The following method was suggested by Boenninghausen, and I used it to great advantage for myself and with my apprentices.

The plan is to establish knowledge of the most important points—the characteristics—of each remedy. The way it is achieved is by comparison and underlining.

COMPARISON: each symptom from the collection of CHARACTERISTICS is looked up in the REPERTORY.
UNDERLINING: if the symptom is found in the REPERTORY, the symptom is underlined in the CHARACTERISTICS.

In Detail:
For this study we took Boenninghausen’s Characteristics, which are printed in: Boger: Boenninghausen’s characteristics and repertory, or are available also in a separate print at a lower cost. We took as a repertory: Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic pocketbook original 1846, where the English students wrote the English titles over the German ones.

We use the following Key for underlining:
Double underlining= fifth grade in the repertory
Single underlining= fourth grade in the repertory
Broken line underlining= third grade.

Example:
Sulphur page 170 Head section
Head:--Congestion from chest to head, with burning heat and gurgling, pulsating pain in brain, throbbing in neck, and cardiac region, diminished hearing and flushes of heat to face.
We have to look up each bit in the REPERTORY:

Head internal: page 9: Sulph in 4th grade—underline Head with pencil single
Congestion: page 140: Sulph in 5th grade – underline congestion twice
Chest: internal page 115: Sulph in 5th grade – underline Chest twice
Head: see above and remember
Burning inner parts: 143, 5th grade—underline Burning twice
Heat inner parts: 283, 3rd grade—underline Heat with a broken line
Gurgling: 156, 3rd grade – underline gurgling with a broken line
Pulsating internal: 172 3rd grade – underline with a broken line
In brain: there is no rubric
Throbbing : 161, 4th grade – underline with single line
Neck: 114, 4th grade -- underline Neck once
Cardiac region: 116, 5th grade – underline Cardiac region twice
Diminished hearing: 29, 5th grade – underline diminished hearing twice
Flushes of heat: 285, 4th grade – underline Flushes of heat once
Face: There is no general rubric for face.

It take quite some time in the beginning to find the things in the repertory, but after a few remedies worked out in this manner, one knows exactly where to find what.
It took at the start about 10-12 hours to go through one remedy in this way, but after a few its down to 2-4 hours.

The same exercise can be done with the proving and the repertory. I did it for most of the antipsorics against the TT. For Sep alone it took me about 30 hours.

Imagine to do it with Synthesis and Allen’s—a lifetime would not be enough to do a few remedies.
Over and all, I found this the quickest way to establish a good working knowledge of the remedies and as a side-effect ended up with a very sharp collection of characteristics and a good knowledge of the repertory. This all helps tremendously in case-taking, because once the main complaints are expressed one knows which remedies are probably necessary and can then ask specific question to establish whether it’s the one or the other by knowing in advance where the remedies for the given case differ.

__________________
Hans Weitbrecht
Consultant Homeopath

This is how I study Materia Medica:

I make mind maps of the remedy. They stick in the memory because of visualisation. I also 'get into' the remedy and experience in my mind/body the symptoms produced (like acting out). Also studying the remedy in its natural form and how it acts, where it is found, its composition. If you really get inside the remedy you don't forget it. And if you see a symptom picture of a remedy in someone, you never forget it.

These are my ways and they work for me. My two cents worth. Not denouncing any other way. Just thought I'd share my way.

Cheers Scruffrat

Other one forms:

We study the Medical Pure Matter, which is the original source of which I think that it is necessary to to begin start.
He was saying the Dr. Eugenio Candegabe in a course, which when one accustoms to reading Medical Matter, it is like a novel, slightly equally of interesting and I agree. To a little time to be reading patogenesias, one is impregnated with the topics that go repeating itself along the symptoms of the experimenters, so much mental as physicists. The substance shows his face, an individual and peculiar face.
This allows to do a classification of the symptoms for themes.
When we have the themes, we prune to continue finding the essence, the coherence of the remedy, obtaining big themes inside the themes.
We are leaving of side the literal symptom and rescue the themes, the big essential themes of every remedy.
We study also the substance, as says Scruffrat, so interesting.
We identify with the substance, think that we are a gold to understand Aurum, think that we are a flower of the mountain to understand Pulsatilla, think that we are a clay to understand Alúmina.... We Look for information it brings over of composition, habitat, structure, etc... This way we are discovering for example, that the structure of the arsenic, is totally tidy, as the order that Arsenicum needs. We are finding the coherence of the remedy, his themes. The image comes also from someone, enclosedly prominent figures of novel, movies, biographies, all that has to form a part of our arsenal of study.
As Scruffrat says, a personage does not forget. For example, it is easy to remember the essence if we think that Dracula is Arsenic, with the whole subject matter of Arsenic:
Theme of the death that comes of inside and the rot (... the gentleman Dracula dead living ...)
Theme of the loneliness (... condemned to remain in the loneliness of his coffin ...)
Theme of the misfortune and the penalty (... condemned to the glooms ...)
Theme of the desire to be loved (... to the search of an affection that never manages ....)
Theme of the dependence of other persons (... having to suck the blood of his victims to remain intact, to escape to the rot of the death ...) or as Vithoulkas says, with a need of other one that is not an interaction, but egoist, mere need other one to live.
Possessive of the people (... that vampiriza to his victims, obtaining of them any food to remain incorrupt ...) The image of the perfect one Lord, arranged, exquisite, methodical, fearfully to dying and this cherry of symptom in which Arsenic is the only remedy: " desire to be killed with a stake in the heart after midnight ". (The only way of killing our personage Drácula who probably in his interior wishes the death to reach the rest that never had, with this restlessness for so typical nocha of the remedy).

It is clear that this form serves for the search of a simillimum of the totality of a person, not to treat syndromes or morbid pictures to physical level.

Also I, with the only intention of sharing. Regards.

Dear Members
Interesting to see, how students are already encouraged to go away from the primary sources and to come up with interpretations when studying the MM, even to the extend to give the interpretation more waight than the actual proving.

Hahnemann certainly speaks unambigously in Paragraph 144 Org.:

From such a MM, everything that is conjectual, all that is mere assertion or imaginary, should be strictly excluded; everything should be the pure language of nature cartefully and honestly interrogated.

That's the source and foundation of homeopathy, and this is where true homeopathic prescribtions rest.

May Mr. Candergebe study the Organon before giving such illfated advice to students.

__________________
Hans Weitbrecht
Consultant Homeopath

Thank-you for your post Hans, I'm sure I will find it useful.

Hans,

don't know who you are referring to as 'students', I'll always be a student whether 'qualified' or not. You can never stop learning, unless you're dead (then who knows?).Just for the course , all my knowledge comes from the 'primary sources' as you put it.There are no other true sources. And they are not 'my interpretations' . They are true remedy pictures. Nothing added, nothing taken away.

I shared my way of learning the remedies/MM. That is all. Dont' judge and make assumptions. Who said they deviated form primary sources?

HAVE A NICE DAY
SCRUFFRAT

dear Scrufrat
Well put-- I am sitting here with the ruler and a pen, the repertory and the MM and study phos-ac.

