22 - 24 Each acupuncture point is a spirit point

One of the important early lessons in five element acupuncture which has stayed with me throughout the years is my memory of JR Worsley drawing three small parallel lines one above the other on the classroom blackboard.  He pointed to the line at the top, and said, "This is the physical level", to the line in the middle and said, "This is the mental level," and, his voice dropping almost to a whisper, pointed to the bottom line, and said, "This is the level of the spirit."  He would then ask us to take a pencil and press it down on our desks, saying, "This is treating at the physical level." Then he would ask us to press it down a little more, saying, "This is treating with the mind", before finally asking us to touch our pencil gently and carefully down on our desks, telling us, "And this is treating with the spirit."  He would ask us if we felt the difference in ourselves with each touch of the desk.  I still remember quite clearly experiencing a feeling of wonder that it did feel quite different to me.  I could feel something inside me responding at a deep level when I thought of the action of the pencil at the deepest level, as it reflected what I was asked to think of, which I thought of as being both my patient's spirit and my own spirit.

 

I have never forgotten the feeling of awe inside me as I realised that something deep within me, which I would now call my spirit, was affecting the action of the pencil/needle that my hand was holding.  I understood for the first time that how I approached the treatment of my patients could determine how my patients would experience their treatment.  Accepting that five element acupuncture can affect all levels of the human being, body, mind and spirit, at one and the same time is therefore one of the first lessons that those wanting to practise it need to learn.

 

So I always feel sad when I hear practitioners talk about spirit points as though these form a quite separate category from what I assume they regard as "ordinary" points, points such as command points.  Each point has its own spirit, its own potential to add something to the patient at the level of the spirit.  And simply by understanding that this is so adds to the action of the needle in the practitioner's hand something the practitioner themselves brings to this action, which is his/her own spirit.  A practitioner who understands how profoundly the action of a needle can affect a patient's spirit adds some of their own spirit to that needle's action.  A point needled in this way then contains something within it of both the practitioner's spirit and the spirit the point itself imparts.  

 

I like to think that the treatment then has the potential to reach the patient's spirit, surely the ultimate purpose of any five element treatment.