Specifically, in accord with our topic of calcium and calcification, here are some pertinent quotes from Kervran:
• ‘The production of limestone by organic silica, as explained by the reaction Si28 + C12 → Ca40, has only recently attracted the attention of modern scientists…. even though the phenomenon was generally known in antiquity. The therapeutic method of recalcification has been used only rarely, for the most part by doctors who are traditionalists, healers and homoeopaths, etc, believing in natural remedies. Wasn’t it heresy to say that silica could recalcify? It was a denial of Lavoisier’s chemistry, still official. That is probably why plants rich in silica, such as horsetail, were very recently erased from the pharmacopoeia in France.
• ….Nature has many ways to prevent a deficiency resulting not from the lack of an element but from an insufficient production of the enzyme that carries out the transmutation. Calcium is not assimilable, at least not for man – unless it is proved otherwise. Decalcification may occur when there is a deficiency of the enzyme which transmutes sodium into magnesium. It is much better to recalcify with potassium and organic silica.
• Decalcification can then occur when saltless diets are prescribed, especially diets without chloride.
• There has never been a counter-indication for the use of silica, except in excess as with any kind of food; however, the body’s silica tolerance is great.
• Organic silica’s action is fast: nails cease breaking and become normal in after fifteen days if extracts are used; a longer time is required for horsetail decoctions. …I shall demonstrate that fractures are repaired and healed faster with organic silica extracts than with the administration of calcium.
• Mineral calcium is a residue and the organism does not assimilate it; it is found in the terminal stage in man and in higher animals. However, plants have the opposite reaction and can use calcium directly. For man, organic silica (which can only be found in plants in the springtime) must be used, because mineral silica has the opposite effect: it decalcifies.’
Very often the patient is asked by the doctor or encouraged by an article in a health magazine or daily media, to take a calcium supplement. Generally this is Calcium Carbonate, which is chalk or lime by another name. Up to 1500 mg of chalk is advised. This is unusable by the body, as Kervran observes, worsens the available calcium, and has various negative effects, some dramatic, others subtle. Only in some patients where calcium carbonate is homoeopathic to them can this be prescribed, but better to offer it attenuated (D3 or D6). One case came to my attention – that a calcium supplement improved the patient’s heat – they stopped feeling cold.
Silica – the calcium re-organiser
Silica’s relation to calcium is the most important consideration that comes from the homoeopathic-naturopathic world. Homoeopathically silica has proved valuable in cases of decalcification. Examples of decalcifying processes are tuberculosis and other lung ailments, as well as skin diseases, cracks and fissures. Falling hair and brittle nails, white spots in the nail, is an early sign of decalcification.
It is with the treatment of these minor but irritating conditions that the organism is set on a healing path. The appropriate remedy early in the life of patients, who show such symptoms of minor decalcification, will prove valuable in the longer term. Some constitutions and temperaments will be more susceptible and the practitioner must educate him or herself in this.
Silica in its crystalline form is often termed solidified light. Thinking and thought is also light within and leads us also to consider silica in the treatment of nervous disorders, so apparent in today’s world. Nervousness, stress, fear all call on calcium as previous article suggests. But the treatment is silica, especially in dietary form. The best-known high silica content plants are oats (Avena sativa) – eat whole oats (groats) or your porridge daily and drink tea made from oat straw and horsetail (Equisetum arvense). Readers requiring specific recipes for herbs and oats, please ask.
For bones fractures, thin and brittle bones, Calc Phos D6 trituration has seen brilliant results. For the aged, the higher potencies are given. The herbs Symphytum (comfrey), Ruta graveolens(complementary to Calc Phos), are used for the healing of bone injuries, factures, and sprains. One will need to determine which are the most similar to the patient, with respect to symptoms, to have these healing herbs work with the inner being, the spirit dynamic.
The other famous, or infamous Frenchman, who has dealt with the important role of silica in life, is Loïc Le Ribault. His work was as France’s top forensic scientist, but he is also the discoverer of an organic silica product he now markets LLR-G5 Organic Silica – with outstanding success in its consumption.
