The above table should make it possible to answer questions like the following from the perspective of traditional Chinese five-elements thinking.
Fine Print: These simplified examples are merely to illustrate the kinds of principles involved in this kind of "thinking machine." Actual practitioners make far more complex assessments. Further, some orderings are different for different practitioners. For example, the sequence liver-heart-spleen-lungs-kidneys is given in the order spleen-lungs-heart-kidneys-liver in some sources. Finally, no claim is here made that medical "prescriptions" deriving from this page have any useful medical effects.
3. Explanation
The Chinese theory of the "five elements" involves a number of assumptions.
Each of the "five elements" or "active principles" has a wide number of correspondences with other parts of the natural world. Thus the element wood (and woody things in general) corresponds with the color blue and the direction east.
Each of the five elements tends to strengthen, support, give way to, or create one of the others. Thus wood/blue/east tends to support fire/scarlet/south.
Each of the five elements tends to weaken, undercut, or destroy one of the others. Thus wood/blue/east tends to weaken earth/yellow/center.
A deficiency or an excess of any element tends to exert unnatural strengthening or weaking influence on other elements, causing illness or distress.
Illness and misfortune can be corrected by restoring the element that is too strong or weak. One way to do this is to supplement those elements that will tend to strength or diminish the unbalanced element.
For example:
Since the spleen is associated with earth, which is weakened by wood, spleen problems may be caused by excessive wood forces, and one might be well advised to lay off of sour foods (sour being associated with wood). Since earth is strengthed by fire, associated with the south, placing one's bed in a way that gets southern influences may also help.
Cold weather is associated with the element water, which tends to endanger anything associated with fire. When the weather grows especially cold, and fire-related things are therefore at risk, the imbalance may be corrected by use of anything that strengthens fire. This means things associated with wood, since it is the wood column that strengths fire. Blue is the color associated with wood, and so use of blue colors would help to offset the effects of cold. But be careful! Too much use of blue would tend to weaken anything associated with the yellow (earth) column, which could be bad for your spleen!
And so on.
The table at the top of the page allows you to explore some of these correspondences. The little quiz that follows allows you to make prescriptions from it.
