Thuja
Anhang
[Aisling Murray]
Is garden shrub (dwarf form). Have regular, graceful
conical forms that make them valuable as high hedge trees. The wood is used for
fencing and palings, as a light roofing timber. The fresh branches are much
used in
as a broom, which have a pleasing scent. The leaves
and twigs yield a camphor-like essential oil that can be distilled from the
leaves and used to expel intestinal worms. The foliage is rich in vitamin C.
The American Indians
used it to treat scurvy. Used in fever/rheuma
(ointment with fat from leaves)/dropsy/coughs/to induce or hasten menstrual
flow.
Trees convey the notion of growth, strength and
longevity, grandeur, survival and incorruptibility. Due to its longevity,
incorruptible resin and evergreen leaves, Thuja has been associated with
immortality (Tree of Life).
For this reasons it is planted in graveyards and has
its place as the funeral tree in the Mediterranean region. It is the tree of
life but also the tree of death, a tree for all seasons. This is also the
mental picture of Thuja. The
name Thuja is a Latinized form of a Greek word meaning
‘to fumigate,’ or thuo (‘to sacrifice’), as the fragrant wood was burnt by the
ancients with sacrifices. The Greek word Thujas means “raving women”. The Greek
word Thusia means “a burnt offering”, a sacrifice.
The Sycotic Miasm
Thuja is a strongly sycotic remedy characterised by
overproduction and excess. The picture of the sychotic state is one where
individuals may have inflated egos with an ability and tendency towards
performance. The response to the feeling of being out of balance is to
overcompensate. They feel like something is wrong with them, that there’s
something broken, brittle or weak within themselves, so they attempt to cope by
covering it up.
Often is read that Thuja becomes secretive,
manipulative and defiant, but actually that’s not normally the case. They’re
some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They always take their remedy exactly
as they’re supposed to. Why? It’s because they suffer from guilt as they cover
up their perceived failings and try and be all things for all people. They fear
that their weaknesses may be exposed. They play many roles according to their
company and surroundings and model themselves to people in their lives who they
admire and hide behind that mask.
Antidotes
oral contraceptives, HRT (= hormon replacement), fertility treatments, chemotherapy,
and steroid therapy.
Causes:
Following recurrent infections (e-coli/Chlamydia/trichamona/candida/fungal
infections/herpes simplex/herpes genitalia/human papilloma virus/shingles).
Never
been well since Chicken Pox
Self
abuse with drugs, alcohol, excessive tea/coffee drinking, tobacco, sexual
excesses.
<
sweets/onion/garlic/alcohol/chemicals (sulphur and mercury)
Birth
trauma, head injury – a resistance to being born.
Sensitive
to cold/wet
It affects
all organs that are ovoid (shape of the tree/bush) – polyps, ovaries, testes,
pancreas, spleen, endocrine glands, thyroid and the pathology
characteristically includes excess of discharges.
Fleshiness
– increased water retention so they put on weight. There may be vast changes in
weight (morning to night), they swell when they travel or go to the seaside.
Slow
metabolism: A Thuja patient in health is splendid to see. They are very
handsome men and very beautiful women with the perfect, athletic body. They
create a mask through the body
itself and perfection through plastic surgery.
Great attention is paid to diet, eating and drinking where it can reach
obsessive levels. Then as the sycotic miasm takes hold, the metabolism
slows down, a tendency towards true obesity.
They take on an oval form. The trunk becomes fat. Thin legs and arms, extra
breasts if it’s a man and overhanging abdomen.
The
contraceptive Pill causes lymphatic oedema so they gain weight and are never
able to get rid of it. With HRT the breasts grow, or one may grow and the other
may not, and become
overweight. Sometimes the weight may be another mask, as in Calc where
the weight is another shell. Thuja is also good for infertility where
indicated.
High
cholesterol
Poly
cystic kidneys
Pancreas:
cystic fibrosis.
Nails:
Thickened, deformed, overgrowth (sil), undulations of the nail, elongated
stripes and ridges can be felt and seen. Transverse corrugation, going out and
coming back –
often as a reaction to stress and it’s laid
down in the nail bed.
Skin:
Facial skin can be course with an
Like the tree, it’s like dandruff. They lose
hair from parts they don’t want to lose hair from – eyebrows, pubic hair– the
older Thuja particularly. Sweat on uncovered parts. Sweat when asleep. Smelly
feet, armpits and groin.
Nature
conspires to make them ugly nearly!
Eruptions
and growths, warts and tumours of all sorts (face). Specific red tumors, red
nodules, papillomas, port wine stains are common. They may have a broad fleshy
nose, red veins and capillaries on
the nose.
There may be conspicuous temporal arteries because there can be high blood
pressure. Endocrine disorders (Cushings disease/Addison’s disease).
Pigmentation of the skin from hormone
therapy,
the pill or HRT or alternatively vitiligo where patches of skin have lost pigmentation.
Scars and keloids.
A very
important feature is fungal infections. There may be a history of antibiotic
treatment. Mycosis may be part of the picture where fungal infection occurs
through inhalation of fungal spores or where
fungus manages
to pass the resistance barrier of the skin and cause infection (Sepia, Bas).
Hormonal conditions bringing on repeated bouts of Candida, or there can be
thrush from the pill.
Mental and Emotional Themes and Possibilities
Very secretive and commonly perceived as deceitful as
a result. The deceit is not apparent in the Thuj. They are some of the nicest
people you’ll ever meet. They believe themselves to be fragile. They often
maintain that their health, or their body, will always let them down, so may present
as hypochondriac.
Can be very religious. Here is a good indication of
the extremes of the sycotic miasm. They have an image of themselves as being
clean-living and upright members of society, yet they have low self esteem.
This may be covering hidden sexual desires about which they are guilt-ridden.
FEAR of pregnancy, often feel as though they are pregnant, and this brings
about feelings of guilt.
(DD.: Med. = openly sexual).
Sankaran: coming from a situation which demands
rigidity of thinking, so it suits them to engage in activities that lend
themselves to this, such as practicing strict religious beliefs.
Social security lies in adhering, or at least
appearing to adhere to, religious norms. Inside however the person feels
brittle or fragile. In his manner he looks straight and fixed and his ideas and
views do not allow for any freedom of thinking. Yet from inside there is always
a fear of being exposed and his whole cover breaking down; this makes him stiff
and cautious in the presence of strangers.
Fall from grace symbolised in dreams of falling, from
which he wakes up with a fright.
Sankaran: one of the main indications is a
feeling of being frail or fragmented – a feeling of weakness within oneself,
that something is “wrong” with oneself. These patients think that food and
alcohol are bound to cause them problems and that their system cannot take
things such as drugs, allergens, emotional stress or exposure to a draft of
air. Try to avoid all such things and attempt to keep themselves covered to
avoid exposure to the same. These avoidances only reinforce the fear and this
vicious cycle is not broken, making Thuja one of the main remedies for
neurosis, with obsessive compulsive tendencies and fixed ideas and behaviour
patterns.
In the emotional sphere the feeling of fragility is
manifest in the fear of losing face in society. The person can believe that he
has a certain image in society of being a religions, upright, clean, honest
person, free from human failings such as dishonesty, sexual temperament etc.
Thus he presents an elevated picture of himself as he is afraid that any slip
on his part might reveal the real person or the “bad” part of him, which he has
tried so hard to cover up. In this “bad part” lies his dishonesty, sexual
desires (which can even be for close relatives), his immoral or irreligious
feelings. If this is discovered, he will fall from his imagined elevated
position and will be finished. Thus his survival depends on a complete cover
up, and there is tremendous anxiety about being exposed.
Secretive and talks to the physician as if sharing a
secret. He is ever conscious of the presence of other people (strangers). „As
if floating in the air“. Dreams of falling from high places.
Borland: Thuja is truthful, scrupulous in
everything they do = so deceptive you will think they are being honest. Thuj.
resembles Sil. Sil. can degrade into Thuja. Thuj. more deceptive, may have a
hidden or secretive, private life. Thuj. = actor/a chameleon remedy/a different
person in different circumstances. Morally correct, can be closed and present
as perfectly symmetrical with not a hair out of place. Aim at
perfection/nothing can be wrong, so they can’t be spontaneous/likes to be
invisible. „As if being like glass“ (theme of fragility and transparency)/don’t
want to be seen/seek to be isolated. There’s a sense of alienation within them
and they can feel incompatible with their environment. Aur. = very close to
Thuja. They try to conceal what they can’t suppress. What they can’t conceal
becomes sexual.
They come across as being happy, even when sad. They
can suppress emotion/grief, much farther than <yx Nat-m. In the midst of
their sadness they are soliciting for sympathy, which people don’t give them.
And when they don’t get the sympathy they are resentful. Where awful traumas
have taken place and the grief is very deep, they can fall into coma. In labour
they didn’t want to come into the world and as growing children they try and
make the mother pay for bringing them into the world with confrontational behaviour.
