It was just a matter of time until I would interview Peter Deadman.
After all- it’s Peter Deadman- the big blue book, the JCM…. This is definitely one of those names you learn to say really fast as of the first year in studying Chinese Medicine. And the name continues to be with us as we grow with our career.

Peter Deadman is the founder of Infinity Foods in England.
He studied Chinese Medicine with Dr. Van Buren at the International College of Oriental Medicine and has a clinic in Brighton. Deadman founded the Journal of Chinese Medicine 29 years ago, which became the most important journal of Chinese Medicine in the west. The JCM is also a publication, the most famous book to come of this publication is A Manual of Acupuncture, a must have textbook in most colleges throughout the world.
In addition, Peter Deadman was a member of The Matzos, a band in which he played the violin.

We talked about everything.
Approaching his 60th year, we found a somewhat poetic Peter Deadman, and received interesting answers to what seem to be simple questions.

CMNotes: I read in your CV that you always tended to the more healthy side of life, and you founded Infinity. Where did you get this healthy approach?
Peter Deadman (P.D): Mostly from being sick. I led a pretty wild life in my late teens, traveling a lot, consuming all kinds of substances that weren’t great for me, eating badly or hardly at all. In the end, lying in a tiny Moroccan village with a very bad case of hepatitis and feeling close to death, I read a book on the macrobiotic philosophy and diet and that was a turning point.

CMNotes: How did you find yourself studying Chinese Medicine, of all healthy professions that were out there?
P.D: I’d been fascinated with Oriental thought from an early age, and that was reinforced by my study of macrobiotics. I spent ten years founding and running a natural foods restaurant, shop, bakery and warehouse, but when it came to be time to move on - both from the food business and the rather narrow macrobiotic ideology, I realized I had developed a growing enthusiasm for Oriental medicine.

CMNotes: Why did you choose the ICOM as your school?
P.D: It was more or less the only school at the time - at least that accepted non-medical students. And it was close.

CMNotes: How was it to study with Dr. Van Buren? I understand that he was a very unique man, could you tell us more about him?
P.D: I’m afraid I was never a great fan of Dr van Buren and his style of acupuncture. Or at least I was to start with- when I didn’t know anything- but I soon became disenchanted.

CMNotes:  It seems that although you studied with Dr. Van Buren, you took a more TCM approach- unless I’m mistaken. If I am not mistaken- how did that come about?
P.D: I never took to the van Buren approach. I did not observe effective clinical results when I was a student and I felt it was far too metaphysical and subjective. I had an epiphany one day - soon after I had qualified - when I was working in the college clinic. I inherited one of van Buren’s patients - a women with severe chronic rheumatoid arthritis who had been treated by van Buren for many years in the usual way, i.e. a treatment every six weeks using stem and branch type theories, tiny needles that barely penetrated the skin etc. She was very depressed and felt she had been demoted from the master to the novice and was considering quitting treatment. Nervous and inexperienced as I was, I felt I had nothing to lose. I asked her where it hurt most and in response needled some local points around her shoulders and neck and one or two systemic points such as Yanglingquan GB-34 and asked her to come back in a week. She said nobody had ever asked her where it hurt, let alone put any needles there. When I saw her again she started telling me that it was the first time she had ever felt any relief from acupuncture and then wept with gratitude. It was definitely not down to my skill - I barely knew how to needle - but rather the simple down-to-earth approach. After that I observed more closely and realised that the van Buren approach was definitely not for me. This was confirmed for me on my first visit to China when I saw - every day - dramatic results from strong needling of points based on what people now call a “TCM” approach.

CMNotes: You co-authored the most popular book for point location and point functions- A Manual of Acupuncture. How did that come about?
P.D: I was approached by a major TCM publisher to write a book on the points. At first I rejected the idea, but I soon reconsidered and decided that although there were many points books out there, none of them really covered the information that I thought was needed. So I decided to take the project on but to publish it myself. Before the project was realistic, though, I needed colleagues to work with - who would provide skills I did not have. Having Mazin Al-Khafaji as a workmate was the luckiest break. He provided the Chinese language skills, and as we were already close friends, we built up the most enjoyable and productive working relationship. I heard Shimon Perez once remark that when two people work together they can create something much greater than the separate efforts of just the two individuals. Equally lucky was my co-operation with Kevin Baker who was one of the first people in Britain to become a member of both the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians, gained a rare distinction in his surgical anatomy exams, and was a fully qualified acupuncturist. He and I worked on the point locations and illustrations. Finally I spent a year writing the introductory chapters, working on the indexes and the design and putting the whole book together.

CMNotes: How long does it take to put a book like that together?
P.D: Eight years.

CMNotes: You are the publisher of the very important Journal of Chinese Medicine. Here in Israel we are big fans of the journal and most- if not all- of our teachers urge us to subscribe to the JCM from the very first year. How was the JCM born?
P.D: Before I qualified as an acupuncturist I ran a natural foods business and was used to being very busy. Also - as it was an early new age/new consciousness project with very little money - we got used to having big ideas and having to put them into practice ourselves - whether it was writing leaflets, building shelves, learning how to run a bakery etc. When I qualified as an acupuncturist I quit the food business but - with few patents - I didn’t have much to do. There was no journal in existence, and I also had a passion for disseminating  a better understanding of Chinese medicine, which, with the recent opening up of China and a changing cultural background in which we could truly respect foreign traditions, I felt it was possible to learn more about - possibly for the very first time in history. So I started the journal - originally hand-typed and with a circulation of one hundred people.

