Anacardium: Sins from this and many lives……

Liz Lalor

Characteristics of an Anacardium Case:
Woman Aged 35 years old. Consult 18/11/2005
First Consultation; Reason for appointment: Weight and diet issues. Candida, food allergies. History of stomach bloating. She came wanting control over her cravings for sugar.
First memory Re: weight: Mother putting her on a diet at three years of age. “She didn’t want me.” Intense pain at being rejected and continually criticized by her mother over being too fat. Inconsistency with diet between mother and father; mother would restrict her food [even at the age of three,] and her father would bring home hot chips etc. She is estranged from her Father; I do not know why until much later in the case history. Her father criticized her about her weight continually, and rejected her when she was a teenager because she “was too fat and shamed him.”

History: A lot of pain around rejection about weight, and self image; not being able to be good at sport in school. Felt abandoned by mother; first memory 3 years of age. Feels out of control with food and feels like “I can never do anything right that will help me lose weight.”
Job: Administration works part time because her true calling is in her spiritual work.
Appearance and first impressions: Very sweet and nice. “My mum never let me be angry when I was little; she still won’t let me be angry.” Dressed in blue with blue bead necklace, and blue make-up. Soft looking, long blond hair.
Hobby or passion: She is training with a spiritual guidance group.
Trauma: Clairvoyant ability to see all the crimes of the past lives that she has committed. She feels overwhelmed by “how evil I am.” Feels “separate from other people in the world; they will never understand me.” Whether the issue of the past lives is real or not, the essence of the case is that she knows this trauma as a truth inside of her. She believes she “committed those terrible crimes.” Whether I also take this as reality or reflective of either a capacity or desire to commit those crimes in this life is immaterial; the psychodynamic meaning of feeling guilty and a “terrible person who has done evil things” is the basis of the repertorisation. She trains with a spiritual teacher who helps her stay with “Spirit” so she “can undo the karma in this life and know how to listen to Spirit.” [God]

Anacardium is often thought to possess auditory clairvoyance that allows them to see into future events.

• “Anguish and apprehension as of imminent misfortune.” P 278. [Hahnemann].

The Anacardium case presented here is from a lecture series I am working on that concentrates on the Delusions of Original Sin. Each case presented in this lecture series believes deep within their own self that they deserve the disease or emotional pain they are currently suffering. The Delusion rubrics in homeopathy mirror the psychodynamic crisis that is both the cause and cure of our patient’s illness. Once we can see into the same mirror that the patient is looking out of we see the reflection of the construction of disease within the person’s emotional, mental, and physical being. Once we identify the presenting delusion we become aware of how the person has constructed their self and their presenting disease around this delusion. The delusion is the foundation upon which the person has constructed the story that is their life. In homeopathy if we can delve into the original crisis that created the first delusion we have the remedy picture and we have the cure for the crisis of the person’s existence and subsequent disease. Within the Delusion section of the repertory are the patient’s life story, disease, and homeopathic cure. Homeopaths have often underestimated the power of insight that lies behind what is the largest section within the mind section of the repertory.

This is a case of Anacardium who is over whelmed with guilt at the crimes she has committed in past lives. In her first consult with me it took considerable trust and courage to be able to list some of those crimes. I had prescribed Anacardium because her relationship with “Spirit,” [God, or as she refers to it as Spirit;] and her mother were both filled with the polarity of the emotive words of love and hate; “God is a c–t, because I have this body” and “I hate my mother she was a bitch towards me but I love her.”

• “These two sides of are constantly in opposition to each other: should he be an angel or a devil.” [Sankaran] P.7.

She was rejected by her Mother when she was three years of age, and put on a diet, and then rejected by her Father when she was a teenager. Anacardium has no confidence in their importance in the world. Anacardium feel that at some point in their childhood, they didn’t count. Anacardium suffer with intense pain from being abandoned in their childhood. Anacardium will be more sweet and nice than most people, but it is important to note they are driven by the desire to prove they are worthy people and by their anxiety about being judged. Anacardium suffer with the intense fear of being found out to be evil – they suffer from anxiety and guilt that drives them to do the “right” or “good” thing. It is this battle of Anacardium that is often not understood by homeopaths; we look for the “evil” but if fact we should be looking for the “good” Anacardium, because the “good” Anacardium is what you will see in the first consultation; and in fact all consultations until Anacardium has a crisis.

