Imagine homeopath being a librarian. So when the client comes for a book we have two choices:
I. The classical one
is to gather as much information about a client as possible and use the special catalogues to find out which book matches our client the best, i.e. is the most similar (simillimum in homeopathic terms):
- matches the client’s problems (think of symptomatic prescription);
- matches his overall characteristics, interests and values (think of constitutional prescription).
But is this book really the most important and interesting to read now? Think for a while about such approach.
In acutes, when the reader needs some specific information urgently, it is a very sound approach to look into the catalogues.
But what if someone comes without the urgent need? Isn’t something lacking here? Compare with your own real life experience of choosing the books to read.
II. But then there is another way. Quite the opposite, but still not allopathic at all. We may assist the client in choosing a book by himself!
Imagine we have a walk with our client in the library. We simply walk around, talk, stop at some shelves, encourage our client to take the books one by one, feel them, turn the pages, read excerpts.
All that time we also observe client’s attention flowing through shelves and eventually stopping and penetrating into a particular book. When the client finds the book he needs, he spontaneously gets absorbed into this book experience. He does not talk with us anymore. He’s all into reading. Actually, we follow the attention and there are 3 main scenarios of what might be revealed by the book:
- Sometimes these are different kinds of problems getting exposed: hidden organ insufficiencies, focal infections, suppressed emotions, life situations, etc. Often client has been hiding these not only from the others, but himself as well. Finding similar books reveal these in ourselves immediately. That maybe a pretty hard experience, but as these rise up to the surface we may start looking for a solution.
- Liveliness/ excitement as our client finds solutions to problems (including ones he wasn’t even aware of has never told anyone before) and that helps him to quickly develop a strategy for solving these. Usually these feel like a freshness or simply movement inside the body that’s often happening along the meridians.
- Stillness, as he glimpses deep into himself, he starts remembering something very dear and even sacred to him, e.g. his biggest childhood dream he has forgotten long ago. Sometimes he even understands he has not been living his life at all. That may also become a life changing experience.
That’s what the books are for – to reveal the Truth about us. They are mirrors, actually.
Consider that to be equal to “the highest ideal of the cure“. When selected not by reasoning or expectations (these are all predictable, therefore may seem to be quite scientific), but because of the interest (not predictable at all) they may reveal so much for us.
And if it happens, it happens immediately, right here in the library. Reader’s reaction takes less than a second to start and several up to 15 minutes to fully bloom. (That’s the case with the remedies, reading actual thick books may take longer.) If it does not – it means the book is not important enough. And we become witness.
We as librarians cannot influence the Interest. On the contrary, if we succeed to persuade the client to read some particular book, our “prescription” is a total failure! Homeopaths rightfully call it “prescribing for myself and not the patient”.
The real interest comes from the Life itself. We experience it as a sincere spontaneous reaction in a form of sensations/ Stillness/ Silence. So when we find something or meet someone very important, these range from huge excitement to world stopping absolutely.
Finding the right remedy and finding the most important book (or whatever, whoever…) in your life are extremely similar experiences. That’s why selecting the remedy and listening to the Life itself is not different at all.
So here we do not prescribe. We do not analyze. We even do not need to listen. We are simply aware. We are surprised at the choices the Life makes. And that’s all…
Once I had my colleague as a patient. We had a deep healing experience. The world had stopped. I hoped my colleague is about to dive deeper into his healing practice afterwards – I had been thinking he was too superficial at that time. When he came to another visit he was happy. He said the last remedy was perfect. HIs health problems were completely gone. But he almost left healing and he was all in business now… That was a huge lesson for me.
The beauty of such practice is that it is absolutely spontaneous and unexpected to both the client and the librarian. Such revelations may happen each second as we walk around the shelves with books.
Look, if we practice that way, we are surprised each time. Because no matter how experienced we are, each time we get absolutely unique, spontaneous experiences that often lead just the opposite way to our understanding. The more we are experienced, the more open we are and the more unexpected our practice becomes.
The aim of the librarian is to become neutral but aware.
“You should work as if your chair is empty!”
was the advice my teacher gave me at my first working day in a new clinic some fifteen years ago.
Everything happens as if by itself with the librarian becoming less and less involved. Any intervention, any opinion/ prejudice disturbs the natural process of walking the library.
So here we learn to listen, to observe quietly, to blend with the process, to trust it and be aware. We learn not to have our own opinions anymore. Up until the librarian becomes transparent and kind of eliminated from the process.
Please, stop here and think a minute. What’s the purpose of such transparent librarian?
The books also become transparent.
Well, the books are the books at first. Obviously, they appear to be pretty real. And we believe what their descriptions say – we have lots of these in our catalogues. I mean we start with opinions and prejudices we’ve been told by others. But…
An observer is conditioned by genetics, familial patterns, the culture in general, personality formation and the degree of love the individual has responded to.
James Jealous, D.O.
Is there any objective opinion about a particular book available? Has anyone ever read at least one book objectively?
Actually, there are as many worlds/universes as there are human beings. The same book in each of these worlds is read/ perceived differently.
Look, such experience (mine is based on thousands of actual sessions with my patients in the Remedies Library) is radically different from the idea that there is original, real, objective book that is read by many individuals! What’s so radical in that? Think for a while…
As we read the books (listen to the remedies) together with our clients each day and also in groups with our colleagues all opinions appear to be fake as they are based on past and not present experiences.
N.B.! Here we start to learn from the others – but that happens directly rather than from mistakes of our prescriptions. We start learning from others as they sincerely spontaneously react to these books. And that often goes against our opinions and understandings. Sometimes seemingly superficial book appears to be the life changing for that particular client or our colleague. Sometimes it happens vice-versa.
Slowly we start to understand that books do not cause anything to our clients. They are for revealing what is deep inside. They are hints. That’s what similarity appears to be.
Look, there are no real books outside our perception. We can’t perceive books. We can only perceive our sensations/ stillness/ Silence. Likewise we can’t perceive remedies as separate entities. They are perceived as our own aspects.
If we become transparent, neutral and open we synchronize with our client, we kind of enter his world and we experience his books in it. It is very different from ours. Surprise becomes our natural state during consultation. So even if we have read that book 100 times, each time it is different with each client. 101st time may be radically different.
When we experience the book we discover the new unknown part of ourselves. As it happens with library’s client, the book has already done its work. So when we experience a particular remedy it becomes our. We recognize it as our aspect. So where is the remedy?
We still may give the copy of the book (sometimes it is easier to part of it) as a reminder for our client. Reminder is helpful when later our client faces inertia in life and needs some reassurance.
Aknowledgements
So that’s how it happens. And of course, there is a technical side. The Library is huge. It became available for us because of hundreds of brightest practitioners who attributed to building it.
- Some of them created the amazing sets of remedies.
- Some of them built the Library with all its structure. The rooms, the shelves,…
- Some of them developed different strategies and techniques for navigating through all that.
- Some of them perfected the testing devices and methods that allowed to deal with unprecedented amounts of remedies.
- Some of them developed different techniques of making the copies of the books – in case we don’t have spare originals or we want to make an individual copy.
- Some of them perfected their listening skills – abilities to become aware of the tiniest changes in sensations and sharing these with others.
- Some of them devoted themselves to the Totality, dissolving themselves in It.
I can’t describe how thankful I feel for all of them.