Ghost Herbs 4
Sheng Ma 升麻
This is installment #4 in the Ghost Herbs series, in which we examine Chinese medicinals in contemporary use that have a history of paranormal actions and indications.
A reader asked whether there is any particular modern category that what we’re calling Ghost Herbs falls into. There doesn’t seem to be any one category, but there do seem to be some recurring themes such as wind, both interior and exterior.
Today we take a look at another very common medicinal herb, Sheng Ma (Rhizoma Cimicifugae), usually classified in the wind-heat category.
Modern TCM View
First, let’s look at the data we learned in materia medica class, this time from Wiseman & Brand (2020):
*Cimicifugae Rhizoma, SHĒNG MÁ / sheng ma 升麻 / 升麻 cimicifuga [root]|: Alt. Eng.: bugbane [root].
Category: Exterior-resolving agent (cool acrid exterior-resolving agent).
Origin: Cimicifuga heracleifolia Kom.; Cimicifuga dahurica (Turcz.) Maxim.; C. foetida L.
Properties: Acrid, sweet; slightly cold. Enters lung, spleen, stomach, and large intestine channel
Effuses the exterior and outthrusts papules: Wind-heat headache; measles failing to erupt.
Clears heat and resolves toxin: Toothache, mouth sores, painful swollen throat, sores, and macular eruptions, when these are due to heat toxin.
Uplifts yáng qì: Qì vacuity fall manifesting in enduring diarrhea and prolapse of the rectum or in prolapse of the uterus; qì vacuity that prevents containment of blood, manifesting in flooding and spotting; center qì vacuity with fatigue and lack of strength.
In TCM herbology, Sheng Ma has this very interesting dual nature: it clears and outthrusts heat and relieves toxicity but also used in cases of prolapse and deficiency bleeding. For this last indication, it is usually mix-fried with honey.
Ancient View
In Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, Sheng Ma is classed with the upper grade herbs (“in charge of nurturing Destiny”). From Sabine Wilms’ translation (2018):
Shengma
Rhizome of Cimicifuga foetida, dahurica or heracleifolia (bugbane)
Alternate name: Zhouma “zhou hemp”
Sweet and bitter, balanced, non-toxic
Indicated for resolving the hundred toxins; killing the hundred sprites, old entities, and calamitous ghosts; and warding off warm epidemics, miasmic qi, evil qi, and Gu toxin. Consumed over a long time, it prevents premature death. Grows in mountain valleys.
So, we see some similarities to contemporary usage in its anti-toxin activity, treating the “hundred toxins” from epidemic evils to Gu. Then come the ghost disease indications, followed by prevention of “premature death” (beyond death from vengeful spirits, presumably) which may be an indicator of one of Sheng Ma’s signature attributes.
Jin-Yuan Medicine and Sheng Ma
Besides its anti-toxin action, the most important feature we learn about Sheng Ma is its proclivity to ascend and lift other entities with it, whether that be yang qi, other herbs or pathogens. This indication became especially important in the Jin-Yuan period. In the Bensky et al (2004) Materia Medica, there is a reference to the Jin dynasty physician Zhang Yuansu describing four functions of Sheng Ma:
1) guides to the Yangming channels,
2) “raises yang from under the deepest yin”,
3) dispels wind from the exterior and from the skin, and
4) treats frontal headache.
Bensky quotes Zhang as saying that Spleen and Stomach tonification is incomplete without the addition of Sheng Ma as a guide. Later, Li Shizhen, the great polymath of the Ming period, thought Sheng Ma essential to lift yang in older people and those with weak constitutions.
It was Zhang’s pupil, Li Dongyuan, who was the best-known advocate of the raising yang strategy. Sheng Ma appears throughout Li’s signature work Pi Wei Lun (Treatise on the Spleen and Stomach), where it is prominent as one of the “wind agents” used to dispel yin fire, depressive heat, and other pathogenic factors by upbearing and effusing the yang qi, and expelling dampness from the muscle layer. Others of Li’s category of wind medicinals included Sheng Ma, Chai Hu, Ge Gen and Qiang Huo. Bensky asserts that Sheng Ma’s lifting ability is stronger than that of Chai Hu, with which it is often paired.
