Energy Medicine East and West

a natural history of qi

David F. Mayor, Marc S. Micozzi

• Publisher: Churchill Livingstone
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780702049231
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Alternative & Complementary Medicine

Energy Medicine East and West: A Natural History of Qi provides a unique, comprehensive overview of Qi or bioenergy for students and practitioners of energy medicines, Chinese and Oriental Medicine, and all disciplines of Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Mayor and Micozzi start with a comparative historical account of the ancient concepts of Qi and vital energy before covering theories of Qi, a discussion of the organized therapeutic modalities based upon Qi and its applications to specific health and medical conditions. Contributions are included from international experts in the field.The book moves from anatomical and bioenergetic complementarity of Western vital energy and Eastern Qi, through convergence of perspectives and models to demonstrations of how the traditional therapies are being melded together in a new, original and creative synthesis.David Mayor and Marc Micozzi are experienced medical practitioners, authors and editors. David Mayor has been actively involved in bioenergy research, practice and publishing for over 30 years, and is author/editor of Electroacupuncture: A practical manual and resource (2007), as well as other acupuncture texts and studies. Marc Micozzi is Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC. As author/editor of Fundamentals of Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 4E (2011), and 25 other books, he has been writing, editing and teaching on bioenergy, Qi and related topics for 20 years.Endorsements"This wonderful book has assembled some 25 authors expressing well a view of qi which entirely does justice to its nature. Meticulously referenced, it is a milestone to set beside Maciocias Foundations of Chinese Medicine and Deadmans Manual of Acupuncture. Here at last are the beginnings of a true science of qi...There is truly nothing like it in contemporary literature. Alone, it lays the foundation for the beginnings of a modern science of qi."Richard Bertschinger, Acupuncturist and translator, Somerset, UK."This book offers a timely and thorough examination of the experience and nature of qi, including a series of fascinating philosophical discussions with a direct application to our patients. Required reading for acupuncture practitioners seeking to justify and clarify their clinical reasoning."Val Hopwood PhD FCSP, Physiotherapist, acupuncturist, researcher and educator; Course director, MSc Acupuncture, Coventry University, UK."Over the last decade most books on Asian medicine paid tribute to the aura of evidence-based medicine – experience counted little, RCTs were convincing. This book, at last, returns to an old tradition of debate, opening up quite a few new horizons. Reading it, my striving for knowledge was married with enjoyment and happiness. This book made me happy!" Thomas Ots MD PhD, Medical acupuncturist specialising in psychiatry, Graz, Austria; Editor-in-Chief, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Akupunktur."To simply review the chapter headings is to know the truly remarkable expanse of this book...a wonderful bridge between the mysteries of the East and the sciences of the West...well documented, well written, and enlarging both. Enlightening...nicely depicts outstanding advances in energy psychotherapeutics, thus ultimately helping to move forward the human condition."Maurie D Pressman MD, Emeritus Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA; Emeritus Chairman of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia PA; past President, International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine, Lafayette, CO, USA.

1. Qi in Asian medicine

Nancy N. Chen

Chapter contents

Qi in premodern Chinese, Korean and Japanese medicine4

Asian medical systems and notions of energy7

Global qi and self-cultivation9

Conclusion10

The concept of qi can be found in many Asian medical traditions. In the West qi has been translated to refer to the flow of energy, spirit, or breath that animates living entities. Ancient Chinese ideograms depicted the term with three horizontal strokes to symbolize cloudlike vapor, as when the breath is seen on a cold day. During the Song dynasty (960–1127 ce) the term was elaborated to include four strokes (

), above the character for rice (

) and this form (

) continues to be used in classical Chinese (Fig. 1.1). Contemporary Chinese pinyin has simplified the term to the top four strokes (

), but without including the character beneath for rice.

FIG 1.1 The classical Chinese character for ki (qi).

In the Chinese language, qi is ubiquitous, reflecting its wide usage in everyday contexts (as in Japan, see Ch. 16). It is a compound term having many meanings, and is used in words that describe a range of entities including atmosphere, environment, flavor, feeling and emotional state. Thus context is crucial to understanding the influence of this ‘energy’ in plural forms.

Daoist texts, some as early as 300 bce with later transmissions on bamboo and silk, address qi as an immanent elemental force that shapes both the universe and individual bodies. Qi comes in many forms (from refined and immaterial to condensed and heavy). It can also be cultivated by the individual through breathing and special exercises. As Livia Kohn's writings on Daoism suggest, ‘breathing for life’ was a critical form of accessing qi as an energetic force [1]. Experiences of qi can be quite subjective but the overall view of qi as energy and generative force suggests that life itself is not possible without it.

