Acupuncture & TCM Articles

Articles by Jake Paul Fratkin, OMD, LAc

Jake Fratkin, OMD, LAc, has been in the practice of Oriental medicine since 1978. Following undergraduate and graduate training at the University of Wisconsin in Chinese language and philosophy and pre-medicine, he pursued a seven-year apprenticeship in Japanese and Korean style acupuncture with Dr. Ineon Moon and a two-year apprenticeship in Chinese herbal medicine with Drs. Zhengan Guo and Pak-Leung Lau in Chicago. He also spent a year in Beijing hospitals interning in advanced herbal medicine, specializing in gastrointestinal and respiratory disorders, and pediatrics.

Dr. Fratkin is the author of several books, including Chinese Herbal Patent Medicines: The Clinical Desk Reference, and is the editor-organizer of Wu and Fischer's Practical Therapeutics of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 1999, he was named the "Acupuncturist of the Year" by the American Association of Oriental Medicine.

Chinese Herbal Patent Medicines: The Clinical Desk Reference

Hardback book, 1198 pages. This volume covers 1360 products, including 550 GMP level products and all of California FDB analysis on 505 products. Includes information on endagered animals, heavy metals, and pharmaceuticals. The text is organized into 12 groups, with a total of 109 chapters and includes material by Andrew Ellis, Subhuti Dharmananda, and Richard Ko. Over 80 pages of full-color photos (with English and Chinese cross-reference). Fully indexed.

"Healing in the Fire of Moxa":
Acupuncture for Spiritual Purification

Hideo Izumoto looks like a Buddha. He has a round head, and large Buddha ears. He stands over the treatment table, claps his hands together loudly, and then starts singing in his beautiful deep melodic voice: HI FUMI, YO I MU NAYA. His chant has 47 words, each articulated with great focus and clarity. He then begins his treatment. Running his warm hands over the body, he first checks acupuncture meridians for deficiency, choosing several points to apply direct moxa or needle. Then his hands seek out chakra areas where he believes that “dark entities’ dwell. He will apply one to three direct moxa perhaps to fifty separate spots. “Are you driving the entity away?’, I ask. “No’, he replies in his gentle voice. “I am healing the darkness, allowing it to become free, allowing it to leave your body. It is being healed in the fire of moxa’. I ask, “How much illness is due to dark entities?’ He pauses to think, and then softly replies, “One hundred percent’.

Hideo Izumoto is an itinerant Shinto priest, living in both the United States and Japan. He is constantly traveling, teaching his purification chant to whoever comes to learn, giving treatments to those who come forward, teaching his method to acupuncturists who show an interest. His spiritual healing treatments have a powerful effect on all those receiving them.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I graduated Toyo Shinkyo Acupuncture school in 1976, and practiced in Japan. My parents were Buddhist, but until 1980 I had no special consciousness. I was spiritually blind, I didn´t believe in spiritual things. I went to acupuncture school because I failed in business. I was in a terrible state. My brother was an acupuncturist. My family worried about me, and recommended that I also go to acupuncture school. I went at age 33, so I could have work. School did not teach me real healing technique, not spiritual healing.

I had Shinto teachers during 1980 to 1985. I started chanting in 1980, the chant given by one of my teachers, and I continued chanting by myself. With chanting, my head opened up, my intuition developed, there was an increase in energy. My eyes changed, my ears changes, my sensitivity changed. Later my guardian kami angels taught me the true way to chant, that is, I understood the deeper meaning of the chant. God created heaven and earth with this chanting. The words of the chant are God´s words.

What is the cause of illness?

All people have problem with dark energy staying in their body. It´s created in their past lives, it´s their karma. Dark energy is unhappy and irresponsible; it makes all kinds of health problems. Sometimes it affects the meridians, sometimes organs. In heavy cases it affects the chakras.

Our body consists most deeply of the mind-body, then the spiritual body of light. When we are born, the physical body is created out of our spiritual light body. From this point of view, we can see that all problems and sickness come with the spiritual body, even before birth. This is the starting point of health problems. We carry from our previous lives our light, and our darkness.

How do you decide what and how to treat?

I look at the energy and spirit in the body and around the body. I give healing to the dark entity who stays in the body, where I see it. Dark energy causes all health problems, one hundred percent of health problems. By healing that dark energy, eventually the person´s light changes. It opens up and becomes normal, more beautiful.

