English: Berlijnse muur.
Proving and cases
By Kees Dam
In April 1997 speaking at a big congress "
Homeopathy for the world" in Berlin (of all places) George Vithoulkas proclaimed that the sake and credibility of homeopathy was not served by using remedies like Berlin Wall. When I heard of the remedy Berlin Wall for the first time (I think about a year before the verdict of George) I had exactly the same feeling initially. Fortunately I didn't have a podium at that time to condemn this remedy publicly. In may 1997 I was on an international homeopathic meeting (Soeria) where about 15 homeopaths exchange their homeopathic "peak" experiences. An Irish colleague Declan Hammond told of his experiences with Berlin Wall. His Berlin Wall story really took (me) and as soon as I was back home I ordered the remedy and started proving. Today I want to share our proving experiences and some cases. For me Berlin Wall has become in quite a short time a remedy with polychrest qualities.
Picture of Berlin Wall (Declan Hammond)
From the provings and the dozens of cases in his practice Declan Hammond gives the following picture of Berlin Wall (after 2 years of experience):
- Forsaken and SEPARATION is the general symptom in all patients; an unbearable oppression
from outside which causes or an explosion or an implosion in the patient; huge despair.
- Oppression (political, family, abuse-sexual, religious, being bullied) and perceive themselves as
victims, stiffled their creativity.
- States of possession (dd Stram, Bell, Hyos).
- Children of ambitious parents who are pushed (dd Carc).
- Caring professions - which give rise to burn out and/or brain deadness.
-
Acutes: with overwhelming opposition: hospitals, court situations.
- Indescribable evil/darkness.
- Don't show anything: MASKS, unsmiling.
- Suspicious, uneasy, shifty eyes; cannot look you in the eye.
- Hangdog of head, beaten.
- Frequent weeping, tears just flow; sense of numbness or despair over them.
- Deep grief which cannot be accessed, unspoken but it hangs in the air.
-
Depression, sense of blackness, total isolation, aloneness, despair.
- Panic, need to escape but they can't. TERROR.
- Feel brainwashed, lack the courage to break free, unable to break from the past (intercurrent remedy for helping to connect to past inaccessible trauma's).
- Everything will fail; despair of recovery.   
- Painlessness (dd Op, Stram, Hell).
- Aggression against themselves (drugs, alcohol, drive a car into a confronting car, smash themselves to the wall).
- Impulsivety - anything can happen (Merc, Prot).
- Aggression to others/animals (fascinated by it) Child who hangs a cat with a rope around the neck to see what happens (daughter of A.P.).
- Deceit.
- Guilt, not resolvable.i
Physicals- ASTMA - crushing on chest, suffocation.
- H/A deep crushing, congestion, bursting with depression and photophobia; gives the feeling of
being cut off and isolated.
- After strokes - for parts not connected yet again.
- Temporary blindness and deafness in emotional situations.
- Stiffness of joints-swelling: " a claw coming into it".
-
Dupuytren.
- Emptiness/hole in the gut (ulcers).
- Narcolepsia (20 hours a day).
- Insomnia.
- After well indicated remedies fail to open up a case.
- As an intercurrent.
Our own provings and experiences with Berlin Wall
With the above information of Declan Hammond we started our search into the mysteries of the Berlin Wall. One of the first things you ask yourself: "Will there be a difference in remedy picture between Berlin Wall and a piece of concrete from your own garage wall?" Emotionally you are inclined to say: "Yes, of course" - but rationally you may have your doubts (like George had): the material is chemically the same. But there is only one final answer and that is the experiential scientific one: prove it and see if there are specific German themes coming up or specific Berlin Wall issues. I will start to give some history of the Berlin Wall.
History
In 1996, on the 13th of August the wall was built in one night; it was meant to prevent people from East Germany going to West Germany. For economic and political reasons millions of people left the communist east and sought their salvation in the capitalistic west and Berlin was "the leak" in the iron curtain where people crossed the border. Berlin Wall stands for division, intense fear, suspicion, the worst of the cold war (the place where the cold war got hot), KGB-FBI, intrigues, betrayal, spying. In total 588 deaths were registered from trying to cross the wall (over or under it).
