Deke Kendall...again???

[Guest guest]

Hi Teresa

* BTW have you attended Deke Kendall's lecture? Based

on knowledge and little bit of experience, that is

several post graduate classes in Neurobiology,

Endocrinology and lots of physiology, also published

in

Metobolic Brain Disease... I would have to say that

there is ALLOT of validity as to what Deke Kendall had

to share. When a needle is insertedinto the skin, the

body has a physiological response, that is a given.

 

===>That's an impressive CV. I don't know DK...only

heard of him and read it through the post...his

reputation is a controversial matter, the topics he

made $$ off people are also controversial...but that

is not my point. My point that each one of us should

use our judgement or intuition, base on the knowledge

we have to determine what people say/preach is right

or wrong. We should not take it AS IS from

self-proclaimed so-called " expert " .

 

humbly yours,

Thomas

 

** The true measurement of success is not how many

servants one has, but how many people one serves **

 

 

 

HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs

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[Guest guest]

Hi Thomas et. al

 

I totally agree with your point. I believe it is also true whenever someone

makes themselves a " public figure " like Deke has, like Bob Flaws and several

others, these people open themselves up to scrutiny. As for making money,

Deke's book only cost me $45.00, it is probably one of the least expensive

TCM books I have purchased, and one of the first books that has literally

charged my battery! This book was put to press by Oxford Press, one of the

most prestiges presses around. It is my understaning that Oxford Press does

not just put any ole thing into print. They *Oxford Press* do all their own

research on the subject matter. I cannot imagine that Oxford Press would

put a text to press that was not from an absolutely reputable source.

 

I know when I was at PCOM there was an abundance of frustration with

terminology, and terminology changing all the time. The thing I love about

the way Deke presented the material is, that now, I can now actually explain

to MD's what we do. The Md I work with said what I do is voodooo and has

no basis what so ever. However, I xeroxed a schematic out of Deke's book

and presented it to him, and his attitude seemed to change.

 

In Health and openmindedness,

 

Teresa Hall

 

>

> ===>That's an impressive CV. I don't know DK...only

> heard of him and read it through the post...his

> reputation is a controversial matter, the topics he

> made $$ off people are also controversial...but that

> is not my point. My point that each one of us should

> use our judgement or intuition, base on the knowledge

> we have to determine what people say/preach is right

> or wrong. We should not take it AS IS from

> self-proclaimed so-called " expert " .

>

> humbly yours,

> Thomas

>

> ** The true measurement of success is not how many

> servants one has, but how many people one serves **

>

>

>

> HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs

> http://www.hotjobs.com

>

>

> Chinese Herbal Medicine, a voluntary organization of licensed healthcare

practitioners, matriculated students and postgraduate academics specializing

in Chinese Herbal Medicine, provides a variety of professional services,

including board approved online continuing education.

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Teresa:

 

It seems more than a problem of terminology. Early on Kendall

notes: " Physicians in ancient China developed a total medical system

that has survived virtually unchanged to present times. Further,

Chinese medicine is complete within itself in that there is

consistency between physiological concepts, etiology, methods of

diagnosis, and principles of treatment. ...Chinese medicine is best

characterized as physiological medicine, which depends on

maintaining the internal functional balance, which in tern relies on

the vascular circulation of blood, vital air (qi), and vital

substances. " [Dao of Medicine, p.8]

 

And what, then, are we to make out of: " However, meridians do not

exist in any physical sense, and hence cannot be described by any

known facts. Without facts, there is no possible way to evaluate the

idea in terms of medical science. ...Given this situation, it is

partly understandable why energy-meridian theory can be confused

with metaphysical ideas. ...If the functioning of the human body

cannot be understood under normal physiological conditions, then

there is little hope of knowing how to treat it when disease

conditions exist. " [Dao of Medicine, p.11]?

