Have You Lost Your Inner Value? A Vignette on Aurum Metallicum Discussing an Excerpt From Our Book-in-Progress on Staphysagria
Video Transcription
Jeff Korentayer
Why, hello, Allyson McQuinn!
Allyson McQuinn
Well, hello, Jeffrey Korentayer! How are you?
Jeff Korentayer
I’m doing very well. Thank you so much. So the reason we are here today in this format is we want to talk about actually something that you recently wrote. You wrote a nice piece on the homeopathic remedy “Aurum Metallicum”. But to give that an even greater context, you were writing as a piece in the book in progress that we are both working on together on the remedy “Staphysagria”. That’s been a big project. But yeah, you’ve been very graciously stepping in and putting some of these pieces together. And why do we even want to do that? What if we’re writing a book about Staphysagria? Why are you writing about Aurum? Well, the main theme of Staphysagria is on the theme of dignity and honor and anger, victimization – things like that. And we wanted to take a range of some other homeopathic remedies, which can be used as comparisons for other aspects of anger and similar themes to the Staphysagria. So that’s the bigger context here today. But Allyson, do you want to talk a little bit about your article or at least the first point in your article where we’re starting with Aurum?
Allyson McQuinn
Yeah, with pleasure. And I think it came up because we were discussing over dinner the other night how Aurum is a remedy for this particular time that we find ourselves in. And I’ve been doing a lot of studying around Aurum as the remedy being derived from gold. And in Heilkunst and homeopathic studies, we always look at something called the doctrine of signatures, which means, really, How does gold feature historically and time.
Why this is important for our time is because a lot of people that have suddenly found themselves at home without their work, minimized with regards to being able to go out or access the things that they normally have access to, can actually really minimize our inner value. And this can cause an enormous amount of rage. And rightly so if we feel that our capacities or our generative power is being minimized, and especially if that’s not from our own choice. So just to lead off with what I had written in the chapter for Staphysagria about Aurum…
Jeff Korentayer
I’m just going to bring your document up on screen if that’s where you’re going to look at. And also, just if I could take one moment more here. I will ask anyone who is watching, you can type if you have any questions or even comments. And if you’re watching on Facebook or you’re watching on YouTube right now, feel free to type your comment or your question into the comment box and we will be able to address that live. We’ll just time it according to (if we’re in the middle of saying something, we’ll, of course, wait till the end of that before we bring your comment in). But yeah, we do appreciate all of that. And as I say, that’s open for you to enter down below. And I will turn it back over to Allyson in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. There you go, hon. So yeah, you’ve got your document and back to our regularly scheduled talk.
Allyson McQuinn
Awesome. Thank you. So Aurum is a homeopathic remedy, as I mentioned, derived from gold. And it’s interesting to note that prior to the federal reserve, a private company that was set up by the Rockefeller family, bank notes (and a lot of people don’t know this) are actually just a representation of the gold that you would have had in your bank account. So let’s say, you and I, Jeff, we had a business transaction and you wanted to buy a quarter of my cow so that you could have meat for the winter. On the basis of the gold that was in your bank account, because it was really heavy and to bring that gold bar out and bite off a chunk to give me in trade for the side of beef, that was gonna be really awkward. So these temporary or, really, representation and it’s funny that we call bills, you know, notes while they’re bills of sale. They’re bank notes. They’re notes, based on the gold that we use to hold in reserve within our bank accounts. Now it’s interesting to know that the federal reserve in modern times, actually is not related to any federal organization. It was started by the Rockefellers. And the interesting thing is that at any moment, the Rockefellers have the right to pull all those bank notes back in. And we’re like, “Oh my gosh, that’s my value in my wallet. That’s representative of the generative work that I’ve done.” And what we’re learning through this whole process is that, “Wow, my inner gold or self worth is actually hinged on an illusion.” Right? That’s why, right now, the crypto currencies are going wild. And people like Jeff Berwick is saying buy gold guys. Buy gold, because it is an opportunity to reclaim our worth.
Jeff Korentayer
And a couple of interesting things I want to comment on what you just said there, you we’re using that example of me buying a quarter of your cow. The interesting stat I saw recently, as far as the value of gold, it’s stayed quite steady over time. And the statistic I saw (I forgot the exact timeframe that was being compared), but basically, the value of one ounce of gold today will buy just about one whole cow. And that has remained a constant over the years. I forgot the timeframe they were using, but when they went back X number of years, the same constant was true – that one ounce of gold for one cow. So yeah, this whole idea you’re saying, Allyson, of when somebody else now comes in and they substitute the gold and it now becomes something you can manipulate, you’re right. It gets right into the theme of Aurum which is now somebody else can manipulate your value and you can’t express and manifest who you are and your value in the world, in that sense.
Allyson McQuinn
Yeah, well said. And I think, as I was studying and researching for writing this piece, I unearthed other interesting stories about people – men that have worked on Wall Street. And when the crash occurred in the 1930s, two of them (not as many as we were led to believe), walked just to the edge of the windows and jumped. And this is kind of a very Aurum rubric that we find in our literature a lot is that the individual, when they lose their value, it is an outer manifestation. If the stock market crashes, the idea is that my value should remain intact under the dominion of God or whatever creator gave me life. That state of mind is one that cannot be torn asunder, right? Or I’m in a state of Aurum.
What often has happened is that the thumbprint of a parent has told that child from early on. And I served a patient years ago where his father was the owner of seven multinational companies. And he gave him like a little piece of business to take care of underneath that umbrella of the seven month multinational companies. And just paraded the sun and made him feel awful. And he was out for a ski one day, and his father kept calling and saying, “You’re lousy,” “You’re useless,” “You have no value,” “You suck at this. I can’t trust you one bit.” I mean, it’s horrible and abusive. But this young man (this son), had never known anything other because he had never had it intrinsically embedded in him that his worth was sound.
So you can imagine, as practitioners, working with this patient. Or other practitioners in our field, working with individuals who have had their complete value, we wrote it. And really, then it becomes like an external decision by a false authority to define your value. And I think a lot, again, just going back, this has happened in this modern time that we’re in that were like, holy crap. I didn’t realize how much I could be puppeted by external forces of false authority. And erode my value now that I’m, maybe, home without a job, trapped with my kids who are really grappling with their own value because school has been their false authority. They’ve lost, really, the intrinsic or inherent knowledge of who they are with regards to learning and pursuit of happiness and liberty. So all of this is coming up for a lot of people right now.
Jeff Korentayer
And yeah, you’re right. It’s a very relevant remedy in the current situation for all the reasons you just said. And you reminded me as well, just now, of when we’re doing this comparison between the remedy Aurum and the remedy Staphysagria, they have a lot in common – with a lot of dots we can join between the two of them. But as you’re saying here, the Aurum is related to this inner value. And as far as our creative capacity or productive capacity in the world, the obvious examples of having a job and going to a job and feeling that sense of purpose every day, that’s the Aurum. That’s the Aurum meaning, that’s that sense. Where in Staphysagria – the sense of anger, the sense of dignity, all these other things – are coming from a different place. And in the Staphysagria remedy, the main remedy of this book, you can say it’s a dignity or it’s a sense of identity, which gets more to the general human dignity or the broader sense of who our human identity is. So that’s where we have all the things like human rights, and of course, all the change in our society over the last number of decades between equalization of rights, between races, and between genders and all these things. That’s getting more to the Staphysagria sense of that human dignity or human identity. Whereas the Aurum, as you were just describing it, Allyson, has more that sense of our productive or creative capacity, how we are expressing ourselves in the world as far as those those abilities or capacities. So you’re just reminding me of that, Allyson. I wanted to mention that.
And for anyone, by the way, if anyone has been following our progress on the Staphysagria book, you can go to this page, on our website, arcanum.ca/staphysagria. And if you scroll down, you can enter your name and email. And we don’t send very many emails at all to this. That’s just for sending out news of when the book will be ready to be published. But yes, if you’re interested in what we’re talking about here, boy, wait till you see the book. It’s gonna be full of all kinds of fun stuff like this.
Allyson McQuinn
Yeah, I find it interesting that you make that comparison between Staphysagria and Aurum. And it became very profound for me when I was writing this section on Aurum. Staphysagria, if they have something in their hand and they become incited by rage, they’ll pitch it, right? But Aurum, due to the lack or the loss of dignity, will pitch themselves. They don’t even think about their value at that moment when the Wall Street crashed and became this great depression. They didn’t even think about it. They walked to the edge and jump. They don’t even have any premeditated thoughts around it. It’s just a done deal. And that’s the thing that I really want to bring up. Because right now people are feeling bereft and they have, in many cases, lost their inner value because of this whole pandemic thing. And so the concerning factor is that, and I’m writing this, I’m thinking, “Oh my gosh. We have to tell people that there is a way, really, to get their value back, to help them find new meaning in a different way and actually craft their world.” So that it’s not based on how many paychecks they get from an outside provider. That they have a way through their own creativity. I know because I’ve been connected to the world schoolers for so long. These are people that live all over the world, put a backdrop down and teach English as a second language to children in Japan and China. There are always creative ways to solve these problems. And if you’re not suffering from the Aurum state of mind, it makes it a whole heck of a lot easier to access that creative generative power within us.
