Master Gangxiao: ECT Therapy for Difficult Diseases — Chapter Five: Proof from Ancient Cultures

Chapter Five: Proof from Ancient Cultures

The conclusion about "suffering as a cure" still needs to be proven. I'll start with evidence from ancient cultures, then move on to medical science. The cultural evidence is more fun to read—a chance to relax your mind after the drier passages above—but that doesn't mean it lacks force. And remember, the medical proof is still coming later. Modern Chinese readers who carry an ingrained prejudice against ancient culture (mainly religion) should keep this especially in mind.

1. Christianity

When it comes to religion, let's not dismiss it with a snort and a stamp of the foot the moment it comes up. It has endured for thousands of years without fading. Of the world's five billion people, four billion practice some religion; the one billion who don't are concentrated largely in China. At the very least, we can't afford to ignore it. The West has advanced science and still believes— Americans aren't simply stubborn fools, not when even presidents and scientists are believers.

Dr. Jung, after careful study, pointed out: "What is religion? Religion is a system of spiritual healing. What are we as psychotherapists doing? We devote ourselves to healing the wounds of the soul—that is, the spiritual misfortunes of human beings—and this is precisely the problem religion addresses. Therefore our God is a doctor who heals human illness, who cures our diseases and relieves the suffering of our souls. Is this not exactly what we call psychotherapy? That religion is a system of spiritual healing is no mere wordplay. Religion is the most refined form of psychotherapy, containing within it great and true philosophy." What's more, religion has real value for revealing the human soul and promoting self-understanding. You have to be willing to engage with religion and study it before you're qualified to judge its merits. Turning religion into superstition is another matter. The point is to extract what's reasonable from it. Dr. Jung drew the useful concept of deep psychic structure from religion; today, we aim to extract its medical value.

All right—let's begin.

Jesus lived during the period corresponding to China's Han Dynasty. He wasn't God himself; he was an outstanding member of his church who inherited and developed the doctrines of the Old Testament. Whether his New Testament qualifies as scripture isn't a settled question—maybe it's even revisionism. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther's Reformation raised the banner of Jesus and proclaimed acceptance of his teachings. Worldwide, religions exist to this day that accept only the Old Testament and reject the New. In any case, the historical existence of Jesus isn't really in doubt.

According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus fled to Egypt after his birth; later he was baptized, and after baptism he was tempted. Matthew chapter 4 says the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days—I imagine he probably went without food but not without water—and then the devil came and put three strange questions to him. Jesus answered each one by quoting the Old Testament, and the devil left. After this, Jesus "attained the Way" and began recruiting disciples, preaching, and healing the sick. According to the New Testament, he cured at least seven cases. Looking at it now, those he cured were probably all neurotic, hysterical, or psychosomatic conditions—things like hysterical paralysis or blindness. And it's not just Jesus: modern psychotherapists can also make the paralyzed stand and walk immediately, or restore sight to the blind on the spot. Professor Ma Weixiang of Suzhou Medical College can do this with hypnosis. Professor Yang Desen of Hunan Medical College can even make you collapse, go blind, or feel sudden pain—in other words, transfer the illness onto you—and then send it away, restoring your ability to stand, see, and be free of pain. I'm not being mysterious here. I could give you these two professors' home phone numbers, though there's no need. It was Professor Yang Desen who presided over the formulation of the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders. These are real people and real events.

So Jesus's forty-day fast, even allowing for water, would have pushed him to the brink of death—perhaps even more agonizing than Morita bed rest. The devil was simply a hallucination brought on by starvation.

Matthew 6:16 records Jesus's teaching on fasting at the start of his ministry: "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting..." This tells us that, by the standards of early Christianity, ordinary believers were expected to fast too—though presumably not for forty days like Jesus. You don't hear much about Christians fasting nowadays, which at least suggests that all ancient Christians did fast. Jesus fasted for forty days before attaining the Way, and only then began to preach.

Fasting was Christianity's form of discipline for its followers, and it benefited their physical and mental health. Naturally, the Bible doesn't explain the "scientific" principles behind it; it uses language that sounds mystical to atheists. But the essence is psychological health leading to physical health.

According to the Old Testament, the early leader Moses established Ten Commandments for his people—do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness—and had them carved on stone tablets. Later, in a fit of rage, Moses smashed the tablets to pieces. Afterward he declared that these were the tablets of Yahweh and that they had to be recarved. He stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights: "he neither ate bread nor drank water. And Yahweh gave me the two stone tablets, written with the finger of God." If Moses truly fasted for forty days, that too would count as a near-death experience—a life-and-death ordeal. No wonder he became a leader of early humanity. He must have had a broad spirit, not one to squabble over small things, fully prepared to risk his life for the welfare of his people. This story is recorded in Deuteronomy chapter 9.

2. Buddhism

In 1996, Ye Xiaowen, Director of China's State Bureau of Religious Affairs, visited Nepal for the centennial commemoration of the discovery of the Ashoka Pillar, acknowledging the pillar as a marker of the birthplace of Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism. This can be seen as the Chinese government's recognition of Shakyamuni as a historical figure—though in fact, this was by no means the government's "earliest" such acknowledgment.