__________________
Hans Weitbrecht
Consultant Homeopath

Dr. Candegabe does NOT recommend the study of Materia Medica in the way that I had described. He only said in a course that when we get used to study Materia Medica Pura, its study is as interesting as a novel. And this is what I said, and not anything different (sometimes we read the letter of what is written and at other times we prefer to interpret what we read).
The way of studying Materia Medica which I had described, is the one I myself follow, the one followed in my group and in other groups that I know. I did not judge other ways of studying, but, since Hans is inviting me to, I will do it now:
Dear members: a fountain is the beginning of a great river, but only if we allow its waters to advance. If we don’t, at most, it will become a puddle, but it will never get to be a river. Besides, a river, enriches itself with other fountains as it flows, it widens and progresses towards its goal, which is to join the sea. This is the richness of homeopathy, that it can be interdisciplinary, open, encompassing of the totality. In fact, the contrast between Hans’ point of view and mine, rises the problem that, while I can learn from Hans, because I study the totality, in which the part is included, Hans cannot learn anything from me, because in the part you can not fit the whole.
If we were to think like Hans, or Hans would manage to convince us, we would have to close this and every other forum, because in the forums we debate diverse points of view, given that there are different interpretations of the same things.
We would also need to burn all homeopathy books, except, of course, the Organon and Chronic Diseases, which would be elevated to the rank of Mao’s Little Red Book or the Bible. Actually, Hans, your attitude is more religious than scientific. We would have to, to sum it all up, reject all research and put on blinders in order not to look sideways or be polluted with any idea around us.
I cannot imagine Hahnemann, the man who wrote six editions of his own Organon, revising himself time after time, telling us that we should remain there, that we should not revise stray away from his strict doctrine. It is easier for me to imagine him telling those who follow him with praise and acclaim: “Sh, Sh, you better shut up and listen to what these other people have to tell us!”
Hans defends, by reasons of orthodoxy, “the letter”, and I defend, by reasons of identical orthodoxy, “the spirit” of that letter.
My dear fellow members, as homeopaths, you know well that idiosyncrasy matters, and that some people, because of their idiosyncrasy, are excellent observers with at the microscope, because their minds have a special penchant which makes them ideal for detail, for small and concrete things. But in order to see a bit further, it is necessary to leave the microscope and to look around, to look in a different way. And there are also other type of people with a different idiosyncrasy ready to do this. For example, Kali people, as you know, are inside the cell (delimited), they find very fitting dogmatic ideas like the ones that Hans defends, but: what are we to do with the other kind of people? All of us who are not Kali?
We would have to fit some corrective device into our minds in order not to think, or we would have to gag ourselves in order not to ask questions, to punish ourselves with self-flagelation every time that we would have a doubt, every time that we would feel intrigued by this or the other theory.
Hans, as I told you, I learn from you, as I learn from all and everyone of the homeopaths that I have met and I know, whether I share their ideas or not, and this is the reason why I not only accept you, and everyone else who doesn’t think like me, but also defend you. I understand that you can not let yourself flow from the sources of Hahnemann and Boeninghausen, and that you need to remain there, in your class platform, as a teacher, in order to defend what you consider the one and only truth. And I can even understand that you would, as if we were at an elementary school, admonish prestigious professor renown internationally like Dr. Candegabe, telling them that the should study. Yes, Hans, I do understand you, after all I practice homeopathy.

This entire thread can be summed up this way:

Question: How do you study materia medica?
Answer 1: I study it this way. It works really well for me!
Answer 2: I study it this way. It works really well for me and I feel confident that I know it well.
Answer 3: This is how I study it.

Questioner's response: You are ALL DOING IT WRONG!! YOU HAVE TO DO IT MY WAY!!!

__________________
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.<br />C.G.Jung

Oh my goodness, I think we are being a little unfair. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but we keep getting back to the debate of should we "modernize" homeopathy. I believe that Hans has always said that in order to move forward with our knowledge we need to understand our past knowledge; ie: start at the beginning, truely learn the information that H. gave us, before exploring alternate routes. I'm sure if more homeopaths took the time to understand the fundamentals they wouldn't waste so much time on theories that clearly go against the founding principals and in fact search to "modernize"homeopathy based instead on a strong foundation. But I'm sure I don't need to defend Hans (he does fine on his own). As a student I do feel alarmed that so much of the information I have gleaned is evidentally wrong (and in my limited experiences have proved themselves to be wrong and hurtful); but then I never started at the beginning either until now. Quite frankly, (no offence), I would rather follow a study tactic of boenninghassen (tried,tested and true)at this point and again thank Hans for the information which I believe he was re-posting after a specific request to do so.