After an article detailing how “Traditional Chinese Medicine” is largely a 1950s invention of Chairman Mao was circulated on one of the online groups for Energy Psychology practitioners, David posted a reply:

Thank you for bringing attention to the intentional misuse of the word "traditional" in "Traditional Chinese Medicine" (TCM). Donna agrees. Just last week, in a five-day class we were teaching, Donna made a big point about Mao's role in TCM. She was much more respectful, however, about the pre-Mao Chinese health care practices than is Levinovitz [who wrote the article]. Donna thinks that in unifying and Westernizing the various sets of practices, Mao stripped them of their heart and soul. She sees great wisdom in many of the earlier concepts. Our entire class, for instance, focused on what Donna calls the Radiant Circuits, which are largely ignored in TCM, partially because they are so unpredictable (they are, in fact, known in the older texts as the "strange flows" or the "extraordinary vessels") and so much intuition is needed to work with them effectively. TCM also distances itself from Five Element theory, which Donna finds to be extraordinarily useful.

The psychologist who posted the article wrote back: “I would love to hear more specifics about this perspective: ‘Donna thinks that in unifying and Westernizing the various sets of practices, Mao stripped them of their heart and soul.’ This well-respected psychologist and David have often openly debated on the e-forum about issues related to subtle energies. The reply to David’s post also questioned the way that Western healers try to give authority to concepts from TCM by presenting them as having stood the test of centuries or even millenia.

David’s Reply (written in consultation with Donna):

How does Donna make sense of the world of subtle energies? As the baseball umpire said, "I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em." What she sees, feels, and intuits are the primary sources of information she goes on. Where her perceptions are similar to TCM or the older teachings, she adopts them. Where her perceptions are different (such as seeing Triple Warmer and the strange flows as having properties not recognized by TCM), her teachings counter or go beyond those models.

Where yours and my worldviews diverge [writing to the psychologist], to the extent that mine is influenced by working so closely with Donna over the past decades, is that I have come to put a lot of stock in what Donna sees (and registers kinesthetically) about energy. If Western science hasn’t been able to empirically demonstrate a particular subtle energy system that Donna perceives, I hold in my mind that it will be able to demonstrate it one day rather than that it is unproven speculation. I have learned to trust Donna’s maps because I have seen her consistently use those maps to assess maladies in ways the person can readily verify and then to heal a wide range of conditions.

When Donna was growing up, she assumed everyone saw energy the way she did (as did her mother, sister, and brother). Only when she got into her healing work, in her 30s, did she realize that the kaleidoscope of colors and shapes she sees had been mapped in various healing and spiritual traditions. The lines of energy were called meridians by the Chinese. The spirals of energy along the midline of the body were called chakras by yogis and in the Vedic texts, etc. She sees nine distinct energy systems that are relevant for healing the body, most of which are described in one time-honored healing system or another.

Donna does not feel she is special. She believes we are all born with the capacity to register subtle energies (whether through vision, hearing, feeling, smelling, or tasting – we have students who are adept in each of these ways of picking up on vibrations and registering them through one of their senses). But babies lose this attunement very quickly when it is not reinforced. Donna’s mother reinforced it in Donna (and in her sister and brother).

So to your question about "Mao stripped them of heart and soul." In not feeling special, it is easy for Donna to imagine that the ancient Chinese physicians, living in a non-technological world where people relied on and cultivated their senses more than we do today, that they also "saw" subtle energies and that is why there is so much correspondence between what Donna sees/feels and the ancient maps. But it is largely an intuitive journey to see and feel subtle vibrations and to sense what they mean and what would be healing. That intuitive dimension – which connects us with the cosmos, the unity of all it contains, and the sense of awe and wonder – is what Mao stripped from the old teachings, and for Donna that is where the heart and soul of healing lie.

Yes, I would be much more comfortable standing upon a solid, scientifically-verified, empirical foundation in my cosmology, but based on all the sources of information available to me, I have elected to "see it the way she calls it." It has been reassuring, along those lines, to watch the accumulation of empirical support for the efficacy of acupoint tapping. When I started, as recently as 2000, there wasn't a single peer-reviewed clinical trial showing that tapping works (now there are more than 30). It was all on faith for me, which – given my particular journey – was not easy. But I trusted my own and others' experiences with tapping despite the lack of systematic empirical evidence for its efficacy. I am now operating on faith that science will also be able to verify what Donna and many other healers (and, presumably, the ancient Chinese sages) all see or saw. I know that faith doesn't play well in the scientific establishment, and I don't exactly wear it on my sleeve, but the above is the perspective I hold as I try to make sense of this new and still strange field called Energy Psychology.