---
title: "The thirteen ghost points"
url: "https://acuiq.com/wiki/nomenclature/ghost-points"
updated: 2026-10-12
last_verified: 2026-10-12
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
section: "nomenclature"
basis: "Classical"
audience: "Practitioner"
published: "2026-10-12"
reading_minutes: 10
sources: 11
---

# The thirteen ghost points

_Sun Simiao's list of thirteen points for the hundred evils, from the Beiji qianjin yaofang, with the order of needling, the ghost names, the modern points later texts matched them to, and where those matches disagree._

Volume 14 of the [Beiji qianjin yaofang](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%82%99%E6%80%A5%E5%8D%83%E9%87%91%E8%A6%81%E6%96%B9/%E7%AC%AC%E5%8D%81%E5%9B%9B) (備急千金要方) by Sun Simiao (孫思邈), which the [WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine](https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/206952) dates to the 7th century and translates as Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold for Emergencies, gives a needling method for what it calls the hundred evils (百邪). The passage sits in the section titled Feng dian (風癲) and attributes the method to Bian Que (扁鵲): thirteen points, each with a name that begins with gui (鬼), ghost, needled in a fixed order. The Qianjin locates most of the thirteen in words rather than by point name. Later compilations matched each site to a named channel point, and the [Zhenjiu dacheng](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%87%9D%E7%81%B8%E5%A4%A7%E6%88%90/%E5%8D%B7%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%80) (針灸大成) of Yang Jizhou, dated by the WHO terminology to 1601, gives the set of matches modern authors use. The texts do not all agree, and this page sets out where they part.

## The disorder the list was for

The Qianjin opens the passage by describing the people it treats. Some are silent and some talk without end; some sing, weep, chant or laugh; some sleep in ditches and eat filth, go naked, wander day and night, or rage and curse without limit. It calls them people with dian kuang (癲狂) and says needling and prescriptions treat them together. The WHO terminology defines dian (癲病) as depressive psychosis and kuang (狂病) as manic psychosis, and translates xie (邪), the evil of the hundred evils, as pathogen.

The Qianjin also treats the disorder as an intruding spirit: while the points are needled, it says, the spirit of an evil gu (邪蠱之精) will speak and give its origin. The Zhenjiu dacheng’s instruction tells the physician to ask the patient which ghost or demon is responsible, write down the answers, and withdraw the needles once the mad speech stops. Yang Jizhou’s own section before it, Zhenxie miyao (針邪秘要), adds two talismans written in cinnabar, one burnt and drunk in wine and the other posted in the patient’s room, and incantations to recite while needling. These are the texts’ terms for the disorder, not diagnoses, and the passages report no patients.

## The thirteen

The table gives each point in the Qianjin’s order, the site the Qianjin describes, and the point the Zhenjiu dacheng names for it, under AcuiQ’s codes. The Wikisource transcription of the Qianjin carries bracketed notes naming a point for five of the sites; those notes are quoted where they exist. Guixin appears twice because two different characters share the pinyin: 信, trust or message, at the thumb, and 心, heart, at the wrist.

