These Vessels are considered to be the repository not only of jing, the essence inherited from before birth, but also of those factors, particularly emotional ones, which the individual person, or his family lineage, has not been able to resolve.  They can thus be thought of as ‘karmic’ in the sense of a long-term expression of response to lived environments.  In this regard, the EVs are that system in the body which conveys, as a template, the genetic and epigenetic expression of post-natal qi.  Through the action of source qi, post-natal qi is assimilated to the pattern the jing provides, giving rise to flesh and form in the body.

The extraordinary vessels, filled with jing and shen as they are, deal with the existential issues Adam considers — who am I?  They are the deepest part of the body’s channel physiology and come into play in the unfolding of the jing (KD-6, BL-62) as it is transmuted by ming men fire (SJ-5, PC-6) into qi (LU-7, SP-4) and shen (GB-41, SI-3).

As described in previous posts, the EVs — like all the channel systems — can be thought of as a description of the movement of a person through existence.  Jeffrey Yuen discusses how the Ren, Du, and Chong form the basis of individuation and growth; the Wei Mai integrate the yin and yang functions of the body; the Qiao Mai reflect one’s view of the world and self; the Dai mai discharges and drains what needs to be let go, or retains what the person is unwilling or unable to address at particular times in his or her life.

Specifically, the Chong provides the central blueprint of a person’s life, the sea of blood, from whose union with qi shen arises.  The Ren Mai involves attachment, its formation and the solidity such reassurance gives to children as they grow.  It is the consolidated Sea of Yin which allows what is necessary for growth to be held adequately, without being torn by the dissipating nature of Yang.  The Du Mai is about unfolding into an upright posture, the individuation and going forth into the world, the dissipation or outward movement of the Sea of Yang.

For Adam, then, an EV treatment might be most appropriate to aid him in his quest for self-knowledge.  Adam’s EV functioning is unclear.  One could regulate the Yin Qiao Mai and couple it with the Chong Mai, with the intent to facilitate his ability to look inward at his blueprint; yet he seems to know his blueprint from the disc or CD he inserted into the Cyborg portion of his anatomy.  Looking inward at his blueprint does not seem to be the issue.

Another approach would consider that Adam has not lived; he has not engaged with the external world.  This is the province of Du Mai.  He does seem to have a bit of excess in the Yang Qiao Mai, trying to figure out the world, so perhaps the Yin needs to be regulated as well.  His question, at its most basic level, seems to be:  ‘What is my destiny in the world?’

Four points on the Du, Ren, and Qiao Mai open the body to its destiny.  These points happen to be where some people sense their ‘gut feeling’ the ‘core’ or ‘innermost’ part of their gut — the ‘will within the will’ as it were.   The points on the Ren Mai are located two and three thumb widths below the navel, CV-4 and CV-5.  On the low back, in the two intervertebral spaces between L2 and L4, where some people feel a tingling in their spine when something is ‘right’, the points GV-4 and GV-3 can be located.  Finally, the other points, which are rarely thought about in terms of feeling one’s way, are located at the inner canthi of the eyes — the portion of the eye near the tear ducts and nose.  Bl-1, a place at which clarity of vision — or its blurriness — manifests.  All the above points share as one of their several appellations the name, ‘Ming Men’, Gate of Destiny.

I would start first with the Qiao Mai, opening with BL-62, then needling BL-1.  Adam has been looking to excessively at the world, and needs to anchor within; so the next points would be CV-4 and CV-5.  These points are also the mu-points for the Small Intestine and Triple Warmer, referred to above as expressing jing and shen outwards (the SI being paired with the Heart and Vessels which govern and store the Shen).  One could opt to close with LU-7 at this point.  I might consider leading this consolidation back to the source, to GV-3 and GV-4, before ultimately closing with SI-3 (the control point on the Du Mai).

Needles should be inserted fairly deeply.  A vibrating technique should be used to obtain qi.  The needles should be retained for 40 minutes or so (although Adam’s jing is possibly quite motile, as an infant’s would be, and thus needle retention could be shorter in time).  Treatment should be once weekly, for three months.

Herbal treatment would lead the fire back to the source using Rou Gui and Huang Lian, while augmenting yin and jing with either E Jiao or Gui Ban.  In lieu of animal products (not really an issue for Adam, but in countries where animal products are restricted an issue for practitioners), one might try using Shu Di and Luo Shi Teng.  This latter herb usually treats the Luo Mai; but when the luo empty into the EVs, it may be helpful to see if the luo can be engaged through herbal treatment to reverse the flow.

The question of the state of Adam’s jing and ming men fire highlights a plot hole — we don’t really know how he came to life.  Does he have a base creature on which he was built?  Was this creature still alive when the operations were being performed?  Is he primarily an augmented human being?  Primarily a Demon?  Do demons have the same vasculature as humans?

Adam’s physiology raises particularly interesting questions from a Chinese perspective.  Does he have any extraordinary vessels?  Does he have a shen, which would have a curriculum to work out in this world?  Did he embody the unresolved pathologies contained in the luo vessels of a previous existence?  How would a Chinese Frankenstein’s monster be created?  How would the connexions of the various channels be treated?  Would a ‘translation’ of channels into fascial continuity provide a different take on how such a creature could be constructed?

I will leave such philosophical questions for the readers of this post to ponder.

As always, this post is for informational purposes only.  If you think Chinese Medicine can help you engage with your life’s work in greater depth or with greater clarity, please see a qualified practitioner.  Happy Slayage!

Drug withdrawal is the obvious diagnosis for this episode, but Adam’s question at the close is more interesting to me.  Therefore, I will split this post into two (as I did with the Ted posts), each with its own particular focus.

Symptoms similar to what the Initiative men were experiencing can be seen when withdrawing from several different types of drugs, including psychiatric medications.  Treatment protocols have been designed to help wean people off drugs, the NADA protocol being the most well known.

The NADA protocol for treating drug dependency makes use of ear acupuncture, a rather modern addition to the acupuncture tradition.  The ear is seen as a microcosm of the human body, inverted into a fetal pose.  The lobe of the ear contains points associated with the brain and head, while the feet and legs are towards the apex of the ear.  Internal organs are in the concha, near the opening of the auditory canal.

The NADA protocol uses five points:  Shen Men, Autonomic point, Liver, Kidney and Lung 2.  Shen men is used for anxiety; the Liver and Kidney associated points reflect their ability to detoxify the body according to the tradition of Western medicine.

The Lung point is an interesting one in that it bridges the Western function of being an organ of detoxification, and the Chinese association of the Lung — because of its link to the po-spirits (corporeal souls) — with addiction disorders.  As Riley stated of Maggie, “There must be something making her act this way.”  From a Classical Chinese viewpoint, that thing is a disordered po.  Proper qi gong technique, or herbs which restrain the qi (e.g. Huang Qi, Wu Wei Zi) are sometimes helpful in such cases.

Drug withdrawal symptoms on the other hand, vary by drug, and Chinese medicine theoretically takes each person’s withdrawal on a case-by-case basis.  In other words, knowing the specific drug isn’t the determining factor for subsequent treatment of its withdrawal symptoms.

In the case of Riley and his men, the mechanism in Chinese medicine involves a stirring of wind (and sometimes dampness) internally, and contraction of wind externally.  Given Riley’s other statements about decreased physical stamina, it would seem that the particular drugs he was on augmented qi and blood.

A Shaolin temple formula I have used with athletes, ‘Harvest the Training Powder’ does precisely that — the chief herb is Dang Gui, which nourishes the blood and invigorates qi. That formula includes Dang Gui as the chief herb, Chen Xiang, Ju Hong, and Hong Hua as deputies, Jiang Xiang, Zhi Qiao, and Tao Ren as assistants.  A similar formula, designed to be taken with rice wine before training includes Shan Yao as the chief, Sheng Di, Bai Zhu, and Huang Qi as the Deputies, Dang Gui, Chen Pi, Mu Xiang, Gua Lou Ren, and Gan Cao as assistants, and small amounts of Xiao Hui Xiang and Chen Xiang, though I would not call them envoys.  Both formulas work on moving the qi while at the same time moistening and nourishing the blood.

Riley has what in Kampo medicine would be recognised as a ‘blood’ body type (Forrest has more of a ‘qi’ body type — leaner and more wiry).  He would therefore have a particular susceptibility to blood empty and blood full disorders; Forrest would have a similar tendency to qi-type disorders.

It seems that in Riley’s case, a diminishment of blood has given rise to stirring of wind.  Herbally, we could treat this either by augmenting the blood and qi with the above-mentioned Shaolin formulas; or by dredging wind, nourishing and moving blood, and generally addressing the Liver.

A formula such as Si Wu Xiao Feng Yin would be useful in this case.  It moistens and invigorates the blood and expels wind-damp (which gives rise to the itchiness Riley was displaying).    Unsurprisingly, it contains a few herbs also used in the training formulae, though with a greater emphasis on moving blood to expel wind.  The ingredients are:  sheng di, dang gui, jing jie, fang feng, chi shao, chuan xiong, bai xian pi, chan tui, bo he, du huo, chai hu, and da zao.

In terms of acupuncture, however, a treatment approach which involves the Stomach may be more appropriate.  The Stomach deals with blood; its heat produces restlessness and irritability; and its associated arm channel, the Large Intestine channel, deals with wind-heat.  If, however, we thought wind-damp might be a culprit, then the ShaoYang channels might be a better place to begin.  In this latter case, we would be addressing the GB with its relationship to the marrow and Sea of Marrow (i.e. the brain and material basis of synthesising the spiritual aspects of the various zang-organs — will, intent, shen, hun, po), and the Triple Heater which has an intimate relationship to the Gate of Destiny (Ming Men).

How would we parse out the difference between the two?  Where is the point to treat the hundred insects crawling under the skin?  (SP-10 — also called Xue Hai or Sea of Blood — and GB-31 both work.)  Is a rash weepy? (Use Shao Yang.)  Is the patient alternating cold and hot, either physically or psychologically? (Again, Shao Yang.)  Do we approach this from a Primary Channel perspective — in which case Yang Ming and ShaoYang are very far apart, and the pathology would be seen as a result of diet — or a Six Channels perspective, in which case the two yang channels follow one another closely?  Finally, if we include  the Po-spirits, residents of the bones (controlled by the GB) and Lungs (paired with the LI via the luo point), then we have another set of points to draw from.

If I were to look at the Stomach channel and its pairs I could select ST-36, ST-37 (LI lower sea point); and either LI-6 (luo point) or SP-10.  From a ShaoYang treatment perspective, GB-31, GB-39, GB-8 all come to mind.  GB-8, the root of the soul is useful for helping people re-orient themselves, while GB-39 treats the marrow, that which exists within the bones — such as the po — while GB-31 is useful for itchiness in general.

As always, these posts are for entertainment purposes only.  If you feel that Chinese medicine could help benefit your exercise programme or help you or someone you love in their struggle with drug dependency, please see a qualified practitioner.  (I can provide recommendations for practitioners specialising in these approaches in Oxfordshire, Boston, and the San Francisco Bay Area.)

