Development Part 3
One other way to consider miasms and constitutional remedy is to say that a remedy reflects a strategic relationship to life, it reveals both the good and not so good ways in which the body/mind struggles to evolve. The miasmatic influence affects the intensity of this expression – the basic struggle of psora, the intensity and exaggeration of sycosis and the desperateness and violence of syphilis. The same can be identified with tuberculosis and cancer and perhaps other miasmatic classifications. One can also see a miasm as a solar system. The sun is the nosode of the miasm and the planets surrounding the sun are various remedies, each of which reflect a specific strategy or expression of that miasm. That way, one can understand the miasm as a large potentiality and each remedy reflects merely one part of that totality, circling around the sun and influenced by the nosode, the original place from where the miasm began. In this way, one can gain a deeper understanding of the miasm by studying the nosode and at least one other remedy of that miasm. In Psora we have Psorinum and Calcarea carbonica (Ortega’s choice of remedy), in Sycosis we have Medorrhinum and Thuja (the classic anti-sycotic but perhaps its significance is exaggerated – typical sycotic) and Syphilis we have Syphilinum and Mercury (the obvious one and of course the closest to our sun!). By studying the miasms in this way, we gain an understanding of the essential ideas of the nosode and its bacterial origin, as seen by Hahnemann, and the miasmatic thematic influence as perceived through certain remedies. One can also study the actual effect of the original infection, especially the diseases Gonorrhea and Syphilis and from there gain an understanding of the “dynamic” influence of these diseases on various constitutions. This, as has been explained earlier, is much harder to do for Psora because of the lack of specificity of infection for this miasm, one of the weaknesses in Hahnemann’s own theory of Psora. According to his own analysis, Psorinum the nosode of the disease Scabies, is only one of the possible infectious agents of psora, leprosy being another and herpes and tinea being possibly others. Each of those infections has it’s own characteristic DNA and morbific influence. Therefore Psorinum can be said to be one of the examples of psora, but interestingly the picture of this remedy does give a very clear image of some of the essential characteristics of the miasm. 
To summarize the themes of psora and that of the remedy Psorinum, we have the words deficiency or under function. In the remedy we have a fear of poverty, of being homeless, despair, hopeless, anxiety, great forsaken feeling, coldness and hunger. The whole feeling is one of a state of passive despair and a feeling that there will never be enough to go around, the actual social reality for most of the planet still, and an experience not that far removed from a majority of people in the advanced countries of the world. In other words, it represents a state within the archetypal consciousness of all humans, the fear of starvation and not having a home. It is an existential anxiety often, and in cases these symptoms are obviously more important when it is not the reality of a person, more a delusion, but which feels real all the same. To extend this theme, it can therefore be said that those people whose focus is predominantly on the struggle to be, to define themselves in the context of their immediate situation – home, work, family, structure, and who find these issues particularly challenging, are under the dynamic influence of the psoric miasm. This is very clearly portrayed in the remedy Calcarea carbonica, the inside of the oyster shell, where the person needing this remedy experiences the delusion that there is no shell, leaving them feeling exposed, anxious, fearful of the great unknown of the ocean, the dark depths with horrible images, making them feel cold, shivery, fearful, apprehensive and exhausted with the struggle to re-find the shell. Lycopodium experiences it as an existential anxiety whether he is worthy of his position, a situation he continually stresses over and doubts, especially when having to prove himself he actually OK. Sulphur doesn’t have such concerns. His ego is now intact but he suffers from the lack of impetus to actually manifest this ego. For Sulphur, isn’t the fact that it’s there enough. Why bother to do anything about it and why bother to let others know. For Sulphur the challenge is the integration of the self into the larger context of family and society. Each of these remedies represent a basic struggle and because we are looking at deficiency here, the expression of these states will never be too violent or extreme, even if it seems to be written in the books that each of these remedies can show extreme emotions. In reality, they rarely do, there is not the impetus or drive.
Whereas in the sycotic miasm, as seen in the remedy Medorrhinum, the theme of exaggeration or excess produces many inflammatory states, with an exaggeration of function. The expression is intense and focuses on areas of the body to do with water, communication and expansion – sinuses, chest, joints, kidneys and bladder, skin and heart. Mentally there is a tendency to extremes, unpredictability, intensity, addictions, everything is too much. There is focus on how one is seen and the ambition to become, not merely content to be as in the psoric miasm. The degree of egocentricity is that much greater, although of course one sees that with Sulphur, the grand antispsoric (but as is the case, polycrest remedies by definition are influenced by more than one miasmatic influence). There can be violence, all sorts of extremes and antisocial dynamics in mental behavior, and in physical areas, a tendency to distortion or incoordination in function, especially in earlier years of life than one would expect, e.g., congenital deformities, joint inflammations, urinary tract inflammations, asthma, abnormal skin growths, early heart pathology etc. Thuja, the archetype of this miasm, shares many of these qualities but reveals its own unique strategy of having to cover up a feeling of distortion or wrongness. Anxiety, guilt, shame and secrecy are feelings and strategies used to deal with a sense of separation and stigma they can feel. They feel alone, and don’t know really why and imagine something must be wrong with them. Again, this fits an archetypal experience – how does one fit into a family, a society, a culture, what strategies do we have to employ to do so. Thuja is only one remedy that examples this struggle. To see the sycotic miasm in this light, one can say that now that the ego is clearly identified and expressed, what do we have to do connect to the whole, to everyone else. This struggle of individuation and then connection is a contrast of opposites, two poles of an archetypal theme of consciousness.
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