
TypeHardback
LanguageEnglish
Publication Date2006
Pages782
PublisherEmryss Publishers
Review

This book review is reprinted from Volume 21, Summer 2008 edition, with permission from Homeopathic Links.

Reviewed by Or. J. Rozencwajg, MD, PhD, NMD, New Zealand

He has done it again! In the second volume of the Spectrum Materia Medica, Frans Vermeulen has once more time demonstrated his mastery of remedies and of writing.

This book focuses on the world of fungi, the first 105 pages covering the generalities and the common facts about fungi, from their general biology, nutritional value, pathology and diseases to signatures and themes.

I thought I would be smart and just read this bit, then sample the materia medica of a few remedies and be finished with this review in no time.

No way! Once you start reading about a remedy, you feel compelled to continue, then to discover the next one and the next one, and, before you know it, you have spent most of the night with this book.

Not good for family life...

Candida only is 23 pages long and yet everything is there: biology, clinical symptoms, psychology, proving materia medica and rubrics.

Those fungi which have not been proved or used in homeopathy are compared with major polychrests in order to give a feeling of what they might be should they ever be proved; another way to look at this type of comparison would be to use them the same way bowel nosodes are used, a remedy that has major features of different other well-known ones.

The amount of information is overwhelming, and that might be one of the drawbacks of this book, even the whole series: how do you use that information in your daily practice?

I hope that by the end of the series Frans will have compiled a repertory that allows us to search his work and, even better, will have all the books available in electronic form, allowing us to search quickly within that wealth of information.

That being said, I look forward to the next volume ... not that I consciously remember anything from reading the first two, but it was so enjoyable and informative that I can only ask for more... new rubrics:

Mind, Appetite, ravenous, canine, excessive, for information, and Ailments from information overload.

Absolutely a book needed on every homeopath's bookshelves.

Review

This book review is reprinted from Volume 21, Summer 2008 edition, with permission from Homeopathic Links.

Reviewed by Or. J. Rozencwajg, MD, PhD, NMD, New Zealand

He has done it again! In the second volume of the Spectrum Materia Medica, Frans Vermeulen has once more time demonstrated his mastery of remedies and of writing.

This book focuses on the world of fungi, the first 105 pages covering the generalities and the common facts about fungi, from their general biology, nutritional value, pathology and diseases to signatures and themes.

I thought I would be smart and just read this bit, then sample the materia medica of a few remedies and be finished with this review in no time.

No way! Once you start reading about a remedy, you feel compelled to continue, then to discover the next one and the next one, and, before you know it, you have spent most of the night with this book.

Not good for family life...

Candida only is 23 pages long and yet everything is there: biology, clinical symptoms, psychology, proving materia medica and rubrics.

Those fungi which have not been proved or used in homeopathy are compared with major polychrests in order to give a feeling of what they might be should they ever be proved; another way to look at this type of comparison would be to use them the same way bowel nosodes are used, a remedy that has major features of different other well-known ones.

The amount of information is overwhelming, and that might be one of the drawbacks of this book, even the whole series: how do you use that information in your daily practice?

I hope that by the end of the series Frans will have compiled a repertory that allows us to search his work and, even better, will have all the books available in electronic form, allowing us to search quickly within that wealth of information.

That being said, I look forward to the next volume ... not that I consciously remember anything from reading the first two, but it was so enjoyable and informative that I can only ask for more... new rubrics:

Mind, Appetite, ravenous, canine, excessive, for information, and Ailments from information overload.

Absolutely a book needed on every homeopath's bookshelves.