Click here to download the transcript.

Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

To the point, generously sponsored by the American Acupuncture Council today. My guest is Leta Herman. And I’m Virginia Duran of Lumina beauty.com. And LE’s gonna talk about the ghost points and her special approach to treating them. Leta was on, I think it was last month on my show. And I don’t know if we need to introduce you again.

Thank you to the American Acupuncture Council for having me on the show. Yeah, I’ve been in practice for, over 20 years in teaching, a lot of different concepts related to alchemy. And so the 13 ghost points are alchemical treatments and we have a teaching a school called alchemy learning center.com.

And so we also have a clinic in Northampton, Massachusetts alchemy healing center.com. But my history is that I’ve been doing this work for a very long time. And I study extensively with Jeffrey UN. Who a lot of this work, I was doing the ghost points before I met Jeffrey UN, but a lot of the work since then, since, early two thousands has been about Jeffrey’s, influence on my work.

Yeah, that’s good. And tell us, or for anybody who doesn’t know or at least your view of the ghost since not everybody uses them and they may not understand them the same way as you. So there are actually quite a few ghost points, 20 ghost points, and they were invented a very long time ago, but sun, which is also a very long time ago, sun, the king of medicine in China, a very famous practitioner decided to put together 13 of.

And these 13, he called the 13 ghost points and he wrote a what’s called the song of the 13 ghost points and owed. That explains how to do this mysterious treat. And it wasn’t, it really was a different kind of treatment and it really was for ghosts or obsessive thinking or any kind of obsession.

And so if you take these individual ghost points that, we all have learned and you just do one or two of them, you’re not really accessing the power of the ghost points. You can do one or two in the mode that. Working with them as a unit of 13, you can even do three is a common way.

People do them two or three of them in a treatment, but you need to understand the deeper ways of working with them, which I call getting into the void of your heart. And so in terms of just how you’re gonna do these points, they’re almost like rich ritualistic points. You have to think about the influence of doism on the treatments.

So those are some things to think about. And so the way that we are working with them is gonna look very different than, modern, classical or TCM type of practices. Do you, is there any kind of energetic flow with them? Like the way Meridian acupuncture looks at things? That’s a really good question.

They’re their own. Yeah, that’s the really good question. The flow isn’t so much aligned with the meridians at all. The flow has to do with things that are more external to a person. How I interact and react to the world would be the beginning of the treatment. And as you walk through the treatment, we’re looking at deeper and deeper issues.

So by the time you get to the last point, which is the identity of a person. You’re talking about the deepest kernel of a person’s authentic self. So you’re you’re beginning at what I like to call the door to your palace due 26 and you’re ending at well, there’s two alternative points.

We can explain that later, but we’re ending at what I like to call the identity of a person. Like when you came into the U in utero and you were a fetus, who was that spirit before you were even born and messed with by life who is that person? Yeah. And so that’s the flow. And do we know why he chose those 13 out of the.

No, we do not know why, from years and years of having treated these points, I do a as I’ve gotten more and more sophisticated, I really see that one leads to the next. And in my more advanced classes, I try to explain this, but it could take, hours for me to go through it.

But so it’s definitely a longer topic, but if you really look at the flow of things, And how things basically, how does like a trauma let’s say you experience a trauma, you were in a car accident. Okay. So now how is that trauma going to infiltrate into you and begin to really mess with you?

So in other words, we know a common. Side effect of having been in a car accident, let’s say you were on the highway every time you’re in that particular situation. Again, your body gets tense, you don’t, you’re looking around. You’re really alert. You’re in hyper drive, it’s like these are common, reactions to having had an accident before.

So how deep does that go? How much does that affect you? And that sort of how this flow of the treatment works. You begin to see that the more serious traumas are going to get in much deeper than. Oh, I had a little accident. I was a little traumatized for a few days. Maybe I was in shock, and then I got over it and I forgot about it.

And I moved on, so not much, or, something that changed your life dramatically. And we all have clients that come in and they’re like, ever since that day I’ve been changed dramatically. And that’s when you start thinking a 13 goes points, treatment would be really fantastic.

. Yeah, I see. What do you sense when you’re doing it? I wanna ask how the, how you do the treatment, but between the differences between these various ghost points and are they all involved with something like a trauma? Are there certain ones that you find seem to be more implicated? It’s certainly not just for trauma because there’s life circumstances that go on for a very long time.

That can be very trauma, like in a life let’s say you have parents who, when you get into your teens they’re just on you all the time. Be like me. I don’t like who you are. That’s very. Traumatizing, you might not consider it like a car accident or sexual abuse know or like trauma, but parental indoctrination or, yeah, there are a lot of things like that maybe in modern society, we wouldn’t think of as trauma.

Just even neglect by a parent. Is something the ghost points would be very helpful with. So you have to expand your horizons on really more. What we’re looking at is the symptom. What is the symptom? The symptom is, obsessive thinking and, or even some kind of entity possession, if you wanna go there.

Definitely I use the ghost points in my practice, mostly for. As I, I said before in our last podcast, anytime someone who is pretty much older than the age of 20 is as you move along in life, you accumulate more of these things. And so we go, oh, I don’t want that to ever happen again.

And every time we say no, that I’m never gonna let that happen again. That means we are on the alert constantly. For any scenario that looks like the previous scenario so that we can make sure it never happens again. Yeah. So that’s a lot of work. It’s exhausting. For, again, for anyone who’s older over the age of 20 I, I used to think the ghost points were really just for extreme cases of psychosis and, extreme O C, D or ex all kinds of things that we see, in our practice mental issues I used to think it was just for that.

And then what happened was I would treat people and their loved ones would say, wow, this person is completely changing, doing so great. I want that treatment and then I started doing it with them and I said, wow, look, it’s more mild with like you or me, if we had it and we’re not having any of those other symptoms.

Of psychosis or mental illness of any type. But these days, a lot of people have at least anxiety, if you think of that as a mental illness. So what we’re looking at is expanding the idea of these points to more of a general population and saying, yeah, not everyone needs that.

Some people are really living pure in themselves. Just really their authentic selves. They’re beautiful selves. They’re just really living who they are and they wouldn’t be a good candidate for this, but the rest of us , who’ve been around a while. We get a little funky and.

Most of the time is cuz we don’t want that thing to happen again. And that’s where the ghost points can really help. So I certainly still do them with people who have been diagnosed with mental illness and that level, but I’m also expanding it to say a lot of us need that right now. And I think in this society, I have seen a huge increase in people who are anxious.

Or depressed then, when I started 20 years ago. So I think it’s just been more and more something that has helped people and that I believe could help a lot more people there. It’s there’s something in the air people are feeling, and they don’t necessarily understand what it is.

And so it’s UNC. Panic or confusion, or could be depression that, is this gonna go on? What’s our future. And yeah, I think it’s very valid. So because you do a much longer, like a four to six hour treatment, can you kinda walk us through it because it’s, I think it’s hard for people to envision.

How do you do the good points in 46 hours? What is it that you’re doing differently? Okay. So imagine, trying to do something radical to help someone in an hour. We all know what the feeling is. When the clinician says time’s up, see you later. And you’re like,

so what we decided to do maybe 15 years ago or more was what if. And this isn’t just for the ghost points. There are other alchemical treatments and even the Worsely treatments like the IDs and the EDS can be done in this format. What we decided to do is say, What if the person could put aside time and space in their life to work on their stuff for the day, we’re not, we only say four to six hours because you really can’t predict, but you gotta give the person a little bit of okay, I should be available between these hours of the day.

Yeah. But what if we said there’s no time limit? What if we said you can tell your whole story in one session? I had a therapist the other day say to me I’ve never, and this is a psychotherapist. She said, I have never. Told my whole story to one person in one sitting in my entire life. And even if nothing else happens from this treatment today, she said that is such a healing and such a gift.

So if not everyone wants to tell their whole story in the ghost pointing treatment, but if that’s what, obviously what she wants, she’s a psychotherapist. But, in terms of what happens if I create a space for you to enter into and to give. Complete attention, complete presence and no judgment, none.

And I allow you to let whatever happens happen. You bring the treatment. I don’t do the treatment. I just facilitate the treatment by walking through this ancient sort of almost like a ritual of points. And as we go through those points, I can talk to you about what each theme is. So each point has a theme.

