An important repertory that is more reliable than most.
The very latest edition of Synthesis which deliberately has FEWER entries than the previous 9.1 version. The reason for this is the sheer volume of new material in the earlier giant version which did not suit those content with just the conventional, tried and tested information. An additional handbook titled 'Textbook of Repertory Language' is included in the package.
Indian printing but to a good standard. Thumb-indexing makes the book easier to use than previous editions of Synthesis. It is also lighter and smaller.
Containing the following NEW information, the Essential Synthesis reveals:
Personal annotations from Kent's personally annotated repertory, including 11,368 additions and corrections, plus 333 hand-written additions that Kent added to his own volumes of Hering's Guiding Symptoms.
For the first time in printed form, a chapter of veterinary information; symptoms, remedies of veterinary origin, and a list of veterinary concepts leading to related symptoms.
No unconfirmed dream or meditational provings.
No information that is not yet confirmed in the clinic All finally in book form.
Much thought and care has gone into creating the physical book itself. The book has a practical cut-out thumb index which is now hard to procure in the West .
For easy reading, the font sizes are one size larger than in the Synthesis 9.1 book.
The page layouts were worked and reworked to achieve the best use of space, resulting in a lighter, more portable reference.

Reprinted with the permission of The Society of Homeopaths (from "The Homeopath" magazine, Summer 2008)

Reviewed by Petra Wood:

After years of ever-increasing sizes of repertories this is a step back - to essentials. This repertory is truly compact and you no longer need a travel case to carry your repertory! Printed in India by B Jain Publishers, The Essential Synthesis has a nicely familiar feel for those who grew up in college with the Indian edition Kent Repertory. There is an easy access thumb index and two page markers (which in my copy are unfortunately too short to be of any use).

Frederik Schroyens has reduced the information to usable levels: the sources have been selected to cover only the most reliable: many of the later provings have not been included, such as some by Jeremy Sherr or Misha Norland. This raises issues about the process of deciding which remedies and sources to include. but it also shows most clearly the aim for this new essential repertory: 'Concise, Reliable, Accessible'. After all, Synthesis 9.1 is available with the most comprehensive information to date.

But the restriction in sources is not the only way in which this book has been reduced to a minimum: Cross-references to rubrics for example, have been restricted to three main ones and all chapter references are reduced to four letters. To me the most important 'saving', is the omission of author abbreviations in the printed book. Together with white paper (yellow in Synthesis 9.1) and a larger font size than Synthesis 9.1, this dramatically improved the readability.

There is a fascinating account of the adventures of Dr Ahmed Currim, who spent years tracking down Kent's own annotated copy of his Repertory. Shades of Indiana Jones, he tracked down the document, by now torn up, in rural India. The results are added into this edition.

A paperback textbook accompanies the repertory. The textbook offers a list of remedy abbreviations, an index of words and of localisations. As a user of Roger van Zandvoort's The Complete Repertory I found the latter particularly useful, as the localisations are not done in the same way. Also included is a repertory for veterinary symptoms and concepts, claimed to be a new long-awaited venture.

I would recommend this new repertory to all new students and to those who want to travel light. In an ideal world I would use The Essential Synthesis backed up by a comprehensive computer repertorisation program.