I just heard a story on the radio about the cosmos that included an astrophysicist saying these words: “There’s a halo of dark matter surrounding each galaxy.” This made me very excited. I did some research and found this on Wikipedia:
“A dark matter halo is a hypothetical component of a galaxy that envelops the galactic disc and extends well beyond the edge of the visible galaxy. The halo's mass dominates the total mass. Since they consist of dark matter, halos cannot be observed directly, but their existence is inferred through their effects on the motions of stars and gas in galaxies. Dark matter halos play a key role in current models of galaxy formation and evolution.”
I have always had a problem with the concept of dark matter. Since it’s invisible, why is it assumed to be material? I know, I know, its mass is inferred due to its apparent influence on gravity and the expansion of the universe. However, it so happens that this assumption about the meaning of this unexplained dynamic (“there’s a whole bunch of invisible matter that causes a gravitational effect”) is very similar to a common, poorly examined assumption about the nature of yin qi. Yin is substantial, wet, cold and receptive, even attractive. Frequently it is treated as though it is passive, but receptivity is an active state. Similarly, the concept of dark matter implies a bunch of inert stuff that exerts an influence strictly due to its (passive) weight and mass. Astronomers and astrophysicists keep looking for a bunch of invisible stuff – matte black clods of dust or cloaked space drek. However, I think it’s unlikely they’ll find it, no matter how clever their telescopes become, because I don’t think it is stuff that is causing this effect – I think it’s a movement. Specifically, an attracting/sensing/pulling movement that asymetrically balances the more obvious pushing movement that arises out of the core of the universe.
The reason I was excited about the term, “a halo of dark matter” is because it echoes one of my first coherent ideas about the action of acupuncture, which was one of the original concepts that inspired this essay. Behold.
An Analogy for the Mechanism of Acupuncture
Copyright 2009, Trey Casimir M.S.L.Ac.
A patient recently asked me how I thought acupuncture worked in scientific terms. I’ve heard this question many times in nine years of practice, and didn’t have an answer, but told her that I thought it had something to do with the undifferentiated nerve fibers that occur throughout the sub-dermal level of our bodies. These fibers do not have a connection to the central nervous system and were found by accident by scientists looking for something else in the 1990s. Those researchers thought that perhaps the fibers were involved in the pain response, but didn’t really know or understand their purpose. I have always wondered if these undifferentiated nerve fibers might be associated with proprioception, but in any event I have reasoned that whatever else an acupuncture needle does, it penetrates this layer of nerve fibers when it is inserted into the body.
In casting about for a way to describe this that might make sense to my patient, a computer network specialist, I suddenly had an idea and said, “Maybe these nerve fibers work like a wireless computer network. Maybe what has been previously described as a mystical “aura” or “subtle energy” is actually like a wireless communication system within the body.” And I felt pretty pleased with my metaphor. However, my patient took it a step further the next day. She told me that in thinking about what I had said, it occurred to her that every wireless network she had ever worked with periodically needed to be hard-wired to the server– after adding new hardware or software, in order to re-sync the wireless with the wired system, they had to be briefly connected with wires and re-booted. Maybe, she suggested, the acupuncture needle fulfills the role of the wire acting to re-sync the wireless system (the undifferentiated nerve fibers) with the server (the central nervous system).
Exchanging physical, mental and/or spiritual trauma for the computer system’s trauma of new hard or soft ware, I think this makes more sense than any other explanation I have heard for explaining the mechanism of acupuncture. As I further reflect on the main adjustments one can make to influence an acupuncture treatment (the amount of time the needles are retained, electrifying or heating needles, suctioning the flesh upward around a needle, or otherwise stimulating the point by moving the needle up and down or twirling it), the more I like the analogy. I have no idea how to turn this analogy into a hypothesis capable of being tested, but it comes closer than any other idea I have heard for explaining the full range of mechanisms I have witnessed in nine years of practicing and 20 years of receiving acupuncture.”
Maybe it’s just me, but “undifferentiated nerve fibers occurring throughout the sub-dermal level of our bodies” sounds a lot like a “halo of dark matter surrounding every galaxy.” If I am correct about the Law of Signatures being a true thing; and if my statement that 90% of movement starts at the center and radiates to the extremities and 10% of movement starts at the extremities and radiates back to the core is true; and if I am also on the right track with this analogy of the action of acupuncture, then this “halo of dark matter” is actually a “halo of pores.”
The dark matter theory arose to explain clear astronomical observations that showed gravity mis-behaving, but dark matter is a place holder, an “x” in an equation. It may well have a material aspect, but it seems far more likely that the importance of this dynamic has to do with movement rather than matter. Specifically, an attracting movement, or a gatekeeping movement, like a membrane of celestial ion channels. This would account for the coherence of galaxies, and would also offer a possible explanation for the perplexing behavior of the universe. If galaxies can actively take in, or “sense,” then there are other transactions taking place between galaxies than are described in the simple, unidirectional models of physics. We don’t need sharper telescopes or bigger rockets– we need to change our expectations to include the likelihood that the universe is listening as well as making noise. True, 90% of the universe’s energy goes into making noise, but the 10% that is devoted to listening will actively upset every model that scorns, ignores or forgets it.
