luise kunkle wrote:-
Well, perhaps you and Manish and quite a few more homeopaths may have
the intellectual faculties for that kind of picking out of that
amount and maze of information. I identify myself
with those of lesser intelligence.

dr manish agarwala:
my dear luise,
I see you as an intelligent person, for being able to comprehend the difficulty in actually assimilating vast amounts of data and many different opinions.
I consider myself to be of average intelligence and I am very much a student and would like to remain so, for the rest of my life.
I can just share with you - what I do.
first of all, whenever - I get any new ideas or info on any subject, I try to be truthful to myself. have I understood it or am I simply believing it or quoting it or struggling with it ?. I let this mode of enquiry linger till I feel I am able to comprehend things in * my own words * and * in my own language*. I also continue to compare and contrast the present concept with other concepts, I already have. I try to be open to new ideas that challenge my concepts.
this helps me not to get confused by mountions of data.
be it old wisdom or new - if this does not filter down to actual experiencial basis / experiment / clinics - I consider that concept to be useless or not understood by me.
as far as homeopathy is concerned (or for that matter, any other subject that interests me) - I have a personal choice. I refer to a select few books again and again and try to delve deeply in them - again and again, rather than trying to read so many things at the same time. my choices are usually those that are more *practical* rather than mere opinions / views / concepts / theory / history.

luis kunkle wrote :
It is said that the best way to learn is by your own mistakes. The
second best is to learn by the mistakes of others.

This latter is usually done by interning in hospitals or private
clinics where you see success AND failure. Most homeopaths have this
not at all or only to a very limited degree

, it is a very unsatisfactory state both for the progress of the individual
practiicioner and also for the progress of the craft.

dr manish agarwala :
yes luis, you said it !
practical experience, direct application is the best way of learning.
I like reading books that focus on this and are written by people with that kind of thinking. I may use the other books for occasional reference.

you may email me privately, to know about my personal choices - if you are interested or if that is of any use to you.

best wishes

dr manish agarwala

dear homeolist,

I have read posts on homeolist on the use / need of sulphur or hepar sulph to open "tedious and suppressed" cases.

here I am cut pasting a part of the posts that I have posted on the discussion board of www.otherhealth.com . thread - 'case history of a patient'.

this is about an interesting experience, I had.

you see, I had a hopeless case. I say, hopeless because the case was not moving forward for 2 years and the patient was a hopeless patient - suffering from depression !. as usual, this fellow had finished his rounds with many other physicians (allopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda), for more than 10 years, before coming to me. he was a chronic patient - no doubt about that. his whole family was that of chronic patients. this patient had taken so many allopathic / homeo / ayurvedic remedies and for so long ....surely this was a complex, tedious, suppressed case.

now, this patient told me just a 1 line case history and I quote
" depressed ...my head is heavy all the time" . this much was mumbled, rather than said and NOTHING more !. I was seeing this guy for 2 years and on every visit the only thing he would mention repeatedly was "my head is heavy".
his family members told me more about his symptoms. in 2 years time I did learn a bit about this patient. meanwhile, I gave many remedies, with no result. I did not use sulphhur or hepar sulph though. finally, in those days I was reading more about merc - I did tend to see merc in every patient !!!
I fitted this patient to merc prot iod (merc i f) and mentally congratulated myself. I started with LM 6. and what happens ! - the patient starts responding brilliantly to merc i f. that was a great prescription - so I thought. but his personality does not seem to be merc and above all, is he merc i f ? -
I used to brush aside such thoughts.

but the doubt lingered. I jumped to merc i f, LM 8 and the patient kept on reporting that he is getting better and better. in this better phase the patient helped me to prepare his detailed case history for the first time.

well, this was surely not merc from the very beginning- I thought. and then one day the patient told me that he had developed a peculiar tongue picture and that was a red clearly demarcated band in the centre with slight coating on the 2 sides. repertorization this in synth - I kept his whole life, family history and all his symptoms in mind. I found that causticum fits like a T.

a single dose of causticum 200C was given, 45 days or so days ago. he reported aggr for a week or so followed by rapid improvement in mind symptoms. placebo and psycotherapy continued.

15 days ago he reporteed enjoying sex for the first time in his life - without his thoughts disturbing him.

he phoned me today and when I asked him how he is doing, he said " I am facing the first crisis in my business, since I started taking your treatment. a consignment sent by us and worth millions is missing. the police have arrested a criminal who may have sold this to a third party. I am a part of the crisis management group in my office.....and yes, thanks to you and your treatment, I am calm ...and I find the energy to take decisions..."
he signed off by saying that I should not worry about him and that he is sleeping well !!!

I disconnected the phone speechless, he had told me that he was taking his remedy (placebo !) regularly and so there was no need to remind him yet again.

thank you homeopathy and thank you my patients for teaching me so much about life and helping me look at myself better and in the process learn homeopathy....

dr manish agarwala