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Book Watch

PLANT FAMILIES
Rajan Sankaran's new book, An Insight Into Plants, has finally been released. This 2-volume, 992 page set of books is a landmark work–the first major work to differentiate plant families.

For eight years the concepts of grouping minerals have spread and been used with success but finding a similar grouping of plants has been far more elu-sive. This book is the first published in-depth breakthrough in this area.

It is an astounding work. Rajan gives clear themes for each family and backs them up using cured cases from his own and many others' practices. The effect on the reader is profound. For example, you quickly realize why you'd give Millefolium or Bellis for an accident where before you would have given Arnica. You'll understand the themes that link Aconite, Pulsatilla, Helleborus and Ranunculus. I felt that suddenly I could effectively use twice as many remedies as I could before.

Once you understand each family, Rajan goes on to break the families into his grouping of nine miasms. This two dimensional approach leads one to very interesting remedies.

It will be clearer if I give an example: You have a patient with a focus on trauma from accidents–either her's or members of her family. She explains how she has to be "tough," put on "a brave front" and "maintain control" even though underneath she was "broken apart," "ready to faint or vomit". This suggests the sunflower family.

Then she describes that she is strikingly fastidious and compulsively orderly. She was always at the top of her class and does things the best she can. This suggests the cancer miasm.

The sunflower in the cancer miasm is Bellis. Reading Bellis we find a great description of her main complaint, irregular menses. After the remedy the menses improved, her moods changed and the compulsive behaviour disappeared.

Rajan reviews his nine miasms and brings new thinking and experience into the "old" as well as the new miasms (typhoid, malaria, leprosy, ringworm, and the "acute" miasm).

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Roger Morrison, Nancy Herrick, Linda Johnson, Jonathan Shore, Bill Gray, Bob & Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman and many others have been using these theories for the last two years after they were presented at Rajan's extended advanced course in Esalen. All report that they have profoundly improved their rate and depth of success.

This book can be used to great advantage in tandem with the family graphs of ReferenceWorks. We recommend it very highly.