Strange Medicine

So yes, I have been studying medicine for 3 weeks now.

《黃帝內經》, a text considered the origin of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) (it’s not. it’s a compilation of curing techniques popular at the time of writing), describes 6 ways of curing:

• 針 = acute puncture with a thin needle
• 灸 = heat transfer
• 砭 = scraping with a stone
• 毒 = toxin
• 導、引、按、蹻 = operating on 脉 (whole-body flow network) - 導 = steering - 引 = pulling - 按 = pressing. don’t conflate this with pressure points, please… - 蹻 = stretching body parts (like body yoga). 捷舉手足。《素問•異法方宜論》：“其治宜導引按蹻。”

In this article, let me explain what the six are so you have a rough idea what TCM is. Then maybe, you will consider TCM as medicine and leave confounded.

acute puncture

1 wrong puncture and the patient’s mind breaks. seriously. don’t do this if you cannot take the responsibility of making someone vegetable.

Many years ago, while visiting a hospital, I saw someone with 7 needles in his skull. Today I know that it’s closer to voodoo than medicine. anyway, I have more to share on voodoo later in this article.

heat transfer

heating or cooling the body.

heating is usually done by lighting dried Artemisia (mugwort) on fire so it burns slowly.

cooling is usually done by a wet towel. DO NOT use ice.

scraping

used to cure skin issues, and maybe other issues too.

the traditional way is to use a flat stone to scrape the skin.

i shall make no additional comment since i do not have first-hand experience on this method of cure.

toxin

the point of using toxin is to stimulate the body so it goes on curing itself.

eating Vitamin does not count.

no, the toxin itself has no curing effect, and is usually somewhat harmful. the body cures itself.

traditionally, most toxins are sourced from biological creatures. they are even used today. TCM has developed a complex system of describing each material’s pharmacology.

the problem is, i don’t understand traditional pharmacology. so i rely on chemistry instead.

pro tip: in China, the food-grade chemicals have more pronounced effect when used as toxin. as a TCM practitioner, you will probably be fine staying away from medicine-grade chemicals. as to why: some junk allowed to put in food probably doesn’t pass a toxicology test to count as medicine. still, food-grade chemicals, or even whole food itself, cures.

finally, be careful about concentration or the recipient might die.

how the cure functions (theoretically)

a cure, seen by TCM, acts on 5 layers. it’s called 5 for your ease of understanding. in reality, it’s 1 human body.

• 体: the disposition of the body. what it is made of.
• 用: the functions of each organ.
• 精: the nutrients, blood, air; things that flow around inside the body.
• 气: the metaphysics stuff. maybe it’s entanglement? dark matter? only if i know.
• 神: the mind. you should walk the Path of Enlightenment if your here has problem.

want to know how to synthesize a cure from a patient’s status?

don’t guess. don’t think. you see, you feel, and you know.

when you do have to think, know that Garbage In, Garbage Out.

i was once a patient at a TCM doctor with 40 years of experience of prescribing toxin. he is a disciple of 扶陽派, which means he believes that any illness can be cured by rising 陽氣 in the human body.

so, i drank plant brew for 2 months to minuscule effect.

turns out he was just guessing.

so what’s my exact problem?

there is a ⌀3cm region of blood and Qi “tar pit” left to the spine, which bottlenecks the blood transfer of the entire body. the blood has to flow around the region, which is not ideal.

after i knew what my body’s problem was, i went to a friend and instructed her to use suction cups on regions i specified, in the order i specified, each with a duration i specified. my body spasmed and coughed like it was dying on the operating table.

the self curing process started. it should take 2 months until this particular problem is gone.

so what’s the lesson to be learned here? as a medicine practitioner, you MUST NOT guess. if you don’t know, you don’t know.

in the end, i still don’t know what 陽氣 means.

we are maybe too side-tracked, so let’s move back to our main topic.

The following section is brought by yours truly. Being slapped around by a friend, directed by self, lead to the right palm exchanging Qi openly to the outside; being slapped technically-precise feels like dying. after the right palm opens, the entire body feels like dead inanimate objects (like wood, stone, metal). After I ate something, the hole closed, and the body felt barely living again.

I can understand why some people would rather drink plant brew now. bitter taste > feels like dying, probably.

Flow system refactoring

導引按蹻 operates on 脉 (flow network of stuff). It transports blood and 氣 (Qi).

