The Taiwan-based group is being denounced by the CCP media and investigated by the police as a xie jiao.
by Zhao Zhangyong
This week, several CCP media published attacks against a movement based in Taiwan called Origin Point Medicine (Yuan Shi Dian, 原始点), calling it a xie jiao and a fraud. A police investigation followed in Wuhan. This is a new strategy by the CCP for adding groups to its list of xie jiao (“heterodox teachings,” sometimes translated as “evil cults”). First, attacks appear in the media, giving the impression that “the masses” demand that the movement should be investigated and repressed as a xie jiao. Of course, all information in the media in China is not only approved but directly produced by the CCP.
Origin Point Medicine (OPM, or Origin Point Therapy, OPT) has been presented by the media as a fraudulent scheme to sell ginger at exorbitant prices, claiming it “cures all diseases,” and “brainwashing” devotees based on “feudal superstitions” about karma and reincarnation.
While medical doctors may criticize OPM, devotees told Bitter Winter that how they have been represented is a mere caricature of their beliefs and practices. “We have operated in China without problems for many years, one of them said, as we do in Singapore, Australia, England, no problems anywhere. Perhaps the fact that OPM is based in Taiwan is becoming the problem in these days.”
OPM has been founded by Dr. Chang Chao Han (Zhang Zhaohan), a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. In 2002, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. With the help of older practitioners, some of them retired, of whom not much is known, Chang developed a method based on acupressure and herbal medicine that relieved his wife’s pain. Chang admits that the method did not save her from death, perhaps because the therapy was started too late, but at least made her last days less painful.
In 2008, Chang established the Chang Chao Han (C.C.H.) Medical Foundation, and started promoting OPM internationally, including in Mainland China. OPM is based on what its practitioners call the “three treasures”: antui (按推), wenfu (温敷), and jiangtang (姜汤).
Antui is a form of acupressure based on the common Chinese theory that to each disease and pain corresponds an “origin point,” that can be pressed and pushed, thus relieving the pain and in most cases eventually curing the illness.
To acupressure, OPM adds wenfu, i.e., thermotherapy, where the practitioner, in particular the aching parts, are kept warm through an electric-heated underblanket and other devices, and jiangtang, i.e., ginger soup. The latter is supposed to strengthen the vital force qi, but practitioners insist that it is not effective alone. There are other foods that cooperate in strengthening the qi, including pepper, curry, chili, mustard, onion, and garlic, and qigong-based physical exercises are also needed. It is also true, practitioners insist, that diseases have a karmic component, so that self-cultivation, rectification of one’s wrongdoings, and making amends for sins committed in past lives are necessary.
Many OPM practitioners are Buddhists, and tell their stories in a Buddhist jargon. Indeed, OPM is often propagated in Buddhist temples. However, Chang insists that OPM is not connected to any religion, although it has spiritual roots, includes self-cultivation practices, and ultimately aims at eliminating all human suffering.
Practitioners admit that ginger for jiangtang and electric-heated underblankets are sold in OPM centers at prices higher than in other places, but they claim this is needed to finance the global expansion of the movement, and insist that the prices mentioned in some Chinese media are inflated and do not correspond to the reality.
The fact that during the COVID-19 crisis OPM’s promise to strengthen the vital energy and boost the immune defenses has become more popular in China may be another reason explaining the CCP’s campaign against it.