Electrical Engineering for the Body with Dr. Dan Keown
Posted on
Today we are joined by Dr. Daniel Keown, author of the ground-breaking book “The Spark in the Machine: How the Science of Acupuncture Explains the Mysteries of Western Medicine” (2014) and more recently “The Uncharted Body” (2019). Dan has been a practicing doctor for over twenty years, and an acupuncturist for more than a decade. In 2010 he studied alongside the renowned Dr. Wang Ju-Yi at the Institute of Channel Diagnosis in Beijing. We discuss the importance of electricity in the health and function of the body, and how the meridian channels correspond to fascial pathways that surgeons routinely use. Dan suggests that dis-ease is fundamentally about dysfunctional qi flow, likening acupuncture to electrical engineering for the body. He explains how channel palpation works in relation to diagnostics and how fascia is the primary tissue allowing electrical movement throughout the body. We discuss how shen – or spirit – is an integral component to the health and happiness of an individual, and perhaps the most important indicator of health. We explore the fascinating connection between embryology and acupuncture, morphogenetic fields, the mystery of how a single cell becomes an entire body and how the six divisions in acupuncture theory serve as embryological planes. Furthermore, we discuss the extraordinary channels and how he views chakras as nerve ganglions, or mini-brains. Dan shares his frustration with the western medical model’s reductionism, where he feels it does and doesn’t work, and highlights how it excels with emergency medicine. He also shares a controversial viewpoint in which he feels that western medicine is a broken system. Dan envisions a future in which acupuncture is the first line of therapy in healthcare and hospitals worldwide – providing an inexpensive, intelligent, and effective way of supporting people’s health and well-being.
Dan received a degree in medicine from Manchester University in 1998, and 2008 he completed a degree in Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture from the College of Integrated Medicine affiliated with Kingston University, and has been a member of the British Acupuncture Council since. He practices in Tunbridge Wells, UK and runs an online teaching institute The School of Scientific Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture which he founded in 2015.
Listen on:
Share post:
