The other day, a good friend of mine asked a recurrent and unsolvable question for humanity: "does the Spirit inhabits the Body or does the Body inhabits the Spirit ?". While such question might trigger endless intellectual games for some of us, I was stricken by the polarized way in which it was asked.

The idea of splitting apart Body and Spirit can be partly traced as far back as Augustine (AD 354 - 430, one the Founder of the Church and famous Latin writer) who postulated that Human Beings were born intrinsically bad as a mean to explain Human Suffering. He saw Adam and Eve's Original Sin as the root cause for the common misery inherent to the Human condition. Of course, most subsequent Political and Religious Leaders were fast to exploit this guilt-based belief-system in order to manipulate and control people. Obviously, they also had a vested interest in perpetuating such a damaging Culture which is probably why it has lasted for so long.

Aside from these thorny issues, the Body was generally regarded as impure and doomed. Despite its poor start, the Spirit had at least some chances of purification and redemption. This split has been heavily projected on genders since we obtain our body through Women and presumably acquire our spirit from Men (a ludicrous idea !). One of the worse expression of this state of affair was the persecution of "witches" from Medieval times to the mid-nineteenth century. Fortunately nowadays, this process doesn't manifest in such gruesome forms but it still manifests somehow.

Fifty years ago, C.G Jung, intrigued by Psycho-somatic disorders (IE: psychic diseases expressed in the body), intuited the existence of what he called the "subtle body", a subconscious psychic entity whose presence partly explained such illnesses. Since then, the biological existence of the link Psyche (Spirit) /Soma (Body) has been somewhat confirmed by research done on brain chemistry. Hurray ! the Spirit no longer lives a separate life ! No longer can we split Spirit/Masculine and Body/Feminine... Welcome to the marriage which will give birth to the next paradigm.

From a Western viewpoint, Healing the Spirit means putting the Soul "back" into the Body. Paradoxically though, on a practical level, the Body is our only gateway to the Spirit. Body-work is therefore of utmost importance in healing, if not the Spirit, at least the split. Of course, to keep the balance right, this work must be done in conjunction with a Therapeutic process allowing for meaningful connections to physical symptoms (Eg: Bio-energetics, rolfing, re-birthing).

Meanwhile, in China in particular and in the Orient in general, a different Culture was evolving. Spherical rather than linear, unburdened with Judeo-Christian guilt, Taoist philosophy formulated the relationships between Yin and Yang and embodied them in the famous "Tai Chi" symbol. To see Life, the Universe and Everything as created from a Dance between two polar opposites leaves little room for splitting them apart as this would signify the end of the Creative Embrace and therefore the end of Creation as we know it.

On a Human scale, it means that the Body/Spirit link always retains some level of integrity. Thus, in Chinese Medicine, each organ "houses" its particular spirit. For example, the Liver houses the Ethereal Soul which supposedly survives the body whereas the Lungs house the Corporeal Soul which, in contrast, is believed to die with the body. These various spiritual aspects of ourselves come together in the Heart which is seen as the centre of Spiritual Life.

Since the split never actually took place in this system, it follows that treating the body would have an affect on the state of the Spirit. As a result, some acupuncture points and some herbal substances are known to calm, lift or support the Spirit of the organ they pertain to.

Equally powerful are the Martial Arts as means to nourish and preserve Spiritual harmony. Tai Chi Chuan, Qi Gong and Kung Fu are the most popular forms practiced in China and in the West. Last but not least and probably the most Spiritually oriented form, meditation is given to us as a gift from the Orient.

In the end, whether you choose a Western discipline or decide to have Acupuncture, Chinese Herbs, practice a Martial Art or meditate, the message emerging from all this seems clear enough: if you want to heal your spirit, look after your body....and vice- versa !