In the Fall of 2009 I received an inquiry from a patient regarding a system of healing called “Tong Ren”. I had never heard about it, so began to educate myself through repeated application and study of the method.

I decided to hold a weekly group session in order to see if it would prove helpful for inspiring folks to heal themselves of their patterns of illness. In the first few weeks we began to see some fairly impressive changes in the health of those who attended.

A child with scoliosis whose posture was immediately improved greater than 50% within 10 minutes of the 2-minute session. A stage IV cancer patient with lung involvement reported the following week that her breathing was the best it had been in six months with a 3-minute session. A stage IV cancer patient (inoperable liposarcoma) with severe water accumulation not responsive to diuretics spontaneously urinated out over 20 lbs of water over the course of 2 weeks with only two 3-minute sessions. This participant also mentioned that her appetite was changed from anorexic and nauseated (cachexia) to “famished” after each treatment. Cataracts of recent origin regressing within hours after treatment. Type II diabetes improving greatly without other intervention. Macular Degeneration stabilizing and reversing to a degree after 2 years of orthodox and natural methods had failed for this patient.

The theoretical foundation for the cause of disease in the Tong Ren approach is that all disease is present simply due to the existence of blockages (resistors) within the network of channels or reservoirs for bioelectricity flow within the body. Channels translate to acupuncture meridians and reservoirs to energy centers or “banks of chi” such as the Dan Tien below the navel. Whether it is a bladder infection, lung cancer, depression or psoriasis, each disease process typically can be matched with a similar pattern of blockages within the body. If these blockages can be opened, the body finds itself in an optimal state for breaking free from the disease adaptation. I had heard this countless times before, but it took on an entirely new level of meaning as I witnessed folks clearing their illnesses with this rather simplified approach.

Tom Tam is the Boston Chinese acupuncturist who created the Tong Ren concept. He also integrated the notion of Carl Jung’s collective unconscious to explain why this method is able to achieve such a high degree of success. In life we may find that we belong to various collectives. Examples include: your church, corporation, club, association, branch of military service. Each collective has its own personality and can act to either reinforce and strengthen the achievement of goals (healing disease for example via biologically valid interventions) or its vision or lack thereof can greatly constrain the achievement of goals (spend loads of money on low order interventions which largely diminish the health of a population through symptom suppression for example; chemotherapy and radiation in particular achieve very poor cure rates in advanced cancers for example).

Simply put: the more people that subscribe to a system such as Tong Ren where the solutions to health challenges are seen to be simple and the delivery of true healing within the reach of us all, it begins to create that reality. So if Mrs. Jones treats her daughter with Tong Ren for her allergies, the results can vary by her own skill level, but will also rely on whether there are 10,000 vs. 2 million vs. 30 million practitioners holding that this method is both valid and powerfully effective in everyday life.