When I look at the light, I look at chakras most importantly, then the meridian points. Dark energy can affect both chakras and meridians. The treatment is always different, depending on what kind of dark energy is causing the problem. I treat different chakras for different people, and I treat to increase the meridian energy where it is affected. Problems come secondary to past life karma: a dark entity comes to body, and the person gets sick. When you have a mild sickness, it´s not so much a dark entity, but the dark entity can take advantage of weakened energy.

Moxibustion in Traditional Chinese Medicine Books
100 Diseases Treated by Single Point of Acupuncture Moxibustion, The Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion.

In your treatments, you often use direct scarring moxa. Why?

Moxibustion is very good for spiritually difficult patients. For example, AIDS, cancer, mental disease, incurable disease. Also, for persons with strange aura presentations. Moxibustion is better than needles, it is ten times stronger. The dark entity that caused the sickness, it heals through moxibustion energy. Then, if the dark energy changes, all of the person changes.

Needles are also good. They make the energy move strongly, and opens up energy from the spirit level. There are some dark entities that actually require needle energy, but these are easy energies. A hard entity requires scarring moxibustion. The scab allows the treatment to continue working. The scar won´t disappear until the problem is healed. Only burning moxa can do this. As the spiritual body increases, the dark entity disappears.

Moxibustion, yes, it is painful; not so many people like it. But it really works. Patients who like moxibustion, they really change quickly. All good things happen quickly and perfectly. If you use non-scarring moxa, this is also good. But I don´t recommend it for dark entity problems, because the spirit can only be healed in the fire of moxa. The fire must touch the physical body. When you burn the skin, it affects the spiritual body as well as the physical body.

Do you do pulse diagnosis?

I don´t check the pulse too much. The pulse will show when and where the dark energy is active, so you could use the pulse. I prefer touching and looking. I touch all the meridians, I feel the fingers, the wrists, toes and feet. I use my eyes also. I look at the aura, at the light, to see problems. This works on chakras, but you can do the same on meridians points. Active dark energy will affect the meridians. I like to treat the points at the end of the fingers and nails, with direct moxa. I usually do the affected meridian, and then it´s pair. If there is no meridian problem, then I will open up the mind-body on the top of the head, or work on the lower sex energy chakra. Also, the dark energy likes to threaten the heart chakra area, so I always check here. If the dark energy is really strong in the heart area, it can be dangerous. If this is the case, I always treat the heart.

Tell us about your needle technique. (Izumoto Sensei creates strong needle sensation, staying with his needle for some time as he slowly lifts, thrusts, and twirls. He either leaves the needle in place, or removes it as he goes on to the next point. It is not unusual for him to treat twenty points in this way. He has also hand crafted an 18 K gold dashin, a six inch sharply pointed heavy hand-held probe which he hits in four light rapid taps with a wooden mallet.)

It´s important to focus when doing these techniques. The healer´s mind affects the energy in the needle, and the healer must have a good attitude. It´s all mind: the healer´s mind and the patient´s mind working together. Also, of course, the guardian kami angels help in the healing. I try to show a love attitude towards the patient. Silently or vocally, I say all good and kind and soft words, so that the patient loves me and loves the treatment. These feelings promote healing. All of this is where success happens, where miracles happen. The dark entity will change.

When you put the needle in and take it out, it is very important how you do it. When you tonify, your mind-attitude creates energy and affects the effect of the needle. Use loving mind-attitude, and push energy into needle with sashide (right needle hand), into the meridian. This really works. This is the number one starting point. Do this for ten to twenty seconds, then the energy around the needle really changes. As your fingers feel the change, you can take the needle out, or leave it in for the whole treatment. When removing the needle, use oshide hand (left needle hand) to push in energy in and close hole. Use some force to push the energy back into the body.

With the dashin, hit it four times with mind intention and focus. I use it for tonification. With dark energy, you must give tonification.

What is your opinion about AIDS?

AIDS spirit comes to the person due to past life karma. Cancer is the same. All difficult diseases are fundamentally the same. The dark energy comes to the body, then stays in the body. First it affects the spiritual body, then it possesses the physical body. It starts with the blood, then it affects all of the body. Both the spiritual and physical body must be healed. Sometimes we are able to heal, sometimes not. If it is difficult, I talk with the patient´s guardian kami angel, and I talk with the dark entity. I ask God for advice. I do my best. In these cases I put my hands on their body, and chant. This is called soft healing. I chant silently, or out loud. I just give energy unconditionally to the darkness.

