Stems and Branches Acupuncture in Daily Practice · Volume 5
Atmosphere, not strength
Volume 5: how the divisions come off the branch, the two halves of the year, six descriptions — and an honest answer to when this level is worth touching at all.
Get Volume 5 — $69All taxes included. Instant download, PDF and EPUB.
Stems and Branches — Volume 5: The Six Divisions
The six divisions are the level most often quoted and least often used well. This volume separates the two.
You get the derivation — how a division actually comes off the branch — the two halves of the year, and six descriptions written as atmosphere rather than as a measure of how strong someone is.
It also says plainly when this level adds nothing, which is the sentence that saves you the most time in practice.
The shortest volume of the six, and the one that most often stops a practitioner from over-reading a chart.
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 level that comes in last: where the liver meets the pericardium in jue yin, and how the pulse tells you this level is the one speaking.
Start with your own date of birth.
The free calculator gives you your dominant great movement, the element it provokes, and one thing to practice for each. Everything above reads differently once it is about somebody you know.
Read my own dateEverything that is in the book
All 17 chapters, in order, plus the one-page cheat sheet that closes the volume.
PART I. What a division is
1. Why “division” and not “layer”
2. When this level comes into play
3. The six divisions are the four emanations once again
PART II. How to work out your division
4. The division correlates with the branch
5. The first and the second half of the year
6. Live analysis: four levels of one person
PART III. The six atmospheres
7. Tai yang — resentment and hidden strength
8. Shao yang — social beasts with fear in their eyes
9. Yang ming — highly sensitive people who take a long time to trust
10. Tai yin — stability looked for outside
11. Jue yin — the goal, the form and the help they do not ask for
12. Shao yin — charming people who have to schedule their rest
PART IV. In the clinic
13. The same rules as with the five elements
14. Three ways to address a division
15. What I say to the patient
16. Questions from the course
PART V. Appendix and cheat sheet
17. Appendix: find your division
What this volume does not contain
No point prescriptions. Not because they are a secret, but because a point choice that is not made on the pulse is a guess with a number attached. What you get here is the reasoning: which level, why that level, and what changes when you get it right. The points are taught with the pulse under your fingers, in the course.
Where this volume sits
Stems and Branches is six volumes. Each one assumes only the one before it, and each one works on its own. Volume 5 is the fifth.
All six volumes together: $249 on this page, list price $419.
526 pages, six cheat sheets and a cheat sheet for the whole series. That is 40% off the price of buying the volumes one at a time. See the complete series.
$69
Volume 5 · 64 pages · PDF and EPUB · all taxes included · instant download
Get Volume 5One payment. Yours to keep, including future corrected editions.
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.
Volume 5: The Six Divisions
64 pages · PDF and EPUB · $69, all taxes included
Get Volume 5Instant download. Every page carries your name — it is your copy.