According to records, over 2,500 years ago Shakyamuni was originally the prince of the ancient kingdom of Kapilavastu (in present-day Nepal), the son of King Suddhodana. At nineteen he renounced his royal status and left home to seek the Way. On the western bank of the Nairanjana River, in the forest of ascetic practice outside the village of Uruvilva, he sat in meditation for six years. By the end, his body was so emaciated as to be unrecognizable—and still he had gained nothing, so he gave up this form of practice. Then he went alone to a spot about ten li beyond the Nairanjana River, where he sat beneath a bodhi tree on a large stone, legs crossed, and vowed: "If I do not attain the true Way, I will not rise from this seat." Like Jesus, he sat for forty-eight days. On the night of the forty-eighth day—the seventh night of the twelfth lunar month—demons came to assail him, demons being the embodied forms of various delusions within the mind. The prince displayed great power, subdued them all, and entered deep concentration. He contemplated the true principle, attained great liberation, perceived the true nature of past, present, and future, and penetrated the chain of causation across all three. On the forty-ninth day—at dawn on the eighth day of the twelfth month—he broke through into sudden great enlightenment and attained omniscient wisdom.

We can conjecture that Shakyamuni's forty-eight days of seated fasting—even if he still drank water—amounted to an ordeal no less intense than a near-death experience. He placed himself on the threshold of death, then broke through into great enlightenment, seeing through everything in the world. "Seeing through the worldly dust" is itself a Buddhist expression.

Afterward, seated meditation and even fasting were preserved within Buddhism as methods of cultivation.

Legend has it that when Bodhidharma came from the West, he faced the wall at Shaolin Temple for nine years, becoming the first patriarch of Chinese Chan Buddhism.

The Venerable Ren De—a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Vice Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Buddhist Association of China, and Abbot of the Jiuhuashan Buddhist Academy—also once undertook a Chan qi (seven-day intensive meditation retreat): sitting for seven days, but still eating. Afterward he did a "fasting qi"—seven days of seated meditation with no food or water. According to records—no, I shouldn't say "records," because that makes it sound like ancient legend. Venerable Ren De is still alive, and so are people who witnessed his fasting qi. At Lotus Flower Cave on Mount Zhongnan, Ren De sat in fasting meditation for seven days. During that time he reportedly encountered venomous snakes and wild beasts—whether these were hallucinations from extreme hunger or were real, he couldn't say. He pressed his palms together and said: "If in a former life I owed you a life-debt, then by all means eat me, and I will cultivate again in the next life. If I owe you nothing, I am only borrowing this precious place for seven days of practice. Once the seven days are up, I will return it." The snake then drifted away on its own. Even if it wasn't a hallucination, the snake wouldn't have been moved by Ren De's piety—snakes are simply afraid of people.

A Chan qi or a fasting qi (especially without water) is a trial of body and mind, placing yourself on the edge of death.

3. Islam

As for Muhammad, the founder of Islam, I don't have enough material on hand to say whether he fasted for roughly forty days like Jesus and Shakyamuni. But it's interesting to draw on Huo Da's celebrated novel Muslim Funeral. The book depicts Islamic believers preserving the old religious customs, still observing the Ramadan fast—though the practice has become less strict. The fast lasts a month: no food or drink during the day, but eating and drinking are permitted at night. Pregnant women, the sick, and others may be exempted. Believers are also encouraged to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, which could be a grueling long march.

Muslim Funeral introduces the male protagonist Han Ziqi. As a child he went by the religious name Ibrahim and the nickname Little Qizi. An orphan, he followed a man named Tuo Luoyeding from Quanzhou in Fujian Province, visiting ancient Islamic mosques along the way, until they arrived in Beijing and met Liang Yiqing, a Hui man. The bond between fellow Hui moved Liang Yiqing to ask Tuo Luoyeding whether he planned to return to Fujian. Tuo Luoyeding replied: "No. In Quanzhou I have neither home nor family. My destination is the Kaaba!" "The Kaaba? You're going to the Kaaba?" Liang Yiqing was genuinely startled. The Kaaba is the sacred shrine of Muslims, far away in the holy city of Mecca in Arabia. Every Muslim, if circumstances allow, should make the pilgrimage at least once in a lifetime. Every year, in the first part of the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar, Muslims from around the world leave their homelands, traveling in groups—some on foot, some riding, some trading along the way, some begging—streaming toward the Mecca they daydream about, in pious devotion.

When Liang Yiqing asked little Ibrahim whether he too was going, Tuo Luoyeding said: "Without him as a companion, I might never make it across those thousands of mountains and rivers. I'd end up dead and buried by the roadside. I pray for Allah's mercy to let us reach the Kaaba safely. If my time runs out, with Ibrahim along the journey won't be abandoned halfway—he's young and will surely arrive." But later, for certain reasons, Ibrahim stayed behind with Liang Yiqing, and Tuo Luoyeding set out resolutely toward Mecca. This little Ibrahim later became the novel's protagonist, Han Ziqi.