Jeff Korentayer
Totally. Yes. Now, you have right in front of your screen here. This story you wrote of an Aurum picture that you experienced (you witnessed) in your own life. Do you want to read that or do you want to contextualize it first?
Allyson McQuinn
No, I can read that. So while I was at university (just apologize for the sirens in the background), I was invited to a roommate’s sister’s house for supper with their family. And the husband, still wearing his suit over supper, spoke about nothing but the goings on in his office. Not one individual present seemed to be paying attention, including his wife (and my friend’s sister). I could tell by looking in her eyes that this was a daily occurrence. And then two months passed, and I was invited back again, as I never said no to free food at that time in my life, because University was lean times. When we arrived, the house was really quiet. And it turned out the husband had been let go of his job. And he was beyond devastated. He was distraught. And I was alarmed at appearance because he looked like a street person. Like an alcoholic down on his luck. He’d lost an incredible amount of weight. At the time, he was nursing a scotch and his eyes were really red rimmed. Clearly, he had been crying. And it seemed that all that vitality had been sucked right from his very being in a most distressing way. And so I decided to sit with him and find out what he was feeling. And as he began to talk, he really started to choke up and he couldn’t actually continue. And his wife came to comfort him by putting her hand on his back. And he was really a shell of his former self, and I wondered if he had the capacity to transcend this profound insult to himself in his psyche.
Jeff Korentayer
Yeah, I think those are some of the most helpful when we have a personal experience, a personal story, like that. For one, like for yourself, for ourselves, it really can cement such an image in our minds really coming to understand a remedy. But likewise, it’s almost as good when you tell that story. It now becomes a teaching story for anyone listening. So I think, as I’m saying, those real life images (those real life stories) are just so full of all of the characteristics that we’re really looking for to understand a given remedy. Right? It’s not just, you know, this is I think… Actually, just yesterday I was doing a video on another topic, but this is what is reminding me of here is when you have a false approach to diagnosis, you just get these generalized abstract labels, “Oh, somebody has depression,” “Somebody has feeling suicidal,” “They have this,” “They have that,” just kind of a generic list of symptoms. But when you give this really vivid, living story, you can really feel the energy of that remedy is. So, I thank you for bringing this in and your great storytelling around that.
Allyson McQuinn
With pleasure. And just to go back to that other fellow that I served many, many years back. As his father was yelling at him on the ski hill, he kept having to take his glove off. And when he got down to the bottom, he realized that both his hand and his ear, that it had exposed from his had to listen to his father screaming at them, were both frostbitten. And the interesting thing about Aurum, really, is that there’s another aspect or another remedy that we study in relationship a lot of the time called Agaricus. And we’re going to write another bit on that today. That’s my project today. And Agaricus is the chief remedy for being suppressed by false authority. But it’s also one of our chief remedies for frostbite.
Jeff Korentayer
Mm hmm. Totally. Yeah. Now, that’s an interesting case for having both the Aurum and the Agaricus part to it. But, anyways, that will take us a little bit further away from our main point. But, yeah, that is a good story.
Allyson McQuinn
Talk about, Jeff, if you will, something you mentioned over our shake this morning, about dignity. The difference between dignity and Staphysagria and in Aurum, if you will. You’re talking about the upper man and the lower man, I was really fascinated by what you were saying.