| Order | Name in the Qianjin | Site the Qianjin gives | Point in the Zhenjiu dacheng |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Guigong 鬼宮 | Renzhong, the needle entering on the left and leaving on the right | [`GV26`](/points/gv26) (Renzhong) |
| 2 | Guixin 鬼信 | Below the thumbnail, three fen deep | [`LU11`](/points/lu11) (Shaoshang) |
| 3 | Guilei 鬼壘 | Below the big toenail, two fen deep | [`SP01`](/points/sp01) (Yinbai) |
| 4 | Guixin 鬼心 | At the crease behind the palm, half a cun deep; note: Taiyuan | [`PC07`](/points/pc07) (Daling) |
| 5 | Guilu 鬼路 | Below the outer ankle at the edge of the white flesh, on the foot taiyang; fire needle; note: Shenmai | [`BL62`](/points/bl62) (Shenmai) |
| 6 | Guizhen 鬼枕 | Above Dazhui, one cun inside the hairline; fire needle | [`GV16`](/points/gv16) (Fengfu) |
| 7 | Guichuang 鬼床 | In the hollow at the hairline in front of the ear, five fen below the earlobe; fire needle | [`ST06`](/points/st06) (Jiache) |
| 8 | Guishi 鬼市 | Chengjiang, from left to right | [`CV24`](/points/cv24) (Chengjiang) |
| 9 | Guilu 鬼路 | Three cun above the wrist crease, between the two tendons; note: Laogong | [`PC08`](/points/pc08) (Laogong), renamed Guiku 鬼窟 |
| 10 | Guitang 鬼堂 | One cun inside the hairline straight above the nose; fire needle; note: Shangxing | [`GV23`](/points/gv23) (Shangxing) |
| 11 | Guicang 鬼藏 | The seam below the genitals, three cones of moxa; in a woman, the head of the jade gate (玉門頭) | [`CV01`](/points/cv01) (Huiyin) in a man; the head of the jade gate in a woman |
| 12 | Guichen 鬼臣 | At the outer end of the Chize crease, at the edge of the white flesh; fire needle; note: Quchi | [`LI11`](/points/li11) (Quchi), renamed Guitui 鬼腿 |
| 13 | Guifeng 鬼封 | Under the tongue on its middle seam, the needle passing through to the upper surface, with a board laid across the corners of the mouth to hold the tongue still | The middle seam under the tongue, bled; no point name |

Fire needling (火鍼), which the WHO terminology defines as swift pricking with a red-hot needle, is prescribed at five of the sites in the Qianjin and at two in the Zhenjiu dacheng’s verse. Five of the thirteen are five transport points: `LU11` and `SP01` are jing-well points, `PC08` a ying-spring point, `PC07` a shu-stream point and `LI11` a he-sea point, as [Five transport points](/wiki/nomenclature/five-transport-points) sets out. `BL62` is one of the eight confluent points, paired with [`SI03`](/points/si03) (Houxi) in [Influential and confluent points](/wiki/nomenclature/influential-and-confluent-points).

## The order of needling

The Qianjin starts at Guigong and moves to Guixin, Guilei and the second Guixin, and says that by the fifth or sixth point the nature of the case is known: if a spirit is present it speaks. If several points pass without speech, the physician needles all thirteen. A man is needled from the left side first and a woman from the right. Where a point lies on both hands or both feet, both sides are needled; a single point on the midline is needled once. The Qianjin also requires the hand formula of the Yellow Emperor (黃帝掌訣), which it calls a separate secret of the practitioners and does not describe. The same passage lists further ghost names outside the thirteen, among them Guilu (鬼祿) for a point inside the lip and Guixue (鬼穴) as another name for Fengfu.

The Zhenjiu dacheng sets the list as a verse titled Sun zhenren zhen shisan guixue ge (孫真人針十三鬼穴歌), the Song of Master Sun’s thirteen ghost points, followed by a prose key that names a point for each and a depth for most. It adds a rule for turning the needle: odd days count as yang and even days as yin, and the needle turns right on a yang day and hour and left on a yin one. The prose ends by recommending two further points, Jianshi and Houxi.

## Later versions

The [Zhenjiu daquan](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%87%9D%E7%81%B8%E5%A4%A7%E5%85%A8) (針灸大全) of Xu Feng, a Ming text, carries the same verse under Sun Simiao’s name. In its Wikisource transcription, which the site marks at 25% text quality, the second and third points are missing, the sixth needle starts above Dazhu rather than Dazhui, and the ninth is placed at Jianshi. The [Zhenjiu juying](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%8D%BC%E7%81%B8%E8%81%9A%E8%8B%B1/%E5%AE%8B%E5%BE%90%E7%A7%8B%E5%A4%AB%E9%AC%BC%E7%97%85%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%89%E7%A9%B4%E6%AD%8C) (鍼灸聚英) of Gao Wu, dated by the WHO terminology to 1529, gives a different thirteen attributed to Xu Qiufu: Renzhong, Shenting, Fengfu, the tongue seam, Chengjiang, Jiache, Shaoshang, Daling, Jianshi, Ruzhong, Yanglingquan, Yinbai and Xingjian.