The quality of the “good” within Anacardium is the quality that Sankaran refers to as “a compensated Anacardium.”

“Whereas Anacardium is known for its hard-heartedness, cruelty, want of moral feeling, a compensated Anacardium cannot be cruel even when the situation demands. He will, perhaps, be unable to kill even an irritating mosquito.” P.7. [Sankaran].

“He is persuaded by his evil will to do acts of violence and injustice, but is withheld and restrained by a good will.”…….“His external voluntary is consciously excited by external influences, but his real will, in which is his conscience, restrains that and keeps him from carrying the impulses into effect. This can only be observed when its action is on a really good man. He has a controversy when his external will is aroused, but in an evil man there is no restraint and he will not have this symptom.” P.103. [Kent].

Anacardium are fastidious about every little detail in case they have failed to be perfect, and the world finds out they are flawed; consequently it is not until they are ‘outed’ do you see the rage and hatred. Anacardium the rest of the time are constantly overcompensating for their fearfulness by being hyper-vigilant to being criticized or contradicted.

Anacardium has no “I” within the self.

Anacardium has the delusion of his name being called. Delusion; calling his name: [Kent].
There is a peculiar delusion that Anacardium sees everyone’s face in the mirror and not his own. Anacardium suffers from the loss of an identity of knowing who they are. The disintegration of “I” or “self” drives Anacardium to do the “right” thing. Anacardium only know who they are when they receive praise from the world for their actions. Anacardium suffer from a fear that there is something wrong with them, and they continually need to strive to prove it is not correct.

“Tries to prove himself.” [Vermeulen]
Anacardium feel that at some point in their childhood, they didn’t count. Anacardium fear being ignored by the world. Anacardium suffer from anxiety about being judged or found out to be flawed.

• “He is at odds with the world, and has little confidence in himself being able to accomplish what is demanded of him.” P.279. [Hahnemann].
• “Internal anguish, which did not allow him to rest, he troubled himself about every trifle, as if it would cause great injury, with solicitude about the future.” P.279. [Hahnemann].
• “He takes everything ill and becomes violent.” P.279. [Hahnemann].
• And, yet it is as Kent says with Anacardium; “He is persuaded by his evil will to do acts of violence and injustice, but is withheld and restrained by a good will.”
• Anacardium literally has “two wills, one bad, one good.” [Vermeulen]

Follow up Consultations
16/1/06 27/2/06 10/4/06 22/5/06
I had been treating her with an Anacardium 30, dry pilules, one pilule, 3 times a week; she had been doing extremely well on a this dose with her weight and sugar cravings. Her sense of rejection about her weight was greatly improved, and she had started to be able to lose weight and control her sugar cravings. She had also employed the services of a personal trainer and had started for the first time to exercise. The shame around her body was starting to lift. The shame about her past life sins was easing; she had started to tell me a bit more about some of the evil sins she had committed. But, as I said earlier Anacardium suffer with the intense fear of being found out to be evil. Homeopaths look for the “evil” but we will not see that with Anacardium until they have a crisis.

