Tails from a Red Fish

The Erythrinidae are primitve predatory fish belonging to the same order (Characiformes) as piranhas, inhabiting stagnant swamps, flooded forest and the edges of shallow freshwater streams and lakes in Central and South America as far south as Argentina. Larger specimens and species can be aggressive and attacks on humans have been documented. Erythrinidae are nocturnal, mostly hiding beneath overhangs or floating vegetation by day.

They can survive in brackish water and in water with very low oxygen levels through an anatomical modification of the swim bladder which serves as a respiratory appendage and absorbs oxygen directly from the air. They are capable of leaving the water and moving across the forest floor in search of new pools. Some species can survive long periods out of water.

The smaller members of the Erythrinidae – E. erythrinus and H. unitaeniatus – spend much of their days hiding to avoid larger predators and often each other. They are known to be aggressive towards members of their own species. H. unitaeniatus is vulnerable to predation by electric eels, particularly where the water chemistry is such as to require them to make frequent trips to the surface to breathe air (1,2,3,4,5).

In some environments, the juvenile Erythrinus erythrinus mimics the colour pattern and behaviour of the female of its specific prey, the cyprinodont fish Rivulus agilae (also a land walker). The male Rivulus is attracted by the fish, and while displaying in front of it, is caught by the tail and swallowed. Once the fish matures, it loses this specific colouration and changes its behaviour, prey and habitat. (6)

In the first minutes of this proving, the letters O and C, then M and W, repeatedly appeared to jump out from the titles of books on shelves or from papers around my desk. Apart from briefly wondering how on earth you would put that into a repertory rubric, it seemed at the time no more than one of those proving oddities that defy any attempt to make sense of them. Yet in many ways these letters came to encapsulate the experience of this proving. Firstly, as graphical representations of major themes, they illustrate the sense of the whole, a strong awareness of being part of the entirety of earthly existence (O/C) and also the tendency to sudden eruptions (on any plane), and spikes in symptoms occurring with predictable regularity (M/W). Secondly, in being the initial letters featuring most prominently in the indigenous language common names of the fish in the regions in which it's found (7), they focus on the issue of names and identity that emerged as the principal psychological and philosophical component of the proving for me (and led on to an exploration of the nature of the colour red).

In Nomine ...

During the first two weeks of the proving I went to a 2-day voice workshop. (The first day was April 1st – All Fool's Day – a good reminder that we can take things all too seriously at times.) The workshop culminated with a ritual where the participants were divided into groups of 5 in which each person took a turn in the centre of the group to have their name sung to them by the others. This was supposed to be a powerful experience of affirmation, but I was very uneasy about it and did not want to take my turn in the centre. With the heightened unity consciousness I was experiencing through the proving, my names felt too limited and limiting; too superficial a resonance to be attuned to so deeply (and in that moment also connected to past feelings of separation and rejection). I was very aware of the power of names to separate, to isolate, to fragment, and I did not want any name's vibrations imprinted on me in such a way and forcing me to separate from the whole. At the same time I was aware that not wanting to take my turn in the ritual or being able to experience it as affirmation was separating me from all the others taking part, and that felt bad too. I felt trapped in a paradox and didn't know what to do, and as I finally stood in the centre where I was supposed to declare my name, seeing, hearing the reinforcing of separation taking place on such a scale around me and feeling separated by not wanting to feel so separated, I was hit by this huge upwelling of grief which seemed more than just mine, more an eruption of the collective grief for the pain of separation suffered by so much of humanity.

This experience only fell into context once the proving was substantially over and I knew what I'd been proving. The proving coordinator (Joy Lucas) was having great difficulty in precisely identifying the original source of the remedy. Ainsworths, who also supply the other pharmacies who stock Erythrinus, had lost their records. "Erythrinus" (which simply means "red" or "reddish") is used as both a generic and specific name for various species of fish, and although the remedy is consistently given as belonging to the Erythrinidae of South America, it's also referred to by the common name of "red mullet" in the 19th century homeopathic literature (8), introducing confusion, if not a total red herring, into the picture. "Mullet" is not a common name currently listed for any of the South American Erythrinidae, and what is commonly known as "red mullet" in Europe is no relation whatsoever and has only the most superficial resemblance (both are predatory and have reddish-brown colouration) to any of the Erythrinidae. The confusion worsens to conflation in Massimo Mangialavori's Koine International remedy information database (9), where details about the freshwater South American red finned wolf-fish (Erythrinus erythrinus) are mixed in with information on Mullus surmuletus, the salt water red mullet or goatfish found in European and Mediterranean waters, as if what is being described is a single species. This inability to name the remedy source, and the confusion and imprecision surrounding it, felt beyond coincidental. It also had echoes in other aspects of the proving (see Aggressive mimicry below).