Western herbal medicine has several drawing salves which can pull toxins and splinters from deep within the skin to the surface, at which point they can be removed.  A frequently used base for such salves is white pine tar.  Chinese medicine also uses pine tar, referred to as Song Zhi, in external plasters.  The Shen Nong Ben Cao notes that Song Zhi treats all types of sores, flat abcesses, itchy scabs, and and eliminates wind and heat.  As such, it makes a good medicinal to help ward off further infections, soothe redness and itchiness, and resolve pus.  Just be careful to shave hair off the area of application first, especially if the pine resin is covered by a bandage.  Otherwise, when the bandage is removed, the patient will also experience the joys of a wax job added to their usual treatment…

Not all sores which are deep rooted are due to the entrance of an external object.  Among those which are due to other factors are ding chuan, “clove sores.”  The famous Tang dynasty physician Hua Tuo limited clove sores to the head, and claimed their etiology was rooted in emotional factors, drunkenness, indulgence in rich and sweet foods, and excessive sexual desire.  The colours of the sores correlate with the five elements, and each has a separate formula for treatment (often containing, as many of Hua Tuo’s formulas do, various heavy metals such as lead and mercury).  Black clove sores, for example, begin by the ear and cause tightness of the jaw.  Hua Tuo recommends soaking Tu Si Zi and Shi Chang Pu in wine and then applying the tincture to the sore.  Supplementation with another formula to nourish the Kidneys — black clove sores are rooted in the Kidney — is then recommended.  For reference, white clove sores develop on the right nostril and are rooted in the Lungs; cyan, rooted in the Liver, develops on the eyes and causes blurriness of vision; yellow on the gums, and is rooted in the Spleen; and red under the tongue, causing difficult urination and difficult speech, and is rooted in the Heart.

Since Spike would develop a clove sore due to external injury, however, we needn’t go into Hua Tuo’s prescriptions in more detail.  Instead, Wu Wei Xiao Du Yin, ‘Five Ingredient Drink to Eliminate Toxin’ is one formula which can be used to resolve what are currently called clove sores.  This prescription is composed of the toxin clearing herbs jin yin hua (unopened honeysuckle flower), pu gong ying (dandelion leaf), zi hua di ding (violet leaves and flowers), ye ju hua (wild chrysanthemum), and tian kui zi (semiaqualegia root), with the addition of a small amount of rice wine to the decoction.  I might add Huang Qi to the formula, which also treats hard to heal sores, partially because its focus is on the exterior and wei qi.  Huang qi thrusts outwards, moving toxins to the surface in cases of ulcerations.  In combination with Jin Yin Hua, it can also nourish the blood to expel wind toxins which have accumulated and begun to fester into fire toxicity.

Acupuncture in such cases might focus on addressing the underlying complaints — heat in the blood, wind in the skin — though herbal medicine, both internal and external, is preferred.  It would be interesting to see if treating the cutaneous region of the opposite side of the body using a plum-blossom or seven-star needle would be effective.

As always, these posts are for entertainment and educational purposes only.  If you have a non-healing sore and wish to treat it with herbal medicine, please seek out a qualified practitioner.  Happy Slayage!

In Kampo, the Japanese version of Chinese Herbal Medicine, hangovers are considered, rather unsurprisingly, a fluid pathology.  When fluid stagnates, it can generate heat and dryness, one hell of a bad feeling, leading to irritability and mindless rage (however human one tries to be about it).  From a Kampo perspective, however, most hangovers don’t generate too much heat.  Instead, what has happened is nobose, fluid counterflow.  In other words, all the fluids, which should have percolated down to the lower warmer and been excreted via the urine, instead become trapped in the head and middle warmer.  A more exact image might be that the fluids reversed their normal flow and rebelled upwards, not like a ‘mist’ as the San Jiao mechanism is described, but as edematous fluid.  Becoming trapped and interfering with the qi mechanism of the body, they become ‘water toxins.’

Japanese businessmen have a simple cure for this problem (which seems to afflict them more often than other professions in Japan):  they carry small packets of Wu Ling San.  This formula is composed of Zhu Ling, Fu Ling, Ze Xie, Bai Zhu, and Gui Zhi.  The first three ingredients all drain dampness; Ze Xie is particularly noted for this action.  Fu Ling and Bai Zhu help tonify the Spleen, so that it can better transform the dampness.  Gui Zhi opens the channels, easing the flow of fluids out of the body.  Gui Zhi also often acts as a sort of ‘aspirin’ in relieving mild pain and headaches.  (Several people at my college have tried this remedy and swear by its efficacy, which is quite immediate.)

The single most effective herb for hangover is reputedly Ge Gen Hua — the Kudzu flower.

The root of the problem, though, could be addressed with some He Shou Wu, Ju Hua and Gou Qi Zi — essentially the same issue that presented in Season 2′s Band Candy…  It seems Giles is having a relapse of a deeper pattern of KD and LV deficiency.

In terms of acupuncture, GV-25 is said to restore sobriety, though I have only known of one classmate who tried this (unsuccessfully) the night we finished our student days.  A fuller treatment, which takes into account the Japanese notion of counterflow, would involve the luo vessels.

The Luo vessels are indicated specifically in cases of counterflow, and among them, BL-56, mentioned in a previous post, regulates jin-fluids.  BL-56 is also indicated for panic attacks (a feeling of rushing upwards and getting stuck in the head), or, as the Jia Yi Jing describes, “in case of repletion there will be nasal congestion, headache, and pain in the back.”  (Deficiency leads to runny snivel and nosebleeds.)

SP-4 or SJ-5, which treat abdominal distention (and pain in the intestines) and rigidity of the sense organs respectively could also be bled.  In the case of SJ-5, I would follow up with moxa, since the actual symptom being presented is the dissolution of sense organs.  The need for SJ-5 to be tonified can be interpreted as the San Jiao’s ability to metabolise fluid being overwhelmed by the presence of water toxins.

A little bloodletting might let out that urge to mindlessly destroy things that Giles mentioned before he had the satisfaction of chasing off Maggie Walsh — and perhaps give Spike a taste of fresh human blood without the headache!

As always, these posts are for entertainment and educational purposes only.  If you feel you could benefit from Chinese Herbal Medicine, please see a qualified practitioner.  Happy Slayage!

(II)

However much the examinations of manuscript transmission and the particular politics of the various vitae sketched at the outset of part 3a might add to adiscussion about the question of Francis’ vision and reception of the stigmata, that information is subsidiary to more pertinent questions. Three questions, from the perspective of one assessing the potential Orthodoxy or heterodoxy of Francis’ stigmata, assume primary importance. The most central involves the question of the Stigmata as evidence of holiness or divine favour. Is it a valid miracle, or is it delusion of the faithful? What does such a sign mean to the people among whom it is found (in this case, medieval Italians)? How was it interpreted by them? How was Francis himself affected by the wounds? Of related concern, we might ask who or what was the Seraph which appeared to Francis? In the simple and sceptical terms of the theological and hagiographical literary tradition, where could this seraph have come from? What precedents mark it out as intelligible to thirteenth century Christians? Finally, the third main question asks how was Francis himself interpreted and portrayed in the early Lives? Why was he held up for international devotion, and what made him so popular a figure, both in the sense of being an object of lay devotion, but also in the sense of being an object of meditation for scholastic and mystical theologians? How must Orthodoxy grapple with this ongoing devotion, and is an ‘economic’ interpretation available to Orthodoxy of Francis as a saint?

I will address this questions by first treating the vision of the Seraph, before moving on to examine the Stigmata, and finally addressing the question of interpreting Francis life.

Why a Seraph?

One question underlying an examination of Francis’ vision of the Seraph concerns what medieval interpreters thought of visions in general. After ascertaining attitudes towards this contextual marker we can then move on to examine the content of Francis’ vision, namely, the Seraph of the Passion. To accomplish this goal, we will turn to the writings of Richard of St Victor (fl. 1162 – 1173), who lived and wrote in Paris about a generation before Francis. Because his writings, together with other authors from the monastery of St Victor, were influential in forming the emerging scholastic movement in medieval theology and spirituality and were subsequently transmitted throughout Latin-reading Europe, and because of the high regard in which Richard’s writings were held by theologians in the century following his death, his opinions on the matter will be considered representative of Latin Europe at the time of Francis’ own vision.

Richard of St Victor, in the first book of his Commentary on the Apocalypse, partitions visions into four types, two of which are bodily (corporales) and two of which are spiritual (spirituales). The first bodily type of vision bears little mystical significance, but the second is quite different: “A form or action is revealed to our sense of exterior sight while interiorly a virtue of great mystical significance is contained.” In contrast to the first type of vision, this second sort of vision overflows with heavenly mysteries. The third and fourth visions, ‘seen in the heart’, move the soul to an understanding of celestial matters, either by the forms of visible things, or by “subtle and sweet internal aspirations.” Of these four types, the vision of the Seraph seems to be of the second type: a vision seen with the eyes, containing visual elements, which though incongruent, raised Francis’ mind to contemplation of heavenly matters. It is possible, however, that the vision was of the third type, the form of a visible thing seen in the heart. However, neither Thomas of Celano nor Bonaventure seem to treat the vision as being only seen in the heart; for those writers, the vision appears to Francis corporally. Therefore, the vision would have an internal significance quite apart from the external appearance of the Seraph.

(Although the Latin Saint, John of the Cross (d. 1591), might argue that in terms of grace visions convey their transformative significance to the visionary from the first instant they are perceived, his writings post-date our time period by about four centuries. The more famous writings of John of the Cross concern how one enters a dark night of illumination through the leaving behind of all sensibly perceived phenomena, Richard of St Victor, in contrast, is most famous for his writings on meditative and contemplative techniques. To grossly oversimplify the difference between the two, John of the Cross describes the landscape and maps the experience of the journey to stillness; Richard gives us descriptions of what to do before we are there. In several respects St John’s work presupposes the practice of Richard’s technqiues. Thus the idea of the careful consideration of the import of a vision, inasmuch as it is a ‘doing’, fits in with the overall didactic purpose of Richard’s oevre.)

With Richard’s statements about how theologians contemporary with Francis understood the phenomena (plural) of visions, we can now take up the specific content of Francis’ vision of the Seraph of the Cross.

The problem of the Seraph

The image Francis saw, to recount Bonaventure, was of a “Seraph with six fiery and shining wings… when in swift flight the Seraph had reached a spot in the air near the man of God [Francis], there appeared between the wings the figure of a man crucified, with his hands and feet extended in the form of a cross and fastened to a cross. Two of the wings were lifted above his head, two were extended for flight and two covered his whole body.” (Bonaventure, Life of Francis, ch 13, p305; cf earlier sources in Thomas of Celano, Vita Prima 94 and Tractatus de Miraculis 4; cf Julian of Speyer 61.) While no sources record what the vision might have said to Francis, Bonaventure, at least, does note in the same chapter that Francis mentioned to his disciples that the vision did include an auditory component. Let us note at the outset that this was not the first time an image of a crucified man spoke to Francis (cf Bonaventure, Life of Francis 1.5, relying on Celano 2.10-11.) The same sources, however, also note that Francis declared he would not tell them what the vision said, and so the authors of his Vita, and ourselves, are faced with deciphering the vision from its visual components only.

Why a Seraph? Who or what was it? Was the Seraph an actual angel or a theophanic angel (i.e. a manifestation of Christ, the Word in the form of an angel)? Was it a devil? How are we to interpret this vision today? Are the foregoing questions taken up in any form by our writers?

“Theophanic angels” are manifestations of God in the form of angels. The idea was proposed by early writers who had to confront passages in the Bible which would switch from speaking of ‘the angel of the Lord’ to then declaring that such an angel was the visible manifestation of God. An example of such a switch occurs in the Akeidah, the sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham. In Genesis 22: 1 – 19, when Abraham is about to sacrifice his son, an angel of the Lord appears to Abraham and tells Abraham not to kill Isaac. Abraham desists, and names the site Adonai-yireh, for the Lord was seen on that mountain.