Volker Scheid (2022) in his excellent piece on treating Covid-19, notes the overlap of Li’s wind herbs (including Sheng Ma, Chai Hu, and Qiang Huo) with agents that track, vent, and expel deep-lying or lurking pathogens (fu xie) as described in the Wen Bing school. I have written elsewhere that Ling Shu 58 speaks of lurking pathogens as though they were “ascribed to the work of a ghost or god.”
The rest of Li’s wind medicinals as they appear in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing do not, however, share Sheng Ma’s specter-eliminating capabilities. Ge Gen is indicated for wasting thirst, heat, vomiting, bi syndrome; it raises (yin) qi and eliminates toxins. Chai Hu treats afflictions of the heart and abomen, binding of stomach and intestines, food stagnation, evil cold and heat, and “pushes out old to usher in the new.” Qiang Huo (given as an alternative name for Du Huo, as the two were not differentiated from one another) was given as a remedy for wind-cold attack, cuts, pain, running piglet, seizures, tetany, and female shan qi.
Cross-cultural considerations: Uses in North America
Cimicifuga is known by several different names in the West. One of the most common is bugbane, which reflects its Latin name (Cimicifuga derives from cimex, “bedbug”, and fugare, “to drive away”). Another perhaps more well-known moniker is Black Cohosh or Black Snakeroot. Black Cohosh is quite famous as a menstrual and menopausal remedy, and today is generally taken as such. There is some ambiguity regarding the question of whether Sheng Ma and what today is taken as Black Cohosh are one and the same. The varieties usually cited as Sheng Ma include Cimicifuga foetida L., “fetid bugbane”, the pronounced odor of which is a likely factor in its insect-repelling action. The Iroquois people used to refer to Cimicifuga as “smells like horse”. The variety most often given as Black Cohosh, Cimicifuga racemosa, lacks the characteristic smell of other Cimicifugas, and differs in other aspects as well (Foster, 1999).
Most of the older information in North America comes from the writings of the Eclectics, who employed Black Cohosh for a host of debilities, including nervous system disorders like chorea, rheumatic illnesses and even infectious epidemics like smallpox. It wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century that its use in women’s health became its primary indication.
In older times, Cimicifuga was widely used among indigenous people, very often for its anti-rheumatic and anti-toxin indications, which recalls some of the indications of damp-heat in the muscle layer and fire toxin in the upper burner for which Sheng Ma has been used in Chinese medicine. There may be more overlap with the Chinese usage - even as regards maladies reaching into the spirit world - for all we know, but the majority of indigenous herb lore has been tragically lost.
Ghost Herb Dui Yao/ Team-up?
Going back to the question of commonalities between these Ghost Herbs, it is important to understand that we have only been looking at the medicinals which have stayed in our pharmacopeia. There are many more which are obsolete, for various reasons. But we may still be able to draw some comparisons and even posit some combinations.
In terms of the few herbs we have examined, Sheng Ma would seem to have a good deal in common with Xu Chang Qing: acrid effusion and toxin-clearing plus dispelling worm sorcery and slaughtering paranormal entities by the hundreds. They might make a good team, with each having their own special abilities. While Sheng Ma levitates, Xu Chang Qing unleashes her mind tricks. Makes a badass ghost-killer duo in any era.
Note: this newsletter is for information purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please seek the opinion of a health care professional for any specific medical issues you may have.
References
Bensky, D., Clavey, S., Stöger, E., & Gamble, A. (2004). Chinese herbal medicine: Materia medica (3rd ed.). Eastland Press.
Foster, S. (1999). Black Cohosh: A Literature Review. Herbalgram, 45, 35-50. https://www.herbalgram.org/resources/herbalgram/issues/45/table-of-contents/article2659/
Li, D. (2004). Treatise on the Spleen and Stomach: A translation of the Pi Wei Lun (B. Flaws, Trans.). Blue Poppy Press. (Original work published n.d.)
Mi, H.-F. (2004). The systematic classic of acupuncture (S.Z. Yang & C. Chace, Trans.). Blue Poppy Press. (Original work published n.d.)
Scheid, V. (2022). Covid from the bottom up: Lessons of the pandemic. The Lantern, 19(2), 2-19.
Wilms, S. (2017). Shen Nong ben cao jing: The divine farmer’s classic of materia medica. Happy Goat Productions.
Wiseman, N., & Brand, E. (2020). Comprehensive Chinese Materia Medica. Paradigm Publications.