In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor
Page 20
In regard to the shamanistic approach to practice, I’d like to end my tale with two anecdotes, one about Bach and the other about Worsley. One evening, Bach was called to see a child who had a painful wart on one of her fingers, and this kept her awake and crying for several nights; nothing seemed to ease her. Bach took her on his knee and held the little hand, then said: “Now put her to bed, she’ll sleep tonight. Her finger is healed.” Her mother put her to bed, and on looking at the finger found the wart had disappeared!(390) One of Worsley’s first American students related a story of how Worsley had treated a little boy at Esalen who had cancer. It was the most intense and moving treatment she had ever seen him do, lasting quite a long time, but involved no needles–simply touching the child.(391) Although there was no follow-up available, the incident itself gives clear evidence of Worsley’s shamanistic bent. It would be hard to imagine that he was not influenced in this regard by Bach as a role model.
I began this story with the work of George Ohsawa who was also a tremendously charismatic figure whom I believe could have equally well been described as a shamanistic healer. He had numerous miraculous cures attributed to him, and he’s left behind a dedicated group of followers of his path—macrobiotics. I think you can catch a glimpse of his charismatic potential in this picture of him (Fig.215) in Paris in 1920. I’m including it, not only because I find it to be a stirring picture, but also to sound a cautionary note, because taking on the shamanistic role, accepting rapport and trust at the deepest level, can be as destructive if it is abused as it can be healing if used properly. To illustrate this, I’d like to use Ohsawa himself as an example. In the years before World War II, he adopted rabid anti-semitic views, and even applauded Hitler’s treatment of the Jews(392) and he was not alone in this–being joined in these right-wing extremist views by his friend Nakayama, whose book Ohsawa and Soulié de Morant translated into French.(393) They influenced many people in Japan, if not in the West, with these perverted ideas. On a more personal level, Ohsawa’s extremist views about nutrition actually resulted in the death of one of his own children.(394) My point is that accessing shamanic powers is ethically neutral. Being an acupuncturist or a proponent of traditional Oriental medicine doesn’t make one automatically good. It’s what we choose to do with our special gifts that determines their ultimate effect. In closing, I’d like to bring back into the reader’s minds the visions of Yanagiya (Fig.216) and his student Tobe (Fig.217) who both spent their lifetimes working to foster a spirit of open-mindedness, honest research, sharing unstintingly of themselves, along with respect and even reverence for classical tradition. I’m sure that if we all keep this vision in our mind, the acupuncture which we create in the future will be an honor to its great tradition, and a boon to all mankind.
Figure 215: GEORGE OHSAWA IN PARIS
in 1920. At the time he was still known as Sakurazawa Nyoitchi, and did not westernize his name until 1947.
Figure 216: YANAGIYA SOREI
(right) and his disciple Maruyama in 1955, four years before his demise.
Figure 217: TOBE SOSHICHIRO
with his wife in 1992. His irrepressible spirit has kept him an active contributor to this research up until the moment it was ready for publication.
6
Epilogue
It is a somewhat daunting task to bring this second edition up to date, realizing that a full decade has passed since its original publication - a decade which has seen the passing of many of the individuals whose contributions were highlighted in Chapter Five. Perhaps the most significant of these events was the death of J. R. Worsley in 2003 at the age of 79, leaving permanently unanswered some of the questions about his lineage that provoked and inspired this book. I did have the opportunity however of interviewing Professor Worsley one final time in 1997, and will include his responses and my conclusions regarding them in this final chapter, but first there are some additions concerning the history of acupuncture in Asia and Europe that will flesh out the material previously presented.
