Content provided in partnership with

Acupuncture, magic, and make-believe

Skeptical Inquirer, March-April, 2003 by George A. Ulett

Traditional Chinese acupuncture is an archaic procedure of inserting needles through the skin over imaginary channels in accord with rules developed from pre-scientific superstition and numerological beliefs. New research has replaced this mystical sham medical procedure with a simple evidence-based no-needle treatment that stimulates motor points and nerve junctures and induces gene-expression of neurochemicals and activates brain areas important for healing. This is a scientifically based alternative to the previous metaphysical theories and magical rituals.

**********

Most Popular Articles in Reference: The importance of understanding organizational culture; Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students; What factors attract foreign direct investment?; Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...; How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques; More »

In all early cultures around the world, people observed the magic of nature with great awe. They formulated explanations in the form of myths such as the God of Thunder and the Goddess of Lightning. Behavior, including rituals of sacrifice and prayer, was governed by interpretations of such myths formed from the primitive knowledge of the time. Later, as knowledge of the world expanded, myths became scientific theories. But even these theories resemble myths in that they may be only temporary explanations that direct behavior until the theories change, augmented or supplanted by yet more scientific evidence. Persons who, in the face of contradictory scientific facts, continue to base their actions on disproved ancient myths are behaving in a "make-believe" fashion. Today scientific evidence makes the metaphysical explanations that are the basis of traditional Chinese acupuncture obsolete. The estimated 20,000 acupuncturists in America are therefore practicing a "make believe" kind of medicine. This was the op inion of the American Medical Association quoted in newspapers on August 4, 1974. stating "The AMA Calls Acupuncture Quackery."

In the late 1960s, before acupuncture was introduced in the U.S., I had learned of it on a trip to Japan. Dr. Kodo Senshu, a retired physician, was translating one of my psychiatric texts into Japanese. When I informed him that we in America knew nothing about acupuncture he set about to rectify my ignorance. He demonstrated the technique on my teenage daughter and I returned home with a textbook and a box of needles. In the following months I tried the method on a number of my patients. I discovered what the Chinese had known for centuries, that acupuncture could be of benefit to patients suffering from chronic pain. I was, however, greatly bothered by the pre-scientific explanations of the mystical needle ritual I was using. As a seventy-year member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, I had long ago learned that behind every event that appears magical there is a string or a mirror.

Early Chinese Acupuncture

My special hobby is Chinese magic and I was eager to look for a scientific explanation of acupuncture. In tracing magic's early roots in China I found a copy of an engraving showing the sorcerer Yu the Great in the pre-Shang court of the Emperor Shun, around 2,400 B.C. I learned that magicians like Yu were shamans. China's first physicians mixed their healing with magic rituals and whatever herbal remedies nature offered. These early shamans were also alchemists and practiced astrology. Yu was an expert in divination, and is depicted predicting the future by scapulomancy (reading the cracks produced by heating an animal's scapula or the carapace of a turtle). He could also prophesy from patterns formed by casting a mixture of long and short yarrow sticks. In later centuries the patterns formed by these sticks were ultimately organized into eight trigram designs of long and short lines. These in turn were doubled and created the sixtyfour hexagrams of the I Ching, the "Book of Changes," one of the most famous fortune-telling books of all times.

Although it is before recorded history, some believe that Yu the Great was a minister in the court of Huang Ti, the legendary Yellow Emperor, reputedly the father of Chinese medicine. The book bearing his name, the Huang Ti Nei Ching, commonly translated as The Yellow Emperor's Manual of Corporeal Medicine, has been referred to as "China's Hippocratic Corpus." Its two main sections, the Su Wen (questions and answers about living matter) and the Ling Shu (the vital axis) were not compiled until the early Han Dynasty (200 B.C.). They are in the form of conversations between the emperor and his ministers. While some credit the Yellow Emperor with being the inventor of writing and author of the text, the work appears to be a compilation of ancient superstitions and concepts from numerology gathered by many authors over preceding centuries.

The Yellow Emperor's Classic is a fascinating volume containing the metaphysical theories that serve as the foundation for all of the world's several hundred varieties of acupuncture. Traditional Chinese acupuncture is based on the belief that disease is caused by blockages of qi, a mysterious body energy said to travel in imaginary channels known as meridians. The concept of such a body of energy is common to many cultures throughout the world. It goes by different names, including prana, spiritus, and pneuma. The Chinese ideogram for qi was developed from the pictogram of a pot of boiling rice with the top blown off by rising steam. When I learned of this I thought back to boyhood days of sandlot baseball when our fatigued pitcher was described as "running out of steam." Today it is known that body energy results from inner- and intra-cellular metabolism manifesting in measurable nervous energy.

Acupuncture, magic, and make-believe

Skeptical Inquirer, March-April, 2003 by George A. Ulett

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Health

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference