Goethe's nature observation and Materia medica methods cross over: a systematic tool to formulate homeopathic preparations for environmental purposes

Abstract

Anamnesis, symptoms classification, and repertorization are usual techniques for establishing a homeopathic treatment. However, the approach used for plants and the environment is still challenging. Herein, a new technique is proposed to select treatments for ultra-complex living systems that include several interconnected species (ecosystems), potentially significantly easing the practice of environmental homeopathy. Based on the crossing-over of two classical methods, Goethe's observation of nature [1] associated to indicator plants investigation [2] and the homeopathic Materia medica, this technique has shown promising results in promoting environmental recovery and regeneration. The groundings of the first method lay in a way to observe nature proposed by the German philosopher Goethe and systematized by Rudolf Steiner, in which an observer identifies discrepant elements that appear in a particular living system after stressful impact, representing a mimesis of suffering. The approach uses the same clinical tools for diagnosis, symptom hierarchization, and similitude identification of humans and animals. The first step is to do a long and detailed look at the affected area with no prejudice or priori-established concepts. The items to be observed are climate, wind and lightening patterns, soil's features and vitality condition, remaining vegetation, crop kind, presence and appearance of water, changes of local fauna and flora, and the presence of indicator plants that are elements of the own biome able to show soil composition changes [2]. Next, the kind of aggression is described (logging, bad crop or pasture techniques, frost, drought, floods, soil pollution, leaching, or compression). Then, the third step is observing natural processes still present in the area (ecological succession, interaction among species, pollinator insect behavior, and other features that reveal the recovery of local environmental archetype). This step allows the observer to deeply understand the environment's perturbation process. The second method's groundings are identifying keywords in different homeopathic Materia medica related to the response of various local fauna and flora species to the same stressor, establishing the convergence of both methods. A table composed of the keywords, the corresponding remedies, and the respective Materia medica used as a reference is built to indicate the best options of treatment to be used in isolation or a complex. The last items to be defined are the potencies, ways for administration, and posology. For example [3], a degraded pasture 269 hectares area was identified in the Pantanal biome (Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil) in which the native grass Axonopus purpusii (“Capim-Mimoso”) had been extinct after a super-grazing period that lasted more than one decade. Many attempts at recovery were unsuccessful during this period. At the analysis time, the area suffered from a dry season in the last two years, and there was not enough grass to feed the 30 bovines that occupied the area. The environmental observation included the identification of high desertification degree after drought, the presence of nitrogen-fixing plants (an indicator of lack of nitrogen in the soil) such as Mimosa pudica (“Malicia”) and Mimosa farnesiana (“Aromita”), super-grazing indicator plants, such as Walteria albicans (“Malva Branca”), poor-cupper soil indicator plants, such as Solanum spp (“Joa ”), and dry soil indicator plants, such as Cassia occidentalis (“Fedegoso”), Vermonia spp (“Assa-peixe”), Annona dioica (“Araticum”), and Elionurus muticus (“Capim-carona”). The identified keywords in the Materia medica were exhaustion and dryness, leading to the homeopathic China officinalis and Ammonium carbonicum. In both cases, the chosen potency was 6cH, to be applied once a month on the soil, considering the grass structural and timing needs to germinate. The treatment was done between July 2014 and September 2015, together with the partial isolation of the area. After this period, the complete regrowth of native grass was seen, and the area was finally re-occupied by a new bovine batch. This is an example of how the observation of vegetal succession can be used as a dynamic diagnostic and prognostic tool. The association of both methods (observation and defining keywords) allowed a more profound and conscientious approach to the whole environment, followed by the identification of the best intervention and the complete recovery of soil vitality.