Repertory › Remedies in the repertory

Lycopodium clavatum (Lyc.)

Lycopodium clavatum (Lyc.) appears in 3,023 rubrics in the Repertory. Of these, 204 are single-remedy rubrics in which only this remedy is listed, and 273 are small rubrics with at most two other remedies. The emphasis lies on Children, which lead in total number with 461 rubrics, on Fear, Anxiety, Ailments from mortification and disappointment, Delusions and Mistakes in speaking and writing. From these rubrics emerges the picture of a person who outwardly shows authority, ambition and superiority and is inwardly beset by insecurity and fear of failure.

Ambition and the goal

The core lies in a goal that is at once drive and burden. As king-pin symptoms the Repertory names two rubrics: "Ambition – increased, ambitious – means, employs all conceivable" and "Fear, phobia – goal, of not reaching his/her". They belong together like claim and doubt. The person employs every means to realize his destiny and for that very reason fears failing at it. In keeping with this are the single-remedy rubrics that record the will to prove oneself, the struggle for recognition and the fear of loss of power; only Lycopodium is listed under "Power – loss of power, fear of". The small rubrics cite ailments from disappointed ambition, the loss of ambition after discouragement and the feeling that life is an eternal examination: "Life – examination, feeling life is an eternal".

Domination and facade

Outwardly this claim appears as domination. The rubrics record a despotic, dictatorial and domineering nature, claiming everything for oneself, the tendency to play others off against one another or to let others work, know-it-all attitude and contempt. They also show how the attitude is propped up: by externals that take the place of inner security ("Externals – outer insignia instead of inner self-confidence"), by dressing up, fastidiousness in appearance and boasting of ancestors, potency and heroic deeds. The person wants to be admired rather than loved, and gives everything when flattered. What lies behind is betrayed by the single-remedy rubric "Haughty, arrogant, overbearing – alternating with – cowardice": superiority tips into cowardice, and the dictatorial alternates with it just as selfishness does. Where she feels weak she does not reveal herself, for insecurity is masked, anxiety covered over, her own weakness not seen.

Fear of observation and exposure

Fear is broadly fanned out and directed at whatever endangers the facade. Recorded are the anxiety of being observed, of exposure, of new acquaintances, of encounters and of being at the mercy of others; in addition come embarrassment, anticipation and the fear of public speaking, which the person does manage, but only in panic. Observation makes the face blush. Fear also takes possession of the everyday, most clearly in the single-remedy rubric "Fear, phobia – doorbell, of the ringing of the". Beside the fear of being alone stands the wish to be alone. One can read in this a person who fears closeness because it makes him visible, and solitude because it exposes him.

Mortification and feeling

Where the facade is wounded, ailments follow. The single-remedy rubrics name anxiety after humiliation and mortification, weeping when not thanked, and weeping at ingratitude. The person can feel emotions but cannot express them, and passes over feelings. A single-remedy rubric records that she wishes to hand over responsibility, other rubrics that she seeks out authorities and believes in authority. The relationship to those closest remains broken: the person cannot bring herself to a binding relationship, and her rubrics record malice toward loved ones.

Children

The rubrics for children form the largest field. Here the double face returns, for instance in the single-remedy rubric "Children, general – domineering, yet secretly in need of protection and fearful". There are children who are difficult at home but normal at school, who suddenly become quiet and inactive, who answer questions with silence or delay their work. The child is anxious about its safety, stutters at the end of the sentence, and the newborn frowns. For adults the Repertory records as counterpart that they flee their own children.

Speech, reading and memory

A conspicuous group concerns speaking and writing. The person transposes letters when speaking, uses wrong words with indigestion, stutters on the last words of a sentence and cannot read a letter just written. Memory loses letters, colors and music. Speech is thick and indistinct in the morning. Thinking also shows opposites: there is the lightning-quick, the dialectical and the precocious, beside the ability to master everything, and an aversion to thinking in the evening.

Delusion, night and waking

The delusions lead into the night. Recorded are images and phantoms in sleep, music heard during the day that echoes in the head in the evening, the sensation that the bed is sinking down, and the idea of being poor without showing it. Waking is especially burdened: with indecision, impatience, quarrelsomeness, unpleasant thoughts, thoughts of death and weariness of life in bed in the morning. Even in sleep the person growls and barks.

Summary

Lycopodium shows in the Repertory a person who defines himself by goals, rank and bearing, and whose strength lives on the fear of not measuring up. Mortification and exposure strike him harder than the facade reveals; the tension discharges in domineering behavior, withdrawal or physical complaint. Already in the child the pattern of a domineering yet protection-seeking nature is visible.

A reference work for professionals; it does not replace diagnosis or treatment.