355 Personal communication from Jayasuriya, 1993.
356 From Jayasuriya’s curriculum vitae.
357 Wang and Wong can be variant spellings of the same Chinese character.
358 WICA prospectus vi (Winter 1993) p. 5. Interestingly, certain details of Worsley’s teachings appear in Wong’s manuals, and nowhere else that I have discovered. E.g., “The use of a point of ‘tonification’ is valid only when the mother organ is in excess and a point of ‘sedation’ is valid only when the son is deficient.”-Wong-2, p. 21. “To take the pulse, the angle of the physician’s fingers is most important...This is done with the fleshy tip of the fingers, and in order to do so the nails must be filed very short. This is the only possible way to take the pulse...”- ibid, p. 6.
359 Undoubtedly, the reader has asked himself by this point, why doesn’t Worsley give a full public account of his past history? Although I am in the group that has urged him to do so, at the same time I recognize one possible reason for his failure to comply. As I have shown, and will develop further, Worsley has a decidedly shamanistic bent to his nature, which might preclude him from objectifying his past. The most well-known contemporary shaman is the character Don Juan Matus in the series of books by Carlos Castaneda. Don Juan’s advice to Carlos was that if he had a serious desire to become a sorcerer (shaman), he had better lose his personal history, as it would only make him vulnerable. While Don Juan did relate a few biographical items to Castaneda, they amount to about the sum total of what Worsley has revealed about himself, so a similar belief system might be operative.
360 Thambirajah’s biography is based on my interview with her in 1994.
361 At the time of my visit to her in England, she was not able to locate original references which unequivocally described energy transfers or Entry and Exit Points, so this assertion remains to be documented. The traditional source of the use of Entry and Exit Points was subsequently corroborated verbally by Jeffrey Yuen, although he is also still searching his texts for a documented citation. Thambirajah’s version of energy transfers across the Control cycle is from Yin Organ to Yang Organ and vice-versa, thus agreeing with Wong and Lavier.
362 Interview with Cecil Chen, 1986. This assertion was corroborated by Eric Tao during a follow-up interview in 1995 in which he explained that the original mainland text, written about 40 years ago, was contraband in Taiwan, and needed an “acceptable” author in order to be published and distributed there. Conceivably, Ed Wong could have been either the author of this text, or more likely, one of its “ghost-writers” in Wong-1.
363 De la Fuye started the International Acupuncture Society (S.I.A.) in 1946 and the French Acupuncture Society (S.F.A.) in 1945. The latter changed its name to French Acupuncture Association (A.F.A.) in 1966. Niboyet started the Mediterranean Acupuncture Society (S.M.A.) in 1955. A parallel group formed around Lavier, the Chinese Acupuncture Medical Society (S.M.A.C.), begun in 1978.
364 Personal communication from Mark Seem based on his conversations with Oscar Wexu.
365 Personal communication from Van Buren, 1992.
366 Personal communication from Chieko Maekawa based on articles in Ido No Nippon and supplementary material from Tobe Soshichiro.
367 Personal communication from Solange Voiret.
368 The National Confederation of Medical Acupunction Assoications, founded in 1969.
369 Personal communication, J.M. Kespi, 1992.
370 E.g., Lok wrote the Foreword to Van Nghi’s 1971 text, Pathogénie et Pathologie Energétiques en Médecine Chinoise, and was laudatory in referring to Van Nghi in a letter to me, but did not acknowledge Van Nghi as his student.
371 Personal communication from Jeffrey Yuen, a third generation Daoist priest and practitioner of Chinese medicine, 1993. The Yellow Court Classic dates to the second or third century A.D. and is catalogued in the Dao Gang as No. 1032, chapter 17 by Schipper, p. 251.
372 Principally Chang Bin Lee, seen in Figure 186.
373 According to Ted Kaptchuk (personal communication), the first lecture on TCM style acupuncture in the U.K. was in 1979 when he taught a five day seminar with over one hundred participants including representatives from all three British acupuncture schools, which set the groundwork for the establishment of the Register of TCM. Thus, although TCM is now probably the most well-known style of traditional acupuncture, it was historically a late-comer to the English speaking members of both the profession and the public.
374 Schmidt, H. (1964) as cited in Kajdos (1974) who related the anecdote in which Akabane discovered his new methodology.
