“What I do is live, how I pray is breathe…”
Thomas Merton
Larry Dossey, MD in his earlier books talked of Era 1, Era 2, and Era 3 medicine. I think it is an interesting way to frame the great diversity we find in medicine these days. A patient facing all the options available today can easily get confused, and his way of categorizing medical styles is a big help, because the goal of each is actually quite different.
In Era 1 medicine we find the “doctor as mechanic” model of practice. Classic here would be an orthopedic surgeon who repairs the body after a trauma of some sort, such as a sporting injury. Drug therapies as well belong to this Era 1 type. This form of medicine emerged around the 1860s and has come to dominate medicine as we know it. This is a natural offshoot of a materialistic philosophy.
Era 2 medicine is what he calls mind-body practice. Most people would place acupuncture here (more on that idea a little later), as well as reiki and other forms of light “energetic” touch, or even non-touch. The idea of psychosomatic illness belongs to Era 2.
Era 3 medicine is what Dossey calls “non-local” medicine. Here we would find healing-at-a- distance therapies. Writers who touch on prayer in healing are in this realm of Era 3 medicine. Dr. Dossey has written a few books on the studies conducted on prayer in healing. Curiously at least one of them, conducted in Israel, seems to allow for benefit to patients in the past, even when rigorously controlled. This overturns our accepted way of thinking of space and time, just as Bells’s Theorem did in physics. The goal of Era 3 therapies share some overlap with the goals of Eras 1 and 2 but go beyond that to incorporate a renewed sense of connection and belonging to the web of life.
I contend there are styles of acupuncture that are well matched for each of these eras. Trigger point types of acupuncture clearly belong to Era 1. I think TCM belongs here for the most part as well. Please be clear that I say this as no slight whatsoever. It is wonderful that we have practitioners who want to practice according to a detailed knowledge of the muscle system (or who work through the zang-fu filter). I am glad those who practice this way followed their own personal interests, and I am sure they help many patients.
Era 2 styles might include Japanese Meridian Therapy (there are many forms of MT), Worsley style, Shakujyu, and many other light touch approaches. Here the emphasis is on disharmony of one or another energetic sort. Treatment is not so much driven by the chief complaint of the patient. The goal of treatment is not so much to release a muscular constriction as to restore harmony and balance.
Era 3 acupuncture is much less common, and I think it is less style-dependent than in the cases cited above. Here I think we need to talk of the “superior physician” discussed in our classic texts. To practice in a way that is no limited by space and time calls for an extraordinary individual. This is transpersonal medicine.
The part of Larry Dossey’s work on Era 3 medicine that has generated the most interest (and controversy) is his focus on prayer. Prayer is of course accessible to acupuncturists. In that sense, even acupuncturists who practice in an Era 1 style can have an element of Era 3 medicine in their work, if they include this element of prayer.
Prayer as asking or telling a divine being what we hope will happen does not gather strong support in scientific crowds. For this reason, I start this blog with the quote from Merton. Can it be that simple that our breath itself, with a slight shift in awareness, can become our way of praying? I come down firmly on the side of this non-discursive prayer, of marrying our awareness and intent to our very breath. Science so dominates the day that I think trying to bring back the practice of saying established prayers will not likely be successful—and in saying this I am not at all criticizing those who practice prayer in this old way; I merely make the point that it would be extremely difficult to get this accepted broadly among people who have rejected organized religion. But aware breathing might have a chance, as witnessed by the explosion of interest in mindfulness practices. Can we unite on something we all share, that we all breath the same air?
Kind regards all around,
Bob Quinn