Comparing my proving experiences to the habitat and lifestyle of both the mullet and the Erythrinidae left me in no doubt that I had been proving a member of the latter family, but which one? Of the current valid classifications within the Erythrinidae, there are three genera found throughout Central and South America, each with one main widespread species plus a selection of other species recorded with markedly less frequency in more localised habitats:

• Erythrinus erythrinus (also known as E. brevicauda, E. longipinnis and E. salmoneus), plus E. kessleri
• Hoplerythrinus unitaeniatus (also known as E. balteatus, E. salvus, E. unitaeniatus, E. vittatus and Pseudoerythrinus rosapinnis), plus H. cinereus and H. gronovii
• Hoplias malabaricus (also known as E. macrodon and E. trahira), plus H. aimara, H. brasiliensis, H. lacerdae, H. macrophthalamus, H. microcephalus, H. microlepis, H. patana and H. teres (10)

Available information about each species can be contradictory, and common names can be interchangeable. Confusion and misidentification seemed prevalent here as well. It seemed plausible that taxonomic imprecision within the Erythrinidae might provide a logical foundation for this confusion and inability to name the fish precisely, so research efforts changed tack. Genetic studies have been undertaken on each major genus. What emerges is that "The karyotypic diversity that had been found in the Erythrinidae fish, especially in Hoplias malabaricus and Hoplerythrinus unitaeniatus, is now also confirmed in E. erythrinus [...] suggesting the existence of several unnamed new species in this fish group. Thus, this nominal species appears to correspond to a species complex." (11) Essentially, the present species classification of the Erythrinidae is not an accurate reflection of the variation in the fish included in the classification and is largely nominal -- ie. in name only.

Aggressive mimicry

Several things that happened to me during the proving echoed aspects of the lifestyle and nature of the Erythrinidae.

First and most prominent was the habitat-hopping. Similar things happened to my 15 year-old daughter, who also produced a number of physical symptoms in tandem with my own. It started when my car was written off after a minor accident in a freak snowstorm that I was only caught in "accidently". Given the way it happened, it was hard to avoid the feeling that it was "set up" somehow (a frequent feeling with proving-related events). I replaced the car with a newer, different make. Then I was asked to do some work for a local business and started this the very same day my daughter started an apprenticeship after quitting school. I also replaced my computer. Each move entailed quite a dramatic change in "habitat" and life/work styles, and a lot of energy (whether physical, mental or financial) to make the transition. Each move initially appeared to represent, as it were, "golden opportunities" compared to the previous situation, based on reputations and/or superficial appearances. Each of these turned out to be largely illusory. Again it seemed as if the imprecision and unreliability of superficial classifications and descriptions were being underlined. All things and situations have their pros and their cons and individual variation exists in relation to all, even machines.

Another noticeable mental/emotional symptom of the proving was a strong aversion to male energy, specifically bullying, aggressive and predatory male energy. The sort that believes its view of the world is the only one possible. I felt unusually defensive and vulnerable in its presence, and preferred to avoid it, or, if forced to confront it, to make it plain that there are other ways of seeing the world. More than anything I felt tired and done with it and fed up with having to keep dealing with it. I wanted to move on (to a new pool?).

