Now is your chance

jkzorya · May 11, 2007

Hi inthespirit,
You totally misunderstand my intentions. It is not through fear or misunderstanding that I reject primitive pseudoscience. It is recognition of how such things are used to exploit the gullible and the desperate. I could just as easily quote from experts who have argued against qi methodology and have done so many times. I think Hong Junsheng & Tim Cartmell were/are as much experts as the people you cite. Maybe even more, who knows? Why not? They says we're better off without qi and I believe them because I've never seen anyone prove qi or do anything remotely useful with it.

Here is my evidence - my proof that qi is a myth. I apologise for its length. I tried to make attachments, but the file sizes were too large to upload.

I think the world will discover that it was all archaic superstition at best and and exploitative hoax at worst. The truth will out and qi's days are numbered. Make your money while you can, charlatans.

In daring to speak the truth about qigong, Sima Nan has been kicked, beaten, detained, tortured, ridiculed and accused of betraying his culture. He has suffered two crushed vertebrae, a crushed trachea and other injuries at the hands of those who were unhappy with Sima Nan's questioning the validity of qigong and the claims of various qigong masters.
As a young boy, Sima Nan had seen his father and grandfather perform different medical "cures" (using a force called qigong) that seemed to have a strong effect on friends and relatives. They showed him how he could do the same thing. In 1977, while attending college, he studied qigong and after graduation, he was assigned to work for the central government in Beijing. This was at the end of 1981, when qigong and the "special ability" (teyi gongneng) cult had reached their peak in the capital city. Sima Nan had an opportunity to witness several prominent masters giving demonstrations, and he was shocked. The power of the mind could twist and bend spoons! People could break bricks with their head and suffer no injury! He had discovered a new world!

Sima immediately began studying books on the subject of qigong including Human Body Science written by China's leading physicist, Qian Xueshen, which further prompted his interest. He joined a committee that later became known as the Chinese Human Body Science Association. As a follower and pilgrim, he felt that his gongfu (martial arts and psychic ability) was too shallow and that he needed to study hard and humbly devote himself to catching up with the other members. He got to know many masters through this affiliation.

In 1990, after nearly ten years involvement with the committee, Sima became disillusioned. In the beginning, he thought that because this area of study had the support of many famous scientists, it must have been a serious investigation into genuine human ability. But the activities and behavior of the organization had nothing to do with any serious research. It eventually became clear to him that they were interested in only two things. The first was finding famous and influential people to inscribe plaques and awards of endorsement for the organizers to enhance their credibility. The second was money. Every one of the masters he once admired and respected was using deception and trickery in order to manipulate people. Sima Nan decided that, if what they are doing is false, he must then locate the genuine qigong researchers. He believed that there must be some reality to the many stories and unanswered mysteries from the long history of Chinese culture. This haunted him for a long time. He continued to observe qigong masters plying their low-quality magic tricks, but he refused to reject qigong in its entirety. He had been following these masters for quite some time now, waiting on them like a servant. He ran errands such as buying their electrical appliances in department stores, arranging for the transfer of houses and property into their names and other subservient tasks. He had kept a very low profile in the organization and was accepted by them.

Before becoming involved with the qigong movement, Sima Nan admits to having held to the naive notion that scientific research couldn't possibly allow for gross misrepresentation and deception. When he saw respected and trusted people achieve positions of wealth and power by using methods of deception, he finally had to change his mind. He once witnessed a performance presented for the benefit of high ranking government officials. Deception was clearly employed. Later he asked his masters, "Why must we resort to these measures?" He was told "Today it is very difficult for us to proceed with our work; we need more funding. Now is a good time to convince them to give us a lot of money; it's necessary and of benefit to our organization." This is how influence and endorsements from powerful people enabled masters to fill huge stadiums. The credulity of these officials and their willingness to support these activities resulted in unquestioning support from the media, which they control. This fueled the public support and fervor.

From the education he received as a youth and from what he had since learned, Sima Nan could no longer accept the masters' rationalizations. Deception is wrong. At a 1990 symposium held at the Chinese Technology Convention Center he first acted on his convictions. Posing as a student of a popular qigong master, he told the scientific experts in attendance, "Although I have been learning from the master for only a short time, I nonetheless take issue with many of the criticisms that you scientists level against the science of qigong. In order to prove my point, I will give a performance for the benefit of your expert evaluation. If my demonstration fails, you must agree never to offer this as proof that 'special ability' qigong does not exist. But if my demonstration withstands your scrutiny, I demand that you publicly accept the reality of 'special ability' qigong." All of the experts who witnessed his charade agreed to the terms and he began his performance. Sima had his accomplice place seven bricks on his head. Using a big sledgehammer, his friend shattered the bricks, but Sima emerged unharmed. They then placed a huge cement slab on Sima's stomach and his muscular friend cracked it in two with a mighty blow from the hammer. Sima then showed them how he could "see" characters written on pieces of paper by using his "specially developed" sense of hearing. Next he explained how he could use "external" qi to change the taste of tap water. After tasting the water that had been exposed to Sima Nan's treatment, all agreed that the water had changed its flavor. They all conceded that he had successfully proven the existence of qigong and special ability. This had been Sima Nan's first experiment to test how scientific experts could easily be deceived by tricks that are as old as the hills.

When another master performed her "big natural center" qigong, the people of Beijing became instantly enamored of her great skills. This psychic activity became enormously popular and Sima Nan pretended to be one of the masters. He infiltrated the group and imitated their mystic "language." These people said that they were making contact with the timeless wisdom of the universe. Some of the more experienced speakers flattered the newcomer, insisting that his spoken ability was even better than theirs. Some leaders of the central government even became involved, organizing a convention for these "gifted" people to share and exchange their experiences. Even after Sima Nan revealed this farce to the government leaders in attendance, many still chose to believe that this psychic activity was genuine.

All of this caused Sima Nan to think, "I've been a journalist for many years now. It's my responsibility to my profession as well as to my conscience to investigate and expose the truth about qigong and the special ability cult." His pursuit of that goal led to the highest levels of the qigong organization, where he was finally satisfied that he had discovered the whole truth about the qigong industry's big hoax. At first, he went public very conservatively, only revealing a few of the more common tricks employed by the profession. He was harshly denounced as a traitor and received criticism for his lack of "virtue" (gong de). He was immediately booted out of the Chinese Human Body Science Association, who charged that he was simply a jealous, untalented malcontent, incapable of achieving their high levels of ability. This charge was absurd because not only could he demonstrate the simple tricks of the trade as well or better than they could, but he was also able to show others how to instantly do the same thing.

During the ten years of the "Creating Gods in China" movement, qigong had emerged omniscient, deceiving people of all socioeconomic levels. Governmental departments set up qigong research and development units and invested large sums of money for that purpose. The qigong network even sought to influence the highest level of the country's leadership. They used every means possible to divert money and gain promotions for their "meritorious support" of the new "science." Huge amounts of money and resources were squandered, and many promotions were granted-even in the scientific community, where experts of the "Human Body Science" specialty, not yet officially recognized as academically sound, received great attention and support. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), however, never allowed themselves to be associated with qigong in any way. All qigong research was conducted outside of this agency and did not receive its support or approval. This is the reason that the China University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui province, does not sponsor or support qigong. USTC is the only university in China that operates under the direct authority of the CAS. They maintain the highest requirements of any science university in the country, and American universities eagerly recruit their highly qualified graduates. All other schools answer only to the Chinese Higher Education Commission, which lends its cooperation to some university leaders who benefit by using the schools as platforms for qigong propaganda.

As of this writing, there is a big criminal case currently under investigation involving the Chinese National Athletic Bureau in Beijing. Twenty million Chinese yuan donated by Hong Kong philanthropists for the purpose of establishing health insurance policies for China's top athletes was diverted to certain special ability qigong masters.

None of the alleged scientific proof of qigong's existence has ever been verified by independent, transparent duplication of the claimed results. Sima Nan believes that an honest scientific evaluation of qigong would be a useful way to settle the debate. How can China allow these qigong masters and people practicing witchcraft to dominate the fields of science and technology? Even street vagabond con artists now claim scientific validation for their craft.

The trouble is that the qigong industry has everything to lose and nothing to gain from real scientific scrutiny. Such was the case with the so-called "special ability" children hoax several years ago. Many believers of this hoax could not fathom how young children would ever be capable of fooling grown adults, claiming that they lacked the means and motives for such deception. The China Psychological Institute, affiliated with the CAS, tested these children and found that none of them could perform under testing conditions set up to prevent cheating. The institute concluded that the explanation for this "phenomenon" is something that most grade school teachers should be familiar with. Some children like to attract attention by pulling pranks. In most cases, the "special ability" children had been encouraged by adults.

Some popular writers claim that because some masters volunteer to treat patients for free, this proves that they are genuine and sincere. Sima Nan said that he would also gladly volunteer to take control of the nation's gold reserves and money supply, but he would certainly be prevented from doing so. Some might wish to volunteer to protect the nation's top leaders, or perform surgery. But without proper qualifications, should they be allowed to accept such responsibility? The fact that someone volunteers to do something does not mean that they are qualified for such tasks. In Sima Nan's view all of the qigong masters that he has observed are exactly alike in one respect-they are all mainly interested in money. Initially they were just a group of ordinary individuals, but later they became an industry. The greater their promotional skills, the more money they generated. One master was discovered to be holding several hundred million yuan in property, obtained from his millions of adoring students. Other "non-profit" masters don't accept money outright, but their students are required to purchase their books, videotapes, pictures, "tea containing qi," calendars-every possible gimmick to separate the students from their cash.

Sima Nan is frequently asked to explain why it is that qigong treatment seems to work, at least some of the time. Sima agrees that qigong is very effective as an adjunct method of clinical treatment in certain cases. For example, he said that he has seen very good results when qigong is used to treat patients suffering from hypochondria. Some such patients are unable to stand on their own, and the psychological effect of the master's presence can enable them to do so. Where before, the patient believed that they couldn't do it, the master gave them the faith to do otherwise. There is no mystery here. Sima Nan said that faith healing has been carefully studied in the West and that the absolute power and authority of the master, along with unconditional acceptance on the part of the patient, has a powerful psychological effect. Statistics have shown that approximately 5 percent of the population is particularly susceptible to this suggestibility and that age and educational level have no bearing on its effect. Sometimes a patient has already healed naturally and qigong receives credit for this, too.

After the Great Cultural Revolution in China, people were liberated from the old superstition of character worship (Mao). But many Chinese felt empty because they lacked orientation. Mao Zedong had called on the country to eliminate superstitions, cults, etc., but many old ideas still stuck in people's minds. It was not enough to simply tell people to abandon these outdated notions without also explaining why it was of benefit to do so. There was no education to accompany the doctrine. Those who are used to being tightly controlled, and have become comfortable with it, tend to treat their qigong masters not as people, but as gods.

Sima Nan saw many people sink deeper and deeper into the qigong miasma. Because he never abandoned his principles and trusted his own mind to evaluate and critically examine qigong, he managed to free himself from the clutches of blind acceptance. "All of this has been exhausting at times, but I feel that I've become a better person as a result," Sima says. The Abstract History of Chinese Atheism, by Wang Sanyou of Nanjing University, showed him that throughout China's history, there have always been those who refused to bow to superstitious pressure, even in times of great fervor and zeal. A sense of responsibility to society had triggered his decision to stand up to qigong. The freethinker, iconoclast and revolutionary writer Lu Xun once said that Chinese culture should be renamed "Wizardry." "All over the world ancient superstitions were abandoned in favor of modern science and medicine. Why does China still adhere to outdated concepts that continue to limit our thinking?" Sima asks.

Since 1990, Sima Nan has collaborated with the China Association of Science and Technology (CAST) and is now an investigator and founding member of the Committee of Scientific Thinking, a new branch of CAST. Sima Nan says that these organizations have benefitted from their association with CSICOP in the U.S. and that plans are now underway to establish a branch of CSICOP in Hong Kong. Sima said that although most people in China have never heard of CSICOP, there is one exception: the qigong masters have become acutely aware of the organization ever since their 1988 delegation visit to investigate traditional Chinese medicine and qigong in China. After the CSICOP team exposed all of the tricks presented by the highly respected masters, the qigong underworld now has its own term for CSICOP investigators: "yang qian dui," or "foreign gun squad." This term stems from the time of the Opium War where deep resentment of British and American invaders led to the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. The Boxers prided themselves on their martial arts ability and believed themselves invincible to the bullets of the foreign guns. In adopting the emotionally charged "yang qian dui" expression, qigong masters generate hatred of foreigners who seek to verify their claims. They want their countrymen to view such investigation as simply another example of the atrocities suffered by the Chinese at the hands of foreigners. In this way, they exploit racism and nationalism so as to shift scrutiny away from themselves.

Today, Sima Nan continues to support the fight against pseudoscience and has set up an agency that will test claims of the paranormal. His office has a standing offer of one million Chinese yuan to anyone who can perform one act of "special ability" without cheating. Anyone wishing to apply for this prize is encouraged to contact his office in Beijing: 010-269-61001, E-mail: simanan@public.bta.net.cn. He also welcomes any legal attacks from qigong masters, or writers who have been damaged by his exposés. He feels that bringing these disputes before the public eye is a highly instructive process. All should feel free to contact him immediately.

For many Chinese people life is difficult-they suffer at work and are now being laid off in a large numbers. In this depressing condition, they are even more vulnerable to the multitudes of diseases that result from crowded conditions, pollution, chain smoking, and lack of modern heating and sanitation. Finding a qualified doctor is extremely difficult. There are many other misfortunes suffered daily by the Chinese people and they need genuine help, rather than being fooled, cheated out of their money and stripped of their dignity by some charlatan who has become their "master."