The Spirit of Calcium
In any discussion on osteoporosis, we need to address the body as a profound organism. The deficiency of calcium in the bone structure may not necessarily be addressed by having the individual ingest crude calcium, or perceived calcium rich foods. This is very ‘allopathic’ in approach and may simply worsen the situation.
The formation of bones (and teeth) in the intensive mineralisation process is dependent on the presence of other minerals and especially enzymes, as Kervran pointed out. If new or renewal of bone mass is to take place, then the key minerals in an available form must be considered. Kervran shows the importance of silica as a calcium former and reorganiser, but also magnesium and potassium. This is also connected to the homoeopathic use of silica, and related remedies. What is also singularly ignored most often is the evidence of calcium blockers – that is, those foods and activities with hinder the uptake or assimilation of calcium in the body, in other words, the in vivo processes.
‘Feeling there is no support left in life.’
Mental and emotional conditions should not be passed over as incidental in the patient with calcic disorders. Poorer nutritional quality of modern foods cannot be ignored in the role of diminished bone mass – but there is a concomitant to this – a change in social and spiritual outlook in people. The excessive desire for materialism (which manifests in part as living as sensual beings, and as wanton consumerists) means that an individual lives outside of himself. One often hears the phrase that people are everywhere ‘off their heads’ and the need for ‘being centred’ or ‘grounded.’ This thinking, and those conditions which engender nervousness, destroy the bone.
Thinking that is sensual and material is outside of the body to the detriment of the integrity of the body human. This means that the cause per se of osteoporosis may well be embedded in our worldly view, which is inappropriate to the future harmonious development of humanity. Expressed in other words, people given to decreased bone mass need to carefully consider their antipathies, their coldness or hatred which may have given rise to this. In a homoeopathic case taking, states of mind are generally sought of the patient. Only in this way can remedies which are homoeopathic (similar to the totality of symptoms) be prescribed and heal the patient.
To this extent, then, the patient with the guidance of the physician can undertake nutritional alterations based on appropriate whole foods, so called lifestyle changes to incorporate walking outside in the open air and gentle movement (depending on the patient’s condition); mineral therapy in low attenuations (based on silica as the calcium precursor), and herbal teas to augment; and the homoeopathic remedy based on the constitutional case and the presenting symptoms. In addition to these, one should undertake inner exercises and meditations which teach the patient to feel the bones – to actually beinside the bones. In the previous NP (June 2005, issue #5. Pp 16-17) I gave the Chinese Bone Breathing Exercise. This is to warm the bones and live. The inner experiences are with the bones and not the brain.
© Cornelis van Dalen 2006
Endnotes:
1. Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of St. Mark, Anthroposophic Press, USA, 1986, p. 12
2. Gerhard Schmidt, Essential of Nutrition, Bio-Dynamic Literature, USA, 1987, p. 244
3. Rudolf Steiner, Introducing Anthroposophical Medicine, Anthroposophical Press, USA, 1999, p. 118
4. Prof C. Louis Kervran, Biological Transmutations, English translation Michel Abehsera, Happiness Press, Asheville, NC, USA, 1998 edition.
5. Chemical elements are symbolised with letters: K=potassium; H=hydrogen; Ca=calcium; Mg=magnesium; O=oxygen; S=Silica; C=carbon; the numbers are the given the atomic weight of an element (the number of protons in a single atom of chemical element. This is based on the Periodic Table of the Elements devised by Dmitri Mendeleyev (1834-1907 ) grouping elements by weight and properties.
6. Kervran Pp45-46
7. See Part One – the Spirit of Calcium, Summer Issue #9, and the School of New Physis lectures on The Four Temperaments and The Human Organs & The Four Elements.
8. D6 = 6X, decimal dilution, D is used in Europe, X in UK.
9. ‘The Persecution and Resistance of Loïc le Ribault’ by Martin J. Walker published in Nexus MagazineVolume 12 #3 & #4, 2005. Ribault’s webpage at http://www.loicleribault.com