The fish's strong connection to unity consciousness is less obviously grounded in its lifestyle and behaviour, though could easily be seen as a polarity of its separation and potential isolation within its habitat and/or a function of its primitive nature. While I find unity consciousness is generally heightened in many provings, it was particularly strong in this one. Sudden eruptions of fury arose in response to separation issues. I made passport applications for myself and two of my children via the Passport Office's new online block application facility, but they separated all the applications then kept writing to me asking for the children's supporting documentation which they already had in their possession attached to my application, so received several rants verging on the apoplectic from me for their pains. I was inclined to bite my eldest daughter's head off when she told me of her plans to go out with friends on days when all of us had the opportunity to do something together. I also had moments when my happiness with my single lifestyle seemed in danger of collapse and frequent dreams in which there was an overwhelming desire to physically merge with another in a very earthy way. It was physical contact over the greatest surface area possible that was important, sex being only a natural extension of that. The dreams focused on a specific individual; it seemed because of both proximity and an association with earthiness. For an aquatic creature, this was a very "earthy" proving, which later made some sense in terms of the fish being able to survive and move on land, and earth being the "mediator" between members of the species separated in individial pools. I had a dream in which I lost the use of my legs completely and had to drag myself along on my arms, dreaming that I was awake at the time.

Another repeating dream theme was sudden acceleration and the power of momentum to carry something forward in a trajectory beyond what would normally be expected in the circumstances.

In general though, the proving's focus seemed predominantly physical, again emphasising an earthy materiality. Even energies that I'm accustomed to having around in a metaphysical way appeared in physical form.

Material affections

I experienced a series of acute inflammatory episodes (tonsilitis, cystitis, gastroenteritis) all of which started immediately post-menses, peaked with marked intensity over the course of a single night, then resolved, though the duration of each varied. All symptoms were better for warm applications and for lying on the affected side, and tended to develop or become worse in the evening and into the night. The tonsilits started with soreness in the muscles of the back of the neck, such that it became difficult to lower the chin onto the chest. Tonsils swelled considerably, becoming very dark red, protruding from their folds and were covered in large white vesicles, They were too sore for eating, but ameliorated by warm watery drinks. Worse for a period without swallowing. Submaxillary glands were also swollen, and as the infection progressed all glands in my upper body became sore and tender. This was accompanied by fever, soreness in the kidneys, passing blood with faeces and possibly also urine. This particular infection (with all the signs of "strep throat") initially threatened post-menses with just the sore neck which then disappeared again. The following month the sore neck returned, and this time developed into the symptoms described above.

The month after that I had 3 days of cystitis, commencing and peaking over a single night of almost unbearable intensity during which I was slipping in and out of dreams involving conversations and situations where I was repeatedly discussing the various things going on in the world and how everything that was going on was ultimately designed to heal the fragmentation in human consciousnesss so we could regain a consciousness of the unity of existence. In the dream the experience of this consciousness was vivid and intense, but very much focused on the unity of life on Earth, rather than beyond. In the next 24 hours, urine became cloudy, greenish and frothy, with a sensation of inflammation in the bladder. It resolved after a further 24 hours.

The following month I experienced sudden onset of nausea in the late evening, followed by another largely sleepness night during which I felt constantly nauseous with churning intestines as if diarrhoea were imminent, slightly feverish, and thirsty. The entire night seemed comprised of one long dream to do with a piece of typesetting and performing some unusual treatment on the boundaries of graphics such that they expanded and merged into other elements of the page. This was followed by 24 hours of diarrhoea, then no further symptoms.

Menses themselves were really unpleasant: the smell was strong and awful. Cadaverous. Initially like rotten fish, then burnt, and the flow was excoriating at the same time. Menses were more profuse and lasted longer than normal, starting pale and watery and becoming abnormally dark by the third day. There were occasional bouts of constipation which seemed due to rectal muscular inefficiency.

Symptoms could either be predominantly one-sided (left or right) or symmetrical.

There were many instances of lightbulbs blowing, none of which were particularly old or due to go, many static electric shocks from stroking the cats, and a dream in which my landlord asked my neighbour to go up into my attic to fix my electrics as something was wrong with them. (Grimmer states "Eryth. is electro-magnetically negative." (12) which relates to his use of radionics in homeopathic prescription, all remedies being either positive or negative, but I could find no other reference to any electrical properties of the fish. It's worth noting that electro-magnetically negative remedies in Grimmer's method are applicable to the cancerous diathesis, among others.)

