Transcript for:
Homeopathy Lecture: Understanding Sulfur

sulfa is a very important remedy in homeopathy it's a polygraphed it's used lots and I was brought up in the mindset that sulfur was overused and that if you prescribed sulfur it was probably because you weren't actually looking at the case closely enough just because he was a Paulo crest didn't mean that you could prescribe it for lots and lots of patients and certainly my forays into into prescribing showed me that this was true and I end up today prescribing it not as a Paulo crest nonetheless it's a fantastic remedy to understand doctrine of signatures it's so it's marvelous because it occurs pretty much solely where there's volcanic activity that is to say sulfa is so reactive as a substance that it enters into composition with others for forming a whole mass of compounds in the Earth's crust and so we don't see it as sulphur except where the heat is so great that the compounds containing sulfur dissociate and sulfur being volatile comes off as a gas and when it cools it can cool either as a liquid a hot liquid or crystallize or sublimate has yellow crystals sublimation is a very common way in which it is is found from the heat of volcanic action producing vents usually around active volcanoes but maybe where there's plenty of volcanic activity even if it's not exploding there are vents in which the superheated gases escape and at at the rim of these vents they are called vent riyals the the sulfur sublimate sublimate means it goes from gas into solid without an in-between liquid state and so these these particular vents will have a yellow encrusting and in a sense this is already part of the signature coming from deep underneath where there's heat and energy and erupting through cracks and producing a crusty sublimate looks like many eczema's many eruptions and the skin for which sulfur is incredibly well-known and maybe is the ARA her skin eruptions in little kids or might say well I just said it wasn't didn't I but it has been said so it's easy to understand this let's just think a little bit about the process that leads to a volcanic eruption there's heat underneath and it had it produces an expansion and it has to come out in various forms in them I've talked about lava and and Hecla lava already so it's the same kind of energy that pushes the sulfur out as a gas and like the other gas that is associated with volcanic activity carbon dioxide which also is this existence to heat breaking down carbonates in the Earth's crust so these two sulfates or rather sulfur and carbon carbon dioxide shoot out of the top of the volcano and go right up high high high into the stratosphere and we know just how high by looking at the dust clouds because you can see them but the gases do exactly the same they go from below the earth to above into the stratosphere where the atmospheres thinning out and disappearing into here into space it's an extraordinary thing that sulfur does in that sense going from the very depths to the very heights and this is another nice way of understanding an aspect of the signature of sulfur going from the depths would be analogous to the bowels of processes the intestines as it were where things are processed subterranean unconsciously you might say if you if you make the analogy to include the psyche as well as the soma unconscious process is coming to the service and finding an expression in the height I want to give another physical one before going into the psychological well known for sulfur is heat at the soles of the feet and heat at the vertex both together is there not many remedies that have those two combined Sulphurs the best known and feet at the soles of your feet is where you touch the earth and the crown of your head is where you touch the spiritual realm so you know making that connection is what saw was all about imagine a person who makes that connection Wow there'll be somebody for them there would be no difference between the material world of manifest things and the spiritual world of the highest ideals and seeking would be the same will be the same connected highest and lowest connected the problem is when this fails and when the individual is unable to make that connection then they might have marvelous ideas but they wouldn't be able to ground them cause they say in the American use of language you can't actualize your ideal that is a problem and it's self as problem and what happens then is a multitude of compensations one compensation is to imagine because it's true you know you have these fantastic ideas and that you can't ground them instead of saying Copa mera it is it is a Fault in me you say it's your fault in the others because they don't recognize Who I am or what I'm doing and it leads to a terrible kind of Eggert issed selfish person who says I am the greatest and you owe it to me to feed me to clothe me look after me because I am this manifestation of beauty truth and goodness on the and you don't recognize it and it's you who our fault here and I am the great one sulfur's not necessarily a very nice individual to have around because they're dissatisfied they can easily be deeply dissatisfied there's another version of sulfur which is written about rather beautifully by Kenton others which is the philosophical fellow he's come to terms with the fact that he can make anything manifest so he lives in a hedge and one of the nice ways of getting into the serpent of the realm of spirit is to drink spirits so he's in the hedge and he's a drunkard but he's got amazing tales to tell you and fantastic philosophies is not just stories its philosophy actually he's a fluff he's a philosophical and as the he's also bits Punk he likes often doesn't actually stink and sulfur products are the most stinky of products everybody knows about rotten eggs which is sulfur rich hydrogen sulfide is Punky and poisonous so like they're the two sides that of the salty individual that don't marry at all they're way apart the whole trick is to get them to to join to be one person sulfur II is a great joiner actually it's used in that way you remember the story of rubber this amazing material that comes from the latex of trees but it's kind of gooey and and and sticky and and heat sensitive if you heat it up it turns into a sticky goo but it could potentially be very useful in order to make it very useful you have to vulcanize it Vulcan is an old name for the fire-god and it's vulcanized with guess what sulfur there are other substances that he used in conjunction with sulfur but sulfur is always present in the vulcanization of rubber and the way it works is that sulfur because of its chemical activity and its valency is really good at connecting different molecules together in the form of of sulfates sulfides and sulfites if it's in organic and inorganic chemistry lots of proteins it's you know our DNA basic amino acids there's one or two that contain sulfur and mostly the idea is where things need to be joined hemoglobin for instance the oxygen carrier in the blood is is a large complicated protein molecule that owes its bird like nest like nest like I mean shape to the presence of sulfate joins things he joins the latex to make good rubber and the proteins to make coherent shapes it's it does exactly that so the joining function is really am really important it joins the you know sulfur is known for things like a delusion his rural rags are his riches and it describes this disjunction again beautifully that needs to be joined rags and riches are a pair of irreconcilable opposites but sulfur can reconcile them as it well rags and riches beauty this you know few things are seen to be beautiful there's an optimistic side to sulfur it's not all doom and gloom and and incapacity there's also an optimism and it's a an optimism and that's associated with with beauty everything is beautiful everything is wealthy everything is lovely everything is fantastic even if it isn't and in a sense that sulfur working well because it's joined the two impossible together Raja and saccharine suggested that the SAR dues in India might be a good example of sulfur there's plenty of wealth there certainly well there's wealth for there is regard for the spiritual person so that the sulfur philosopher doesn't have to live in a ditch but if he offers a bowl we'll have some food placed in it so that he can survive in a way that's not degrading on the contrary it's actually appreciated so so so the Sardu in the hills living off the kindness of the people exemplifies a beautiful way of being suffered you might say not so very easy to find that in the West and and today here in the West her sulfur is very highly compensated and will take no you okay the self individual might have eruptions and there might be smelly but they can take a shower every day and we have washing machines now and so you can keep up good appearances while while being a sulfur and for as long as you are compensating successfully and for as long as the mechanisms are in place for that compensation to be successful you probably don't need yourself huh it's only when it breaks down so it's I would say and in my prescribing experience a useful remedy for old people because that's when things can start breaking down the vitality isn't there to drive the compensations successfully if things break down and um and yes in children but um it's not so much