The tradition of associating theophanic angels with Jesus stretches back to at least the fourth century, if not earlier, in commentaries on Moses’ visions of the Burning Bush, the return to Egypt, and the Crossing of the Red Sea, as well as in those which treat Ezekiel’s vision of the Chariot (or specifically, the man of electrum at the centre of that vision), to say nothing of commentaries on the Apocalypse. A clearly Christian example of the phenomenon can be seen in Victor of Vita’s records of the Vandal persecution. There, he recounts a vision which a Catholic layperson had during the Arian Visigothic occupation of North Africa. In this vision, a bronze or copper skinned man dressed in white linen comes down form heaven and separates grain from the chaff. The man then separates the full grains from the thin ones. The vision was interpreted as symbolic of the winnowing of the Church through persecution, but the content clearly has links to Ezekiel’s vision of bronze- or copper-skinned angels who guided him through the future Temple — and for Victor, the implication is that the figure the visionary saw was a manifestations of Jesus.

Thomas of Celano seems loathe to claim or disclaim the seraph as a manifestation of the Word. In fact, he seems particularly keen not to make any definite statements either way, but leaves the question obviously and entirely open. Even in his later Life, Thomas still appears confused over what to make of the nature of this particular angel — creature or Christ? Bonaventure, on the other hand, neglects the question altogether, although he does write at one point that our Lord imprinted the stigmata on Francis (through the vision of the Seraph), he does not directly state the Seraph was Christ (XIII.9). Instead, Bonaventure tends to concentrate on the form, rather than the substance of the angel. We will take up his approach in more detail, below.

Perhaps Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141), a predecessor of Richard’s at the monastery of St Victor, can clarify the difficulty. Discussing why the redemption of humanity occurred through the Incarnation of the Word, rather than through that of an angel, Hugh writes, “[An incarnate angel] would thus be both man and angel, that is, man and greater than man. He would restore the loss of service to God through his righteousness, make satisfaction for the length of the lost service through his dignity, and satisfy the contempt through his own unmerited suffering. But we say that this could not happen that way. For if God were the Creator and another were restorer, then indeed the love of man would be divided between the Creator and the restorer because, as it was said above, it is a greater benefit to renew than to create…” God wanted unity of love from humankind, Hugh says, and “this is even perceived from the unity of the number, namely six, which was found both in the work of creation and in the work of restoration, as we also taught above.” (Sentences on Divinity in Coolman and Coulter 2011:124.) Thus our writers were also careful to preserve the centrality of Christ — as Thomas does in a rather convoluted praise to the Source of Praise when he comes to speak of the stigmata more directly (Vita Prima, part two, treating the last two years of Francis’ life).

Ultimately, the issue does not seem to have been explored with any certainty by our sources, perhaps because they had no way of ascertaining the exact nature of the angel, or perhaps because ambiguity better served the interests of Bonaventure and Thomas of Celano, in that it would not split devotion to Christ. In any case, both sources continue to specify the vision as one of a Seraph; this is not in dispute, however much the writers may suspect a theophany.

The flipside of the question asks whether the Seraph who appeared to Francis can be interpreted as a ‘devil in disguise.’ Just as the nature of this angel cannot be ascertained as theophanic in our sources, so also whether this angel was a devil in sheep’s clothing cannot be discerned from the texts. Demons and devils do, however, make an appearance in our sources (e.g. Bonaventure, Life of Francis 6:10), and are clearly distinguished as such. One can surmise, then, that our authors did not believe this vision to have been diabolical in nature.

In the various Vitae of Francis, devils, when they do appear, seem to play a role similar to that found in earlier hagiographies about monks and hermits, St Anthony of Egypt in particular. For example, demons attack the saint through the night, but he repels them (Bonaventure Vita 10); they tempt him to give up his way of life, or moderate it, but the saint redoubles his commitment; the demons try to distract him, but the saint exorcises them from other people. (cf. Bonaventure Vita ch 5 p219; 6, p236; 7 p 242 – 243; 10, p 274.) In the Latin and German West the role of devils as direct opponents of angels in the life of human beings becomes particularly prominent only after the Reformation, corresponding to a point in time when angels had lost their place as a hierarchy and science. In matter of point, most often Bonaventure uses the terms ‘the devil’s tricker’ or ‘the devil was in it’ and really only in Chapter 10 does he affirm the physical manifestations of devils fighting with Francis.

It is true, that the Fioretti — a fourteenth century work — include an account of a devil masquerading to a friar as his guardian angel; Francis told that friar to tell the guardian angel to open his mouth and the friar would shit in it. However, in the Fioretti, devils seem only able to imitate angels (guardian angels in particular), rather than archangels or any of the highest of the celestial hierarchy, the thrones, cherubim, and seraphim. Although William of Auvergne (d. 1249; like the Victorines, a Parisian Master of Theology) did posit ‘anti-seraphim’, ‘anti-cherubim’, and so on in his writings on angels, this seems to have been a theoretical exercise only, and did not exert much influence on the hagiographical genre.

I bring up the question of devils because such beliefs are occasionally intimated among Orthodox writers regarding Latin (and ‘Monophysite’) saints. The whole question of diabolic delusion is fraught with double standards in polemical argumentation, and is rarely useful as an analytical tool — unless one is specifically examining how such accusations are used and developed in different times and places, and for different purposes. For our purposes, however, since we cannot know what the angel was, we must turn to what is accessible to our analysis from our sources: namely, what the angel meant within the context of Francis’ world.

As we noted above in Richard’s distinction between the four types of vision, the second sort of vision contains an internal significance which sometimes needed to be puzzled out by the recipient. This puzzling out meant, in today’s language, that the visionary had to rely on his or her own symbolic universe in order to decipher the vision, not unlike the way some psychoanalysts (particularly of the Jungian, rather than the Freudian, sort) do today. Therefore, it seems reasonable that we approach the question of what meaning would lay behind a vision of a Seraph, from the perspective of someone living in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Certainly this was the approach Bonaventure took, when he concentrated on the form of the Seraph, rather than its nature.

Iribarren and Leaz explain in the Introduction to their volume of collected essays treating the topic of the function and role of Angels in Medieval Philosophy, that as “creatures of two worlds, angels provided the ideal grounds for exploring aspects of both God and his creation, forming a nodal point where a wide range of subjects from metaphysics, cosmology, epistemology, ethics, to (mystical) theology converged and developed.” As the authors clarify, “Angels can also be seen as protagonists of thought experiments in which metaphysical, epistemological, or ethical issues are analysed under ideal conditions.” (Iribarren and Leaz. Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry. Their function and significance 2008:7)

The convergence of subjects under the particular theme of angelology was particularly true for the twelfth century theologians, whose interests lay in preserving the concepts of hierarchy rooted in the writings of Dionysios (Denys) the Aeropagite, which had been passed down since the Carolingian era, while assimilating the newly encountered science — scholastic logic — emanating from Muslim Kingdoms in Spain and recently conquered Norman Sicily. Both notions, hierarchy and science, were appropriated by scholastics. Central to this rapprochement — which was looked upon with skepticism by monastics like St Bernard — were angels. As a result of Francis’ vision, the concern to reconcile the two came to the fore, and ideas about humanity’s place in the hierarchies of the celestial world became ascendant, with the effect that philosophers advanced a further integration of revealed tradition through their encounter with the lived experience in the personal holiness of Francis.

Denys the Aeropagite was quoted from the fifth century onwards, although who the author of the works transmitted under the name of Paul’s Athenian convert and first bishop of Athens remains in dispute. His Celestial Hierarchy became a key reference for theologians writing on angels for centuries to come. He is the first to divide the angels into a Neoplatonically oriented set of nine choirs, each further removed from the Divinity. As Dionysios writes, “This, then, the theologians distinctly shew (viz.) that the subordinate Orders of the Heavenly Beings are taught by the superior, in due order, the deifying sciences; and that those who are higher than all are illuminated from Godhead itself, as far as permissible, in revelations of the Divine mysteries.” (Celestial Hierarchy, section 2 and 3) The Seraphim are the highest and closest to the Divine Source, and burn with the pureness of divine love. They convey deifying virtue to those further removed from the wellspring of grace. These ideas were still common currency in twelfth and thirteenth century Latin theologians. (It should be mentioned the locus classicus for Seraphim are in Isaiah 6:1-11)

Hugh of St Victor (d. 1141), already referred to above, mentions the Seraphim in his De Arca Noe. (Recently Conrad Rudolf has argued that this treatise, as it has come down to us is the result of a reportatio, a set of class notes published by one of his students — see Conrad Rudolf (2004). “First, I find the center point”: Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor’s The Mystic Ark.” American Philosophical Society.) The treatise seems to be a set of instructions on how to paint a particular meditative device, a diagram of the Word encompassing the cosmos, framed by the circle of the zodiac and the months in the ether, the winds in the air, and the earth — with its historical and geographic events tied to salvation history. Christ himself is supported on either side by two Seraphim. Rorem, in his examination of Hugh of St Victor writes, ‘The Lord, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up,’ with ‘the whole earth full of His glory’ and ‘two seraphim standing’ were given visual expression and exegetical interpretation [in the first mention of a diagram in Noah’s Ark]. The seraphim, for example, with their three pairs of wings, signify scripture in its three senses (history, allegory, and tropology), each one pairing love of God with love of neighbor. In that they cover the Lord’s head and feet they show that we cannot know God’s beginning before the creation of the world or God’s end after the consummation of the age, but we can know the era of the church in Christ’s body in this age. ‘This is the ark, of which we have set out to speak; and it reaches from the head to the feet, because through successive generations, Holy Church reaches from the beginning to the end.’ Thus the ark as the historical church, the body of Christ, is framed by the protective arms of the Lord who will guide it as if through the flood into a safe harbor of eternal rest.¹³ (Rorem, Hugh of St Victor. 2009:131) The Seraphim, in this instance, function as the means whereby the faithful have access to knowledge of Christ’s body. For Hugh, that body is the Church as contained in the world. Later in the thirteenth century, that body becomes increasingly associated with the corpus of Christ on the cross and on the altar, as we will examine in the section treating the stigmata. Important here is also the association of Seraphim with love of God and neighbour, and the means by which such love can be nourished, namely, full use of scripture. Bonaventure will draw on the interpretation of the Seraphim’s three pairs of wings as symbols in his own treatise on The Journey of the Mind (or Soul) to God.

Allan de Lille (1128 – 1202 or 1203), another theologian associated with Paris, continues the idea of angels as transmitters of Divine revelation in his Hierarchia. “Alan describes the chief characteristics of the angelic orders and then the specific function of angels in relation to human beings who will, after receiving appropriate angelic tuition, join the angelic order which most suitably corresponds to their condition.” (Lascombe, D. 2008. “The Hierarchies in the Writings of Alan of Lille, William of Auvergne, and St Bonaventure.” in Iribarren and Leaz 2008:17.) Thus, like Denys, divine tuition is passed through the orders — but now also to humans as well as to angels. The difference, though, is that the orders of angels are static, whilst humans have the potential to move from sphere to sphere through the angelic hierarchies.

Taking only the most central Triad of angels as representative of Allan’s thought, the order of Seraphim indicates those who burn with divine love. Those who embody and progress towards this proximity to the divine are contemplatives who are wholly given over to divine love — e.g. men of the cloistered life (the mendicant orders had not yet been founded or ‘invented’; cf Bonaventure Vita XI, p280). The order of Cherubim, illustrative of divine knowledge, are augmented by humans who devote their time to the study and teaching of Sacred Scripture. The sphere of Thrones, those who sit in judgement, is the worthy home of those who judge justly and not rashly. Again, for Allan, contemplation is that which is above the active life, that is, the union born of stillness. This is the sphere of the Seraphim. Speculative theology, and the clarity of knowledge derived form seeing in a clear mirror is the domain of the Cherubim. Discursive meditation or the virtue of discernment, the level of Thrones, is characterised as a broad, yet peaceful undertaking.