The most dramatic and long-lasting symptoms of the proving, which again began post-menses and coincided with the episode of cystitis, were a series of eruptions which appeared in successive batches. Initially these were mostly on my inner arms, backs of the hands, and upper legs, then over the course of 3 months they spread and gradually resolved from the top downards and from front to back with the last eruptions on the backs of my legs above the Achillles' tendons. There were virtually no eruptions on my face or trunk apart from a small circular area over my sternum and one or two on my lower back. To begin with, the eruptions appeared as papules with pseudovesicular centres on raised erythmatous bases with the small "blisters" rapidly turning into flaking skin or scabs surrounded by dry skin. The papules were hyperkeratotic. As time went on, the initial varioliform appearance became less marked until eruptions eventually appeared with a kind of "frosted glass" appearance with the skin immediately flaking off. They were only rarely irritating and were only so noticeably over the course of a single night 4 days after they first appeared during which I got little sleep for the itching. The itching felt very deep and was concentrated in the bends of joints – knees, elbows and groin. In my half-waking, half-dreaming state, the itching was associated with website links where the HTML syntax was incorrect and it seemed to me that if I corrected the syntax, the itch would go away. As the eruptions resolved, which they did very slowly, their bases turned from bright red to a more coppery colour, then faded to leave an area of skin like fresh scar tissue which reddened if subject to extremes of temperature. Their resolution was speeded up by exposure to sunlight. The polymorphic nature of the eruptions continued sporadically throughout but new batches invariably appeared during the 48 hours following cessation of menses.

After trawling through numerous dermatological atlases and databases, I finally managed to identify the rash as pityriasis lichenoides which, by its course of development, appeared to have progressed from the acute manifestation (PLEVA) to the more chronic variant (PLC), an observed progression in some instances. The condition, also known as Mucha-Habermann disease, is rare, generally occurs under the age of 30 in all races with no racial predisposition, and shows a male predominance in the paediatric population. It tends to remit spontaneously, though may continue for years in adults, waxing and waning. In children, the mean duration is 7½ months. (13)

This was fascinating in view of the only case histories in the homeopathic literature citing the use of this remedy – James Compton Burnett's treatment of pityriasis rubra:

"Although the Vienna School classifies this rather rare affection with eczema, I cannot see myself whereon the classification is based; but I have only had to treat two typical cases of it, both being of the cutaneous covering of the chest, and two or three cases of symptoms of the rim of the hairy scalp, which were distinctly of the same nature. The patient here referred to came to me on December 22, 1885. A powerful peer of this realm and a great Nimrod, with flesh as hard as nails, he came to be treated for a maddening neuralgia he had picked up on the banks of the Nile; remedies having cured his neuralgia he showed me his chest, which was the seat of a big patch of red pityriasis that he had had for a number of years, – the precise number I do not know. I saw him, off and on, for nearly five years, and gave him a not inconsiderable portion of our Pharmacopoeia (and our Pharmacopoeia is not small – see Allen's "Encyclopaedia of Pure Materia Medica!"), but the pityriasis rubra remained ... Pityriasis rubra. I should say the big patch was composed of a series of smaller patches, all more or less circular or segments of circles.

"One day I was reading in an old German Book that some sailors - British, I think - many years ago, in some of the Pacific islands, ate of a fish called erythrinus, and came out with a peculiar red rash that became chronic, and which the doctors took for a form of syphilis.

"Dr Alfred Heath FLS, with his wonted devotion and disinterestedness, procured this erythrinus for me, and prepared it homoeopathically, and I, on March 23, 1889, ordered as follows: Rx. Tc. Erythrinus 1 3j., five drops in water night and morning. I did not see patient after for about two and a half years – viz., September 1, 1891. When I inquired of him about the "red patch of his chest", "Oh," said he, "you cured that long ago with that big bottle of stuff you sent me." ie, – the ounce bottle of Erythrinus 1." (14)

It's worth noting in this context that both pityriasis rubra and pityriasis lichenoides have some aetiological association with streptococcal throat infections (13,15) (ie. Group A Streptococci, essentially S. pyogenes) which can also progress to rheumatic fever and valvular damage to the heart, hinting at possible syphilitic associations. It's recommended secondary syphilis be considered with a diagnosis of pityriasis lichenoides, also HIV infection. Burnett theorised that pityriasis rubra might be a "syphilitic manifestation in the second generation" (14). With pityriasis lichenoides there seems to be an emerging association with EBV and HIV (13), perhaps fitting in with Harris Coulter's assertion that AIDS is a modern evolution of syphilis (16). The remedy's inclusion within the broad syphilitic diathesis therefore seems justified, even if the symptoms it produces and has cured are more weighted towards the psoric in manifestation. From the Doctrine of Signatures perspective, the aggressive mimicry of the juvenile E. erythrinus also resonates with the idea of syphilis as the 'great imitator'.

