This is the beginning of a collection of cases. Cases are "the proof of the pudding" in homeopathy, and they should be a part and parcel of every remedy picture in a materia medica. The proving gives a first hint of the properties of a remedy, the real good cases of the remedy show the picture in depth, if the case is properly understood. Please see that the German and the English versions may be different, because we do not translate everything. So the two versions complement each other.

The following article was published in HOMEOPATHIC LINKS 1/2001

The Color Preference as a Homeopathic Symptom -
Indian Cases Taken Under Difficult Conditions

How the cases were taken: In spring 2000 in South India, I got the challenge to treat villagers with homeopathy under very difficult conditions in an undeveloped poor rural area. I do not speak Tamil, and most of my patients did not speak English. So you can imagine the depth of the conversation. My "interpreter", an uneducated but intelligent villager, was not reliable with his few English fragments, and so a regular homeopathic anamnesis was impossible. One could barely assess the physical status and the main organic complaints with sometimes a reliable modality. Otherwise I had to rely on my observation how the patients behaved and acted. But here our experience with the favorite color as a homeopathic symptom came to the rescue. I took written notes of 46 cases, of which 28 patients were selected for this paper, because nearly all of them confirmed the relation of color and remedy by the clinical improvement. The 18 other cases showed no improvement, and I did not want to bore the reader with them, but those who are interested can get them by email. The ratio of 64% improved or cured cases seems in itself suggestive of the validity of the postulated color/remedy relation.

The first section represents all the cases taken under normal conditions, as only these few patients spoke good English and there was sufficient time for anamnesis and repertory work. The second and third section describe increasingly more difficult conditions, and especially the third part was taking place in a one day medical camp with more than 400 patients waiting. We were four doctors, me the only homeopath. The other three were Siddha practitioners and worked quicker, but an average of 10 minutes was my minimum to find at least 3 valid symptoms for the choice of a remedy (the required minimum of 3 legs for the chair to stand, as Hering puts it) including a glance at Mac Repertory. No doubt, I relied heavily on the one leg of the color symptom, but what else to do? I was not used to such straightened circumstances and was surprised about the results, because I had expected more failures.

The uncomplicated mentality of the people was definitely helpful. In the West, many are rather brainwashed and preoccupied with so-called knowledge and all kinds of far-fetched explanations. This may overlay the choice of the favorite color, and the true color may be hidden by fancies of fashion or other distorting factors. But here, the people liked this kind of game and chose an accurate color with child-like simplicity from our color book¹. Of course I would have liked to check the color after some time to verify it. A true favorite color is usually re-found from a thousand to the very hue with surprising accuracy, and sometimes it is only the second of the two colors asked which is given exactly even after years, thus indicating it as the true color. But most of the patients I saw only once and few twice, and so the checking of the color was often impossible. Even for the result of the treatment I had to rely in many cases on the inquiries of my interpreter, because he knew most of the patients and visited them afterwards in their distant villages. I made him a checklist of questions to assess the result (cured, improved, same, worse) and the time it took for the remedy to work. More details were beyond his reach regarding the short time of training I could give him. He filled out this questionnaire accurately and sent it to me to Germany. On this questionable basis I tried to form an evaluation of the results of the patients under section 3.

Is the favorite color a homeopathic symptom? We all use food modalities etc as a homeopathic symptom. Why not the color preference? There is no substantial difference between such personal characteristics. A real color preference can be taken safely as an expression of a basic feeling. There is no why with it. We just like it, sometimes for most periods of a whole lifetime. It is not pathology, but it represents a basic mood, like the rubrics "mildness", "obstinate", "hurry", etc. Such constitutional symptoms are like the particular soils on which specific good and bad plants can grow favorably. Similarly, a specific pathology may grow on a particular steady emotion, if this emotion becomes too strong, gets fixed or other things go wrong in this direction. In our practice the color preference?has proved to be a valuable symptom for the homeopathic choice of remedies, and we use it since 10 years as a keynote symptom. It is easy to get, especially with children from the age of 3-4 years onwards, and it has often pointed directly to the curative remedy. In a retrospective overview of 143 successfully treated children in our clinic, who had responded well to a single homeopathic remedy, it was found that the curative remedy was discovered in about 25% with the aid of the favorite color as a symptom. We use it like any other symptom, with some reservation and only as a pointer, keeping in mind that any symptom may mislead. But if one of the remedies indicated by the color fits the essence of the case, why not use it?

How were the colors of remedies detected? Dr. Hugbald V. Müller from Cologne discovered a unique method for the use of color in homeopathy. It was him who first attributed many remedies to a specific color. The "color of a remedy" was established purely clinical, i.e. from good cases and not from provings. The first hypothesis was that a favorite color represents an individual basic feeling. The second hypothesis was that the handwriting is another unique and direct expression of the individual, but a symptom of quite another kind (unfortunately not to be standardized so easily), and that these two together can be sufficient to determine a deep-acting remedy, if the remedy also covers the main directions of the pathology. Detailed standardized color tests plus the handwritings of thousands of patients were collected (written on unlined paper, A4 size in Germany), and very good or deeply improved cases were compared. Now these cases showed that people cured by the same remedy often revealed the same color and similar handwritings. The specific colors were then taken as new repertory rubrics, and today, if a new patient gives one or two favorite colors, we can use these rubrics and look at all the remedies indicated by them. If there is a remedy suggested, which could match the case, we can also look at the handwritings of all patients cured by this remedy. If they are of similar features, it is another strong pointer for this remedy. All in all, including our cases, an estimated number of 50.000 or more homeopathic color tests have been performed, of which perhaps 10.000 cases have become relevant for the extraction of the remedy-colors. The definite choice was made only by the best cases of similar color and handwriting, and about 3000 cured or deeply improved patients contributed to this sifting process. Up to now, about 280 remedies are well defined with a preferred color, and about 170 are under further testing. In our experience, we have verified Müller's hypotheses many times by fine cures. We have built on his experience and invented new tools to make the choice of the color easier and more reliable. Of course in the mentioned Indian cases the handwriting was not used. Here only the favorite color was applied as a symptom.

The purely clinical method of finding the color may offend those who believe in provings as the one and only basis for homeopathic knowledge. But the clinical method has given us also many valuable informations about remedies. Why not also study a remedy by comparing very good cases cured by the same? There are sometimes very good cases of nearly unproved remedies, only found out from a single rubric, their clinical reputation, their position in the periodic table, etc. Why not try to take the essence of say three such cases of the same unproved remedy as the essence of the remedy? The remedy has proved its similarity to these cases by the cure!

¹   "Colors in Homeopathy" by Ulrich Welte, Narayana Verlag: a new color standard developed solely for homeopathic purposes, printed in highest color quality with 24 pure Pantone and HKS colors on an 8 color offset machine. See a detailed description under www.narayana-verlag.de.

Normally we do not rely so much upon the color as in these cases. The color may deceive. It may only represent a fleeting mood. And we think there may be several colors to a remedy, like a tree can have more than one main root. Take phos as an example. For long, we thought the best cases indicated red as its true color, but then the green predominated, and cases 2.19, 3.3, 3.4 and 3?16 confirm this. But if good symptoms for phos emerge in a patient who has no affinity for either green or red, we give phos anyway. Why should one become the slave of any method? Another difficult remedy was graph. Many cases indicated dark green or violet, but then the best cases gave black. Only with those who liked black the handwriting also tallied. Again it was Müller who was able to determine it, and especially in the color problem of phosphor, we only had one case to contribute.

It would be interesting if many skilled homeopaths could test their best cases for their color preference with the help of "Colors in Homeopathy", and compare if these findings can be verified. But then the color test does not mean just to give the patient the color book and let him choose. First we ask casually for a general color and observe the way in which the patient responds to the question. Or we present the complete color chart given at the end of the color book; it shows all relevant colors at a glance on one page, to give all an equal chance. Then how does the patient choose? Is it with certainty or hesitation? Women sometimes like a collection of precious stones arranged according to colors. This gem collection is also printed in the color book and can be of help when in doubt. It is good to ask for a second color preference. The aversion may also indicate the remedy sometimes. We do not rely on only one test. Better check several times after some months and see if one specific color emerges.

The handwriting is another symptom of the personality of the patient. We do not use it as graphology does. We compare it with handwritings of others who were cured by a remedy which we think may be indicated for our patient. So it is rather a confirming symptom. We look at similarities of the whole impression of the total image, the rhythm of lines, words and letters. Two years ago, we gave 4 handwritings of good zinc-cases to a skilled graphologist and asked him to give a summary of their character. He had no homeopathic knowledge, and it was funny to see him sketch a picture of Scholten's zinc idea from his book about the elements. This opens another source of knowledge about remedies. But we have not pursued this track further.

If the color method is used properly, it is at least a valuable supplement to the classical method. It can be a help in difficult cases or under difficult conditions as in the cases given above.

Ulrich Welte