Angelic speculation was further systematised around 1220 – 1225 with the publication of Alex Hales’ Glossa Ordinaria. This work set the stage for future Parisian scholastic writing on the subject. Subsequent to Hales, Albert the Great and his student Thomas Aquinas discuss angels in the context of their role in transmitting the outpouring of divine grace through the celestial hierarchy. Albert the Great discusses how angels ‘illuminate’ humans in his Super Dionysium de Caelesti Hierarchia (ed. Simon and Kuebel, Muenster 1993), following the tradition taught by Denys the Aeropagite. Appearances of angels therefore occur in order to bring the message of grace to earth and earth’s inhabitants. The movement of humans through these hierarchies continues as a theme.

The Parisian most pertinent to illuminating the role angels play in medieval mystical theology, and in Francis’ vision particularly, is Bonaventure. “For Bonaventure – the souls that are most hierarchised [i.e. the closest to the centre of the hierarchy], the most filled with the Spirit, the most contemplative, the most comparable with the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the Thrones are found in the holiest of the religious orders, in their greatest representatives St Francis himself [Seraph], in the mendicant orders [Cherubim] and in the orders of Cistercian monks and of Praemonstratensian canons [Thrones].” (Iribarren and Leaz, 2008:27; As a side note, Bonaventure places the four Byzantine patriarchs alongside pope in the hierarchy.) For Bonaventure, contemplatives become associated with knowledge, losing their place in the realm of the Seraphim. Like previous authors, Bonaventure characterises the Seraphim as burning with the ardour of divine love. Indeed, the chapter in which Francis sees the vision of the Seraph is framed in such language, with repeated uses of words related to ‘burning’ or ‘ardour’ and ‘love’ peppering the account. Francis, associated with the Seraphim, is thus paired with virtues of burning love.

Bonaventure set the precedent for later Franciscan speculation on humanity’s participation in the angelic and divine hierarchies. Among these later writers, Olivi (fl. 1266 – 1273 in Paris; ultimately censored in 1283) stands out in particular contrast, not the least for provoking a controversy which led to a shift in angelology for the subsequent century. (Olivi is also noted for his thesis that the chain of Being — causation — intelligibility holds together the universe.) “Peter John Olivi asserts Christ’s soul is higher than any angel’s; seconded by His mother’s soul; third is possibly Francis, who took the place ‘left vacant by Lucifer’ (Summa vol 1 q47p753).” (Iribarren and Leaz 2008:38) In this way, Olivi links the characteristics of the angelic orders with the particular virtues most in evidence in the most highly venerated saints of the period. These saints achieved their place through the imitation and execution of the virtue most associated with the angelic order at which the saint ultimately arrived. For him, Francis and the Blessed Virgin are the two exemplars of the mobility humans have with regard to the divine life. Iribarren and Leaz, commenting on Olivi’s particular synthesis state that “[his] view heralds the Christocentrism shaping most of fourteenth century thought and leading to the Reformation.” (2008:9) Francis vision of the Seraph, for Olivi, was indicative of the sphere to which Francis had come to belong — that closest to Christ, after His mother.

Iribarren and Leaz point out that one practical result of this synthesis, from the point of view of the ordinary layperson was the increased relevance of the communion of saints, not only in the transmission of virtue or grace and as exemplars for imitation but also as a focus for meditation. As Iribarren and Leaz phrase this change, “the period following the condemnation [of 1277]… gave way to new forms of religious spirituality, whereby what brings humans closer to God are no longer quasi-divine ‘intelligences’ in a static hierarchy leading to the first principle, but rather the merits of humans leading sinless lives and [who] have accordingly received the divine gift of grace.” (2008:4)

In some ways, the synthesis provided by incorporating Francis into the angelic hierarchy, as representative of the potential for human advancement in proximity to the divine, is nicely epitomised in Mirandola’s (d. 1494) assertion that whatever seeds humans cultivate will bear fruit: those who cultivate the vegetative aspects of their souls will be no more and no less than plants; those who pursue merely their animal and sensual affects will ultimately end as brutish creatures; those humans who concentrate on their rational powers are transfigured into heavenly beings; while those whose attention has been directed to intellectual and noetic contemplation and activities become angels and sons of God. The saint, for Mirandola, is a human being whose movement through the angelic hierarchies renders him or her divinised.

The sixteenth century saw incredible changes in theology, both in Catholic and the newly emergent Protestant circles. Melanchthon’s (d. 1560) Protestant theological axiom, to argue only about what is necessary for salvation, not on irrelevancies, effectively did away with angelology for Protestantism. The Catholic theologian and mathematician Charles de Bovelles (d. p1566) articulated a typically Counter-Reformation, highly philosophical, Catholic position: In his writings, the angelic intellect is pure presence, the presence and actuality of all things; the human intellect by contrast means distance and future potentiality. Like contemporary Protestant theologians, angels were thus effectively removed from discussion in Latin/ Catholic theology as well.

Thus, the general trends in angelology (particularly as summarised in Chapter 12 of Ibarren and Leaz, from which the above paragraphs are derived) develop from the early twelfth century, when angels provided material for thought experiments by medieval philosophers, to being seen by Renaissance thinkers as tenders of cosmological order. During and after the Catholic and Protestant Reformations, angels lost their cosmological and speculative functions, and were portrayed merely as providing a counter to the devil; Protestant reformers went further and also eliminated the role of the holy human intercessor, a role which had been articulated through the Medieval period through reflection on Francis’ place in the integrated celestial-terrestrial hierarchy of St Denys.

The vision Francis related to his disciples, as recorded in our sources, however, was not simply of ‘an angel’, but was a very specific image, quite particular in fact: a Seraph with a crucified man at the centre. A disjuncture occurs between images of creatures burning with love due to their proximity to the Source of joy and tranquility, and the image of a crucified man. This disjuncture is key not only to understanding the meaning the vision might have had for Francis, but also to understanding why Francis is described as wondering at the vision. As the reader will recall, the author of the Orthodox Word article would tend to focus on just that element of Francis vision — wondering — arguing that such wonder was the same as the mulling and obsessing over a creation of an unstable mind.

However, St Denys speaks of dissimilar and deformed symbols as precisely the means of raising one’s mind to celestial mysteries: “[While] a manifestation through dissimilar shapes is more correctly to be applied to the invisible… incongruities are more suitable for lifting our minds up into the domain of the spiritual than similarities are.” (Celestial Hierarchy, II.3) As one interpreter of Dionysius notes, “The dissimilar images… their failure is a stimulant for the spirit which prevents it from becoming sluggish or hypnotised by figures through which the natural enchantment might perhaps otherwise jeopardise one’s motion toward God.” (Roques, Struct Theol. 142.) In the East, these incongruities found liturgical expression in the most loved of Greek rhetorical devices, the paradox (e.g. ‘the uncontainable was contained within a womb’). In the West, paradox was more restrained rhetorically; but our focus is on Francis’ individual vision and we need not digress on the particularities of East-West rhetorical divergence here.

Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure both explicitly state that Francis was struck by the dissonance in his vision, of an impassible Seraph enwrapping the image of the Passion. How could two such symbols have come together? Taken separately, what meaning does each have in common with the other? Where did these symbols come from?

One possible answer (reference has already been made in a previous post to the Judas Cyriacus legend) to all three questions is the observation that the vision incorporates the simple juxtaposition, readily understood in the minds of medieval Christians, of two symbols of supreme love: the first being the Seraph, a theme we noted in several authors above; and the second being Christ’s love for humanity as manifested by his death on a Cross. Particularly in this latter capacity, we see the ‘celestial’ God emptied out and at his most ‘terrestrial’ and incarnate. In Francis’ vision we thus have the image-able symbol of love in the celestial sphere — a Seraph (since God cannot be imaged as such, angels must stand in as the image and form of the divine virtues apprehensible to human sight) — united with what for Latin and German Christendom at the time was the icon of love in the terrestrial sphere — the Cross with the Crucified Christ. For someone whose theme of contemplation was love of God, and imitation of Christ out of love, such a vision is not at all out of the realm of possibility.

If these two symbols were obvious to any medieval Latin Christian, why should Francis have wondered at what the vision meant? If we remember the overarching topic of meditation during Francis’ retreat at Alverna, he was contemplating how else he could imitate Christ. Presumably this imitation included Christ’s love of neighbour, the poor, the sick, and the suffering (cf Bonaventure Vita ch 4, p208, and ch 13, ‘by his sweet compassion’). The question Francis had in mind was what more could he himself do to completely conform himself to Christ’s love? The result was a vision of supreme Love — a union of the highest celestial with the highest terrestrial images of love — but how was such a symbolic illustration of love applicable in practical terms? I would suggest that the meaning Francis sought regarding the vision was exactly that practical aspect — how was Francis to apply such love in the human sphere? How does it, in the words of St Denys’ modern commentator, allow Francis to continue to pursue God while on earth?

Those questions lead to what is unique in the vision, that it seems to have resulted in, if not merely foretold, Francis’ reception of the stigmata. The stigmata themselves bring us to the heart of the Orthodox confusion about the significance of the vision.

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In order to reopen the Hellmouth, the demons need the blood of a man, a child’s bones, and a talisman.  They also sacrifice themselves for the greater goal of unleashing destruction on earth.  One must admire the dedication of some demons to their ideals.

All in all, not much to treat, unless we are to pull out obscure point names to aid the demons in reopening the Hellmouth — but then, we’d be helping the ‘other side’, and we are supposed to see how Chinese Medicine can help Buffy and the Scooby gang.  So what shall we diagnose?

A clear and unmistakable symptom was observed by Forrest, when he get’s fed up with Riley’s constant chatter about Buffy:  “She’s hot Buffy, she’s cool Buffy, she’s tepid Buffy: She’s every temperature Buffy!”

Body temperature is one important diagnostic feature in Chinese medicine.  Generally, when a Chinese medicine practitioner asks about body temperature, what he or she is asking about is the patient’s subjective sense of warmth or coldness.  A sense of heat, or an aversion to heat can indicate a hot disorder, while conversely an aversion to wind or cold points in the direction of cold disorders.  In the former case, heat tends to be an internal phenomenon, while aversion to cold and wind indicate external factors (e.g. wind-cold invasion).  Internal cold does not necessarily lead to an aversion to cold; rather it leads to an inability to warm up and stay warm.

Of course, fluctuating body temperature in women is often associated with peri-menopausal symptoms, though this is not the case with women in Japan.  Medical anthropologists Lock and Kaufert pointed out this discrepancy in a their now oft-cited 2001 article, ‘Menopause, Local Biologies, and Cultures of Ageing’, outlining a theory of ‘local biologies’ in which purportedly universal physiological changes are modified by the particulars of sociocultural environments and expectations.  (From the point of view of Eastern medicine, the women in Japan mentioned in the article tended to suffer more from blood-deficiency syndromes, while women in Canada and the US manifested more yin-deficient patterns; ‘menopausal syndrome’ as such does not exist in the classical literature of Chinese Medicine.)  Although the predominant association of temperature fluctuation is with menopausal hot or cold flashes,  pathological temperature variation occurs in both men and women at all ages.  What is the mechanism?

The following case is illustrative, despite the fact that the patient in question was, as it turns out, perimenopausal.  At one point in my career, I focused on using diagnostic protocols drawn from the Ling Shu, and I clearly recall treating one woman for night sweats and temperature fluctuations during that time.  In this system, the pulse at ST-9, renying, is compared to that at LU-9, cunkou.  The resulting ratio tells the practitioner which channels are unregulated and in need of treatment.  Thus, a 4:1 ratio indicates Yang Ming needs to be addressed by dispersing two yang points and tonifying one yin point on the tai yin channel, while a 1:4 pulse ratio is indicative of a tai yin disorder requiring the tonification of two yang points and the dispersal of one yin point.  (A restless pulse indicates that one should choose an arm channel; otherwise, the leg channels are used.)