They can be hypersensitive to remarks/opinions because
those reflect discomfort with themselves. If questioned about their beliefs,
they feel like they are being attacked at an identity level, at their very
core. They feel brittle. As a survival mechanism, since they perceive life as
hostile, they build up this world around themselves. They can be haughty and
overbearing. At their best they have poise and presence, but it can appear as
pompous. They can be very condescending. Lyc. can degenerate into Thuja.
Nothing must threaten their dignity. They can be very
serious, devoid of humour and can’t take a joke against themselves. True
feelings are often concealed beneath a charming veneer. Oiliness (in the wood)
is a theme – they can grease their way up any social ladder. We call these
people Sycophants – they’re slippery and charming. There’s a mask of politeness
and language, but it’s lifeless. Their diction is too perfect so it distances
them from other people. They desire solitude, feel separate, secretive and they
resist intrusion.
In their manner they are poised, hurried, agitated or
impatient. There’s never enough time for Thuja. They intentionally try to slow
down time because they feel like they’re on a carousel and they’re trying to get
off. As a practitioner you have to look at the glandular area and all the
endocrine organs.
The spiritual stimulus of sycosis is part of the
psychological and spiritual evolution of the individual. Through the action of
sycosis the person becomes aware of duality, realising he is not just a
physical being. There’s an awareness of the animal in them and a conflict of
energies, one of which is wholesome and the other quite opposite. There’s a
loss of identity which comes with this. Then there’s a tendency to judge the
self through negative energies that are determined by the shadow. Then building
up a personal being blighted by images determined by the unconscious and thrown
up as a different identity.
David Lilley: the Sycotic Home is invaluable in
understanding this remedy. Sexual abuse is a common theme in these cases.
There’s a loss of identity from the abuse and the negative
images from the unconscious, and a new persona being
born from this negativity. They will say things like “I am bad”, “I am abused”
“I am wicked”. The sycotic has to descend into hell, confront the shadow and in
that conflict he must rise up and resurrect. They are not destroying anything,
they are bringing the two things together (like Sil) and there is a reformation
to transcend.
Sycosis in Greek means “standing up” rising up. It
also means resurrection and transcendence.
It is easy to see the transition from Calc. to Thuja:
Calc has a fear of life and creates a shell. Thuja has a mask. The fear of the
incarnation experience is equal in both. Both have a fear of insanity and
germs. Thuja is always washing his hands – need to cleanse. Calc has the
feeling that life is awful. With Thuja there is the need to hide, to be
invisible.
Sycosis is transmittable (STD) so it is highly contagious
through promiscuity. In the home there is sycotic energy. Where there is
sycotic energy and there is lack of education, then possibly you have big
families, where fundamentalism is practiced. They have lots of children – this
is a status thing – but there are fears of infertility. Role models are cold,
calculating, cruel and manipulative, and the child is given contrasting
messages. Everything is permeated by deceit, hidden, subterfuge, clandestine,
secret, private, nasty, weird and ugly, because very often they are projecting
the exact opposite image to that which they are indulging in.
Masquerading with puritanical piety, the child is
being fed messages that sex is dirty and disgusting, while the very things that
they are condemning they are indulging in. They externalise their crimes and
iniquities, implanting them in the ears of others. It’s like Jimmy Swaggart,
impassioned on the pulpit, where he proclaims that there were prostitutes at
home. He announces the very things he desires and he condemns it from the
pulpit.
These parents are talking about dirt and filth. They
never talk about sex. The more the energy is suppressed the more energy it has.
All the messages in the family are unpredictable, underhand, under cover.
Sil. born into this environment has the subjectivity
to grow away from this situation, but Thuja doesn’t. Thuja has a loss of
identity. There’s suppression from all around them. Big factors include low
income, overcrowding in homes, absent mother or marital strife, antisocial
father (antisocial personality type). The mother in this case may be the
victim. There may be deviousness with the conflict that ensues. The patients
dream of confrontation and war. Sometimes the child is sent away from the home
which intensifies the lack of identity.
There can be a history of abuse – physical, emotional,
sexual. There also may be excessive parental control from authoritarian parents
and neglectful suppression from pious puritanical parents. They develop
intrusive thoughts of the obsessive compulsive type. They emphasise the
relationship with the mother (all the sycotics). Where the mother is predatory,
the perpetrator, these are the worst possible cases.
The mother is also an accomplice. Or the mother is
passive, not involved, turns her back; the intrusion of the father is not
believed. The mother is unable to help as she herself is a victim. Incest is
common. There may be apparent discrepancy between the behaviour at home and the
behaviour in the workplace/school, or, a husband who is wonderful at work and
horrible at home.
Loss of identity follows with emotional problems.
Child fears that the footsteps are going to stop outside her door. They are
beaten, subjugated, humiliated. An awful state of over-adaptation takes place.
