Z’ev Rosenberg is recognised as one of the first generation of practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine in America. One of his core interests is autoimmune disorders and he will be exploring this with us over two seminars. These sessions are: Ministerial Fire and Autoimmune Disorders in Chinese Medicine Immunological maps in Chinese medicine: five phase, six channel, three burner, four aspects Part 1: An Introduction to Ministerial Fire and Autoimmune Disorders (1 December) In order to understand how Chinese medicine views immunity, specifically autoimmune disorders and epidemic diseases, we need to understand the central role of the phenomenon of xiang huo/ministerial fire and how it was defined in several schools of thought, including the Shang Han Lun, Wen Bing Xue, Fire Spirit School, Li Dongyuan’s Spleen/Stomach current and in the medical classics such as the Su Wen and Nan Jing. Each of these systems maintained that ministerial fire or mingmen/lifegate had a central role which could be expressed in different ways through different systems and phenomena. Specifically the Shang Han Lun and Wen Bing schools developed immunological maps for understanding progressions of epidemic evils and chronic complex disorders. In this seminar, Zev Rosenberg will discuss the history and applications of ministerial fire in depth, ‘phantom pathogens’ (Lyme, post-Covid, chronic fatigue or lao sun), formulas and strategies, special diagnoses, and modern applications of classical principles. He will also include material from his book, “Afterglow: Ministerial Fire and Qi Transformation in Chinese Medicine” in this course. Part 2: Immunological maps in Chinese medicine (8 December) Immunity can be defined as the process of distinguishing and protecting the self from exterior and interior pathogenic or foreign influences. Chinese medicine looks at immunity form the point of view of the interface of zheng qi/right or true qi, which maintains health and resists disease, and xie qi/evil qi, which is what is foreign or harmful to the person. From ancient times, medicine has dealt with the phenomena of immunity in human health. Chinese medicine in particular has evolved several sophisticated models to diagnose, explain and treat what we now call immunological disorders. It is important, however, to consider that the immunological terrain and maps of Chinese medicine are very different from those of modern biomedicine. Without accepting this at the beginning, there cannot be a coherent discussion on this subject. The human mind and body are a singular phenomenon, but the two different cultures have evolved different ways of looking at them.. The theoretical model for immunology in biomedicine is primarily a militaristic one, in that the immune system is perceived as a defence system that protects the body against invaders, with killer cells and antibodies. However, new models are evolving through research in complexity theory. In a recent article about the immune system by Francisco Varela, a biologist and epidemiologist who is a proponent of complexity theory, he describes “the immune system is distributed throughout the body with no central system to control it'”. Dr. Varela sees the immune system as being more of a network, “not spacially fixed,’ but identified with the body. The old paradigm of invaders and defence is no longer sufficient in and of itself to describe the multileveled interactions that have been discovered. Chinese medicine also has utilised a military model since antiquity, according to some sources, from influences in Sun Zi’s Art of War. The first layer of immunity is wei qi or defensive qi, designed to protect the body from outside invasions of xie qi/evil qi. The author of “The Art of War and Chinese Medicine says that these are the soldiers who defend the terrain. The second layer of immunity is ying qi/construction qi , which ‘forms the blood and flows with it in the vessels, helping to nourish the entire body’. It is compared to an encampment, with beds and tents for sleeping, food and cooking facilities, and medical needs. These two qi interact with each other to nourish and defend the body from exterior attack.