Does Kidney Jīng provide you with a natural/genetic immunity OR, does it actually predispose you to ancestral diseases?

Today I will be throwing out a hypothetical discussion about Kidney Jīng, genetics, and hereditary diseases/disorders, especially in the context of diseases and immunity. For example, does Kidney Jīng provide you with a natural/genetic immunity, OR does it actually predispose you to ancestral diseases?

I have felt compelled to write about this topic for over a year now and have kept getting waylaid. The idea came about as I was spending a couple of weeks on a high-end detox diet called ‘Gerson Therapy’, which, apart from being an excellent cleansing body diet, is also supposedly good for cancer patients. So, as I am detoxing, I wanted to know more about the therapy I was using.

This involved reading a selection of books that did not just explain the detox, but also explained how it was supposed to be good for people that suffered from cancer. So, this got me thinking about the Chinese medicine view on diseases such as cancer, and how the Kidney Jīng can play a part; and that, as they say, is how this post/idea was born.

I assume that most of you are aware of Kidney Jīng, but as a quick refresher, there are three types:

…Pre-Heaven Jīng – is made at the point of conception, via the male and females Jīng energies. It is fixed in quality and quantity. Basically, it is what the parents provide their child in terms of what we might define genetics or hereditary energy. Of course, this theory also implies that your ‘parents parents’ were also partly responsible because of what they passed onto your parents, and so on and so forth; back in time it goes.

…Post-Heaven Jīng – is made from the combined energies of the air we breathe and the food and drink we consume.

…Kidney Jīng – the blending of the Pre and Post-Heaven energies.

“The Kidney Essence [Jīng] determines growth, reproduction, development, sexual maturation, conception, pregnancy, menopause, and aging… The Essence [Jīng] and Qi are also considered to be the material foundation of the Mind (Shen)”

(Giovanni Maciocia, The Foundations of Chinese Medicine, 2 nd  Edition, Elsevier Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, pp.46, 48).

So, because Kidney Jīng is closely linked to our hereditary make-up and genetic coding, it is the logical substance to discuss when we consider natural immunisation versus ancestral diseases. To pose the question again: Does Kidney Jīng provide you with a natural/genetic immunity OR does it actually predispose you to ancestral diseases?

I am always someone that likes to ponder and pose questions and hypothesise when I research Chinese medicine and so that is how I am going to lay out the rest of this blog. I will not be providing you with any concrete answers, but rather a reference point for you to ponder over and then hopefully, respond. In that way we can get a little community discussion started.

1) Cancer:

Let us start with the obvious discussion about genetic diseases such as cancer. In this regard, according to Chinese medicine, we can theoretically blame our parents or our more distant ancestors, for acquiring the cancer; and this is via the Pre-Heaven Jīng. This theory tends to suggest that there was pretty much nothing you could have done to prevent this happening. The Pre-Heaven Jīng provided to you by your parents and distant ancestors were the cause and you were just unlucky.

But could we have done anything about it? One could argue that if we ate and drank only the most pure and organic meals, we would have an incredible Post-Heaven Jīng, and since that combines with the Pre-Heaven Jīng, we have a scenario where the good (Post-Heaven Jīng) is holding the bad (Pre-Heaven Jīng) at bay.

This would obviously suggest that the genetic cancer cells were still inside the body ready to let loose the minute some poorer food and drink is consumed. However, this scenario does suggest that if you remained healthy your entire life, then you are a chance of not getting cancer.

But perhaps, no matter how healthy you were, the Pre-Heaven genetic cancer cells were just too
powerful and would win anyway? Sorry to be a party pooper there!!! Sometimes you just cannot
win!

If we leave the Pre-Heaven Jīng argument for a bit and discuss the Post-Heaven argument instead, specifically in the context of cancer creation. What if your parents and ancestors provided you with good quality Pre-Heaven Jīng, and you wreck your body via your own vices, namely poor eating/drinking choices? This would mean that your Post-Heaven Jīng was of an extremely poor quality; therefore, when it combines with the Pre-Heaven to create Kidney Jīng, you end up with a toxic sludge. I think we could all agree that this would be a potential site for disease, perhaps even terminal cancer.

This argument tends to suggest that both options are viable for the development of cancer in the body. In a nutshell, you blame your parents, or yourself, for your cancer!

2) Alcoholism:

Surely alcoholism is your own fault? Haven’t you been the one that has directly chosen to drink too
much? You cannot seriously suggest that alcoholism could be a genetic disease?

Let us work through this example a little more before we automatically decide. As stated above, Kidney Jīng is responsible for the material foundation of the Shén. Let’s consider for a moment that the patient has been struggling for quite some time with lifestyle dramas that have negatively impacted on their Shén.