An economist and journalist, Sima Nan is the former vice director of the China Central Government Department of Journalism and was former director of the Central Government Editing House, where he evaluated and made assessments on economic issues. He has published in excess of one million words and has received numerous national and professional awards for his works, many of which were published in authoritative economic journals and reports. Recently, his interests have broadened to include philosophy, comparative religions and the qigong phenomenon.

About the Author

Don Mainfort received an M.A. from Michigan State University. Since 1992 he has been teaching English and traveling extensively in China. His previous article, "Qigong Politics of Nanjing University," was published in the September 1998 Skeptical Briefs.
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The Disappearing Writing Guru, Sweet Water, and Chicken McNugget (excerpt)
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
Barry Beyerstein

As every conscientious skeptic knows, we are obliged to let all but the most patently absurd claimants have their day in court. If we hope to gain the respect of fair-minded occupants of the middle ground in such debates, we must be willing occasionally to conduct tedious and time-consuming tests on some pretty unpromising candidates. Unfortunately, there are some who will cynically take advantage of this willingness to keep an open mind. The bane of the worthy skeptic’s existence is the occult or pseudoscientific entrepreneur who pesters and cajoles his critics into designing and setting up a test, takes credit in the media for being willing to submit to such a grilling, and then bugs out at the last minute, citing some affront, the threadbare “shyness” dodge, or some other lame excuse.
We in the British Columbia Skeptics have been stung a number of times in this way. Our longtime supporters will probably recall the case of Linda Pitney, the Toronto graphologist who surfaced in the wake of The Write Stuff, the book debunking handwriting analysis my brother Dale and I published in 1992. Pitney contacted us via a national radio program we were on. She congratulated us for helping to weed out the many unqualified amateurs, crooks, and charlatans in the graphology business and grandly volunteered to show us what a “scientifically trained” graphologist like herself could accomplish. Dale and I set about designing the testing protocols and Pitney set about milking the media for free publicity for herself, based on her consent to the upcoming trials. Since all claimants must agree in advance that a proposed measure is a fair and adequate test of what they say they can do, they must be involved from the outset. Pitney strung us along for quite a while, gathering more publicity while she dragged things out with increasingly irrelevant quibbles. Once she began attributing our refusal to weaken the experimental controls to bias on our part, it became apparent that she was not going to agree to a decisive test of her abilities and negotiations broke off. Nonetheless, we heard from members of the Ontario Skeptics that Pitney continued to trade for quite some time thereafter on her assertion that she was about to take part in a scientific test to be run by the BC Skeptics.
Our long-suffering friends will probably also recall the infamous case of the Vancouver qi gong master, Mr. Ge. Mr. Ge, a recent immigrant from China, made all the usual claims of this nonsensical sect and offered to back them up with a demonstration before a meeting of the BC Skeptics. We said that he could address the group as he wished, as long as he consented to being tested after his talk. One of his many fanciful declarations was that he could beam his mystical qi energy into pure water, imparting a sweet taste to it. This seemed like the sort of thing that was amenable to a test at one of our meetings, so my then-graduate student Elliot Marchant and I set out to design a double-blind trial. We obtained two vials of distilled water from the Simon Fraser University Chemistry Department. On the night of his talk, Mr. Ge was to have beamed his qi into either (randomly chosen) vial A or vial B. This would be in Elliot’s presence, but out of sight of the audience and me. I was then supposed to administer with an eye dropper to the tongues of audience members a drop of first one then the other liquid, in randomized order. Each participant would have been required to guess which of the pair was the “irradiated,” and hence now sweet, droplet. At the end of the trial, the code was to be broken and we would have seen if the audience did any better than chance in telling which vial had received Mr. Ge’s ministrations. We’ll never know the result, because Mr. Ge didn’t live up to his end of the bargain. We agreed that he would have forty-five minutes to tell us anything he wanted us to know about the history and achievements of qi gong, to be followed by the test, whose exact procedures he had promised to follow. After rambling on for more than two hours in the most disjointed and vacuous lecture I think our group has ever had to suffer through, Mr. Ge announced that it was now too late in the evening; he was exhausted and wouldn’t be able to do the test after all. His qi was just too drained to proceed. We remained civil in the face of this cop-out and he promised to make himself available for testing at a later date. We phoned him repeatedly after that, but there was always some reason why he just couldn’t make it. We’re still waiting and he’s still taking credit for having taken on the skeptics on their own turf.
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Traditional Medicine and Pseudoscience in China: A Report of the Second CSICOP Delegation (Part*1)
In this, the first of a two-part report on a 1995 CSICOP delegation to China, the authors discuss the historical rationale for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), its involvement with the questionable Qigong movement, and the growing importation to the West of these practices by Western practitioners of "alternative medicine."
They present their observations of how TCM is practiced at the major TCM facility in Beijing and describe their visit to China's preeminent neurophysiology lab studying the neurochemical underpinnings of acupuncture effects.
Barry L. Beyerstein & Wallace Sampson

Introduction
Paul Kurtz, Chairman of CSICOP
The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal has cultivated a long-standing relationship with scientific and skeptical colleagues in China. It began in 1987, when Mr. Lin Zixin, editor-in-chief of Science and Technology Daily (China's largest-circulation scientific publication), visited CSICOP's headquarters (then in Buffalo) and invited a delegation to visit China from March 21-April 3, 1988. The Skeptical Inquirer published three accounts of this significant visit: Paul Kurtz, "Testing Psi Claims in China: Visit by a CSICOP Delegation"; James Alcock, Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, Philip J. Klass, Paul Kurtz, and James Randi, "Preliminary Testing" (both Summer 1988); and Paul Kurtz, "The China Syndrome: Further Reflections on the State of Paranormal Belief in China" (Fall 1988).
Since that time, Mr. Lin spent a year in Amherst, New York, and frequently visited CSICOP headquarters and the adjacent Amherst campus of the State University of New York at Buffalo. A Chinese delegation composed of members of China's Popular Science magazine and association visited the United States, and six members of this delegation participated in a CSICOP conference in Dallas and visited skeptical groups in Boulder and Los Angeles.
In an effort to maintain contact, our Chinese colleagues indicated a desire for a third visit. Barry Beyerstein, Wallace Sampson, and Andrew Skolnick made the trip. We are glad to publish the first part of their article below. Part 2 will be published in the next issue.
A delegation of six Chinese researchers are participating in the first World Skeptics Congress in Amherst, New York, in June 1996.
We are also pleased that with this issue we will begin listing two contact groups in China. I should point out that the Chinese have published translations of many articles and books by skeptics. We hope to continue our dialogue.

