Introducing Jan Scholten

Jan Scholten used to coordinate post-graduate courses in the Netherlands. At one point, when the committee was discussing the following year's programme Jan suggested he could give a seminar as well, since there were a few “small ideas” he had been working on. The “smallness” of these ideas proved to be a gross understatement. Calling them revolutionary new ideas that would forever change the face of homeopathy would do them more justice. His seminar swept the Dutch homeopaths off their feet, and his international breakthrough followed quickly. Ulrich Welte recognised the importance of Jan's work at an early stage and has vast experience in applying his ideas in his clinic.

Since when have you been following Jan's work?

Since 1993, right after the publication of Homeopathy and Minerals. It immediately appealed to me, as we in our clinic have worked on similar lines before.

What is it in the approach of Jan that appeals to you?

He's a very intuitive genius. His ideas are simple, clear and systematic. And this simplicity is not simplistic. These new concepts can pass the acid test of science, which is clinical verification, and in fact this is what convinced me most, because the group analysis gave good results in new cases and explained many of our old cases solved by the classical method. Further, he does not depend on authority or big names; truth is accepted from wherever it comes. Also his tolerance, his non-egotistic and gentle attitude appealed. He is undogmatic and promotes homeopathy as science in its best and deepest sense.

Shortly before contacting Jan I met Rajan Sankaran in 1992. This was a real push forward and changed my views of homeopathy for the better. In 1990 I had met H. V. Müller, who boosted our practical success with his colour preference approach. Also Massimo Mangialavori's approach is great, but I discovered this treasure rather late, in fact only when we started publishing his books. Our clinic started Narayana Verlag, which builds a bridge between classical publications and innovative authors like Jan, Massimo, and Louis Klein. We also integrate promising innovations in our clinical work and take truth from wherever it comes. My personal attitude is that of a bee: visit different flowers, take only the nectar and make a good honey, then make it available to all. One-sidedness is not my thing.

If you want a simile for these three great contemporary homeopaths, you can find it in the Italian artists of the 16th century, who were also contemporaries (I would like to leave the respective attribution to you):

Michelangelo: Immortal fame. One of the most famous artists of all times. Dramatic, lively, sometimes playing roguish jokes. Strong sense of family responsibility. Scientific, with strong passion, at times dogmatic; volcanic type.

Leonardo: Universal genius. In his own time he was renowned as a great artist, sculptor, architect and inventor. But his goal was not to restore the ancient world and the old arts like the other contemporary renaissance artists; he saw himself rather as a student of nature and was always searching for the laws and reason behind physical appearance. Many of his scientific works were realized as true only centuries later. Far ahead of his time. Respectful but not impressed by authorities. Experience is the main test for truth. Mostly gentle and aloof.

Titian: Colourful magnificence. His great portraits show the splendour and specific character of the person with sharp realism. His art is the culmination of the Italian renaissance, and he tried to bridge the classical arts with new styles.

Some suggest that Jan's work is based on speculation or even fantasy. You say it passes the acid test of science. Is there a controversy here or are both statements true?

Speculation and fantasy are creative capacities of the human mind. Science uses them also, but the crucial thing is verification. Mere speculation is idle. Newton fantasised a lot about the falling apple. He used his fantasy and speculated on how this falling was possible. Then he came up with his hypothesis of gravitation and verified it by experiments. Now we take it for granted.

Similarly, we have plenty of clinical verifications of Jan's ideas worldwide, even severe cancer metastases have been cured. And his own publications give plenty of cases as verification. So we are long beyond the stage of mere hypothesis; it's just that most of the homeopathic community has not yet taken notice. But of course it needs skill to practise these ideas properly. There is no guarantee against the misuse of any good idea.

Are there specific skills needed or things to bear in mind when using Jan's concepts?

I don't think so. Only common sense and diligent and patient study are needed. Freedom from intrinsic homeopathic prejudice is needed. For example the idea that provings are “the only way” to understand remedies/patients is one of these limitations. One can find remedies in so many ways.

Jan's first book on the minerals was filling in some gaps in the materia medica by predicting the symptom picture of an unknown salt based on an analysis of how its constituents are expressed in known remedies. This could be easily copied as a method. Filling in the gaps of unknown elements as Jan did in his second book “Homeopathy and the Elements”, is based on a different method, involving stages of development, and is for many harder to apply. Can you give a hand here?

Take courage and be bold! The stages are extremely useful, because they are the universal steps of creation, preservation and destruction. Every blessed thing comes into existence, grows and decays again. This process can be divided into three steps, as Hahnemann did with his first three miasms, or into eight steps as in the Carbon and Silica series of the periodic table, or into eighteen steps as in the complex version of the Iron, Silver and Gold series. The eighteen steps are natural phenomena of the periodic table and show the evolutionary structure of the elements of the universe. They are valid chemically, physically, and mathematically. So these stages are not merely concocted ideas or “speculations”. They are as real as anything, and they have already shown homeopathic relevance also. This does not mean everything is known, but what is known is already quite a lot. It is most rewarding to learn the details of the stages and how to differentiate them. You will find so many good remedies for your patients! We have been applying this system very successfully for more than ten years. [1]

Fig. 1 Jan Scholten (photo: Maria Davits, 2001).

