This book review is reprinted with the permission of the National Center for Homeopathy
Homeopathy
By Tomas Pablo Paschero, MD
Foreword by E.F. Candegabe
Edited by Patricia Haas: translated by Katherine V. Masis
Beaconsfield Publishers Ltd.: Beaconsfield, England, 2000, 250 pages
Reviewed by Jay Yasgur RPh, MSc
Homeopathy is the latest offering in a long line of fine homeopathic books from the British publisher Beaconsfield. It is the first English edition of 35 lectures which the great Argentinian teacher and master of homeopathy, Tomas Paschero (19O4-1986), gave. Paschero's father, a butcher by trade, wanted his son to do the same, but fortunately for homeopathy he did not, deciding to study medicine instead. He converted to homeopathy after witnessing the cure of an obstinate case of eczema and later studied with the Kentian homeopaths William Griggs, Eugene Underhill, and Julia Minerva-Green, eventually becoming a disciple of Arthur Grimmer.
Paschero established the Asociacion Medica Homeopatica Argentina in 1933, founded the Escuela Medica Homeopatica in 1972, and was President of the LIGA in 1973. He was truly a potent beacon spreading the luminescence of homeopathy far and wide among our Latin American neighbors.
This book of lectures is divided into three categories: doctrine, clinical aspects, and materia medica.
In the 1963 lecture, "Finding the Simillimum," he shows his Kentian colors by stating:
"Mental symptoms are not restricted to conscious psychological expressions or a person's behaviour. Mental symptoms are classified as symptoms of the will, intelligence, emotions and memory. Symptoms pertaining to the will refer to instinctive tendencies that determine desires and aversions regarding a person's relationship with life and fellow human beings, or even desires and aversions linked to our instinct for preservation-of our own selves or of our species-such as food preferences and sexuality. Our instinctiveness is grounded in the unconscious will that emerges from the innermost depths of our being, where vital energy presides over metabolic changes in the cell and structures our psychophysical personality."-p. 90
And later, in a comparative materia medica lecture (1955), he offers a bit of psychological jam between delicious slices of Sepia and Lycopodium:
"We have seen that behind Lycopodium's facade of haughtiness, pride, misanthropy, disdainful indifference and domineering attitude, lies a deep, hidden lack of self-confidence, a trepidation and timidity which fills him with anxiety due to the conflict between what he wants to be but cannot, between his desire for self- affirmation and what is permitted by society. In contrast, Sepia's anxiety is caused by the conflict between the active, masculine-oriented desire for success and self-affirmation, and the emotional coldness or inability to give affection, which is an essentially passive, feminine trait. This is why Sepia is generally a female remedy. While Lycopodium's conflict is one of active self-affirmation, Sepia's conflict is one of passive, emotional and sexual giving."-p. 207
Paschero doesn't stop there but continues to weave interesting thoughts on sexuality, frigidity, aggressiveness, anxiety, and self-reproach.
This book is a nice series of well translated lectures and would be a good addition to your bookshelf if you don't have anything by this 20th century homeopathic master. It possesses two indices; remedy and general. It is a quality paperback (sewn and wrapped) and thus should enjoy a long and servile life, just as its esteemed author!
Homeopathy Today, June 2001, Volume 21, Number 6