Eight of these are in the Zhenjiu dacheng’s list; the other five are [`GV24`](/points/gv24) (Shenting), [`PC05`](/points/pc05) (Jianshi), [`ST17`](/points/st17) (Ruzhong), [`GB34`](/points/gb34) (Yanglingquan) and [`LV02`](/points/lv02) (Xingjian). A [2023 study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37313567/) by Xiong Ruhui and Zhang Shujian in Zhongguo Zhen Jiu compared the versions attributed to Xu Qiufu across several books, found that they differ from each other in the names and choice of points, and concluded that the Xu Qiufu list was adapted from the Qianjin’s framework.

## Disputed identifications

The Zhenjiu dacheng’s matches are the ones modern authors repeat. A [2020 trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32270639/) by Gu Ting and colleagues lists the ghost points it needled as Shuigou (GV 26), Shaoshang (LU 11), Yinbai (SP 1), Daling (PC 7), Shenmai (BL 62), Jiache (ST 6), Chengjiang (CV 24), Laogong (PC 8) and Shangxing (GV 23), among others, attributing the set to Sun Simiao. Six of the identifications do not follow from the Qianjin’s own words:

- **The fourth, Guixin 鬼心.** The Qianjin places it at the crease behind the palm, and its transcription’s note names Taiyuan, [`LU09`](/points/lu09). The Zhenjiu dacheng names Daling, `PC07`. Both are wrist-crease points.
- **The ninth.** The Qianjin calls it Guilu, the name it already gave the fifth, and places it three cun above the wrist crease between two tendons, the location AcuiQ’s catalogue gives for Jianshi, `PC05`; its note nevertheless names Laogong. The Zhenjiu daquan transcription puts the ninth needle at Jianshi, and the Zhenjiu dacheng at Laogong, `PC08`, under a new name, Guiku, then recommends Jianshi as an addition.
- **The sixth, Guizhen.** The Qianjin describes the site, one cun inside the hairline above Dazhui, without naming a point. The Zhenjiu dacheng names Fengfu, `GV16`; the Zhenjiu daquan transcription reads Dazhu, the name of [`BL11`](/points/bl11), in place of Dazhui.
- **The seventh, Guichuang.** The Qianjin puts it at the hairline in front of the ear, five fen below the earlobe. The Zhenjiu dacheng’s verse says eight fen below the earlobe and its prose names Jiache, `ST06`.
- **The eleventh, Guicang.** The Qianjin prescribes moxa, not a needle, at the seam below the genitals, and a separate site for women. The Zhenjiu dacheng names Huiyin, `CV01`, for men. AcuiQ’s catalogue holds an extra point named Yumen, jade gate, [`XC06`](/points/xc06); neither text gives the head of the jade gate a location beyond its name.
- **The thirteenth, Guifeng.** Neither text names a point. AcuiQ’s catalogue places Haiquan, [`XH11`](/points/xh11), at the centre of the frenulum under the tongue, and the WHO’s [Standard Acupuncture Nomenclature](https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/207637) of 1991 lists Haiquan as the extra point EX-HN11, so a match to Haiquan rests on location alone. How extra points are numbered and listed is covered in [Extra points](/wiki/nomenclature/extra-points).

The twelfth changes its name between the texts, from Guichen to Guitui, but both texts place it at Quchi, `LI11`.

## Modern studies

Gu and colleagues randomised 60 patients with mild perimenopausal depression to Kaixin powder, a herbal formula, either alone or with needling at the ghost points three times a week for 12 weeks, and reported the combined treatment as superior on depression scores. A [2022 trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35127907/) by Wang Yi and colleagues at a Shanghai hospital randomised 160 patients with mild to moderate depression to fluoxetine alone or fluoxetine with needling at a subset of the ghost points and at points on the governor vessel; neither group received sham needling.

