AtDDtA(15): The Lycopodium Type

[Dave Monroe]

   "'You've been walking, unaware, among them since you arrived,'
Alonzo Meatman was saying, 'There's no discovering them unless they
choose so.'
   "'But for you they have chosen to--'
   "'Yes and "do choose," and "will choose"--maybe even you, if you're
lucky--what of it?'
   "Chick regarded young Meatman.  Clearly, classically, what a
homeopathist would call 'the lycopodium type.'  Somehow the Chums
organization attracted these in large numbers.  Fear written in every
cell.  Fear of the night, of being haunted, of failure, of other
matters that may not too routinely be named.  First to get up in the
trigging during a storm, not out of bravery but in desperation, as the
only remedy they knew for the cowardice they feared ever crawling
within...." (AtD, Pt. II, p. 413)


"walking, unaware, among them"

Cf., e.g., ...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/

Et soforthiam ...


homeopathist

Homeopathy (also spelled homœopathy or homoeopathy), from the Greek
words όμοιος, hómoios (similar) and πάθος, páthos (suffering,
disease), is a controversial type of alternative medicine that aims to
treat "like with like." The term "homoeopathy" was coined by the
German physician Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843) and
first appeared in print in 1807.

Homeopathic treatment involves giving a patient with symptoms of an
illness extremely small doses of the agents that produce the same
symptoms in healthy people when exposed to larger quantities. A
homeopathic remedy is prepared by diluting the substance in a series
of steps. Many homeopathic remedies are so highly diluted that no
molecules of the original substance are likely to remain after
dilution. Homeopathy asserts that the remedy will retain a memory of
the diluted substance and the therapeutic potency of a remedy can be
increased by serial dilution combined with succussion, or vigorous
shaking.

Since its inception homeopathy has received significant criticism on
scientific and medical grounds....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://skepdic.com/homeo.html

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/homeopathy/

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/096_home.html


"the lycopodium type"

Lycopodium clavatum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopodium_clavatum

Lycopodium: (From Club Moss: protective cover for the earth; dried,
burned in science class to make a volcano.) High self-esteem,
resilient, adaptable, can burn brightly. When stressed or ill may
become detached, distrustful of extremes (intellectual or emotional),
avoids confronting problems on deeper levels of relationships.

http://www.naturalworldhealing.com/homeopathy-personality-types.htm

Lycopodium is one of the most fundamental remedies and is classed with
Sulphur and Calcarea as part of the triad (Lyc - Sulph - Calc).... the
essence of Lycopodium is "cowardice". The patient often has marked
feelings of inferiority which he constantly tries to overcome....

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/homeopathy_advice/Remedies/POLYCHRESTS/lyc.html

LYCOPODIUM

Club Moss

MENTAL / EMOTIONAL SYMPTOMS:

Lack of self confidence.
Fear of responsibility, Cowardice.
FEARS DARK, GHOSTS, BEING ALONE IN THE HOUSE.
"One night stands", doesn't want to take responsibility.

[...]

Lycopodium can become terrified by almost anything being alone, the
dark, ghosts, even strange dogs....

http://www.vithoulkas.com/EN/lycopodium.html

It has been used hitherto to make artificial lightning, by blowing it
through the flame of a candle, also to sprinkle over pellets which
else easily stick together, and also to sprinkle it on excoriated
folds in the human body to protect them against painful friction. It
floats on liquids without being dissolved, is without taste and smell,
and in its ordinary crude state almost without any medicinal effect on
the human body. The accounts given by the ancients as to its effects,
have at least not been confirmed by modern investigators, but rather
drawn into doubt.

http://homeoint.org/books/hahchrdi/lyc.htm

... the well-known Lycopodium powder. Now this powder used to be, and
I believe still is, employed for two objects which seem, at first
sight, to have no particular connection with one another. It is, or
was, employed in making lightning, and in making pills. The coats of
the spores contain so much resinous matter, that a pinch of Lycopodium
powder, thrown through the flame of a candle, burns with an
instantaneous flash, which has long done duty for lightning on the
stage. And the same character makes it a capital coating for pills;
for the resinous powder prevents the drug from being wetted by the
saliva, and thus bars the nauseous flavour from the sensitive papilæ
of the tongue....

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE8/Coal.html

A powder known simply as lycopodium, consisting of dried spores of the
common clubmoss, was used in Victorian theater to produce
flame-effects. A blown cloud of spores burned rapidly and brightly,
but with little heat. It was considered safe by the standards of the
time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clubmoss

A flambol is an apparatus, which is used to make a fire from a flambol
with on a stage of a theatre. It consists of a bent metal tube with a
mouthpiece in the one end. In the other upturned end finishes with a
sort of funnel with a spirit burner in the middle plus a holder for
the spores from dried common club moss (Lycopódium Clavátum), which
with the mouth of a stagehand are blown past the spirit flame and are
ignited as a big short-lived column of fire. The spores are also
called "lycopodium" and were formerly used to sprinkle between pills
in order to prevent them from sticking together. The spores are also
used in the art of fireworks and at artificial lightning at the stages
of theatres. It blazes up very rapidly when set on fire....

http://www.danbbs.dk/~erikoest/pt_uk.htm#flambol

Among the first to use flashpowder underground was a German, Max
Muller, in 1888. To obtain clear pictures, Muller wished to fire his
flashpowder at the end of a pole, keeping both fumes and the light
away from his lens. He devised a means of blowing fungal lycopodium
spores through a candle flame. These glowed, and were directed down a
tube to ignite a twist of guncotton, on which the flashpowder had been
poured, causing a flash....

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12416962.100-art-of-darkness-braving-explosions-underground-rivers-androck-falls-photographers-have-been-taking-pictures-of-the-underground-worldfor-nearly-130-years--from-the-mammoth-cave-of-kentucky-to-coal-mines-inengland-.html

A study of flames supported by clouds of lycopodium particulates in
air has employed aircraft based experiments to provide reduced gravity
conditions of about one hundred times lower than normal...

http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/fcarchive/combustion/papers/Berlad/Particle_Cloud_Flames.htm

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.realmagick.com/articles/16/1916.html

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/kings/lycopodium.html

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/usdisp/lycopodium.html

http://drugstoremuseum.com/sections/level_info2.php?level_id=158&level=2

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8444(194107%2F09)31%3A3%3C100%3ABO%22%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O