And as I say what do you think about the door and how you interface with the world? Since that trauma, did it change who you are? And then we begin to have this like really intelligent conversation about. Oh, yeah. Before that, I, when I was a little kid, I used to do things like this and I used to be like really social and now I’m not.

And so what changed that person? And so as you go through theme and you take your time and you don’t switch to a new point until that theme is done until you feel in your. Body mind, spirit that, okay, that’s good. I can move on to the next point, which is a big skill that we teach and how to develop that.

But all of us do that in our Chinese medicine treatments as acupuncturists, when the, the point is done, it’s just a little bit harder if you’re gonna spend an hour on one point . So we take our time and as part of how these treatments were done, traditionally was with music.

And so the idea is to bring in another vibrational component, we have the vibration of the point and the manipulation of the needles. However, you’re doing that. But in terms of how they looked at it now, remember a lot of these were DOIs priests. They did chanting, they played symbols and wood blocks and all kinds of instruments.

And so they would bring music. And so in the modern day, once the technology, now I started this before this was available. Once the iPod technology came out and the idea of shuffling songs and having a large body of music that you can access we now do that. We do it to music and it’s incredibly powerful.

I call it the divine DJ yeah. Oh, that’s funny. With the long treatments, this is something that I do in my own, in regular acupuncture, as well as the facial acupuncture, because I feel like you just can’t do really deep, transformative work. I can’t in a short period. There’s some perhaps that can, but I want to. relax into it and go deeper and deeper.

And I want the patient to have that experience instead of it being this sudden, I want it to be a smooth entry and exit, so to speak of in the treatment. So with you, do you find. Possible to do, cuz realistically it may not be possible for all practitioners to do this.

Maybe their patients can’t afford extended time sessions. How do you work with that? I. That’s a great question. And it’s probably the number one question that practitioners ask me. So when we teach our apprentices how to do these treatments, we start them by doing one point in the session or two points in a session.

And we pick points that from the ghost point, That aren’t going to disregulate a person too much because what can happen? What I love about doing the whole session in one, one day is that as you go through these points, you’re gonna get stirred up a little bit and sometimes a lot of it, and you’re gonna have a lot of things released and it’s nice to wrap it up in that day and to send them off with.

Some things resolved, to really get revolution. And that’s why it takes so long. And then I have them come back the next day or within a week and do a follow up session to make sure that they’re stable and not disregulated by, in some cases opening Pandora’s box. Frankly, if you’ve had a lot of really traumatic stuff in your childhood, it could feel like Pandora’s box.

If that happens, you need to make sure you’re there for them, the next day or the day after. And it can happen that someone feels that way. It’s rare that it’s like really distressing for them. Because again, if you do them together, there’s a resolution, there’s an elegant kind of map of that.

And they usually end up going home feeling like, yes, I feel great. But that’s, again, everyone’s different. And so that’s why I do this, what I call the follow up session that I include in it. So if you’re gonna break it down and say, Hey, I’d like to do the 13 ghost points over a period of time.

And if you wanted to map it out and do that, I’ve done that with people. But the risk you’re taking is that the person’s going to have to go home and deal with those emotions. Yes that may, maybe each point is accessing. And in some cases it’s too much for them. They’re not able to do that on their own.

They don’t have, me in their pocket as they go home going, Hey, it’s okay that you have these feelings. Let’s, the safe container. That I create in the room. Isn’t with them at home, they’ve got their partner, filling up whatever. So let’s say you just wanted to do a few, then there’s a few that I often teach in my webinars that are pretty safe.

So due 26 is my favorite one. And that is called ghost palace, but I like to call it the doer palace because it, it basically is the entryway. How you breathe, how you eat. It’s symbolizing, how things get interface with you. And so if that, one is out of whack in you cause of something that happened and you, and now, like you don’t know, maybe you used to have an open door to the world and now it’s like shut and you’ve got some locks on there and a little people, and you’re just really cautious everywhere you go.

That’s not the true, authentic, you. That’s the trauma that’s made that happen. But however, that’s a point that isn’t really that triggering for people in terms of, some of the deeper points like pericardium eight is later in the treatment. Now that point is for deep part pain. So you have to, so I actually had a person, I was treating the ghost points with over time and we got to this point and the strangest thing happened.

We treated it. And she went home that day and wherever she went that day, people screamed at her like at the gas station, like at the line, getting. She went home and her partner screamed at her. It, her kids and it, and, but here’s the weird thing. When I was doing the point, I wanted to scream at her and I didn’t know where that came from.

That’s never happened to me before, but something in her was evoking from the external world, what she felt and the trauma she had was so significant. Intense probably, I say there’s no hierarchy to paint, but most of the people in the world would’ve said, okay, her turn, she wins she wins that at very unfortunate contest.

And so that she was like the picture of the scream painting, she was like the. In herself. And so when she activated that point, now it, it made people outside of her, like furious with her. They wanted to scream at her. It was very bizarre. So that, , that’s an extreme example, but a lot of ghost points, stories sound really extreme, but there’d one off, that’s that happened once.

So I don’t want you to think. Yeah, sure. Every time we do. I see a couple questions coming in. One is a. You obviously can’t build their insurance. Okay. Here’s the thing I think. Every case is different. And to me, it depends on if you’re doing them in one hour sessions. It’s, as far as an insurance company is concerned, I think it’s just acupuncture.

However you build that. If you’re, if you wanted an all day session, like I would actually recommend, that’s gonna just depend on your insurance company and what they. Say about a long session. Like they might be more open to a two hour session. And maybe you break it up into longer chunks.

Like you were saying, Virginia, maybe you do two hour sessions. That’s enough to at least I would recommend, two hour sessions at a minimum. If you’re gonna, if you’re gonna try to break it up for insurance purposes, I think you might get coverage for that perhaps so while one person asked are the points done?

Bilaterally? Yes. And then also somebody said, where is there something more written about it from you in the way that you’re doing. I like the book it’s through the mystery gate, is it? Yes. Yeah. The book through the mystery gate explains alchemy in general, and we have some case studies that we included in the book in terms of points, we have a ghost points online workshop@thealchemylearningcenter.com and we have an apprent.

and we have classes that are more in general, not just the points themselves. So if you’re thinking, whoever asks this question, if you’re thinking about doing this, I recommend also looking at what I call the becoming and alchemical healer classes that we’re going to be. Having on the site in the future and alive at different times.

So you have to just go check the site out, but those kinds of classes are more about the technique than the physical points, the points you already know, we’re gonna explain them more in the classes, if you wanna take a class in and the ghost points, but the really hard doing that as an online class, we.

It’s always available so you can sign up yeah. At the alchemy learning center.com. And so you wrote on with, I have the transcript from your webinar with Lotus and each point is your teacher. Yeah. You must develop your own relationship with each point. I love that. So I don’t know if there’s anything more you wanna say about.

Or any specifics. So I think what I really think about what I bring to this work, because it’s not like there’s any secrets out there. Like we all know what since emails owed is you can find it online. But what does it mean? And so even when I learned it from my different teachers They explained it more technically, and as we use the points over and over again, so I’m doing two or three of these treatments a week, so I’m really learning.

So they teach me. So over time, for example, calling this the door to your palace was something that I began to feel maybe 10 years ago. So I started saying, oh, wow, whenever I’m doing this point, people wanna talk about this topic. and when I learned what the character meant. For the point. It did.

It does mean that when they say palace for that as a translation, what they’re talking about is the part of the palace where the common people can come in. So it’s the interface of the palace. It’s like a big courtyard or hall where, you know, where everyone gets met, as opposed to later in the treat.

There’s another point due 23, which is called or often translated as hall, you can translate it many different ways, of course, but that hall character is the hall that’s closest to the emperor’s bedroom. So it’s the place where the safest people get entry. . So how does that interact or interface with the pericardium?

Energetic. I think of that. Yes. Think of the heart is a sovereign rule and you have your small official, official at the outer gate. Then you have the pericardium official yes. Regarding the inner gate so that the heart is not, or the sovereign is not burden with all the dramas of life and or people’s dramas.

So is it that kind of. . Yes. So actually there are two pericardium points in the list of the 13 ghost points, and there’s actually a number other of other paracardial points that are ghost points that aren’t in the 13, but the two that are in the 13 are pericardium seven and pericardium eight. And interestingly pericardium seven is playing the role of more that outer level. It’s it? It comes in the treatment at the point where things start to get deeper. But they’re not quite deep yet. So the first Trinity is really about how the trauma on the outer part of you, like, how do I see the world differently now?

