The Lure of Five Phase Acupuncture
An interlude
I remember my first encounter with five phase acupuncture. In the early 1990’s I had enrolled in some informal classes with a local Chinese doctor, Wu Shicun, which were held in a small room in his shop on Clark Street in Chicago. The room was between his apothecary storefront and his taiji class space in the back. Doctor Wu sat at a small desk and we crowded into the chairs around. Behind him was a dusty blackboard. I’d already studied with him for several months and had absorbed the basic theories and acupuncture point information. We’d learned all about the organ functions, qi-blood-fluids, fundamental physiology and pathology, and the point indications. Everything seemed logical and made sense so far. Then, we had an introduction to the Mother-Child principle of point selection from chapter 69 of the Nan Jing. If Lung Metal was deficient, strengthen Spleen Earth and the Earth point of Lung Metal, and drain Heart Fire and the Fire point of Metal. If Lung Metal was excess (say, Lung Heat), strengthen Heart Fire and the Fire point of Lung Metal, and Drain Kidney Water and the Water point of Lung Metal.
It made no sense in the context that we’d learned before. Why would you strengthen Fire and drain Water in a heat pattern? It all just seemed too far out and abstract. One of my classmates blurted out, “Do you actually use this?” “Sometimes, yeah,” nodded Doctor Wu.
For my part, something about it just lit me up. I had to learn more. My natural response was to seek out further reading on the subject. Doctor Wu had a copy of the treasure trove of delights that was the Redwing Books catalog, and I thumbed through it. There was a book that looked promising: Five Elements, Ten Stems. I soon had a copy in my hands and dug in. That was it for me.
I will spare you the details of my astrological chart, but suffice it to say that as a Scorpio-heavy individual, I have always been attracted to the more arcane side of any discipline, and acupuncture was no exception. Something about the Mother-Child principle I learned in that particular lecture opened a door to a world where magick was an operational reality, where I could unlock a whole system of correspondence that existed in some archetypal realm and actually produce a concrete result. It was like bringing down the Heavens onto Earth.
Twenty-nine years later, I haven’t lost that sense of wonder. My fascination hasn’t waned. Five-phase theory is still the main organizing principle of my treatments. I bend the rules, of course, but it still feels a little strange when I do. Even then, I know the terrain well enough to rationalize my little departures into layers: Five-phase with underlying Extra Vessels, and an overlay of qi-blood-fluids, or synced up with Four Levels for example. It’s always in there somewhere.
Five Elements, Ten Stems set me off on another quest as well. Beyond the theory and the cosmology, there was the matter of the treatment methods. From the pages sprang forth an almost mythical pantheon of healers from Japan who used tools made of precious metals, and who were able to use “scratching and flicking” techniques to rectify the imbalanced Elements; these guys were so hot they didn’t even need to insert the needles. If there was any penetration, it was on a micro level; insertion depth was a few millimeters as opposed to the 2 and 3 inch stabs we studied in the Shanghai manual.
This was SO what I signed on for.
I sought out more instruction as a student in acupuncture college, despite the ribbing I took from my TCM-oriented instructors. I managed to find mentors and attended as many seminars as I could, in the US and Japan. I knew that early influences tend to stick much better than later ones, and no matter what other styles or techniques might catch my interest in the ensuing years, Japanese Five-Phase acupuncture (formally known as Keiraku Chiryo, Meridian Therapy) would always be the home base to which I would return.
References
Matsumoto, K., & Birch, S. (1983). Five elements and ten stems: Nan ching theory, diagnostics and practice. Paradigm Publications.