In regard to the creation of TCM, my account is both supported and amplified in detail by Heiner Fruehauf in an invaluable article, “Chinese Medicine in Crisis - Science, Politics and the Making of TCM,” published in the Journal of Chinese Medicine (U.K.), No. 61 (1999) whose salient points I will summarize. One of Fruehauf’s major theses is that TCM, as it exists today, was a conscious creation mandated by the Chinese government, and it has reflected the changing political climate in China. As early as 1942 Mao Zedong instructed the government to uproot all shamanic beliefs, and wrote that, “old doctors, circus entertainers, snake oil salesmen and street hawkers are all of the same sort.” Although Mao changed his attitude in the 1950’s, when acupuncture became prestigious, this quotation reappeared 25 years later in the millions of copies of Mao’s Little Red Book which served as the Red Guard’s main license for persecuting practitioners of traditional medicine. Those persecuted included the “five elders” (wu lao) whom Fruehauf identifies as the leaders in the development of an institutional training process to replace the previous discipleship system. They were Qin Bowei from Shanghai, Cheng Shenwu from Beijing, and Ren Yingqiu, Li Chongren and Yu Daoji from Sichuan. I think it is fair to state that TCM has been influenced to varying degrees by admixture with Western medical beliefs, largely as a result of the political decision to initially develop the cadre of TCM practitioners from 2,000 Western medicine doctors who were given one to two year crash courses in TCM, and whose graduates provided the main pool of TCM administrators in later years. At the more traditional end of the spectrum, TCM strives to incorporate some of the mechanics of Western medicine into the mother body of Chinese medicine as in the original vision of the “school of Sino-Western Convergence and Intercourse (zhong xi hui tong pai).” Some famous exponents of this approach include Wang Qingren (Fig. 218), Zhang Xichun (1860-1933) and Zhang Shouyi (1873-1934). Wang Qingren has been called, “the Corrector of Medical Errors” after his book entitled, “Corrections in Chinese Medicine From the Forest of Physicians,” which described his autopsy findings concerning the organs and blood vessels. He stated, “Healing without knowing the internal organs is like a blind man walking in the dark.”(395) Zhang Xichun described the method he evolved for combining Eastern and Western medical thought in his clinical practice between 1909 and 1924.(396) Zhang Shouyi wrote books on the Meridians and Points, pulse diagnosis and commentary on the Nan Jing.(397) The common thread of all the members of this school was to incorporate some of the useful mechanisms (yong) of Western medicine into the traditional mother body (ti) of Chinese medicine, such as categorizing Western drugs in energetic terms, or relating the Triple Heater to anatomical tissues described by Western medicine. In spite of such openness of thought, they were however still “traditional at the core.”(398) At the least traditional end of the spectrum, dominant during the Cultural Revolution, acupuncture became merely a form of physical therapy devoid of any theoretical basis. As Mao wrote in 1965, “Medical education needs to be reformed - it is completely unnecessary to engage in so much studying.... There is no need to restrict medical education to people with high school diplomas - middle school and elementary school pupils studying for three years will do. The real learning will happen during actual practice.... Studying is a stupid endeavor for a doctor.” As a result of this political doctrine, much of the physical legacy of Chinese medicine was burned or otherwise destroyed.
Fruehauf and I would agree that TCM does not include all the vital branches of TOM, but we disagree in our assessments of how much traditional thought TCM encompasses. As I stated in Chapter Four, since the “Three Roads” policy of the 1980’s, there has been an attempt to maintain and develop a traditional approach to Chinese medicine in both China and perhaps more significantly in the version of TCM that became the most well known style of acupuncture currently being taught and practiced in the West. The fact that Fruehauf’s article was published in a “TCM” journal attests to this openness to traditional teachin
gs. TCM as it is currently taught places great emphasis on study of both the Classics as well as newer works, however I still believe it represents the lineage of the herbalists more than that of the acupuncturists. Wang Le-ting (Fig. 219), whose work was discussed in Chapter 4, is the clearest exemplar of this line of development, and one of his seminal texts is now available in English.(399) Of the “Five Elders” cited by Fruehauf, the only one whose work has appeared in English translation to my knowledge is Qin Bowei (A Qin Bowei Anthology, Chase, C. - trans. Paradigm. Brookline. 1997), and this text is entirely devoted to herbal medicine. Qin (Fig. 220) was not trained in Western medicine, but he strongly encouraged the integration of both Eastern and Western medical knowledge. He came from a family of traditional medical practitioners (father and uncle) but in addition to these influences he was also a graduate of the Shanghai Medical School where he experienced both classroom academic training and discipleship under the school’s founder, Ding Ganren. Because his English writings do not discuss acupuncture, it is difficult to identify his tradition in that regard, but he did use imagery from the Yi Jing in both theoretical discussions and case histories. He wrote the drafts of many of his books on the backs of cigarette packages, an idiosyncrasy that reminds me of the Daoist monks Han Shan and Shu De. Unfortunately these “cigarette manuscripts” were burned in the Cultural Revolution.(400)
Figure 218: WANG QINGREN (1768-1831)
This wood block portrait is from his famous book. Wang was able to “correct” errors in anatomical beliefs based on his unique access to the corpses of executed criminals, which he dissected.
A more recent book by Volker Scheid(401) goes into much greater detail regarding the people, events and thinking that led to the development of TCM in the twentieth century, and is recommended reading for scholars and other students of the sociological issues involved. He cites some references in Chinese that have a bearing on my comments regarding the role Mao Zedong (Fig 221) played in the process of promulgating TCM, which I discussed in footnote 222. Scheid names three doctors who supposedly treated Mao with Chinese medicine at different times, although there is no mention of acupuncture having been administered. In particular, Mao was said to have had a close friendship with a physician, Li Dingming, who successfully treated Mao with Chinese medicine for joint inflammation during the Long March in 1935 after Western medicine treatments had failed.(402) These newer works by Freuhauf and Scheid together with Unschuld’s earlier books give scholarly support to my assertion that TCM, like the other contemporary styles of acupuncture and Oriental medicine, must be seen as modern attempts to systematize traditional thought and practice.
Figure 219: WANG LETING (1894-1990)
Nicknamed “Golden Needle” in tribute to both the numerous patients he successfully treated as well as his use of actual gold needles, he was the Director of the Acupuncture Department of the Beijing Chinese Medicine Hospital.
Figure 220: QIN BOWEI (1901-1970)
One of the “Five Elders” who helped to formalize TCM in the 1950’s, he was later persecuted during the “Cultural Revolution” in the 1960’s.
Figure 221: MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976)
Shown here shaking hands with Lu Zhi-hou, the first director of the Academy of Chinese Medicine in 1956. Mao at various times was both a strong proponent and a vigorous opponent of Chinese medicine. His personal experience with acupuncture has been the subject of speculation, but was never documented.
Near the beginning of this book, in Figure 3, I listed a number of styles of acupuncture, other than TCM, as being in the “traditional” category. The “Tong Family” style from Taiwan (also spelled Tung) has lately become quite popular in the U.S., due mainly to the teachings of Richard Tan who acknowledges his connection to this lineage, and makes a point of citing its basis in the “energetic” theories of the Yi Jing or Book of Changes. Another Asian example of a traditional acupuncture style that developed based on concepts originally propounded in the Yi Jing is the “Eight Constitutions” style originated by Kuon Dowon in Korea (Fig. 180). As I tried to document in Chapter Four, the Yi Jing contains the seminal thoughts underlying all styles of traditional acupuncture, but for some reason (probably due to its association with fortune telling) this connection is least emphasized in TCM among the varieties of traditional acupuncture.
There is one other important difference in the basic approach embodied in TCM compared to most other styles of traditional acupuncture. It is difficult to summarize this difference succinctly, but it has to do with concepts like roots and branches, and internal versus external causes of disease. The late 19th century Korean doctor, Lee Jema (Fig. 222), specifically pointed to this distinction by calling Chinese medicine “Syndrome Medicine,” which is an apt label for TCM, whose guiding diagnostic method is the “Eight Principles For Differentiating Syndromes” (Ba Gang Bian Zheng). Lee wrote, “In the past, most doctors did not know that diseases arise from an imbalance of emotions such as love, hate, desire, joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure. Instead they thought that diseases only developed out of injury to the Spleen and Stomach from food, or invasion of climatic factors such as wind, cold, heat and dampness.”(403) Although Lee was using caricature rather than a complete exposition of their different theoretical models in his method (Sasang Constitutional Medicine or SCM), the quotation does express the same essential difference as that distinguishing TCM and LA outlined in Chapter 2. The Eight Constitutions Korean style of acupuncture is one offshoot of SCM, and like LA it places great emphasis on Five Element theory. The whole issue of constitutional thought in TOM and acupuncture merits a book all to itself, but for the moment the point being made is that it is not just the English born style I have called LA which is based on this fundamental difference from TCM, but that other Asian styles of practice share this same divergence from TCM.