Jeff Korentayer
Yeah, it is. Thank you for reminding me. Yeah, that is definitely a key theme, or an idea, between the two remedies. The idea of dignity and now, what is different, like what is the Staphysagria dignity versus the Aurum dignity. And as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, the Staphysagria, their dignity is based on the generic sense of human dignity. “How dare you talk to me that way?” or “How dare you assume I’m…?” Like, “Don’t treat me like a stereotype. But treat me like an individual,” kind of thing. That’s the Staphysagria dignity. Whereas the Aurum, their dignity is coming more from their productive creative power. Now, the question you just asked there, where do we ground that? Well, in the broader understanding of Heilkunst medicine, we look at our whole physiology in terms of their being two beings (two human beings). When here, we are looking at Allyson and Jeff on the screen. When you understand human physiology, there’s actually four people. There’s upper Jeff, there’s lower Jeff; there’s upper Allyson, there’s lower Allyson. So there’s actually four of us doing a broadcast right now. Now to put that into our context of Staphysagria and Aurum, when that dignity is contradicted or frustrated, in Staphysagria you’re getting much more of an expression of the upper being, being frustrated. And in the case of the Aurum remedy, it’s the nether being. So, what that means is in Staphysagria you’ll get what we call anger (the word ‘anger’) and in Aurum I think we’d be much more correct to call that rage instead of anger. And if you’ve ever wondered, “Well, is there a difference between anger and rage?” Well, a good start to that is the anger comes from the upper being and the rage comes from the nether being. In a way, I always think of rage, if you think of that old (I guess, maybe it’s been revised now) that old TV show (it’s a new movie now) The Incredible Hulk. Well, that was an artistic portrayal of rage. When this whole other big green guy kind of pops out, and he can throw cars and do all these things. That’s the activity of rage. Or let’s put it in a positive light. When you hear those stories of just like a baby gets trapped under a car or something like that. The mother, not even knowing what she’s doing, she’s operating from a completely different state of mind. She can come and she can lift up the front end of that car and rescue the baby. Where in a normal waking state, she couldn’t lift something like that. Like we don’t normally think we have that kind of strength. But when you tap into that nether being (which is where the rage comes from, which is also where these tremendous heroic acts can come from as well), that’s that nether being shining right through and really taking over the situation. So that’s to back it up to this difference between the Staphysagria anger and the Aurum rage. That’s really this physiology that we’re looking at – the upper being, the nether being. They both have two very different ways of being in the world, basically.
Allyson McQuinn
Yeah. Well said. So do you want to take a look at what you’d pulled up from Morrison?
Jeff Korentayer
Sure, let me just switch screens here. Oh, yeah, there we are. So Roger Morrison is one of our favorite homeopathic Materia Medica as it’s a very quick reference. And I just have his pages here. And a lot of the things we’ve talked about – the depressive tendency of Aurum, the suicidal tendency – you find that in any Materia Medica. Those are pretty standard features of Aurum. But one of the sides of Aurum, Allyson, you’ve done a really good job portraying the whole state of mind about losing your job. And that story you told of the man who almost looked like a homeless man in his own home. He was so disheveled and all the rest of it. That’s a very clear picture of Aurum. But I like what he has here in the Morrison book. He has another side, almost like a hidden side, of Aurum where you wouldn’t see someone as, you know, you wouldn’t call them depressed or suicidal, they wouldn’t even call themselves that. It’s not a thought they have about themselves. But there’s a certain kind of, let’s say, intensity or focus, when they latch on, especially if things of a spiritual nature. They may latch on to a spiritual practice or meditation practice or any number of things like that. And they will do it with such an intensity. It’s kind of coming from this more of this Aurum compensation. They’re trying to grasp on to some kind of thread of meaning in their world. And it’s interesting the way I just said that, the grasping on to meaning. Because I believe you said earlier today, Allyson, (I can’t remember if I just remembered you writing this earlier or me reading it) but the Aurum is related back to the syphilitic miasm. And the syphilitic miasm, again, that’s where the hopelessness, the suicidal feelings, the despair in Aurum comes from because syphilis has all of that in spades. And this whole idea of, as I said, just grasping onto something with this intensity (grasping on for something that’s going to give them their life meaning), and as I say, they don’t even think of themselves as depressed or suicidal or anything like that. But it’s coming out of this syphilitic miasm where that’s the whole essence of syphilis is the very basis of life is destroyed – there is no sense of meaning, there is no sense of hope. We’re just kind of putting one foot in front of the other going through our life, going through our days. But yeah, syphilis, that of course, can lead to the depression and the suicidal thoughts and all the rest of it. But even before then, we have this much more generalized sense of erosion – the whole sense of meaning of life is just kind of whittled away. And if you look at our modern world (our modern society), we very much live in a syphilitic world, right? Again, we have great material abundance by and large, obviously, in our North American lifestyles than many other parts of the world. But yet, there’s a great shadow to that. There can be an incredible spiritual emptiness where more and more people don’t have any idea of what gives life meaning other than “Okay, we’ve booked the next holiday (the next vacation),” this and that. Of course, our topic today on Aurum and all the job losses and other losses that are happening through the current pandemic lockdowns. But regardless of that, let’s say, we weren’t in such a situation, we still find ourselves living in this very syphilitic world. And therefore, this is why we see this very strong overlay of Aurum in our modern world. I’m sorry, so to bring bring it back full circle to the point I started with. So, when we’re in the Morrison and we see this other side that he portrays (this deep intensity or seriousness that someone will latch on to some form of spiritual pursuit – as I said, whether that’s meditation, yoga practice or all the different variations on that – there’s nothing wrong with those things), but other than when we detect that there’s this kind of Aurum drive or an intensity to it, there’s another meaning that’s going on here. And that’s, as I say, that’s what I’m calling the hidden side of Aurum where people don’t realize how their drives are working that matter.
