Porcelain Snail

A homeopathic proving

Foreword to the English edition
I would like to thank Ruth Gutberlet for her friendship and kind offer to translate the proving of the Cowrie shell into the English language in order to make this proving available to all homeopaths around the world. Ruth Gutberlet practices homeopathy in San Diego, California.

“Do you want Euros or Cowries?”
This is the topic of an exhibition about archaic forms of money. This snail, which gave porcelain its name, is devoted to the goddess Aphrodite and decorates sarcophagi as a symbol of the divine vulva and rebirth, was of great importance in cultural history as the leader among payments in kind.

Antique cultures attached super-natural powers to the Cowrie snail: Shamans used in rituals to ask for fertility, plentiful harvest, rain or to put a spell on enemies. To this day people wear it as protection from infertility and venereal diseases, it decorates war canoes and emperor’s crowns, serves as protection from the “evil eye”, and much more.

In Tibetan medicine it played a part as a substance used as a remedy for treatment of benign or malignant tumors.

What did the homeopathic proving of this sea snail reveal?
“Boundlessness” – “loss of contact with the surroundings” – “absent-mindedness” – “romantic longing” – “arguments about money” – eating disorders (a remedy for anorexia/bulimia?) – vertigo – tinnitus- nettle-like skin rashes – kidney disorders etc.

Copyright of the German edition
2000 Verlag Müller & Steinicke München
ISBN 3-87569-175-X

Order English version online.

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