Sometimes the patient can not be healed, because the dark entity really doesn´t want to receive healing. The dark entity won´t receive God´s healing, and the patient must die. In this case, the patient needs to apologize to the entity. Then, their karma is fixed. The person will come back and have more happy life next time.

What are your thoughts concerning acupuncture as a spiritual path?

It is a very good way for practitioners to resolve their karmic debts. Very healing. As a spiritual path, acupuncturists need to develop their third eye by chanting and meditation. Then you can see and feel the light and dark energies, and you can heal with God´s light. When you put the needle into the body, extend the light energy into the darkness, until it is gone. Chanting will develop your intuitiveness, and your intuition will tell you where to do needle, where to do moxa. You can´t do it the book way. You have to look at the body to make your decision.

How can sick people heal themselves?

Chanting and meditation can heal illness by increasing the mind-body at the third eye, which will change the physical body. The hara and heart chakra are also important. The hara feeds the heart, and the heart feeds the third eye. The hara (dantian, CV 4 to 6) is really the spleen-pancreas, where food becomes energy. The heart chakra is responsible for the immune system. In healing, you must concentrate on the third eye. It is the pinpoint of life, the center of the mind-body, and it will more fundamentally affect both the heart and the hara, and the physical body as a whole.

Why is chanting so important?

The purpose of chanting and meditation is to increase mind power, and to purify the soul and mind, the spiritual and mental bodies. One of the biggest problems is that our mind-body has lost God´s spiritual light, making our eyes, ears, and intuition dirty. That´s why we cannot see true energy and light. To regain this kind of talent, we need to increase more and more God´s energy in our mind-body. Chanting and meditation is the most important and powerful step, and I recommend that each one of us practice. If you chant with your focus on the third eye, even for one minute, energy changes dramatically. If this chanting and meditation spreads on this planet, revolution happens, which is good for people and the planet earth.

Is there a special way to do the chant?

It must be done from the hara, the area of belly button or lower. Chant from this spot. A beautiful sound will come out. Your voice will become a high vibration. Don´t chant just from your chest and throat and mouth. The power comes from the hara. But also, with eyes closed, use each word to observe and create the center of your mind-body, in the third eye. The method is like this: chant nine times, then meditate for three minutes; then chant six times, with a two minute meditation. Finally, chant three times, with one minute mediation. If you chant like this, eighteen times every day, it will change your life. You will see light and energy, you will see darkness in people´s body. Every day for twenty five minutes, and gradually the light at the third eye opens up from within. Then, lots of intuition comes. Your guardian kami angels will hear and help you.

What is your method of meditation?

In meditation, the first step is to relax the mind, perfectly and completely, as much as possible. The second step is to look at the center of the inner world, located at your third eye. If you point your finger at third eye, feel where energy is strongest. This is the point. It affects the pituitary gland, and allows energy to flow strongly. Look in a very focused way from your third eye, at the very center of the inner world.

What is Shinto? What are kami?

Shinto means God´s way, God´s action. (Chinese: shen dao, the way of the divine spirits). As you practice, you come back to God´s being, and you become a more normal being. A person creates more energy for himself, and he or she naturally happens to become more God-like. Kami means a god, but the true meaning is a person or spirit who practices God´s way, creates God´s energy for oneself. Praying to kami means making oneness with kami, and in Shinto we constantly pray for oneness.

Any final words?

We need an ongoing process to promote self-healing, healing of our neighbors, healing our patients, healing this planet. Chanting and meditation is that process. Aways, heal yourself first. This is not selfishness. This is good selfishness. You have to love yourself first, then your neighbor. You are creating your own world. Shinto teaches that you are God and creator. That´s why you have to love yourself first. That´s what the chant teaches. You are God and creator, and it lasts forever.

100 Diseases Treated by Single Point of Acupuncture Moxibustion
by Cheng Decheng
Single point therapy is an independent treatment method, derived from acupuncture and moxibustion. It refers to the application of stimulation at one point or one small local area of the superficial of the body in order to treat and prevent diseases.
Single point therapy consists of many methods of acupuncture and moxibustion, such as acupuncture, moxibustion, auricular acupuncture, head acupuncture, cupping therapy, bleeding therapy, point injection and laser therapy. It also consists of medicated compress, acupressure and massage, which are exceptional category of acupuncture and moxibustion.
Single point therapy uses fewer points with less pain, and easy to master, with good and quick effect. This book introduces different therapies for the treatment of 100 common diseases by single acupoint, including the point, location, method, result, case study and discussion, with the author's personal experiences.