Allyson McQuinn
Yeah. And, I’ve seen it a lot of recent because of the events of recent in women as well – women who have had their purpose stolen from them. And that’s how they perceive that. They can run multiple businesses at home. They can have a thriving yoga practice or be yoga instructors. They can be also meditators – people who are very hyper religious. And it’s all, again, this outside in, really, sense of one’s value – as long as they’re doing all of the things that society says is productive. They’ve derived their wealth or sense of their self very much from these external definitions. So, again, it’s not just business men and women that can suffer an Aurum state. It also can be homeschoolers. And I’ve seen that to people – women that educate their kids at home. At 10 o’clock they do their yoga and then they have their oils business and then they pray or meditate. It’s very regimented, but they’ve forgotten in all of this. And it’s very much a product of our intellectual age that we live in. And again, it’s this definition from the outside in, as opposed to really knowing that as a human with breath in my lungs, I’m enough. With the creative thought in my mind, “I’m enough.” Or “I’m being in an Aurum state,” will rip that knowledge away from the individual. And then the rage just comes over and over. It’s like, “Well, I did this thing. How come God’s not looking after me?” or, “I prayed and I did this business thing. Why isn’t it yielding?” or, “My kids and I are constantly fighting because I want them to do these things.” And again, we’re just imparting the same Aurum state of mind. That’s why I wrote the book about schooling, which is Self-education for Excellence, because I want parents to know that they can actually create a different paradigm for their children, which is that you’re enough. And that you get the opportunity (really, that God-given opportunity), to self-invoke out of volition, who it is you want to be as a result of that inner value intact.
Jeff Korentayer
Very excellent. Yeah. And that’s the key point right there it is. It does come from the inside, and not from the outside. And that’s precisely the challenge or the struggle in the Aurum disease state of mind, that when it’s either literally lost like losing a job or losing that external validation. But yes, that’s the true lesson and the true meaning that comes from that Aurum remedy. Now, we’re probably gonna wrap up shortly. But certainly, we’re so happy to take any of your questions. You can just type them into the question box below. Or, conversely, if you like coming on camera, that’s an option, too. I got a link where you can come and join us.
Allyson McQuinn
We can pipe people in?
Jeff Korentayer
Pipe people in, yeah. Like the news at six o’clock. You know, professional studio.
Allyson McQuinn
Yeah, not the fake news.
Jeff Korentayer
Not the fake news. Real news, real good news.
Allyson McQuinn
Put out the link again, honey, for the book. If you will.
Jeff Korentayer
Oh, of course. Yeah. And if you would like to get news on as we progress through the writing of this Staphysagria book, you can go ahead to our website here, and you can just enter your name and email. We barely ever email to that list. That’s, as I say, just for sending out news when the book is ready to go to print and all the rest of that. But yeah, otherwise, if you don’t have any questions, we’ll wait for another minute or so. I know there’s a delay between our talking and when it goes back and forth from where you’re watching us. So we’re doing a little bit of time traveling here. We’re about one minute in the future from where you guys are coming from. So I’ll keep it open for a moment if someone is still typing. Yeah, we are getting some nice thank you’s and things like that. So, you’re very welcome. We appreciate your attention and sharing the time with us today.
Allyson McQuinn
Just to mention the timeline in the book, hon. We’ve written multiple books published. I have about 20 of them out on to Amazon. But it’s not an easy thing. Think about it as the gestation of an elephant, especially these big heady research pieces there. It takes a lot to pull this together and also have full practice answering acutes on a regular basis when we’re not in front of our patients a few days a week. So, just thank you so much for your patience. We’re going just as fast as our little legs can carry us. This time has actually helped us a little bit because we are also sequestered where we are in the world. And so, yeah, we still have to get up and move and walk around a bit and take a hike and get some groceries. So like you, I feel that it always takes longer than you ever think.
Jeff Korentayer
Mm hmm. What’s the thing? Take your estimate and multiply it by 10? And then, (inaudible)? Yeah.
Allyson McQuinn
All right. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for taking time out. I know Fridays are really busy for you in many regards. So thank you for sharing this space with me and just doing this work with me and discussing and living it with me.
Jeff Korentayer
Well, it’s my pleasure. Yeah, when you suggested this, I jumped right all over it. I’m just excited for this, too.
Allyson McQuinn
Awesome.
Jeff Korentayer
Okay. Well, thank you all again. And we will see you whenever we next see you.
Allyson McQuinn
Bye for now.
Jeff Korentayer
Bye for now.