In this particular case, the unregulated channel was TaiYang, Bladder.  Because the fluctuations varied by time of day, we used shu-stream points as one of the primary points to treat; in this case BL-65.    The disregulation of TaiYang, however, raises questions, since ordinarily in TCM menopausal syndromes are associated with deficiency of the Liver and Kidney systems.  Why then was Tai Yang appearing, rather than jueyin or shaoyin?

The TaiYang system opens to the exterior and regulates the wei qi.  We could note also Buffy’s reluctance to open herself up to a new relationship with Riley, a very psychological comment on the role of BL Tai Yang — opening oneself up to the exterior (in a different sense from SJ-5, Wai Guan), or withdrawing because of the emotion associated with the water phase, fear.  Of course, wisdom is also associated with the water phase, as is propriety.  The TaiYang system would thus encompass the wisdom of combining of propriety and openness — precisely the same combination which informs SJ-5 and PC-6, the ‘outer gate’ and ‘inner gate’, respectively.  (San Jiao is also a fire-water combination channel.)  Functionally, the TaiYang system warms and moistens the skin and releases the exterior.  It is therefore ultimately bound up with wei qi and jin-thin fluids.

But why would it disregulate around menopause?  One could approach the question of why TaiYang would get disrupted particularly at menopause from a hybrid or translation of physiology perspective, too.  The Small Intestine (hand Tai Yang channel) is associated with the ye-thick fluids.  Ye fluids are frequently correlated with endocrine secretions and hormonal levels.  While the Ling Shu indicates that the BL channel should be used to treat problems with the jin-tendons, clinical experience notes its luo point, BL-58, nonetheless augments jin-fluids, which circulate with the wei qi on the exterior of the body.  Together, the two Tai Yang channels have a similar relationship in their use of jin-ye as the entire body has to the relationship of wei qi and ying qi.

Wei qi, after all, is what keeps the surface of the body warm.  When the skin is hot, this is often wei qi battling against an invading pathogen; when the skin is cool, it is because wei qi is either deficient, or the Tai Yang channel has opened the interstices and pores to allow heat to drain off.  The opening and closing of the pores is regulated by wei qi (Huang Qi is an appropriate herb to mention here, both tonifying qi and closing the pores.)  What keeps the body warm on the inside is yang qi, and this is more often thought of as the ming men fire stored in the Kidneys.  Since Buffy does not seem to be deficient in yang qi (witness her ‘not holding back’ when sparring with Riley), Every Temperature Buffy must therefore have trouble regulating the relationship of wei qi and ying qi.

The classical herbal formula to regulate the exterior and interior is Gui Zhi Tang.  Gui Zhi and Bai Shao harmonise ying and wei by stimulating the Bladder’s transformative capacity; while Sheng Jiang and Da Zao harmonise wei and ying by addressing the interior tai yin aspects of the SP and LU.

Interestingly, from the perspective of the Tang Ye Jing Fang, an early herbal work predating the Shang Han Lun, the combination of the two pairs works with the LV, which in its capacity of ‘smoothing the qi’.  In other words, the Liver is responsible for harmonising the relationship between wei qi (LU) and ying qi (SP).

The principle of formula composition in the Tang Ye is simple:  based on flavour, take two herbs to tonify one of the five phases and one herb to disperse that element, if tonification of a phase is desired, and the reverse proportions if dispersal is warranted.  Thus, the acrid flavour tonifies the LV and disperses the SP.  Gui Zhi and Sheng Jiang tonify the LV, while sweet Da Zao tonifies the SP (and disperses the KD).  Sour Shao Yao, on the other hand, disperses the LV (and tonifies the LU).  Gan Cao also tonfies the SP.

Gui Zhi (acrid), Sheng Jiang (acrid), and Shao Yao (sour) thus form a set designed to tonify the Liver, while  Gui Zhi (acrid), Sheng Jiang (acrid), and Da Zao (sweet) are a three herb formula to drain the Spleen.  The addition of Gan Cao, however, alters the formula slightly, and Sheng Jiang (acrid), Da Zao (sweet), and Gan Cao (sweet) together serve to tonify the Spleen.  The five-herb formula thus continues to tonify the Liver while preserving the Spleen.  Because the Spleen is said to store the ying qi, it is important to ensure its stability and continued ability to nourish the wei qi.

From a five phase perspective, the LV is part of a triad involving itself, the Lungs and the Spleen.  The Lungs are associated with wei qi, and the SP with ying qi.  The LV is thus in a position to mediate the relationship between the two — quite apart from the obvious mother-child relationship between SP-ying qi and LU-wei qi.  In terms of acupuncture, we could regulate Spleen excess by dispersing the Lungs, but some traditions don’t like dispersing qi at all.  On the other hand, nourishing the SP could lead to increased stagnation in the body, if ying qi and wei qi were not in proper relationship to begin with.  Thus, the LV’s role in the ke-control cycle is invoked.

(In the Gui Zhi Tang formula, because the LV controls the SP, tonifying the LV at the expense of the SP might lead to a state of ‘LV invading SP’; therefore extra care was taken to ensure the SP remain healthy.)

How does the Liver harmonise ying and wei qi?  Quite apart from the axiomatic definition of the organ’s role, how can we explain this?  A clue comes from a different formula, one I don’t often see used:  Ren Shen Yang Rong Tang, “Ginseng Decoction to Nourish Luxuriance”.  Explaining the origin of its name, Bensky (et al) cite Fei Bo-Xiong, a Qing dynasty physician who clarified the relationship between the terms rong, xue-blood, and ying-nutritive qi.  Only the latter two are important for our purposes:

“Without blood, there is nothing to moisten the yin and yang organs, irrigate the channels and vessels, and nourish the hundred bones.  All of this embodies the meaning:  enriches growth.  The second is ying — barracks and their enclosing walls.  Without blood, there is nothing to fill the form, firm the interstices and pores, and secure the hundred vessels.  All this embodies the meaning:  guards from the inside.”  (Bensky et al, Formulas and Strategies, 2nd Edition, p351; edited to be closer to Chinese grammar.)

In this quote, we see that the Liver’s ability to harmonise ying and wei is dependent on its ability to store blood.  Blood ‘firms the pores’ — that is, it nourishes the function of wei qi.  It also ‘fills the form’ (in other texts, the form emerges from the SP; thus blood allows the SP to function properly).   As Bensky et al comment, “Ying… refers to blood’s active funciton of securing the body by providing it with substance:  a yin place to which yang qi can attach itself.  For that reason, the term ying invariably invokes as its counterpart wei, or protective yang, whereas xue invokes qi.”

No wonder the jueyin level is so fundamental among the six channels!  Where jing provides the template for structure, blood allows for its filling, execution, and movement.  Blood, it appears, allows for the functioning of the entire system of physiology.  Herbal systems which pull out the three humours and focus principally on blood, qi, and body-fluids can thus be quite versatile in their scope of treatment.

Theoretically, then, the proper nourishment and regulation of blood should be key to maintaining the harmony of the body.  It should come as no surprise that in Kanpo (Japanese Herbal Medicine, based on CHM) will use Gui Zhi Tang as a general tonifying formula.  Likewise, if blood carries the emotions, then regulation of the emotions is also key in ensuring the proper balance between nourishment and defence of the body, both from external and internal disruption.

Such an approach would serve to answer another question of mine, namely,  how do the hun-ethereal souls play into such harmonisation, the hun being stored in the LV and subsisting in the blood? (Note: the shen emerges from the union of qi and blood, and is housed in the Heart and mai-vessel pulses.)  The hun are associated with the personality, which is frequently known by the associated emotive character of people.  Thus, allowing the hun to delight in itself — the property fostered by the herb Dang Gui, according to Ted Kaptchuk, author of The Web that has No Weaver, should help regulate the entire system.  That Dang Gui goes to the qi level of the blood, and works on both levels, would seem to support such a claim.

However, the blood also contains and constrains the three worms, as explained by Jeffrey Yuen in his description of the character xue-blood.  These worms, representing desire-lust, anger-gluttony, and ignorance-refinement, must also be kept well governed by the blood.  Mi Wu (the herbal portion  of the plant whose root is called Chuan Xiong) and Yi Yi Ren are two herbs which, according to the Shen Nong Ben Cao, precipitate the three worms.  Yi Yi Ren, interestingly enough, goes to the SP-ST, LV, and LU.

So, to summarise, the recommended herbal treatment for Buffy is Gui Zhi Tang, to regulate the TaiYang and wei-ying qi physiology.  From a five-phase perspective, we could needle just one point — the source point LV-3, perhaps in combination with SP-3 and LU-9 — to regulate wei and ying.  But if we wanted to stick to a diagnosis of a TaiYang disorder, apart from the initially mentioned BL-65, a shu-stream point, what is the second point on the Bladder channel in need of dispersal?

Soon after the earthquake, we see Buffy at Gile’s place, anxious over what may foretell her possible death.  While Giles seeks to comfort Buffy with words, I might try some acupuncture points traditionally used to make patients comfortable with their approaching death.  (Oddly, most people I’ve known who have died and come back through medical miracles seem to be quite comfortable with the thought of death.  “I’ve been there before” as someone I once knew put it, shrugging.  “It’s not a bad place.”  Therefore, Buffy’s anxiety seems particularly out of place and ‘pathological’.)

The Kunlun moutains are the abode of spirits and the Garden of Immortality in Daoist cosmology.  It is the realm of the Queen Mother of the West and is often described in poetic terms as a paradise.  BL-60, KunLun is named after this abode, and would be my second point to needle on the Tai Yang channel.  Coincidentally enough, another point bears the same name:  CV-4, the mu point of the Tai Yang Small Intestine.  CV-4 also happens to be on the KD shaoyin channel, and thus makes a nice pairing as the yin point to tonify in combination with the dispersal of the two Tai Yang points.

So the herbal treatment for ‘Every Temperature Buffy’ is Gui Zhi Tang, and the acupuncture treatment is a simple three point, five needle prescription of BL-65 (use a short needle and quick insertion — this point is sensitive!), BL-60, and CV-4.

As always, these posts are for educational and entertainment purposes only.  If you feel you could benefit from the experience of Chinese Medicine, please see a qualified practitioner.  Happy Slayage!

The main plot line is simple enough:  the utterly refined ‘Gentlemen’ come to Sunnydale, cast a spell which prevents everyone from speaking or voicing any sound more than a gasp.  The Gentlemen then proceed to harvest hearts from select individuals, at least one of whom is a student at UC Sunnydale, naturally.

It would seem that voice loss or throat bi would be what needs to be treated.   The pathology isn’t quite so simple, however, and close attention to the episode provides us with a wealth of diagnostic information, all pointing in the same direction.  (Besides, throat bi was addressed previously in Buffy Season 3, Episode 11.)

Between orgasms and orgasm friends (provided by Anya’s current obsessive conversational topic and Giles’ visiting friend Olivia), disturbing dreams and interrupted sleep (experienced by Buffy), lost voices (affecting all Sunnydale), asylum escapees (who act as the Gentlemen’s henchmen), and monsters consumed by inordinate desire for refinement — not to mention their obsession with collecting actual, physical hearts — this is an episode full of Heart disorders.

