Origin of Acupuncture and Moxibustion

Script: https://tcmpodcast.me/episode-02-getting-rid-of-time-consuming-habits/

Most people, when they face Chinese Medicine at some point, are primarily interested in how TCM can benefit their health, which conditions it can treat and how it works. Few people would ever wonder about its origins - when, and more importantly, why the ancient Chinese began to treat diseases by puncturing the body with bare needles or use herbs to relieve sickness. So far only few researchers paid attention to these questions; most Chinese Medicine textbooks and acupuncture practicums mention origin of TCM as uniform theory without much coherently identified evidence. According to standard, widely used theory in P.R. China acupuncture had its origins early in the Late Stone Age (the Neolithic Age, c. 8000-3500 BC) and developed gradually over many thousands of years through a process of trials and errors. The traumatic nature of acupuncture, and it's treatment protocols may appear quite crude by modem standards. We do recognize long history in China full of various inventions and discoveries. However, if the accepted knowledge is correct, we are confronted with a great mystery. Why did acupuncture, unlike any other healing system, appear only in ancient China and nowhere else in the classical world? As a matter of fact, it was a great and relatively sudden invention based on theory as well as practice, which occurred in classical China, not long before the birth of Christ. The Western Han Dynasty arose over 2000 years ago. This is a considerable span of time in the overall history of human civilization. However, in the context of China's 4000 years of recorded history, the civilization of the Western Han was actually more modern than primitive. The previous centuries had seen the blossoming of Chinese culture during the intellectual give-and-take of the Spring and Autumn (110-416 BC) and Warring States 415-221 BC) Periods, and the subsequent territorial unification of China by the Qin Dynasty (221-201 BC) laid a foundation for the cultural integration of the diverse states. Acupuncture was one of the fruits of this rich period of Chinese history. Many aspects of Chinese culture, including technology, geography, philosophy and social relations, contributed to the invention and development of acupuncture. For example, through their work with flood control the Chinese ancestors learned to use dredging to remove obstacles and direct the flow of water through riverbeds, the channels of the Earth. This led to the realization that needling could be similarly used to remove obstructions and stimulate the flow of Qi through the meridians, the channels of the body. The holistic application of the same principle allowed the classical Chinese both to control flooding and to treat disease and disorder. This intuitive association between the channels of the Earth (the macrocosm) and the channels of the body (the microcosm) may seem strange to modern readers, but holism, the awareness that each part mirrors the whole, was one of the most fundamental principles of classical Chinese philosophy. Chinese holistic thought regards humanity, society and Nature as an organic, unified whole. The human body is seen as a microcosmic image of Nature. It is believed that Human and Nature are similarly constituted and governed by the same laws, and that their disorders can therefore be similarly managed. The invention of acupuncture was a direct outgrowth of this holistic philosophy. Web: https://www.meer.com/en/42163-the-origin-of-acupuncture-and-moxibustion 

Info: www.tcmpodcast.me