This article is in five pieces, depending of what you want to explore, you can jump to the part you like, or read it all.

Part 1
The hierarchy of knowledge based on Auguste Comte. Then also expanded both downwards into the unconscious (obfuscated) and upward into the superconscious (spiritual) realms.

Part 2
A short summary of the path through the upper realms.

Part 3
The different levels of knowledge from Blooms revised taxonomy and how it is reflected in different levels of homeopathic practice.

Part 4 ( To be published soon)
My own journey and the role of perennial philosophy and classical esoteric sciences in my own discoveries of archetypes and miasms.

Part 5 ( To be published soon)
When the homeopath transcends homeopathy. A higher holonity or unity of client, remedy and practitioner.

Knowledge levels in homeopathic practice – part 3

The competency levels in any academic profession are similar and can be compared to the operational stages of a child as described by Piaget, but on a higher level.

A layman or homeopathic student will in the start just learn remedies useful for simple indications, like a child grabbing a toy-closs that fits into a square or triangular hole. At graduation or after some years of practice the homeopath should be up to date with the state of the art. The child has grown and can handle the complexity of a mobile, PC or car.

Contemporary homeopathy focuses on different kingdoms and groups of remedies made from waters, gases, crystals, other minerals, plants, animals, imponderables and more.

If you want to take part in this development you would benefit with and understanding of physics, chemistry regarding the periodic table and orbitals. Knowledge of botany, phytotherapy and plant classification are useful to understand analogy to evolutionary stages and herbal indications relation to symptom-picture. A good foundation in biology, human medical sciences and psychology is also needed.
The knowledge of perennial philosophy enhances the possibilities to advance in the hierarchy of knowledge, leaning and in the understanding of patient, remedy and the healing process.

There is an almost unlimited source of potential remedies and they can all be understood better through the knowledge of different fields of science. The study of materia medica is the study of nature and the universe. The ability to connect the information in the case, the proving or the remedy can be greatly improved by the knowledge base from perennial philosophy. The core of the perennial approach is to seek the unifying underlying factors.

Let us look at the competency levels of a homeopath with the 6 levels of thinking or dealing with knowledge, described in Blooms taxonomy, so we can understand the above as related to homeopathy.

1. Remember
As long as the homeopath is working with “allopathic homeopathy” based on indications like Arnica for injury, Rhus tox for sprain, Belladonna for high fever it is a question of the lowest level of learning skills that are needed. The same goes for keynote prescriptions. These just need to be learned by heart and represent the lowest level of learning.

2. Understand
The next level requires understanding. This includes the understanding of “the complete symptom” consisting of location, sensation and modality. Another example is Bönninghausen´s totality; Quis, Quid, Ubi, Quibus auxilis, Cur Quomodo, Quando. It also represents the understanding of the structure and terminology of the repertory and materia medica. This level covers the foundation of the homeopathic knowledge base.

3. Apply
The third level is the ability to apply the knowledge. This is what Hahnemann describes in § 3 of his organon (Recognise what heals in the remedy, what needs healing and match them). At this level you are able to use repertory, select rubrics and make a totality repertorisation.
You aim at a remedy with most hits. It is a question of quantity.
Here you dive into methodology, Kents 12 reactions, Vithoulkas reaction or levels of health etc.

All the three basic levels are rather technical. The higher levels, involves quality and the homeopath as a person in increasing degrees.

4. Analyse
The fourth levels is analysing, this is beyond the mathematical totality and implies discernment of qualities. You start to perceive the dynamic aspect of the case, what Jeremy Sherr calls “the verb”. Hahnemann and Bönninghausen refers to this level with the genus or characteristic of the remedy.

Hahnemann in his § 101 describes the process in regards of the handling of epidemics. He says that the carefully investigating physician can often come so close to the true state even with the first or second patient, that he becomes alive to the characteristic image of the disease, …  

Later (§ 103) he says he used the same method to understand the miasm. Hahnemann was not explicit about the difference of a quantitative to a qualitative approach, but it seems like Hahnemann used the word “inbegriff” as opposed to “gesammtheit der symptome” to distinguish them.