CMNotes: What does it mean, to release a new issue of the JCM? Can you take us through the process?
P.D: We receive a lot of articles which we have to consider. Most, sadly, have to be rejected due to poor quality. Ours is not a very academic profession. Most people know that in the University world, regular writing and publishing is compulsory, and while that can be a burden, it does mean that there is a lot of creativity. Getting enough good articles out of Chinese medicine practitioners can be a thankless task. We also - less often - specifically ask individuals for articles - for example if someone has recently written a book. Once we accept an article we put it through a fairly rigorous editing process. In some cases this is easy and quick. In others we virtually have to rewrite the whole article. That can be very time-consuming, as can the gathering, selecting and editing of the news. In the past I did all the editing myself, but recently - especially influenced by the arrival of my 60th birthday - I have found other people to take on some of the work.

CMNotes: Aren’t you tired of the process after 29 years?
P.D: Yes, a bit, which is why I am handing on some of the work. It’s mainly the responsibility of having to produce 3 issues a year on time.

CMNotes: What can we expect to see at the JCM’s 30th anniversary?
P.D: Mmmm. Not sure. We will have a bit of a celebration at the Rothenberg Conference next year. And maybe a special issue.

CMNotes: How do you assess the state of Chinese Medicine in the world today? What do you think will happen the profession in the future?
P.D: Overall I think Chinese medicine is very strong. Just look at the amount of (mainly) acupuncture research we publish every issue … it is growing so fast we can’t keep up. At the same time we have ever-growing expertise in the West - people reaching a very high level as clinicians, in specialities, as academics. I’m out of touch with what is going on in China, though I do hear voices lamenting the decline of traditional medicine there. I am in favour of a certain amount of evidence-based rigour. As Winston Churchill said (he was - surprisingly a very smart witty guy whatever one thinks of his politics), “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” What I fear, though, is that the profound philosophical/spiritual roots of Chinese medicine have been neglected in quite a lot of modern TCM education. By this I absolutely don’t mean the wishy-washy self-conscious overt spiritualism that some people associate with Chinese medicine. I mean the fact that Chinese medicine is rooted in the principle of harmony, derived from a non-religious Daoist/Confucian/etc. understanding of life. It has a profound simple wisdom and a deep understanding of what it is to be alive, to be human, suspended between heaven and earth. I am a dedicated practitioner of qigong, and I find  that the very simple principles of flow, harmony, and above all yin and yang  offer daily meaning and enrichment. It can be hard to understand how the simple practice of rising and falling, integrating inner and outer, above and below, can have so much meaning. On a wider level, I feel that the world is crying out for wisdom. We only seem to have two dominant ideologies at the moment … consumerism and religion, of an increasingly fundamentalist kind. Chinese philosophy  especially Daoism - with its rootedness in the natural world offers a third way, and on days when I am hopelessly naive and optimistic, I hope that the emergence of China will make those ideas available to the world. I know China is currently obsessed with materialism and is polluting its natural resources, but I like to think that underneath this skin-deep modernism, there might still be a deeper fount of wisdom that could save the human race.

CMNotes: You’ve been teaching around the world for many years. What made you start teaching? What do you like about it?
P.D: At the beginning I couldn’t believe that I was not only allowed to stand in front of people with the chance to teach what I believed in, but that I would even be paid for it. I love communication and I love trying to make information clear and easy to understand.

CMNotes: You were a very special guest in the ICCM congress here in Israel in 2007. Did you have a good time? What did you think of the Chinese Medicine community we have here? Did it change much from your previous visit?
P.D: Like in many countries, Chinese medicine in Israel is advancing rapidly. My feeling is that the combination of being a small country (I also go to Norway a lot and see something similar - that in a small country people are often more supportive of each others efforts) and having a sufficient number of analytical, argumentative, book-loving Jews, works well. But I also realize I don’t know enough in detail about what goes on in the Chinese medicine community in Israel to make intelligent comments. What I experienced above all was friendliness and hospitality.

CMNotes: Many do not know that you play the violin. How long have you been playing it?
P.D: Like a lot of people I played as a child - not brilliantly but average. However I didn’t practise enough to get anywhere and I abandoned it age 15 when I thought it wasn’t cool. I started playing again for a while when I was a travelling hippy - and had visions of being a rock violinist. But I was smart enough to realise I wasn’t good enough to be a career musician and I stopped again. Then - in my early 50s - I realised I wanted to give it a last chance … that I still wanted to pay electric violin in a band, and get a taste of the whole performance and rock and roll lifestyle. So I practised very hard and slowly got myself to a level just good enough to play in a working band. We did pretty well. We played lots of clubs and festivals as well as too many weddings, birthdays and bar mitzvahs (we played klezmer mixed in with quite a lot of other stuff). Then last new year I quit the band and gave up that adventure. It was great fun though. Being on stage when the band is playing well and the audience are excited is one of the best feelings in the world. But being in a band also involves terrible hours, too much travelling, bad food and bad habits, hours of waiting around, lots of squabbling and disagreements, and in the end I’d had enough.

CMNotes: My father, who also played the violin in his youth, told me that many times, it comes in three’s- those who play the violin, also play chess and are good in math. Is this the case with you?
P.D: I think he’s right and it’s a fact that I am not particularly good at either chess of maths which is why I was never really a good enough musician. If I had been, I  would have made a career out of it.

CMNotes: What’s in stored for the JCM and it’s publication?
P.D: Who knows. Probably just carrying on - like most things in life. Personally I am working (slowly) on a new book on the teachings of Chinese health preservation.

CMNotes: What do you think are the 3 most important things that new practitioners from around the world should do, as they begin their professional journey?
P.D: a. I still think people should go to China for clinical practice - if possible.
b. Study, study, study - observe, observe, observe - and eventually consider specialising - even if the speciality is to be a good general practitioner.
c. Try and model what you want for your patients - that is try and develop wisdom and practise good habits - exercise, diet, emotional life etc.

Visit Peter Deadman’s website by clicking here.
To subscribe to the JCM click here.