Not all traditions in East Asia will treat the Heart channel directly for Heart disorders; often the Pericardium is the treated channel or organ.  The Ling Shu only seems to mention two points on the Heart Channel — the luo point (HT-5) and the source point (HT-7).  Everything else is referred back to the PC channel.

In Chinese, the Pericardium is the Xin Bao Luo, the ‘Heart Envelope Collateral’.  The character for ‘collateral’ is the same ‘luo’ that is used for ‘luo vessels’, so a reference to internal and blood related factors.  Taken as a JueYin organ, of course, the Pericardium is responsible, like the Liver, for the clarification of blood, especially at night, while one sleeps.  In this case, the Pericardium keeps wei qi (which circulates internally at night, while sleeping) from harming the Heart.  On another level, blood contains the emotions — and contains in the sense of constrains in a vessel — the three worms which crave lust, gluttony, and refinement .

Functionally, the Pericardium (PC) serves to protect the Heart by venting heat away from it.  Some practitioners emphasise the Pericardium’s role in protecting the Heart from emotional shocks (emotions being related to either the blood as already mentioned, and thus blood heat; or to internal causes of disease, and thus the Stomach channel, itself containing two points called Seas of Blood.  The ST channel is associated with internal, emotional causes of diseases partially because it is the first ‘internal’ channel of the primary channels, bringing pathogens to the interior at ST-12.  Like the blood heat mentioned above, its symptoms are also characterised by heat, notably the ‘four bigs’ .)

But what about the Heart itself?  A brief examination of the pathophysiology below should provide some insight into its role in the human person.

Anya and Giles

How are orgasms related to the Heart?  At climax, Heart fire (or Heart yang) descends to Kidney water (or Kidney yin; in other words, jing-essence), causing ejaculation.  While we often see cases of premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction among men in the clinic, the other side of the physiology is difficult orgasm.  In such cases, JueYin may be shunting away too much heat from the Heart and not allowing fire to build up enough to descend to the Kidneys; alternately, Heart fire may be contained in the organ itself and herbs to address Heart bi may prove useful.  Secondarily I would address Kidney water, but through the use of warming (but not hot), lubricating herbs.  Cooling herbs might inadvertently cause the Heart to close up further, depending on the specifics of the case.  Of course, yang deficiency may be at the root, and a formula such as Zhi Shi Xie Bai Gui Zhi Tang might prove helpful in such cases.  (The other possibility is Fang Ji Fu Ling Tang, a formula which unblocks yang.)  Check the shu points around T4- T6; if redness or papules are present, this indicates heat.  If the tongue coating is white and greasy, this is phlegm from yang deficiency.  Treatment should follow accordingly.

A simple formula of Bai Shao (astringes JueYin), Xuan Fu Hua (which descends qi), and Shu Di (augments essence) might do the trick for a constrained heat presentation, but I have never tested this clinically.  Dai Zhe Shi might make an interesting addition (taking a cue from Xuan Fu Hua Dai Zhe Shi Tang), and it is said to ‘preserve the Liver’, so it may also have subsidiary effects on astringing the Pericardium.  I might be inclined to use Dai Zhe Shi if Dan Shen (goes to the PC) were used instead of Bai Shao.  Lian Zi Xin, which guides HT fire to the KD might make a better choice than Xuan Fu Hua.  Mai Men Dong could nourish the fluids and unblock clumping in the Heart (together with Shu Di, one then has two thirds of Nourish the Ye-fluids — associated with the SI, and thus also with the HT — Decoction).   As a side note, Luo Shi Teng also unblocks the luo channels, and is associated with the HT and LV; it may be particularly apt, given the trajectory of the LV’s luo channel, and the HT’s role in this particular pathomechanism.

The Jia Yi Jing recommends LU-10 for treating Heart bi, especially when manifesting with sorrow, irritability, or counterflow qi.

Buffy

I’m pretty sure I’ve covered in previous posts the interrelationship between dreams, blood, sleep, and the heart.  Dreams emerge from the wanderings of the hun-ethereal souls, which are housed in the blood.  Heat in the blood can disturb the sleep and make the hun agitated, while a deficiency of Heart blood means the hun have no place in which to rest.  One of the best insomnia-treating formulae, Suan Zao Ren Tang, is named after the chief herb, Suan Zao Ren, which nourishes the Heart and Heart blood.

Sunnydale

Saying that HT-5 (or the herb Pang Da Hai) is good for loss of voice seems too easy.  So for lost voices, I am going to use instead a more complex diagnosis which focuses on opening the orifices, either the orifices of the Heart or the Sensory orifices.

Closed disorders also affect the Pericardium.  Both Heart and Pericardium have a relationship with blood; the Pericardium through its association with the JueYin channel system (which clarifies the blood); the Heart through being the motile force of blood and through its role in sealing the blood with the red colour.

What are closed disorders?  Bensky’s Formulas and Strategies gives a succinct definition:  “Loss of consciousness may be due either to excess or deficiency.  When the problem is one of excess, it is known has a ‘closed disorder’ in which pathogens obstruct and veil the sensory orifices,” and may be due either to heat sinking into the Pericardium and affecting Heart or cold.  Cold can constrain the qi and lead to the formation of phlegm, which in turn veils the Heart’s orifices.  Symptoms include rigid limbs, clenched jaw and fists, but NOT delirious speech, which is more characteristic of the ‘raving’ mentioned under Yang Ming heat disorders.

The treatment strategy is to use formulas which open the orifices.  Herbs such as camphor, musk, acorus, and cattle bezoar are often administered as the chief ingredients in such formulas.

I might consider choosing the very simple formula Tong Guan San for our characters in this episode, a powder made from zhu ya zao and xi xin.  A small amount of the powder is blown into the nose to generate a sneeze, which will open the jaw and disperse some of the phlegm blocking the orifices.  She Xiang (musk) can be added to increase the orifice-opening abilities of the formula.  Given that the Gentlemen were destroyed by very violent sneezing at the end of the episode (their heads exploded), I think this is an excellent formula to try — but then, this is a diagnosis based on knowing the end result, rather than one drawn from etiology.  (Tong Guan San is used in cases of collapse occurring after overwork or dietary excess.  I seem to recall Anya overindulging in some snack at the start of the show… )

Asylum Escapees

As noted above, the orifices of the Heart, which provide clarity of consciousness to humans, can become blocked with phlegm.  This sort of blockage causes a veiling of perception.  If the phlegm becomes combined with heat or fire, however, insanity and incoherence is the result.  The Asylum Henchmen may very well have been sufferers of phlegm-fire harassing the Heart (assuming they still have hearts, and the Gentlemen don’t resurrect their victims to act as henchmen…)  We will have a chance to revisit treatment options for insanity in a future episode; for now, I would simply ask what happened to these henchmen after their masters were taken care of?

The Gentlemen

The three worms which eat away at the body are associated with desire, greed, and ignorance or refinement (depending on whether one sues a more Buddhist or more Daoist oriented paradigm).  Refinement is associated with the Heart because of its role in promoting li, propriety, among the five virtues.  Refinement is li taken to an extreme, such that it ceases to be de-power or virtue, and instead becomes decadent.  A modified Zhu Che Wan could be helpful in this case; I would add some Bing Lang or other ghost  or gu-parasite removing herb, such as Tian Men Dong, if the Gentlemen seemed overly hot. (The Gentlemen do explode at the end after all, and I associate explosiveness with hot disorders, at least, more so than with cold disorders, since cold contracts…)

The acupoint prescription in this case would be PC-7 (for gu — its alternate name is ‘ghost heart’), HT-5 (for speech), and LU-7  (the command point for the head and neck).

As always, these posts are for entertainment purposes only.  If you feel you could benefit from Chinese medicine, please see a qualified practitioner.  Happy Slayage!

As a side plot framing the episode, Riley opens with a comment about how he sees Buffy as a mystery to be understood; Buffy closes the episode by telling Riley he has a lot to learn about women.

From a Chinese medical perspective both plots — the will and the mystery of human lives — are related.  the Kidneys root both the spiritual aspect, zhi or will, and the virtue Wisdom .  One could say, as indicated by Ted Kaptchuk, that wisdom is the coming to fruition of the will.

Ah Willow — the will or zhi is a tricky spirit-aspect!  It is the image of a scholar above the heart, and can be used in writing to mean a ‘memorandum’.  The Ling Shu (ch 8) mentions that once purpose endures, then we can speak of will.  When will changes, then we call it ‘thinking’.  In the spell, we see that Willow’s will goes awry, and the thinking which should emerge from it is not clear, because the foundational purpose which holds the will in place, is not clear.  From a five phase point of view, the mother (Lungs, grief) could not properly nourish the child (Kidneys, will), and the controlling element (SP, purpose) could not hold the will together.  It would have been better perhaps had Willow turned to something more fiery, more joyful, to assuage her sorrow.  Something to rekindle the light, assuming she had fuel enough for the spark to take.  Which not all of us have in those moments of grief.  The other possibility, then, would be to just hold oneself, literally, in an embrace, and figuratively, in the sense of holding oneself together.  This is the earth-purpose element, which over the course of time will endure as the will.

However, will is also related to wisdom, and I would like to take a closer look at the will as it is related to wisdom, and how these two together relate to the shen and playing out of destiny.  Let us first take a look at the herbal tradition, before using it as a clue to possible acupuncture models.

Herbs that address the will in the Shen Nong Ben Cao include:

Ba Ji Tian (improves the will):  tonifies KD and fortifies the yang; strengthens sinews and bones, disperses cold damp.

Cang Er Zi (strengthens the will):  unblocks nose, disperses wind-damp and alleviates bi syndrome.  Enters LU channel.

Du Zhong (strengthens the will):  tonifies LV and KD, strengthens sinews and bones, calms the fetus.  Name indicates a lynch pin to stabilise a pivot.

Pu Tao (fortifies the will):  Treats sinew and bone bi, strengthens wei qi.  (Note:  Pu Tao are grapes.)

Peng Lei (fortifies the will):  Promotes growth of yin, boosts jing qi, quiets the five zang.   (Note:  Peng Lei are raspberries)

Qian Shi (fortifies the will):  augments KD, binds essence, strengthens SP, stops diarrhea.  Enters SP and KD channels.

Shi Mi (fortifies the will):  Honey supplements the centre and quiets the five zang.

Ying Tao (glorifies the will):  Regulates centre, augments SP qi.  (Note Ying Tao are cherries.)

The interesting commonality among the above isn’t that many enter the KD channel.  In fact, several do not — Cang Er Zi being the most peculiar of the group.  Rather, what I find most interesting is that several are used to treat wind-cold-damp bi.

On a physical level, we can think of wind-cold-damp bi as coming about when the body lacks the jing or blood to expel a pathogen.  As a result, the pathogen gets lodged in the body, often settling into the larger joints.  While these pathogens can become latent, slowly consuming the body’s reserves of jing, blood, fluids, and qi, that outcome is not a foregone conclusion.

On a metaphorical level, wind is often associated with change.  Cold is the freezing up a person who does not want to change.  Dampness can be thought of as satisfaction in life.  Someone who is having trouble changing, seizing up because something beforehand was so satisfying, could be thought of as having cold-damp-bi.  They are not exerting their wills in the most useful direction — that of adapting to the changes of life’s vicissitudes.

Using one’s will to change with life’s circumstances does not mean foregoing a grieving process.  In fact, sometimes the movement of grief outwards from the body can help move the constraint induced by Lung-metal, and allow the body to access the deep peace which comes from well-nourished Kidney water.  (Metal being the mother of Water, the Lungs’ constraint of qi and fluids can both prevent bi from being expelled and prevent the Kidney water from being adequately nourished.)  This movement, reflected in the Channel Divergences, is the same as the movement of inner wisdom outwards into the world.

As mentioned in previous posts, the Channel Divergences excel at treating Bi Syndromes.  The CDs often begin in the articulations of the major joints, uniting the jing found in bones and marrow with the wei qi which circulates on the exterior during the day (and interior at night).  According to this physiological paradigm, when the wei qi becomes stuck inside due to the presence of a pathogen, inflammation of the joints, characterised by a sensation of heat, can result.

As Jeffery Yuen explains, each CD pair relies on a different physiological fluid to support the wei qi.  The initial BL-KD pair uses jing to support wei qi.  When this is exhausted, the body then calls upon blood, associated with the GB-LV confluence.  Following this, thin fluids of the ST-SP are used.  The next three confluences represent deeper penetration of the pathology into the body, and the articulations most often affected are in the glenohumeral joint, the joints of the clavicle, and the cervical spine.  First of these deeper pathways to be affected is the SI-HT confluence, associated with ye-thick fluid, followed by the SJ-PC, and finally the LI-LU, which relies on qi, pure and simple, to support wei qi.  In other words, by the time the pathogen reaches the LI-LU confluence, all other modes of support in the body have been used up.

For our purposes, the first CD pair, BL-KD is most illustrative of the process whereby the manifestation of the will transforms itself into that wisdom which sees the over-arching pattern in one’s life.  This over arching pattern is the ‘will within the will’, mentioned by Ted Kaptchuk in The Web that has No Weaver.

How does this happen?

BL40, “wei zhong”:  The alternate names ‘blood cleft’ and ‘central cleft’ (zhong xi) indicate that this is a place where the central aspects of a person’s life, particularly those related to emotional life, accumulate.  From here, the person’s knees bend to take up the burden of moving through life.

BL36, “cheng fu”:  The name means ‘to aid responsibility’ and once a person has accumulated a ‘curriculum’ to be worked out, this point helps the person achieve the proper manner of working out that destiny.

Du4, “ming men”:  It should come as no surprise that in responsibly working out one’s central issues in life, one will eventually come to the ‘gate of destiny’.  From here, the BL-KD CD goes to the Kidneys, which store essence and transform it through the triple warmer, and then into the Dai Mai.  As mentioned in other posts, the Dai Mai helps us let go of those issues we hold onto long after they’ve outlived their usefulness.  To progress from the gate of destiny, a return to the self and a letting go of what isn’t the self is necessary.

CV4, called the Great Central Pole, as well as “ming men” and origin pass, together with CV3, also called Central Pole and “qi source” are the next stops on the way to bringing out the inner unfolding of our being.  At these points, the unfolding is directed celestially, as indicated by the star-associated names.  Here, the original qi stored in the KD begins to burn upwards.  As noted in our previous post, both points are also associated with the Huang, which incorporates notions of the blueprint provided by the Chong Mai and the emergence of shen from the union of qi (both pre-natal from the KD and post-natal from the SI) and blood.

Du11, “shen dao”:  Pass around to the spine, a person who has recognised what is important to do and what is not, and who has harnessed the roots of her or his being, is then led along the path by which her spirit or affect can, with clarity, become manifest outwards into the world.  This is the point of spontaneity (Dao) of being (shen).

BL15, “xin shu”:  From the spirit walk, one is led through the HT, which stores the shen-spirit-affect;  and BL44, “shen men”, the ‘spirit gate’ is the next stop.  Note that the ‘shen’ referred to is the person’s own spirit or affect, their own psychological make-up, and not some other entity, which in Chinese Classical medicine would be referred to as a ghost.

CV17, “original child”:  this is the place where the person has returned to themselves and become the person they always were, from the beginning.  After shedding the accumulations they had held onto, which created the burden of life, and having taken the responsibility of working out those accumulations, the person came to knowledge of who they were.  Shedding all that was unnecessary, they set their sights on a path of transcendence, and were led along the path most suited to their particular spirit.  Doing so, they gained entrance to their own Heart, passed through the doors of their spirit, and found that ‘child’ concealed behind all the other layers.

BL10, “celestial pillar”:  From here, the original child can achieve its transcendence, the celestial pillar pointing to the pole star indicated in CV-3 and CV-4.

Some people would include BL1, “bright essence” in the BL-KD CD trajectory.  In the eyes, the shen-affect can be seen, and a person who has come to harmony with the overall pattern of her or his life has a clear affect, with bright eyes from which shine a purified, transformed jing-essence.

In this way, acupuncture could help Willow transform her grief and loss into the wisdom of self-knowing.  As we will see in the coming episodes, that transformation is exactly what happens:  she recognises her attraction to Tara and takes upon herself her particular spiritual path in the world.  (It will all go awry by the sixth season, but we’ll address that when we reach season six!)

As for herbs to give Willow, the following three from the Ben Cao would be appropriate:

Suan Jiang (settles the will).  I think this is the leaf of the Chinese Lantern plant, but I’m not certain, as I do not personally stock it!

Long Yan (quiets the will).  Well known for its ability to supplement the HT, blood, SP, and qi, especially in cases of insomnia, this herb would help Willow come to a bit of peace.

He Huan (harmonises the Heart and will):  Even better known than Long Yan Rou, He Huan Hua and He Huan Pi are sometimes called “Chinese Prozac” for their abilities to tranquilise anxiety.  In this case, He Huan is that path from GV-4 to GV-11, via BL-23, CV-3, and CV-4, discussed above.  He Huan should not be used for more than a month at a time, as some of its chemical constituents may collect in the liver.  In such cases, a ‘treatment holiday’ for a few weeks would be in order.  Not only does such a holiday from treatment give the body a chance to clear out whatever may have collected, it gives both the patient and practitioner a chance to evaluate how well the treatments thus far will hold.

As always, these posts are for entertainment purposes only.  If you feel that Chinese Medicine may help you transform the mystery of your life into wisdom gathered from a life well-willed, please see a qualified practitioner.  Happy Slayage!

In this episode, Xander participates as a construction worker in a Groundbreaking ceremony for the new anthropology cultural centre.  (Once again, the anthropologists are a catalyst for trouble in Sunnydale.)

Xander breaks through the ground alright — and through the roof of what once was the old Sunnydale Mission.  In the process, he inhales the vengeance of a spirit warrior from the Chumash people indigenous to the area.  As a result, he comes down with all the diseases to which the Americans had never previously been exposed:  malaria, smallpox, syphilis.  (The syphilis question is somewhat open, however, given evidence from pre-Columbian Florida.)

Although Xander seems most concerned about the syphilis, which strangely does not seem to bother Anya, I already addressed that infection, together with Lyme’s disease, in a previous post.  Since smallpox is now extinct as an ongoing infectious disease, I’m left with malaria and ‘all other’ epidemic diseases Xander seems to have caught, residue from the epidemiological transition of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.

In addition to Xander’s problems, it seems Si Ni San may not have been the right formula to give Spike.  He’s looking even paler, covered in sweat, and actively shaking with chills.  His disease may have followed a progression from ShaoYin to JueYin — conveniently enough for our purposes, since Malarial Disorders tend to fall under the JueYin pattern in the Shang Han Lun .  (Such a progression assumes a linear movement from channel to channel in the Six Channel system, which is not always the case.  Each channel represents an aspect of physiology, and while they are all inter-related, those relationships are not necessarily in order.)

As a side note, did you get the ET reference(s) in this episode?  Spike running around, sick, trying to escape government operatives, bicycles to the rescue, someone lying sick at home from a disease caught from visiting foreigners…

Malaria, as defined today, is caused by protozoans in the blood and liver of human hosts.  Four types of malaria infect humans, of which P. Falciparum can be deadly.  All malarial types are transmitted by mosquitoes (of the Anopheles variety).  Malaria was formerly thought to be caught from the miasmic vapours  (mala aria) infesting swampland.  One early and effective medicine against malaria, quinine, was used by the British for their colonial administrators, and was derived from the bark of a Peruvian tree.  However, the World Wars interrupted trade in this medicinal, and new ones were sought.  Recently, those older standbys have ceased to be as effective as in previous years.

As the efficacy of older medicines for treating malaria has begun to wane, Chinese Herbal medicine has come to the attention of global health agencies.  At the centre of this attention is the herb Qing Hao, and more specifically, the chemical constituent Qing Hao Su (artemesinin).  Currently, that chemical appears to be the most effective means to treat malaria throughout the world.  However, although Qing Hao is now grown in various parts of Africa, only the initial cop seems to have enough of the chemical to make the herb useful in treating malaria; subsequent generations grown from local seed do not produce enough.  Work is underway to select varieties within Africa which continue to be high yielding producers.

Naturally, we would want to give Xander something with Qing Hao.  However, since he has numerous other diseases, we might want to look a little more closely at possible Chinese physiological processes underlying Xander’s amazing pathology.  Looking at the other formulas grouped with those which treat malaria, several are associated with the Gao Huang, or Membrane Source.

Therefore, let’s try Da Yuan Yin, for ‘foul turbidity entering the body via the nose and mouth to lodge in the membrane source’ — which is ‘closely associated with the Triple Burner and its dual function of circulating yang qi and body fluids’ according to Bensky’s Formulas and Strategies (p137).  The Gao Huang itself is said to be located above the diaphragm and below the heart.  This is the region associated with the Mansion of Blood in Wang Qing Ren’s physiological system.

The ingredients of Da Yuan Yin include:  cao guo, hou po, bing lang, huang qin, zhi mu, bai shao, gan cao.  3 g for all; half that for the cao guo and gan cao, decocted and taken warm in the afternoon.  Of the ingredients, the first three appear in most other decoctions used to treat illnesses in the membrane source.

Cao Guo treats dampness and accumulations, as well as malarial disorders of the cold type.  Bing Lang treats accumulations and stagnant qi, in addition to abdominal distention and malarial disorders.  Hou Po treats stagnant qi and abdominal distention, but is not specific for malarial disorders.  However, Hou Po is well known for its ability to dry dampness.

Judging from these three herbs, pathology of the membrane source would entail the accumulation of dampness, especially cold dampness, a distended abdomen, and an impaired qi mechanism.  These symptoms are reflective of Triple Warmer energetics — the Triple Warmer being one of two ShaoYang channels, whose pathologies manifest as alternating fever and chills — but are also localised to the abdomen.  As mentioned in a previous post, this area was listed by Wang Qing Ren as the place where Ming Men fire resided, hidden within the Mansion of Qi, which itself is closely interrelated with the Small Intestine.  Ming Men fire is associated with both the Kidneys and the process of transforming KD jing by means of the Triple Warmer mechanism.  The membrane source thus seems to be at the heart of this movement.  The location, however is quite different; therefore, I would propose looking at a different set of associations to tease out the energetics of this organ a little bit more.

The area of the membrane source happens to be the same region into which the Chong Mai is said to disperse (i.e. the chest).  Could the membrane source be related to this vessel?  Is the membrane source a mediating mechanism between qi (TW, KD) and blood (Chong, SI)?

A look at the acupuncture points associated with the Gao Huang might prove helpful.  KD16, located on both the KD channel and the Chong Mai, is the Shu point of the Huang.  Ellis, Wiseman, and Boss indicate that the Huang refers to an area below the Heart or around the Bladder.  CV-4, the mu point of the Small Intestine, and CV-6, the Sea of Qi, are also two points associated with the Huang (called by the name Shang Huang).  Thus, among the lower points associated with the Huang are one which treats the Small Intestine, one which engages the Sea of Qi, and two which relate to the Chong Mai (known as the Sea of Blood), as well as to the Kidneys.  I have been unable to locate any points on the chest which relate to the Huang.

