In an attempt to integrate the diversified material of provings and clinical symptoms into an organic whole, we proceed on the hypothetical assumption that the diversity of physical, chemical, biologic, morphologic and behavior characteristics of a potential medicine-namely, a substance of mineral, plant or animal origin-represents but different phases of expression of one and the same formative functional entity; we assume that this same functional archetypus also manifests itself in the mental and somatic symptoms of a proving as well as in the clinical disorders of the patient.
In order to understand the diversity of symptoms as a part of a functional whole, one has to integrate them into the general context not only of biologic but also of psychologic functions. A short discussion of some relevant findings of modern analytical psychology will be in order, therefore, to assure a full understanding at certain points. Jung’s approach to psychology may strike many a reader as rather strange. Yet, in a truly surprising way, what formerly was a maze of unrelated and often contradictory details of provings and clinical findings becomes a chain of logically related events once a ratio is applied to it which stems from a deeper understanding of the human soul.
In order to grasp the essence of the principle underlying all the different manifestations, the most outstanding characteristics or unusual features are used as starting points. Those key symptoms through which we try to unravel and interpret the context of related pharmacodynamic, mental and physical functions may be symptoms of the patient (e.g., the aversion to company of Natr. mur), physiochemical properties of the substance itself (e.g., the luminescence of Phosphor), or life expressions of the plant or the animal (e.g., the dryness of Lycopodium or the production of the ink cloud in Sepia).
In the case of Sepia, our attention is drawn to its extraordinary configuration and the contradictory phenomena of light and darkness which the animal produces.
The cuttlefish (Sepia off.) belongs to the family of mollusks which is comprised also of clams, oysters, mussels and snails. All mollusks represent variations of a definite basic form pattern, namely, a soft, gelatinous, unsegmented body encased in a calcareous, horny shell. The metamorphosis of this form pattern culminates in an extreme polar opposition of oyster and cuttlefish, with the snail holding an intermediary position.
Of the whole family, the oyster has the most undifferentiated body and possesses no limbs whatsoever. The animal is completely encased in its shell and is absolutely immobile, since it is attached to rocks and stones. Its only visible life expression consists in the slight opening and closing of the shell. The snail is more differentiated and has a semblance of limbs which it can pull in and out of the shell. It is also capable of a, however proverbially sold, locomotion.
The cuttlefish, in turn, goes to the opposite extreme of emancipating itself from the passive immobility of the oyster. Its life activity centers in the relatively overdeveloped limbs which cannot even be withdrawn into the shell at all. It has a pair of fins which allow it rapid locomotion; eight arms and two tentacles are attached directly to the oral opening upon the head. The tentacles are shot out together with lightning speed, acting like a pair of tongs, when prey is to be caught.
Comparing the different configurations of the shell-encased body, basic morphological model underlying the mollusks, one may feel that this prototype undergoes a process of aversion: from the simplest pattern as expressed in the oyster an expansion takes place which reaches its culmination in the cuttlefish. The cuttlefish is an expanded, extroverted oyster; the oyster an introverted cuttlefish. The dominant tendency of the configuration of Sepia strikes us like an overturning of the form pattern from which it evolved, a rebellion against the shell- enclosed, soft, immobile and impassive quietness.
The formative principle, as expressed in the archetypus of the immobilised shell-enclosed jelly represented by the oyster, we find again in the configuration of the human skull which encloses and protects the jelly-like, morphologically relatively undifferentiated brain suspended and immobilised in the cerebrospinal fluid; and in the pregnant uterus enclosing and protecting with its rigid shell the but gradually differentiating fetal substance. The analogous tendency of function lies in the general ability of walling off and protecting the inside against the outside.
Biologically, this means resistance against infection and the tightening of the tissues against the overflow of liquids. When this function fails we have a susceptibility to infection and the exudative diathesis, both of which are typical for the patient who needs Calc. carb. (potentized oyster shell). Psychologically, introversion and walling oneself off mean separating and individualizing oneself towards the world from without and from within. Even as the conscious function of the brain is dependent upon its being walled off by the hard skull, so in the functional activity of the soul the personal consciousness, the ego, emerges from the primordial chaos of the unconscious by the process of walling off and separating.
The correctness of this interpretation of the dynamic meaning of the pattern of the shell-enclosed jelly seems to be attested by analytical psychology. An analogous symbol pattern appears as the alchemistic “unum vas” or “hermetic vessel” containing the prima materia, the undifferentiated creative matrix. In dreams we find it represented by a vessel filled with a gelatinous mass. All these patterns are variations of the same symbol which represents the source of physical or spiritual creativeness from which the central self can strive for its expression out of the amorphous. Therefore the “vas” principle is inherent in the head but also, representing the matrix, in the uterus, the place of physical creation. As a general tendency this form complex also represents the earthly, physical and, particularly, the feminine principle.
This principle in its purest, undisturbed form is embodied in the oyster, as is attested by the pathogenesis of Calcarea carb. The dynamic life expression of Sepia, on the other hand, which turns introversion into extroversion, thus basically rebels against the contemplative, passive, protected feminity.
Yet, an absolutely complete overthrow of the form pattern from which it originates cannot be accomplished. Even as a half of the cuttlefish’s body must remain within the enclosing shell, in spite of all attempts to break loose, so also the temperamental, sexual and emotional tendencies which one would disown cannot simply be cast off; they can only be slowly and gradually transformed by developing a conscious understanding with which to complement the world of instinctive feeling which is woman’s primary expression and experience. Wherever the gradual expansion gives way to a violent, protesting attitude, suppression takes the place of gradual transformation and pathology arises. Challenge to and suppression of the quiet, contemplative and receptive feminine qualities, symbolized by the “creative vessel,” thus become the keynotes of the Sepia pathology.
However, those qualities, which must suffer suppression, continue in existence and gain, moreover, a negative perverted rule over the manifest functioning. Biologically, the suppressed sex function distorts the whole of the life activities of the body, bringing about circulatory and congestive disorders (stasis), as well as a state of general rigidity and spasticity, involving any voluntary and involuntary muscle group and organ, along with a state of nervous hyperirritability. Emotionally, the suppression of the sexual and feminine traits, leads to anxiety, restlessness, depressive states, opinionated dogmatism and incontrollable, erratic, unreasonable and contradictory neurasthenic conditions.
Specifically, the “masculine protest,” if we may use the psychoanalytic term, makes the woman who suppresses her feminity a bustling, nervous, fidgety and opinionated shrew. The man who would suppress (or fails to develop) his feminine side becomes hardened, mean, egotistical and narrowminded; he may fall victim to unaccountable emotional or even hysterical impulses when the dammed up function suddenly takes its revenge. We shall later see how all these well known Sepia traits find their corroboration in the disturbance of the ductless glands representing the manifestation of the same process in its biological metamorphosis.
In passing, we may point to the fact that the nonacceptance of one’s being is the expression of a highly individualistic attitude. Probably upon this fact rests the complementary relationship between Sepia and Natrum mur., the latter representing the emancipating force of the individual personality. In differentiating the two, one might feel, however, that the Natrum mur. personality tends to be asocial in consequence of finding himself emotionally isolated by circumstances and inner needs; Sepia’s isolation bears much more the mark of either deliberate withdrawal and willful moodiness or of utter vital exhaustion demanding solitude to nurse one’s wounds.
