Behind the Cover Story: Michael Behar on ‘Star Trek,’
Acupuncture and Bioelectronics
Was there anything else you reported
on that was of interest that didn’t make it into the story?
Yes. Tracey presented at a
conference about how the mind and body interact a few years ago. The Dalai Lama
was there. He asked a question of Tracey about this nerve stimulator. They had
a conversation through a translator, and eventually the Dalai Lama shook his
head knowingly. He recognized that this placement in the neck, the vagus nerve,
where Tracey implants devices, was an important point for an Eastern healing
process. This is essentially the Western world discovering acupuncture, which
taps into the nervous system to heal things, sometimes using electrical
currents. Eastern medicine practitioners might look at this and go, “Yeah, this
is what we’ve been trying to tell you for 4,000 years!”
When Tracey and I talked about the
similarity of the approaches, he told me, “Be careful how you write this,
because half of the world will read this as if you’re trying to teach them how
acupuncture works, and they already know how it works.” So Tracey was urging us
to be respectful of how we put the Dalai Lama’s comments, and the relationship
to acupuncture, in context. It’s not as if the scientists have figured out
something that acupuncturists didn’t already know, and practice, in a different
way.
To read the entire story, click here.
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