In 1988 the first CSICOP delegation to China looked into the claims of several Qigong (pronounced cheegung)1 masters and their young proteges. These child marvels supposedly possessed what Chinese admirers call "special ability" or "extraordinary functions of the human body." They were said to be able to alter the shape or color of objects in sealed containers and perform a host of other minor miracles. What the first CSICOP delegation (composed of most of the Executive Council at the time) found was that these children could not produce their effects under close observation. In short, the whiz kids and their masters were performing unsophisticated conjuring tricks (Alcock et al. 1988). Also, in controlled tests, the delegation found the vaunted abilities of the Qigong masters to diagnose medical ailments to be unsubstantiated.
Despite such failures, medical uses of Qigong have continued to gain popularity in China. Along with other facets of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), it has become increasingly fashionable in the West as well. Most observers consider TCM's growing reputation in China in the decades following the Communist revolution (takeover in 1949) to have been due primarily to a mix of practical necessity and political expediency on the part of Chairman Mao Zedong. With fewer than 30,000 scientifically trained physicians in all of China (most of them concentrated in the large cities and suffering from politically suspect class backgrounds), the Communist revolutionaries were faced with an immediate need to be seen as "doing something" about the dismal state of medical care in China at the time. With the economy devastated, hard currency almost nonexistent, and hostility emanating from most foreign capitals, the new regime saw little hope of soon being able to afford Western medical technology and pharmaceuticals for a population that was already approaching 600 million. Thus the Communist Party began a concerted effort to convince the masses that TCM, like other aspects of Chinese culture, was not merely equivalent but superior to decadent "imperialist" alternatives. This of course carried the added political bonus of fostering national pride and solidarity among a war-weary and fractionated people.
But while TCM was being touted to the masses by the elites, top party and military officials cynically kept for themselves the best treatments scientific medicine could offer. According to Mao's personal physician, Li Zhisui (Li 1994), Mao himself relied on Western methods to treat his many illnesses (except for a few folk practices carried over from his rural childhood). Trained in scientific medicine at an American-run medical school in China, Li immigrated to Australia after World War II. He was working as a medical officer for an Australian shipping company in 1949 when he was enticed to return to Beijing. Shortly afterward, he was appointed Mao's doctor, the post he held until Mao's death in 1976. Li had no other patients than Mao, Mao's hypochondriacal wife, Jiang Quing, and a few other Mao family members and top party officials. For them, Li had the latest Western drugs, surgical techniques, and medical equipment at his disposal, and a well-equipped portable hospital that accompanied Mao and his entourage on their frequent, impulsive romps around the vast countryside.
Although the health of the masses did begin to improve following the revolution, the herbal remedies, acupuncture, and moxibustion2 dispensed by Mao's "barefoot doctors" probably contributed much less to the improvement than several phenomenal efforts in the public health sphere (after all, folk medicine had been the only treatment available to the masses up to that time and the state of their health had been far from encouraging). Recruited from the peasantry, the "barefoot doctors" were armed with exhortations from the ubiquitous booklets of Mao's quotations and training roughly equivalent to that of first aid attendants in the West. They organized vast and successful communal health projects. Sanitation facilities and access to safe drinking water were greatly improved and several parasitic epidemics were brought under control. At the same time, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases was contained and greater social stability allowed improvements in diet, perinatal care, and basic immunization (Horn 1976; China Report 1983).
TCM had been the treatment of the Chinese people since ancient times,3 but having gained Mao's somewhat cynical imprimatur, TCM's leaders began to amass increasing political power in the new China. Western journalists who accompanied Richard Nixon during his historic rapprochement with the Chinese government were intensively courted by the TCM establishment, as were later delegations of Western doctors (China Report 1983; Skrabanek 1985). These delegations were shown major surgery being performed with acupuncture anesthesia. When columnist James Reston required an emergency appendectomy during Nixon's visit, he was widely, though erroneously, believed to have been given only acupuncture as a pain killer during the surgery. It was not until much later that it was revealed that the Chinese surgical patients observed by foreign delegations had been preselected for high pain tolerance and heavily indoctrinated beforehand.4 It was also disclosed that these demonstration cases were routinely administered surreptitious doses of morphine in an intravenous drip that supposedly contained only hydrating and nourishing fluids (Keng and Tao 1985). In addition, it has since come to light that much of the apparently objective and well-controlled research on TCM emanating from Chinese medical schools during the tumultuous era of the cultural revolution (1966-1976) was falsified at the behest of the hospitals' scientifically unqualified political commissars to ensure that the "research" would support the party line.
Despite this prevarication, most experts today concede that acupuncture does have some analgesic properties (though its potency has been greatly exaggerated). Similarly, many herbal remedies have already been assimilated into scientific medicine.5 On the other hand, proof for the hyperbole served up by some professors of acupuncture from the TCM institutes Barry Beyerstein toured during a visiting professorship in China in 1990 remains as elusive as ever. For example, he was told then that acupuncture can cure cholera, deafness, paralysis, cataracts, and mandibular overbite, among other things. Although the evidence was lacking, claims like these appealed to deep-seated longings in certain social movements that were emerging in the West during the 1970s. The "New Age" movement is only the latest in the long history of Western movements populated by seekers who have turned to the East for answers in times of disillusionment. As Huston (1995) has noted:
The history of Sino-American relations is in part a story of Americans looking to the East and interpreting a huge, complex and, to an outsider, confusing culture in such a way that they see what they desire and fear the most.
Among New Agers in Europe and North America, there was an eagerness to embrace the "natural" and "holistic" philosophy they perceived in TCM. It fit nicely with their desire to replace the scientific worldview with mystical beliefs and, in particular, their willingness to credit virtually any healing claims, providing they are ancient or hail from exotic places.
TCM's growing popularity in Europe and North America is widely recognized. Its shaky scientific foundations and economic and politically driven push for legitimacy are perhaps less well known. When the authors' trip to China was conceived, the movement to make TCM part of the therapeutic mainstream in the West had already been 20 years in gestation. By 1995, the U.S. Office of Alternative Medicine had been created by Congress (not by scientists, it should be noted) and was sponsoring alternative medicine projects that were expected to provide hard evidence to justify some of these treatments.6 TCM practitioners have recently requested that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration upgrade acupuncture needles from the "investigative device" category, and Congress has just passed a bill upgrading the official medical status of these needles. U.S. schools of TCM, felt by many to be diploma mills, are graduating practitioners who clamor for licensure. Twenty-eight states have already licensed lay acupuncturists, and most states allow physicians to perform acupuncture. Some states allow lay acupuncturists to be "primary care physicians" for industrial injuries (and be paid the same as licensed M.D.s and D.O.s). Seven states now have laws allowing any "licensed practitioner" to use any method he or she wishes, as long as the patient is informed in advance that the treatment lacks scientific validation.
Likewise, unproven and possibly dangerous herbal remedies are widely sold in health food stores, herbalist shops, and by mail order in the U.S. and Canada. These products evade the regulations, which require prescription drugs to demonstrate their safety and efficacy scientifically, by means of a loophole that permits herbal remedies to be marketed as "food supplements."
A bill before the U.S. Congress would legitimize all unproven remedies in all states; and no longer would use of scientifically discredited treatments be grounds for discipline by professional boards. Practitioners of TCM stand to gain immensely from these political gambits. Much of the willingness of North Americans to support these trends has been due to uncritical media reports concerning the extent and effectiveness of TCM in China today. As several members of the Chinese scientific community became aware of these shifting attitudes in the West, they began to worry that their reputations were being tarnished abroad by the growing acceptance of the media-driven notion that Chinese medicine was undergoing a wholesale reversion to its ancient, mystical roots. Thus it seemed a mutually advantageous time for a North American team to look into the status of TCM in China. An invitation from the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST) to these authors and Andrew Skolnick, associate news editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, afforded us that opportunity. CAST has long been a foe of pseudoscience in China and welcomed the opportunity to strengthen the cooperative ties it had already forged with CSICOP.
What is Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)?
Every culture, including the Western culture, has evolved an indigenous system of folk healing (Atkinson 1956). Because of the body's natural restorative processes and the power of the placebo effect, many physiologically inert folk remedies have long enjoyed unearned credit for curing diseases. It is only in the modern scientific era that it has been possible to separate truly effective treatments from only apparently effective ones by means of double-blind, random-assignment, placebo-controlled tests. When submitted to adequate clinical trials, some ancient folk remedies have proven their worth; many more have not (Nolen 1974; Stalker and Glymour 1985; Skrabanek and McCormick 1990; Randi 1989; Barrett 1990; Pantanowitz 1994). It was our desire to see what progress the Chinese were making in scientifically evaluating traditional treatments that motivated our tour of the major TCM centers in Beijing and Shanghai during the summer of 1995.
Practitioners of TCM consider it an empirical "science" of healing that has proved its worth in Asian countries for more than 3,000 years (Wallnšfer and von Rottauscher 1975). According to Chinese government figures, there are now more than 2,000 TCM hospitals throughout the country (Hou 1991). Unlike Western scientific medicine, which aims to identify and counteract specific pathogens for different disease states, TCM views all illnesses as the consequence of a unitary cause, namely an imbalance of vital energies in the body. The term Qi, which translates roughly as "divine breath," refers to these putative energies, which are assumed by TCM to permeate everything in the universe. With respect to biological organisms, Qi is rather like the concept of elan vital, a hypothetical "life force" that was abandoned in Western medicine when scientific discoveries made it apparent that there is no essential difference in chemical constituents or processes between living and inanimate matter.
TCM's advocates assert that herbs, moxibustion, massage, breathing exercises, acupuncture, and certain foods are able to restore the balance of the Yin and Yang, variants of Qi energy, which are supposed to flow in invisible channels in the body called "meridians." By balancing Qi in this way, they say, health is maintained or restored. Some of the means for achieving this balance can look rather strange to those accustomed to scientific medicine. Take, for instance, something widely sold in China, the "505 Magic Bag." It is "shaped like an apron and, containing 50 [herbal] ingredients, [it] can prevent and treat many diseases of the stomach and intestines . . . [when] the bag [is worn] close to the navel" (Hou 1991).7
Critics have pointed out that TCM relies, even today, on an ancient philosophical view of the body that was formulated during an era when the Chinese, for religious reasons, were forbidden to dissect cadavers. Thus the organ systems referred to in the ancient texts that still underlie TCM's practices are merely metaphors that bear little relationship to the anatomical systems revealed by Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, and the other pioneers of scientific medicine.8 Chinese medicine of 3,000 years ago was certainly no more primitive than the folk practices from the same era that evolved into Western medicine; but just as we no longer rely on the astronomy of ancient Greece, it would seem that progress in anatomy, physiology, pathology, and therapeutics has rendered most ancient medical practices obsolete. For those who would argue that antiquity implies validity, consider the longevity of racism, sexism, or the belief in a flat Earth.
Although TCM is based on a philosophical rather than empirical understanding of bodily function, it is possible that some of its procedures might still work, but for reasons unrelated to the magical belief system that supplied their rationale thousands of years ago (Xie 1995). Open-minded physicians everywhere would welcome any treatment that could benefit their patients, regardless of its origins -- providing it can demonstrate its value in properly controlled clinical trials. It was in this spirit that we approached the fact-finding mission that took us to the foremost TCM facilities in the People's Republic.
We had been aware for some time that Chinese Qigong masters were amassing considerable wealth and political power by allegedly healing people with mysterious force fields -- supposedly "external" manifestations of their Qi "energy." Many masters subsequently immigrated to North America where they established even more lucrative healing ventures. Qigong masters were featured in Bill Moyers's highly acclaimed but embarrassingly credulous 1993 public television series, "Healing and the Mind." Appearing with Moyers on one segment was David Eisenberg, who enhanced his already high standing in the alternative medicine community by promoting the powers of the Qigong mentor, Master Shi. Moyers's demonstration made it appear that Shi, this elderly, frail man, had the strength to resist vigorous shoving by his hearty young students, whereas he could apparently "push" them around from a distance with the invisible force of his external Qi. Our study of slow-motion replays led us to conclude that the student was not exerting any great muscular force on the master's body, but was only pretending to do so.9 At one point, even the trusting Eisenberg is heard to shout, "Try harder. You look like you are faking it." In response to the master's movements, another student leaped backward, making it appear that the master's "energy" had repelled him without physical contact. Peter Huston, writing in the September/October 1995 Skeptical Inquirer ("China, Chi, and Chicanery") reached the same conclusion that we did from studying this performance. It looked like a well-rehearsed ballet. Various stage tricks passed off as miracles by Qigong masters have been repeatedly exposed by Chinese investigators, who were among our hosts during our tour of China (Lin et al., in press).
Eisenberg's 1982 book, Encounters with Qi, recounts the postgraduate training in TCM he received in China. In the book he describes many supposedly proven paranormal feats performed by Qigong masters.10 Although he makes a few token proclamations of skepticism, Eisenberg seems curiously loath to ask the masters to recreate the effects he observed under conditions that would prevent the kind of stage tricks the demonstrations clearly resembled. In Encounters with Qi, he unquestioningly accepts the therapeutic benefits of balancing the body's (internal) Qi with herbs, acupuncture, and moxibustion (also an herbal treatment). When he returned to China with Moyers, Eisenberg continued to embrace the therapeutic effects of TCM as enthusiastically as he had back in his student days when he accepted as real the kind of "external Qi" effects others have exposed as magic tricks. Moyers seemed equally willing to credit the healing powers of Qi on the basis of nothing more than patient testimonials and the word of his guides. Eisenberg now directs alternative medicine courses for medical students and physicians through Harvard University. These courses and a 1993 article he coauthored on alternative medicine (Eisenberg et al. 1993) were funded by the Fetzer Institute, a $200 million endowment for the propagation of various unproven "mind/medicine" principles.
The effects shown on Moyers's program were said to be driven by "external Qi," the same doubtful force invoked to explain allegedly supernatural feats, (extraordinary functions of the human body) that the 1988 CSICOP delegation exposed as conjuring tricks. Although the delegation found this "force" dismally inaccurate when the Qigong masters invoked it to diagnose illnesses, it is the same "energy" that TCM advocates say runs through acupuncture meridians to effect healing. It has always struck us as odd that proponents can accept that this mysterious energy is unable to interact with the physical matter in the sensors of measuring instruments (which could confirm its existence) while it is still able to interact with the physical matter of bodily organs to "read" their state of health and produce a cure.
It was against this background of mysticism, naive trust in testimonials, prior incidents of fakery, and a host of intertwined political and ideological considerations that we set out to look into TCM's claims ourselves. We wanted to see if Qigong and other TCM practices were as fully integrated with scientific medicine in the Chinese health care system as proponents on this continent assert.11 We had hoped to observe herbal prescribing, traditional pulse and tongue diagnoses, cupping, moxibustion, "back scraping," and the use of acupuncture for anesthesia, analgesia, and treatment of organic disorders. Some of these we saw and others we did not, since our hosts in the TCM institutions selected our itineraries for reasons steeped in philosophy, politics, and courtesy.
Our Visit
Beijing: June 1995. While we were in Beijing, we enjoyed the superb hospitality of Madam Shen Zhenyu of CAST (the principal organizer), Mr. Lin Zixin (former editor of Science and Technology Daily and a CSICOP Fellow), Madam Shen Zhen-xin (of the Academia Sinia), and Mr. Bai Tongdong, a graduate student at Beijing University.
While touring the Forbidden City with us, Mr. Bai, a physicist and graduate student in the philosophy of science, set the tone for our later discussions with his assertion that Qi is a philosophy, not a reflection of physical reality. In his view, the principles of TCM, including Qi, are merely useful, socially determined metaphors for the realities and facts that only science can provide. He did not offer opinions on the validity of traditional Chinese medicine.
The morning of our first full day, we were taken to a major hospital and research institute at Beijing Medical University. There we were greeted by Professor Han Jishen, a world-famous neurophysiologist, and several other distinguished faculty members. Dr. Han proceeded to chair a seminar that included descriptions of the institute, its achievements in both Western and traditional Chinese medicine, and discussion among ourselves and the assembled faculty.
One of the speakers was Dr. Xie Zhu-fan, director of the Institute of Integration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine. In his presentation he outlined three historical phases in the resurgence of TCM in China. Dr. Xie did not mention the political contributions to this renaissance, merely saying that in the early 1950s TCM began to be taught after decades of neglect and that some Western-trained Chinese physicians had been released from their duties to study TCM. After this, he said, there followed a period devoted to documenting the clinical effects of TCM. Dr. Xie admitted, as he does in his recent book (Xie 1995), that TCM philosophy is not compatible with modern science; but that acupuncture and some other traditional techniques have been demonstrated clinically to have analgesic properties or positive effects on certain functional disorders.
According to Dr. Xie, the Chinese are now in the third phase, the investigation of mechanisms that could account for TCM's clinical effects. For example, he said they had confirmed the ability of certain Chinese herbs to dilate blood vessels, decrease platelet activity (inhibit blood clotting), and "modulate immune responses." Because of the multiple actions of herbs, each could be used for several different disorders. Dr. Xie did not explain how these effects had been determined: whether the mixtures raised or lowered blood pressure and just how "immune system modulation" (we're not sure exactly what he meant by this term) benefits the patient. There was no discussion of side effects. Here, and during our discussions with other TCM physicians, it seemed axiomatic that when herbal medications are ingested, only desirable outcomes follow.12
After the opening seminar, we were taken on a tour of Professor Han's laboratory. Dr. Han heads an institute with a staff of thirty-seven that occupies three floors of one campus building. His support comes primarily from governmental grants, there being few, if any, independent sources of funding in China. Dr. Han also has grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the U.S. and Upsa Laboratories, a French pharmaceutical company. We met several of his collaborators, whom we observed in their labs. Although the lab appointments were simple, they were serviceable. The hallways were dimly lit by single, sparsely distributed fluorescent lamps, electricity apparently being expensive. Much of the lab's equipment had been donated by an admirer of Dr. Han's, the distinguished opiate researcher, Avram Goldstein, who shipped his furnishings and apparatus to Beijing after retiring from Stanford University. The institute's walls were decorated with poster presentations from research meetings that described the lab's discoveries. Professor Han spent two more hours with us, touring the lab and summarizing the work of his group on the physiology and neurochemistry of acupuncture. Our interest was to see whether the cellular effects of acupuncture found in the animal experiments could legitimately account for the myriad clinical effects in human patients claimed by practicing acupuncturists.
