Guest guest Posted March 9, 2003 Report Share Posted March 9, 2003 Interesting discussion. I have a 5 Element & 8P practice and work with people at whereever the cause of imbalance lies - body, mind or spirit. Treating the Spirit level is more addressing a core part of the experience of life, not of religion. I talk to people about the "Chinese concept" of an idea in a very generalized way that they can apply to how conscious they are of their imbalance and how they can respond differently to it physically, mentally and spiritually. I think that bringing this into the treatment room and into Chinese medicine is a very important difference that we can bring to health and healing that is not addressed by the Western medical model or other modalities that are trying to emulate it. I feel that discussing spirit in healing allows people to translate that into their own beliefs. How much more valuable to do K 25 and be able to talk about Spirit / Shen Storehouse, rather than just say it "opens the chest". I have had patients who are devoutly Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, Christian... and get something valuable from this. It is just how I approach healing. The only time someone had a problem with it is when I used the word "evolution" to someone who was stridently creationist. Possession can be treated many ways in Chinese medicine. I believe that it is from Gui who may or may not be malevolent, but don't belong where they are. In 5E acupuncture it is treated as Internal Possession (possessed by the internal causes of illness - the emotions) or External Possession (possessed by the external causes of illness - the environmental factors or other spirits). They are powerful treatments that can make someone much more able to be present in their life and their healing. I have heard of a few Chinese herbal formulas that are used to treat or supplement treatment of possession. Er Chen Tang can be used as a clearing treatment for phlegm that keeps an Internal Possession treatment from working - some view Internal Possession as a very severe case of Phlegm obscuring / misting the Heart / Shen. I've also heard of Chuan Xiong Cha Tiao Teng used for Possession - I'm not sure of the specifics with that. I've also heard of Tian Ma Gou Teng Yin for a certain kind of Poltergeist, more than possession. And a classic description of Gui Zhi Tang is for women who want to sleep with ghosts. I'm sure there are more formulas that could treat it. Thea Elijah at AFEA would be a good resource on this. -Anne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2003 Report Share Posted March 9, 2003 > so if > people want to discuss the relevance of this to our practices, it may be fruitful. > but this is not a place to discuss the relative worth or truth of particular world > religious beliefs or lack thereof. that never gets anywhere. OK? Thanks Todd- I believe I understand your parameters for this discusion. Z'ev wrote: > The problem comes with what observant Jews consider to be worship > and prayer. While Hindu and Tibetan dieties (or Taoist ones, like Quan > Yin) are considered to be permissible for non-Jews, they are not for > observant Jewish people. Z'ev, thanks for the Jewish perspective- that was what I was looking for from you earlier which I had yet to clarify. And Quanyin bothers me too- especially when I see it as the major image in one of our profession's manufacturer's advertisements. > But I'd still prefer that taoist cosmology were > not our main public face. I don't think it has been the main face of TCM > throughout chinese history. I think the main face has been pragmatic. I agree, that CM's public image should be as a medicine. I think it's wonderful to integrate medicine with psychology and medicine with spirituality, but since the latter is very personal, a healer who respects his patients can't shove any spirituality down their patients' throats... not even the spirituality that views all religions as basically the same (a view that is unbelievably inaccurate anyway if you study world religions). Beyond the popular image of CM, this topic has another point of contact - which is ghost/possession. I remember reading an article long ago by Al Stone on the use of Ba Dou for possession. I haven't gotten a consensus on the question tho... is the CM idea of ghosts a purely psychological, actually spiritual, or mixed phenomenon? The way that it fits with the spirituality topic is that some people believe that all spirits and energies are good. Not all religions agree with that - and if ghosts in CM are actually evil spirits possessing someone, then CM doesn't agree with it either. The comparison with wind invasion is interesting too. (Does a weak Lung/po allow the invasion of ghosts in the same way that physical pathogens can attack the exterior - controlled by the Lung; and since wei qi is associated with the Spleen, is wei qi involved with possession, and thus the Spleen too?) So given that all of what I've gathered there is correct- are there herbal formulas for this? What else is there beyond the " ghost points " ? There are also ethical issues here- what if the patient doesn't think possession is bad? I had a patient at the PCOM clinic who said he was possessed by 3 chinese men, but he liked it and didn't want to get rid of them. B Brian Benjamin Carter Editor, The Pulse of Oriental Medicine Columnist, Acupuncture Today The PULSE of Oriental Medicine: Alternative Medicine You Can Understand http://www.pulsemed.org/ The General Public's Guide to Chinese Medicine since 1999... 8 Experts, 100+ Articles, 115,000+ readers.... Our free e-zine BEING WELL keeps you up to date with the latest greatest PULSE articles. Sign up NOW. Send a blank email to: beingwellnewsletter- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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