How do I interact with the world? I would explain how do I see the world differently? And now how. How do I trust that things are okay? Do I start having am I racked with doubt for the first time? Yeah. About what’s gonna happen out in the world. So those are very external things. And then as we go to the second Trinity points, pericardium seven is the first one.

So you would think that would be a really deep point, but what it is it’s transition. Okay. Now that this is happening all out there. How are my relationships gonna change? How am, how is my heart gonna start to feel about interactions still with the outside world, but it’s that interface that, that pericardium that heart protector function that pericardium seven points about.

And then much later in the treatment, right before the intimacy point we just talked about due 23 is pericardium. and it’s like, where do we store our deepest heart pains, in the void of the heart in, so it’s representative of much deeper issues. So that, that, that’s how now, oddly, there’s no small intestine point in the beginning.

It’s not really it, small inte doesn’t. Ma talks about pericardium six for like breakups and relationships and the, that, those kind of yeah. Traumas. And then he says pericardium seven for men for men makes me, yeah. Okay regarding sex for women. So I, it just made me think do you find a difference that might be attributable to, we know about the differences in pulses between male and female.

Is there any difference you notice with the ghost points between the two sexes? We’re gonna limit it to that. Oh, between the two sexes. I was gonna talk about Perone six of pero seven. Okay. Oh, about that? Yeah, that would be really interesting. I’ll hold that thought. Between the sexes. Other than the physical points, we do a different point for men than women on the ghost.

Hidden. Theme. We do Ren one for men and we do an extra point called you men on women, which is above the clitoris. So that’s, obvi an obvious difference. But other than that, I’d have to think about it because nothing comes to mind about the differences. Like he’s saying. However, Perone six of Perone seven is a really interesting topic because in another treatment that we do in alchemy, which is called, I call the nine heart pains.

Treatment and that we’re going through all the pericardium points in as part of the treatment . And as we get to pericardium, actually we go reverse direction in the pericardium channel, as we do pericardium seven. Now, remember pericardium seven is often translated as burial ground. So what is that person needing to put in the ground?

What do we wanna have a funeral for? Oh, that rape that I had that has plagued my entire life and made me miserable from that day forward. Maybe it’s time to set it aside and bury it in the ground and say, can I put it away? Can I let it go? Can I let it go? So as part of this long treatment of heart pains, we’re working through some, I’m just using a very extreme example.

Of course, then when I get to paracardial, It’s okay, now maybe you successfully put that away. And can you now open your heart? That inner frontier. Can I allow that pericardium now to begin to like a flower begin to transform and open again. So that would be Perone six. And again, that wouldn’t really matter.

Male or female this is a good example of why a longer time, a longer session, a longer treatment is all more viable because we’re running outta time. Yes, according to this program. And I just say about male, female, that I just forgot. That’s really obvious. We start with male on the left and we start with female on the right when you’re treating bilaterally.

So that’s an obvious difference. That might answer somebody’s question. Yes. A little bit. There’s so many, so much more we could say, but thank you so much for doing this, taking your time and It’s just such a fascinating topic love to know more about it. So I wanna also thank the American Acupuncture Council for hosting the show and all the work they’re doing.

And I’m grateful leader for people like you who are exploring the outer reaches in such a beautiful way. Thank you for tuning. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Oh, sure. Thank you. Okay, so your website again, alchemy learning center.com and alchemy learning center.com.

Yeah. And you can look at the live event page for, upcoming live streams. Great. And on luminous beauty.com, having some problems with my website, but you can email me if you have a question. So thank you again, and we will see you all soon. Bye. Thank.

 

 

 

And in terms of saying that alchemy in Chinese medicine, Is this idea that we’re all perfect. We just don’t know it.

Click here to download the transcript.

Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hello, and welcome to another edition of, To The Point. Very generously produced by the American Acupuncture. Today on this cold spring day, I am really excited to have a guest. Leta Herman is now chemical healer and a TCM teacher. She has a podcast called the Inspired Action and she’s an author of several books.

One is through the mystery. Also the energy of love, connecting your circle and the big little guash of book. And she’s just a delight. She has a training center for her El chemical work called the alchemy learning center. And we had a nice long discussion by phone about her work. And I think you’re really going to be interested.

Many of you are really going to be interested in this. We’re calling this entering the mystery of alchemy with Chinese medicine and Leta. Please, introduce yourself, say hello.

Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me, Virginia. And thank you to the American Acupuncture Council for having me here.

I’m thrilled to share this information with you in any way I can.

Yeah. Now we hear the word outcome. He tossed around. And some of us have studied it with Jeffrey UN for example. And it’s, and it really transcends just Taoism. And but how do you define alchemy or how are you looking at and trying to practice alchemy?

Yeah. So I think about, for me as a very generic word, and as there’s alchemy in the west as well as the east. So it’s a very broad word that generally means transformation, but because of the studies that I’m doing in alchemical Chinese medicine, I would like to define it a little bit more narrowly.

And in terms of saying that alchemy in Chinese medicine, Is this idea that we’re all perfect. We just don’t know it. And we need to like, as human beings, we’re here to evolve. We’re here to have experiences and we’re here to maybe even the Dallas would say fulfill a curriculum of this lifetime. And alchemy is about transformation in a big scale, on a big scale.

And it’s about how can we ask ourselves better questions about who we are? How can we take a journey along in our lives so that we can continuously evolve. And I think it’s equivalent somewhat to the Buddhist enlightenment idea where Buddhists are trying to achieve something in called enlightenment and in Daoism, we’re trying to achieve something that would be called a realized human being.

Jen Ren and and that’s a person that’s like a Sage or a wise person who basically is approaching life very differently than the average person. And there’s a long tradition in China of Chinese medicine, healers who have done this, like since they Meow and go home, but others as well, who were the ADA mortals, for example, that a group of people and there were others.

That group of alchemists who got together and they were working on their own evolution.

Yeah. And that’s solid bet.

So I, I know that we both not only studied with Jeffrey Ewen, we both studied plant spirit medicine. That’s a rather rare, esoteric subject. How do you bring that into this work? Or do you, or are you doing it more in a Dallas way? Is it a fusion of things?

It’s funny because I studied plant spirit medicine, which is truly a shamonic technique, even though it came out of the five element acupuncture tradition it basically incorporated the shamonic traditions with acupuncture and came up with a new and new kind of medicine.

From that perspective, of course, plant spirit medicine has been a native man medicine. Eons, but, so I studied that first and then I went on to study with Jeffrey Yuen and really delve deeper into the alchemy concepts. And then much later Jeffrey Yuen started teaching shamanism as well, which was just very interesting to me because I’ve obviously been attracted to the esoteric.

Day one. And I’ve always been working with people where I felt like I really wanted to get to the root of their problems. It’s like they, they didn’t feel well or they had emotional issues and I always wanted to find what is that root of the problem? What is that? Psychological, mental, emotional, spiritual root of those problems and both plant spirit medicine and alchemy are about that.

So I, I think that’s why I’ve been attracted to those different approaches.

Yeah. Yeah. I know the work that I did with plant spirit medicine was really, probably the most perfect. Lead transformative work that I did, despite a lot of meditation and other kind of traditions and practices.

And I had done shamonic work as well, but it was something It was from me. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak on certain issues and traumas that I have. And so I’m really, eager and curious to see how you work and whether it doesn’t matter whether or not you bring that into it, because I know from reading, your book, the which is the entering the, what is it?

Which one is it? The through the mystery gate that. You have had amazing results with patients, very transformative, not just getting rid of just physical pain, but getting at the root of very deep issues and Yeah, excited to, to learn more about that. And so actually, since we’re talking about treatments, how, what is your treatment like?

Okay. Okay. I have two kinds of treatments. One is a set of treatments that are just ours. Two-hour long treatments that people do over a very long period of time. It’s called the nine stages of alchemy. And that’s really about cultivating your passion in life, your full potential in life.

I say it, the goal is to really get you to fly in your life. So that’s all of the kind of forward-looking. This is where I’m headed work. But before we do that, There’s a lot of the past. And we say a lot of skeletons in our closet, a lot of things that haunt us from the past or that are hooked into us and won’t let go.

And so that’s where we do longer sessions. We do a, basically we devote a whole day to someone’s healing in that perspective and the most common one we do in that case, it’s the 13 ghost points and the 13th ghost points is about those hooks. They use the word ghost. Which it doesn’t mean you’re haunted by an entity.