A detailed account of Dr. Han's research is beyond the scope of this article, but we can summarize some of his work, which has been widely published and presented at international conferences (e.g., Chen et al. 1994). Dr. Han showed, before the discovery of the enkephalins (the brain's endogenous morphinelike neurotransmitters), that acupuncture caused a reduction in pain responses in rabbits and that transfusing a treated animal's cerebrospinal fluid into a nontreated animal produced a similar effect in the second rabbit. It was suggested that acupuncture had elevated the pain threshold by triggering a release of a transmissible agent (later identified as the opioid peptides, enkephalin and endorphin). Dr. Han later showed, by using antisense DNA in the system, that the ability of acupuncture to produce analgesia [lowered sensitivity to pain while conscious] can be prevented by blocking the expression of the endorphin receptor on the surface of spinal neurons. Others have shown that endorphin-blocking drugs also reverse acupuncture analgesia.
More recently, Dr. Han's group has shown that the peptide neurotransmitter cholecystokinin (CCK -- receptors for which are believed to be distributed in close proximity to those for the endorphins) antagonizes the endorphin-related effects of acupuncture. It seems to do so by altering the endorphin receptor's affinity for its transmitter, or its ability to conduct messages inside the cell. Dr. Han thinks that natural hyperactivity of the CCK system in about 10 to 20 percent of the human population is responsible for the finding that a similar percentage of normal people is totally "nonresponsive" to acupuncture. He said he belongs to that group of nonresponders.
Our visit was too short to assess the adequacy of the methodology or the validity of these studies, although they seemed sound and have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Nonetheless, we felt that although this research is important basic science, it does not bear directly on many of the clinical claims made by acupuncturists. For instance, a rise in endorphin levels has been attributed to a number of varied activities -- running, meditating, etc. -- so Dr. Han's findings are not necessarily uniquely caused by acupuncture. The demonstration of an agent's effect in an animal model does not automatically imply its reproducibility, specificity, or significance in clinical practice.
Dr. Han maintained that, in humans, the acupuncture point between the thumb and forefinger is specific for the results he measured; but others have found that the exact placement of the needles is unrelated to the pain relief or other clinical effects obtained (Richardson and Vincent 1986). In addition, other researchers have failed to reproduce the reversal of acupuncture analgesia by the morphine antagonist naloxone, so the conditions under which measurements are made may be important, and the optimal ones are not yet known. It should also be noted that the role of the endorphins in pain relief remains controversial because plasma endorphin concentrations are not consistently related to levels of pain experienced by humans (Skrabanek 1985). And finally, a transient rise in endorphin levels could not reasonably account for the prolonged pain relief claimed by acupuncturists, nor other avowed cures in organ systems that are unaffected by the endorphins.
Dr. Han has also developed a low-voltage electric stimulator for administration of electroacupuncture, which he favors for both research and therapy. Known as the "HAN N S," we found it used throughout China by those who prefer to deliver brief electric pulses through acupuncture needles rather than merely twirling the needles in the traditional manner. It resembles the TENS transcutaneous stimulators widely used in Western pain clinics.
Dr. Han was most gracious to us, and he is obviously a leader in his field. At the end of our tour, we wondered if he would agree, as we had read, that a number of other, less invasive stimuli can also raise endorphin levels in the central nervous system. We asked if it were not true, as Dr. Victor Herbert had shown,13 that any irritative stimulus, such as a pinch, might produce a similar rise in endorphin levels (this is conceded by many acupuncturists who use "acupressure" where the skin points are simply massaged rather than needled). He replied that yes, that is so, but acupuncture does not hurt as much as a pinch. We wondered at this juncture why pinch controls are not routinely included in acupuncture experiments and how one could justify clinical use of an invasive method (needling) known to be capable of producing serious complications to obtain such modest, inconsistent results. We, like Skrabanek (1985), also wondered whether suggestion and placebo effects had really been ruled out by acupuncture researchers as a more parsimonious explanation for observed clinical effects in humans. The argument that acupuncture's effectiveness in animals eliminates the placebo explanation ignores the fact that the immobilization necessary to insert the needles in animal subjects has been shown to produce a sort of catatonia/analgesia by itself.14 At the very least, we went away wondering why, back home, a special "profession" now needs to be created to administer this procedure, so little about it having been satisfactorily proved.
We next visited several clinics at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing. The main one was a moderate-sized room, approximately 12 by 4 meters, crowded with ten or twelve patients being treated -- most with acupuncture, several with acupuncture and moxibustion, and two with cupping, as described below. The acupuncturist deftly twirled the needles in the prescribed points, leaving them in place for twenty to thirty minutes. Some patients received electroacupuncture, others the traditional method. Moxibustion, the placement of burning herbs on the surface of the body, is like the process of "blistering" common in prescientific Western medicine. Here it was administered by placing the smoldering material in a wooden box with a porous, recessed bottom that was placed on the diseased body part -- in these cases, the back or the stomach. This was difficult for us to understand because we could not see how any active ingredients the burning herbs might contain could be absorbed in therapeutic quantities, and we had read previously that, for moxibustion to be effective, the herbs must be twisted into small cones and burned precisely over the appropriate acupuncture points. Moreover, the same herbal mixture seemed to be used indiscriminately for a variety of quite different complaints.
For cupping, heated clear glass vessels were placed on the upper back and shoulders, on presumed meridians or acupuncture points. As the cups cooled, skin was sucked up, much as with a vacuum cleaner. The rationale given was that the suction draws out bad or diseased energy from the body. An identical practice survived from ancient times until surprisingly recently in Western medicine as well -- to draw out diseased "humors" or "vapors" that are no longer believed to exist.
While touring the TCM complex, we made several observations. The total space in this institution devoted to the practice of TCM was a relatively small portion of its holdings. The rest of the complex of several large buildings was apparently devoted to more mainstream scientific research. We asked what portion of the total medical services delivered in China was TCM, and how people were chosen to receive TCM treatments. We received some surprising answers: Patients generally request TCM treatments themselves, rather than being referred to TCM practitioners by biomedically trained physicians. Most scientifically trained doctors do not practice TCM, nor do they decide on the mode of treatment if they should refer a patient for TCM.
TCM is practiced at the institute by specialists trained in their respective techniques. We were told that most TCM students receive little scientific medical education and, overall, scientifically trained physicians seemed to have little interaction with TCM practitioners. Some physicians from abroad were studying at the institute, but most of the foreign students we met were physiotherapists, health food entrepreneurs, naturopaths, or other alternative medicine practitioners. By 1991 more than 2,000 foreign students had graduated from the thirty TCM colleges in China. At any given time, there are typically 30,000 Chinese students studying TCM (Hou 1991).
We were told that, these days, the proportion of Chinese patients choosing TCM, nationwide, is only about 15 to 20 percent, a figure that surprised us, but was consistent with the relatively small area allotted to these practices in the institute we visited in Beijing. Government publications as recent as 1991 had put the usage rate for TCM at about one-third of all patients in the country (Hou 1991). The 15 to 20 percent estimate was later reiterated by other informants who practiced TCM in Shanghai. Most TCM patients we observed were being treated for chronic problems such as indigestion, back pain, arthritis, and bursitis, which was not surprising to us. Conditions such as these often respond well to reassurance and psychological interventions and they tend to be cyclical, so virtually any treatment is likely to coincide with relief at some time. This is why placebo controls are essential in evaluating all putative therapies.
We were surprised at the low levels of personal interaction between TCM therapists and their patients. The warm, individualized attention and extended time spent with patients (a distinguishing feature of TCM according to its advocates in North America) was not evident here. Most patients arrived at the Beijing clinic with diagnoses in hand. The treatments we saw seemed to be largely symptom oriented, contrary to claims of supporters in North America who see as one of TCM's superiorities that it "treats the whole person." There was no attempt, in our presence anyway, to diagnose with TCM methods (e.g., by reading the fifteen unique pulses traditional healers say they can discern, or the more than 100 different diagnostic signs on the tongue [see Wallnofer and von Rottauscher 1975]). Diagnoses for the patients we saw had generally been made by biomedical physicians, and the patients had elected to receive TCM in addition to their Western treatments. We were not shown acupuncture anesthesia for surgery, this apparently having fallen out of favor with scientifically trained surgeons. Dr. Han, for instance, had been emphatic that he and his colleagues see acupuncture only as an analgesic (pain reducer), not an anesthetic (an agent that blocks all conscious sensations).
Before leaving the Beijing Institute, we were shown the largest collection of references on TCM, especially herbalism, in China. We entered through a long reading room with rows of display cases and tables. Another room branched from the side and at the end was a large vault, temperature- and humidity-controlled, containing stacks of rare, ancient volumes. Splendidly bound, they dated back many hundreds of years, some much more, and contained beautiful illustrations of medicinal plants. TCM recognizes more than 8,000 plant species as having medicinal value. Students come from all over China to study these tomes, although we saw only a few while we were there. On another floor we were shown a major project funded by the UN's World Health Organization to establish a computer database from this storehouse of information about TCM.
Interspersed with our packed itinerary of official visits, we were shown the sights of Beijing including the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and several museums; and we trekked along the Great Wall. Everywhere we went, our hosts pampered and fed us in grand style. Our questions were answered frankly and we were always made to feel most welcome. In Part 2 of this report [to be published in a future issue of SI], we shall describe the major scholarly conference CAST arranged to coincide with our visit, and our further explorations of TCM in Shanghai.
Notes
1. "Qi" is the name Chinese philosophy gives to a scientifically undetectable force or energy that is supposed to permeate all things. Believers in TCM assert that imbalances in the flow of Qi are responsible for disease, fatigue, etc. Acupuncture, Chinese herbs, etc., supposedly restore well-being by rebalancing the flow of this mystical essence. Qigong is a set of mental and physical exercises akin to those of Tai Chi Chuan and Ai-ki-do that also promise spiritual and physical benefits by channeling this mysterious energy. With its mental disciplines and breathing exercises, Qigong has long been practiced as a form of self-hypnosis that claims to promote relaxation and general health, much in the manner of certain yoga exercises. These days, practitioners of this sort of discipline call it "internal Qigong" to distinguish it from so-called "external Qigong," which has enjoyed a dramatic rise in popularity in China and the West. Devotees of external Qigong claim they can control the Qi force outside their bodies to debilitate their foes, achieve the sorts of psychic feats familiar to Westerners, as well as to diagnose and cure physical ailments. Qigong masters have become rich and powerful in China, filling massive sports arenas for their demonstrations of magic and faith healing. Chinese skeptics who have exposed these Qigong hoaxers were among the hosts of the delegation that included these authors (Lin et al., in press).
2. Moxibustion employs various herbal materials but instead of being eaten, they are twisted into small cones and set on fire. The cones are placed over hypothetical "meridians" that are supposed to supply "Qi energy" to the afflicted part of the body. There they smolder, much like lit tobacco leaves. Although this is the traditional procedure, in the clinics we observed it had mostly been replaced by one in which a wire-bottomed box containing the smoldering herbs was simply placed over the site of the patient's complaint.
3. We should note, as Skrabanek (1985) points out, that TCM has been banned several times in Chinese history as useless, only later to be reinstated by official fiat. Mao's resurrection of TCM rescinded the 1929 ban instituted by the Kuomintang government, which had opted for scientific medicine over folk practices but did a very poor job of delivering it to the masses.
4. Western physicians have long been aware that suitably selected patients can undergo major surgery without anesthesia and show astonishingly little evidence of suffering if given hypnotic inductions or any of a host of other, related cognitive/social manipulations (see Melzack and Wall 1982, or Skrabanek 1985). Modern psychological research has shown that pain is partly a sensation and partly an emotional reaction (the "agony component"). Any manipulation of attention, anxiety, or arousal that attenuates the emotional component leaves the purely sensory aspect of pain surprisingly tolerable.
5. Many mainstays of modern pharmacology have their origins in traditional folk remedies (Lewis and Elvin-Lewis 1977). Traditional Chinese herbalism has already provided scientific medicine with valuable medications such as ephedrine (from the plant Chinese herbalists call "Ma Huang"). Undoubtedly, many other useful medicines remain to be isolated from the huge traditional pharmacopeia.
Unfortunately, as it stands, most traditional herbs have not yet been properly tested for safety or efficacy. Thus, herbalism remains an inseparable mixture of some safe and effective remedies, some inert placebos, and some dangerous substances. It is difficult, if not impossible, in most instances, to tell which concoctions belong in which of these categories. The encouraging news is that, particularly in China, there are increasing numbers of attempts to apply scientific methods to separate the effective herbal medications from the placebos and to isolate the active ingredients in those that actually work.
Firmly in the pseudoscience camp must be placed all traditional remedies made from rhinoceros horns, tiger penises, bear gall bladders and other parts of magnificent, endangered species. Lucrative poaching to harvest these body parts is seriously threatening these animals with extinction. And all this for useless treatments based solely on principles of sympathetic magic; i.e., the ancient belief that "like begets like." These are symbolically potent parts of powerful beasts, so it is believed that such organs must therefore magically transfer to the people who take them the vitality and fortitude of their donors.
6. The newly appointed director of the Office of Alternative Medicine, Joe Jacobs, soon ran afoul of the wishes of the alternative medicine community and resigned his post (Marshall 1994). Jacobs exhibited a rare and commedable mixture of willingness to entertain unconventional hypotheses and a hardheaded demand for rigorous tests before accepting them. Alternative practitioners had long contended that the only reason their treatments had not proven their worth scientifically was that the hidebound medical establishment had prevented them from receiving the necessary research funds. When Congress suddenly made grants available through the new institute, most proponents of alternative medicine proved that they didn't know how to conduct proper clinical trials and didn't really want them anyway. When they increased their demands that most of the money be turned over to them, without proper peer review, to continue gathering the scientifically useless testimonials they had always relied upon, Jacobs quit rather than perpetrate a charade. He called their demands "professionally insulting."
7. This exemplifies another aspect of sympathetic magic in TCM. Believers in "contact magic," say that things that are in physical proximity can influence each other by passing a mystical "vital essence," merely by being in the same vicinity. This is why psychics believe they can tell things about absent owners of objects they are allowed to hold--the owners' essence supposedly transferred to the object and then into the psychic, by contact.
8. For instance, no reputable scientist has ever found an anatomical basis in the circulatory, nervous, or lymphatic systems for the "meridians" through which the health-enhancing vital energies posited by TCM are supposed to flow. The energies themselves cannot be detected by conventional scientific instruments. Likewise, doubts have been raised because of the ways in which TCM remedies, such as moxibustion, are administered -- it must be claimed that they interact with their target organs by some sort of dubious "vibrations" or "sympathy" because our modern understanding of the body's integument and membrane properties rules out their absorbtion by and distribution to target organs by any of the conventionally accepted routes. For instance, take this description of a TCM product promoted by an official Chinese government publication: "Yuwang-Brand Superior Weight-Reducing Bathing Liquid is made from medicinal herb extracts mixed with high quality detergent. It cleans the skin and promotes fat metabolism, helping to reduce weight and keep the figure slim" (Hou 1991, p. 33).
9. Whether this disciple was in fact "pulling his punches" intentionally to make his master look good, or was psychologically deluding himself that he was actually applying massive force when he was not, remains a matter of conjecture. What is known is that strong believers are capable of "ideomotor actions" (or inactions) where they honestly believe their movements (such as with a Ouija board or a dowsing rod) are not being initiated and controlled by their own volition (Vogt and Hyman 1979). Similarly, there is evidence that people can sincerely convince themselves they are exerting muscular effort when in fact they are not. Various hypnotic phenomena are of this sort.
10. In a similar vein, Barry Beyerstein, when he lived in China several years ago, was told by the staff at his residence that they knew a Qigong master who could leap over buildings. Of course, they said, the skeptical foreigner could have a demonstration. Unfortunately, for some reason, the time was never quite right. When he returned to Canada, Beyerstein organzed a lecture by a famous Qigong master, Ge, who had relocated to Vancouver. Ge promised to demonstrate the power of his Qi by making distilled water taste sweet. Once again, the audience was greatly disappointed when, after a rambling, incoherent lecture, the master announced he was now too tired to do the double-blind, forced-choice test Beyerstein had prepared. Ge's claim that he could diagnose diseased organs by passing his hands over the surface of a patient's body and feeling a twinge in the same organ in his own body was met with a question from the floor: "And just how do you detect ovarian cancer?"
11. It was the conclusion of Barry Beyerstein, after touring several treatment facilities outside the largest Chinese cities six years ago, that the much-publicized "complete integration" of traditional and scientific practitioners was not as happy a marriage as it had been portrayed. Back then, scientifically trained Chinese doctors were more circumspect in expressing their doubts about official encouragements of TCM, but many of them expressed their reservations quietly to the visitor nonetheless. On this more recent visit most scientific critics were bolder, but still cautious.
12. This belief that if something is "organic" or "natural" it must be milder, safer, and more benign than "manufactured" drugs is a common misconception among most practitioners of herbal medicine. A moment's reflection will reveal that strychnine, "deadly nightshade" (belladonna), and a variety of mushrooms are among nature's most dangerous poisons. Many herbal remedies are of questionable safety, let alone efficacy (Tyler 1985).
13. In a personal communication, Herbert presented the following account of a demonstration of animal acupuncture he had observed in China. The experimenter inserted needles into the animal subject and took a blood sample that showed a rise in endorphin levels. Herbert asked if he could try pinching the skin to see if it would have a similar effect on endorphin levels to that of the needles. It did.
14. Known in the older literature as "animal hypnosis," grabbing and rapidly turning over small mammals can produce a stunned immobility, a protective freezing response, in which they appear to be insensitive to painful stimuli.
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• Skrabanek, P. 1985. Acupuncture: Past, present, and future. In Examining Holistic Medicine, ed. by D. Stalker and C. Glymour, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. Pp. 181-196.
• Skrabanek, P. and J. McCormick. 1990. Follies and Fallacies in Medicine. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Stalker, D. and C. Glymour. Editors. 1985. Examining Holistic Medicine. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Tyler, V. 1985. Hazards of herbal medicine. In Examining Holistic Medicine, ed. by D. Stalker and C. Glymour. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Vogt, E. and R. Hyman. 1979. Water Witching U.S.A. 2d Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Wallnofer, H. and A. von Rottauscher. 1975. Chinese Folk Medicine and Acupuncture. London: White Lion Publishers.
• Xie, Zhu-fan. 1995. Best of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Beijing: New World Press.
About the Authors
• Barry L. Beyerstein is associate professor of psychology and a member of the Brain Behavior Laboratory at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6, Canada). He is a Fellow and member of the Executive Council of CSICOP.
• Wallace Sampson is clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine (Division of Hematology/Medical Oncology, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, 751 South Bascom Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95128). He is the board chairman of the National Council Against Health Fraud and a Fellow of CSICOP.
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Traditional Medicine and Pseudoscience in China: A Report of the Second CSICOP Delegation (Part 2)

