Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 Greg We just got a copy of the book at PCOM at my request. I have been wanting to read it. This books has caused a tremendous amountof controversy amongst the faith ful, so I m always interested to hear an opinion of enthusiastic support. could you elaborate on what you liked and why? and remind me if you read chinese. I seem to recall you have spent some time in China. , Greg Livingston <shanren@c...> wrote: > Hi folks, > > I was wondering if anybody out there has read Deke Kendall's recent book, > " Dao Of " ? This is, in my humble opinion, one of the > best English language books on CM. Curious what other people think about > it. > > Greg > > > > > Lake Street > Greg A. Livingston, L.Ac. > Wang Huiyu, BTCM > 121-1/2 11th Avenue > San Francisco CA 94118 > (415)752-3557 > shanren@c... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 I looked the book up on amazon. I didn't see the name Deke but saw the name Donald Edward Kendall with the same book title. Is this the book you are referring to. Thanks...Brian < wrote: Greg We just got a copy of the book at PCOM at my request. I have been wanting to read it. This books has caused a tremendous amountof controversy amongst the faith ful, so I m always interested to hear an opinion of enthusiastic support. could you elaborate on what you liked and why? and remind me if you read chinese. I seem to recall you have spent some time in China. , Greg Livingston <shanren@c...> wrote: > Hi folks, > > I was wondering if anybody out there has read Deke Kendall's recent book, > " Dao Of " ? This is, in my humble opinion, one of the > best English language books on CM. Curious what other people think about > it. > > Greg > > > > > Lake Street > Greg A. Livingston, L.Ac. > Wang Huiyu, BTCM > 121-1/2 11th Avenue > San Francisco CA 94118 > (415)752-3557 > shanren@c... Chinese Herbal Medicine offers various professional services, including board approved continuing education classes, an annual conference and a free discussion forum in Chinese Herbal Medicine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 I was wondering if anybody out there has read Deke Kendall's recent book, " Dao Of " ? This is, in my humble opinion, one of the best English language books on CM. Curious what other people think about it. >>>>>A lot of interesting MSU Alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 , " Alon Marcus " <alonmarcus@w...> wrote: > I was wondering if anybody out there has read Deke Kendall's recent book, > " Dao Of " ? This is, in my humble opinion, one of the > best English language books on CM. Curious what other people think about > it. > >>>>>A lot of interesting MSU > Alon Alon, I just picked up a copy and it looks quite interesting. have read the intro and look forward to see how he makes his case. Of all people, I thought you would be drawn to his ideas. And I wouldn't exactly call them MSU. While this term, which has been bandied about on CHA for years, has never been precisely defined. I prefer to use the term to describe those who have very limited access to chinese source material. Basically they read only english and they make simplistic correlations between things like HIV and latent heat, etc. Or they mistake the five phase emotions for something akin to jungian archetypes. Deke clearly reads chinese at a quite high level and I would offer there are only a few english speakers in our field who are really in a position to dispute any of his positions. I would be really curious what Heiner Fruehauf had to say, for example. Mr. Unschuld, of course. Maybe Nigel Wiseman or Andy Ellis have something to say on the topic as well. But very few people have publicly established themselves as scholars equal to this task. As an interesting sidenote, I found this quote on a site called christianacupuncture.com. Brian Carter writes, " 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. " Carter provides no further information, but I was not aware Unschuld supported Deke's findings. Does anyone know if that's true? Finally, Deke makes it clear that his interest is NOT to reduce chinese concepts to modern physiology, but rather demonstrate that CMi is ALREADY a physiological medicine (something one of my ND teachers, Jared Zeff, said to me almost word for word in 1988). And that perhaps there are chinese ideas that enhance standard physiological understandings. He states explicitly that the rejection of chinese concepts amongst medical acupuncturists is because of the prevailing energetic view of qi and meridians as distinct from the neurovascular system. Once it becomes clear that the chinese were actually talking about the same systems modern anatomists are, then it will pave the way for acceptance of the classical information as physiolgical rather than metaphysical, according to Deke. Intriguing idea, one must say. Deke, and the association that has adopted him as patron, NOMAA, have been dismissed in some circles as having the goal of scientifc reductionism vis a vis CM, but I think this matter is much more subtle than that. I will report more as I read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 , Brian Hardy < mischievous00> wrote: > I looked the book up on amazon. I didn't see the name Deke but saw the name > Donald Edward Kendall with the same book title. Is this the book you are referring to. Thanks...Brian yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 Mr. Unschuld, of course. >>>Todd Unschuld basically told me that his translations are MSU. Since they read very differently than any other translation i have read i asked Unschuld.Now i have no problem with MSU as long as one in clear that that's what one is doing, and follows the logics of TCM. I do not think the Chinese have any more right to MSU because they read chinese than anyone else if he/her guides their ideas from the logic of CM.Without MSU we will never advance. Hopefully MSU is followed by clinical trials. Alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 , " Alon Marcus " <alonmarcus@w...