Esoteric associations

These attributions, for those that find them useful, relate to my personal experience with the remedy and shouldn't be taken as representing the proving as a whole. Since the proving coordinator doesn't intend to publish the proving extractions at this time, a more thorough investigation is not presently possible. Murphy (17) attributes the remedy to Mercury (most likely because of Burnett's association with the syphilitic miasm). A primary attribution to Mars and Neptune would seem more appropriate. There is also a hint of Saturn in the emphasis on definition and inflammations involving boundary sites (skin and oesophageal, urinary and gastrointenstinal tracts).

In terms of mythological archetypes, Triton, the merman son of Poseidon (Neptune), is suggested. Triton started off in the singular and later became plural, much as the singular Erythrinid species are now being called "species complexes". The singular Triton was best known for his musical skill on the conch shell which he once blew on Poseidon's command to calm the seas and order the waters to retreat at the end of the Great Flood. He played a role in the story of the Argonauts, appearing to them when they had been washed far inland (to Lake Tritonis in Libya) by a tidal wave, and were desperately trying to find an outlet to the sea. He disguised himself as a local king and presented the Argonauts with a clod of earth as a gift of friendship, receiving a golden tripod in return. He then reverted to his true form and led them back to the sea, where they dropped the clod of earth in the Mediterranean and it became the volcanic island of Thera (Santorini -- whose massive eruption in c1500 BCE is credited with the destruction of the Minoan civilisation in Crete). In plural form, Tritons were troublemakers, known for the sudden attacks they made on humans, cattle raiding and general plundering.

There is much here to echo Erythrinus – becoming stranded in pools surrounded by land, the earth emphasis, the mimicry, names being merely nominal, the predatory eruptive Martian-style behaviour with its Neptunian undertones. Conch shells are traditionally symbols of power, authority and sovereignty and were used to command spirits, so in a sense relate to the governing principles of the whole as well as the whole Neptunian relationship to universality, and bring in a Saturnine flavouring.

Tail Piece

Finally, as the proving came to an end, I had a dream which seemed to symbolically encapsulate the "teaching" of this fish.

I was at some kind of sleep-over and talking to a friend (another homeopath) who was telling me about her new sleep bra. She lifted up her nightdress to show me. It was kind of like a sports bra but made of some strange material I'd never come across before which was transparent, although the elasticated edges of the bra weren't. They were just ordinary sports bra elastic. Evidently this special material had the property of gently maintaining the shape of your breasts while you were sleeping and was blissfully comfortable to wear. I thought oh that's intriguing, I'd like to give that a try. I took another look at her bra and instantly created one on myself. But because the idea of doing so is so outwith consensus "reality", it wasn't acceptable to reveal it, even to my friend (who's quite adventurous in her thinking). So I had to hide the fact from my friend, which I felt really bad about – kind of sneaky and dishonest – and go through this protracted charade, telling her I'd like to get one and would she please show me where she got it so I could buy one. So we walked through department after department of a gigantic department store to come to the area where she'd bought her bra, with me all the time wearing the one I'd created just by looking at hers. When we finally got to the right department, the dream ended.

It's very clear to me that the department store represented the way we conceptualise our reality – all separated into different departments with different characteristics and names – and that in relation to a more fundamental level of reality, it's really just a charade. Largely irrelevant and peripheral to the essential process of how we create our reality.

This led me on to explore the nature of the colour red and its meaning in our lives in the essay "The Redness of Names" in the General Essays section of this site.

Postscript. This March/April 2008 Orion magazine article, The Failure of Names by artist James Proseck, addresses the subject of taxonomy from a similar angle.