Homeopathy celebrities on the couch: Bruce Springsteen living the shattered dream!

Springsteen’s songs have brought to the foreground an image of America that we couldn’t possibly have without his lyrics and his music.

He has introduced us to the working class American, the one who anonymously helps to build the American superpower, picture perfect, and glittery proud ideal the US has tried to portray to the world!

The US has bombarded the world with carefully crafted images of glamour and easy living through the US propaganda, Hollywood films, advertising, literature, political speeches and so on.

Springsteen, the “Boss”, is the one who showed us the dirty faces stricken with sweat and tears of the underpaid miners.

He gives us the other face of the victorious home coming of the war veterans with amputated limbs, unable to get work or to make a decent living, and forced to beg on the streets.

He has ripped the picture perfect reality of the middle class America to show us the dirty and smelly kids from drug addicted parents, who fear going back home at the end of day and would rather roam the streets or leave their hometown where there is no future for them.

He has also spoken often of the true spirit of freedom, of being able to break free from the oppressive environment of a small town and setting across the country.

Springsteen has rebelled against oppression, has given inspiration and hope to those who have nothing.  He has been the shouting voice muffling the glitzy propaganda for the American fantasy world of the fifties, he has lead the chorus of protest of the sixties speaking out for the kids who were left without a father as a result of the War, and he has showed us an America that has no rights, no welfare and no place in society.

His music has no place in the picture perfect Hollywood of a young beautiful and wealthy America with glamorous actresses covered in jewels and fur and smartly dressed actors driving expensive cars.

Springsteen has faithfully and relentlessly sided with the other America: the one living the shattered dream.

He has showed us the despair of many, but he has also given the underdog faith in the future, he's fueled their fight, given them the "spark to start a fire", not to give up and to fight for their rights.

His music is for taking to the streets, to the never ending American roads, to go see the world, the world that it’s ours, everyone’s.

He talks about an unrepressed desire for living behind the oppressive small town: a fascination to follow the road in to freedom, into the big city, into hope of a better life.

His message however is one of doom and gloom, the better life never materialises, because there is always social injustice, and oppression of the poor for the benefit of the rich no matter where you turn to.

Springsteen is a religious man, he has never hidden his strong links to Catholicism, and some of his songs are religious hymns; others are hymns to  freedom they are for uprising, and for rebelling - without religious or political conformism.

He is of Irish ancestry and as a child he was educated at a Catholic school, but even then his individuality, and his refusal to conform to the pre-established values caused havock with the nuns, and he soon had to be moved to another school!

As a teenager he didn't integrate within his school environment - his former headmaster recalls Bruce as a "loner who only cared for playing the guitar"... he completed his studies but didn't attend his own graduation as he didn't feel comfortable amongst his school mates.

Springsteen is an anti-hero denouncing social injustice, locked in eternal battle with the powers that be, he has been a constant voice for those who have lost their status and have no voice.

But he is an empty handed Messiah: bringing no salvation, he offers no solution, only the steely, cold, nude reality of a broken America.

Bruce Springsteen’s homeopathic remedy is Veratrum Album:

Veratrum Album is a remedy for deeply religious people, even fanatical. They can easily view themselves as a Christ, or a Messiah bringing salvation to the world.

They do not stand for social injustice. They can be very bossy, and unmoved in their opinions.

They can get irate easily, even cursing and insulting others. They can have an ironic smile, and they smile when angry.

When upset they isolate themselves, either by driving others out of their space, or by leaving home and abandoning their loved ones.

They have a pessimistic view of the world, they are well known for their doom and gloom prophecies.  They criticise existing values without offering a solution.

They feel they are superior to others and they are outspoken against those they perceive as wrong doers.

The Boss’ psychological profile is that of Veratrum Album, he has many characteristics of the remedy which on a healthy individual like himself can make him charismatic, but can also reach extreme behaviour if provoked into unbalance!

By the Undercover Homeopath

Homeopathy and The Occupy at St Paul's

This week the Undercover Homeopath goes out in the field in search a homeopathic connection and ends up volunteering to run a free Homeopathy clinic!

It’s all very well and good to support a cause from the comfort of your home – and don’t take me wrong – a lot of good can come from that...

whether you are donating a Tweet for a good cause, making a financial contribution, blogging or posting on your network:

making others aware of the wrongs that can be put right. Those are all very valid contributions to better the world we live in.

