Halloween

Halloween!

The nights will be longer now till the 21st of December and at the end of the month there will be Halloween. This actually led me to do some research on the Internet. I found out that Halloween is actually an old pagan cult at the end of the summer to celebrate the new year. It was the time when the boundaries between the dead and the living world were a bit thin and the dead would come to the living world to wander about. They were given treats by the living to make them happy and peaceful. That is where the trick or treat comes from. 

It has its origin on the British isles and Irish migrants made the cult and its celebrations very popular in America. 

Halloween always brings to my mind the homoeopathic remedy Stramonium datura which is made out the thorn apple or jimsonweed. Some people call it just datura. It has wonderful trumpet-shaped flowers, and that is the reason why my mother used to have one in a pot. It might have been another species, I don't really know.

Actually it is a very poisonous plant and quite a fascinating homoeopathic remedy. The plant itself was closely associated with death and the dead in the New World. It was also used to "create" slaves by applying the poison of the plant to the skin of the victim. There it caused severe itching and by scratching the victim helped the poison to enter the body. Once in the blood stream it weakened the breath of the victim and after some time the heartbeat ceased almost completely. Even though the victim seems to be dead to even an experienced doctor, he is still alive but in a deep lethargy. Still fully conscious he is fully aware of what is going on around him but paralysed. He actually has no understanding of what is happening to him and no memory of what happened before. He can survive on very little oxygen. Datura was part of the poison which the"Zombie maker" used to keep the victim in a state where he appeared to be "the living dead". Victims were "used" to work mainly on sugar-plantations and they were horrified and shocked by their state.

So it is no wonder that the homoeopathic remedy is used for night terrors and sleep-walking when the sleep walker has no recollection of what actually happened through the night. Light versus darkness is a strong theme of the homoeopathic remedy Stramonium. There is a strong desire for light and a strong desire for company. I remember one of our teachers at The British School of Homoeopathy was talking about "The Shadow" in conjunction with the remedy. The shadow which overcasts somebody or the shadow itself. There is a lot of violence in the remedy as well or the fear of violence. It is supposed to help when children suffer nightmares after a violent birth. I have used it with much success in many cases and I always find it very fascinating. 

So if you come across some zombies this Halloween, don't be afraid, just send them my way and it might be best to come straight with them.