Book Review: Fish Remedies in Homeopathy by Dr. Jonathan Hardy

Published by Saltire Books, 2026.

By: Naila Cheema www.homeopathnaila.com

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“His ‘heaven’ state – the only time he feels really calm is under water. A patient’s ‘heaven state’ is that in which they feel best and is usually when they are furthest away from their ‘hell state’ – which is usually what they came to us to be relieved from.”

This short passage captures something essential about Jonathan Hardy’s Fish Remedies in Homeopathy: the movement from symptom to state, from complaint to contrast, from suffering to the patient’s deepest felt polarity. Hardy’s idea of the “heaven state” and “hell state” is particularly apt for fish remedies, where water may not simply be a physical environment or metaphor, but a whole field of experience: calm, immersion, pressure, escape, merging, flow, safety, danger, concealment and survival.

Published by Saltire Books, Fish Remedies in Homeopathy is a thoughtful and ambitious contribution to contemporary homeopathic materia medica. Hardy extends his long-standing work with animal remedies into a distinctive and comparatively underdeveloped field. Rather than presenting fish remedies as a loose collection of proving symptoms or clinical keynotes, he approaches them as a coherent remedy group with its own biological, psychological and phenomenological logic.

One of the strengths of the book is its attempt to give fish remedies a clear field of meaning. These remedies can easily remain peripheral in practice: known by name, occasionally glimpsed in cases, but not always sufficiently differentiated in the practitioner’s imagination. Hardy helps bring them into focus by connecting natural history, sensation, recurring themes, materia medica and clinical cases.

The aquatic environment gives the book its central imaginative and clinical axis. Fish live in a medium that surrounds them completely. Their world is one of immersion, pressure, currents, concealment, group movement, predation, escape and constant responsiveness. In homeopathic case-taking, this opens subtle questions. Does the patient feel carried by forces larger than themselves? Do they disappear into the group? Do they feel lost, submerged, exposed, hunted, invaded, trapped, or unable to find direction? Conversely, where do they feel calm, fluid, protected or at home?

This is where the quote about the “heaven state” is so useful. Hardy is not simply asking what the patient wants to avoid, but what state gives relief, balance or restoration. The contrast between heaven and hell can reveal the axis of the case. For a fish remedy, the patient’s suffering may lie in pressure, exposure, disconnection, loss of flow or threat; their heaven state may involve immersion, movement, belonging, concealment, silence, depth or the restoration of fluidity.

The methodological heart of the book lies in the use of sensation. In contemporary homeopathy, sensation language can be powerful when handled with discipline. Terms such as floating, sinking, drowning, pressure, drifting, merging, being caught, moving with the group, or disappearing may be clinically significant when they recur across mental, emotional, physical and general levels. Hardy’s contribution is to offer a vocabulary for recognising such patterns without reducing the patient to a theory.

The book also appears valuable in the way it situates fish remedies within the broader animal kingdom. Animal remedies often involve themes of survival, competition, attraction, defence, hierarchy, vulnerability and instinct. Fish remedies share some of this territory, but their aquatic world gives them a different quality. The emphasis shifts towards immersion, boundary uncertainty, sensitivity to surroundings, collective movement, sudden escape, hiding, depth and pressure. Fish are not simply “animal remedies with water symptoms”; they express a particular mode of being alive.

The inclusion of cases is important. In a remedy group still unfamiliar to many practitioners, cases are what prevent the material from becoming abstract. They show how a fish remedy may appear in lived experience, not merely in conceptual language. They also help the reader distinguish between a theme that sounds plausible and one that actually organises the patient’s totality.

The comparative dimension is another strength. Fish remedies may overlap with other groups in important ways. Sensations of floating, lightness, freedom and perspective may suggest birds; transparency, fragility and boundary issues may suggest glass; fluidity, sensitivity, pressure and collective movement may point towards fish. The clinical question is not simply, “Is there water imagery?” but “What kind of world is the patient describing?” This kind of comparison is valuable because it prevents the practitioner from reducing a remedy family to one or two keywords.

There is, however, an important caution. Group analysis, especially when it draws on animal behaviour and natural history, requires careful discipline. A patient does not need a fish remedy simply because they speak of water, swimming, freedom, depth or feeling lost. Such language may be literal, cultural or incidental. Hardy’s themes are most useful when they are confirmed across the case: through the patient’s own words, general state, modalities, physical expression, concomitants, chronology and remedy differentiation.

The book’s educational value lies in its capacity to build a usable vocabulary. Fish remedies are less familiar than the polycrests and less widely discussed than many mammal, bird, snake or spider remedies. Students and practitioners therefore need ways into the group: core sensations, biological themes, clinical confirmations and remedy-by-remedy differentiation. Hardy’s work appears to provide just such a map.

Overall, Fish Remedies in Homeopathy is a serious and welcome addition to the literature on animal remedies. Its importance lies not only in the remedies it covers, but in the way it invites the practitioner to listen more deeply. Fish remedies ask us to consider immersion, pressure, movement, sensitivity, belonging, concealment, exposure and survival – and, just as importantly, the patient’s “heaven state”, where relief, calm and restoration are found.

Hardy’s central achievement is to give the fish remedies a coherent field without reducing them to a rigid formula. The book is best understood as an interpretive map: a guide for study, case-taking, remedy differentiation and further confirmation. For practitioners and advanced students interested in animal remedies, sensation work and contemporary materia medica, it is likely to become a valuable and stimulating reference.

To purchase, visit: https://www.saltirebooks.com/shop/author/jhardy/fish