Let’s also assume that the patient started life with an inferior amount of Pre-Heaven Jīng which hasn’t been nourishing their Shén, thereby making it harder to cope with day- to-day lifestyle dramas. This patient may have found (via trial and error) that alcohol helped ease the Shén Disturbance, and therefore it becomes the replacement for Calming the Shén, that the Pre-Heaven Jīng was not providing.

Could we now not argue that alcoholism might (in some circumstances) be caused by poor Kidney Jīng?

3) Infertility:

Those of you who have treated patients with infertility will know that in certain circumstances, Kidney Jīng could be directly responsible for the patient’s infertility. Perhaps you could now blame your parents and ancestors for your infertility.

Of course, this is not always the case, and there are plenty of infertile couples out there where it has nothing to do with genetics. If we take just one example from a television show to prove my point. In the cartoon series ‘The Simpsons’, Homer Simpson (father of three) finds out he is infertile as a result of working at the Springfield nuclear power plant for too long. This example suggests that environmental factors were responsible for his infertility and was not a genetic issue.

4) Numerology and the Arrows of Pythagoras:

Yes, I know this is not Chinese medicine, but I wanted to include it because it does pose a number of
interesting points: Ruling number – on the day you are born you are allocated a number that defines who you are and how you will live in your skin. To work it out I will use my birthday which is 10/10/1973 as the example:

So, you add up all the numbers as such: 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 3 = 22. Then the 22 gets split into 2 + 2 = 4; your ruling number is generally a singular. Therefore, according to numerology I live my life in a manner expected of a 4. Assuming this is the case, then this ruling number 4 in linked with my Kidney Jīng.

…Arrows of Pythagoras – similar to your ruling number, you are generally (not always) born with one or more arrows. These arrows give you further insight into the way that you carry yourself in day-to-day life. Some of these arrows are considered positive and some are considered negative, however I do not personally believe they are strictly one or the other. I have found over the years that people with supposed positive arrows are really struggling in

life, and people with negative arrows are living a terrific life. But more on that in future blogs.

Without going into confusing detail, I personally have two supposedly negative arrows. One is called ‘Arrow of Frustration’ and the other is the ‘Arrow of Hypersensitivity’. These arrows are inherently linked to my core self, which again suggests that they are linked with my Kidney Jīng.

What is my point? Well, it has got to do in part with what one of my future blogs will be on, which is how numerology can be used to treat patients with Chinese medicine (watch this space!). Let us use one example here though. If I have a client that wants treatment for frustration, I am going to get ‘Liver organ alarm bells’ going off in my head. I will then explore this more to confirm if the frustration is a Liver diagnosis, and, often, the Liver is responsible.

However, if my client has the ‘Arrow of Frustration’, and because this is linked to Kidney Jīng, I now need to consider the possibility that it is a Kidney organ disharmony that I need to treat. Are you still with me? Either way, it is usually not particularly difficult to determine which organ is responsible for the client’s frustration.

To finish off this point though, numerology suggests that we are predisposed to certain personality characteristics; some of these could, therefore, provide natural immunity, whereas others might predispose us to ancestral disease. If we stick with the ‘Arrow of Frustration’ as our case in point, we could now argue that if a patient suffers terribly from frustration (and since we know that emotions can cause disease) then this could lead to potentially life-threatening diseases of the Kidneys (and its associated organs), because of poor quality/quantity of Kidney Jīng.

Having said that, one could also hypothesise that if the Kidney Jīng inherently recognises this ‘frustration’ emotion, then it essentially becomes immune to the emotion, and considers it a natural part of the inner workings of the individual. This would therefore indicate that frustration does not adversely affect you in any way throughout your life.

But what about the possibility that Kidney Jīng provides genetic immunity (natural immunisation)? I guess it is not a big stretch to suggest that you have already worked out that Kidney Jīng could also

act as a natural immunisation? The answer is in the examples I used above. Where poor quality Kidney Jīng could cause disease, good quality Kidney Jīng could prevent disease.

Let us consider this further using childhood diseases as our example. Let’s assume that most of your ancestors have contracted diseases such as measles, mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough, etcetera. Once they have recovered from the disease, they essentially get genetic immunity, and this immunity would then become part of the Kidney Jīng matrix, which then gets passed onto you at conception. This would, in theory, mean you did not need to get all your Western immunisations that you get pumped with as a young pup, because your parents gave you the immunisation when you were conceived. Imagine it? All those needles that your body might not even need because you are already ancestrally immune!

To close off this blog by revisiting our question one more time: Does Kidney Jīng provide you with a natural/genetic immunity OR does it actually predispose you to ancestral diseases?

I think it is safe to say that I have provided you with some food for thought and I would absolutely love your thoughts/comments about this question.

Love and light to you all

David Hartmann