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[Guest guest]

Magical(correlative thinking) and " scientific " (causal thinking)

are both inherent aspects of chinese medicine. The Yin/Yang theory of

complementary opposites and the five processes of ordered change

constitute the background for all causal forethought in medical

thinking.

A.C. Graham points out in his discussion of the " cosmologists " ,

that until the scientific revolution, the choice was between a

correlative cosmos and no cosmos at all. He then adds..

" Until the West grasped the complicated idea of formulating

mathmatised laws of nature and testing them by controlled experiment,

it's own temporary swings in favour of causal explanation never broke

the hold of correlative system building. In the 15th and 16th

centuries indeed the swing had been in the opposite direction. "

 

Throughout most of human history magical thinking and causal

thinking were practiced as functionally independent from one another.

The development of all sorts of scientific insight and technological

development goes on despite the greater Cosmos looming about.

Kendall's conception of the archaic medical tradition is that it

is both magical and scientific.

Magical thinking doesn't neccesarily mean sloppy thinking, it

allows for anomalies and accounts for a system of felt relationship.

That early physicians developed a true medicine that was based on

a systematic study of the human body and it's parts and at the same

time managed too embed it into correlative schematics is really not

that far-fetched. A.C. Graham points out that it was the physicians

and diviners in the classical period who had developed correlative

schematising.

According to Graham, the politics of rulership in Han China

borrowed the the notion of the mutual conquest of the five processes

from the recipe masters and physicians. This stands in contrast too

the notion that the Nei-Jing correlative thinking was the bastard

child of political thinking.

Vivienne Lo argues that the Nei-Jing developed mostly from the

yang-sheng tradition and sexology practices. This may be the camp

that Heiner is coming from??

It seems to me that there are many historically valid points of

view on what early chinese medicine consisted of. Even though we are

not even quite sure where the Nei Jing came from; any clinically

valid interpretation of it's contents should be investigated and

taken seriously.

I " m not sure whether or not sinologists will bother reviewing

Kendall's work. On the one hand, it is beautifully written and

certainly profound in it's implications, but it doesn't have a lot of

textual studies behind it, nor much chinese or japanese scholarship.

I personally think his book deserves a lot of attention, even if

it's simply to taste a truly novel and indeed reality-shattering

interpretation of the Great Classic.

matt