In 1990 the wall was broken down and a Berlin guy sent a piece of the Wall to a friend in England. He put it in a drawer and after 2 years he found it again and this man being a homeopath (Martin Miles) got a God-given idea to potentize it and do a proving with it.
  
From the book "The Berlin Wall" by Norman Gelb (Publ. Michael Joseph Ltd 1986): "It is more than just an account of the splitting of a city. It is also the story of power politics and thermo-nuclear threat. It was played out in Washington, Moscow, London and Paris as well as Germany. Berlin was, after all, the place described by Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev as "the testicles of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin". It was the place about which President John F. Kennedy growled, "If Krushchev wants to rub my nose in the dirt, it's all over". Berlin was where the Cold War had begun with a Soviet blockade, where Soviet and American tanks faced each other virtually snout-to-snout for the first - and hopefully only- time, and where the grisly game of nuclear brinkmanship was introduced. For a brief moment, the Berlin Wall was the focus of the whole world's attention. Spawned in an atmosphere of bluster and defiance, it generated a mood of deepest anxiety and profoundest despair. Everywhere, hawks and doves debated its significance and consequences. The great Wall of Berlin is more than just an emotionally charged geopolitical spectacle. Made of reinforced concrete, ten to thirteen feet high, it is a remarkable structure. Meandering through the heart of the metropolis, turning corners, winding and bending, it hacks the old capital of Germany into two distinct entities, and then curls to enfold all the western half of Berlin in its concrete emb- race. If straightened, the Wall would measure 103 miles long, which is
greater than the distance from New York to Philadelphia or London to Calais."
Law of Signatures / ProverbsDictionary definition of Wall (Webster's II New Riverside Dictionary): . A vertical structure or partition that serves to enclose or separate.
2. A continuous defensive rampart.
3. Something that rises, separates, surrounds, or protects like a wall.
4. (Verb) To provide or close up with or as if with a wall.
Wallflower: One who only looks on at a dance or a party esp. from shyness or unpopularity. Walking with his head against a wall: trying to get his way against the impossible - no escape from getting frustrated.
Blind Wall: a wall without windows or doors in it to see (or go) through.
(Proving) themes of Berlin Wall
I will give a summary of the proving (and cured) symptoms of Berlin Wall arranged in themes. (f-pr = female prover; m = male; * = dream).
Germany - Berlin Wall issues
- About a German acquaintance, a guy I always detested - he was very dominant, nervous, neurotically precise. Now in the dream I could see his other, nice side. I realised you can get used to someone. (f-pr. 3).
- On the 13th of august 1997 I was feeling awful all day, at night on the television news I heard that it was exactly 27 years ago that the Berlin Wall was erected (f-pr. 3).
- More oriented to German television, even a little "homesick" for Germany (was not born there), some "Weltschmerz" feeling. A better understanding of Germans in general (f-pr. 3).
- I am in a new room, a stranger, nobody wants to have anything to do with me. German language is spoken. The room is a kind of cellar, half underground. They cannot see me really; there is some-
thing with their eyes. I want to touch people all the time; I detest that in myself. (f-pr 1).
- Concerning male-female attraction a working woman remarks: "Wer hat denn keine Sehnsucht"
(Who doesn't have desire). (f-pr ).
Wall - Separation (curative: breaking down the wall)
- It struck me that all of a sudden I experience men quite differently, nicer, softer, more friendly. It was so striking that I could not ignore it. It even happened to me that when a man explained the way he laid his hand in a very friendly and tender way on my shoulder during the whole of his explaining. (curative symptom f-pr 2).
- All the people I met I could very distinctly divide in two groups: one group open to contact and one group with no contact with the outside world but sticking in their own world. It seemed there were only those two extremes, nothing in between. (f-pr 2).
- Sensation as if there is a wall, an incredible distance between the people I really love and me. I can- not go to the people I really want to be with. It is a big suffering. (f-pr 3).
- Holding the remedy for a while gives a tremendous rise of grief and sadness; so huge you would drown in it (curative symptom f-pr ).
- A suppressed ("walled off ") grief about financial problems thirty years ago (he never told his wife about that time because he didn't want to bother her with that) came up, he wept over it for the first time together with his wife. After that he was less irritable and more tender towards his wife. (curative symptom in a 75 years old m-pt).
- Don't come near me; men only want to plunder you and burn you down; absolutely no sex (f-pr 5).
- Basically I have a strong desire for love: don't leave me, stay with me but in my solar plexus area I feel: don't touch me (f-pr 5).
- My brother and sister lived with me in the same house and we could get along very well (in reality far from that) - (curative/wishful symptom f-pr 3).
- I am standing on a long, lonesome and straight road that cleaves the landscape right through. (f-pr 2).
- Often the feeling during this proving that my inner world suffices, I can live there, what lives inside of me that is enough; I don't need to belong to the outside world. Things that live inside me do not have to be expressed in the outside world (f-pr 2).
- I suddenly understand very thoroughly why I have to smoke. In a shop I got furious when a woman didn't wait for her turn. I could not utter a word (fortunately the anger stays inside, the anger is not in proportion to the incident). I immediately feel the need for a cigarette to get control over my emotions again. Smoking is a protection; it is keeping my emotions inside. If I would stop smoking, I would feel my emotions vehemently and I am afraid I can't handle it. (f-pr 2).
Lack of a Wall/Structure/Separation
(Curative: setting clear borders)
- Immediately when touching the remedy I feel more at ease, I feel a separation between my energy
and the energy of the other/the outside. (curative symptom f-pr 5).
- Refusal to involve myself in a man-woman relation if it is not absolutely pure (f-pr 5).
- Together with my father I am in a barren, flat, empty meadow landscape with as many ditches as land, the water in the ditches is just as high as the land, a very disagreeable landscape. There is no horizon. My father says that he doesn't believe in God or that he thinks he doesn't believe in God anymore (in reality very religious). (m-pr 6).
- After touching the remedy could not find my home again, lost my way; could not go to work the next day feeling as if things from the war came up again. (pt).
- On my way to a (known) restaurant I lost my way in the red light district; I am lost - then I see a telephone number to rent a prostitute-window-room. I have the impulse to note it down with the feeling this is the only thing left for me. (f-pr ).
- There is a big heap of sand before my house-door, it is so high that it is on window level. Anybody could walk in by the window. This gives me a very unsafe feeling (known old anxiety). Yesterday many old ailments came back: headache, a coryza, a stressed feeling, burning spots on my head - this morning they are all gone. (m-pr 8).
Mother
- An ideal mother - she came to my bed and really comforted me without making me pitiful and she promised me to learn something the next day (things she never did when I was young). (curative symptom f-pr ).
- I am walking with my mother at the Lake of Geneva (where we used to go on holiday in my youth) and I was amazed that it felt so good between us. Then I see an aeroplane crashing in the lake, there is an explosion; 6 people get severely injured and later succumb and die. (f-pr ).I am in the bedroom of my parents and my mother wants contact with me. I agree and in the beginning it goes fine but then she comes to close and on top of me: Listen, you have to listen (she tries to convince me anxiously). I want more distance, space and I send her away downstairs and tell her that I will come down later. She goes and it feels good. Then I come downstairs; my mother stands in a narrow corner in the kitchen. We embrace each other and I feel that my mother gets filled again, fulfilled, more in proportion, she comes in her body, and she is not a flat disk anymore. But then she gets too blown up and I notice that she is clinging to me. I feel I am disappearing and that I don't want that. I want to get free from her again and when I want to step away from her I notice with fright that our bellies are stuck together. I do not panic and I am standing still and observe carefully how it feels and then I do a step backwards and am free. (curative symptom f-pr ).
- In my first sleep I wake up and I hear my daughter very distinctly call (as if for help): "Mamma". It turned out to be my hallucination. (pt).
- My mother and me are lying on the beach, she lies very close to me. I think I have to allow that. But then she touches me between my legs, very soft and tender, she progresses further and then back and then further and on. I don't like it at all but don't say anything. My mother is in no way sexually excited or something like that. (f-pr ).
- My mother and me on the beach again, now it is getting flood and my mother floats away into the sea but is washed ashore again by the waves. My feeling is: "What do I have to do?" (f-pr ).
- Vision: a mother of flesh and blood, three-dimensional - not a flat stripe (f-pr ).
Comment: The theme of mother seems to be a major theme in Berlin Wall, especially the "disentanglement" from mother; the setting of borders: this is mine, that is yours.
  
Almost always the mother-theme is last to be solved in the end stages of the process. In our experience Thuja has been the "bottom" remedy for this (Confusion of identity - loosing yourself) but Berlin Wall and also the Lac's are sometimes indispensable complements.
Male - Female identity/division
- Very obsessed with male and female identity issues like (compensatory) male parts in women.
- Concerning male-female attraction a working woman says: "Wer hat denn keine Sehnsucht" (Who
doesn't have desire). (f-pr ).
- The stiffness in my shoulders ("the coat-hanger sensation") is less, also as if I have to move and talk
less demonstrative when I am stressed. I associated this before with a part of my father that I took over to survive but that is not me (he was always very loud, dominating and impressively present). As if I had to put up my male defence against this, otherwise I was turned into a zombie and I would have disappeared like my mother. (curative symptom f-pr )
- In an exclusive Japanese Restaurant a female patient of mine is sitting at a table (she is a male- like lesbian woman). With her arms she makes a few rough, angular movements - this is the male Japanese she says but there is also a female version of this restaurant where I want to eat with you some other time. And now she makes elegant, round, female gestures and her shoulders get expo- sed. This gives me a very relaxed feeling (f-pr ).
Sexual Perversion- A man put his trousers down (in company) and wanted to have anal coition with a woman, who seemed not daring to refuse (m-pr 4).
- Someone (a man) is urinating over my body and is sexually excited by it (f-pr ).
- Feeling of sexual lust, my legs wide apart, as if drunk, no inhibitions at all (f-pr 5).
War - Violence - Cruelty- There is a medical team together with a police force. It is Monday morning and the corpses have to be cleared away. There are a lot of half dissected bodies just at the side of the road. Out of sheer cussedness the police drives over the corpses, the corpses splash open. I see open chests with the aorta branches curved downwards like walking canes. I have the opportunity to go along with them and to enjoy my anatomy hobby, but unfortunately I already have another appointment. (m-pr 6).
- I am walking with my mother at the Lake of Geneva (where we used to go on holiday in my youth) and I was amazed that it felt so good between us. Then I see an aeroplane crashing in the lake, there is an explosion; 6 people get severely injured and later succumb and die. (f-pr ).
Eyes/See/Soul versus Blind/filtered- Last night I had the feeling I was blind, I opened the curtains a little and realised/saw I was not. (f-pr ).
- I am in a new room, a stranger, nobody wants to have anything to do with me. German language is spoken. The room is a kind of cellar, half underground. They cannot see me really; there is some- thing with their eyes. I want to touch people all the time; I detest that in myself. (f-pr ).
- I am in a tent (like on holidays in my youth) with my parents and all of a sudden I perceive the situation just as it was in my youth. I see that when I was about nine years old I had a kind of filters before my eyes, like a kind of contact lenses or films over my eyes. I think now I don't need these anymore but then I did. Now I can see the whole situation objectively from the outside: the family structure, the hierarchy between my father and mother, myself as a defenceless child. (f-pr ).
- My friend is lying on bed and looks me in the eyes, I am standing at the head-end of the bed and bow over. I can see through his eyes and see the whole of his past, his youth • I can see to the inside of his soul. It is an eye contact as never before. (A day before I already felt quite compassionate with his problems and past). (f-pr ).
- Vision: two astronauts and a UFO with very modern equipment especially in relation to eye technique (laser/photography). (f-pr ).
- Together with my daughter I made two masks, one mask I made with glasses, on the other I made 5 eyes. (f-pr 2).
- I must find back the lenses of a certain person otherwise he cannot see. I look for them in a drawer. (f-pr 2).
- In a small aeroplane we take off in the night. We are flying into the night. During the flight I reassure a man (patient of my husband) who is frightened of everything he cannot experience visually. Every motion and vibration of the aeroplane I recognise because I have flown before in daytime with this aeroplane so I can explain everything that happens to him. I love the rising of the plane penetrating through the clouds; I love the flying. The plane is offering very little protection, it is only metal without any isolation, and we can even feel for a moment a draft from outside. Then we have flown through the night and are coming into the morning. I am surprised that we are already in the morning so quickly. I look through the window and see the night in a blotting black behind us. This is the most beautiful and impressive image from the dream. The most beautiful feeling is recognising every movement, vibration blindly, which makes me feel very at ease. (curative sympt. f-pr 2)
- In a book I happen to read something that strikes deeply: "For to see it is not enough to keep the eyes open, one has also to trust and believe the eyes and what one sees. Nothing is making us more blind than a firm belief in what one already knows (in spite of what the eyes observe). Any know- ledge within the reach of mankind, is paired with selective blindness." (f-pr 2)
Comment: a wall takes away your sight, especially a blind wall; you cannot see what is on the other side. The wall is there to protect you from seeing what is on the other side because to see that would be too painful, you would not survive. A wall casts also a shadow on what is behind it, it is providing darkness (night, unconscious); it prevents (traumatic) things coming to light (consciousness).
Berlin Wall gives you the emotional strength to see and survive the sight, it gives you eyes.
Speed - Steep- I have to climb a very steep street, just before the top a couple comes towards me with a dog. The moment the dog sees me, he breaks loose and from sheer playfulness he jumps against me, I fall and threaten to slide down the hill. I have to keep the dog away, and at the same time I play with him and laugh. With my right hand I hold on to a cobblestone. The man of the couple amuses himself, the dog never does this, and he makes a picture.
If I get up and the dog too, I see that his hair turns red (just as red as my own). (f-pr ).
- We are going down a very steep hill, almost vertically down, on a kind of skateboard with wheels and a steering wheel. I am steering and my mother sits behind me and clings to me in a cramp. I have to descend very carefully and concentrated and I succeed. I think it is a good thing that I am in front, I have at least overview, and my mother would only get into a total panic. (curative symptom f-pr ).
*Everything in high speed (f-pr ).
*I am skating on an endless plain of ice that is ending in the water of the sea; I think I have to stop
now otherwise I will end up in the water. I succeed. (f-pr ).
- Together with my husband I run in a wood, hand in hand (in reality a lot of trouble with husband)
(curative symptom?. case 6)
- K. is riding in a car and I am sitting beside him. He drives on the right side over a bridge, and then
he bumps into the railing with his right front wheel. The car climbs up from its own, gets over the railing and crashes down. I don't feel anything but I know this is the end. The car and we are totally crashed as if a road-roller had gone over it. It all happened so fast (as if I didn't get the time to wake up before the crash). (f-pr ).
- I want to eat something and see a sign for a restaurant - I have to go down with an elevator. It goes down in a terrible speed and I have to hold myself on to big black cables (like in ski lifts) and have to be constantly alert to grab the next one in time. In the end I come on a kind of flat plain and see an endless way ahead of me. I get a nasty feeling and I ask a big fat American who is standing on the other side where this is leading. He says it is still thousands of kilometres and they do it on purpose because you have to pay for every kilometre. I didn't want that but he said you are not allowed to turn back. But I'll help you; they don't grab me - just hide behind my back. We went back, the caissiere looked at me quite suspiciously but let me go anyway.
Cold (War); Ice - Suspicion- It is winter and there was snow, it was very cold. I am on my way to R., a friend (who in reality is very difficult to reach). I can't find my way, then I come by my mother and she tells me the way to R. She tells me to drop by on my way back to eat a bowl of warm soup because it is so cold. When I get to R., we are going for a walk in the dunes. In the dream there is something threatening about him. I am tired, sit and lie down. R. also lies down beside me and touches me. I say I want to go. He puts a hand on my chest. I feel suffocated and squared. I want to stand up but I am paralysed in my lower back or I am stuck to something. I say I want to go to my mother because she is familiar to me. R.'s hand is not filled with love but is as an iron arm of a robot that is why I am squared. (f-pr 3).
Perfectionism - "Ordnung muss sein"
- I want to clean and order everything in the house; chaos gives fear; everything has to be settled and very precise. It is a kind of ordering to myself (f-pr 3).
- I am in an aeroplane and make a fuss about a toilet that I think is dirty, I didn't want to use it that way. (f-pr 3).
Comment: Perfectionism can be seen as bringing (extreme) structure (building walls) to prevent the fear of chaos.
Exclusive/Expensive/Money/Heavy-solid- In a big villa on top of a hill, a friend and me are baby sitting. My friend goes out shopping and I take care of the children and the house. When she comes back via thick, solid stone steps at the backside of the house, it is my turn to go out shopping. It is very important not to forget to lock the front door with an old(fashioned) rusty solid key. I went down the road and passed all kinds of shops with beautiful clothes. I wanted to buy for at least Dfl 3.000,- but unfortunately I had only Dfl 250,-. (f-pr ).
Other symptoms- Fear sexual energy is going to escalate (f-pr 2). * the word: SYMBOL kept repeating (f-pr 2).
- Very frustrated when things went wrong; frustration seems to be a characteristic of this remedy.
I cannot deal with it. But also a feeling that I have to go through my frustrations, I must confront
them and do something about it (f-pr 2).
- The feeling that "having to win" is another important theme of Berlin Wall (f-pr ).
Comment: one could see winning as the other side (= overcoming the "walls") of frustration. •Weeping about incidents in youth, throwing doors with feelings of powerlessness, anger
(Staphysagria like) (f-pr 2).
- Weepy, with the speed of one tear per hour but still ameliorating (f-pr 2).
- Desire to work at night (quietness, more in contact with myself) (f-pr 2).
- I harden when I feel no emotional response from the other person (husband). When I have given
up hope after waiting a long time, I become as hard as concrete, inexorable. (f-pr 2).
- Feeling a very deep contact with myself, afraid I will get addicted to the remedy (curative symptom
f-pr 2).
- I am drawn to buy light yellow clothing during this remedy proving (f-pr 2).
• I often caught myself smiling (especially the first days of the proving) (f-pr 2).
• During the first contact with the remedy I can feel its energy going to the site of my bronchitis.
stays there for a while and then suddenly it penetrates me very deeply, it touches something, like a deep hurt (f-pr 2).
Physicals• Frequent urination; must hasten or will urinate (f-pr 3).
• Irritation right little toenail-edge (f-pr 3).
• Perspiration night (f-pr 3).
• A jerking muscle in the left elbow and jerks of my right arm in sleep (f-pr ).
• Pain in left eye, motion < (f-pr ).
• (Illusion of) the smell of vanilla (m-pr 4).
• Acute smell (f-pr 2).
• Desire pepper salami.
• Cough at night, with green sputum (f-pr 2).
• Stiff and painful over whole body morning on waking (f-pr 2).
• Dizziness (f-pr 2).
• Pain lower back radiating to lower abdomen and hips, a pain like labour pain, in waves, burning; sitting <, lying >, beginning motion <, continued motion > (f-pr 2).
• Burning, shooting pains at the surface at the level of the left hip (f-pr 2).
• Constriction throat before sleep (f-pr 2).
• Back as if broken, as having slept in a too soft bed, morning on waking (f-pr2).
• Cramping in uterus, at night (as before beginning menses) (f-pr 2).
• Headache above right eye during menses, pressing amel. (f-pr 2)
• Headache above and behind left eye while running (m-pr 7).
• Headache is worsening, with cold chills, warm bath>; I have to lie down from the pain and fall
asleep (f-pr 2).
- Terrible itching about the front side of the elbows (m-pr 8).
- Pain in old scars, touching skin around it<< (f-pr 9).
- Heavy menses (blood running down the legs) and headache (provoked by Berlin Wall 30) were immediately gone after Berlin Wall LM (f-pr 2).
Case 1A female MS patient, 45 years old, recounts after Berlin Wall 200 (23-5-97): " It has been very good, I have been camping in Germany. I could visit everything, museums etc - I could walk along without having to use my wheelchair. But my pustules have emerged again vehemently, especially on the right side. Also my eyes were better in the first week but after that again the same. My husband says I am looser. I notice I don't use any mascara anymore and that was always a "must". I even dared to wear short trousers on holiday without being ashamed for my white legs.
I am not afraid anymore of getting seduced by H. (a secret lover); it is over now - I can feel now from my inside. He is not on my mind anymore all the time. I was always so fearful that I could not resist him - he only had to do this and I would give in. Not anymore.
Dreams- I pushed, kicked and struck my sister in law. She is such a serpent.
- My physician (in reality a frump without any notion of MS) looked very nice now in my dream. * An elevator with very big metal doors - I go to my boss and tell him that he has been "framed".
Case 2(
Cases 2-5 one family: father/mother/son/daughter)
Father: a 40 years old, very nice and sympathetic man (Staphysagria was one of the remedies he reacted on favourably). But according to his wife there is a wall around him, which is not penetrable. As a child he was physically abused. His wife wants to end the relationship because there is no real contact possible. For him everything is o.k., he does not want to change. After Berlin Wall a lot of aggression is coming up and out. After three weeks he told his wife that there was something very remarkable about his urine: lately it was smelling like cement (he did not know he was given Berlin Wall).
Case 3Mother: with a psychiatric history in the past, working on herself for years (with the help of consti- tutional homeopathic treatment). Had good reactions in the past on Anacardium, Thuja and
Lac caninum. A main problem is about setting borders.
After Berlin Wall she was able to set her borders more clearly. In the end after a lot of mutual aggressive outbursts (which were painful but clarifying) and perceiving the situation as it really was they both decided to end the relationship.
Case 4Son: J. - three years of age - has like his father an impenetrable layer around him. It doesn't come through when his mother speaks to him. He does not obey, he does not hear. He is loud, restless, wild. It is not possible for his mother to go shopping with him, to go to the swimming pool etc. Every second she has to be alert - in the street he just runs away, or jumps suddenly in front of a car. In the supermarket he grabs everything, in the swimming pool he jumps in deep water without being able to swim. Reprimanding doesn't help. He is hyperactive, not to restrain and chaotic. He can throw things at his mother's head. When he gets a spanking then he immediately says: "I am sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I didn't understand you, I will listen and behave". Then he wants to make it up immediately. He has terrible mood swings. One moment he sits dreamy with a snoller in his mouth and a little later he is violent again. This behaviour is from the last year. He has periods of very offen- sive diarrhoea, especially after anger. He craves sweet and food; he can eat all day and is very thirsty for sweet drinks. Drinks coffee, alcohol but also water from the bath or from the ditch outside if you don't pay attention. Everything somebody else eats, he wants to eat whether he likes it or not. In the past there were good reactions on Anac, Sulph,
Lac maternum, Saccharum and Thuja.
After Berlin Wall 30 he got more "penetrable". He hears now if you say something. At the nursery he was quieter now. He is potty-trained now before he just could not "allow" that. He plays in the street now without running away. You can go with him to the swimming pool and even to the family doctor without problems. He reacts better on
Sulphur again when he has his bouts of diarrhoea and when he gets more closed again after a
Sulphur, Berlin Wall opens him up again. (His mother is a homeopath herself and alternates Berlin Wall and
Sulphur on indication).
Case 5Daughter - M. is 5 years of age now. She resembles her mother a lot. She complains already for some months about double vision (vertical: one image above the other), not with reading. She has pain in her joints, a painful swollen lymph gland under her chin. Normally she is very afraid of doctors but now she wanted to see one, because as she said she feared an inflammation. Besides her left mouth corner she has an eczema spot, fiery. She is the opposite of her little brother, very fearful and very concerned about him. Mother notices lately that in her drawings the little sun is "walled in" by circles (she used to make drawings with a sun in every left or right upper corner). After Berlin Wall her first drawing is only with dashing, flourish stripes (no sun, no circles). The next day she gets angry with her mother and also sad en yells: "I don't do anything anymore, I am totally empty! I always go to everybody, I don't want it anymore, I will go to nobody". Immediately after that she makes a drawing with a big glowing heart with on the left and the right a sun. Her double vision disappeared together with her joint pains.
Case 6A 48 years woman with 4 upgrowing children and a very troublesome relation with a very passive aggressive husband. She always had the feeling she was nothing and a failure.
A very difficult relation with her mother. Now she wants to go to work and do a training (in attending old people) to get financially independent so she can divorce. This work and training is very important and she is very worried that she can't do it. During work she often has a very dull, con- fused head and then she makes the most stupid mistakes (especially when someone is watching). Then she can't remember anything, does everything wrong, uses wrong words, she can't even repeat what somebody else ordered her to do a moment ago. She feels then so stupid and ashamed. In the morning on waking she is already very nervous about all this. In the past she reacted well on Lac-c, Thuja, Phosphor and Bar-phos. After Berlin Wall she got even duller in the head and more tired but after one week she got very clear in the head, could easily link things and make combinations, could think logically again. Goes to work with pleasure again. Has a lot more self-confidence now among people. The need to fight her husband became less when he provoked her again - she could take more distance from it.
- A man with his hair standing on end (?!) was asleep, I was with my daughter in his house; it was a mess in the kitchen. I thought: "typically a man alone".
- About a key with which I could enter the house of the neighbours - there was the neighbour boy with whom I used to have rows in the past.
Case 7Without him knowing, the woman of case 6 gave Berlin Wall to her husband. Her story about him: "He is always very dominant and angry for a long time, always he turns and twists things in that way that it's always my fault. He pities himself and eats away his frustrations. When he is angry with me, he is extra nice to my daughter. He never does anything in the house. He snores terribly during sleep. On the other hand he is also afraid that I get angry with him because in some way he is very dependent on me. When he was nine years old he lost his brother and his mother had to go to a mental hospital. But all those things cannot be discussed". After Berlin Wall he is more relaxed and more reasonable; you can talk to him now; he is more tender, cheerful. (Other remedies he reacted well on: Lyc, Thuj).
Summary Picture of Berlin WallThe above given cases give some indication in what kind of problems Berlin Wall can be of use. Very often Berlin Wall is a very valuable intercurrent (comparable with Nat-mur) in cases where traumatic incidents from the past have been walled off and where the indicated remedy didn't or insufficiently touched those trauma's. We have seen two kinds of types reacting well on Berlin Wall. The "wall" types, closed, walled off, impenetrable; sometimes with barbwire on it ("don't touch
me"). You have to differentiate them from
Natrium muriaticum or other muriaticums, Sepia.
Aurums,
Calcarea's, Lac's.
2 The "borderless" types, they lack a wall - everything and everybody can walk in; defenceless. No
structure, therefore confusion and panics.
The walls in type 2 are not against the outside world, they have been erected inside against the unre- solved traumatic experiences from the past that are lurking in the unconscious and trying to emerge to consciousness. Most of them have reacted on Thuja, Phos, Stram, Lac's, Hydrogen or hallucinogens (Anh, Cann-i) in the past.
After Berlin Wall they have the ability to set clear borders, they often can "see" clearly now (and 97

painfully) how it really was (The theme of eyes in Berlin Wall). You can see type as a compensa- tion/compulsion surviving mechanism of type 2. If you lack natural borders the most logic defence is building an impenetrable wall (nothing can come in and nothing goes out).
The deepest delusion of Berlin Wall is probably not being able to make a distinction (a natural border) between himself and the other person. The Berlin Wall person very easily lets the other person inside of himself (no border) and then sees (and judges) himself from the other person's perspective. The repertory rubric: ‘Fear, observed, of her condition being’ is one of the expressions of this problem. It is interesting to see that
Calcarea, Lapis -c-b, Lapis-mar-c are all in this rubric: all stony substances; also Berlin Wall can be added (see case ). Germany in the form of Germanium is also present in this rubric.
DiscussionAfter this presentation of Berlin Wall on the boat trip the atmosphere in the group changed from one of harmony and mutual understanding into a discordial one (a proving symptom of Berlin Wall?). One party had some kind of an averse feeling towards the remedy arguing that we can also start proving the rope of a ship or prison wall(s). One participant confessed that she was quite angry when hearing that her husband was prescribed Berlin Wall, it being a "non-remedy". The other side claimed Berlin Wall to be the materialised (manmade) concept in the outer world of (the inner) separating, dividing walling off (survival)mechanism present in most western civilised (wo)men and therefore a potentially deep acting remedy for a lot of patients. The discussion got a bit "emotional" in which I (being in one of the parties) got the feeling I was not heard, as if talking to a wall and therefore could not hear anymore. And if I cannot hear anymore the other party will get the feeling of not being heard, as if talking to a wall. Fortunately we could dance our walls away in the evening. I must confess that the same controversial feelings were elicited in me when I heard of Berlin Wall as a homeopathic remedy for the first time. My "Berlin Wall" was broken down when I trusted and believed my eyes seeing the effects of Berlin Wall as a homeopathic remedy.
Kees Dam