Fooled and Stuck, Alas

To become desperate nuns and monks may be quite dangerous.

May Dr Edward Bach's remedy 'Holly' help to some degree? Those who care to try it, may prepare it themselves. [How to prepare the remedies]

In Hollywood and other places where holly grows in one's garden it may not be so very difficult to buy or prepare such special Holly liquid and go further for months and judge one's changes, if any. Dr Bach writes about 'Holly':

For those who sometimes are attacked by thoughts of such kind as jealousy, envy, revenge, suspicion [and also pessimistic or hostile emotions and exasperation. It is indicated] for different forms of vexation. Within themselves they may suffer much, often when there is no real cause for their unhappiness.

If lack of love is a problem, perhaps Bach's 'Holly' might be applied in a setting where monks and nuns do not get along very well together, despite facades and "heaven-turned" decor. Lola Williamson writes about the cloistered SRF environment some years back, when one third of all the SRF monastics decided to leave. Big, underlying problems among those who stayed might not have been solved merely by Holly, though. Yet it remains to be seen. [Internal SRF skirmishes]

Could 'Holly' help and foster better monastics? For the lack of savoury research and its good answers many guess they may try and see for themselves. Dr Olov Lindahl once took the trouble to tell just how proper self-testing can be done, in the book Vetenskap och beprövad erfarenhet (Science and Proven Experience) (1978:109-16). (- [◦The remedy]

Feel Free to Try

Individuals may choose to try out one or more of the Bach Remedies rather than being cramped:

1. Greatly fooled, taken in. Try Viola odorata D100 and/or Zanthozylium americana B, D1000 in standard ways.

2. Hates it. Try Ocimum basilicum D12 or 30, and/or Sphagnum D30.

3. Despairing. Try Lilium maculatum D12 and/or Solidago ordorata D12.

4. Clever enough, but . . . Try Hypericum perf D30 and/or Pothos foetida D200.

5. Stuck. Build up to Antimonium tartaricum D200 by and by, from D30 for eight weeks first. And/or Fumaria officinalis. D30, and/or Streptococcin D200.

6. Needs to serve one's own home by and by. Daphne burkwoodii 'Somerset' D200. Try D1000 too after about 8 weeks. And/or Mercurius nitrosus D30 to D200.

7. Must adjust far better to male-female relationships too; not a great cause that makes less of you than to be desired. Fire opal D6.

No guarantee comes along with the attempts, however. It is possible to read about the single remedies on-line, and note the mental symptoms well before and after several months of the use.

These are suggestions for Sweet violet and Prickly ash, the two first remedies in the list: If you come across a flower or tree of these kinds, you could make an essence remedy of the flowers (by the so-called sun method). You may shake and dilute that again, heading for what is termed higher potencies by and by, if you learn how to. The same goes for Sweet violet. You could buy seeds and plant them where they get enough sunlight too, and go on from there. [◦Bach Centre: How to take the remedies]

The remedies from the top of the little list above

From a private symptom survey - right or wrong (- substantial tests are lacking).

Viola odorata. Viola odorata, Sweet violet: "Stagnated; smashed deep inside; slave of fashion; putting on some mask; referring to predecessors over and over; ashamed; others seem more or less openly paranoic; repression of painful memories and wishes, apprehensive."

Similar lists may be made for many remedies.

Zanthozylium americana. Zanthozylium americana is Prickly ash. "A deep need of connectedness; overreacting too; Modest and shy (of a regrettable monastic life-style); many unpleasant feelings of dislike or reluctance and uneasiness; disregard of the rights of others (the human rights of younger nuns, for example); stiff and apathetic; resists apologising to others; apprehensive. - Needs to develop feeling OK without "ji's" and the like, while not sacrificing too much for causes or systems, and to go for getting cultured."

Ocimum basilicum is basil. "Cowed; depressed; of broken faith; repressed, painful wishes and memories; if structures that brought security are removed, more or less; degenerating into falseness; your real treasures were robbed;" etc.

Sphagnum girgensohnii, (White) Bog moss. "Relational troubles, bugged. Skin troubles too."

Hypericum perforatum, Klamathweed. "Religious hypocricy. Disregard of feelings of others. The Schmuck. Over-justification."

