Qi Men Dun Jia Y Medicina

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© Chinese Medicine Times - Volume 1 Issue 2 - April 2006

Medical Divination with Qi Men Dun Jia
(奇门遁甲)
by Jack Sweeney
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Q

i Men Dun Jia is an ancient form of divination

permanently cleave medicine from shamanism, to

that, according to Chinese legend, originated

develop amore “scientific” or government-sanctioned

with the Yellow Emperor, Just as Chinese

body of medicine while at the same time proscribing

Medicine traces its origins to the Yellow Emperor’s

shamanism, or at least banishing shamanic practices to

Internal Classic 皇帝内经, so does Qi Men Dun Jia

the

claim the Yellow Emperor as its founder. In the Zhou

officially-sanctioned medicineand shamanic folk

Kingdom, the royal government separated divination

practices continues today with official medicine largely

from formal medicine, and the two have been divided

in the urban areas and folk medicine thriving in rural

ever since, at least on the official, government level. In

Chinese towns and villages.

countryside.

The

conflict

between

recent yearshowever, steps have been taken to re-unite
the two traditions in China and abroad. In the past year,

In recent years, a trend has appeared to merge these

the spread of Qi Men Dun Jia to Southeast Asia and

two traditions of Chinese medicine. Yang Li, a Beijing

around the world signals the development of this trend.

medical

professor

who

specialises

in

medicaldivination, has published three books on the subject,
From China’s remote antiquity to the Zhou era, Yi over

one of them based on lecture notes for her medical

Wu formed the character for medicine. This reflected

classes in Beijing. Yang describes a number of ancient

the fused traditions of medicine and shamanism with

divination systems, including Wu Yun Liu Qi 五運六氣,

classic works suchas the I Ching 易经 (Zhou Yi 周

Da Liu Ren 大六壬, Tai Yi 太乙 and Qi Men Dun Jia

易). Etymologically, the connection between medicine

奇门遁甲. In “The I Ching and Chinese Medicine,” Li

and shamanism was seen in the joining of the character

advocates the adoption of Qi Men Dun Jia for use in

Yi 医 (doctor or medicine) and Wu 巫, (shaman) to

medical divination:

represent medicine. Duringthe Zhou 周 era, Zhou
royal governments separated Yi from Wu, replacing

“In general, both Qi Men Dun Jia and Wu Yun Liu Qi

Wu with the characters She and You, (see figure 1).

五運六氣 have solidastronomical backgrounds rooted
in ancient mathematics. Both systems take the Zhou Yi,

醫

the theories of Yin and Yang and Five Elements,

Figure 1. Traditional Chinese Character “Yi” forsystems stand as shining pearls among the divinatory

medicine or doctor

treasures of ancient China, and each held important

Heavenly Stems and Earth Branches and the Sixty Jia
Zi as the basis for their methods of prediction. The two

influence in the divinatory milieu of ancient China.
The intention of the Zhou government was to

Each system has its merits and ideally should be used2

© Chinese Medicine Times - Volume 1 Issue 2 - April 2006

to complement each other to enhance the function of

the illness, its severity, whether or not the disease can

these Chinese cultural treasures.”

be cured, whether Chinese or western medicine offers
appropriate treatment, the efficacy of a particular

The introduction of Tibetan medicine into the west has

treatment,as well as the duration of disease. Moreover,

fuelled the trend toward medical divination outside

Qi Men Dun Jia helps determine the quality and

China. Tibetan medicine never experienced a division

suitability of doctors, the physical direction of a

between divination and formal medicine in that way

qualified doctor and in some cases, the actual costs of

that Chinese...