But today, I decided that it was no longer an option for me to just watch the Occupy movement from a distance, so

I went down to St Paul’s in London

to see the camping site and to mingle with the protesters.

This is what I found:  a busy group of people of all ages spending their day discussing urgent community and social issues, getting themselves busy with the daily run of the camp, organising themselves, undertaking  responsibility for the orderly maintenance of their site as well as making a stance for social and economic injustice. 

It seems to me that “Occupy, occupy!” is having a huge task as “Organise, organise!”

And contrary to what I have been reading on the Media about lack of organisation and respect towards their community – what I saw was a very well  ran camp. Various committee meetings were taking place throughout the morning, the first one I saw was the one with the Church representative, but there were several happening at the same time. 

There are also two general assemblies a day to give people the opportunity to put forward any concerns or issues that need sorting, and where everyone is invited to vote on practical issues to do with the camp itself such as: recycling, re-using of items, alternative energy sources for the running of the camp, etc.

There are volunteer groups running the library, the re-cycling centre, the first aid, the hot drinks, the donations, the wellbeing centre – which includes Meditation and Healing – and it will also be including Homeopathy within the next few days…you guessed: I’ve volunteered a couple of hours a week!

Off course with all the groups, and especially with a group so diverse as this there are also some unpleasant characters that infiltrate in order to causing disruption…but I didn’t see any today. 

And I didn’t see people with masks… but I respected their right to privacy by avoiding photographing individuals and focusing more on the protest itself – their posters and banners.  I made an exception for this chap  who wants to raise awareness for the prospect of an attack on Iran, and who stated that he is very happy to be photographed along with his poster!

Oh! By the way… these guys need blankets, thick socks, hot water bottles, mugs, and permanent markers – so if you live in London or are coming over for a holiday – don’t forget to pop by! 

The cold and wet British weather is getting to their bones and joints – as I was sitting at their general assembly I could see all sorts of creaking joints, neck and shoulder stiffness from rough sleep in cold and wet concrete.  Remedies anyone? I’ll be stocking up on Rhus-Tox, Ruta, Causticum  and Bryonia for starters…

Occupy: a movement that cannot be suppressed, the homeopathic view

Hi guys I’m back!  Sorry that you had to put up with my cousin Ben for the last two weeks, but all things considered I think he did rather well. The main thing is that he’s now safely back home, with his Irish harp - no more blogging for him - at least not on my site!

After spending two weeks touring around the French countryside, doing what I do best: mingling with fellow homeopaths and nature lovers, sampling good food and wine - all in moderation, I get back to England to find that our streets have been taken over by the people’s power! 

Being a homeopath I am sympathetic to the movement! In homeopathy we believe in expression not suppression! 

Just like disease cannot be suppressed and needs to be allowed to run its course in order to be healed, social problems cannot resolved by suppression.

If we want to heal social problems we have to be able to let people express them. Oppression only works temporarily taking the problems deeper underground until the next eruption! 

A totalitarian political system approach preventing people from demonstrating and protesting is the equivalent to conventional medicine approach to disease: you can temporarily suppress the problem only to see it bursting up stronger in another organ – and an added disease! In politics this erupting reaction to suppression is called “Revolt” in conventional medicine is called “sorry there nothing else I can do for you“.

In politics we need to build infrastructures to allow for a strong and healthy social fabric, in health we need to boost a patient’s immune system to allow them to fight disease! The more toxic we become, both psychologically and physically the less able we are to think for ourselves or to heal ourselves!

Analyzing the Occupy Wall Street protest and the way it has now spread to the rest of the world, I can sense its energy.  It corresponds to the energy of Helium and Hydrogen - together they form the first group of the periodic table. The first group of the periodic table pertains to the beginning of life - for the universe it is Big Bang, for us humans is the embryonic stage, it is a seed, an egg, an idea. 

It is an energy that simply exists without doing anything yet.  It relates the wholeness, and the first creative impulse. It carries a great desire for unity.  It is cosmic energy - the universe is made mostly of Hydrogen and Helium. Our Sun is composed of 99% of these two gases too. 

The Occupy protesters have claimed to be the 99%! 

