2 Pricing Options:

Masterclass Lecturer

Heiner Fruehauf

PhD, LAc

Heiner Fruehauf is a sinologist, professor, and pioneering voice in the preservation of Classical Chinese Medicine. Born into a German family of doctors specializing in natural healing — with roots tracing to a student of Sebastian Kneipp, a father of the European nature cure movement — he earned his PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 1990.

Beyond his academic training, he pursued the classical roots of Chinese medicine outside the standard TCM system, including two years of post-doctoral training under Deng Zhongjia, one of China's leading experts in classical medicine, and further study in Daoist medicine and Qigong. His translations and commentaries are widely recognized for bridging scholarship with clinical application, and he has published widely since 1992.

He taught at what is now the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, where he founded the School of Classical Chinese Medicine. In private practice, he treats difficult and recalcitrant diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and chronic digestive disorders. He is the founder of ClassicalChineseMedicine.org.

Class Details:

  • Dates: 07/18, 07/25, 08/01, 08/08

  • Live Classes: 10am-noon Pacific Time

  • Recordings available for one year

  • For practitioners and anyone drawn to the deeper currents of healing, nature, and classical thought

  • Support Email: [email protected]

Course Highlights

"Water is the source of all transformations, and earth is the mother of all things." — Li Shizhen, Bencao Gangmu (16th century)

  • The secret of life lies in water.

    From ancient cosmology all the way up to NASA, the answer keeps coming back to water. This course draws on previously untranslated passages to trace that thread through 2,300 years of source texts and into modern water science, grounding practitioners in the classical roots that inform how this medicine can be practiced today.

  • Not all water is the same water.

    A 16th-century Chinese medical classic maps out dozens of distinct waters, each with its own healing use. Not every herb or treatment is right for every person, but good water is true medicine for everybody, and this information gives you a framework for choosing and using it well.

  • Your body has its own sacred rivers.

    The ancients didn't just use water as a metaphor for the body — they mapped the twelve channels running through us directly onto the twelve great rivers of the earth. Follow that map far enough, and one channel in particular needs to be reconsidered altogether — a different picture than what most practitioners learned in Chinese medicine school.

Hear from Dr. Fruehauf