It could just be you’re haunted by the past. It could be that, someone did something to you or you had an accident, or you just had a really difficult childhood or some kind of abuse scenario and those things they, you’re not free in your life because those are hooked into. And so we basically have a whole day where we do the 13 goes points.

It usually takes somewhere between four to six hours. And we just give someone the time and the space and the honoring of what they need. To let it go to really, truly let it go. And it is a transformational, like I’ve had

phenomenal and also your head is not into the mentality of oh, keeping on the clock and the next patient.

And then, you can really dive in very deeply with people. That’s beautiful.

Beautiful work. And people always say, aren’t you more tired after you do a long day like this? And I say, no, actually I’m less tired because I’m not switching eight times in the day changing, getting people in and out of the room, et cetera.

I’m just devoted to that person for the day.

Yeah. That’s one of the things I like about the facial rejuvenation acupuncture that I do because I try to make it a transformative treatment. But it’s I’m just with someone for a couple of hours. And you can just slow down and just you, I don’t know, you just, for me, I need that time to go more deeply with someone than, maybe some people could just go in and give them a look and change their life.

But yeah I think also for the patient, they feel more cared for and can really open up and relax into the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Wonderful.

And the changes are pretty dramatic. Sometimes it’s right in the treatment room, where someone will say, oh my God, the monkey’s off my back.

Like I feel it. Or and they truly mean it. Like they come back in after that and they’re like, my life has completely changed. Sometimes someone’s voice will literally completely change. They might have a really high voice and suddenly. Lower voice or I’ve had people who that goes points are really interesting where I didn’t even know they smoked.

And that was an issue for them, but like a month or so later, they’re like, I don’t know why, but I just stopped smoking and I wasn’t even trying. And it was like maybe that’s because he were smoking. Because of this thing that basically were carrying around, it was latent in your body and now it’s gone and you don’t need that habit anymore.

You don’t need to smoke to deal with it, that pain.

Do you work with any prenatal trauma or.

Oh, absolutely. There’s another treatment that I do call the nine heart pains and then the nine heart pains treatment we begin with utmost source heart one, and that is supposed to be related to pre.

So in terms of just what you’re coming in with, what we’re basically a human being that’s incarnating. And that point is representing this, the start of a new ARN incarnation. And what’s all the baggage that might be there in the very beginning in utero. Wow.

Can you talk about the, so when somebody comes in how does the treatment.

I like to start with a little kind of ritual that I do with people, which is just talking and then having them pick a poem out of a book, having them pick a card out of a deck of cards, just to break the ice and get, even if I know them well, it’s just, they might be nervous. They might be anxious about getting there.

They just settle into something very simple. And then they get up on the table and. I take pulses and we, we do something really unusual in these treatments. We have an iPod or some kind of playlist with 20,000 songs on. And we shuffle it and they’re of all genres. And the idea is we’re trying to simulate how things were done in the ancient times where they had live musicians which I was really fortunate to see a similar type of event at mouth Shaun in China.

When we went there with Jeffrey Yuen, where these musicians were just playing. This live improvisational music and, there were symbols and all kinds of instruments. I don’t even know the names of, but that music was very. Emotional. It emoted things from people like people had tears running needed down their face.

And we’re here where, we don’t really know Chinese music as much. I have Chinese music on my playlist, but it’s more than that. It’s we need music that we can identify with. So I put every genre I could think of good, bad, whatever. You’re. Opinion is about music.

We have it all and we don’t segregate, we don’t we don’t try to limit it in any way. And so what we’re doing is just allowing the music to vibrationally. Move the treatment along. And the treatment itself is a vibrational technique. It’s about shaking up stuck patterns.

All alchemy is vibrational in the technique. And so it’s really about stimulating something that is been stuck and trying to really evoke more than just transformation. I like to say transmutation something really. Stronger than a slow evolutionary change.

And are you using needles or is it more energetic or.

I

am feeling I have, I, you can do needles or not needles. And I personally do not use needles for alchemy. I use my finger as a needle, and the idea is, I don’t want the separation of between me and the person of the needle. So energetically, my finger becomes the needle. So I just call it non needle needling.

And I always recommend my acupuncture students attempt to do some of these treatments with needles and without, and then they can choose how they want to do. It’s a little more challenging to do some of these treatments with needles, because some, in some of the treatments, the needles are retained and there are needles on the front and the back.

So it’s a logistical issue and it has been done. It’s not that it can’t be done, but there is an issue of, if you’re. Four to six hours on the table, the person’s going to have to go to the bathroom. What are you going to do about the knee? So there’s a lot of complexity that gets removed.

If you do the non needle technique,

and then you’re probably more apt to use your intention and transmit your G then just relying on the needles to do the.

Exactly. Exactly. And I really don’t recommend in general, I’ve had people who have gone to acupuncturists and receive the ghosts points and the, they did it like in a traditional stick, the needles and leave the room.

I don’t really ever recommend that because it’s such a powerful, emotional shift that it really needs to be. The, what I talked to people about is becoming an alchemical. Healer is really walking the walk with the client. So you have to be in the room. You have to be not only just not sticking the needles in and leaving the room, but each needle could take an hour to insert if that would be extreme, but it could because.

It’s takes that long for that person to allow the shift to happen. So you have to think of it in a totally different way. Becoming an alchemical healer is really different than just, how we’ve been taught Chinese medicine in general.

Now I understand even, even better why you’re doing it without needles.

Yeah. That makes sense. And can you talk a little bit more in detail about the nine stages of that? Yeah. So treatment approaches.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s actually my favorite work. The ghost points are very dramatic and they really shift people in huge way and it feels like a miracle often every day in my clinic, when I watch people walk out the door completely transformed.

That’s beautiful and I love that work, but that’s trying to get rid of something. That has been that package for them, that they that’s not about them, that they’re just trying to unload and. And then when you do the nine stages of alchemy, it’s like, how can you almost become more precious, like a metal that’s being polished and polished until it’s, beautiful.

And I feel we’re all a little bit tarnished and we need a lot of polishing. But in, there is something really precious. And so the nine stages of Alchemy’s. Just taking one step at a time. And I like to say that you can invent your own alchemy. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. I just like to say there’s some really.

A wise old ancient Chinese people that said, Hey, if you do it in this order, it works really well. So stage one is a treatment that we do. That’s just about E. It’s about creating more ease in your life. And so you do this treatment, maybe quite a number of times, you might do it over a whole year with someone where they’re just getting to a state of ease.

Now, imagine you might have someone who already has their. So you don’t need to do a lot in that stage. Maybe you do it once or twice or three times. And then it’s there’s not much happening here because you’re already there. You’ve done that work. So then you move on to the next stage. And the next stage is about I call it the best protections, no protection.

It’s about all the armor we wear and we don’t ever want that bad thing to happen again. And so we’re always on the lookout for it. We’re always checking for it and it’s tiring. It’s exhausting to live that way. And so what would happen if we removed that protection? Because we’re so good in ourselves and some of them throws a dart at you.

You just Dodge it. It’s not about you. It’s about them. They’re having a bad day and you can see that. And so once you start to step into stage two, you’re no longer protected. And then stage three is about all that prenatal stuff. It’s about the ancestors stuff. It’s about your past lives. So we need to unload that and then stage four, five, and six are where all the fun begins because you get to be, you get to be free of all that stuff and you literally start to shine.

You start to look like a light. And stage four is about being like a child. Stage five is about channeling and listening to the world and being like a wise person. And stage six is about really, truly flying in your life. Some of the immortals were purported to fly. And as late as in the 1950s people send, they saw them flying.

The movie, crouching tiger, hidden dragon, that’s not supposed to be just fictitious it’s supposed to be real. And what I like to say is I haven’t seen anyone levitate off my table yet, but I expect them to do it at some point, but they start to fly in their lives, and that’s really magical to see.

It’s yes, like taking off on a runway, it’s maybe some people have been taxing a long time, but they just haven’t been able to get liftoff. And a lot of this work is about that. And it’s about. Living what we call in our podcast, the inspired action podcast. We talk a lot about Wu Wei and stage six is about what is sometimes translated as non-action, but I like to call it inspired action.

How do you live that kind of spontaneity in your life, where you’re just free and easy and just, basically looking at the footsteps in front of you that are already there. And all you have to do is put your foot in there and put your foot in there and put your foot in there. You’re good to go.

