How does acupuncture work?
Jan 22nd, 2008 by Michael Max
It is a question as common as rain in Seattle.
How does acupuncture work?
Us westerners like to think of nerves and endorphins, MRI lightshows and double-blind glimpses of reality. We want to know. Know if it works (just ask someone who has used it!), and how it does what it does.
After ten years of using needles to help people, I can clearly tell you.
Acupuncture does not do anything.
It is true, it does nothing. Needles don’t heal people and they don’t cure disease.
It is our bodies and that deep mysterious spark of life that does the healing. There is no healing that I know of that comes from outside of us. Sure, there are drugs and treatments that control symptoms, there are surgeries that save lives, there are drugs that halt an infection. But, the actual act of healing, of regaining lost health, or enhancing the balance of vitality. That all comes from within.
And that is where acupuncture plays an unusual role.
Acupuncture simply calls forth a response from the body. Like hearing the voice of a loved one when you are lost in a crowd. We are suddenly connected to a source of nourishment and wellbeing. The voice is nothing more than simply a reminder of the connection.
Like a particular smell from childhood, that transports us instantly into an all encompassing experience of the present and past collapsing into something beyond time.
Or the pregnant pause between a sizzle flash of lightning and the crack of responding thunder, there are forces of nature which play a dynamic call and response.
Calling forth that which is already there, opening an accessible channel,
this is how acupuncture works.
