Two patients, one diagnosis, two different results

Stems and Branches — Volume 1: The Energy Cloud

Volume 1 is the foundation. It does not give you a chart to read yet; it gives you the way of looking that makes a chart worth reading at all.

The person is described as an energy cloud rather than a set of organs, the needle is put back in its place — it adds nothing and takes nothing away — and the four emanations that run under every later level are laid out one by one.

It also settles the thing that decides whether you use this system well or badly: these are tendencies, not determinants. A chart that does not match the pulse is wrong, and the pulse wins.

What this system does in your treatment room

1. It shows you how the meridians lean on each other.

Take the liver. Through the heavenly stems it is paired with the large intestine. Through the earthly branches, with the small intestine. In jue yin, with the pericardium. I know no other system that lays these connections out as clearly. With your fingers on the pulse you can tell which of these levels the imbalance sits on, and you treat on that level. That is what makes a treatment personal in the literal sense, and in my clinic it is where the better results come from, though not in every patient. Working on that level from the pulse is what the 2-Point Acupuncture course teaches.

2. It tells you which points of a combination belong to this patient.

A date of birth shows a person's tendencies, and those tendencies show up as meridians that run toward excess and meridians that run toward deficiency. When a textbook gives you points on four meridians, you keep the ones on the meridians that match this person. In my clinic the great majority of patients fall ill along their own meridian tendencies, so that is most likely where the illness began. The chart stays a hypothesis: if it does not agree with the pulse, the pulse wins.

3. It gives the patient something to take home.

You can tell the patient, in plain words, which level is involved and which meridian is struggling, and give them one thing to practice every day. That way they keep using, in their ordinary life, the energy the needles just strengthened.

What this volume adds: The ground all three stand on: the person as an energy cloud, and why the pulse always has the last word.

Everything that is in the book

All 17 chapters, in order, plus the one-page cheat sheet that closes the volume.

PART I. What acupuncture actually is

1. A piece of iron and a change you can see at once

2. How this system ended up in my clinic

PART II. How the energy cloud comes about

3. Mom, dad and the first breath

4. The first three years. Learning to digest life

5. Every visit is the first one

PART III. Four levels and one principle

6. Tendencies, not determinants

7. Life challenges

8. Short term and long term

PART IV. The common denominator: yin, yang and the four emanations

9. Everything comes down to yin and yang

10. Yuan, Heng, Li, Zhen

11. The world of ideas and the world we experience

PART V. What the treatment really does

12. Acupuncture does not cure

13. Three things the patient does

14. Energy does not change suddenly

15. Sweeping your own backyard

PART VI. Questions, practice, cheat sheet

16. The questions that come up most often

17. Appendix: a week of observation

What this volume does not contain

Everything I know about this system, in six volumes

I use this system on twenty to thirty patients a day, and I have been teaching it for fifteen years. The six volumes are that teaching written down: all four levels, in the order I teach them, with the reasoning I use standing in front of a patient.

Nothing is held back for a higher tier. There is no seventh volume and no advanced edition: what I know about this system is in these 526 pages. The one thing a book cannot hand you is the pulse under your own fingers, and that is what the live course is for. Everything else is here.

Each volume assumes only the one before it, and each works on its own. Volume 1 is the first, and it is free because if this turns out not to be your way of thinking, you should find that out without paying for it.

Questions people ask

Do I need the earlier volumes first?

Each volume assumes only the one before it, and each stands on its own for what it covers. If you are starting from zero with this system, Volume 1 is the place to begin; if you already work with it, you can pick up the level you need.

Is a birth chart not just astrology?

It would be, if it decided anything. Here it decides nothing — it narrows down where to look, and the pulse settles it. Every chart in these books is read with that caveat stated out loud, and the volumes say repeatedly that a chart which does not match the pulse is wrong.

Who wrote this?

Michal Richter, MD — a physician and acupuncturist in Poland, twenty-five years of exclusive acupuncture practice and twenty to thirty patients a day. I learned this system from Joan Duveen, a student of Dr J.D. van Buren, and then spent five or six years testing what actually survives contact with a clinic. This series is what survived.

What format do I get?

PDF and EPUB, both included in the price, delivered by e-mail the moment the payment goes through. The PDF is laid out for a desk and for print; the EPUB reflows on a phone between patients.