375 Biographical material on Dr. Hsu along with documentary photographs were supplied by his daughter, Margaret Ho.
376 Information on Dr. Hsiu was provided by Luying Liaw and Eric Tao in personal communications, 1994.
377 Personal communication from Frank Sun, 1994.
378 As this book was being prepared for publication, I received a brief response from J.R. Worsley to a request that he comment on the photographs herein of the individuals I’ve identified as some of his putative teachers. He stated that he had had contact with Heribert Schmidt, but that he did not recognize the pictures of Hsiu Yang-chai nor of Hsu Mifoo as being his Chinese “Master.” He neither acknowledged nor denied meeting Hsiu Yang-chai in 1966 and did not provide further identification of the correct Master Hsiu, leaving his identity a matter for speculation, such as that given in the preceeding textual remarks and in footnote 359. The hypothesis presented there is further strengthened by Worsley’s closing remark that he did not forsee having time to allocate to an in-depth biographical interview in the foreseeable future, thus cordially, but effectively closing that line of investigations.
379 Interview with Shudo Denmei, 1992.
380 Interview with Miki Shima, 1993.
381 Interview with John Worsley, 1993.
382 Interview with Ted Kaptchuk c. 1990.
383 Analysis of ideogram by Lavier-3, p. 22.
384 This description is on a clinical guidance tape recording which Worsley sent to the patient’s on-going practitioner.
385 Interview with Diane Nathan, one of Worsley’s first American students, 1993.
386 Morse-1, p. 87.
387 Hume, p. 121.
388 Biographical information on Edward Bach is from the book by Weeks cited in the bibliography.
389 Weeks, p. 52.
390 Weeks, p. 109.
391 Interview with Diane Nathan, 1993.
392 Kotzsch-2, p. 76.
393 Kotzsch-2, pps. 62, 63, 75.
394 Kotzsch-2. p. 99.
395 Chen, C.Y., Bull. OHAI vol 2 no 6,1977, p. 101.
396 Hoizey, D. and Hoizey, M., pp. 159, 192.
397 Dale, R., p. 114.
398 Freuhauf, H., p. 7.
399 Yu, H. and Han, F., Golden Needle Wang Le-ting, Blue Poppy Press, Boulder, 1997.
400 Chase, C., pp. 1-8.
401 Scheid, V., Chinese Medicine in Contemporary China, Duke University Press, Durham, 2002.
402 Ibid. pp. 187,333.
403 Song, Il-byung, An Introduction to Sasang Constitutional Medicine, Jimoondong, Korea, 2005. P. 169.
404 Ahn, Kyoo Seok, The Essence of Oriental Medicine, Sonamoo Publishing Co., Seoul, 1979.
405 The Worsley Institute Newsletter, vol 2, Sept 2004, asserts that Worsley first met Dr. Hsiu in Germany in 1952 and then met Dr. Ono and Dr. Hsiu again in London in 1960.
406 Personal communication, Judy Becker Worsley, 2004.
APPENDIX
GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS RELATIVELY UNIQUE TO LA, WITH CITATIONS OF THEIR PRIOR USAGE.a
1. THE PRIMACY OF THE SPIRIT. Although all styles of traditional acupuncture make reference to Spirit or Shen ( ), LA and TCM represent two opposing points of view in this regard. TCM is based on a materialist philosophy, and regards Spirit as a manifestation of organic functioning that results in the mental faculties and their outward expression (Xie and Huang, p. 39). LA is based on a more ideali
stic philosophy, and posits that there is something about Spirit which is transcendental, and which can never be fully stated or explained in words (Su Wen 26); however Spirit is considered the primary factor in giving acupuncture treatment (Ling Shu 8). This emphasis in the classics on the primacy of the Spirit has been most clearly maintained in the Japanese acupuncture traditions, whose early twentieth century teachers were steeped in the Shinto (Spirit Way) religious outlook (Ohsawa-1, p. 38). Worsley was exposed to this tradition both through his association with Drs. Schmidt (a student of Ohsawa and Hashimoto and many other Shinto-influenced Japanese acupuncturists) and Munster, and through his more intense association with Ono Bunkei. The equivalent Chinese tradition would be the Daoist one, which continues to guide many non-TCM trained Chinese acupuncturists around the world.
