Author:
Jan Scholten
Book:
Homeopathy and the Elements
Type:
Remedy
Chapter:
3.15
3.15 Phosphorus
‘Any communication is better than no communication’
‘Alle Menschen werden Bruder’
Signature
The name is derived from the Greek word ‘phosphorus’, bringer of light. It was discovered in 1669.
It exists in three different forms: red, white and black. The white form glows in the dark, but it is quite unstable and turns from white to yellow to red under the influence of light.
Phosphorus ignites very easily, which is why it is used in matches.
Phosphates, in the form of ATP, adenosinetriphophates, are important carriers of energy within the body. Phosphates also play an important role within the nervous system.
Concepts
Stage 11-15 Silicon series
Containing Preserving Relationships
Holding on Family
Spreading Continuing Other You
Expansion Full Love Hate
Enjoying Communication
Loss Language learning
Forgiving Presentation Game
Exchange Teenager
Sharing Home Neighbourhood
Analysis
Enjoying the communication: communicative.
Exchange within relationships: communication.
Preserving relationships.
Enjoying relationships: friends.
Sharing within the family: brothers.
Exchanging with others: diffusion.
Exchanging love.
Expansion of love: sympathetic.
Holding on to the neighbourhood: homesickness.
Preserving within the house.
Sharing relationships.
Exchanging with others: learning.
Fear of loss of relationships.
Picture of Phosphorus
Essence: spreading the word, communication.
Preserving relationships
They have a great desire to have many relationships and they are sure that they will succeed, because they find it easy to make contact with others. But they also like to preserve these contacts, so they put a lot of energy into them. They like company and hate to be alone.
You could imagine the original situation of Phosphorus being that of a person who suddenly finds himself in a completely unknown society, for instance a survivor of a shipwreck who lands in a strange country. He then has two options: either he withdraws and tries to fend for himself, or he tries to be adopted within this new culture. In order to do the latter he has to make contact with these new people as soon as possible. He has to find out how they think and feel and act, so that he can learn to think and feel and act the same way. So it is a matter of learning a new language, learning new customs, learning how to work with new tools etc. He has to be continuously open to new information, but also to the way these people feel, so that he can understand them and take over their norms and values. He also has to make friends in order to feel secure within this new society.
Enjoying the communication: communicative
They can really enjoy communication: they love talking and exchanging ideas. They are very open and talk with ease about their inner feelings. They also have the capacity to feel the other person’s feelings. They tend to lean over towards them during a conversation and show and encourage a feeling of trust.
Expansion of love: sympathetic
Because they are so sympathetic to the other person’s feelings they can easily take over their pains as well. It is as if they suffer with them. They like to share their love and they resonate with other people which makes the other person feel comforted and understood. They can even resonate with feelings or problems that they read in a magazine: they truly belong in the rubric ‘sympathetic’.
Exchanging with others: diffusion
Sometimes they are too open to impressions, as if their boundaries are diffuse (Vithoulkas)and all impressions can move freely in and out. They may even have clairvoyant dreams and sensations. The communication can be so open that they no longer know which thoughts and feelings belong to themselves.
The feelings they have absorbed don’t usually stay for very long. As soon as they meet someone else they start to resonate with this new person. Their fears are also quite short lived: they are easily frightened, especially when they hear about a disease, but they are also easily reassured.
Sharing within the family: brothers
When the family expands with a later addition they are quite happy too. Their contact with brothers and sisters is easy, since they accept them as equals and like to communicate with them.
Enjoying relationships: friends
They have a lot of friends and they easily make friends too, even with people they have only just met. People like their sympathetic attitude and neighbours and acquaintances soon become good friends. They are not at all jealous about their contacts, as they like everyone to get to know everyone else and become friends with each other, ‘the more the merrier’.
Exchanging with others: learning and language
Another aspect of communication is language, with all its facets of listening, speaking, writing and reading. This is directly connected to learning and thinking. Learning and thinking happens mainly through the medium of language. It is an exchange of information, rather than a form of achievement.
Phosphoricums often have problems at school, and the mental exertion can become too much. They get exhausted and confused by all this studying and finally become apathetic, with blackouts and spells of complete indifference.
These problems often take appear during puberty, when a growing body demands its share of energy too.
Extending communication: curiosity and travelling
Curiosity is connected to the desire to learn. There is a great desire for variation and new things. Travelling is a way of fulfilling this desire: you meet something new every day, not only new places, but also new people to communicate with. Their interests are broad and varied, but very much concerned with culture.
Loss of relationships
They are afraid of losing their relations and try and avoid this by getting to know as many people as possible. If they lose too many friends they get exhausted. They had invested so much energy in these friendships that together with the friend part of themselves has gone too. This can make them indifferent towards the rest of their friends and family. They get an aversion to people and conversation. They feel alone and deserted. This is expressed in the delusion of being alone, marooned on an island, like Robinson Crusoe.
Loss of love
Disappointment in love is one of the most important causes of problems and disease in Phosphorus. They miss the fact that they can’t talk with their loved one anymore. It is not so much that they miss the passion, it is much more the acute loss of contact with the other person that causes the suffering.
Holding on to friends: homesickness
Another typical symptom is homesickness. The homesickness is once again caused by the loss of contact. They lost their neighbours and their friends and they long to see them again. They long for the neighbourhood and the house where their family has always lived.
Expressions
Fears: alone, dark, thunder (!), twilight, future, disease and death of family and friends; easily frightened and easily reassured; jumpy.
Mood: nervous, restless, discontented.
Mental: curious, restless, lively fantasy.
Contacts: -> company,new contacts, conversations, eroticism.
Hobbies: travelling, games.
Generals
Build: thin, tall, red-haired.
Locality: right.
Weather: cold, sensitive to thunderstorms.
Time: < 9 pm.
Desires: spices, salt, fish (3), ice-cream, sweet, chocolate, chicken, cold drinks (2).
Aversion: salt, fish, oysters.
Menses: profuse.
Sleep: on right side; > short sleep, somnambulism.
Physical: rubbing; < cats, smells, wool.
Complaints
Burning pains.
Haemorrhages of bright red blood. Cerebral haemorrhage, petechia.
Hair loss.
Neurological complaints, shocks, chorea, neuralgias, paralysis. Weakness with nervousness.
Migraine.
Lung complaints, bronchitis, asthma, hyperventilation. Tuberculosis.
Vomiting < drinking.
Liver complaints. Diabetes.
Diarrhoea, kidney stones.
Bone problems, growing pains, rickets, osteoporosis.
Tingling finger tips.
DD Silicon series, Stages 11-15, Hyoscyamus.
DD Silicium: likes things the way they are, doesn’t feel an urge to change it. Phosphorus also takes the relationship for granted, but he does want to make an effort. He likes to extend his relationships and share with others much more than Silicium.
DD Lachesis: Phosphorus doesn’t talk in monologues like Lachesis does. They are able to stop and listen and are therefore not in the rubric ‘loquacious’.
DD Calcium phosphoricum: also has the headaches in school children. Kali-p has exhaustion from study as well; Mag-p may get very sleepy from studying.