Brian,
I read the article. Oh so true. It isn't fun to be preached to everywhere you go about this or that religion. I feel very uneasy if there are Buddha's and what not around as well. Keep those out of the picture and you will do much better with the customers.

What do you say as far as the argument that it all comes from a religion though? I'm pretty sure our western medicine didn't come from anything Christian or Jewish, but that doesn't seem to bother most Christians. Where do you draw the line between religion and culture for eastern philosophies, practices, etc.?

Hope to hear from you soon.
Jesse

My perspective is that the Chinese, who were quite brilliant, used whatever beliefs and perspectives they had already developed to try to understand the body. That's how we all understand new things, really - by making comparisons to things we already understand, in terms of the way we already look at things.

Some of their philosophies, etc. were incorporated or tested clincally as medical theories, but only what worked was kept. Other things, like the system of acupuncture channels, had nothing to do with their religious beliefs. They simply found out over time that certain points not only had certain effects on the body, but that some points were related to one another, or affected organs or structures on a distant part of the body.

In fact, two of our best modern English-language scholar-historians who study Chinese medicine, Paul Unschuld and Donald E. Kendall, both say that Chinese medicine never meant qi to mean energy, and never described channels in which energy flow. Kendall says they were describing blood flow and neurovascular relationships.

So, my take on it is that the Chinese used the scientific method to test hypotheses, and kept what worked- but that their understanding is not the end-all-be-all... e.g. modern neuroimaging with the PET Scan (similar to MRI) by Zang-hee Cho at University of California Irvine has shown that a point near the little toe traditionally good for eye problems actually activates the visual cortex in the brain- so the channel that runs from the toe to the eye is more of a metaphor, a relationship they discovered than an actual physical line... significant because there is no nerve that runs from the little toe to the eye directly- it must pass through the brain first and be interpreted, then the brain activates the visual cortex.

In short, no matter what their theory or description, I take it to be an indicator of the truth, which needs to be further explored by science. We already have a lot of information about how acupuncture works via the nervous system, the blood coagulation system, and the immune complement system. I don't even understand it all, because I'm still learning the relevant neuroscience and immunology.

As for western medicine, it came from Greeks who believed in Greek gods. You don't see anyone complaining about that. The symbol for western medicine, the caduceus (the staff with the snakes) is a symbol for an old Greek God. How many Christians refuse to go to the MD because of those things? That's right, none of them. Christian Scientists don't go, but they're not Christ followers... that's another topic.

The main thing is to choose your acupuncturist wisely- make sure they have a medical orientation, not a new age one. I think for Christians it may be best to find a Christian acupuncturist, second best to find an acupuncturist who isn't new age and knows the neuroscience of acupuncture, and worst to see a new age acupuncturist who believes in energy meridians.

B