More than a decade later, Han Ziqi traveled to the Arabian Sea on business, and the book offers another moving passage: "He thought again of another person—Tuo Luoyeding, who had wandered the world without a penny. Eighteen years ago he had followed in the footsteps of his ancestors, heading toward the holy city of Mecca! His aged body, his feet in straw sandals—how would they ever complete this vast journey? And where was he now?" This is a religious trial of body and mind, longer even than the Long March.

On Islamic fasting, the book writes: "Chen Shuyan made dinner in the kitchen with tears in her eyes. The late aunt's unfinished mission had now fallen to her. In her final days the aunt had kept the fast herself, while still doing everything she could to feed the whole household. Now she was gone—praise be to Allah, who let her die during the holy month of Ramadan, meeting her Maker with her merit fulfilled."

"Despite the misfortune that had struck the household, Mrs. Han, while busy with the aunt's funeral arrangements, still strictly observed the commanded fast. Enduring hunger and thirst, she touched no water, took in no grain of rice, didn't even swallow her own saliva... her whole heart devoted to Allah, performing her good works."

"Dusk fell. On a snowy day you couldn't see the sun go down, but above the mosque a red lamp hung high, signaling the surrounding Muslims precisely when to break the fast. Only when the lamp was lit did Mrs. Han finally sit down to eat with her daughter-in-law."

Islam too requires its followers to undergo the trial of fasting.

4. Daoism and Shamanism

Daoism has cultivation practices called bigu (avoiding grains) and zuoguan (sealed-door sitting). Bigu means abstaining from food—specifically, not eating grains. Zuoguan means shutting yourself away, isolated from all contact, to practice seated meditation.

Zhang Sanfeng was a real historical figure: the leading representative of the Wudang school and the founder of taijiquan. According to research by the eminent British scientist Dr. Joseph Needham, the Ming emperor sent envoys to find Zhang Sanfeng in 1430, and in 1459 granted him the title "Perfect Person of Penetrating Subtlety and Manifest Transformation." During the martial-arts film boom of recent years, several movies about Zhang Sanfeng were released, such as Young Zhang Sanfeng, and they repeatedly show him practicing bigu or zuoguan.

Bigu and zuoguan are not pleasant. Both are trials of body and mind.

As for shamanism:

Shamanism has deep roots, traceable back to antiquity. Most of it has been lost. What little remains is treated like a rat crossing the street—everyone wants to swat it. But it has survived for thousands upon thousands of years, and studying it shouldn't be a crime. After all, we're allowed to study pathogenic bacteria, aren't we?

When shamans exorcise demons to cure illness, they start from the premise that disease is caused by ghosts and spirits. The patient is wrapped tightly in a blanket and then beaten with a peach-wood stick; deaths have been reported. Tightly wrapping and restraining the patient can easily cause asphyxiation. The patient inevitably feels anxious and distressed—exactly the kind of unbearable experience Morita therapy produces during its lying-in phase, cutting off excessive attention to the sensation of illness. Then the blanket is removed—the mechanism is the same as in Morita therapy. The regrettable part is that many practitioners don't bother to diagnose whether the patient actually has a neurotic condition; they blindly apply the method to illnesses that aren't neurotic in nature. And if they fail to gauge the intensity properly, they can easily asphyxiate the patient by mistake. When a cure works, newspapers and radio don't report it; when someone dies, the press plays it up as a cautionary tale.

Here's another example: a pit is dug in the ground and filled with a hundred worn-out shoes. A board is placed over the pit for the patient to lie on, the shoes are set on fire, and the patient is covered tightly over the pit opening and fumigated. This is said to cure illness too. In reality, it simply makes the patient endure an ordeal—thoroughly unpleasant, filled with anxiety and distress, cutting off excessive focus on the illness—dressed up with some mystical trappings. Its essence is the same as Morita therapy, and there's genuine psychology behind it.

It seems there are wolves in sheep's clothing, but also sheep in wolves' clothing. There is superstition cloaked in the language of science, and there is also science cloaked in superstition. On one hand, wrapping something in mystery attracts patients through its mystique; on the other, it invites criticism. The crucial thing is that the practitioner recognize whether the condition is appropriate and know how to control the intensity—removing the blanket swiftly when it's time to do so.

The four religions and shamanism discussed above all involve putting people through a trial of body and mind. Among them, those who endured the greatest trials became the founders: Moses, Jesus, Shakyamuni. The demands placed on ordinary followers were lowered—shorter fasts, or less strict ones.

The fact that all these religions independently adopted fasting as an ordeal can hardly be accidental. These religions attack and denounce each other on all sorts of grounds, yet on this single point they converge. That should catch our attention. They share a common principle: using an ordeal of body and mind to achieve physical and mental health. Let me be clear, though: religion itself is not superstition, but among its lower-tier followers it is indeed entangled with superstition. The God understood by an old woman in a village is worlds apart from the God understood by Newton or Kant. And how different is the Shakyamuni understood by Zhao Puchu from the Old Buddha understood by a village grandmother?

Religious and shamanic therapies are difficult to practice openly in China. Here I'm using them only as stepping stones toward science—just as alchemy led the way to modern chemistry. From a broader perspective in time and space, they help demonstrate the modern psycho-social-biological model of medicine.