I just had the honor of spending time with one of the Abbots of my tradition- Dr. Thomas McCombs. He was teaching about the history of our Tao Tan Pai lineage but there was a particular aside that grabbed my attention. Being a doctor of Osteopathy, Dr. McCombs has extensive experience in both medicine and the Taoist esoteric arts.
He taught me about a particular network of veins called Batson’s Vertebral Plexus. I remember studying this in school but the implications did not strike me at the time. Batson’s plexus is a venous channel which directs blood flow from the pelvis/sacrum back up the spine and up to the brain.
“The plexus comprises the intracranial-cortical veins, dural sinuses, cavernous sinuses and ophthalmic veins and the vertebral venous plexuses which freely anastomose with the intracranial venous system.”
Huh?
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The ancient esoteric arts of Kung Fu, Yoga, and Acupuncture are all interconnected because they all come from ancient systems that have an energetic understanding of the body. In Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and several other ancient traditions, the energy meridians (Chinese) or nadi (Indian) in the body carry the life force to every organ. These energy pathways carry the flow of life-giving energy to every cell of the body.
