The Science of the Five Archetypes
Everything under the sun can be analyzed in terms of the 5 elements, AKA 5 phases. I don’t much like this terminology, so I will use ‘5 Archetypes’. The Chinese word is 五行 wu3 xing2, which, I think better translates to, ‘5 Phases’ or ‘5 Transitions’, but in a way this is too dynamic of a meaning, as it insinuates temporal components and state change. The word ‘element’ is far too static a concept to encompass this philosophy, as it insinuates a single state of being, or a building block. So like the proverbial Goldilocks, I have settled upon the middle-path word ‘archetype’ instead. Because when you say ‘element’, people think that the speaker believes the world to be made up of little bits of wood or fire or earth, et cetera; which is nonsensical. When you say ‘phase’ people just get confused and go cross-eyed. But ‘archetype’ carries a special meaning:
*archetype
är′kĭ-tīp″
noun
An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype.
An ideal example of a type; quintessence.
In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious.
*The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
This is by far the best way to describe and utilize the 5-word-problem, so I will for now settle on ‘5 Archetypes’. When we say fire, in the context of East Asian medicine, we don’t mean a literal fire. And when we say metal, we aren’t referring to the mineral content of our cells or the hemoglobin in our blood. When we use any of the 5 archetypes of the East Asian model we are making a metaphor. The metaphor is our way to make a model of the world. I think the above definitions of the word ‘archetype’ are all quite suitable. I especially like the word quintessence, which, somewhat ironically is derived from ‘quinta essentia’ or ‘five elements’. The third definition above is the most important though. “an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from past collective experience and present in the individual unconsious”. Thanks again to the great doctor Jung! This is an excellent description of how we use the 5 Archetypes. With a little creativity and pontification, we can derive the 5 Archetype correspondences in various contexts. All you have to do is consider our basic understanding of these five ancient natural manifestations, what is there nature, how do they interact, what is their individual roles and what are their life-cycles.
Let us take an example of one such archetype in the context of the organs of the body. What is fire in the context of the organs? So here is the exercise, so you can get there on your own (Don’t look ahead): What is the fire-colored part of our body that is in constant movement and needs a constant supply of oxygen or gets extinguished? Did you get there yet? Here is a hint, it burns with passion for your lover. If you aren’t there yet, I am concerned for you! Of course it is the Heart (I will capitalize organs when referring to the functional construct named in East Asian medicine, versus lowercase for the anatomical tissue). So, is the Heart actually made of fire? Is the Heart transitioning from one state of matter to another? No and no! But in the context of the other organs, which is the most like fire…the Heart. In other contexts you will find similar metaphorical labelling of natural phenomena. It is important to grok that this labelling is not an absolute nor objective exercise. Like yin and yang, we are saying the Heart is fire in a relativistic sense. Out of the cohort of internal organs, the one most archetypally matched to fire is the Heart. That is it! Which is the best match!
In this way, the role of the East Asian medical provider is sometimes to look at a situation and think, which archetypes are involved in a given condition? How are they interacting? Which is too much? Which is too little?
This may seem like a fruitless exercise, and a thoroughly unscientific one at that. But I would rebut that this mode of thinking is indeed a useful one because it just works so darn well. It is indeed scientific because it can make good predictions. Which begs the question, what is science? Science is the process of generating useful predictive models. Science does not equal data, nor is it only derived by double-blind placebo controlled studies. Science is much older than all of that. We are fond of saying children are natural scientists, yet I have never met one who has designed, executed and recorded a double-blind placebo controlled study with a sample number sufficient to drop the p-value to <.05. Children are scientists because they are actively playing and butting up against the world in a way in which they can assemble a model that approximates the working rules that govern their surroundings. Pretty quickly will a child learn that fire is hot and associated with the color red. Pretty quickly that knowledge is applied in other situations. See that filament in the lightbulb, see that coil on the electric stove? It is hot and you know it cause it just changed colors and you can test it by getting close to feel the heat, or see the light it produces. There is the archetype of fire in that thing! So science is most basically, our way to approximate reality with a model that has predictive power.
The 5 Archetype system of thought is a model with predictive power. Like all models, it has some rules. And to use the words from Bret Weinstein, it is “literally false, but metaphorically true”. That is to say, within the context of this model, and using the metaphoric language therein, it has good predictive power. Once you start trying to attach any part of the model too firmly to the substrate of assumed reality, you will tear the whole thing apart.
For example, if a patient has ‘Heart Heat’ we don’t expect their body temperature to be raised, nor do we think that pouring water into their chest cavity will solve the problem. We must stay within the metaphor and use acupoints that clear heat from the heart or use points that ‘tonify water’, likewise we can prescribe herbs that drain fire. Usually, those herbs will be cool or cold in nature. We know which herbs are cold and which acupuncture points clear heat based on this same or similar metaphoric considerations.
This is the gift of the ancients! They deciphered the world for us, in simple terms. They have given us the metaphoric descriptors of hundreds of acupoints and thousands of herbs. From this database we can engage the pathophysiology of the human being. As you can see, East Asian medicine uses predictive models to create treatment interventions that have curative results.