 

Any personal experiences you may have had in the past of meridian

flow during an acupuncture session or qigong practice are merely

anecdotal and unscientific. They will be relegated to mythology

because they cannot be described " by any known facts. " It seems---at

least to me---that this is not merely an attempt to find Western

physiological correlations to CM (something we may all find

interesting and desirable), but an attempt to ignore or remove non-

Western sensibilities and to reinterpret and reinvent CM as a

primitive prototype of WM.

 

Ironically, those involved in the debate over the standardization of

terms may be relieved to discover that this burden has been lifted

off the shoulders of our profession.

 

 

Jim Ramholz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

, " Teresa Hall " :

> I know when I was at PCOM there was an abundance of frustration

with terminology, and terminology changing all the time. The thing

I love about the way Deke presented the material is, that now, I can

now actually explain to MD's what we do. The Md I work with said

what I do is voodooo and has no basis what so ever. However, I

xeroxed a schematic out of Deke's book and presented it to him, and

his attitude seemed to change.

[Guest guest]

, " jramholz " <jramholz>

wrote:

 

" However, meridians do not

> exist in any physical sense, and hence cannot be described by

any

> known facts.

 

Manaka describes some experiments he did that could only be

explained by the existence of an information system other than

neuroendocrine and which conformed to the chinese

descriptions of qi and jing luo. I have to admit I had trouble

following his logic, but it is apparently considered sound by

geometrists. To be honest, I find both Manaka;s and Kendall's

ideas intriguing and suspect there may be some truth to both.

 

There is no doubt that the chinese were skilled dissectors. they

used many parts of many different animals for food and

medicine. the pig is a favorite in some parts of china and the

pig's internal anatomy is almost the same as a humans. so

even if human dissection was not common at times, the chinese

probably were influenced by anatomy long before contact with

enlightenment era western anatomical texts.

 

On one hand, one cannot help but notice the complete lack of

physiological accuracy in most classical chinese drawings of

the interior of the human body. so their seems to have been an

emphasis amongst acupuncture practitioners on the meridians,

as it was acupuncturists who made use of such pictures. On

the other hand, many of the translated classical herbal texts now

available seem to put little emphasis on the channels and the

writing (such as zhu dan xi) has a distinct " physiological " quality

to my eye. Perhaps this is one other area where herbalists and

acupuncturists may diverge in theory and practice.

 

[Guest guest]

In Manfred Porkert's " Debased " , he says the following:

 

The pictures of channels (orbs of function). . . represent graphic

models similar to those used, for example, in nuclear physics. No

physicist, building a model of a specific atom, will believe that he is

simply enlarging a photographic picture of such a structure; and if he

represents the electrons by smooth balls, their tracks by metal rings

and the nucleus by a raspberry, he will never pretend that on a much

smaller scale, the real electrons are smooth balls (and so on).

Similarly, the medical authors who formerly illustrated the channels

(orbisicongographic treatises) did not depict what they had observed in

an anatomical theatre. Their unique aim was to facilitate the mnemonic

assimilation by their reading audience of systematised results of

positive observations. "

 

 

On Tuesday, August 20, 2002, at 11:13 PM, 1 wrote:

 

> On one hand, one cannot help but notice the complete lack of

> physiological accuracy in most classical chinese drawings of

> the interior of the human body.  so their seems to have been an

> emphasis amongst acupuncture practitioners on the meridians,

> as it was acupuncturists who made use of such pictures.

[Guest guest]

Z'ev, et al:

 

Shigesha Kuriyama's book, The Expressiveness of the Body and the

Divergence of Greek and (Zone Books, 1999), goes

into great detail about both how and why these two cultural

perspectives of anatomy and physiology evolved so differently in the

first place. Interestingly, he starts the preface of the book by

saying " Versions of the truth sometimes differ so startlingly that

the very idea of truth becomes suspect. "

 

The issue is not whether science can have correlations to CM. Both

can be easily correlated when viewed from the perspective of

Complexity Theory. I've mentioned several aspects where CM fits

Complexity Theory in some of my articles on pulse diagnosis. What

better illustration of phase space can we have than the pulses? And

5-Phases fits the definition of a complex system like a hand in a

glove, because it is a model describing a living system far from

equilibrium. There are a number of other interesting correlations---

one of the most intriguing being the correlation between stems and

branches in CM with the basic geometry of carbon's chemical valence

of in creating organic molecules.