This is the second of a two-part report of a recent CSICOP delegation to the People's Republic of China. In this article the authors describe their participation in a symposium on pseudoscience in China, held in Beijing, and their further interactions with practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Shanghai.
Wallace Sampson & Barry L. Beyerstein

In Part 1 of this report (SI, July/August 1996) we discussed the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and our observations of how it is practiced today in the People's Republic of China. We also described research we had observed during our visit to China that is attempting to identify those empirically verifiable portions of TCM that could be incorporated into scientific medical practice. This opportunity was afforded us by an invitation from the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) to visit various centers in China and to participate in a symposium on pseudoscience held in Beijing in June of 1995. In this article we address the broader topic of the growth of pseudoscience in China, and present additional observations of-TCM as seen in centers in Shanghai.
The CAST Symposium

Part of our stay in Beijing was occupied by a seminar sponsored by CAST and the State Science and Technology Commission. There, Chinese scholars and physicians described the problems created by pseudoscience in their country. These authors and their fellow member of the delegation (Andrew Skolnick of the Journal of the American Medical Association) traded similar experiences from the U.S. and Canada. We had expected this to be one of the highlights of our trip, and we were not disappointed. CAST had assembled an impressive roster of social, physical, and medical scientists from various parts of China who described the obstacles that belief in Qigong(1) and some of the extreme claims of TCM have put in the way of their efforts to improve scientific literacy. From these presentations we achieved many insights that would otherwise have been much more speculative.
All Chinese speakers at the symposium made a clear distinction between `internal Qi' and `external Qi.' The former equates roughly to what we would call `psychosomatic medicine'; while believers consider the latter to be a supernatural life force that, like psychokinesis, can affect matter outside one's body (believers refer to this as `special ability' or `extraordinary functions of the human body'). Belief in this dubious power was repeatedly defined at the symposium as China's major pseudoscience problem. Qigong was briefly outlawed during the cultural revolution (1966-1976) because it seemed too spiritual for the reigning Marxist materialists. It has since managed to stage a comeback by masquerading as a science. Qigong masters and their disciples routinely defraud the public with conjuring tricks and falsely present themselves as spiritual healers (Lin et al., in press). Honest practitioners of TCM eschew such deceptive practices, but they still adhere to the mystical notion that an imbalance of internal Qi energy underlies all illness. Many of the TCM doctors we interviewed still believe that specially gifted healers can use their external Qi to cure diseases by restoring the balance of a sufferer's internal Qi.

A few Chinese scientists we met maintained that although Qi is merely a metaphor, it is still a useful physiological abstraction (e.g., that the related concepts of Yin and Yang parallel modern scientific notions of endocrinologic and metabolic feedback mechanisms). They see this as a useful way to unite Eastern and Western medicine. Their more hard-nosed colleagues quietly dismissed Qi as only a philosophy, bearing no tangible relationship to modern physiology and medicine.(2)

The first group of speakers at the CAST symposium concentrated on external Qi. After Chinese investigators and the earlier CSICOP delegation had exposed several prominent Qigong masters as charlatans (Alcock et al. 1988), the government was persuaded to crack down on their ilk (some have gone underground, but many still continue to enjoy protection provided by high-level state officials). We did not determine the extent of the crackdown, but we learned that many Qigong masters are still active, especially in the countryside. We were also told that we would not be able to observe any masters or `special ability' children because they would no longer cooperate. This was disappointing but it is a tribute to our hosts' debunking efforts that local performers are now too wary of being caught, as they were when exposed by James Alcock, James `the Amazing' Randi, and the other members of the first CSICOP delegation.

Mr. Lin Zixin, the retired editor of China's Science and Technology Daily and a CSICOP Fellow, was one of our principal hosts. At the symposium, which he helped organize, he discussed the extent of belief in pseudoscience in China. He credited the 1988 CSICOP delegation with helping to tarnish the reputation of the Qigong `superman,' Xiao, but admitted much remains to be done. He compared widely held superstitions about the power of external Qi in China to the beliefs that inspired the Japanese sect, `Aum Shinri Kyo' (the cult that attacked the Tokyo subway with nerve gas). Mr. Lin, one of China's top scientific journalists and policy experts, described the extent of superstition in China as shameful and a threat to the nation's technological development. Scientific literacy is more important than ever as China tackles the arduous task of modernizing its economy, he said, but superstition continues to impede progress. Mr. Lin firmly reiterated his organization's support for CSICOP's efforts to combat pseudoscience worldwide.

Professor Qui Renzong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences compared the development of American and Chinese pseudoscience. He drew parallels between the concept of external Qi and the mysterious nonmaterial forces posited by parapsychologists, such as psychokinesis and extrasensory perception. Professor Qui echoed Mr. Lin's assertion that the Qigong movement has had a negative influence on Chinese society. Professor Qui lamented the fact that it has also been psychologically damaging for some devotees, and that even some scientists have been duped into believing in the power of external Qi-for example, an ardent promoter is Professor Qian Xuesen, China's foremost rocket scientist and a former professor at the California Institute of Technology. Professor Qui concluded with the memorable phrases: `It's only your private experience, if it is not repeatable,' and `pseudoscience is an infinite regression of excesses.'

Professor Wang Guozheng of the China Society for Dialectics of Nature continued the theme that pseudoscience is becoming a major social problem. He described his investigation of `seeing with ears,' a trick similar to the `blind reading' exposed by Martin Gardner in his famous article on the `peek-down-the-side-of-the-nose' ruse.(3) Professor Wang ended this inquiry when he concluded that it was a worthless fad that would disappear on its own. Apparently it did not, despite its affront to official Marxist dialectical materialism. In ten years, not one claim had been substantiated, yet popular belief continued to grow. Such concerns led Professor Wang to found the Society for the Protection of the Scientific Spirit. Its aim is to promote scientific attitudes and combat the growing influence of pseudoscience. The society has encountered opposition from paranormalists, such as when a Qigong advocate who was rejected as a speaker at one of its meetings disrupted the proceedings by trying to force his way onto the program physically. It seems Chinese skeptics are vulnerable to many of the same tactics as those endured by their Western counterparts.

Dr. Zhang Tongling, professor of psychiatry at Beijing Medical University, presented her research on negative effects of Qigong practices. She believes that there is no such thing as Qi, but she found that some vulnerable people, drawn into the Qi subculture, have been harmed psychologically by obsessional involvement with these breathing, meditative, and movement exercises. Dr. Zhang now runs a clinic for former Qigong extremists. Her study of 145 cases from ten provinces found that these casualties were relatively well educated- about half were high school graduates or above. Forty-four were classed as workers, thirty-nine were government employees, thirty were students, and thirty-one were engaged in scientific research. The group was found to be highly suggestible and their symptoms were related to various alleged effects of Qi contained in books they had read. Dr. Zhang described their responses as a form of mental illness, probably the result of latent psychiatric problems that were exacerbated by fanatical immersion in Qigong exercises. Many of these problems looked like those we would call hysterical or psychosomatic symptoms (Shorter 1992). For example, they reported feeling Qi surging through various parts of their bodies, and some would experience overwhelming lassitude that they attributed to Qi suddenly draining from their bodies. In other cases, experiences were provoked that were psychotic, including visual and auditory hallucinations, delirium, and feelings of being possessed by animal spirits. Some exhibited symptoms we would classify as paranoid, such as the conviction they were being harmed by the master's power or that Qi had imbued them with extraordinary skills and a mission to cure diseases or save humanity. Some patients felt elated, perhaps manic, after their prolonged exertion, while others were left uncomfortably anxious, depressed, and suicidal. The severity was the worst in those who spent many hours per day immersed in Qigong exercises and in those with a long history of preoccupation with religious or superstitious pursuits. Dr. Zhang's portrayals were reminiscent of people we had encountered who were obsessed with alien- abduction fantasies or had become fanatically immersed in Transcendental Meditation, Scientology, or irrational health schemes, leading at times to behavior that bordered on the delusional.

Professor Guo Zhengyi, deputy director of CAST, has visited the United States where he studied organizations dedicated to spreading pseudoscience. In his talk, he compared them to similar movements in China. He described a Mafialike network in China that has spread its influence by promoting (allegedly real) magical powers and fortune-telling in conjunction with acrobatic shows. These shady figures bill themselves as the future of science but, like pseudoscientists everywhere, they mangle all valid scientific principles. Their lucrative scams include Qigong demonstrations composed of fake acts of clairvoyance, superhuman physical strength, and ` possession by animals.' Professor Guo likened the practices of these roaming hucksters to practices that were common in feudalistic times, a theme that was taken up by his colleague, Dr. Yuan Zhong. Dr. Yuan emphasized that official materialist doctrines have merely suppressed, not eliminated, the strong desire of the masses to believe in ancient spiritual entities and magical powers. The pseudoscientific patina of Qigong has allowed these old religious beliefs to reemerge in a way that is less likely to arouse official ire. Dr. Yuan referred to Qigong as a pseudoreligion, one that is growing as the regime relaxes its demands for strict ideological conformity. Occasionally, the chicanery of some of these impostors reaches proportions that spur the government to intervene. The official responses were not spelled out, but we discovered in private conversation that these tricksters are usually warned and fined.

Professor Zu Shuxian of Anhui Medical University was one of the most trenchant critics of Qi as a medical concept. Having done postgraduate training in epidemiology at the University of Virginia, he was well qualified to discuss why problems of medical quackery are worse in developing countries. Particularly in rural areas, folk-healing traditions and modest education make it difficult for people to distinguish between legitimate and bogus doctors. In addition, developing countries have as yet little in the way of consumer movements that could help protect citizens from quacks. Dr. Zu denounced the press for promoting quackery and for its apparent inability to distinguish between scientifically valid and sham treatments. He lamented the tendency to credit patient satisfaction instead of rigorous testing as the measure of therapeutic success. Fraudulent medical institutions are now competing with legitimate ones for money, while government funding for university research is diminishing. Once again, China's problems parallel our own.

Also familiar to us was an interruption by a student at this session. He complained that scientifically trained Chinese physicians do not spend enough time with patients and do not offer enough emotional support, and that this feeds the popularity of quacks.

Beyerstein, Sampson, and Skolnick delivered papers dealing with various aspects of fraud and pseudoscience in health care and the proper methodology for testing putative treatments.

The CAST conference made it apparent, as Michael Fumento has titled his recent book, that science is under siege-not just in North America and Europe, but in China, as well.(4) There, as here, superstition, quackery, and pseudoscience have infiltrated academia, and some prominent scientists and philosophers are among the leading apologists. Their appeal to ancient magical ways of thinking, cloaked in pseudoscientific language, sounded depressingly familiar to us. In China, pseudoscience is becoming increasingly competitive with science for public support and government funding. The extent to which Chinese criminal elements have used superstition and pseudoscience to bilk the gullible public was news to us, however. Chinese academics are becoming more aware of possible psychological harms resulting from involvement with pseudoscience and quack sects and cults. In 1994, awareness of these growing problems led the Chinese government to issue a proclamation decrying the rise of superstition and pseudoscience and the erosion of science education (Sagan 1996). It seems that for many Chinese, the concept of Qi supplies an all-encompassing vision of life and its role within the cosmos as a whole. Qi has become a comfortable explanation for everything. Unfortunately, something that purports to explain everything explains nothing.