A human body exchanges 氣 (Qi) with the out side of its skin. The flow goes through skin, muscle, bone, fat, etc.

氣 itself has temperature. Some TCM practitioners use 寒、涼、溫、熱 to describe temperature of stuff (mostly edible stuff) as if temperature is absolute. I… guess(?) that no plant is 寒 enough to someone living near Earth’s poles.

When stepping on a type of floor bare-footed, its material affects how your feet exchange Qi with the floor. This may sound like 五行, but 五行相生相剋 is totally made up. e.g. water is neutral; you don’t want to step on fire; steel is cold; dirt is mildly dirt-like; granite is mildly granite-like; concrete is mostly inert; my plastic slippers are insulating to the point of being unhealthy to wear.

Trees have 脉 and 氣 while carrying different stuff for the organism.

Because slapping can affect the Qi flow of my body, i suspect that Qi interacts with electric charge.

Because the Qi flow of body follows the limbs’ movement, i suspect that Qi interacts with color charge¹.

Is Qi made of quarks? Why can it pass thru “normal” matter? I have many questions.

Any more description of Qi will cause you misconception. You have to experience it first-hand to understand what it is. Some people report seeing Qi as colors, while I don’t.

posture realignment

by adjusting the posture of your body, you adjust the flow rate of blood and Qi exactly however you want, limited by how your joints can bend.

i know how to bend my joints the best, since i can feel my body. it takes up to 2 minutes per session.

there are template posture realignment practices that are ~30 minutes in length, or even longer:

• 八段錦
• 太極拳

you are not supposed to complete all postures every single time. hold postures that help stuff transit around your body in the most needed combination of flow rates at each body location. you should be able to feel it yourself.

again, i’ve seen people whose mind is so fucked that they can’t feel their own body. they should practice the Way of Enlightenment instead.

mechanical wave transfer

this one is easy enough to understand.

• slapping with a palm
• hitting with a fist
• vacuum suction cups
• goal-oriented massage (most massages you can buy in China are entertaining but not cures)
• hitting a drum so your intestines resonate
• … many more that i haven’t experienced

what about pressure points?

we don’t talk about pressure points. the author of this article doesn’t know about pressure points enough to talk about them.

if you know your own body, you should know where to press. for example, when you experience headache, comb your skull where it hurts with a special TCM wooden comb, or with your knuckles. In the general case of headache, the pain should subside greatly under 5 minutes of sustained combing, more effective than any NSAID.

i must point out that 經絡 is designed to make pressure points easy to remember, not that a human body contains lines that connect all pressure points together. the type of people who believe that 經絡 is real is exactly the ones who would believe that constellations are real.

Even some experienced TCM practitioners believe that 經絡 is real. Fuck my life.

OK. We are done explaining the physical side of TCM. Let’s move on to metaphysical TCM. Rules may not apply.

「真氣拍打」 – slapping with who knows what

When all people that has slapped my skin slaps my skin, my skin hurts.

When she slaps my skin, the skin feels nothing, yet 2mm below the skin feels… idk how to describe it. It’s not the numb feeling when i sat on a stool for too long, or the zapped feeling when i touched an electric flyswatter while it was charged.

Anyway, it’s super effective. In my case, at most 40% effective compared to suction cups.

The practitioner’s 師傅 (“instructor”) taught her this (真氣拍打) in a sound-proof, light-proof, sealed room.

I learned normal slapping from her.

high speed chanting

This had the effect of leaving me confounded.

Then, I listened to her explaining that “we are 4 or even 5 dimensional, while normal people are 3 dimensional”, so I tried to explain to her that $\mathbb{C}^2$ double covers $\mathbb{R}^3$².

I don’t think she can read.

The End

there is an old saying that we may try to cure a dead horse as if it is alive. this shows the spirit of TCM that we shall never give up even if the patient appears dead.

the DSM is full of bullshit guessing. some chemicals advertised to “treat mental illness” inhibits the person’s Awareness to make the person appear more “normal” average. According to Buddhism, whoever intentionally does this goes to suffer in hell, because this act defiles Awareness. ;; Walk the Path of Enlightenment; your past, present and future sufferings will be cured.

it is in TCM’s spirit to make a person healthy. it is not in TCM’s spirit to force a person to be average. Fuck statistical methods!

that’s everything i can think of (relating to TCM) at the time of writing. hope this helps!