So that’s on me.

I like that, flying in your life because that’s really more important than, developing some yoga city, some power You know it, I know I had a teacher who used to say, these people that spent all this time and energy, trying to levitate, even if it’s just a few inches or a foot off the ground.

And if they use that for, more of their inner development or for helping, world peace or something, how much more useful that would be. And yeah. I like that idea of people flying in their life. It doesn’t have to be something literal, and that it doesn’t even have to be that doesn’t even have to be the goal.

Any literal flying. It probably would just happen if somebody reached a certain stage. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. That’s how I look at it. Exactly. And like I said I would love to see it literally, but I just like to see it as someone living their full potential and. It just really not held back by all the things that hold us back.

Yeah. And so what about 7, 8, 9.

Yeah interesting that you ask. So I decided a long time ago that I can only go as far as how far I’ve gone. And so I’m working on stage seven and I. I believe that in stage seven, you have to really go into the case. So to speak, you have to retreat from the world to do that level of work.

And it’s really about morphine. It’s really transforming in a big way. And in ancient times, in, for example, when I went to , there are caves, there were people. Basically living inside the cave for many months at a time, people bring them some water through a hole or maybe a little cracker too, but they’re basically in there until they figure their stuff out.

And so the idea is, I have. Been, I’m still very much in the world and I’m still like living a stage six life. And I want to keep working on my stage seven. And so therefore I don’t really want to take anyone else through stage seven, eight and nine. So seven is about this idea that you can morph.

You could completely transform yourself. Stage eight is that you can become like a ninja. You can become an. And stage nine is that if you become invisible, you need to learn how to reappear, if you want to. And there, there is a story of go hung when we went to gongs mountain where, he basically was surrounded by all his apprentices and he suddenly vanished and his clothes fell to in a pile on the ground.

And so he never came back that we, that I am aware. Or that I’ve been told. He obviously could still be a mortal walking this plane, but but the, his idea of immortality wasn’t necessarily that you had to come back that you just needed to transform into some other dimension.

Yeah. Also the, in India they say, if you reach a certain stage. Enlightenment or development that you have a choice, whether or not you come back to incarnate. And then

third

answer is you do come back to.

Yes. And that they not talked

about needs and desires and unfinished biz. Yeah.

Yeah. And we say that it’s stage nine is like being a Bodhi. PSAT’s a bodhisattva, you come back for the benefit of all and you’re coming back to help.

I’m going to bring you. Okay, here we go.

Okay. I’m back.

Yeah actually, maybe because of the tech issue, it’s a time to maybe it’s a sign to conclude this, but I would like to have you back and have you talk about the starry sky points and the nine heart pains and, there’s so much more we could talk about, unless there’s anything you want to say in conclusion,

Okay. All right. I was thinking that in terms of alchemy and just Al chemical healing in terms of like people who are doing acupuncture that are interested in delving into these concepts, it is it is like a a different roadmap for people it’s really about.

Am I interested in cultivating myself in terms of my own alchemy? Am I interested in becoming an alchemical healer because I want to transform as much as I want my clients to transform. And so I really look at this as like first, what about me? The practitioner? And I really came to that conclusion because in the beginning, I didn’t really think of it that way.

And it took me a while to understand a lot of that. Through my own cultivation. So as I did more and more work with this, I transformed much more quickly than I think I would have on my own. So I say to practitioners that every single time you do like a ghost point treatment or one of these treatments, the sign that you’re actually doing it well is that you transform as much as the client.

And I know that all of us have that experience of that big aha moment when the client shifts and then you shift as a result. But it’s way more apparent in alchemy. It’s really about not only the client, but the practitioner themselves. And I don’t mean that in a selfish way at all.

You’re not doing it so that you can transform but that’s one of the things that happens.

That’s, I always say that, people can memorize the classics and Chinese and what have you, but if they have. Cultivated themselves, spiritually and psycho spiritually. And if they haven’t learned to cultivate their cheek, then if there’s limitations on what you can do for people.

But if you’ve done those other things, it can transcend anything that you can find written, modern origin.

Yes. And so that’s why one of the things that we are doing is we have a website called the learning center and there’s an app as well called the alchemy learning center. And what we’re doing is we’re putting a lot of these.

Genes into a format that people can do on their own. So there’s things for both lay people and acupuncturists, and there’s this, just very simple cheek gung as an example of things that you can do to build your cheek, but there’s also, things about a deeper level of the five elements and how to understand ourselves on a very deep level, because if you’re doing alchemy, you really need.

Who is my authentic self, energetically, but also, in all different ways. And we talked a lot about the nine palaces, which we also, did a lot of teaching in that’s available there. And then we have something called the master outcome program. And that is for apprentices.

We have two programs now. We’ve. People coming from all over the world. So we have a virtual one and then we have an in-person option where you can come to the clinic and get supervision to do some of these treatments on your own. So when I did it, I had a teacher who really, mentored me.

Much many years later. Now I want to offer that to people as well, because it is work that is really hard to embark on your own.

Yeah. And it’s very hard to find an apprenticeship, people get out of school and they’re they’re not totally on their own, but th it’s not, there’s a reason that the traditional way was, a continued apprenticeship because that’s how you got.

And,

Yeah. Yeah. And I like to say, we go to a lot of CU classes, and we get a lot of download of information, and I just took this one piece and I did it in the clinic over and over again. And now 20 years later, it’s I want to share that with others so that it doesn’t take you as long as it took.

To figure this stuff out. So I think in practice it’s much different than in theory. And so the theory is great and it’s great to get CS is about theory, but we all know we have to somehow translate that into practice. And I always feel like my gift is that I used to be a tech writer before I went into Chinese medicine.

And so I like to take something super technical and then bring it into something that is. Easy for us to learn and utilize. And that’s, that is the same as tech writing. Really. That’s really what it’s about. It’s a health

teacher. Yeah.

Yeah. So that’s what I’m doing at the alchemy learning center. We have ongoing programs that start every every six months or so.

And. And so we will take a new group through starting in September. So yeah, so we, and we have a clinic in north Hampton, Massachusetts, that’s called the alchemy healing center. And if you want to actually get the supervision and you want to shadow, for example, a ghost point treatment, Just be able to observe me doing the work.

You can come to the alchemy healing center and do that as an apprenticeship program. So that’s what we’re offering in terms of that. So again, it’s just, it’s really about you can go and do it on your own. Everyone knows what the ghost points are there they’re online. Like anyone could use them, but, are you going to just stick the needles in and leave the room?

How

do you use them? I taught school for years and all the beautiful, poetic spiritual sounding names and qualities attributes that are, attributed to them. But it’s how, you’re actually. Helping people to achieve those kinds of results that you can’t do from just reading the description, really it has to be an alchemical process for the practitioner.

Absolutely. And just, when I started out, I actually started from more of the five element tradition. My, my mentor was a part of the Worsley school in England. And so I came at it from more doing internal devil’s IDs and EDS, internal dragons and external dragons treatments, and then started incorporating the ghost points as another option.

And then I started learning more and more. But going back to those days, I remember feeling terrified about doing my first IDs treatment. I imagine that a lot of people are scared in the beginning. We don’t really understand it. We don’t know what it’s about, so we need a lot of handholding

and also you’re entering into territory of somebody’s psyche that you really don’t know what to expect.

And. You shouldn’t just go charging in there. I know, you know that.

Absolutely. And I think that the important thing is to remember too, in the beginning interestingly, you don’t want to, you think you want to do the ghost points with the people that have the most obvious, disruptive. Things going on in their lives either mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.

But when you train, I’m really looking for people that are a little bit, Pretty doing pretty well in their lives. They’re not in deep crisis because we don’t want you to train with someone who’s, everything is just so tumultuous in their lives. That’s a very advanced, case.

And you don’t want someone new in that level of work quite quite at the beginning. So a lot of times when people take a class with me, they’re like, oh, I’m going to go do this. And I’m like, okay. But pick someone. Might just want to unload a little bit, if a few skeletons in their closet, not a whole closet full of skeletons that are going to bust out and remember it is a Pandora’s box for some people and there’s no closing that box back up once it opens.

And you have to think about these. There’s a lot of ethical issues to think about in terms of when you’re doing this level of work, how do you feel about it? What do you think is right and what is really going to be best for the client? So there’s a

lot of, we spoke about that on the phone. If somebody comes to you for.

10 of the muscular pain and you sense that it’s something deeper, I’m thinking of that story. You can tell them from the book. But do you have to ask permission or in, in your way of looking at things as opposed to just treating what you’re seeing if you see that there’s something much deeper than.

I use, I tell the story of my golfer person who came in and I said, this elbow pain you’re having go, this golfer’s elbow. I, is it possible? It’s emotionally based. And he kept saying no, there’s not. I, my life is great. There’s nothing wrong. I just have this pain. It’s my.

It’s my elbow. I just have this pain and he kept pointing to one of the coast points, large and test at 11. So we went round and we did a lot of treatments and we did . We did cupping. We did all kinds of points. He did everything you can imagine. And even he bless his heart. He came back, he kept coming back and no change, which is usually a good indicator that you need to do this work.

So finally I said to him, look, why don’t we just try. Emotional treatment. Let’s just try it. I didn’t talk to them about the ghost points, cause that’s a little odd and I knew it was a little bit out of his sort of frame of reference in the world, but I didn’t want to throw him off that way.

And honestly it’s just large intestine 11. It’s just another point. So I said, but this point, this point might really help you. And in fact, I think we should do a series of the points I did all of the ghost points with him and I said, let’s do a series of points and just see, okay.

We haven’t gotten it yet and you’re still covered. So let’s try this. So I did. And as soon as I got to large intestine 11, in which I did it over, you can do the points over many treatments if you want. So the day that I got to large intestine. He suddenly out of the blue started telling me about the fact that his secretary who was a longterm, many generational friend of the family embezzled like a hundred thousand dollars or something like that from him.

And it was. And that she was currently in court to be tried and go to jail about it. And so he said, yeah, I guess that is an emotional thing. And the next day he came back, the next day he came back, the pain was. So he became a convert obviously, and we did all of the stages of alchemy together.

And by the time he got to stage six, like all of the money concerns went by the wayside. He did, he got like a million dollar contract. He sold this house. Like all these things were happening and he just couldn’t believe it. It was just like, my lucky stars or something, yeah.

I think that, when you look at, how people are unaware of these things that are lurking deep down and they just think, oh, my wife’s good. My job’s good. They just don’t necessarily think about it, but sometimes there’s a lot there. And so do you have to say I’m doing this like really esoteric ghost point treatment?

No, you don’t want to lie to them. It’s more about what’s the language that they use. So I don’t try to shock people into thinking they’re doing like really weird stuff. I’m just like, what’s the language that helps them understand what you’re going to do. And in fact, there’s a ghost point called ghost market rent 24 and rent 24 is the fact that there’s a gift that you have that needs to get to only certain people in the world.

You don’t want it to go to the people who don’t. You only want it to go to the people who need it. What are the words that are going to best express in a way that person can receive the. If you say a bunch of things that are very alarming to the person who needs the gift, they’re going to be like no.

So you know how I look at it is how about, just using words that the person can take in and can help them understand that. Yes, I need Barden tested 11, I, it doesn’t need to be some big, scary thing. For some people, yeah. Some people come into my clinic and say, I’m feeling. I have a possession and I know it.

And then it’s okay, so we need to use that language. I need to be able to express to them. Yeah, we can work with possession. That’s okay. That’s what these treatments were traditionally for. So of course,

like a literal, energetic. Just that people get so obsessive that it becomes like a possession of thoughts, both versus an entity,

right?

Both. So the ghost points are wonderful for obsessed. In fact, that’s my favorite way to use them is there’s so many of us right now who need ghost points. Pretty much all of us. If you’ve been on this planet for like more than 20 years, it’s pretty likely that you’ve had some events in your life that are continue from the past.

So we that’s obsession. Like we can’t let that. And so that’s what the ghost points for really miraculous for. In addition, if you actually have an entity which is called a gateway to you, I just ghost a good way is a person that maybe died at some point and their spirit didn’t go home, to, to heaven or wherever you want to think.

And it stayed around and then potentially got into someone else. That is the Chinese medicine belief that can happen. And, whether you believe in it or not, doesn’t matter. The fact is that the person exhibits certain qualities that we would associate with that kind of possession.

And so we say there’s emotional possessions, and then there’s these entity possessions. And then we would do different treatments depending on which one you might have. And that’s really something that I. Developed through practice. For example, I still use Worsley’s IDs and EDS treatments, and I love them for particular cases.

And then I like the ghost points for other cases. And they’re all in the same realm, they’re all in this realm of, you’re not totally in charge of yourself, whether you’re obsessed or possessed, you’re not really running the show. And that’s the level of that.

I’ve heard alcoholism described as people especially for people whose personality changes when they drink that they, it’s almost there’s an entity that wants to experience that sensation of drinking or drunkenness.

And so they keep Eh, they exert this control over the person. It’s like somebody sitting on your shoulder and that you really have to, for some people with ringing problems, you have to, do, if it’s not a formal exorcism, somehow you have to deal with that energy.

Yeah. And for alcoholism or any kind of drug problem, I would say that there’s two parts to it.

There’s probably something that is like a ghost, again, it may just be. The drugs influence on you, but something taken over like a possession or an obsession. So there’s that. So I might do the ghost points, but then there’s more to it with any kind of addiction, because there’s often a reason why we got addicted.

And that is where I would do something called the nine heart pains. And the nine heart pains treatment is about loving yourself. And usually what’s behind an addiction is some kind of self-hatred or self-loathing or dissatisfaction with who you are. And so that treatment is usually also necessary and really important.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Cause that’s getting it, and maybe in this case it could be a two-pronged route to the cost, but yeah. To get to the root cause, no matter what.

And a lot of people when they’re just learning about alchemy, they don’t understand. So we can talk about the points.

The points are fascinating. They’re interesting. But to do that treatment, that loving yourself treatment, for example, which I call the nine heart pains treatment, you have to be so present. And so unprotected yourself, vulnerable yourself. So that person. I can now take that in and start to love themselves so that’s a deeper level of motivation.

Like we got through that. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh that’s great. I want to thank you so much. I know, taking time out of your day for this and do it with hard energy and humility. So I’m looking forward, maybe we can do this again in June and. Looking forward to doing more things with you, so fantastic.

Yeah. Anyway, thank you very much everybody. Next week. It’s Matt Callison and Brian Lau talking about they have great things. But we will see you soon and thanks again, the American Acupuncture Council and for all you listening. And I hope you’ll look into this because I think it’s going to make you a better practitioner and a better person, no matter what you’re doing.

So I’m signing out Virginia Doran of luminousbeauty.com.

 

 

 

“I believe that knowledge is power and we’re all trying to be have our patients and society become educated consumers. So as much as we can share knowledge, as much as we can share what we know with each other, the better.”

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Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.  Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.

Hi, I’m Virginia Doran of luminousbeauty.com. And I want to welcome you to another edition of the point to the point. A show, very generously produced by the American Acupuncture Council today. I’m extra delighted to have as my guest, Dr. Mark Grossman. Uh, when I met Mark in 1992, we were both going to acupuncture school in, uh, New York and Connecticut. Uh, but Mark is very unusual in that he holds the licenses in both acupuncture and is a doctor of optometry and, uh, to fulfill his dream of practicing holistic and integrative eyecare, he’s fully trained in acupuncture. Uh, even though he, he didn’t need to be to, uh, to be practicing. Um, and he’s also trained in nutrition and visual vision therapy, and he saw this significant void in holistic eye care, um, and not only, you know, filled in to practice that way himself, but he trains practitioners internationally online and in-person, and, uh, he’s published many books.

Um, the four ones that, um, are probably most notable and, and, uh, appropriate for this audience is Nash, natural eye care, a comprehensive manual for practitioners of Oriental medicine, where he goes into both, um, acupuncture and herbal prescriptions. And then he has a book, natural eye care, your guide to healthy vision. They sound similar or different book. It’s an 800 page texts, and it covers about every eye condition from both the Western and Eastern perspective, plus nutrition and supplements, herbs, clinical tips. It’s really a must have for every practitioners library. He’s also written a book, very interesting book, very unusual, greater vision, a comprehensive program for physical, emotional, and spiritual clarity. Uh, another thing that he teaches about and the international bestseller magic eyes beyond 3d your vision. Um, so you can find more information about his books. Trainings has specifically done products, but also about many, many different eye conditions.