On to Shanghai

After a day spent trekking the Great Wall, our tour of China then moved on to Shanghai. There we were hosted by friends of CAST officials who were academics, but not themselves associated with scientific institutions. They were able, however, to introduce us to a variety of practitioners of TCM. Before exploring local TCM facilities, we were given a chance to interact with conventional biomedical scientists during a most interesting tour of the brain research laboratories at Shanghai Medical University. The research problems, techniques, and apparatus we encountered at this well-equipped institute were familiar to us; and the work we discussed with these Chinese neuroscientists revealed that they are working at the forefront of their fields. After this tour, our focus shifted back to TCM.
We next visited the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and its affiliated Shu Guang Hospital-the largest TCM complex in China. The views expressed there were somewhat different from those we had encountered at the Beijing TCM Institute (Beyerstein and Sampson 1996), especially with regard to integration of scientific and traditional medicine. At the Shanghai institute, where the primary mission was the teaching of TCM, the president, Dr. Wang Ling Tai, was also a gastroenterologist who practices scientific biomedicine. As in Beijing, we were told that TCM was requested by less than twenty percent of the patient population. (It seems that self-medication with herbs is more pervasive in the country as a whole, however. The fifteen-to-twenty-percent figure refers to those patients who choose to see a TCM doctor.) After a long and enjoyable meeting with Dr. Wang, we were shown through the complex, which appeared similar in setup to the clinic complex in Beijing. We were shown a major manufacturing facility for antibiotics that we were told were derived originally from traditional herbal medicines. This aspect of TCM made sense to us because we knew that penicillin, for example, was derived from molds that had long been used in European folk remedies (there are frequent historical references to use of moldy bread for dressing dirty wounds).

While in Shanghai, we also toured the largest herbal pharmacy in China. TCM diagnosticians occupied booths around the periphery of each floor in this multistory building, while herbalists busily moved about the center, filling prescriptions according to the diagnosticians' recipes. With rapid, animated movements, they grabbed handfuls of dried vegetable and animal matter from rows of drawers stacked in massive cabinets that resembled floor-to-ceiling library card files. The ingredients were dropped somewhat unceremoniously on hand- held balances and then mixed on large sheets of paper. These were then folded into dispensing packets and sold to waiting patients, mostly for preparation as herbal teas. The measurements struck us as rather imprecise by Western pharmaceutical standards, but greater accuracy might have been illusory because a perennial problem with herbal remedies is that the concentrations of active ingredients in the raw materials can vary greatly from source to source (due to climate, soil conditions, etc.). Also on sale were a variety of over-the-counter remedies that we also saw in department stores, corner pharmacies, tourist centers, and airports throughout China. Some of these, to our dismay, included preserved bear gall bladder, ground horns and penises of various wild animals, and other animal parts apparently sold primarily for their alleged ability to enhance sexual potency.(5)

We also saw North American ginseng prominently displayed in these stores -- it is highly valued in China. Although many bold therapeutic claims are made for ginseng, its scientifically demonstrated effects are more modest. Its complex chemistry stimulates several bodily systems. Ginseng can act as a pick-me-up in a number of ways: it produces caffeinelike effects in the central nervous system, enhances carbohydrate metabolism and glycogen synthesis, and may stimulate the heart because it contains some digitalislike components (similar to those found in the common foxglove). It also has histiminic activity, and it contains steroids that can affect the hormonal system (Siegel 1979).(6)

At the Shanghai traditional pharmacy, we encountered for the first time TCM doctors who still use the ancient technique of pulse diagnosis (see WallnÜfer and von Rottauscher 1975). People are said to have fifteen different pulses detectable by traditionally trained healers although these have never been demonstrated scientifically. For us, the doctor placed his fingers on the pulse, stared vacantly into the distance for about a minute, as if absorbing its meaning, and then told us our diagnoses (none of which was accurate). He then wrote a TCM prescription for an off-the-shelf concoction that we filled at the counter. We were also diagnosed by a woman who held our hands and placed a small electrical probe at various points on our palms. From our muscle spasms, grimaces, and verbal descriptions of the tingling sensations, she arrived at a diagnosis, again one that would be news to our family physicians back home.

A Meeting with Professors of TCM

Our main conference in Shanghai was with about a dozen prominent TCM physicians affiliated with Shu Guang Hospital. Here, the flavor was quite different from the CAST symposium in Beijing, skepticism being much less pronounced. The Chinese doctors, most of whom had scientific medical training in addition to their traditional specialties, each gave brief introductory statements. The session was then opened for discussion and questions. We can best describe the event with a sample of our questions and the answers given. We asked our questions as naive Westerners, but with a perspective of scientific inquiry. The answers, as will be evident, highlighted the differences between the scientific outlook and that of TCM. The answers are not verbatim in every case because some were conveyed through a translator.
Q: How are the roles of Western-trained and TCM physicians different?
A: One example is a woman with cancer who failed with Western treatments and was then treated with TCM and lived four years longer than expected. [This exemplifies one of our major conclusions, namely that TCM still relies predominantly on anecdotal evidence-its practitioners exhibited very little understanding of the need for controlled clinical trials. Most of the group seemed to lack knowledge about how to do scientifically valid evaluations of their techniques.]

Q: Do you treat different cancers differently, or do you use the same treatment for all?
A: Every case is different, and treatment is different. [Ironically, TCM sees all disease as resulting from the same cause (Qi imbalance), but it sees each patient's case as unique. This answer also illustrates TCM's preoccupation with surface manifestations rather than trying to reveal a more limited number of underlying pathological processes that might manifest themselves in a wider variety of symptoms.]

Q: How do the different cancer remedies work, and what are the biochemical mechanisms for combatting cancer cells?
A: We are trying different methods to prevent cancer, especially in high-risk breast cancer patients -- 17,000 professional women. [Perhaps something was lost in translation.] Many traditional medicines are static. TCM is developing. We are examining curative effects and theoretical basis. We regard the patient as oneness. Every patient is `a small world.' A major reason for interest in natural developments is traditional Chinese herbs. People are panicking about environmental chemicals, effects now being reversed by TCM. There are breakthroughs. Look at TCM from the Chinese perspective. We say, `Water the ponies [peonies?] well.' [For example, pay attention to internal stresses of the patient.] Rather than killing cancer cells, increase internal factors to bring one into balance. TCM doctors see a change in the patterns of things. TCM treats imbalance of the negative and positive sides of things. [In other words, it does not treat disease processes per se.] TCM works well in circulatory disorders -- it corrects blood circulation. [This was typical of many answers we received in that it sidestepped the original question and substituted a rambling string of metaphors instead.]

Q: How about ephedra - herbs containing ephedrine - are there two concepts of how it works - pharmacological and TCM?
A: We have adopted several new ways of treating, and that is one [a probable translation problem, so we tried again].

Q: What is the rationale for the treatment with ephedra?
A: We have a division here - TCM and Western ways. Doctor recommends the method - surgery, medicine, or TCM - and the patient decides. Most doctors would use Western medicine first for acute problems, then TCM if needed. Such as with gallstones: operation first, maybe we would use TCM afterward. Same with cancer. Doctors agree on how to combine them. [It was apparent we were not going to obtain a direct answer, and so we moved on. The gist of the remainder of this part of the discussion was that TCM is seen as a way of strengthening the body to resist disease in general, not a means of combatting specific diseases.]

Q: [To a nephrologist (kidney specialist) who also uses TCM.] How does TCM treat a new disease or change as new concepts of disease arise? Does TCM change?
A: We combine TCM and Western medicine in treatment of kidney disease, but we have different ways in different phases of the illness. At first, we use TCM to prevent progression. In later stages, we also adopt Western ways. We also use TCM in transplants. [Again, we did not pursue this indirect answer.]
After the question-and-answer session, several TCM physicians tried to clarify earlier comments with the following statements:

Because of difficulties with cults, we have different definitions [for Qi, etc.]. TCM and Western medicine have sharp differences in their concepts.
Practice speaks the loudest. Results count most. Science is not absolute; it has its limitations, and is also developing. So, each has its own advantages. For example, Western [medical] science used to be [exclusively?] biological. Now it is biological and societal. Combining the biological, psychological, and societal occurred 1,500 years ago in China. Western medicine is developing in the same way. TCM was ahead of Western medicine.

TCM works and cures where Western medicine does not; Western medicine is more toxic,(7) so they are complementary and can learn from each other. We hope TCM and Western medicine can help and understand each other.

Western proponents say they know what works and now present a body of knowledge. Another way to look at it is that TCM considers the macro or whole body; Western medicine considers the micro. TCM does not apply to all cases; it is better for recuperative and chronic cases.

Patients understand this and know where to go. TCM has not only a philosophy, but a background. It is bidirectional. Both TCM and Western medicine concern homeostasis; TCM includes heart and spirit. From the lab perspective, TCM can improve senile dementia, especially Alzheimer's [disease]. Some biochemical levels return to baseline. We also see aging retarded in humans and animals, and there are other neurochemical and immune changes as well.

A notable exception to the generalities presented by most of the rest of this group of TCM physicians was a discussion we had with Dr. Yan De Xin. A scientist who studies the chemistry of traditional herbs, he expressed the belief, in private conversation, that many traditional medicines will be found to contain active ingredients of interest to scientific medicine (some of this has already happened - see, e.g., Lewis and Elvin-Lewis 1977). But, unlike most of the sentiments expressed during the Shanghai conference, Dr. Yan was only willing to grant that efficacy on the basis of scientific trials. He has been trying to extract possibly active ingredients from a number of traditional herbs and to subject them to proper double-blind tests. His understanding of what needs to be done was impressive but, like researchers everywhere these days, he has been hampered by funding shortages.

Our meeting with this group of TCM experts ended with a formal dinner, each of the numerous courses flavored by a different Chinese herb used by traditional Chinese physicians. It was explained to us that TCM makes little distinction between the health-giving properties of foods and medicines.

External Qigong

Although we saw no external Qi demonstrations in China, both of us have observed such exhibitions in the large immigrant Chinese communities in our home cities. One was at an American Medical Student Association meeting in San Francisco, April 8, 1995. It was performed by Effie Poy Yew Chow, R. N., for an audience of about one hundred students. She seemed to advocate a combination of Ju Jitsu, suggestion, and `applied kinesiology.'(8) She also claimed (but could not demonstrate), as we heard in China, that Qigong masters can transport Qi energy several thousand miles to alter the molecular structure of water. The students seemed to enjoy the lecture and, surprisingly, none challenged Ms. Chow's rather extreme claims. Barry Beyerstein had an equally unfulfilling encounter with a famous Qigong master in Vancouver.(9) Previously, this author's brother, Dale Beyerstein, had investigated some prominent TCM practitioners in the Vancouver area and found them dangerously wanting in medical knowledge (D. F. Beyerstein 1990).(10)
Conclusion

Looking back at our discussions with TCM proponents in China, it often seemed that our questions and their answers came from two different worlds. It soon became apparent to us that this is equally true when the scientific and traditional medical communities in China try to communicate. This was obvious in the wide gap between the remarks of the academics and physicians gathered by CAST in Beijing, and the answers given by most of the TCM physicians we encountered in Beijing and Shanghai. The former spoke in terms we could understand, emphasizing the requirement to support claims with evidence and the need to understand such demonstrable effects TCM might produce in terms of scientifically verifiable biological mechanisms. Although the speakers at the CAST meeting in Beijing tended not to demean TCM during their presentations, several of them dismissed it in private conversations. The rest refrained from making rationalizations for TCM.
The statements of the TCM physicians, on the other hand, tended to be rambling, global, and tangential (this was not merely a language barrier, for many of them spoke excellent English). The traditionalists were difficult to pin down because when they had no available answer, the question would be redirected. While TCM physicians downplayed the importance of statistical approaches and placebo-controlled clinical trials, they did not hesitate to enlist such data when it seemed to their advantage. We came away with the strong feeling that the TCM community, with a few exceptions, does not really understand the power of the placebo effect nor the need for double-blind clinical trials. They seemed not to comprehend why we were not impressed by testimonials or anecdotes about individuals who had recovered after TCM treatments. Many claims seemed inflated, such as that for TCM's effectiveness in Alzheimer's disease and AIDS (see, e.g., Hou 1991). In the end, we were left with the same sense of frustration we often felt after arguing with advocates of `alternative medicine' at home. Both exhibit an essential vagueness when explaining the mechanisms presumed to underlie their treatments. Both are prone to assume that metaphors count as explanations and that anecdotal evidence can substitute for systematic verification of claims.

Several speakers in both Beijing and Shanghai laced their discussions with political references, for example, to the evils of feudalistic times, the unwillingness to be subjected to logic (dialectics), and inhibitions to social progress. It seems that the practice of TCM and the concepts of internal and external Qi place China in a dilemma. Advancement of these ideas, especially overseas, increases China's prestige and is a matter of cultural pride. Yet the inherent mysticism and magical thinking in these notions are an embarrassment to the Marxist rationalism of the government and to the scientific community as a whole. Furthermore, the growing involvement of criminal elements in paranormal spheres, as occurs to some extent in all countries, is considered a growing threat to social order. Overall, we perceived a delicate balancing act, between toleration and encouragement of TCM on the one hand, and attempts to restrict its more extreme manifestations, such as external Qi quackery, on the other.

