Another Acupuncturist in praise of "The Spark". Dr. Daniel Keown with convincing logic and artistry has established the principles of Acupuncture and Oriental Medical Theory firmly on the ground of western science. **** His unfolding embryology is itself a fractal in mankind's unfolding consciousness. The coupling of Acupuncture Points, Qi, and Growth Control Centers is brilliant as is the linking of components of Oriental Medicine. The language and understanding of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine should become ordinarily spoken and second nature to all people. It is an organ centric consciousness based entirely on the subjective. **** "The Spark in the Machine" and "Saam Medical Meditation" enable a greater self understanding and conscious awareness of Qi and the autonomic physiologic process. With practice and awareness of these components of health you can change your health, grow upon the unlimited potential of whatever your fractal may be. This is the new spirituality. **** Henceforth, No Religion Can Exist Without It's Account of Qi **** Qi is at the heart of experience, memory, and intuition. Bring it forth into your consciousness through meditation and the meditative exercises. Become aware of Qi. study Taichi and Qi Gong, you can guide Qi and consciously direct Qi through simple expanded understanding of self. Thank you Dr. Dan Keown for "The Spark in the Machine" you have greatly expanded my consciousness. Of self and the fractal universe. Bravo!!!!

This book makes sense of chinese medicine for the western mind and explains its knowledge in terms of western medicine. It explains its link to embriology, and gives us an open-minded view of the strengths and failures of western medicine. It is written with clarity and can be understood by the lay reader. It is an enjoyable read. I learned much and would have liked to learn yet more from this excellent author.

The drawings cannot be viewed properly in the kindle version. They are hand-drawings which could be improved for kindle, it would only require tracing the lines darker and writing the captions larger. The author himself could go back and do this. As it is, we cannot see the drawings because the lines are too lightly drawn and we need a magnifying glass to read the captions. Amazon could/should be more careful with kindle editions. I often find these problems with charts or drawings in kindle editions which could be easily resolved with a minimum of attention. For my own use, the kindle edition was sufficient even with its problems as the drawings were not necessary to understand the concepts.

Do I want to read about 'Star Wars' and how the way my body works relates to this or that in this saga? NO. Do I want the author to share his political leanings by making snide comments against the former British PM Margaret Thatcher? NO. Do I care to hear his juvenile jokes in a book that is supposed to explain so many important and serious subjects? NO. Other than that, I liked it a lot. Very informative and well written.

In this book we learn about the Chinese medicine, body biology, and get the explanation to why acupuncture exists, and that it now has been used during at least 5,000 years; while still many doctors, locked up by Western educations, won't accept its existence.

It's especially the Yin and Yang channels, connections, which is used by the Chinese Medicine and among other explaining how acupuncture works, but which not yet is "known", or accepted, by the Western Medicine, as we have not yet for acupuncture found messenger canals parallel to for example blood vessels, or the nerve system, such which we can hold in the hand.

Since I was child I have read much World history, and here in the book it was very interesting, in the chapter 16, "What are Acupuncture Points", to read about how it was discovered that the Ice Mummy, Otzi, who had died 5,200 ago, and then after he in 1991 was discovered in the snow in the Otzal Alps, in Austria, it turned out that actually he had acupuncturist marks on his body. And by this it then was realized that acupuncture actually had be known in Europa for thousands of years, until it then probably was destroyed by the Spanish inquisition. Besides we also read that acupuncture also was known by the ancient Mayans in South America, even though they had no connection China.

In the end of some of the chapters, under the headline "Emergency case report", we read about how Daniel, when working in hospital emergency department, in some cases then used acupuncture or massage with great success. How problems then immediately were solved, as for example in one case with pane in the body, and solved by acupuncture, and in another case asthma solved by mild massage. But even though never any failures or problems by using acupuncture, later he no longer was allowed in using acupuncture, and then instead turned over in using acupressure. I would have liked in the book reading about more cases solved by the use of Chinese Medicine.

On me acupuncture one time has been used, and also here with great success. It was way back 20 years ago, then living in Denmark, when then one morning I woke up and nearly could not stand on my left foot because of pain in the left knee. This problem without doubt caused by an ice skating accident, 33 years earlier, (1963), on the left knee, and then had resulted in weeks in a hospital, but since then only seldom, in cold weather, a bit of discomfort in the knee. But now with this awful fain in the knee I succeeded in getting to my doctor, one of the few persons in Denmark, who had been educated in acupuncture (in Paris), and half an hour later nearly all of the pains had gone, but I visited her 1 time more, and since then not yet any pain again.

Starting on the side 274 we get the Appendix 3, "˜Referred' or "˜Radiating' Pain, covering 4 sides. To me very interesting writings about how the brains registrations the pains, and the different pains in different persons, and the many different types of pains. Interesting to me as I have been searching and reading much about pain because now during 9 years my brain constantly is telling me about a not existing pain in my right hand. Where actually the right hand is without failure, except totally without sensing, because the brain never has reregistered that the nerve is all right all the way down to the hand since the nerve was reconnected on the top of the shoulder.

It is funny in the book to see the Fibonacci number, the golden ration, and the Mandelbrot's fractal equation being used in connection to the buildings in the body, the cells, the DNA, and so on, and it fits good together, and as a mathematically fanatic I like it. Besides, in the book we are getting many helpful drawings.

I owe a couple of books about Chinese Medicine treatments as acupuncture, acupressure, massages (they talk about 6 kinds), and so on, but this is my first book detailed in the explanation of the Chinese Medicine. A brilliant book.

Quick background- I spent five years training in a PhD program in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences before leaving to pursue my career in oriental medicine. I've been a practicing acupuncturist for five years now. I thus have a pretty solid background in both western science and Chinese medicine and would be in an arguably reasonable position to evaluate the merits or lack thereof of this work.

With that said, this is the best proposal I've come across for explaining not just how but why acupuncture works in the context of western anatomy and physiology. While I wouldn't consider this work as proof of anything per se, I would consider it as an excellent framework from which further research could be implemented. A good amount of the work explores the relationship with a variety of theoretical foundations of oriental medicine with embryological development. In some cases some of the relationships are so clear and furthermore so functionally related that random coincidence of overlap between these two systems of medicine is exceedingly unlikely.

If I ran an acupuncture school, I would make this required reading. If I ran a [western] medical school, I would still make this required reading.