His website is full of information. He’s very generous with his knowledge as he shares it to people and that’s natural eye care.com. So after that, um, uh, I, I asked you to, to, um, you know, speak on this because I think it’s so necessary and there’s not much draining or, um, awareness of this in our field. And also, um, I think that, uh, you know, if you could give some examples of like, say glaucoma, for instance, you know, a common condition that, uh, to give an idea how you work, the in-depth, uh, approach, you have to things. So thank you so much for being out. Cause I know you were in the middle of her work day. Uh, so, you know, if you can tell us how you got into this, that’d be very briefly. And then, uh, you know, what you want to impart.

Oh, thank you so much, Virginia. And I’m very, very grateful to you, Dr. Alan Weinstein. Who’s a master of putting this out the American acupuncture council, because I believe that knowledge is power and we’re all trying to be have our patients and society become educated consumers. So as much as we can share knowledge, as much as we can share what we know with each other, the better. And it’s very interesting. I was meditating this morning and I was saying, oh, I think I know what I have to start with saying, and you said it beautifully. How did I get into this acupuncturist? Usually have a drive. It’s like, oh my God, this is my calling. This is my calling of what I want to do in life. And my story was, I was already an eye doctor for, uh, 16 years had just finished paying off my student loans.

And then I went to a friend’s house. And in the middle of her living room was one of the first books in the Western hemisphere, an acupuncture called the web that has no Weaver. And I felt that I could remember it. Like it was yesterday. The book looked at me, I looked at the book. I said, I can’t believe I got to go to acupuncture school. Now I thought I had a way out because acupuncture wasn’t licensed in New York state yet. And as you know, as one of my, uh, classmates, we had to go to school in Connecticut first. So we went to school in Connecticut for a year. And then we spent the next two to three years in new York’s New York city. So I said, well, I guess I got to go. I don’t know why I’m going. Uh, I just know I have the calling and we’re going to talk about the call and we can talk about those moments in our life that we get those signals of what we need to do and how our vision, how not only our outer vision, but our inner vision affects how we are in life and how it affects eye conditions.

And we are in an epidemic. That’s an epidemic in society right now. Do you know that over 90% of young adults from 14 years and younger in China and Japan are near-sighted, if you don’t consider 90% epidemic, then the thing is, you know, and with the advent of computers and being online. So we need to take care of our eyes. And as we know in Chinese medicine, if you can go to the first slide Allen, we know that all the meridians go to the eyes, all the meridians go through the heart. So when we are working with people with high conditions, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, I believe is an integral part of the integrative medicine team that needs to be to help these conditions. I, um, about a month or two ago, I lectured at the east west integrative medicine department that UCLA that’s been going on for over 25 years.

Oh my God. And we did an international conference, which I was part of the panel on Chinese medicine and vision. So the need is there, there were some amazing acupuncturist, like one of my colleagues and co-teachers Dr. Andy Rosenfarb who specializes in vision and Chinese medicine. So what I want to really put out today is how important and how Chinese medicine can be part of that team and myself. And I’ve been practicing for over 40 years as an optometrist. And what are we up to now, Virginia 26, 28 years, 26 years as an acupuncturist. And I didn’t even know when I was in a, I doctor school, optometry school. And I would say, excuse me, why did they get a cataract in the left eye and not the right eye? And they go, you mean, you want to know why I said, yeah, I’d like to know why.

And Ted Kaptchuk said it beautifully. He said in Western medicine, in which I was trained, we look had, how does X cause Y but in Chinese medicine, what do we look at? What is the relationship between X and X and Y? And I believe that all disease dis ease in the body mind has to do with relationships, relationships, to our environment, to the trees, to the oceans, to our, uh, families, to our friends. And what are, what is the goal of every acupuncture or Chinese medicine treatment, balance and harmony. And when we have balance and harmony and Chinese medicine speaks about it beautifully, we have no stuck energy. And I believe in my experience that almost all eye conditions, uh, due to stagnant energy. So let’s go to the next slide. Allen integrative medicine envision, we need an integrative approach. You know, I lectured at the integrative healthcare symposium and there were acupuncturists in the audience, functional medicine doctors, natural paths. Yes. I always tell people who I see, I’m just a little part of your team. We want to do integrative medicine. Next slide.

Can I interrupt a second? I went recently to an eye doctor to, you know, just have a checkup and tests. And I don’t think I’ve actually ever done that as an adult. And, um, you know, they dilated my eyes for something. They put some other drops in. I mean, for three weeks, I could barely see, and, and my eyes didn’t adjust back, you know, the dilation, but they were cloudy from the second. They put the first drops in and, um, you know, all they could suggest was a drug. And they said, oh yeah, it’s not, it’s not, it’s no problems with it. But I looked up the side effects of the drugs. It was every organ, every organ. And it was going to change. It could change the color of your skin, your eyes, but they thought, oh, no, this is totally benign. So there’s such a need for what you do, you know?

And for some and others to know about it, really, we all should be trained in this specialty because it’s, you know, what’s going on is kind of barbaric really anyway, sorry to interrupt, but you’re never interrupted. And yet at the same time, I talked to you about it and you were like, oh, we have, you know, we have technology and ways to do it, that you don’t have to be dilated. Oh, there’s different versions of these different medications without the preservatives. That cause a lot of the effects side of it, you know, why don’t other doctors know this?

So as somebody in both professions with both hats on I, doctors are really, really nice people. They really try hard. But as we know with most Western medicine, we have limited things in our toolkit. We have medication, we have surgery and that’s it. We are looking at the eye as an isolated organ. I had a patient I’m going to see later at my last patient today because he was told she has eyelid cancer, but I started talking to her. And what are the lids related to in Chinese medicine, the stomach and the spleen. Is she having problems with her microbiome? Is she having issues? Is she seeing a functional medicine doctor? Yes. But the eye doctor said, oh, you’ve got bumps on your eyelid. You know, it’s maybe it’s eye cancer, but I’m just saying, we need to look at the relationships. And remember when I just said before, um, well, why did you get a cataract in your left eye before the right Chinese medicine in most people?

Right. I father I male, I yang. I left, I feminine yen receptive. So when I really look in, I mean into why somebody develops macular degeneration, glaucoma cataracts, and why they may get an in one eye versus the others, I’m going to talk to them. What’s going on in their relationships with their father, with their husband. I mean, I’ve got stories, I’ve got stories, you know, after 40 years. So let’s keep going because this is just a preview because I really want acupuncture is to, to, to get the power that they have for this kinds of treatments. My website, natural eye care started about 20 years ago. My business partner in that is, uh, Michael Edson. And Michael is an acupuncturist also. So we refer to acupuncturist all the time because it’s both are bent. Uh, you see a pho a phone number there, (845) 255-8222.

The direct number for Michael, which is the new number on our website is 8 4 5 4 7 5 4 1 5 8. But you can go to the website and Michael loves talking to acupuncturists and we are there as a service to help you work with your patients. Next slide, Allen. These are some of my books beyond 3d magic eyes. Those of you who are old enough know about these 3d pictures that you relax your eyes and then a hidden picture comes out. Uh, it was published. We, uh, they sold over 30 million of those books. I wrote two of them. I’m the medical consultant to them. Uh, I got there, but after they sold the 30 million, so I didn’t really profit from it. Um, but those magic eye pictures, uh, one of the tools I use not only to help people’s eyesight, but to help reduce liver stagnation through the eyes, the greater vision book was written because I do believe in the Mati body, mind and spirit of all eye conditions, natural eye care that I wrote with about twenty-five years ago, which was the book before it’s time with a good friend of mine, Dr. Glenn sweat out is in Hawaii. Um, and then we can go to the next slide where we expanded on it to that 800 page, 2000 peer review references book, uh, on natural eyecare. And that book is also available on Amazon and then on Kendall. And we also divided it into about five or six smaller books because that’s a very heavy book, but it is, it is. I have had the 10 different doctors help me with it. So it is, uh, a really good resource. Um, next down, next slide.

So let’s talk just a little bit. The only thing worse than being blind is to have sight, but no vision. Where does vision happen? It happens in the mind. That was a quote from Helen Keller. Next slide, Dalai Lama, in order to carry a positive action, we must develop here a positive vision. One of the real keys in Chinese medicine is the person has to have it in their belief system that the, this kind of thing can help. You know, we’re not there to convince people. We want people to feel positive and if they can conceive, if they believe it, they can conceive it. Next slide. This is, uh, something which my magic eye books are based on vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. You know, we need to see the bigger picture and what does Chinese medicine do? It sees the bigger picture next, and this is how I sign all my emails.

