Simple Questions: dialogues with modern acupuncturists

This one’s more likely to interest acupuncturists rather than the patients that see them but I thought I’d highlight a brilliant website I found a while ago, ‘Simple Questions – dialogues with modern acupuncturists’. It’s a great resource of interviews with leading figures in the field of acupuncture and Chinese Medicine and for the reason that it’s sleepily hidden in a corner of the internet I thought it deserved a mention for its treasures. It’s an undiscovered gem of 5 one hour individual interviews with Stephen Birch, John Hicks, John Tindall, Peter Deadman and Lonny Jarrett.

Each practitioner was a pioneering figure in the early days of acupuncture’s migration westward and the collection of interviews are a fascinating glimpse of the many facets of acupuncture, which as you can hear is many different things to different teachers – for some, a pragmatic down to earth method of stimulating the nervous system, and for others a very different kind of therapeutic encounter that focusses with a kind of peripheral vision on the totality of a person’s being. All very different approaches to tending to human suffering, and all intriguing.

Highlights for me are Stephen Birch’s fascinating tales of training in acupuncture in Japan (where at one point I think 25 – 40% of practitioners were blind) and Peter Deadman’s first hand experience of acupuncture in China – an interesting insight into how needling in the homeland differs from some of the methods used in the West.

I had the opportunity to benefit from John Hick’s wisdom at The College of Integrated Chinese Medicine where I trained so hearing him talk is always a nostalgic pleasure, and Lonny Jarrett’s unique perspective on Chinese Medicine as a tool for evolving consciousness is stimulating food for thought. I haven’t been there for a while but his Nourishing Destiny forum provides much interesting debate on his take on Chinese Medicine, worth checking out if that’s your interest.

If you’re an acupuncturist, you’ll have a curious few hours of listening ahead…enjoy:

Simple Questions – dialogues with modern acupuncturists