Follow up Consultations 17/7/06
Then a catastrophe occurred for Anacardium and this is when I needed to increase the dose. Her spiritual clairvoyant teacher criticized her in class “for being blocked to God’s message.” After that class I needed to increase the remedy to Anacardium 1m x 1 dose. Anacardium suffer from extreme anger and rage if contradicted or criticized. After that session she ceased all contact with her teacher. She sank into a severe depression rolled up into a catatonic ball and was overcome with a desire to rage against her own faith in God. She sent me an email which said “Last night I felt like my solar plexus was hemorrhaging and I wonder if life will ever be any different for me.” Her rage and venomous talk with God was everything one would associate with the Rubric’s ‘Hatred’ and ‘Malicious.’ “I feel like crawling under a rock and never coming out but I also feel like driving a car through God’s front fence or smashing all the windows in God’s house. The saddest part is that now its 15 years on and I’m in exactly the same position I was 15 years ago. I’m curled up in the same room wanting to die and I’m crying over the same things. I hate my jobs, I hate my car and I hate where I live. I can’t believe I have created a world of hate for myself but there is no denying it now. No relationship. No one has ever chosen to love me. For 15 years I have been caught up in this delusion and even when I hated everything else in my life I still had Spirit. [God] It is the thing that has kept me going but it is also the thing that has kept me trapped in this delusion. Maybe I am insane. It must take insanity to stick with a delusion for so long. That’s it. I give up.”

Anacardium can present with contrasting personality reactions to criticism. On one hand they can be aggressive and arrogant over defending their rights, and then on the other hand can fear any authority that questions their validity.

• “Passionate and contrary.” “Extremely passionate at a slight offence, breaking out into violence.” P.279. [Hahnemann].

• “They oscillate between aggressive and dependent behavior. They feel, at the same time, both strong and weak, dependent and independent, passive and aggressive.” P.77 [Zaren] [Vermeulen].

If they are criticized Anacardium interpret this as God abandoning them. Anacardium suffer with intense fears of being “left out in the cold” and shunned by the world. This aspect of Anacardium is often not understood; “a compensated Anacardium” will roll up in a catatonic ball and “give up.”

“Even when I hated everything else in my life I still had Spirit. [God] It is the thing that has kept me going but it is also the thing that has kept me trapped in this delusion. Maybe I am insane. It must take insanity to stick with a delusion for so long. That’s it. I give up.”

• “These two sides of Anacardium are constantly in opposition to each other: should he be an angel or a devil.” [Sankaran]

Anacardium has an “angel” on one side, and a “devil,” on the other side. This case of Anacardium is quick to turn from nice and gentle to unleashing her “hatred,” [Kent] vengeful “rage” [Kent] when anyone threatens.

• “Anger from contradiction – could have stabbed anyone. Very easily offended, takes everything in bad part.” [Vermeulen] “Timorous in all actions; he views everything more anxiously and timidly, always thinks of being surrounded by enemies, then he becomes hot, his blood seems to boil in his chest.” P.279. [Hahnemann].

• “But Anacardium can be very hard and cruel, and at the same time have a lack of self-confidence.” P.7. [Sankaran].

Rubrics for Anacardium
Delusion he is a devil.
Delusion the devil sits in his neck.
Delusion he has an angel prompting him in one ear.
Delusion one is under a powerful influence.
Delusion he is doing nothing right.
Delusion he is separated from the world.
Delusion he does everything wrong he cannot succeed.
Delusion he is under superhuman control.
Suspicious.
Hatred.
Hardhearted.
Insanity.
Insolence.
Malicious.
Cruelty.
Thoughts, two trains of thoughts.
Delusion, as if someone was in, with him.
Egoism.
Fear: death, of.
Irresolution.
Contradiction: disposition to contradict.
Contrary.
Defiant.
Destructiveness: emotions; destructiveness from suppressed.
Clairvoyance.

The following is a transcript from the videoed session after the one dose of Anacardium 1m. Follow up on the 14/8/06

Question: How have you been?
Answer: Well I have been sick for 2 weeks; which has been frustrating because I have been beating myself up about trying to figure out why I have been sick, because I think something must have been blocked. So after the first week of being sick and being angry about that, then I just sat still and then some past life came up and some karma, so it was releasing of some stuff then at the end of last week some other stuff came up that I have fear about now. I am always surprised when it comes up but I know there is something, so fear came up and I got to release that. I don’t quite know where I am at because physically I am weak because I have been sick. I feel a bit stronger because there is always a relief when you let more of it out.

Q. What was the fear in relation to?
A. I am organizing an event and it got rejected. The thought of putting it out there again to even more people and the fear of being rejected was even more fearful; but before it would have been too much to bear; but I felt it and cried and let it out but I said okay I have to do it, [cries a little] anyway its that or nothing; so you see all the emotion is still there.