How do they survive? Through delusions. Even if you
don’t know about the abuse you can prescribe on the delusions. Trapped, caged
(Cimic.). There’s a pattern of submission, compliance and then resignation.
Their destiny is in the hands of someone who is perpetrating these terrible
things and they have no control. Suspicious, mistrustful, they lack faith and
are sceptical. No trust in anybody.
The upbringing may have been extremely critical with
destructively judgemental parents. Negative comparisons are made. There is
often a Lyc. dad who’s not lifting the children up, but plumping himself up
instead. Authoritarian parents who approach parenthood with authority – child
should be seen and not heard; you may look but you may not touch – it makes the
child cringe, go inwards and conceal.
Or you may have indulgent parents – where the child is
born with an aversion to the mother from the word go – from breastfeeding,
there can be oppositional defiance problems. They have the worst tantrums, both
in the adult and child. He punishes mother with the silent treatment. As an
adult they still do it. He thinks his mother emasculated him. The mother is the
victim; the victim of her own passion. When not in the energy of the family
situation, he rescues. He is the victimiser and then he rescues.
With neglectful parents – love and care is not flowing
or consistent and is unpredictable, where it only comes from behaviour of a
certain type. The child begins to think that life is unpredictable, cruel and
cold, that everything is about manipulation. He has to fight and manipulate and
be devious to get what he wants. He is born with the sycotic feeling of being
stained so this situation perpetuates the feeling that he is unworthy of their
care and attention – unlovable.
Thuja loses identity, goes into herself and develops a
quiet, silent, internal life which gradually becomes more warped due to the
sexual sycotic energy. Suppressed sexual energy becomes deviant. She will make
love to her herself with her imagination. At the same time there can be a sense
of sexual inadequacy in adulthood. It can become a weird and twisted picture.
There is a desperate need for love.
Child goes inwards and becomes a model child – out of
that emerges the immaculate adult – always dressed correctly, does things
correctly; extra vigilant because they don’t know what’s going to happen next.
They become hypersensitive to sounds and smells. They can become androgynous
(asexual, genderless). They can become very sensitive to pheromones. Tactile,
sensitive child (autism).
Fetishism can be part of the picture or a perverse sex
life. They can be hypersensitive to everything that encroaches on the body.
There are themes of indiscriminate discipline, indiscriminate punishment and
indiscriminate love. When love is indiscriminate and when punishment is
indiscriminate then you have problems. The father applies indiscriminate
punishment according to his will (not the child’s behaviour)
and the mother gives him contrasting messages because
no matter what he does, she loves him and indulges him.
How can a child react to that? There’s no consistency.
They become superstitious, fatalistic, resigned. The sense of morality
disappears. The consequence of actions means nothing. There’s an erosion of the
moral core. Consequences are irrelevant at a young age. There’s a sense of
learned helplessness (Lac-c.). She skulks around hoping to be invisible – the
glass factor – hence the connection between Thuja, Sil, <yx Lac-c.. There’s
humiliation and degradation leading to an inferiority complex.
Sexual shame is another theme which can come from
puritanical parents giving the child messages that sex is dirty. There’s
tremendous sexual energy in the Thuja person so that when it’s suppressed, it
becomes distorted. An emotional picture emerges from the underlying theme of
stained, stigmatised, blighted, soiled, defiled, inferior – and so “something
is wrong with me” leading to the belief that if people knew the real person
they wouldn’t be liked. I have got something that I must hide. I will suppress
what I can. What I cannot suppress I will conceal.
Another theme that emerges is fixity. They dwell on
past disagreeable events, anger and resentment is present on the surface. For a
person who is totally shattered and torn apart during psychotherapy,
think Thuja, because it comes up into the
consciousness, doesn’t resolve and becomes fixed.
Child who has been abused has a tendency to traumatise
themselves (Anorexia/Bulimia). Persistent washing of hands is a clue, as
there’s an inclination to compulsion which is symbolic and ritualistic.
Need to cleanse themselves of that feeling of being
stained or tainted and get rid of a sense of guilt and to wash away a sense of
shame. A bath will not work for Thuja but a shower. Lac-c., Thuja.
There’s fear of contagion. The feeling of being out of
touch with reality creates an obsessive compulsive anxiety. Thuja is anally
retentive. As part of oppositional defiant disorder in certain children, there
is a refusal to pass stool (the bashful stool syndrome). Rigidity in persistent
thoughts and inflexibility of the emotions. Routine is strict. Everything must
go according to his will and not be in the least opposed.
They can be rigid and dogmatic in their opinions –
they like to bend your ear with their opinions, but they are not in the least
bit interested in your opinions. They can be immaculate in presentation, going
through every little detail about their disease – Ars. Calc.
Sensitive to criticism and contradiction (fury from
contradiction). There is sensitivity to trifles and tendency to worry about
insignificant things. Terrible concerns about trivial things - neglecting the
bigger issues.
They are consummate lovers, suitors and can manipulate
a woman into bed best. Conquest is not the issue, but rather it’s sex for sex
only, the act only.
Survival Strategies in Thuja After Abuse
1. OCD =
Obsessive–compulsive disorder = an anxiety disorder with by intrusive thoughts
that produce uneasiness/apprehension/fear/worry, repetitive behaviors aimed at
reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions. and compulsions. (excessive washing or
cleaning/repeated checking/extreme hoarding/preoccupation with sexual, violent
or religious thoughts/aversion to particular numbers; and nervous rituals:
opening and closing a door a certain number of times before entering or leaving
a room.
2. Shows
the model child coupled with vigilance – conforming. “I am bad” – they take it
on board and have a dual impression of the abuser – a means to disassociate the
care-taker from
the abuser. Feelis guilty for the abuse they are
receiving. Can hold conflicting pictures, through deep rationalisation and
delusion, of the abuser. This can only be achieved by assaulting their true
identity.
They have to make themselves bad. They then get to
have some degree of control. “If I am bad then I am being abused with some
justice. If I am good the abuse will stop, so if I comply with what is being
demanded of me, give in, yield, I’ll be alright”. The problem here is that the
personality being created is wrapped around the concept of being wicked. Those
feelings of hatred that are so profound in Thuja, suppressed deep inside,
increase their sense of wickedness and badness. Sometimes they are sexually
stimulated by the abuse. They believe this is confirmation that they are
wicked.
3. Creating an alter-ego: Multiple
personalities can emerge where some will carry pathology and others will not in
the same individual (Plat.).
4. Disassociation – They project themselves
out of the body. They make their body numb and they feel nothing while the
abuse goes on. Delusions he is floating on air, mind and body is separated,
abstraction of the mind. Depersonalisation can occur. The cause of the
disassociation has past, but they use the disassociation to deal with all
personal traumas later in life – false persona, fragile, brittle. Amnesia as a
result of abuse is very big.
5. Control freaks – chaos where the control
is imposed by something else (hysteria).
6. Abuse of drugs and alcohol later in life
–addiction – gambling.
7. Being busy all the time, workaholics.
Industrious, Mania for work
8. Self mutilation – feeling of control at
last, emotional pain substituted for physical pain, self punishment, taking out
anger on herself (anger for her abuser)
9. Excessive masturbation after sexual abuse.
Self love, to sooth and to comfort.
10. Kleptomania – it engenders the same feeling
they get when they are fearing the abuse – adrenaline rush, intensity of the
emotion.
11. Avoidance of intimacy. Seeking religious
support and fundamentalism.
12. Seeking sex, compulsively.
13. Paedophilia
There’s a loss of inner control. Then the external
control goes. These compulsions assume another identity – Delusion: I am under
the influence of other powers.
Das Persönlichkeitsprofil des typischen Thuja-Patienten
lässt sich folgendermaßen umreißen:
Psyche: Empfindsame Menschen, die sich oft in einer diffusen
Weise wertlos oder schuldig fühlen. Sie entwickeln eine Abneigung gegen sich
selbst, die im Extremfall
bis zum Selbst-Ekel gehen kann. Thuja zieht sich gerne in
seine Privatsphäre zurück und kapselt sich ab. Mitunter kann er ungeduldig,
bockig oder wütend reagieren.
Diese Leute haben häufig einen Bezug zum Spirituellen bzw.
eine stark intuitive bis mediale Wahrnehmung. Im weiteren Verlauf der Störung
werden sie zunehmend unsicher, konfus und depressiv.
Körperliche Beschwerden: verfroren, träge-blockiert oder in
Eile, trockene, gespaltene Haare, weißliche Lippen; gelbe, blasse, fleckige,
ölige Haut, oft mit Pickeln;
Warzen im Gesicht und an Extremitäten
Die Nähe zum phlegmatischen Temperament = WASSER-Element
sticht ins Auge; der Bezug zu den flüssigen Verteilersystemen, die Beschwerden
in den
Bereichen WASSER l, WASSER 2 und WASSER 3 werden deutlich;
auch die Signaturen des immergrünen Baumes deuten in diese Richtung. Wir ordnen
den
Thujabaum, wie auch andere Vertreter der Kiefernartigen, dem
Wasserelement zu.
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum