An interesting passage from an unexpected source

Homeopathy for animal pests, weeds, insects and more

Many years ago, before I had ever used or come understand the value of homeopathy as a system of medicine, I read a strange and interesting book called The Spear of Destiny by Trevor Ravenscroft.

At the end of book, leading the very last chapter (Chapter 24, page 321), there was a most interesting passage that stuck with me hard.

\When I did eventually come to homeopathy, I had to go find this section again, and have since shared it with many people. I want to quote it here—  for posterity, and for the many of you who would likely never come across it. (The book has nothing else to do with homeopathy. It is about Hitler and his search for an occult spear of power.)

If you have never heard of Rudolf Steiner, you may be familiar with Waldorf Education, an alternative school system which is modeled on his teachings. Additionally, biodynamic farming and agriculture is based on his methods, including unique methods of fertilizing. He was a philosopher, scholar, and spiritual teacher. He did not live at the same time as Samuel Hahnemann, but if he had I could imagine them being great allies in their desire to advance humanity.

In case this interests you, I will include a couple of links to Steiner’s lectures on these topics.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA327/English/RSPC1938/19240614p02.html

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA327/English/RSPC1938/Ag1938_index.html

The lectures are rather dense, but they do include the details about how to go about using methods such as you will read about below. (Not just for animal pests, but for weeds and insect pests as well, though each has a unique system devised by Steiner).

I have extracted the detailed sections from the lectures for my own notes, and if there are interested readers I’d be happy to share them in these pages. Otherwise, let the concepts shared below inspire us to continue to expand the ways in which we can use homeopathy as keepers of this earth and caretakers of each other. Perhaps there are better ways to deal with imbalances and help nature without toxic repercussions? :)

Here is the passage from the book quoted in full:

“The rabbits on Count Keyserlingk's estates in Silesia had become a menace. Formerly kept in check with guns, the shortage of manpower and the absence of organised shooting parties throughout World War I had allowed their numbers to grow to serious proportions and the rabbits were overrunning the farm lands in the region of Koberwitz.

The situation became yet more chaotic after the war when Count Keyserlingk announced that he would no longer countenance the shooting of any form of wildlife on his own estates or the lands of his tenant farmers. He also refused to permit the use of poisons. "I am searching for some alternative method to get rid of the pests," he told his angry neighbours.

In the spring of 1924 Count Keyserlingk invited interested landowners, farmers and market-gardeners from all over Europe to attend an Agricultural conference at his Koberwitz home in order to promote "an attitude to farming in which the earth and nature were no longer regarded as objects of short-sighted financial exploitation." The conference would also consider a new bio-dynamic method of farming to produce healthier crops, prevent soil erosion, combat pollution, and curtail the multiplication of plant and animal diseases arising from the use of industrial poisons and synthetic fertilisers. The highlight of the conference would be a demonstration of a new form of 'Pest Control' which would rid the estate and neighbouring lands of the whole rabbit population in three days.

A rumour circulated amongst the local peasantry and smallholders that Count Keyserlingk was bringing to Koberwitz a celebrated 'Wizard' who, like the legendary Pied Piper, would spirit the rabbits away. They waited with a mixture of apprehension, superstition and curiosity for the appearance of this magician who would wave his wand and conjure away the teeming rabbit population without recourse to guns or poisons. 

The man about to perform this apparent miracle was Dr. Rudolf Steiner who was to deliver a series of lectures at the conference. On arrival at Koberwitz he requested that a male rabbit should be shot and brought to the room temporarily set up as a laboratory. He removed the spleen, testes and a portion of the rabbit skin. These items were burned to ashes. The ashes were then mixed with a neutral powder, sugar of milk, and homeopathically 'potentised' beyond the boundary of ponderable existence.

There was nothing new in itself with homeopathic potentisation. It is a process used regularly at such institutions as the Royal Homeopathic Hospital in London and by several thousand fully qualified medical practitioners throughout the world. It was the purpose for which Dr. Steiner intended to use this particular potentisation that was of startling significance.

His intention was to induce a condition of such total insecurity in relation to their present habitat that the whole

rabbit population would quit the area in panic. To achieve this end he was utilising those organs from the buck rabbit which in his opinion were the physiological basis for the instinct of survival within the species. The homeopathic potency would transform this instinct into its very opposite. Spread on the wind and absorbed through respiration, he conceived that the concoction would have a functional effect on the rabbits similar to that condition which nature herself induces in Lemmings when, their numbers greater than their environment can withstand, they gather in their thousands bent on self destruction.

Dr. Steiner carried his concoction in a bucket to the paddock near the house. He held in his other hand the type of brush normally used to sweep crumbs into a dustpan. He dipped the brush into the liquid and flicked it like fine rain into the wind. Young assistants carried similar buckets up wind to the borders of the estate and also spread the homeopathic potency like fine spray.

During the following two days nothing happened. The rabbit population were still very much in evidence guzzling the spring vegetables and apparently quite oblivious of their fate. The peasants and farm labourers breathed a sigh of relief. The 'Wizard' was apparently an ordinary mortal after al. Count Keyserlingk would have to permit shooting once more!

Dr. Steiner pointed out to the members of the conference that homeopathic treatments were unlike their allopathic counterparts which induced an immediate physical reaction. His homeopathic concoction would take three days to penetrate the life organism of the rabbits. By dusk the following night there would not be a single rabbit in the whole area. He described how vermin throughout the world would slowly build up a resistance to the allopathic poisons at present in use. And he predicted correctly that science would be hard put to it in the second half of the century to devise poisons which had any effect on vermin. The type of pest control which he was now demonstrating would, by necessity, be recognised by future generations as the only possible answer to the problem. 

When dawn broke the following morning thousands of rabbits were to be seen in a huge cluster round an old ash tree in the paddock. They appeared to be in a state of intense excitement, restless, quivering, running up and down and sniffing the air with obvious perturbation. From all directions they were joined by more and more rabbits that came dashing across the fields, running across farmyards and stables, and even scampering down garden paths, apparently oblivious of the dangers of human contact.

Reports came in from all parts of the vast estate and neighbouring farm lands. Throughout the entire area rabbits were quitting their burrows and warrens as though their natural habitat was now a threat to their very survival, forming other huge clusters in a condition of frantic agitation. By late afternoon the separate clusters had joined together in a single mass in a far corner of the estate. Shortly before dusk the entire rabbit population disappeared in one enormous panic-stricken swarm heading in a north-easterly direction towards the distant wastelands and marshes. No rabbit would be seen nor rabbit spoor discovered on the Keyserlingk lands for many years to come.”

I will have much more to share in the future about homeopathy for pests and plants and the environment at large, but for today I will leave you to ponder this remarkable piece of history.