We ended our tour unconvinced that Traditional Chinese Medicine has objectively proven its claims to cure any specific diseases. Acupuncture has some mild analgesic [lowered sensitivity to pain while conscious] properties and Chinese herbs have already yielded to scientific analysis some useful drugs - undoubtedly more will follow. We could find no scientific support for the use of cupping, moxibustion, and acupuncture for infectious diseases, deafness, and congenital deformities. We acknowledge the emotional comfort Chinese patients suffering from chronic or fatal disorders receive from TCM ministrations, but we saw no evidence to back up the oft-heard assertion that TCM actually works where Western medicine has failed. Insofar as TCM offers a degree of comfort and hope for those in difficult situations, it seems to perform a similar role to those of vitamin supplements, chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy, and therapeutic touch, our homegrown Western pseudomedicines.(11)

Notes

1. "Qi" is the name Chinese philosophy gives to a scientifically undetectable "force" or "energy" believed to permeate everything in the universe. TCM asserts that imbalances in the flow of Qi in anatomically unverified "meridians" are responsible for disease, fatigue, etc. Acupuncture, Chinese herbs, massage, etc., supposedly restore well-being by rebalancing the flow of this mystical essence. Qigong is a set of mental and physical exercises akin to those ofÊTai Chi Chuan and Ai-ki-do that also promise spiritual and physical benefits by channeling this mysterious energy. With its mental disciplines and postural and breathing exercises, Qigong has long been practiced as a form of self-hypnosis that claims to promote relaxation and general health, much in the manner of certain yoga exercises. These days, practitioners of this aspect of the discipline call it "internal Qigong" to distinguish it from the much more dubious "external Qigong," which has enjoyed a dramatic rise in popularity in China and in the West. Devotees of external Qigong claim they can control the Qi force beyond their own bodies to debilitate their foes, achieve the sorts of allegedly psychic feats familiar to Westerners, and diagnose and cure physical ailments. Qigong masters have become rich and powerful in China, filling massive sports arenas for their demonstrations of magic and faith healing. Chinese skeptics who have exposed these Qigong hoaxers were among the hosts of the delegation that included these authors (Lin et al., in press).

2. As an example of why scientific physicians consider external Qigong to be quackery, take the following advertisement for a "Qigong Herbal Pillow" that appeared in the September 1994 issue of the English-language magazine, China Today, published in Beijing by the China Welfare Institute. The pillow, which sells for U.S. $198, is claimed to be effective for high and low blood pressure as well as for "insomnia, diseases of the heart, brain, and blood vessels." It also allegedly "reinforces the kidneys," relieves rheumatism, "builds up the spleen," "stops pain," aids digestion, and "energizes the mind." According to the manufacturers, it is a "small-radar Qigong bionic device" that "works by utilizing the synchronicity of global and human magnetic fields and of trace elements, and through the magnetization of Chinese herbal medicines." Invented by the Qigong master Wang Shibo, it incorporates a "high-energy Qigong tube" that is supposed to generate its own power from the user's speech, breathing, and heartbeat. This causes it to vibrate in therapeutic ways; and its radiant power can help users "develop their special bodily abilities" (a common euphemism for psychic powers). The pillow is sanctioned by the Bai Zi Yuan Shen Qigong Research Institute and, according to the ad, it is effective for three years.

3. Gardner, M. 1981. Dermo-optical perception: A peek down the nose. Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 63-73. (Originally published in Science, February 11, 1966.)

4. Fumento, M. 1993. Science Under Siege: Balancing Technology and the Environment. N.Y.: William Morrow.

5. While we are quite prepared to accept that certain herbal remedies contain biologically active ingredients that could be useful in medical practice (some have already met this criterion of scientific proof (see Lewis and Elvin-Lewis 1977), we see no such value in those concoctions made from organs of endangered species. Their rationale, as we point out in Part 1 of this report, is purely that of "sympathetic magic," the basis of all superstitious practices (see Note 6).

6. A good example of the "sympathetic magic" aspects of TCM (the belief that "like begets like") is that the price paid for ginseng root is not determined by the concentration of its active chemical ingredients. Rather, it is determined by the degree to which the variegated root structure resembles a human body. Roots with a greater number of distinct parts that can be seen as a head, torso, appendages, etc., fetch a higher price.

7. Wherever we went, TCM doctors tended to emphasize the toxic side effects of Western drugs while glossing over the well-known fact that herbal medications have potential toxicities of their own (Tyler 1985). Many "natural" plant substances are virulent poisons; others can have serious side effects for the digestive, cardiac, pulmonary, hepatic, renal, and nervous systems. A major drawback among traditional herbalists of all ethnic stripes is their insufficient education concerning these potential harms.

8. "Applied kinesiology" is a scientifically discredited technique for reading the "muscle weakness" that allegedly follows (instantaneously) exposure to certain presumed pathogens (refined sugar, food dyes, preservatives, and fluorescent lighting are favorite culprits). This pseudoscience should not be confused with the authentic discipline of kinesiology, which is the scientific study of the control of bodily movement.

9. A recent meeting of the B.C. Skeptics in Vancouver, B.C., Mr. Ge Yingcai, a famous Qigong master and healer who had immigrated to Canada. Mr. Ge had promised to demonstrate, under double-blind conditions, his ability to make distilled water taste sweet by irradiating it with his Qi energy. The audience was disappointed and annoyed, however, when, after a rambling two-hour lecture, the master announced that he was now too tired to participate in the controlled test. Mr. Ge said he had a degree in nuclear physics from Beijing University, but his interactions with several professors of physics in the audience revealed significant gaps in his understanding of basic science. Likewise, in discussion with Dr. Kirsten Emmott, a physician member of the B.C. Skeptics, Mr. Ge exhibited deficiencies in elementary medical knowledge. For instance, he had no comeback when Dr. Emmott pointed out that his claim to diagnose disease in his clients' organs by feeling pain in the corresponding ones in his own body was doubtful because the organs he referred to have no nerve supply that could signal such sensations (even if his organs could somehow magically resonate with those of his clients). Although Mr. Ge had specifically agreed to produce scientific studies to substantiate his conceptions of disease and his claimed cures, all he could deliver were the usual testimonials from satisfied customers.
The B.C. Skeptics were similarly frustrated when they issued a challenge to be scientifically tested to the Qigong master Yan Xin during his North American tour in 1990. Yan's associate, Wu Xutian, wrote saying that the skeptics only remained dubious because they had never seen a real Qigong master in action, but he declined to show them what his supposedly real colleague could do. In his letter of rejection addressed to Dale Beyerstein, Wu condescendingly dismissed the skeptics challenge: ". . . Dr. Yan Xin and I are not interested in the very low level test which was very popular in China ten or fifteen years ago. He is busy on some cooperating research subjects with several important organizations in U.S." Wu suggested the skeptics should be content with some "scientific" papers by Yan which he enclosed. As usual, the claimed effects of Qigong were extremely unlikely by conventional scientific standards but were not published in peer-reviewed journals of any international scientific standing.

10. Dale Beyerstein, who suffers from diabetes, dropped several obvious hints in describing his complaint for each TCM doctor he visited (he listed the textbook symptoms but did not mention the word "diabetes"). He even prominently displayed his "Medic Alert" bracelet while having his pulses read, but none of the TCM doctors picked up on his diabetes (none even asked what the clearly marked bracelet was for!). The herbal remedies that were prescribed for Dale differed at the different offices and some of them would have been medically dangerous for a diabetic to take.

11. Many scientifically trained physicians accept that chiropractic manipulations could be beneficial for certain purely musculoskeletal complaints. However, medical scientists remain dubious about the underlying rationale for chiropractic still espoused by most of its practitioners. These theoretical "explanations" continue to fly in the face of scientific knowledge in the fields of anatomy and physiology (Jarvis 1987). Chiropractors who still insist that all diseases stem from spinal misalignments ("subluxations"), and can therefore be cured by joint manipulation, remain open to charges of pseudoscience. The same is true of the many chiropractors who continue to reject the germ theory of disease, oppose basic immunization, and use scientifically discredited diagnostic devices.

References

Alcock, J., K. Frazier, B. Karr, P. Klass, P. Kurtz, and J. Randi. 1988. Testing psi claims in China: Visit by a CSICOP delegation. Skeptical Inquirer 12(2): 364-375.
Beyerstein, B. L. and W. Sampson. 1996. Traditional medicine and pseudoscience in China: A report of the second CSICOP delegation (Part 1). Skeptical Inquirer 20(4): 18-26.
Beyerstein, D. F. 1990. Chinese herbal medicine. Rational Enquirer 4(1): 7, 10-11. Newsletter of the B.C. Skeptics. Box 48844, Bentall Centre, Vancouver, B.C. V7X 1A8.
Barrett, S. 1990. Health Schemes, Scams, and Frauds. Mt.. Vernon, N.Y.: Consumer's Union.
China Report: Health care in the world's most populous country. 1983. Canadian Medical Association Journal. Special Report 109(2): 150a-150n.
Hou, R. L. 1991. The golden age of Traditional Chinese Medicine. China Today, March, pp. 32-34.
Jarvis, W. 1987. Chiropractic: A skeptical view. Skeptical Inquirer 12(1):47-55.
Lewis, W. H. and M. P. F. Elvin-Lewis. 1977. Medical Botany: Plants Affecting Health. NY: Wiley-Interscience.
Lin, Z. X., L. Yu, Y. Z. Guo, H. L. Zhang, Z. Y. Shen, and T. L. Zhang. In press. Qigong: Chinese Medicine or Pseudoscience? Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Pantanowitz, D. 1994. Alternative Medicine: A Doctor's Perspective. Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers.
Randi, J. 1989. The Faith Healers. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Richardson, P. H. and C. A. Vincent. 1986. Acupuncture for the treatment of pain: A review of the evaluative research. Pain 23: 15-40.
Sagan, C. 1996. Does truth matter?: Science, pseudoscience, and civilization. Skeptical Inquirer 20(2): 28-33.
Shorter, E. 1992. From Paralysis to Fatigue: A History of Psychosomatic Medicine in the Modern Era. N.Y.: The Free Press.
Siegel, R. K. 1979. Ginseng abuse syndrome: Problems with the panacea. Journal of the American Medical Association 241(15): 1614-1615.
Skrabanek, P. 1985. Acupuncture: Past, present, and future. In Examining Holistic Medicine, ed. by D. Stalker and C. Glymour, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, pp. 181-196.
Stalker, D. and C. Glymour, editors. 1985. Examining Holistic Medicine. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Tyler, V. 1985. Hazards of herbal medicine. In Examining Holistic Medicine, ed. by D. Stalker and C. Glymour, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, pp. 323-339.
Unschuld, P. U., editor. 1985. Medicine in China: A History of Ideas, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wallnöfer, H. and A. von Rottauscher. 1975. Chinese Folk Medicine and Acupuncture. London: White Lion Publishers.
Authors

Wallace Sampson is clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine (Division of Hematology/Medical Oncology, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, 751 South Bascom Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95128). He is board chairman of the National Council Against Health Fraud and a Fellow of CSICOP.
Barry L. Beyerstein is associate professor of psychology and member of the Brain Behavior Laboratory at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6, Canada). He is a Fellow and member of the Executive Council of CSICOP.
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inthespirit · May 11, 2007

Hi Joanna,

My post was not directed at you or anyone for that matter, just speaking my thoughts, so to speak.

I would strongly disagree that Tim Cartmel and Hong Junsheng are anywhere near the level of, well say someone like Sun Lu Tang, The man proved himself many times and his teachers were the best around. Besides, the Sun Lu Tang book I was referring to was translated by Tim Cartmel, I don’t think he would have done it if he really disagreed with it. Furthermore you can quote from any expert you like, but at the end of the day they are not the founders like the people I mentioned, in turn their words are not as relevant, or at least to me they aren’t. In any case I think this is not too relevant and my point has been missed.

What I am saying is that it is not important to prove whether qi exists or not, that is completely trivial and will bring nothing to your IMA. What is important in my opinion is to be able to understand what the greats talked about and to be able to follow their instruction. If one cannot understand, then one cannot follow, if one cannot follow one is on a different path. Its really that simple. In turn, if one abandons the Qi methodology, one closes him/her self from the teachings of the greats, is this not a foolish thing to do? The only reasons I can think of why one would behave in such a manner is if one was him/her self practicing incorrectly, thus not feeling that which is mentioned in the teachings.

I have no interest in charlatans or magicians or whomever that uses qi to make money or confuse people, etc etc. These people can do whatever they like as far as I am concerned. But the fact remains that the Qi framework is something that is used to explain and describe training process and methods that are inherent in IMA. Sure you can abandon it and use Yi Quan methodology, but that without proper instruction is just as arcane as Qi methodology. At the end of the day, the methods, explanations and frameworks we have left over in writings of the greats are relevant, they are not just mumbo jumbo, ignore them at your personal cost.

With regards to the stuff you talk about, sure, there definitely are loads of BS artists out there, but who gives a crap, let them pay for their own mistakes. One should not let their misrepresentation lead you away from great sources of knowledge.

A question for you, if you don’t mind: Do you renounce all the old masters (Sun Lu Tang, Yang Cheng Fu, etc etc) teachings and descriptions that use the Qi framework ?

jkzorya · May 11, 2007

Beware of Darkness

Note for TQ,

Remember I told you about the person who had been driven insane by the qi methodology. He travelled to China and studied religious Daoism. His life is now a constant torment of battling imaginary demons, paranoia and psychosomatic illnesses. Whether you think that demons exist in a literal or metaphorical sense is unimportant. The effective truth is the same - study demonology and you will ultimately be consumed by demons. Those who steer clear are left in peace.

This is a universal truth. The Christians know it, the Muslims know it, the Sikhs know it... It is why magic is prohibited by all the major faiths.

jkzorya · May 11, 2007

inthespirit asked:
A question for you, if you don’t mind: Do you renounce all the old masters (Sun Lu Tang, Yang Cheng Fu, etc etc) teachings and descriptions that use the Qi framework ?
Click to expand...

Hi inthespirit,
Yes I absoultely renounce all teachings and descriptions that use the qi framework. On that issue they are all wrong, however good they were at martial arts.

inthespirit · May 11, 2007

jkzorya said:

Hi inthespirit,
Yes I absoultely renounce all teachings and descriptions that use the qi framework. On that issue they are all wrong, however good they were at martial arts.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, I guess we can agree to disagree on this issue.

inthespirit · May 11, 2007

jkzorya said:

The effective truth is the same - study demonology and you will ultimately be consumed by demons. Those who steer clear are left in peace.