A [2025 trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40743945/) by Tao Ye and colleagues in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research compared needling at what it called ghost points with sham needles in 80 participants with chronic insomnia and depressive symptoms, over 12 sessions in four weeks; its abstract does not list the points. A [2016 imaging study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27567596/) by Lv Jing and colleagues applied laser stimulation to all but two of the points in 21 healthy volunteers and recorded changes in resting-state brain activity on functional MRI; it studied no disorder.

## What these sources cannot tell you

The Qianjin and the later compilations state a method and report no patients. The Chinese texts here are Wikisource transcriptions of particular printings, the bracketed notes in the Qianjin are not dated in the transcription, and characters differ between printings, as the Zhenjiu daquan’s Dazhu for Dazhui shows. The modern trials use subsets of the points, add a drug or a herbal formula, and enrol people with modern diagnoses such as depression and insomnia, so none of them tests the Qianjin’s procedure for the disorder it describes. How the Qianjin relates to the earlier classics is covered in [The classical texts](/wiki/theory/the-classical-texts). A ghost point in one of AcuiQ’s protocols records that a study used that point, not that the study chose it as a ghost point.

### Sources

1. Sun Simiao, Beiji qianjin yaofang, volume 14 (Xiaochang fu fang), section Feng dian, Zhenjiu fa, Chinese text, Wikisource — https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%82%99%E6%80%A5%E5%8D%83%E9%87%91%E8%A6%81%E6%96%B9/%E7%AC%AC%E5%8D%81%E5%9B%9B
2. Yang Jizhou, Zhenjiu dacheng, volume 11 (Zhenxie miyao; Sun zhenren zhen shisan guixue ge), Chinese text, Wikisource — https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%87%9D%E7%81%B8%E5%A4%A7%E6%88%90/%E5%8D%B7%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%80
3. Xu Feng, Zhenjiu daquan (Sun Simiao xiansheng zhen shisan guixue ge), Chinese text, Wikisource — https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%87%9D%E7%81%B8%E5%A4%A7%E5%85%A8
4. Gao Wu, Zhenjiu juying, Song Xu Qiufu guibing shisan xue ge, Chinese text, Wikisource — https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E9%8D%BC%E7%81%B8%E8%81%9A%E8%8B%B1/%E5%AE%8B%E5%BE%90%E7%A7%8B%E5%A4%AB%E9%AC%BC%E7%97%85%E5%8D%81%E4%B8%89%E7%A9%B4%E6%AD%8C
5. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, WHO international standard terminologies on traditional medicine in the Western Pacific Region, 2007 (3.1.79, 3.1.80, 1.6.3, 5.1.3; 7.6.3, 7.7.9 and 7.7.11 for the dates of the texts) — https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/206952
6. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific, Standard acupuncture nomenclature, part 2, revised edition, 1991 (extra points of the head and neck) — https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/207637
7. Xiong RH, Zhang SJ, Distinguishment of XU Qiu-fu's thirteen ghost points, Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2023 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37313567/
8. Gu T, Wang RH, Wu T, Ke ZH, Yang H, Wang D, Therapeutic effect on mild perimenopausal depression treated with acupuncture at the "thirteen ghost points" and kaixin powder, Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2020 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32270639/
9. Wang Y, Huang YW, Ablikim D, Lu Q, Zhang AJ, Dong YQ, Zeng FC, Xu JH, Wang W, Hu ZH, Efficacy of acupuncture at ghost points combined with fluoxetine in treating depression: a randomized study, World Journal of Clinical Cases 2022 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35127907/
10. Tao Y, Xu J, Liu Z, Huang Z, Wang F, Xia M, Chen Y, Efficacy of acupuncture at "Ghost Points" in the treatment for chronic insomnia with depressive symptoms: a randomized controlled trial, Journal of Psychosomatic Research 2025 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40743945/
11. Lv J, Shi C, Deng Y, Lou W, Hu J, Shi L, Luo L, Wang D, The brain effects of laser acupuncture at thirteen ghost acupoints in healthy individuals: a resting-state functional MRI investigation, Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics 2016 — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27567596/