evil Qi? - weeds - trickster

[Guest guest]

Hi,

 

David Gordon wrote:

> Are there any other books (or other resources)

> that you (or others) can recommend for this

> topic? ie to help us understand where Chinese

> medicine was *just prior* to the batch of

> revolutions in China this century.

 

Another option is to look at living chinese medicine areas

outside the primary impact area of the revolution. Samples

can be found in taiwan, japan, canada, hong kong, india etc.

And these are all injecting ideas back into mainland china now.

 

> ...

> This is what determines whether it is shamanism

> or science.

>

There's another view. Insight leads to new discoveries.

Working with a weed that has started invading the gardens

in one's village teaches its potential for food and medicine.

 

The process of adoption and adaption is a trickster function. All of our tech

advances rely on bubbles of insight popping out via our trickster function. The

new way of working with a weed or technology is shamanist in that the shaman's

function is partially to be a trickster. And weeds are themselves a form of

plant trickster.

 

The first time we do something has no precedent.

 

The basic idea to be a fool and play with something, to make many mistakes

and find the better way, is trickster and shamanistic.

 

The process of adopting TCM into western ways is a social trickster function,

seeking better ways partially because of alienation from pills and overly

distant inhuman doctors.

 

" The Tao of Physics " portrays this same process in terms of physics.

" The Art of War " teaches the same pattern for social grouping.

 

> So how shamanic and how scientific was ancient CM?

 

A disorganized blend, with various organized/disciplined schools

floating in the sea of ferment. Just as one finds feng shui.

 

Any thoughts?

>

 

bye,

vic

 

--

Vic Williams (604)433-5189 -- www.strategicprocess.com -- www.spiralwild.com

Empowering personal growth. Developing Personal & Group Ecology.

The fewer clear facts you have in support of an opinion, the stronger

your emotional attachment to that opinion. --Anonymous

[Guest guest]

Hi Vic

 

Thank you for your thoughts here.

 

David Gordon wrote:

> Are there any other books (or other resources)

> that you (or others) can recommend for this

> topic? ie to help us understand where Chinese

> medicine was *just prior* to the batch of

> revolutions in China this century.

 

Vic replied:

Another option is to look at living chinese

medicine areas outside the primary impact area of

the revolution. Samples can be found in taiwan,

japan, canada, hong kong, india etc. And these

are all injecting ideas back into mainland china

now.

 

David now replies ==>

This is a very good idea. Actually I am

personally doing it in the area of oriental

bodywork practice - using ancient Daoist methods

from practitioners in Thailand and Taiwan. We

should be able to do the same thing with

acupuncture.

 

Vic wrote:

The process of adoption and adaption is a

trickster function. All of our tech advances rely

on bubbles of insight popping out via our

trickster function. The new way of working with a

weed or technology is shamanist in that the

shaman's function is partially to be a trickster.

And weeds are themselves a form of plant

trickster.

 

The first time we do something has no precedent.

 

The basic idea to be a fool and play with

something, to make many mistakes and find the

better way, is trickster and shamanistic.

 

David now replies ==>

Hmm. I'm not quite sure why you call this person

a trickster. Is this technical jargon in NLP? But

from your description of him/her I think that the

'trickster' is a wonderful person - very needed

and often a mover of mountains. But *I* would

call what you have termed the 'trickster' a

scientist. Part of scientific method (as I think

I mentioned in my last post) is the production of

hypotheses to explain the observation of nature.

I think I mentioned in that post that this

production of hypotheses is a totally 'inductive'

process. 'Inductive' means, by definition, that

it is a total leap in the dark. It is the

opposite of 'deductive'. It's risky. You leap out

somewhere and then see if you can get back. If

you can't you look silly to some people. If you

can it's glorious.

 

Vic, you call the 'trickster' a shaman. I think

that the trickster function (as you have

described it) belongs to science rather than

shamanism (aka metaphysics).