Q. So that’s a big shift?
A. Yeh I think it is to, because I felt before I couldn’t even have considered it.

Q. Yes before it was like I can’t do this, I can’t go back, I can’t be that vulnerable, I can’t be rejected again?
A. Yes and it is still there with Claire [her spiritual teacher] there is still a bit of that there, but with this it’s if I felt that if it happens again I am not going to crumble to nothing this time.

Q. What have you done about Claire?
A. Well I realized that the karma of lesson is the same as from before; that I had sort to destroy in the same way before [past life] and again someone that I loved, and so on an energy level I have spoken to her ethereally but I haven’t done it; but I have apologized and [starts to cry]

Q. So you see a part that wanted to destroy her?
A. Yeh and the repetition of the pattern. Yep. [crying]

Q. You could see that you had done that before?
A. Only last week. I could see the other life and this life, and yes the lesson is the same. The behavior is just repeating itself. [crying] The hardest thing is the non randomous of it; it might be easy if you can look back and say I was a soldier in that life and I killed someone and I know it is all karmic but the specific part that it is the people that I have loved the most [crying, long pause,] it makes it hard. [crying]

Q. Last time we talked about the competition between you and Claire? So you can see the competition? At the same time as seeing your intense hurt at being criticized?
A. Yeh.

Q. When you first came to see me we talked about how difficult it was to talk about what you had done, your collections of sins and evils; how do you feel about talking about the karmic play between Claire and you now?
A. I don’t have as much shame as I did even for me to be talking with the camera going is a huge thing, and to be able to even acknowledge that other people will see me for who I am, and not just in this life, and you know will make judgments around, and there is no way I could have done that, and it is still terrifying but its not as. Before I was so ashamed that it would have been unbearable, and now I’m forgiving of myself and [pause] don’t know can see it from the higher. Don’t know when you have got the lesson or can see it in context of the bigger picture, for me I can accept it more, and I have more acceptance of myself, and the things that I have done, and I think because I understand more maybe its made me who I am, and also I have from this life. I am in a position of power to do something about all those things as well, like maybe have taken some power back, rather than just staying stuck in the shame. I think I will always be sad about those things that I’ve done, but hopefully as time goes on you, me, hopefully I will be able to reconcile them yeh, and I don’t know whether that transforms you. I feel like the lessons of those things I can now use to make me a better person more of the positive of who I am.

Q. What are you going to do about this situation with Claire?
A. I haven’t spoken to her yet as I am still scared of the rejection. She might say I don’t want anything to do with you but even that, just since last week, that could happen and I need to find the place where that will be okay if that happens.

Q. When this happened you totally dissolved and you were totally distraught; where are you sitting with that now?
A. I don’t know how or why but I am just in a different place now like I can do something, and even if I don’t get the response from Claire that I would like, I have found something that I can do regardless, and so it won’t be the end of me, and that is how it felt before. And it is different, it is not an ego thing where you are alright anyway, and that would have been the defense before. It is more of an internal knowing or sense that I am here, and that I do have the power to do something and I need to do it regardless, one way or the other. [Long pause and sigh] Which is quite different.

Q. Where are you sitting with all the terrible things that you have done?
A. I think, it like there is a part of you, like if a child does something and you have this amazing forgiveness for whatever, but its not the child in me that did them but so its just acceptance that there is different aspects of me, and we all need to co-exist together. Hopefully from this point forward I will have mastery over myself before I was so scared because I didn’t have mastery, and I didn’t understand that. That aspect of me would take control again or be the overriding force, and if you can’t have influence what you can’t see or command now I have an intimacy with it now I have connected with it and know it and don’t have that fear of it like I did.