2. THE LAW OF THE FIVE ELEMENTS. Both Yin-Yang and the Five Elements or Wu Xing () are referred to as theories in TCM (Essentials of Chinese Acupuncture, p. 11), with the former receiving much more serious consideration. The opposite emphasis is characteristic of LA which is often colloquially referred to as “Five Element acupuncture.” The translation of Wu Xing as Five Elements is discussed in Footnote 16. The Five Elements were mentioned in various Chinese classics including the Book of History and the Book of Rites both of which are at least as old as the fifth century B.C., and the Five Elements are embedded in the very fabric of the Nei Jing, the most classical of all books about acupuncture. The Nan Jing which followed, was almost exclusively based on Five Element thinking. It would appear, however, that the use of the word “Law” in reference to the Five Elements is at least partially a Western development initiated by Soulié de Morant (L’Acuponcture Chinoise Vol. II, Chapter VIII) who translated the Chinese term fa ( ) as “law,” although fa can also mean “method” which would seem to me to be the preferable choice for expressing the information Soulie de Morant translated from his Ming dynasty references (Yang, J. and Li). In any case, Worsley’s use of the terms Law of Five Elements, Law of Mother-Son, Law of Husband-Wife and Law of MiddayMidnight can all be explained as derivative from Soulie de Morant’s work in which specific references for each of these teachings can be found. The English terminology for these concepts is due to Felix Mann (see Mann-1), an inheritor of Soulié de Morant’s lineage, whose works Worsley used in his classroom teaching.
3. THE DOCTRINE OF THE OFFICIALS. The twelve Officials are personifications of the twelve Zang Fu or Viscera and Bowels as they were originally described, with their functions and responsibilities, in Su Wen 8. Such personification was further developed by practitioners of the Daoist religion (Dao Jiao) who identified numerous “deities” residing within each individual, giving the Doctrine of the Officials a decidedly Daoist flavor. The English missionary William Morse used the term “Officials” to translate Zhang Yuan-su’s description of the four components of an herbal prescription, and for reasons I have stated in the text, it is likely that Worsley was exposed to Morse’s work. Even more certain is Worsley’s exposure to Ilza Veith’s translation of the Su Wen (Veith pps. 28-30) in which she repeatedly uses the term officials. As her partial translation of the Su Wen was the only English version of any of the Chinese medical classics at the time, it may have easily had a profound effect on Worsley’s thinking. For further comments on personification and Daoist influences on acupuncture, see the entry on “Spirit of the Point.”
4. THE SUPERFICIAL AND DEEP CIRCULATION OF ENERGY. The classics contain many descriptions of the movements of the various forms of Energy throughout the human organism. Specific pathways, the Meridians, conduct this flow of Energy through the more superficial regions of the body where it can be contacted and influenced by acupuncture needles. In addition to these Primary or Principal Meridians, there are so-called Secondary Meridians which are auxiliary pathways of two types: the first type (initially described in depth in Western texts by Chamfrault and Van Nghi although introduced in English by Mann), includes named structures such as Luo Vessels, Divergent Meridians, Tendinomuscular Meridians and Extraordinary Meridians whose flow pathways are also well described. The second type (identified as “Secondary Vessels” by Niboyet) accounts for the intangible relationships between Meridians or Organs for which there are no described structural mechanisms or pathways. Examples of this second type of Secondary Vessel include the Five Element relationships of the Creative (xiang sheng ) and Control (xiang ke ) cycles and the relationships governed by the “Laws” of Husband-Wife and Midday-Midnight. In LA, the energy flowing in the Primary Meridians is called the “Wei Circulation,” while the energy circulating according to the Five Elements is called the “Deep Circulation.” This division is only roughly approximate to that of The Defensive (Wei ) and Nourishing (Ying ) Qi described in TCM, in which the former has an association with the Surface while the latter is more involved with the Interior. Nevertheless, it was exactly this distinction between Wei and Ying Qi that Jacques Lavier used in deciding to name the superficial circulation of Qi the “Wei Circulation” (Lavier-3, pps. 91-92), since he believed that only Wei Qi flowed in the Primary Meridians. Worsley adopted the terminology of “Wei Circulation” from Lavier under whom he had studied. It is noteworthy that TCM acupuncture focuses almost exclusively on the activities of the described Meridians on their Organs and bodily terrains, while LA focuses almost exclusively on the intangible relationships of the Five Elements, Husband-Wife, and Midday-Midnight, governed by the second type of non-localized Secondary Vessel. Citations of historical precedents for using these intangible relationships in acupuncture are given in the specific entries which follow.
5. THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE MERIDIANS. LA uses a relatively idiosyncratic system of nomenclature of the Meridians in which the Heart, as Supreme Controller, is viewed as being analogous to the Emperor, and is labeled with the Roman numeral I to emphasize its cardinal role. The other Meridians are numbered sequentially in the traditional order acknowledged by all schools of traditional acupuncture. These other schools and all the classical texts, however, start the enumeration of the Meridians with the Lung, rather than the Heart. I have described the origin of this variant system of enumeration in Chapter Five of the text as an error made by Roger de La Fuye in transmitting the teachings of Soulié de Morant. In preparing the first English language book about acupuncture, Denis Lawson-Wood adopted this nomenclature from de La Fuye, and taught it to his English colleagues among whom were Mary Austin and J.R. Worsley. Worsley in turn propagated it, along with the justification given above, as part of LA.
6. VARIANT POINT LOCATIONS. It should be recognized that throughout the long history of traditional acupuncture there has been no universal agreement on the exact location (nor even the exact number) of acupuncture Points. As long as Oriental medicine continues to develop according to its own dynamic (meaning without the use of “point-finders” or other instruments based on Western notions of physiology) there will be competing schools of thought about Point location. This problem is essentially no different in the twentieth century than it was in the Han dynasty. The only exception is that variations in point location due to errors in transcription and translation of texts tend to multiply over time. This mechanism may possibly be at the root of the major difference between LA and most other traditions in locating the Points on the Yin Meridians of the legs. In LA these Points tend to be located one anatomical inch higher (Worsley-2). Clearly the locations specified in LA are adopted from Chancellor’s English version of Lavier’s French translation of the Chinese works of Wu Wei-p’ing (Wu-1), a chain of transmission highly susceptible to such errors. All of Lavier’s works in French and English, however, conform to this variant system, so if an error occurred in transmitting doctrine, it would have been by Lavier or Wu. The best explanation for this kind of systematic error would be to attribute it to a confusion regarding measurement from the internal versus the external malleolus, the former being exactly one anatomical inch higher. If the external malleolus is taken as the reference point, then LA and TCM w
ould be in agreement. A second issue in Point location that distinguishes LA from TCM is its belief that Points can not be located merely by anatomical landmarks, but must be palpated for their exact location. This doctrine is common in the Japanese acupuncture tradition which was strongly influenced by blind practitioners, and indeed Worsley’s teacher Ono was a graduate of an acupuncture school for the blind.
7. THE CAUSES OF ILLNESS. Both LA and TCM teach the theory of etiology elaborated by Chen Yen in 1174, in which disease causes are divided into exogenous, endogenous and miscellaneous categories. The differences between LA and TCM in this regard relate to their unequal emphasis in applying this theory. LA is focused around the endogenous causes of illness, which are the unbalanced emotional factors in a person’s life. Although there are are traditionally “seven emotions,” these endogenous causes of disease are in practice limited to five, since they are classically described as operating according to the Law of the Five Elements. The exogenous causes of illness, which are the excessive climatic factors, are only briefly mentioned, with an explanation that in modern times we struggle less with inadequate food, clothing and shelter than at any other time in the past; however this justification for LA’s focus on the endogenous factors is in conflict with its claim to be the classical style of acupuncture practiced in antiquity, when presumably the relative influence of exogenous and endogenous factors was reversed. TCM on the other hand, is focused primarily around the exogenous climatic factors. These six exogenous factors are traditionally associated with the six levels of Yin and Yang, rather than with the Five Elements, which is consistent with TCM’s philosophical dependence on Yin Yang as opposed to Five Element theory. Thus Wind, Cold, Damp, Heat, Dryness and Fire are all common etiological mechanisms in TCM although they are rarely mentioned in LA. This stylistic emphasis on one or another etiological category is reminiscent of the development of the “Four Great Schools” of the Jin and Yuan dynasties mentioned in Chapter Four and should serve as a warning that the totality of traditional Oriental medicine has been lost. Some of the missing parts have been kept alive by acupuncture traditions other than LA and TCM, such as the various Korean, Japanese and French styles of practice which each emphasize a slightly different etiological factor. This assertion merits more extensive treatment than is possible in the context of this work.
In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor Page 24