Asian medicine is diverse, comprising multiple formations of knowledge and practice interwoven within a broad range of ethnomedical traditions in the region [2, 3]. This chapter offers an overview of the knowledge and practice of qi across these diverse healing modalities and theories of the body. Within the specific context of medicine, the subjective and social experiences of qi come together. In Asian medical theory, qi takes on a particular meaning not simply as a form that stands alone, but also as an entity that flows and brings vital energy to the organs and channels (sometimes termed meridians) it traverses or inhabits [4]. The cultivation of qi, and significantly its movement, is critical to wellbeing.

Asian medicine is diverse with iconic texts, notable practitioners and concepts that may date back centuries, even millennia; these medical systems tend to be characterized as traditional or unchanging. It is crucial to realize, however, that each system of knowledge has significantly evolved, often with the intervention of state institutions. Moreover, the travel of practitioners, translated texts and pharmacopeias across Asia all contribute to multiple forms or genealogies of medical knowledge. How then to study the many different forms that come under the rubric of Asian medicine? How might it be possible to address the different historical, geographical, social, ethnolinguistic or political contexts that have shaped bodies of knowledge and medical practice? [5] A pragmatic approach could be based on textual sources and their transmission via translators. This transmission has depended in part on regional proximity and on sharing the same written language, as was the case for ancient China, Japan and Korea (where classical Chinese characters were in use until the fifteenth century ce). Another approach considers the modalities or treatment techniques that may overlap or, more often, come to define distinct characteristics of a particular system. A third comparative framework entails examining regional ethnomedical practices based on materia medica. In what follows, we will examine the role of qi through each of these lenses.

I begin by addressing how qi was integral for views of the body and medical practice in East Asia beginning with Chinese medicine and its later transmission to Korean and Japanese formations of medicine. These three systems refer to qi (gi or ki), as a form of energy that shapes all bodies. We briefly turn to the techniques and modalities incorporating qi that comprise these medical practices. Since other chapters in this volume address specific therapeutic modalities, my discussion will focus on the ways in which qi might be conceptualized in forms of energy healing. We consider notions of energy in Ayurveda, Unani (Greco-Islamic) and Tibetan medicines that bear resemblance to qi energy healing. Finally, I will address how qigong emerged as a social practice and global formation in the late twentieth century that greatly increased awareness of energetic forms of healing.

Qi in premodern chinese, korean and japanese medicine

Chinese medicine is often referred to as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in Western societies, whereas in Chinese it is simply called zhongyi (

, Chinese medicine). The term TCM suggests a long, storied history over several thousand years where theories and practices came to form a linear system of knowledge. In this chapter, we will identify the earlier medical theories as ‘classical’ or ‘premodern’ Chinese medicine and contemporary forms since 1950 as ‘TCM’. Volker Scheid and other leading scholars of Chinese medicine note the distinction between broader traditions of Chinese medicine and the more recent formation of TCM [6]. The former is ‘characterized by a diversity that encompasses every aspect of its organization and practice, from theory and diagnosis to prognosis, therapeutics, and the social organization of health care.’ [7] By contrast, TCM became systematized during the 1950s in mainland China with TCM colleges, publications of medical texts, clinical and laboratory research, licensing practices and standardization of knowledge. The institutional formations of TCM as a state sys...

Table of contents

• Cover Image
• Table of Contents
• Endorsements
• Front matter
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Foreword and Special Contribution: The Living Matrix
• Preface
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Qi in Asian medicine
• 2. Flows and blockages in Rwandan ritual and notions of the body
• 3. Elemental souls and vernacular qi
• Introduction
• 4. The anatomical foundations of qi
• 5. Qi in China's traditional medicine
• 6. Qi cultivation in qigong and taiji quan
• 7. Qigong theory and research
• Introduction
• 8. The language of qi, quantum physics and the superimplicate body
• 9. Qi and the frequencies of bioelectricity
• 10. Systems theory
• 11. The physiology of qi
• Introduction
• 12. Energy and medicine
• 13. What does it mean to practice an energy medicine?
• 14. Evidencing energy
• 15. Eight modalities for working with qi
• 16. Ki in shiatsu
• 17. Bioelectricity and qi
• 18. Energy psychology
• 19. Craniosacral biodynamics
• Introduction
• 20. Qi in children
• 21. Qigong, taiji quan (tai chi) and HIV
• 22. Energy-based therapies in neurology
• 23. Qi in chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia
• 24. The electrical heart
• Introduction
• 25. Themes of qi and a dozen definitions
• References and further reading
• Index