> wrote: > Mr. Unschuld, of course. > >>>Todd Unschuld basically told me that his translations are MSU. Since they >>read very differently than any other translation i have read i asked Unschuld. a couple of question come to mind, particularly for the chinese readers. Has anyone compared what unschuld writes in his nei jing book vs. kendall vis a vis qi and channels. those books strike me as covering somewhat the same topic: the contents of the neijing and what it means. Second, if Mr. Unschuld did not note the similarity between chinese ideas and modern physiology, I am curious as to his depth of knpowledge in modern physiology. Certainly his depth of knowledge in medical anthropology is formidable, but perhaps that has precluded other studies of similar depth. and of course, he has not spent his life with his hands on the human body testing his hypotheses. He would have msised what he was not prepared to see. While I make no claims as to who is correct on this matter, despite Unschuld's current cult status in our field, his ideas are not universally accepted. In fact, they are disputed by scholars of equal footing, such as Sivin >>>Now i have no problem with MSU as long as one in clear that that's what one is doing, and follows the logics of TCM. I do not think the Chinese have any more right to MSU because they read chinese than anyone else if he/her guides >>their ideas from the logic of CM. And how is one to have a clear idea of the chinese concepts they are developing into new ideas without broad access to source materials. I know you would not feel comfortable making research based claims if you only have access to a fraction of the research. In fact, you frequently criticize chinese research as unworthy of citation. Yet you are willing to develop new ideas that are allegedly classically based while only having access to a fraction of the data. This seems a little disconnected to me. >>Without MSU we will never advance. Hopefully MSU is followed by clinical trials. this is perhaps a matter of semantics. While I think we need new ideas to progress, if we call them CM,, they must be rooted in the tradition. Otherwise we should call them something else. to me, MSU is when one takes an idea not firmly rooted in traditon and calls it CM to market it. On the other hand, any careful development of ideas based upon the classics cannot really be called MSU as this has been the method of development of new ideas for centuries. We can dismiss the hypotheses developed this way after careful consideration, but we cannot dismiss them out of hand as perhaps one would do with NAET (which while perhaps effective is most certainly not rooted in any actual CM tradition). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 , " " wrote: > > Second, if Mr. Unschuld did not note the similarity between chinese ideas and > modern physiology, I am curious as to his depth of knpowledge in modern > physiology. I am not sure if Subhuti still holds this view, but he wrote quite a bit in support of Deke's views several years back. While Subhuti is not a classical scholar himself, his knowledge of physiology is as high as any major player in our field (he is the only major writer on CM herbs I know of who has a ph.d. in physiology, which he obtained after he began his studies of herbology). So there is some food for thought, as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 a couple of question come to mind, particularly for the chinese readers. Has anyone compared what unschuld writes in his nei jing book vs. kendall vis a vis qi and channels. those books strike me as covering somewhat the same topic: the contents of the neijing and what it means. >>>I compared the translation as far as i could, and there are some big differences alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 On the other hand, any careful development of ideas based upon the classics cannot really be called MSU as this has been the method of development of new ideas for centuries. >>>>Again this comes to wheatear one is going to look for clinical evaluation or not as the only final judge, and possibly were we part ways. I do not care how careful someone developed an idea (even when i do it myself as in my next book), because as i said many times what occurs in the real clinic is often totally divorced from such ideas. If NAET for example rooted its ideas in Yin and Yang with some CM logic, beyond fantasy, then to me it would be as valid as any old Chinese writing quoting entire texts. I never studied NAET in depth but i do not see any CM ideas within it, do