 

 

Jim Ramholz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

, " " <zrosenbe@s...>

wrote:

> In Manfred Porkert's " Debased " , he says the

following:

>

> The pictures of channels (orbs of function). . . represent graphic

> models similar to those used, for example, in nuclear physics. No

> physicist, building a model of a specific atom, will believe that

he is

> simply enlarging a photographic picture of such a structure; and

if he

> represents the electrons by smooth balls, their tracks by metal

rings

> and the nucleus by a raspberry, he will never pretend that on a

much

> smaller scale, the real electrons are smooth balls (and so on).

> Similarly, the medical authors who formerly illustrated the

channels

> (orbisicongographic treatises) did not depict what they had

observed in

> an anatomical theatre. Their unique aim was to facilitate the

mnemonic

> assimilation by their reading audience of systematised results of

> positive observations. "

>

>

> On Tuesday, August 20, 2002, at 11:13 PM, 1 wrote:

>

> > On one hand, one cannot help but notice the complete lack of

> > physiological accuracy in most classical chinese drawings of

> > the interior of the human body. so their seems to have been an

> > emphasis amongst acupuncture practitioners on the meridians,

> > as it was acupuncturists who made use of such pictures.

[Guest guest]

, " " <

zrosenbe@s...> wrote:

> In Manfred Porkert's " Debased " , he says the

following:

 

Similarly, the medical authors who formerly illustrated the

channels

> (orbisicongographic treatises) did not depict what they had

observed in

> an anatomical theatre.

 

And Porkert has been roundly criticized by Unschuld because of

his complete lack of historical accruacy on this point. Porkert

distorts TCM by ignoring the many passages that support views

such as Deke Kendall's. clearly, when one looks at the human

body, one can see evidence for physiological and biochemical

causation as well as non local and informational. the fact that

western science has now considered both views lends even

more credence to the idea that the chinese did this as well.

thus, it should be no surprise that these great observers of

nature noticed both aspects of human structure and function.

chinese medicine is both a physiological medicine which can be

partly understood by observing what are clearly mechanical

actions (such as muscle contraction or the movement of food

through the intestines) and a medicine based upon altering

informational signals (however you define this). It does not

stand in opposition to western medicine at all.

 

The main difference between modern science and TCM is their

explanatory models. It always struck me as remarkable that

both systems of thought seem to reach the same conclusions

when the same quesations are asked. Jim and Z'ev and Ken

like to tout the similarities of chaos theory and certain aspects of

chinese thought. People like myself and Deke Kendall and

Subhuti and Needham have emphasized the more physiological

aspects. But in either case, we are noting the congruence of

modern science and ancient thought. Same when Jim or

Stephen Birch use mathematical models to describe five phase

dynamics. that strongly suggests to me that both systems of

thought can produce either holistic or reductionistic thinking.

 

the fact that the chinese have a more fully developed holistic

aspect as part of their medicine is more a sign of certain cultural

influences (according to Needham and Unschuld, sivin, etc.). It

is not unique to chinese thought at all. In fact, needham noticed

comparisons between chinese thought and biology back in the

dark ages of the 30's. Perhaps it is sign of their cultural maturity

that they never pursued the modern scientific method; perhaps,

as Needham argues, it was a failure of development due to the

stultifying conservative forces of the qing dynasty just as modern

science was being developed in europe.

 

[Guest guest]

 

I agree that Manfred's point is somewhat one-sided, but one doesn't

have to negate the physiological point of view to accept it. As I read

it, he is simply saying that classical acupuncture charts are a view of

functional systems, not physical anatomy. I'd like to see Paul's

specific refutation of his point, I haven't found it in any of his

writings that I have.