 

Sorry to be so picky about language, but I'm

trying to make the point that there *might* be an

argument that precommunistic CM was not as

shamanic as some might assert, but was actually

quite scientific.

 

Part of my reason for making this assertion is

that I recently read an article in the Journal of

( " In Crisis " by

Heiner Fruehauf, issue no. 61 Oct 1999) that

substantially rubbished modern TCM largely on the

grounds that it was a modern western scientific

corruption of the shamanic ancient CM.

 

I know that even the commuinists admit that Shang

Dynasty (up to 1700 BCE) CM was highly shamanic,

so I'm not so interested in that; I'm more

interested in CM between the end of the Shang

dynasty and the start of the 20th century Chinese

revolutions. How shamanic or scientific was CM in

this extremely long era?

 

Now I have nothing against shamanism. I have

spent many years in my earlier days indulging in

forms of it myself, though I do so less nowadays.

However, I do believe that in the currently

evolving legal climate in UK (and probably

worldwide) in order to survive we have to

practice CM with honesty, objectivity and rigour

- which is actually the definition of scientific

method. And in order to achieve this it will be

easier if we can understand the scientific and

shamanic components of our heritage.

 

Having said all that, long live the trickster!

 

David Gordon

CMIR, MBRCP(Amma, Tao-Yin),

DCHA, Dip Tuina, Dip Tao-Yin, Postgrad Dip

Chinese

[Guest guest]

hi,

 

David Gordon wrote:

 

> Vic wrote:

> ... The new way of working with a

> weed or technology is shamanist in that the

> shaman's function is partially to be a trickster.

> And weeds are themselves a form of plant trickster.

>

> The first time we do something has no precedent.

>

> The basic idea to be a fool and play with

> something, to make many mistakes and find the

> better way, is trickster and shamanistic.

>

> David now replies ==>

> Hmm. I'm not quite sure why you call this person

> a trickster. Is this technical jargon in NLP? ...

 

It's a natural phenomenon. Like knowing how to hop.

An archetype.

 

> call what you have termed the 'trickster' a

> scientist. Part of scientific method

 

They merge. The step into the new involves steps

beyond the known edge. This is a natural function

found in many animals and man - the trickster function.

 

Google on " Trickster makes this world "

>

> I'm trying to make the point that there *might* be an

> argument that precommunistic CM was not as

> shamanic as some might assert, but was actually

> quite scientific.

>

It was both. We have living links here, and in chinese villages.

The best living image that's easily found is a look at feng shui.

 

You might better envisage 'precommunistic CM' as a hodge podge

or community of approaches with some centers of excellence and

literally millions of independent practitioners.

 

> How shamanic or scientific was CM in

> this extremely long era?

>

If you can think of it it happened. A huge swamp of ways and solutions.

Alchemy survives in china today. I deal with a beijing trained TCM doctor who

brings in alchemy at times. And her father was a powerful military official in

the PRC, with no particular longterm CM links. Simple 'was it this' or

'was it that' are best answered with 'yes'.

 

> Now I have nothing against shamanism. I have

 

It reads to me like you do. That you have a particular classification

of it that diminshes other views of it. Perhaps viewing things more

like a spectrum or rheostat instead of black-white lightswitch would

help.

 

This group has seriously examined " evil Qi " and discussed its reality,

which few western 'scientists' would accept as scientific in context.

Yet the 'evil Qi' pattern is very useful and effective for human usage.

 

Look at " The Tao of physics " or read some of Einstein's works, or Arnold

Mindell on Quantum links.

 

bye,

vic

--

Vic Williams (604)433-5189 -- www.strategicprocess.com -- www.spiralwild.com

Empowering personal growth. Developing Personal & Group Ecology.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any

good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. --Howard Aiken

[Guest guest]

Re: Dialog between Vic Williams and David Gordon:

 

>> Hmm. I'm not quite sure why you call this person

>> a trickster. Is this technical jargon in NLP? ...