you know of any? Alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 My take on " Dao of " is that Deke is a brilliant guy, and an engineer to boot. I took a course with him 16 years ago on neuroanatomy of acupuncture points that was very interesting, so he definitely has something to offer. He also has dedicated years to learning medical Chinese by himself with dictionaries, and to reading the Nei Jing Su Wen. Having said that, I agree with Alon about the 'MSU' dimension to this text. In my opinion, he projects an engineer's point of view on the Su Wen material in order to produce a consistency and coherence that may not be there in the original text. The Su Wen is a collection of variant materials that often is contradictory. This is because it presents several theories that are the root of further development during Chinese medical history, exciting ones at that. Paul Unschuld is equipped with a translation team, and trained in social anthropology, so he has many more resources to undertake a Su Wen translation with. He also researched over 1,000 articles and several hundred texts. So his Su Wen project is going to be much broader and open-ended than the " Dao of " . Having said all this, I would still recommend reading this book, as one author's view of material in the Su Wen/Ling Shu corpus, but not as a definitive text for the profession. I think the physiological view is quite interesting, but also quite limiting in terms of the scope of Chinese medicine which we are just beginning to tap in the West. On Mar 6, 2004, at 1:19 PM, wrote: > , " Alon Marcus " > <alonmarcus@w...> > wrote: >> I was wondering if anybody out there has read Deke Kendall's recent >> book, >> " Dao Of " ? This is, in my humble opinion, one of the >> best English language books on CM. Curious what other people think >> about >> it. >>>>>>> A lot of interesting MSU >> Alon > > Alon, > > I just picked up a copy and it looks quite interesting. have read the > intro and > look forward to see how he makes his case. Of all people, I thought > you would > be drawn to his ideas. And I wouldn't exactly call them MSU. While > this term, > which has been bandied about on CHA for years, has never been precisely > defined. I prefer to use the term to describe those who have very > limited > access to chinese source material. Basically they read only english > and they > make simplistic correlations between things like HIV and latent heat, > etc. Or > they mistake the five phase emotions for something akin to jungian > archetypes. Deke clearly reads chinese at a quite high level and I > would offer > there are only a few english speakers in our field who are really in a > position > to dispute any of his positions. I would be really curious what Heiner > Fruehauf had to say, for example. Mr. Unschuld, of course. Maybe > Nigel > Wiseman or Andy Ellis have something to say on the topic as well. But > very > few people have publicly established themselves as scholars equal to > this > task. > > As an interesting sidenote, I found this quote on a site called > christianacupuncture.com. Brian Carter writes, " 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. " > Carter > provides no further information, but I was not aware Unschuld supported > Deke's findings. Does anyone know if that's true? > > Finally, Deke makes it clear that his interest is NOT to reduce chinese > concepts to modern physiology, but rather demonstrate that CMi is > ALREADY a > physiological medicine (something one of my ND teachers, Jared Zeff, > said to > me almost word for word in 1988). And that perhaps there are chinese > ideas > that enhance standard physiological understandings. He states > explicitly that > the rejection of chinese concepts amongst medical acupuncturists is > because > of the prevailing energetic view of qi and meridians as distinct from > the > neurovascular system. Once it becomes clear that the chinese were > actually > talking about the same systems modern anatomists are, then it will > pave the > way for acceptance of the classical information as physiolgical rather > than > metaphysical, according to Deke. Intriguing idea, one must say. > Deke, and the > association that has adopted him as patron, NOMAA, have been dismissed > in > some circles as having the goal of scientifc reductionism vis a vis > CM, but I > think this matter is much more subtle than that. I will report more > as I read. > > > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 By the way i think Deke's book is great has many new ideas Alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 6, 2004 Report Share Posted March 6, 2004 Yet you are willing to develop new ideas that are allegedly classically based while only having access to a fraction of the data. This seems a little disconnected to me. >>>>Perhaps they are not new at all. However, what i am saying is that when one uses the logic of Yin and Yang etc and finds correlations, explanation, or clinical tools i see no problem " making stuff up " . My critic of Chinese research has nothing to do with citations or style but with basic truth. Alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 8, 2004 Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 Actually I'm pretty sure its Biochem. Marnae At 09:40 PM 3/6/2004, you wrote: >Second, if Mr. Unschuld did not note the similarity between chinese ideas and >modern physiology, > >>>I think he has a degree in pharmacology >Alon > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 8, 2004 Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 , Marnae Ergil <marnae@p...