Evolve this also: "Fend for yourself better, gently evolving it. All right enough to count too. Collating well. Learning from experience."

Pothos foetida, Skunk cabbage. "Worrying. Trying to do good without a sane or solid foundation. Stultified-adjusted."

Should "keep intact one's good boundaries better".

Antimonium tartaricum. "Regressions of essential id. Easily bigwig-swayed. Craves rules too much, or too many rules. High-flown desires. Suppressing oneself big-time. Morbidly haughtly at times."

Ad: "Try do go for personal integrity."

Fumaria officinalis. "Unjustly left out of account. Guilt-ridden underneath. Gruff and sour. Getting at best only poor returns for "marrying Jesus" or someone else ' up in the sky'"

Ad: "Try to go for attractive, personal tidiness and advance basic self-schemas (see Hi 474). And stick to the programs that help you."

Streptococcin. "Vulnerable, without much respect, and caught between barricades (cloister walls, for example)."

Ad (also called "the positive aspect": "Go for regaining decent enough, own heartiness."

Daphne x burwoodii 'Somerset'. "A very rotten egg culturally. Dishonesty. Stupidity, etc."

Mercurius nitrosus. "Resorting to monastic fashion (ways) for getting accepted. Marked by folly faith. Great self-pity, and great focus on orderliness along with it" - but decent self-respect is far better.

Fire opal. "Morbid from much feigning. Idyllisation (defence mechanism)." But: "Try, rather, to get something going for the elderly and finish good and decent projects."

A repeat: Many are free to try out informally or otherwise and see whether they note marked changes of attitude etc. "before and after three months or so."

~ೞ⬯ೞ~

Yoganandic Regrets and Disgust

Yogananda's biographer Dasgupta tells that the swami lost interest in the organisation he had formed and sought a desert hut in Twenty-Nine Palms, California, to live in. It was a marked part of the guru's life during the years before his passing [Psy].

Satyeswarananda too thinks Yogananda did indeed lose interest in his own monastic order, and brings a hand-written Yogananda letter in Bengali. It contains a Yogananda sentence that allows for this polite translation, "I have committed a great blunder by starting an organization." He likens it to eating faeces. Also: ". . . organization is the cause of much disharmony," and "I feel extremely tired of organization . . ." [1]

A search for alternative remedies to offer some amelioration or "take the top of" acute troubles, might yield:

Yogananda-like regrets

Mercurius dulcis D 12. - Also called Calomel, against nausea and vomiting - also attempting to ameliorate cirrhosis. When you feel so sick of the organisation you have started, that it feels like you have been eating faeces [1].

Simonite 10 MM - You won't find this one among the most resorted-to homeopathic remedies, and not such a high homeopatic potency of it either.

Xanthium spinosum 5 M. - If you have plunged into deep water over your head and get hysterical, this might offer some delicate but not immediate help.

Now, Yogananda told he had done many things for the fun of it. However, I have not found any specific confirmation that he set up his monastic order for fun, only sweeping statements like "When you are anchored in the Divine Consciousness [y]ou will make fun of your habits [Jse 49]" and, "Don't be like those who, day in and day out, take life so seriously they are afraid even to smile. . . . enjoy life. [Ak 353]."

There is evidence that this guru have left sincere followers despairing and alarmed, however. Many could need a helping hand.

Many guiding symptoms are left out above. But maybe they will do to illustrate some monastic phenomena, such as "stagnated, paranoic, resisting apologising, broken faith, degenerating into falseness, troubles (bugged), disregard of own business, morbid as to projects"" and so on.

As for the third of the SRF monastics who left the premises permanently, a life-changing transition might be difficult to the degree that year-long and deep-set attitudes have got in the way for proper handling of a life. Building a life fare can be hard when on one's own only late in life. That's when all the lovely girls have been married twice or more and are no longer girls. Some may tell they needed therapy as well.

For what you know for lack of scientifically accepted test results of it, the "whole package" of remedies above could work well, much better than any one of them alone, or just a few of them. And what could "work well" mean to those who are stuck? One effect could be that of "easing the burden" somehow. If not, some are helped by the placebo effect. Even a placebo may be of psychological benefit to a person. There is much documentation on that.