Since the first edition, some new material has come to my attention concerning the transmission to and development of acupuncture in Europe. I indicated that George Soulie de Morant (Fig. 223) was the founder of this lineage, and reference was made to the role of French military physicians in expanding this body of knowledge with material learned in Indochina, particularly from Hanoi, Saigon and Hue. An important figure in this regard was Colonel Labrousse, a physician who started acupuncture practices at both the Hotel des Invalides and the Hospital du Val de Grace in Paris, the most important military hospitals in France. General Georges Cantoni (Fig. 224), an old friend of Soulie de Morant, was director of the aerospatial medicine laboratory in Paris. He had first learned acupuncture in 1947 in Indochina. One day, while visiting Germany in 1949, he toured a paper factory and noticed that sparks of electricity often shot from the rolls of paper to the people nearby. He recognized that the sparks almost always landed at the site of an acupuncture Point, from which he concluded that these must be points of low resistance to electricity. Jean Borsarello (Fig. 225), who was one of Cantoni’s disciples, and who had also studied with Drs. Duron and Manaka, collaborated with Niboyet in the research which documented the unique electrical properties of the acupuncture Points. Niboyet and Mery published their initial results in 1958 and Niboyet elaborated in a 1959 publication. The definitive paper on this subject was published as issue number 39 of the Bulletin of the French Acupuncture Society in 1961 by Niboyet in collaboration with Borsarello and Dumortier, the latter being a military electrical engineer who devised the first “Point finder.” Cantoni and Borsarello were at that time President and Vice President respectively of the French Acupuncture School (EFA). Borsarello had originally been exposed to acupuncture in Vietnam in 1954-1955, where he was a medical officer responsible for Viet-Minh prisoners. He observed that they were using wooden splinters to treat themselves with acupuncture for a variety of problems such as headaches and rheumatism. They were afraid of the Western medicines that were offered, and Borsarello in turn was afraid that they would get infections from the splinters, so he bought them some sewing needles in Saigon. In return, they began to teach him acup
uncture, and referred him to a Master practitioner named Shang in Hong Kong for further study. He subsequently studied with Niboyet, Duron, Laville-Méry, Manaka and Wu Wei-ping as well.
Figure 222: LEE JE-MA (1836-1900)
Founder of Sasang Constitutional Medicine, one of the unique contributions of Korea to the body of Traditional Oriental Medicine. Lee’s theories were strictly based on Confucian teachings, and were developed as a result of his attempts to cure himself from a chronic illness that had not responded to contemporary Chinese medicine. He emphasized emotional and spiritual factors in diagnosis and treatment, which later came to play a similar role in the acupuncture style I have called LA.
Figure 223: GEORGE SOULIÉ DE MORANT
This close up photograph supplements Fig. 121, and would not let me publish an updated edition without its inclusion. As a French Consul surrounded by Chinese dignitaries, he had unprecedented access to both practitioners and the classical literature of acupuncture.
Figure 224: GEORGES CANTONI (1913-1992)
President of the French Acupuncture School (EFA), he led the wing of the acupuncturists in France who most closely followed the teachings of Soulié de Morant, while at the same time epitomizing the military influence on the transmission of knowledge about acupuncture from Asia to the West.
Borsarello’s later experiences, which I first discovered in his autobiography, “Mes Combats Pour L’Acupuncture,” published by Editions Albin Michel in Paris in 1994, illustrate a point that I have previously made about the pernicious effects of feuding between physician and non-physician acupuncturists. Although himself a physician and Vice President of the French Acupuncture School, he was barred from participating in acupuncture congresses in France for ten years following his decision to testify on behalf of one of his teachers, Charles Laville-Méry (Fig 226. See also Fig. 177), a non-physician practioner whom many considered the most talented French acupuncturist of his time. This judgment is supported by the large number of physician acupuncturists who came to him for treatment when they themselves were ill. In the 1960’s there was a crackdown on non-physician acupuncturists, and Laville-Méry was prosecuted in the Versailles court. In many ways this situation was reminiscent of the episode I recounted about Soulie de Morant, but in this case it was compounded by class differences as well. Soulie de Morant came from the upper classes and had many contacts in polite society, so he was relatively immune to attack. Laville-Méry on the other hand was of a working class background (a ship’s cook) and Borsarello was alone in defending him, for which he was ostracized.