> It's a natural phenomenon. Like knowing how to hop. An archetype.

>> call what you have termed the 'trickster' a scientist. Part of

scientific method

>They merge. The step into the new involves steps beyond the known edge.

This is a natural function found in many an

 

In Greco-Roman mythology, the god Hermes (Greek) / Mercury (Roman) was a

trickster, a messenger, and his staff (the caduceus -- a rod with wings and

two snakes twined around it) is a symbol for the medical profession in the

West. He was also considered the founder of the occult sciences (and hence

sometimes science in general). Reminds me of a discussion in Donald

Harper's book on the MaWangDui manuscripts of the role of the pre-Han

medical texts in occult knowledge.

 

> If you can think of it, it happened. A huge swamp of ways and solutions.

Alchemy survives in china today. I deal with a beijing trained TCM doctor

who brings in alchemy at times. And her father was a powerful military

official in the PRC, with no particular long term CM links. Simple 'was it

this' or 'was it that' are best answered with 'yes'.

 

The term 'alchemy' in the West carries a stigma - of futile and dangerous

notions of using mercury and trying to change lead into gold, etc. I'm not

sure what the exact Chinese term is, but what is translated as alchemy, in

teachings I've gathered, is a significant aspect of Daoist healthcare

practices, as well as a cultivation for practitioners. I.e. transmuting the

denseness of jing (lower dan tian / xia jiao) into shen (middle dan tian

zhong jiao) and then into sui/marrow (upper dan tian / shang jiao). This

represents the idea that, with cultivation, the waning of bodily strength,

with age, can be converted into mental and spiritual clarity and strength.

As Vic notes, it's by no means obsolete in CM, and is more than superstition.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi,

 

wrote:

> The term 'alchemy' in the West carries a stigma - of futile and dangerous

> notions of using mercury and trying to change lead into gold, etc.

 

Not in my training. My university training in chemistry - physics etc

clearly acknowledged that modern science descends from alchemy. And that

link lives on at the growing fringes.

 

The dominant pattern - order our society follows is still Newtonian physics.

Newton was an active alchemist (the " last great magician " ) while being

a devout Christian.

 

The active patterns in Western and Eastern alchemy are very similar. Jung

gathered such materials for many years, and others have built big repositories

on top of his work. The alchemical pattern is to transmute oneself 'from lead

into gold' as a spiritual process, the chemical process is secondary to the

self-transformation. Both Eastern and Western practices include using holistic

practices - eg sexual activity - as well as diet, herbs, and other concoctions.

 

People talk and write about getting their " aha! " ideas in the shower etc,

and alchemists adopt a variety of ways to enhance such potential. Einstein's

pattern was very daoist in it's natural simplicity.

 

bye,

vic

--

Vic Williams (604)433-5189 -- www.strategicprocess.com -- www.spiralwild.com

Empowering personal growth. Developing Personal & Group Ecology.

" The so-called fat epidemic is a product of upper-class white hysteria

that demonizes everyone who does not fit a certain body type. " -- Lakshmi

Chaudhry

[Guest guest]

To Vic Williams and

 

I'll make this my last post on this as I might be

going off topic and I don't want to waste

people's bandwidth.

 

Hi Vic

 

I just spent 1.5 hours typing a detailed response

and then lost it due to a quirk of MS Explorer.

 

I don't have time (or inclination!) to redo it.

You might be pleased about that!

 

Basically I agree with most of what you have both

said. I just think that within the scientfic

community, the WM community, the CM community and

everyone else there a very inconsistent

understanding regarding the meanings of

" scientific method " , " shamanism " and " alchemy "

and regarding how much objectivity was employed

by ancient CM doctors.

 

This has created a huge amount of confusion and

sets up modern TCM to be rubbished by some people

on the grounds that it is " too scientific "

(compared with the glorious shamanic days of the

past) and at the same time to be rubbished by WM

community and governments on the grounds that it

is " shamanic and not scientific enough " ! This is

a crazy state of affairs.

