The Intellectual Tools For Acupuncture
What can we rely on if we want to:
What can we rely on if we want to:
Learn about Chinese acupuncture? Learn how to do acupuncture? Find the different sources which will help us to do it?
The answer seems simple: there are oral traditions, books, articles, teachers, courses.
But why do you want to acquire this knowledge?
To become like the ancient traditional acupuncture practitioners, but then of what century or period? To stick to the traditional beliefs but adapt your skills to the environment in which you live? To learn the traditional concepts but use those amongst them which seem appropriate within our actual environment? To use the frame of acupuncture theory as a base for thinking and deciding but to rely more on modern neurophysiology and reflex therapy? To completely ignore the traditional aspects and use the system of stimulating trigger points and painful areas? To make a cocktail of all the tendencies and create your own personal way of applying acupuncture? In other words you will fit somewhere within all these trends. This last choice needs obviously a lot of studying, a broad and analytical mind, a critical but positive and inquisitive attitude, and a relentless desire to know more for getting better results when treating your patients!
Let's go back to the sources:
The oral tradition: it might make some readers smile but most of our civilizations started that way, repeating and repeating stories and information till they knew them by heart and could transmit what they had learned to the next generation. In some ways it was a quite safe and well-organized method, in which however many other historical constructions got inserted: myths, legends, skills and miracles, golden eras, etc. But there was always an element of truth, a useful truth for the daily running of acupuncture's life. We can find remains of these practices in some chinese texts where repetition, rhythm and rime are the backbone of the information.
The books: big subject. They started being written in the last centuries BC. We have actually an original text going back to 168 BC! ALL the others are copies, copies of copies, etc. Whether by hand, later by printing (do you know that the Chinese invented the technique of printing centuries before us, but it was perfected by Guttenberg at the end of the 15th century?) If you are correct, you copy what is in the book. But there were so many characters, sometimes different ways of writing them, so many expressions, and rare ideograms. Who could resist a wee bit of improvisation, changing a word, adding or eliminating another, exchanging, interpolating, omitting. Worse, adding whole chapters sometimes hundreds of years later as if they had been part of the original script! And what about the mistakes, when the copyist is falling asleep on his text? All this is true, but fortunately enough a certain sense of logic and down to earth commonsense allows for keeping a solid nucleus, the core of the knowledge, the information which is really efficient and useful.
The articles: this is a new trend because one did not write so many articles centuries ago. So let's examine recent articles, maybe one hundred years ago, even up to now. You can write what you want, what comes to your mind, what suits you. You can invent, concoct, create, imagine, dream, reveal, without having to prove. Just by saying: "I have found out that", or "I discovered that", can be enough, providing of course you have a minimum of personality and some charisma. It is even better if you say that it is written in the Classics! Who is going to verify? New schools are created, new theories, new techniques. What remains of them? Only the useful and the efficient: the correct points and the needles in the right places for the well diagnosed disorder. But there are hundreds of good, scientific, professional, methodological articles that have been written and which give more and more strength to the phenomenon of acupuncture.
The courses: they can be long or short, full of details or down to the point, simple or complicated, old or new, traditional or contemporary. What do I think about it? I don't care, providing they offer the useful and the efficient.
The teachers: they can transmit exactly what their masters said; or adapt it to the modern world. Some talk very well, even if what they say is questionable. Some are bad speakers, although they are full of knowledge. I don't care, providing they give you the love of acupuncture and a practical, not too complicated and efficient way of working with the technique.
I can hear your silent question: why doesn't he write more about the courses and the teachers? The answer is simple. I am a teacher, I give courses, and I don't want to transform this article in a blatant advertisement. Do I have a message? Yes and no. In our vast world there is a small world of acupuncture which could be considered huge when you enter it with enthusiasm, reserve, with your eyes open and your mind ticking and thinking: what do I have to consider in this profusion of knowledge and what attitude to take?
by: Francois Beyens
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