|
Energy Anatomy
"The most subtle body consists of fine channels called nadi along which a number
of plexus points or chakras are disposed. A so-called "wind energy" circulates through
this system, which is basically inseparable from consciousness, but in its most gross forms manifests
as passions like anger and lust. In the unregenerate individual, the nadi are knotted up, so the movement
of the wind energy is vitiated." John Snelling - The Buddhist Handbook -
Rider 1998 p116
To really understand our physiology and anatomy, and thereby have a profound
effect upon the health of the individual, we need to understand how our spirit interacts with
our subtle body, and how this subtle body interacts with our physical body. In reality,
these three bodies are of course one, an amazing combined weave of awareness and
energies and matter that provides our consciousness with a vehicle for this life. The
practical question that has been asked by healers through the ages, is how this actually
works?
I have attempted to answer this question from principals that
have been tested and proven to work in clinical practice on a large range of
health problems ranging from knee, back and shoulder problems to hearing loss,
thyroid and kidney malfunctions, chronic fatigue and depression.
While the specific effects of attitudes and emotions on the interactions of
the chakra centers with meridians and their consequent specific effects on the
physical body, provide many of the keys in determining the cause and thereby
the cure of illness, there are aspects of the energy system that are generally
unknown and thereby, usually untreatable. While we call successful "cures"
miracles, as St Augustine said "Miracles are only unknown laws.".
Increasing our knowledge of these unknown laws is enormously useful to health
practice, regardless of the modality.
The following example illustrates aspects of the energy system that are over
looked by medicine in general and illustrate the advantages of this new knowledge
in a clinical situation.
Example:
The client, JS, was a very engaging, sprightly man in his early 70’s who sought
treatment initially for a hearing problem. However, his most interesting problem
from my point of view was how he got up on the table. He initially stepped up
with one leg, and then had to step down and change his feet. He apologised and
said that he had a problem with that foot. He had lost the ability to push off on
the left foot after a back operation thirty years previously.
He had the back operation after five years of walking around bent over,
from pain in his back. The surgeon had "cured" this by removing parts of two
prolapsed discs at L4 and L5. Unfortunately, this also affected the movement of
the foot. JS was so overjoyed at being able to stand up straight, that he
accepted this loss without a drama, although he tried the usual treatments such as
chiropractic, physio etc without success. At this point, he also mentioned that he had
lost feeling in the pad of the foot.
I thought this was very interesting, particularly as in Acupuncture, the Ba Feng points which
are between the toes, are specifically indicated for parathesia and restricted movement. By
directing energy to these points I succeeded in reactivating feeling in his foot but not
movement. I then proceeded to direct a stream of energy to an area, which corresponds to the heel
knot in the Foot-Shaoyin muscle region in TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) and the Kurchashira
marma point in Yoga. This also corresponds generally to the lower lumbar area in Reflexology and
the heel point of Acu-Energetics. The point went crazy and pulsed and rotated for several minutes
before calming down. I then pushed against the foot and asked JS to push back. He did and his
full foot function was restored after thirty years in a matter of ten minutes.
Of course this was only the beginning. As he had not used his left calf muscle properly for
thirty years it had atrophied and it was only about a third of the size of the right hand side
calf. After several months of walking on the beach and the golf course (where his game had
improved dramatically due to better balance) I saw him again and noted that although he had
movement in the ankle, he could not lift the toes independently and tap his foot. He also noted
that walking for several miles in sand gave him a twinge in the area of his old back injury.
Acu-Energetic balancing of this area to the edge of the heel, restored the ability to tap his
toes and strengthened and balanced the whole leg. His walking was much improved as soon as he
got off the treatment table.
| Why was his problem described as impossible to fix? Because the people who
treated him did not understand the nature of the energy system that is the body,
and instead, thought in terms of physical levers and pulleys. They assumed that nerve
damage had resulted as a consequence of the operation to the back but more fundamentally,
they assumed that: |
| • |
nerves alone were responsible for
communication between parts of the body, in this case the
spine and the foot, and |
| • |
that a severance of these nerves meant that
the wires were cut and no communication could ensue |
| • |
that movement itself is activated by "throwing" a
switch in the brain which results in the transmission of a message along the
solidstate pathways of the nervous system. |
This in itself is an interesting piece of thinking. We have wireless systems,
we communicate sound and vision through the ether as part and parcel of our daily
world. Why do we still think the body works like a primitive mechanical toy?
In JS’s case, the assumption was that the foot and leg always had the potential for
movement, it was just that the signal to give movement couldn’t be delivered because the
hardwired nerve communication link had been severed. The patient’s recovery of full
use of his foot, albeit thirty years later, draws into considerable doubt, the assumptions
on which his original treatment was based.
In his book, Energy Medicine in Therapeutics and Human
Performance, (Butterworth Heinemann 2003) James Oschman tells the
story of a dancer who trained a paraplegic with a severed spinal
cord to crawl using trance dance techniques of breathing, sound
and movement that she had learned in Haiti. The process took several years but it is a
very good demonstration of a fundamental discrepancy between what we believe and
what actually happens in the body. The development of our understanding of how our
bodies actually work is having, and will continue to have, an enormous influence on the
future treatment of injury.
Kevin Farrow
Back to main Articles page
|