When qualities are used to categorize or find common traits, you start to see a core or theme. This level is used when perceiving the essence of a remedy in patients, provings or materia medica, as well as to understand the qualities in groups of remedies. In Kent we often find this level in the expression “a feature running through this remedy”.

The knowledge from the esoteric sciences is of immense value at this stage since they extensively make you recognise patterns of qualities. Also knowledge of anthroposophical medicine and different Traditional Medical systems from Tibet, China and India can help to make connections between apparently disconnected aspects of a remedy picture.

Here you lift the perspective from objective fragments to inter-connections of a more dynamis quality. This is what Bönninghausen did in his generalisation, it is at the level of hot and cold remedies, modalities and qualities that run through a remedy to use Kents words.

The core focus in perennial philosophy is to perceive the unifying principles of apparently non related fragments.

5. Evaluate
The fifth level is the level of evaluating. This includes justification by judging the information making a good case for defending the opinions or knowledge.

It could be questioning the practice of looking at miasmatic classification in combination with classification of plant families. The idea is that you would find the remedy from the crossing of x and y coordinates in a spreadsheet. 
This might confound the fact that both miasms and plant families both reflect the evolutionary line.
The discovery of fractals has made us appreciate the phenomenon of smaller repetitions within each step of the larger steps, this is more likely a more applicable approach to both miasms and the evolution of plants.

The attempts to allocate the proven plants of a family in different miasms in the sensation method seems to have a tendency to evenly distribute just a few plants between different miasms and rarely would most of the proven plants end up in the same miasm. This is statistically very unlikely since the proven plants often represent less than 1% of the family. These kind of questions are the 5th level of handling knowledge.

Another example where we should evaluate our own knowledge base is in the moving of four elements in the periodic table from group 13 and 14 in period 2 and 3. It is making the model more precise, but is it adjusting the landscape so it fits the map? You can read level 4 arguments about this here (group 14)
Or if you want to know why one should ask questions if there are 18 stages, read here (Numerology in the periodic table).

These are examples of application of this level of knowledge.

6. Create
The last level is the level of creativity and implies generating new ideas and compiling information in new ways.

This article is an example of such a compilation of knowledge from psychology, sociology, esoteric science, homeopathy and more.

This level is often touching upon a ceiling of intuition and inspiration and is where we break the horizon and rise into the superconscious (See illustration from part 1 and 2).

As we reach the higher realms the focus turns from exploring, investigating and understanding the outside world, towards inner experience, inner realization and inner recognition of a higher source. Many scientific ideas have been “born” this way.

This is also reflected in how the Nobel committee always asked the Nobel Prize laureates about their relation to intuition. Some scientists also get the answer in their dreams and others when being in nature. Regardless it is often in a beam of clarity, revelation or inspiration, as if a light comes from a crack in the ceiling.

All the classical esoteric sciences are derived from cracks in the ceiling. They take it for granted that they represent a universal knowledge. It is a knowledge that can be reached from within after having climbed above the lower levels. In perennial philosophy.

In Kabbalah (= receiving) the source of this knowledge is explained in two ways. Either you receive it from within when you are prepared or from the written tradition or the elders that also received it from within.

To acquire this level of reception of knowledge, esoteric science and spiritual practice is needed.

In the illustration (part 1 and 2) one can see how the journey upwards or downwards are reflections. Looking at the path of knowledge in the old cultures gives us an understanding of the steps ahead of us.

Written language often started with pictograms and symbols becoming abstract representation. The way an ox on the farm would imply power and fertility, pulling, making new land and more cattle. It became the picture of the creative force and initiator, the first letter. In Hebrew the first letter is called Aleph meaning ox, if you take a big A and turn it upside down you can still see how the picture of the ox head formed the letter. Today it is a “dead” symbol, but it portrayed a meaning, was a sound and also represented “number one” in the ancient times, as well as oneness and unity.

A living dynamic quality has through the coarse of history turned into a symbol with no associations.
Imagine this process reversed. That you start to perceive the hidden meaning behind the representations that symbol speaks to you as a door that opens up more and more. This is how higher knowledge works. It is revealed to you, it appears on the horizon of knowledge like a rising sun.