And I’m going to give you all my personal email, um, today, because you’ll see if you have any questions that come up, because the question is not what you look at, but what you really really see next slide. Okay. And here we go. No, no, that’s good. We got to go to Shakespeare. The eyes are the windows to your soul. We know about that. People, the Shen the spirit, the pilot light our eyes tell us how much our spirit is connected with our soul. And I believe that through the eyes we can help people, uh, go through their soul’s journey next and Benjamin Franklin, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So nutritionally Chinese medicine wise, if we can get people on good visual hygiene, the dentists talk about dental hygiene, plus your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth, but we’re on computers. Yeah, because 11 hours a day on digital devices, we need to do visual hygiene. We need to take care of our bodies and our mind next.

And this is the integrative medicine approach, which is, I think the Chinese medicine approach imagine a oriented towards healing rather than disease, where physicians believe in the natural killing capacity of human beings and emphasize prevention above treatment in such a world, doctors and patients would be partners towards the same ends. And that’s why the minimum I’ll see patients or clients is I say, I want you to come in after we’ve worked for awhile, once a season, as the seasons change, as you are going to be relating to your environment different than, uh, we need to do a tune-up. So on all my clients, I say the minimum I’m going to see you is once we get everything balanced and in harmony is once a season. Next slide. So these are some of the allied complementary practitioners I might refer to for different eye conditions. Um, and acupuncturist is right there.

And even though it’s, it’s not on top, let me tell you, uh, my partners in my practice, my PA one partner is a chiropractor and the other partners, and as an acupuncturist. So, uh, acupuncture and chiropractic are some of the biggest referrals that I make in my, um, uh, integrative team approach, along with natural paths and functional medicine practitioners. But at different times, I may use any of these different complimentary practitioners. Next, this is the office I rent space in. This is the outside next slide. The reason I’m showing this is the waiting room before COVID where now we have people six feet apart. Next next one, contact lenses next, because contact lenses from an acupuncture standpoint, what they do is they put people who are very near-sighted. They create a larger retinal image size. So actually just switching people from an eye as an eye doctor from glasses to contact lenses may open up a whole way of Le less liver tree stagnation.

These are some of the, this is some of the high end technology that’s available today because, and I can help you as acupuncturists, uh, read the reports on this and, uh, talk to you about the findings on some of these tests, in terms of Chinese medicine. These are pictures underneath the retina. They take pictures underneath the macula, underneath the optic nerve. They take a 3d picture of the eye. And as, um, Virginia said some many times we don’t have to even dilate the eyes. Do you know, as we said, the eye Embrya logically physiologically and neurologically, what is it? It’s brain tissue. If you continue to mind, you can change your eyes. We all know about the neuroplasticity of the brain. Therefore we have neuroplasticity of the eye and you know, that you can diagnose, uh, Alzheimer’s disease early through retinal photos. Yes. This thing is out there. So the technology today in the eye will give good insight to people’s eyesight. Next slide. Okay, let’s go to slide 23. [inaudible].

So, as I said, the hi is brain tissue. Do you know that there are studies that in multiple personality disorders, they all had different prescriptions. Oh, very interesting. Mind, body spirit, next slide and trigger points. Uh, both me and Virginia. We had the pleasure and the utter gratitude that we were able to learn from. Uh, one of the, the pioneer of trigger points, Janet Trevell who wrote these two giant giant books, even bigger than my book on trigger points. And when I learned that it’s the neck, the shoulder, the upper trapezius, going to the sternocleidomastoid up to the suboccipitals that many vision problems come from, because why not that that happened? Because people have poor posture when they’re on devices and things tension. Exactly. Next slide Allen, the spleen is surveys is the neck muscle. So when we’re doing trigger point therapy, we can help with pain in the eyes.

We can help with glaucoma, which, um, I’ll talk about very briefly after, but I really wanted you to know that trigger points, uh, whether you do it through deep tissue or you do it through acupuncture could be very, very helpful in, uh, treating, uh, eye problems. Next slide again, the SCM, a biggie player, especially with musicians, especially like violin and Viola players. Ah, because those people I’ve got studies on how that affects a stigmatism. So yeah, the eye and the body and posture are very related. Next slide. The psoas muscle. If you have a tight psoas muscle, sometimes it relates to a vertical imbalance between the two eyes. So again, we have to look at the whole body next.

Okay. That’s it for the slides on. Thank you. So I’ve got about six minutes. I’m going to give you an overview of glaucoma because glaucoma is so we can do so many things because glaucoma is a disease, this ease of the optic nerve. But the only thing that I doctors having a toolkit of glaucoma is medication with lots of side effects and surgery, and they even have people. And then what they say is, oh, oh, we just have to lower the pressure. But look at that. Here’s the, here’s the optic nerve. Yes. According to physics, if you lower the pressure in the eye pressure hitting the optic nerve, that’ll be helpful because the higher the pressure, the more it could possibly break down the optic nerve, normal pressure and glucometers between 10 and 22. But wouldn’t it make sense to also build up the ocular blood flow to the optic nerve?

Wouldn’t it make sense to work on neurodegenerative neuro uh, uh, neurodegeneration? I mean, that’s what, uh, the eye research is showing. We want to have, um, things that are helpful for the nerves. So nutrition very helpful for that alpha-lipoic acid N-acetylcysteine, um, sublingual, vitamin B12, the B vitamins. So nutrition, very helpful acupuncture super-duper for, uh, helping with ocular blood flow and circulation because circulation, that’s why studies show that as little as aerobic exercise, four times a week can help with, uh, lowering the pressure. But what is one of the, some of the main things in Chinese medicine? You know, we all say liver, liver, liver, nice, but in Chinese medicine and glaucoma liver is a big player because it’s the stagnant liver cheat that can add to, to, uh, CA um, Livia, hyperactive, liver, young, that can cause a high eye pressure. So I’m always trying to bring the pressure down, bring it down.

I want to deal things with the earth element. I may have them stand in dirt, rub a, a ball on kidney. One, bring the energy down. So liver three, liver aids for blood, uh, gallbladder 20 to release the tension in the occipital. Uh suboccipitals so liver kidney very, very important. Especially sometimes the pattern is a kidney yin and Liberty in deficiency. So there’s basically, this is where it gets a little tricky. There’s like six different kinds of glaucoma. Some glaucoma is due to more due to inflammation, such as pseudoexfoliation glaucoma. Some glaucoma has normal tension, normal eye pressure, but has what we call large cupping in the optic nerve. And therefore, you know, we can lower the pressure, but it’s more about getting more blood flow to the optic nerve and, uh, helping the nerves. And then there’s the eye, the glaucoma that has high eye pressure.

But again, the tool dry doctors is just lower the pressure. So we can see very easily how Chinese medicine can have an effect. And going back to the muddy bind spirit stress, oh my God, they have studies that show that stress can increase the eye pressure. So even in the regular literature on Western medicine, so we want to relax. That’s why my favorite formula that I created with my, uh, acupuncture partner, Jason Elias, and we called revision. And what is it based on B Florim and Pini combination. Why, because what is that called relaxed wander? And I added some bilberry and some Ginko, and I added a little Licey and chrysanthemum to bring energy to the eyes. So we really want to do Western Chinese herbs coleus and air vinegar. That’s very good to lower eye pressure. So I really, what I really want to share with you and hope you get a, and if you want to learn more, I am totally available.

My personal email is D R Grossman 20 twenty@gmail.com. I really want to let you know that the ability for Chinese medicine to help with chronic eye conditions and basically all eye conditions, is there that Nick, that place that you, if you really into it, that you want to add to your practice is there. And you will, you will have patients. My friend and colleague, Andy Rosenfarb is busy, busy, busy, and he trains, uh, acupuncturists in a special kind of acupuncture called micro acupuncture. So again, thank you so much for your attention and your time. And hopefully listening to this, uh, again, knowledge is power, and I hope that you become part of an integrative medicine team to help people in the world keep their precious gift of sight. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, mark. And thanks again to the American acupuncture council, um, Virginia Doran signing off from luminousbeauty.com and yeah, Yair Maimon is next week. So, so he’s always got something interesting. I hope you’ll check that out too. All right. Goodbye. Bye.