Keppel Hesselink, Jan: Shamanic Acupuncture in the Past: The Role of Incantations and Singing

Modern acupuncture is usually presented as a technical medical procedure: channels, points, qi flow, diagnosis, needle manipulation. Yet classical and later Chinese medical sources preserve a stranger and more spiritually charged picture. In these texts, healing is not always performed through needles alone, but through a combination of intention, visualisation, sacred speech, incantation, ritual authority, and the expulsion of pathogenic or demonic influences. This article examines that older r