Say a woman is very unsure of herself and tries this and that, hops from one job to another, very uncommitted, always searching and easily giving up in the face of difficulties. This is Stage 3. Then find out on which level this pattern occurs. She may tell you she has tried many different jobs and never finds what she really wants. She has given up apprenticeship three times and does odd jobs here and there, keeps changing and she is sick of it. In her childhood and youth it was not so, it only started when she began working in the office. So this is on the level of the iron series. Stage 3 in the iron series is the element Scandium. You may have a case of Scandium in front of you.

I treated a patient with Crohn's disease successfully by Scandium seven years ago just because she described her problem like that. Scandium is not well proven, and you will not find this remedy easily by repertorisation. Anyway, the themes of stages and series are clear here. On this basis you can give the remedy with confidence, because this element depicts her problem. In fact the only difficulty NOT to prescribe Scandium in this case comes if you limit yourself to the classical canon. Then you begin hesitating (maybe you have already imbibed her Scandium state): Shall I really try this unknown remedy? There is no Hahnemannian proving of it. No, I cannot do this. This is not genuine homeopathy. This is mere speculation. So I had better repertorise her symptoms and find something else. Thus you miss this remedy. Again: jump over your homeopathic shadow, at least sometimes. Take courage and be bold! Aude sapere!

Scholten's stages are very similar to Sankaran's miasms, but they are a little more precise. It looks as if these two great teachers have found the same truth by two different approaches. Learn these stages by heart, word by word, and try to understand their dynamics. This little effort is needed. The best short description of stages is given in Scholten's book “The Secret Lanthanides” in the appendix. Compare this with the more elaborate chapter of eighteen stages in “Homeopathy and the Elements”. When you have mastered this and can play with it, try to see and understand the stages in your patients. If you find that a patient is stuck in a specific stage and makes this same mistake again and again, if he/she repeats the pattern of one stage again and again, then use it. It is characteristic of his way of reacting. Only you have to be able to judge correctly and ask intelligent questions to make sure that you are on the right track. Otherwise you may miss it and blame a perfectly good system just because you have not properly understood it!

Although Jan has not published much about the plant kingdom yet, I know that for many years now he has been working on them systematically as well. Having several plants researched regarding their mineral components is one way in which he started investigating them. Can you give us a hint of how he will connect these kingdoms and how the stages are expressed in plants?

Yes. A girl was cured from allergic asthma, neurodermatitis and frequent diarrhoea by Euphorbia lathyris. She had to leave her job as a result of severe eczema. I found the remedy thus: she said that during attacks of asthma she feels that her chest is bound as if constricted with a tight rope, she feels helpless and it binds her ever tighter as if by strings or a rope. This “hidebound” sensation is the sensation of the euphorbiaceae as described by Sankaran. Her situation: the girl was deeply angry at her dominating and constantly interfering mother but she did not express it. It was a kind of religious loyalty. She managed to escape the tight grip of her mother (maybe expressed by the rope) by founding her own singing group in a church choir. This is the situational description of the euphorbiaceae as given by Scholten. All euphorbiaceae have severe eruptions and diarrhoea. So in many ways the case is typical of the botanical family of euphorbiaceae. But which one? I took Scholten's stages for differentiation. She is quite self-confident but afraid of exams. Her disease started just before she started her job. This could be Stage 9. In a plant schema not yet published, Scholten gives Euphorbia lathyris as Stage 9. Sankaran does not define Stage 9 as a separate miasm, but it can be roughly incorporated under sycotic miasm, which spans Stages 7 - 12 with a major emphasis on Stage 10. Anyway, Euphorbia lathyris is not mentioned in Sankaran's schema, and there is also no remedy yet under sycotic miasm. So I gave Euphorbia lathyris following Scholten's staging. The remedy worked beautifully and for two years now she has been free of asthma, eczema and diarrhoea. How could this remedy have been found by repertory?

So here Sankaran's sensation for the family (hidebound) coincides with Scholten's situational materia medica (suppressed anger by religious loyalty, in this case loyal to a domineering mother) and crossing of Scholten's stages with Sankaran's miasms leads to the remedy. Would you say that the work of these two leading homeopaths is converging and what may we expect to come out of that?

Yes, their work is converging. And this is only natural. They approach the same truth by different paths. When you approach the hub of a wheel by different radii, you are bound to arrive at the same point in the end. As long as you are still on the way, the goal may look different depending on your own point of view. But even if their views still differ on some points, both contribute valuable information, because both are firmly grounded in practical verification. They are both excellent clinicians and brilliant researchers. In the near future we may expect a really good system of our whole materia medica. This will include the possibility of predicting some of the characteristics of yet unknown/unproved remedies. Once you understand the themes of a family you can predict some features of all its members. We are living in interesting times!

At the Celebrating LINKS Conference, October 19 - 21 in Heidelberg, Jan Scholten will present: The Concept of the 18 Stages in the Mineral Kingdom and other Kingdoms.

In the “Element Theory”, as explained in Jan's “Homeopathy and the Elements“, the idea of the stages is central. The 18 stages are the 18 columns of the periodic table. They turn out to reflect a process of life, with a start, fulfilment and decline. This basic idea is not limited to the mineral kingdom. Processes of life seem even more suitable to living creatures of the plant and animal kingdom than to the so-called ”dead” minerals. It turns out that the application of the stages to the plant and animal kingdom is very fruitful. Sankaran has proposed the idea of miasms to differentiate the plants in a family. It seems that the idea of stages gives more precise descriptions and better differentiation.

In Jan's presentation the stages of the Lanthanides, a group of elements “hidden” in the table of elements, will be discussed in more detail with case examples.