 

The quote was somewhat interesting when considering the previous

discussion on channels, comparing the thoughts about the reality of

parts of the atom that are not visible to naked senses.

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, August 25, 2002, at 10:50 PM, 1 wrote:

 

> , " " <

> zrosenbe@s...> wrote:

> > In Manfred Porkert's " Debased " , he says the

> following:

>

> Similarly, the medical authors who formerly illustrated the

> channels

> > (orbisicongographic treatises) did not depict what they had

> observed in

> > an anatomical theatre. 

>

> And Porkert has been roundly criticized by Unschuld because of

> his complete lack of historical accruacy on this point.  Porkert

> distorts TCM by ignoring the many passages that support views

> such as Deke Kendall's.  clearly, when one looks at the human

> body, one can see evidence for physiological and biochemical

> causation as well as non local and informational.  the fact that

> western science has now considered both views lends even

> more credence to the idea that the chinese did this as well. 

> thus, it should be no surprise that these great observers of

> nature noticed both aspects of human structure and function. 

> chinese medicine is both a physiological medicine which can be

> partly understood by observing what are clearly mechanical

> actions (such as muscle contraction or the movement of food

> through the intestines) and a medicine based upon altering

> informational signals (however you define this).  It does not

> stand in opposition to western medicine at all. 

>

> The main difference between modern science and TCM is their

> explanatory models.  It always struck me as remarkable that

> both systems of thought seem to reach the same conclusions

> when the same quesations are asked.  Jim and Z'ev and Ken

> like to tout the similarities of chaos theory and certain aspects of

> chinese thought.  People like myself and Deke Kendall and

> Subhuti and Needham have emphasized the more physiological

> aspects.  But in either case, we are noting the congruence of

> modern science and ancient thought.  Same when Jim or

> Stephen Birch use mathematical models to describe five phase

> dynamics.   that strongly suggests to me that both systems of

> thought can produce either holistic or reductionistic thinking. 

>

> the fact that the chinese have a more fully developed holistic

> aspect as part of their medicine is more a sign of certain cultural

> influences (according to Needham and Unschuld, sivin, etc.).  It

> is not unique to chinese thought at all.  In fact, needham noticed

> comparisons between chinese thought and biology back in the

> dark ages of the 30's.  Perhaps it is sign of their cultural maturity

> that they never pursued the modern scientific method; perhaps,

> as Needham argues, it was a failure of development due to the

> stultifying conservative forces of the qing dynasty just as modern

> science was being developed in europe.

>

 

>

>

 

>

>

> Chinese Herbal Medicine, a voluntary organization of licensed

> healthcare practitioners, matriculated students and postgraduate

> academics specializing in Chinese Herbal Medicine, provides a variety

> of professional services, including board approved online continuing

> education.

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

A few more thoughts on Manfred Porkert.. . .

 

While I recognize the limitations in the relevance and application of

his work, such as his latinized lingo for translation of medical

Chinese, he was the first scholar in English to raise the issue of

accurate translation of essential Chinese medical concepts. His

" Theoretical Foundations of " was the first intelligent

work on the subject I could find back in the 1970's.

 

In addition, Manfred and Paul Unschuld have an interesting relationship,

both being in Munich, Germany. From what I heard from Paul, Manfred was

his professor, and there were some difficulties between them. So, while

I agree with Paul's critique of Manfred's work, we need to understand

the context in which they took place.

 

We don't need to dismiss everything Manfred says because of issues of

historical accuracy.

 

And, by the way, I'd like to know what Paul says specifically about this.

 

 

On Sunday, August 25, 2002, at 10:50 PM, 1 wrote:

 

> And Porkert has been roundly criticized by Unschuld because of

> his complete lack of historical accruacy on this point.  Porkert

> distorts TCM by ignoring the many passages that support views

> such as Deke Kendall's