Tribute to J.R. Worsley
September 14, 2023 marks the 100th birthday of J.R. Worsley (1923 - 2003). In commemoration of this milestone, I offer this tribute to J.R. Worsley and his lineage of classical five-element acupuncture.
Worsley learned the system of five-element acupuncture in the 1950s in Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea. With the permission of his teachers––Master Hsui and Master Ono, Worsley began teaching acupuncture in the U.K. In 1971, and eventually began to teach in the U.S.A.
Worsley had a remarkable gift for integrating and transmitting the teachings of acupuncture with depth and clarity. He taught in a classroom setting, yet his teaching approach did not rely on textbooks or amassing intellectual knowledge. Worsley championed the oral tradition of transmitting the teachings directly from person to person in direct relationship through observation and clinical training. In doing so, Worsley demonstrated the values of lineage, and emphasized that he taught exactly what his teachers had taught him.
A visionary who embodied his own teachings, Worsley described five-element acupuncture as a “way of life”––a system of medicine based entirely in observable natural laws. He taught that nature is our greatest teacher and that a practitioner should be an “instrument of nature”. He explained diagnosis as the perception of nature’s cues and treatment as a process of “assisting nature”. Worsley articulated a profound understanding of disease as an interruption in the natural cycle of health––and medicine, therefore, as an intervention that empowers nature’s own self-correcting intelligence.
Worsley often spoke of the “uniqueness of the individual” and cautioned against the pitfalls of “typing”, or putting people into conceptual boxes. Worsley’s emphasis accords with the Ayurvedic understanding that a patient’s imbalance can only be diagnosed when seen in context of their true nature. Even more, I have appreciated Worsley’s point that a patient’s imbalance is not an identity and in no way defines who they are. In fact, the imbalance is precisely who the patient is not. This is a crucial nuance that is often misunderstood or altogether missed in healthcare environments, especially when relying on constitutional rubrics as a means of diagnosis.
Worsley’s ability to bring esoteric concepts into clinical expression is one of his gifts to the world. This is evident in many aspects of his teachings, including his focus on the “spirit of the points”––an elucidation of the profound meanings embedded in acupuncture point names, pictographic characters, and ancient cultural context. In a time when acupuncture point meaning has been reduced merely to symptom indications, Worsley’s insight is critical to ponder if one wishes to harness the power and depth of classical acupuncture. Worsley’s emphasis on acupuncture point names rather than “indications” is also seen in the work of Sun Simiao, the famous Tang dynasty scholar-physician who noted that the power of acupuncture points is hidden in their names.
One of the most important and interesting aspects of Worsley’s teachings is his explanation of the nature of the five elements. Worsley taught that as soon as one of the five elements is imbalanced, all five elements are necessarily imbalanced, since they co-exist in a cyclical and interdependent relationship. For this reason, Worsley taught the need to ascertain what he called the “causative factor” of disease––the single element that is the root-cause of imbalance.
Some have argued that Worsley’s teaching of a single element as the “causative factor” (or “C.F.”) is not found anywhere in classical texts and is therefore his own invention. However, in my understanding, Worsley’s “causative factor” teaching accords perfectly well with five-element theory which states that an imbalance in one element will imbalance each successive element in turn via the Law of Mother-Child. In any case, the idea that a textual basis for a medical concept must exist in order for it to be considered valid is itself a misplaced assertion.
My Ayurvedic teacher, Vaidya R.K. Mishra, taught numerous clinical concepts that were not found in classical texts, including many marma points that extended beyond the 107 points described in Sushruta’s Samhita. Vaidya Mishra was a scholar of the classics and would often recite verses of the Caraka Samhita from memory in his discourses. Yet, he often transmitted significant and detailed Ayurvedic knowledge that was uniquely preserved in his family lineage through oral tradition. Worsley’s teachings likewise are entirely consistent within the tradition of Asian medicine, a tradition that owes its origins to the episteme of oral tradition as a valued means of knowledge-transmission.
Asian medical traditions have been effectively shaped by significant individuals as well as individual texts. This is why the corpus of classical source-texts are typically traced to a single individual’s revelatory recordings. In Ayurveda, the Caraka Samhita is considered the primary source-text and is held to be the work of the physician-sage, Caraka. Similarly, the Sushruta Samhita––considered one of the first treatises on surgery––was written by the physician Sushruta. Another important text, the Astanga Hridayam––largely a commentary on the works of Caraka and Sushruta––written by the scholar Vagbhata. Similarly, the Four Medical Tantras of Tibetan Medicine (Gyüshi) trace authorship to Yuthok Yontan Gonpo, even while its contents display knowledge of numerous medical systems extending beyond the borders of Tibet.
Of course, authorship questions abound, including the question of whether any of these authors were historical individuals or merely mythical persons--not to mention the fact that many of these texts have undergone revisions over the centuries. This is to say, individual authors are not truly seen as the sole source of medical knowledge, but rather as collectors of wisdom, the scribes who first committed the vastness of oral tradition to textual form and whose exegeses have formed the basis of medical knowledge for millennia. Therefore, oral tradition remains the primary meaning-force and context of the textual corpus of traditional Asian medical systems. Although medical traditions naturally develop as a consequence of time, culture, and context, J.R. Worsley strikes me as an individual of similar stature to Caraka and Sushruta, of all the great physicians who have shaped and clarified medical knowledge through their own realization.
Some may think of a physician today as a person of technical competence, but the Asian medical classics characterize a superior practitioner as one who possesses a moral disposition and whose inner knowing transforms the lives of others. The word “physician” derives from the Latin physica, which means “things relating to nature”. In this literal sense, a “physician” is one who sees to the natural order in others. Certainly, J.R. Worsley was one of the exceptional examples of a true physician in our age, a generous spirit who shared his healing gifts and lived for the sake of helping others even into his last days.
Before his passing in 2003, J.R. Worsley designated his beloved wife, Judy Becker Worsley, herself a deeply dedicated student and practitioner, to succeed him as Master of the five-element lineage. Worsley also designated the Worsley Institute as the home of his teachings into the future. For those interested in learning five-element acupuncture, the Worsley Institute offers post-graduate trainings which I highly recommend.
I offer a deep bow of gratitude to J.R. Worsley for bringing forward the spirit of healing in our time and to Judy Becker Worsley for preserving these gifts with clarity, grace, and gravitas.
In closing, I leave you with two of my favorite quotes from J.R. Worsley:
“We must strive to see people not only as they present themselves in illness, but more importantly as they would be in perfect health and balance, in full discovery of their true nature, unique in body, mind and spirit”.
“Instead of asking, What kind of symptoms does this person have? Five-Element Acupuncture asks, What kind of person has these symptoms, and why?”