In their quest for unity, they claim a majority of 99% against the 1% of greedy corporations. And just like the Sun rises into a new dawn marking the beginning of a new day so does the Occupy movement is rising into the beginning of a new order! 

What this new order will bring us only time will tell but it sure is uniting people with its call for the need to re-access social values - highlighting the social failure of an economic and political system based on greed that doesn’t take into account it’s people’s needs.  It’s calling for a new system where governments are no longer manipulated by the financial interests of a few large corporations. 

The  power of the Occupy movement lays in the fact that it doesn’t have a clear direction nor strategy: It’s able to mobilize us all into being free to take action against the current economic and political system - let’s just hope that it doesn’t get hijacked by opportunistic lesser causes.    

The OCCUPY Movement has quickly spilled from Wall Street and is alive and well in many cities around the world!  It is a peaceful protest - let’s hope it is allowed to remain peaceful and not forced to react to authoritarian forces attempting to suppress it… do not underestimate the power of this seemingly passive protest: it has the potential to become quite volatile and explosive if repressed - let’s not forget  how flammable and explosive Hydrogen is  - remember the Hydrogen bomb?

OWS is making ripples of change, one drop at the time.

And I dare say that if the Bible was written today God would say: “Go forth and #Occupy!”  It’s just that the traditional “Go forth and multiply” has created a population of seven billion and rising, and consuming the way we do, we are putting an enormous strain on nature’s resources. 

#Occupy could bring a much needed solution!

     

  

 

Homeopathy Celebrities on the couch - Giles Fraser, the salt of the earth

This week the Undercover Homeopath analyses Giles Fraser's psychological profile according to homeopathy principles, and prescribes a homeopathic remedy.


Giles Fraser, a man of the Church, is my choice as the Celebrity in need of attention this week, so he is my couch!

The cannon chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral has just resigned. 

Now, there are resignations and resignations. 

Often when we hear the word resignation we are compelled into thinking of someone corned into a tight spot when their improper behaviour has finally been found out, or someone with a large ego who is offended because they feel they have not been given the respect and recognition they deserve.

This is clearly not the case with Rev Giles Fraser.  He has resigned because he couldn’t conciliate his ideal of what the Church should be and what it really is in a particular incident of Occupy London movement.  As he puts it:  “(…) I feel that the church cannot answer a peaceful protest with violence”.  And then he becomes deeply moved, tears in his eyes when he mentions how he loved his work at St Paul’s.  He also mentions how he feels “terrified” about being out of work because he has a family to support, he has children… he also says that there is no question about his leaving the Church of England.

He comes across as a man of integrity

He puts his moral values before his own interests.  He cuts a figure of consistency as we have not often seen, either in the church or in politics.  And even when he talks about his concerns for his future, it is really the welfare of his dependants he is concerned about. 

Giles Fraser is a great example of a Natrum Muriaticum homeopathic constitution.  

This is a very well know homeopathic remedy in homeopathic circles. Some homeopaths even claim that the British as a population are of Nat Mur constitution. 

Although each individual will then have their own constitutional remedy type too depending on many factors, there is a general trend of stoicism when faced with personal difficulties, a refusal to indulge in self-pity, a desire to carry on their duties to society and to their families.  They can sometimes be perceived as cold due to their  “stiff upper lip” – they won’t cry when faced with extreme emotional hardship and yet can be moved to tears while watching a sad movie – they supress their own emotions but they allow themselves to be moved by other’s plight! 

Nat Mur is the remedy of the carers, the volunteers and the charity donors.  They are selfless, and they tend to support those weaker than themselves.  They are the people we refer to as “the salt of the Earth”, the “pillars of the community”.  And Giles Fraser has just joined the ranks!  As he says he didn’t set out to be a hero or a revolutionary.  He didn’t invite the protesters to camp at St Paul’s.  In fact he even asked them to move their tents back a little, to clear space for church goers and tourists to enter the Cathedral.  But he also asked the police to stand back and to not use violence in the church’s name for removing the protesters.  When asked if the protesters would be allowed to attend the service he said that everyone was welcome – isn’t that what the church is supposed to be about?

I’m not a religious person myself, but I can see that Giles Fraser with his spontaneous gesture of tolerance, inclusion and high values of social justice might have done more for the church’s public relations than any PR campaign could have done.  That’s what I call “Christ Consciousness” – something I definitely believe in!

Undercover Homeopath