In ancient times healing care had a strong spiritual core. Most illnesses were believed to be caused by evil spirits, or by angry gods or goddesses. Shamans, witches, and faith healers were special persons whose power came from a common source. In the eyes of the people they treated, they had an ability to intercede with the gods. Through set rituals and offerings they appeased angry gods or channeled the powers of the gods to help patients heal. Herbs, bloodletting, and even insects were used along with hands-on touch of the healers, but no healer was considered effective unless he or she could call on the spirits or gods to help heal the sick.

These practices began to fall out of favor in the West with the advent of Hippocratic medicine. Western healers relied on herbs, balms, and slowly refined surgical procedures to address or suppress symptoms. The increasingly powerful church took a dim view of witches, shamans and faith healers. Many were accused of using black magic and other heretical practices and were often put to death. By the late 16th century the spiritual aspect of medicine had fallen away.

Practice of medicine in China, however, retained a strong spiritual core. Their healing tradition, based on learning from nature, learning from the five senses, and learning from symptoms, was well developed by 400 B.C.E. The examination of a patient consisted of looking, asking, listening, and touching the patient. The village doctor would use as many as six different physical assessments before beginning to treat his patient. The patient's color, sound, and predominant emotion were also taken into account during treatment. Every patient was seen as a whole person, not as a symptom. therefore no two patients were treated in the same way. These early doctors who traveled from village to village were often Buddhist or Daoist practitioners.

They and the people they served revered both their ancestors and nature and they believed that everything in the world, animate or inanimate, contained spirit or qi (pronounced chee). This qi was called 'original qi' and since its source was heavenly it was spiritual. Humans were considered to be intermediaries between heaven and earth, that is, they carried out heaven's edicts on earth. Heavenly spirit (Shen) resided in the human heart where it was able to enter the blood and be carried throughout the body, so that one's bodily actions would be guided by the spirit. Thus if a person was ill, their spirit was also affected and required treatment. It was unthinkable to these doctors that they would not address the patient's spirit as well as their body and mind.

These early village doctors believed that spirit/qi also flowed though the body in external and internal pathways called meridians or channels. These channels all had points along them with specific uses for the body, the mind or the spirit. Needling these points, the doctor was able to treat the patient in a holistic way. These ancient acupuncture points are still being used today.

This spiritual tradition of Chinese medicine continued into the 1920's. Sun Yat Sen, the leader of the Chinese Nationalists, and his follower, Chiang Kai Shek, noticed the success western doctors in China were having with drugs and surgical procedures on patients not helped by Chinese medicine. They came to consider Chinese medicine inferior to western medicine, and discouraged its practice. Village doctors, not trained in western medicine, were discouraged from practicing. This trend continued with Mao Tse Tung when the Communists came to power in the 1950's. However, Mao realized that China did not have the facilities to train the thousands and thousands of western style practitioners China would need, so he permitted the old Chinese medicine to be again taught under the label of Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM. Because Mao was a Communist, he had all references and treatment protocols that referred to the spirit purged from the curricula at the Chinese medical teaching hospitals.

However, despite its continuing repression in China, Classical Chinese Medicine, as many now call it, was able to stage a comeback in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States through the efforts of a number of acupuncture teachers, schools and practitioners who wanted to keep the rich tradition of ancient Chinese medicine alive and well. Acupuncturists trained in the Five Element system are in the forefront of those who treat the whole person with body-mind-spirit medicine. For these practitioners, their patients' health becomes an active, ongoing cooperative process of cultivating and nourishing life to the fullest.

Carolee Parker holds a Master's degree in Acupuncture from the Traditional Acupuncture Institute (Columbia, MD) and is a NCCAOM diplomate. She has studied Qigong healing in China with well known teachers Carolee has been active in the healing arts community for more than 25 years. Besides acupuncture her specialty is Qigong healing. She is a certified instructor in the Universal Healing Tao system, a AOBTA certified shiatsu instructor and the founder of the oldest Five Element Shiatsu school in the United States.