 

I have tried to address this problem by giving

*one* very precise (note I didn't say accurate)

definition of scientfic method and then asking

how much this was present in pre-20th century

chinese medicine. While doing this I also brought

in the term 'shamanic' and may have caused

confusion here; I actually know nothing about

shamanism, so I probably should have steered

clear of that term.

 

One more thing. Vic, you implied that I was

against shamanism. Well, I suppose that depends

on your definition of shamanism. When the shaman

had made the wild inductive leaps and had tried

the mercuric compounds (and whatever else) out on

the patient what did he do next? Did he then:-

 

(a) stay out there in dream land; or

(b) honestly and objectively ask himself

questions like 'has my patient died or been cured

as a result of this treatment?' and 'How should I

revise my view of the universe (hypothesis) in

the light of this death/survival/cure of the

patient?'

 

If he doesn't objectively and honestly consider

his shamanic hypotheses in the light of his

shamanic medicine's results then I think his

shamanism is both non-scientific and dangerous -

and should be relegated to the history books as

something that had very useful results but

shouldn't really have been done.

 

If on the other hand he objectively and honestly

considered his hypotheses in the light of the

survival rate of his patients then I think that

his shamanism was scientific and could/should be

repeated today.

 

So I guess, basically I'm writing a defense of

scientific method, but not the

technologically/mathematically/microscopically

hijacked version. I'm also writing a defense of

shamanism and alchemy, but not the

totally-other-worldly versions. And I think I'm

then saying that maybe these things (when defined

in these ways) are really all consistent with

each other.

 

But I'm also asking the question: What actually

happened historically.

 

Hi Chris,

 

thank you for you comments about the 'trickster'

and the God Hermes; very interesting. By the way,

I think you will find that ancient Chinese

alchemy did include taking various heavy metals

(called wai dan) as well as the internal alchemy

that you describe (nei dan).

 

Best regards,

 

 

David Gordon

CMIR, MBRCP(Amma, Tao-Yin),

DCHA, Dip Tuina, Dip Tao-Yin, Postgrad Dip Chinese

[Guest guest]

Hi,

 

I think that you are trying to be too pure. Much Asian health and medicine has

a folk tradition. If a new weed crops up in your field you try it as a food

and for various medical purposes. The knowledge spreads through your living

community organically. Only sometime later might someone do more extensive work

with it.

 

Once one adopts more elaborate alchemical/scientific apparatus the

situation reverses and one keeps trying new methods and techniques on the

known range of plants and chemicals.

 

Taoism alchemy involved both of the above two methods, and all kinds of mixtures

and many idiots taking lethal doses of heavy metals (but not necessarily

all that different from Romans using lead piping and poisoning themselves).

 

Unconsciously assuming modern knowledge and biases and ways blinds us to

ancient norms. Just assuming in one culture blinds us to other ways.

I would normally minimise my daily use of salt, and chinese cooks who also

practise chinese medicine say that it's how you use the salt, as they use

a lot more salt.

 

 

David Gordon wrote:

>

> If he doesn't objectively and honestly consider his shamanic hypotheses

>

Some observers have noted that chinese 'science' was well ahead of western

for many centuries, but it didn't advance very quickly because the use of

hypotheses wasn't standard practise. The British took chinese rockets to war

and blapped them into the sky to generate (some say) the basis for the stars on

the US flag. The West trickstered in many ways beyond Chinese norms.

 

> If on the other hand he objectively and honestly

Or she. Shes more commonly collect the plants for dinner and daubing.

>

 

> But I'm also asking the question: What actually

> happened historically.

 

If you can imagine it in a simple context, it happened.

 

bye,

vic

--

Vic Williams (604)433-5189 -- www.strategicprocess.com -- www.spiralwild.com

Empowering personal growth. Developing Personal & Group Ecology.

" You should not underestimate the power of thickness " -- Kaoru Iwamoto