Q. Where are you with your clairvoyance now because you wanted to be finished with it?
A. Well having dismissed and chucked it in the bucket, in the last few weeks I have had really clear pictures just without any effort hilariously clear it is pretty funny, and its even that different, that it is more like that part of me to and they all have equal importance so part of me is that I have clairvoyance and clairaudience and what ever seems right and just as normal as any other aspect of me. And if I can accept the acceptance what we call darkness or the shadow whatever the aspect is; the good and the evil part; in accepting that, I can accept the good as well and the higher part of me; [starts to cry with relief] because it wasn’t getting a go either.

Conclusion:
Anacardium has an “angel” on one side, and a “devil,” on the other side and when they are in a healthy state they co-exist together in harmony with neither having control over the other. As she says; “And if I can accept the acceptance what we call darkness or the shadow whatever the aspect is; the good and the evil part; in accepting that, I can accept the good as well and the higher part of me; because it wasn’t getting a go either.”

Hahneman said in reference to Anacardium, “He is at odds with the world, and has little confidence in himself being able to accomplish what is demanded of him.” My experience of working with Anacardium when they are healthy is that they are comfortable with themselves; they do not continually strive to prove their worth. As she says; “I am in a position of power to do something about all those things as well, like maybe have taken some power back, rather than just staying stuck in the shame.” If they are criticized Anacardium interpret this as God abandoning them. Healthy Anacardium know they can continue on from an internal recognition of self; they do not need the recognition from the world as desperately; they will not be plagued by shame or guilt; or delusion they are the devil or from the delusion they have done something wrong. “And it is different, it is not an ego thing where you are alright anyway, and that would have been the defense before. It is more of an internal knowing or sense that I am here, and that I do have the power to do something and I need to do it regardless, one way or the other.”

One month after this session she returned to her classes with her spiritual teacher, Claire. The dose of 1m has been only been repeated twice since then on the 15/9/06; one month later, and again on the 4/11/06. She continues to grow in emotional strength and forgiveness of her past life sins. She is now concentrating of this life. Most importantly for Anacardium is that she is not so intensely hypersensitive to being criticized.

Follow –up 12/12/06 Given at the session one dose of Anacardium 200 in C 4 potency.

This session was, and has been the most significant session. She has been praying and hoping her father would die. She believes when he dies she will be released from the karmic power he has over her, and she will be able to find a man that will fall in love with her. Her father hurt her intensely when she was a teenager by telling her she was fat, and not attractive as a woman. The Rubrics Hatred, Hardhearted, Malicious, and Cruelty do not do justice to the rage and murderous coldness she has held for him. In this last session of 2006 she has agree to visit him on his death bed. She cried because for the first time she has acknowledged he was also a good father who had also loved her. She has not spoken to her father for five years. I am excited to see what the C4 potency of Anacardium moves inside of her. I have just learnt about the C4 potencies this year In the Haag with Alize Timmerman and this is the first time I have used them.

Bibliography
Bailey, Philip, M, M.D. Homeopathic Psychology, Berkeley, California, North Atlantic Books, 1995.
Boericke, William, M. D. Pocket Manuel of Homoeopathic Materia Medica. New Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. 1996.
Grieve, Mrs. M. A Modern Herbal. Middlesex, England, Penguin Books. 1980.
Hahnemann, Dr. Samuel, The Chronic Diseases. New Delhi, B. Jain Publishers, 1995.
Kent, J. T. Lectures on Materia Medica. New Delhi, B. Jain Publishers, 1994.
Kent, J. T. Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica and a Word Index. New Delhi, B. Jain Publishers, 1994.
Morrison, Roger, M.D. Desktop Guide. Nevada City, CA, Hahnemann Clinic Publishing. 1993.
Sankaran, Rajan, The Soul of Remedies. Santa Cruz, Bombay, Homoeopathic Medical Publishers, 1997.
Schroyens, Frederik, M.D. Synthesis, London, Homeopathic Book Publishers, 1997.
Vermeulen, Frans, Synoptic Materia Medica.The Netherlands, Merlijin Publishers, 1992.
Vermeulen, Frans, Prisma. The Netherlands, Emryss bv Publishers, 2002.

Liz Lalor
192 Glen Eira Rd. Elsternwick 3185.
Victoria,Australia.
Email lalor@ozonline.com.au