> wrote: > Actually I'm pretty sure its Biochem. > > Marnae but even more importantly, what does jing mai mean. deke says the nei jing does not use the term jing by itself, thus the combination term jingluo must refer to the jing mai and luo mai. the eight extras are also called mai and not jing. it seems logical that these might refer to blood vessels and not some other conduits, since blood vessel is the meaning of mai, according to Deke. wiseman comments that the metaphor used in the neijing is one of waterways, which sound likes blood flow, not some invisible force. he also faults soulie de morant for the use of energy and meridians in this context. upon what basis are the jing assumed to be channels other than the vessels. and even if this latter idea has permeated actual chinese thought (jing as channels), doesn't the structure of the classical language possibly lend itself to both interpretations. Could it be that those with mystical bent in ancient china also read the nei jing this way and were thus colored by thier biases, while others felt differently. to be honest, I have not explored much of the acupuncture classics looking for clues to this. I know that the quasi - mystical bent of american px in general, plus the lack of rigor often demonstated by those who are primarily acupuncturists (as opposed to herbalists) may be a major factor in the prevalence of the metaphysical viewpoint. what do chip and Miki say in their divergents book about this matter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 8, 2004 Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sat, 6 Mar 2004 15:39:46 -0600 " Alon Marcus " <alonmarcus Re: Kendall's " Dao of " >>> Unschuld basically told me that his translations are MSU. Since they read very differently than any other translation i have read i asked Unschuld. Alon >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Alon, please explain. Unschuld telling you that his translations are MSU is a very strange thing to hear. Maybe he uses yet another definition of what is MSU? What kind of dialogue did you have with him? greetings, Herman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 8, 2004 Report Share Posted March 8, 2004 , " Herman Oving - Aowen TCG " < jetnik@w...> wrote: > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > Alon, please explain. Unschuld telling you that his translations are MSU is > a very strange thing to hear. Maybe he uses yet another definition of what > is MSU? What kind of dialogue did you have with him? Alon was referring to Deke when he used the word " his " , not Unschuld commenting on his own work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 Alon, please explain. Unschuld telling you that his translations are MSU is a very strange thing to hear. Maybe he uses yet another definition of what is MSU? What kind of dialogue did you have with him? <<<<<I was reading Dendall's book when PU gave a talk in SF. So i asked him if he was familiar with it and what he thought of the translations of different section of SW and LS. He basically told me it was fantasy and not good translations Alon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2004 Report Share Posted March 9, 2004 --- Marnae Ergil wrote: > Actually I'm pretty sure its Biochem. > > Marnae I'm sorry Marnae it is actually pharmacology This is exerpted from his CV: " Akademische Ausbildung Studium der Pharmazie (Universität München; Pharmazeutisches Staatsexamen 1968) Studium der Sinologie und Politischen Wissenschaften (Universität München; Dr. phil. 1971) Public Health (The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Master of Public Health, 1974) Habilitation in Geschichte der Pharmazie (Universität Marburg, 1979) Umhabilitation für Geschichte der Medizin (Universität München, Dr. med. habil., 1982) Habilitation in Sinologie (Universität München, Dr. phil. habil., 1983) " Alwin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 12, 2004 Report Share Posted March 12, 2004 Thanks Marnae At 12:04 PM 3/9/2004, you wrote: >--- Marnae Ergil wrote: > > Actually I'm pretty sure its Biochem. > > > > Marnae > >I'm sorry Marnae it is actually pharmacology > >This is exerpted from his CV: > " Akademische Ausbildung >Studium der Pharmazie (Universität München; Pharmazeutisches >Staatsexamen 1968) >Studium der Sinologie und Politischen Wissenschaften (Universität >München; Dr. phil. 1971) >Public Health (The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Master of >Public Health, 1974) >Habilitation in Geschichte der Pharmazie (Universität Marburg, 1979) >Umhabilitation für Geschichte der Medizin (Universität München, Dr. >med. habil., 1982) >Habilitation in Sinologie (Universität München, Dr. phil. habil., >1983) " > >Alwin > > > > > >Chinese Herbal Medicine offers various professional services, including >board approved continuing education classes, an annual conference and a >free discussion forum in Chinese Herbal Medicine. > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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