On the back,  BL43 is the Gate of the Gao Huang, and it is indicated for moxabustion in cases where no other treatments are working.  I seem to recall Jeffrey Yuen saying that in the Tang dynasty this was one of the most popular points to use.  BL43 would correspond to the ‘spirit point’ associated with the PC (or specifically, with JueYin, which, as was mentioned at the outset, is associated with malarial disorders in the Shang Hang Lun).  However, the PC does not store any named spirits, not being a solid organ.  The PC and JueYin, however, are responsible for clarifying the blood.  Moxa on this point would indicate either that the function of JueYin is weak and in need of tonification, or that cold has invaded that area and is compromising its function (or both).  Again, we have an association with blood, and I would posit if an upper point were to be associated with the Huang on the Chest, it would be either PC-1 or CV-17.  I wonder if these are the points to which the Chong ultimately ‘scatters’?

Treating the membrane source thus seems to draw on the functions of how qi and blood relate to one another in forming the human body — and possibly also underlies the emergence of shen from the union of qi and blood.  If this process breaks down, the shen departs; thus the importance of using these points in diseases otherwise difficult to cure.

I may have to revisit this post to clarify the concepts under discussion, so any helpful comments about what areas need the most attention to make the logic clear would be helpful.

As always, this post is for entertainment purposes only.  If you feel that acupuncture or Chinese Herbal medicine may benefit you, please contact a qualified practitioner.  Happy Slayage!

Impotence. It can come as a shock when it suddenly happens.  We witness Spike’s confusion, as well as the efforts of his would-be participant to help assuage his feelings.  While Spike wonders at the sheer fact that things aren’t working, Willow tries to figure out why it might not be working, in the hopes that a solution could be found.

In Spike’s case, we later learn the chip in his brain is the source of the problem.  Since this is a pure mechanical action, the solution would seem easy enough:  remove the chip.  However, we can analyse the mechanism by which that chip affects his system in Chinese Medical terms.  After such an analysis, we could try to circumvent its actions through various herbal medicines and acupuncture protocols.

In order to do that, however, we must take a look at what collection of symptoms Spike is displaying.  Specifically, what are the changes we see in Spike’s physicality as a result of this chip?

Despite the best efforts of make-up artists to conceal the effects of imprisonment on Spike, his pale lips lips and grey complexion could not be hidden.  The greyness can be seen especially along the Small Intestine line as it crosses the zygoma.  These two factors present the first clues:  the SI channel is devoid of its red colour; and the pale lips indicate a lack of blood.  So we might look at how either the TaiYang (Small Intestine) or ShaoYin (the Small Intestine’s internal pair, the Heart) may be affected.

In addition to the visually observed symptoms, we also see Spike’s emotional swings, particularly an uprush of anger, or more specifically, of hot-headedness, despite his frailty from forced starvation in the prison.  Later we see that in addition to his impotence, he seems to suffer from sudden and acute neurogenic headaches.

In contrast to Buffy’s expressed stamina, Spike’s qi and yang is bottled up, possibly due to a lack of communication between the interior ShaoYin and exterior TaiYang.  In terms of herbal medicine, this qi inversion fits the pattern of the Shang Han Lun‘s formula, Si Ni San.

The formula name, which literally means ‘Four Inversions Powder’ is often called ‘Frigid Extremities Powder’ today.  Its indications include cold fingertips and toe tips, impotence (i.e. cold tip of the penis), neurogenic headache, LV-SP disharmony, and hot headedness, among other signs, including ‘rectal heaviness’ — presumably referring to certain types of hemorrhoids or piles.

In (Chinese) clinical practice, it increases blood pressure in patients with low blood pressure, and is given in Japan to patients with tight rectus abdominis muscles in the upper abdomen.  It also treats vexing heat in the heart and chest, including irritability.  Other signs include a red tongue with yellow coating, and if Spike had a pulse, a wiry presentation would complete his being a textbook case for this formula’s use.

Note this formula isn’t for cold or yin preventing diffusion of yang, nor for heat inversion preventing diffusion of yang (indicated by dark urine and symptoms more appropriate for Bai Hu Tang).  The sensation of cold is present only at the tips of extremities.  Rather, this formula is for the internal constraint of yang qi when the TaiYang-ShaoYin dynamic is upset.

Si Ni San is composed of  equal parts of the following powdered herbs:

Chai Hu (Radix Bupleuri); Gan Cao (Radix Glycyrrizae); Shao Yao/ Bai Shao (Radix Paeoniae Albae); and Zhi Shi (Fructus  Immaturus Citri Aurantii).

A debate exists over why this formula is classified as a ShaoYin formula, given its chief herb Chai Hu — a herb usually associated with the Liver and Gallbladder channels, or the ShaoYang channel system as a whole.  To enter that debate, let us examine each herb separately:

Chai Hu is the generally accepted ‘chief’ herb of the formula.  According to Dr Huang Huang, who specialises in Shang Han Lun formulas, people who benefit the most from this herb are easily affected by changes, whether of temperature, air pressure, emotional context, or environment; and their appetite is easily affected by emotions. Chai Hu is usually associated with the Liver and Gallbladder, as it treats the alternating cold and heat characteristic of ShaoYang (GB) patterns.  However, it also releases the exterior, and the Divine Farmer specifies that it treats bound qi in the Heart.  The Heart, of course, is one of two ShaoYin organs, the other being the Kidneys.  (Kidneys are often associated with male sexual function in Chinese medicine.)  The HT, though, is sovereign fire; Chai Hu is associated with ministerial fire.  We will return to this relationship in the context of Chai Hu in a moment.

Likewise, Bai Shao is usually associated with the LV, because of Bai Shao’s astringent and blood-nourishing properties.  Because the LV stores blood and Bai Shao nourishes and brings in the blood it forms, this association is easy enough to understand.  Yet it is specifically when dry fried that Bai Shao nourishes blood; when raw, it harmonises the Ying or nourishing qi.  One can argue that Bai Shao, in this formula gives substance for the HT’s role in pumping nourishment through the body by generating blood.  In other words, the HT needs something to pump, otherwise it gets vexed and exhausted; Bai Shao supplies that substance.  However, I would argue that the role of BaiShao is focused more specifically on smoothing out the Ying Qi carried within the vessels and under the control of the Heart.  Chai Hu releases bound qi in the Heart; Bai Shao allows it to become unknotted along its pathways.

In addition to the Heart, the SI is also involved in the process of blood formation; and as Tai Yang, is involved in opening and closing the pores.  Being the most superficial of the six channels, it is the ultimate goal of the formula, inasmuch as the TaiYang helps keep the body’s surface warm and comfortable.  When its qi is depleted — as can be seen in Spike’s grey cheeks — the SI cannot supply the HT with blood, and the ShaoYin dynamic is upset.  The disruption of the ShaoYin dynamic, involving both the HT and KD, thus prevents the sort of performance Spike has come to expect of himself.  (Climax, as a side note, is due to a discharge of fire from the HT to KD essence, giving it a motile force out of the body.  A patient with difficult ejaculation might benefit from looking at the shao-yin dynamic, with a treatment focused on nourishing of KD water and a diffusion of HT fire.)

Zhi Shi is a key herb to explore when the Tai Yang and SI are considered.  Although zhi shi is usually though of as a LV qi constraint relieving herb today, the Divine Farmer claims zhi shi treats ‘great wind in the skin’ (the sort of wind that causes itching ‘like hundreds of flax seeds’); it also treats cold and heat, and heat constraint.  The skin in this instance would be the domain of TaiYang, and because heat constraint is mentioned here one would be more prone to think of the skin’s relationship to TaiYang, rather than its association with the Lungs.  (If the skin were dry, rough, or flakey, I would be more prone to examine the Lung’s role in diffusing fluids, but I would not rule out an examination based on the six channels.)  As a side note, zhi shi also relieves heaviness of the rectum and treats hemmorhoids (wind in the intestines — not necessarily the large intestine only).  The herb also treats blockage of food and reduced appetite — and I would argue this reduced appetite isn’t the sort found in the upper abdomen, where the stomach just feels ‘blah’, but the deeper, more small intestine area, where one feels a desire not to involve oneself with food.  (Of course, Spike wasn’t interested in feeding off Willow or Buffy, so much as just killing them in a way that might give him some additional pleasure.  Whether this could be considered a lack of appetite or not is debatable.)  Interestingly, the sixteenth century physician Wang Qing-Ren associates the yuan-qi’s mansion with the mesentery of the SI, permitting a connexion between the SI and the KD, another TaiYang-ShaoYin interrelationship at work.

All that remains to be looked at now is Gan Cao.  Wang Ang (seventeenth century) said Gan Cao drains Heart fire and nourishes yin blood.  It also supplements the triple burner (minster fire) — and can thus draw off heat constrained in the heart by promoting the function of the san jiao mechanism.  In fact, it is my contention that Si Ni San is thus a formula to be used when the pathology is located in the ShaoYin qi dynamic but where the TaiYang is compromised (thus not allowing the use of such formulas as Dao Chi San, which guides out heat through the Small Intestine) or in which the heat doesn’t need to be guided out or vented outwards so much as released to the surface TaiYang.  As mentioned above, the TaiYang itself is not necessarily compromised by a blockage or ‘bi’ syndrome, but is perhaps slightly ‘empty’ due to an interrupted connexion with the ShaoYin substances.  The mechanism which is harnessed for this effect is the ShaoYang system of the Triple Heater and Gallbladder.

Hence the presence of herbs usually associated with the LV, GB, and SJ; not because those systems are diseased, but because they are healthy and can support or mediate between the ShaoYin and TaiYang.  LV blood supports the Heart when the Small Intestine cannot transform Red to support blood (‘hua chi wei xue‘).  Meanwhile, Minister Fire vents heat away from the Heart and brings it to the surface, where the TaiYang then functions to ‘xu‘ or warm-comfort the body with warmth — like the sort of warm spring day (‘xu ri‘ in Mandarin) that many people find comfortable.  Thus Chai Hu unbinds the qi of the HT, the Gan Cao flushes that Heat away through the TW, and the Zhi Shi guides that heat outward towards Tai Yang, while the Bai Shao smoothes the ying qi that had been compromised on the interior.  (Zhi Shi and Bai Shao thus act to spread wei and ying qi, harmonising them in a different way from Gui Zhi and Bai Shao or Sheng Jiang and Da Zao.)

As for acupuncture, a simple unblocking of the qi dynamic should suffice.  For this, I would use points on both the ShaoYin and TaiYang channels. Specifically, I would focus on xi-cleft points, which treat counterflow qi and which relieve pain.  Pain, in general, is caused by a stagnation of qi, and thus xi-cleft points facilitate movement of qi along their particular paths.

Thus we have as options HT-6 (clears deficient Heart heat, which implies a lack of blood, or lack of blood going where it needs to go), KD-5 (used for delayed menstruation, thus clinically warrants exploration for delayed ejaculation or erection — i.e. blood and essence not descending), BL-63 (head pain, used in acupuncture anesthesia during cranial surgery), and SI-6.  SI-6 does not seem relevant for our purposes (‘supporting the aged’ is the name of the point), even if Spike is a century or so old…  BL-58 and SI-17 would also be useful.  The former has an alternate name with the character for ‘counterflow’ in it, and as the luo point, connects the TaiYang BL with the ShaoYin-KD.  SI-17 is a Window to the Sky point, and thus relates to the movement of the four limbs; in this case, it is also a point formerly on the GB channel — and thus may duplicate the action of Chai Hu in the sense of harnessing the ShaoYang to benefit TaiYang.

As always, these posts are for entertainment purposes only.  If you feel Chinese Medicine may benefit your own ability to perform, please see a qualified practitioner. 

Happy Slayage!