This is a universal truth. The Christians know it, the Muslims know it, the Sikhs know it... It is why magic is prohibited by all the major faiths.
Click to expand...

Just wanted to add a few thoughts. I think that the power demons real or imagined (maybe that’s the same thing), can wield over man is through fear. Banish fear, and you banish the demons and many other negatives.

Perhaps studying demonology would be a good test of resolve and will.

As a side note, I know someone who thinks he is or is battling demons, got in to it via Indian mythology and mediation methods. Has been diagnosed by western medicine as paranoid schizophrenic. The root of his problem is fear. He stayed with me for a week about a year ago, during this time I managed to help him temporarily using five elements theory via exercise and counseling. Hard work, but was and interesting experiment.

:yeleyes:
:Angel:

Do you believe in demons Joanna? If so, do you believe they are separate entities or parts of our own mind/psyche?

cloudz · May 11, 2007

ps.

I want to add, while i 'at it'

Bad form from the topic mods here and IMA. These thread that don't relate to MA. Why aren't they moved like my tea thread was huh ?

off topic, general, philosophy religion ??

Other areas in MAp get stuff moved all the time, to the relevent places. Why not here on tai chi. Tai chi is not a Chinese MA that has the monopoly on chi ki. I hope mostpeople here would like this to be an MA forum for tai chi as MA rather than a philosophy / religious one.

Do you not get that tai chi is an MA jk and taoquan - I would like to remind you both directly and personall if you want to argue or post about your ideas , existance non existence etc qi. animal or human do it on the non martial arts areas please. Phil and religion would be a start. trad healing may be if it is medical based.

Cheers

Sam · May 11, 2007

Whilst I agree with you that this thread has now been taken off topic, I would just like to point out that it is not a moderators job to sift through a thread and relocate every single off topic post because the posters can not heed previous requests to remain on topic.

Thankyou to the majority that did contribute constructively.

Any questions feel free to PM me.

Sam · May 11, 2007

Ok after some thought (and spring cleaning) the thread has been re-opened.

I understand that qi is an extremely broad topic and will incorporate a lot of different opinions and belief systems which will cause it to stray from time to time, however my only request is that discussion remain in context and abide by TOS.

Opinions do differ but you can debate those differences without attacking systems, beliefs or people.

Thanks and as always any questions, PM.!

cloudz · May 12, 2007

jkzorya said:

Hi inthespirit,
Yes I absoultely renounce all teachings and descriptions that use the qi framework. On that issue they are all wrong, however good they were at martial arts.
Click to expand...

regards the MA stuff i would't go so far as calling them a qi framework. I know it wasenny you just but that dastardly spirit fiend . inthespirit!

:ban:

Qi is a part componant of the framework (not the biggest or smallest, hey maybe somewhere inbetween) of a martial training system from the eras they came. These are not 'qi framworks' for training martial arts. The framework within a framework is more meditation practices - see "internal alchemy". This "inernal alchemy" framework sits inside as a component of a larger MA training framework/ syllabus.

I would agree that this is an esoteric part, if you want to call it that. but then zhan zhuan for example doesn't have to be!

Mmaybe philosophical/metaphysical / religious too I would accept can be parts of these arts. Not compulsory certainly. But of course we all know that. Lucky for everyone no Nazis to enforce such things! :Angel:

However all religious practices in the religions you mention are No different to the ones in MA. They are not about attaining magic. To you or me perhaps if we are being sensible about this stuff.. But wait could things be twisted?

I would have no problem accepting for instance God will answer a Christians prayers is in fact no different than believing in magic. So how did these religions really ban belief in Magic would be my question ?
Because this a claim made by them certainly I do believe.

Hmm..

If it isn't in fact magic then why cant Christians demonstrate their religious beliefs and ideas under Scientific scrutiny?

Hmm..

But hang on, maybe i am screwing this all up wrong and the majority of Christians think this is nonsense. But it's the Charlatan types that do magical healing on stage that we should focus on. Some might say that's not really GOD it's a sham.

Sound familiar jk? It should ..

To me meeting Jesus and having a relationship could be described as a thing of magic. Something that could only be real and true through yet unexplained supernatural to reality as we understand it. Lots of Christians claim this. Would you then consider that this is 'delusional ' , 'evil' . and brand believers as such on public forums.

If you disagree how do you think it is different ?

Cheers.

cloudz · May 11, 2007

Skc_Wado said:

Whilst I agree with you that this thread has now been taken off topic, I would just like to point out that it is not a moderators job to sift through a thread and relocate every single off topic post because the posters can not heed previous requests to remain on topic.

Thankyou to the majority that did contribute constructively.

Any questions feel free to PM me.
Click to expand...

Just a teeny clarification on what you wrote kind sir.

I refer to the moving of the thread not single posts. oops for you

Sam · May 11, 2007

cloudhandz said:

Just a teeny clarification on what you wrote kind sir.

I refer to the moving of the thread not single posts. oops for you
Click to expand...

Noted. And under discussion.

And the correct term is Madam. Oops for you

cloudz · May 11, 2007

Skc_Wado said:

Noted. And under discussion.

And the correct term is Madam. Oops for you
Click to expand...

lol sure thing, so how can i collect this oops. Would you need me to come to your office in person Madam?

Hey did you change your name from a Japaneesy one not so long ago, you the lady that moved my tea thread lady!?

Either way maybe you could slip it back in for me.. ooh I just read that back .

Taoquan · May 11, 2007

JK,
Nice find on the article! I did not get to pour over the whole thing, but I am interested in doing so.
Though I did get through most of the first one and have to comment, that none of my teachers have ever required me to purchase anything, never even done public demonstrations and don't bend spoons or break bricks with their head. My teachers have actually commented that these are parlor tricks and can be done by anyone with slight of hand etc. They feel it is a waste of time, one of my teachers commented on it once "Bend a spoon? maybe helpful if someone attacked me with a spoon!"

This is what my teacher meant by charlatans and magicians out there when he said "when you speak to someone about Qi you know right away if they know what they are talking about, or have some kind of new age mystical idea about it." I feel that for the most part Qi is basically defined by science as energy within the body (electrical impulses etc.) and thought I had made that clear.

Where the idea of being "esoteric" comes from is when you add (like inthespirit mentioned) the power of the human mind. When your body is already a conglomerate of eletrical impulses (energy) then having the mind control that energy (as we have already discussed people can do) This becomes focused energy or electrical impulses. If one can control their pulse (JK, mentioned that she has been able to do the same) Who says that through training the mind, body and qi (energy/electrical impulses) that one cannot stimulate glands to release hormones that are specific to heal an organ?

The best example of a healing Qigong or movement is in the Bear five animal frolics where the practitioner stands in a deep horse stance and twists one the waist while combining specific inhalation/exhalation for twisiting left to right. Now the bear is not good for fighting demons, reading minds, being invisible, what the bear IS good for is strenthening the stance/root and legs (via the horse stance that progressively gets deeper), nourishing the kidneys, (through twising the spine, more specifically near the kidneys) and warming the body (by moving the kidneys you also stimulate the adrenal glands that activate hormone production). The Tiger is similar but works more on the upper body and liver and heart organs with a little kidney.

This is ridiculous to think that all Qigong is based off "esoteric" thought as most TRUE Qigong is based off very observant exercise therapy. The practice of relaxing the mind allows ones body to become more relaxed and receptive to the exercise you are doing. When you exercise do you immediately tense up every area of your body? Do you constantly worry about taxes/finances etc.? For me at least I can answer no, because this does not help the work out, I train whatever I supposed to be training at that moment.

Where the esoteric thought comes into is in SHENGONG training or spirit training, which you could equate to a monks training. Qigong for the most part should not include much of the esoteric spiritual stuff as this is a higher stage of training within Taoist thought. Most people practice Qigong techniques etc for years before attempting Shengong.

As per the other post about the man that went insane, I agree. I have also been warned about this, this is why Qigong/Shengong is VERY dangerous when it comes to the charlatans teaching it. My teachers often had numerous cautions/contraindications for Qigong and Shengong training for these reasons. For example for the Bear frolic above, if you twist to far or force the breath you can damage the lungs and kidneys because the sternum gets too tight and the muscles in the lower back can start to constrict the kidneys function. This generally is NOT taught by most charlatans. If at any time a "Master" cannot answer a question it is a lie and one should find someone else.

Lastly, I assume by the lack of comments on the article I posted that no one has had the time to read it (or wants to), which is fine, but I am interested to hear what people think. Is this a valid scientific study? What does/does not make it one? Any other thoughts?
http://www.emofree.com/Research/meridianexistence.htm

Please let me know. I will try to comment more on JK's great (but long ) article once I get a shot.

EDIT: Geez in going over the first sentence on the article about the Qigong, about the guy getting kicked beaten etc. What trash! Those people are indeed charlatans and should be beaten themselves! That is rather disgusting and disturbing that they do and say those things, this is why Qigong and stuff is so misunderstood, thanks to overzealous believers and deceivers.

cloudz · May 11, 2007

taoquan said:

This is ridiculous to think that all Qigong is based off "esoteric" thought as most TRUE Qigong is based off very observant exercise therapy.
Click to expand...

I would say moving qigong is more geared to therapy. Which if it is therapy specific. it is probably medical qi gong first and foremost.

Not really knowing or understanding how the medical stuff works for therapy healing it isn't part of my practice.

But is that what you think necessarily qualifies it as TRUE qigong ?

cheers

edit. didn't a lot of medical qigong get devoloped a lot later than cultivation/ meditation of the taoist clans.

cloudz · May 11, 2007

ps. yeah I looked at the meridian article and liked it a lot. very interesting. Not seen anything like that before, nice find.

I have previous maintained a healthy degree of scepticism about the spaghetti. But this is interesting.

Taoquan · May 11, 2007

cloudhandz said:

I would say moving qigong is more geared to therapy. Which if it is therapy specific. it is probably medical qi gong first and foremost.

Not really knowing or understanding how the medical stuff works for therapy healing it isn't part of my practice.

But is that what you think necessarily qualifies it as TRUE qigong ?

cheers

edit. didn't a lot of medical qigong get devoloped a lot later than cultivation/ meditation of the taoist clans.
Click to expand...

CH,
Thanks for the input, yes in my experience this is more on Qigong, as for standing/sitting still and moving Qi this is more meditation and Shengong training. Qigong mostly describes using physical movements to use the body to help move the Qi (ala Tai Chi for example), once this is developed to a sufficient degree, one begins the study of Shengong training which allows said practitioner to move Qi by sitting still.

Most Good Qigong's basic theory is not to develop supernatural powers, but to open up the individuals joints, utilize other muscles, massage organs (in the western sense) and open up meridians, free flow of qi (in eastern sense). Training to develop this "psychic powers" are generally done during one's Shengong training. Even then Shengong training is NOT meant to develop these powers, but rather the powers are a BY product of training. Much like if you train in a MA, some may not be training to become physically healthier, but rather that is a BY product and is not the focus.

Trying to determine which came first qigong and/or meditation is like which came first the chicken or the egg. They are both so intertwined that some argue when you are doing one, you are doing the other etc. Hua Tuo was the first to come up with Medical Qigong by most accounts (I posted this elsewhere but here it is again)
Hua To
(Hua Tuo; 110-207 A.D.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Tuo

Qigong literally translates at Qi Skill, so yes I would term this as true Qigong, because you are developing your mind, body to a better state of health. This (imo and from what I have been taught) should be the focus of Qigong, not esoteric powers. The difference being Shengong is where one may develop esoteric powers as stated above, Qigong is (imo) more of a medical and health treatment.

Edit: Thanks for the input on the article. Do you think this was a good demonstration of proper research on this subject?

Skc Wado: Thanks for letting the thread go, as I mentioned in another thread, I was taught this way so I apologize b/c I thought this was the proper place to put this thread. I think it difficult for people to classify some ideas when we talk about Qi because it can fall under religious/esoteric/philosophy/MA well you get the idea Thanks though for being patient

cheesypeas · May 11, 2007

Errrrr.

Where does NeiGong fit in all of this??

Taoquan · May 11, 2007

Okay,
Neigong (neijia) fits under Qigong, while Weigong (weijia) fits under Qigong also. The difference here being that even in traditional training methods you have Yin and Yang, Yin is more of your Neigong and Yang is more Weigong.

This is also done in the Shengong training where you start to train your Thinking mind (forgot the chinese term), then you will train your Yuan shen (original mind). Again here Thinking/analytical mind is Yang and Yuan, original/intuitive mind is Yin.

Taoquan · May 11, 2007

JK,
Nice articles, my eyes hurt from reading them though

There is so much to comment on and would take quite a bit of time to do so. I do agree with some of it and find holes in other parts of it. The difficult part of TCM also lies with the practitioner, what I mean by this is the level of quality and ability of a practitioner. This is also apparent for western medicine. If you have a Western MD that just got out of grad school is he going to be as good as a Chief of Medicine? More than likely not. So for some of these studies if they only have practitioners that have essentially just graduated how will they know everything they might encounter in practice?

The other difficulty with being able to scientifically study medicine in general is the difficulty of having a "perfect" patient, as they don't exist. Everyone is entirely different and even though they may have similar symptoms etc. they may have entirely different diagnosis. I understand that Western medicine is based on science and I don't discredit western medicine for it's advancements.

However, I know of many nurse practitioners, Doctors etc. that will openly admit that even if patients present with text book signs of such and such it does not always mean they have 'X', or that even 'A' drug will work. The human body is an amazing machine that has tons of variabilities to it and I would assume (i have to assume since little study is done about it) that if we were to ask to provide perfect results with every patient treated with western medicine this would be hard to come by. Yes, it is based on scientific theory and/or knowledge, but the high variable of the human body will come into play making it difficult to determine a true outcome.

When I read articles like this (for or against Qi, TCM etc.) it is hard to do because even with the articles I have posted they are mostly done by people who WANT to prove that it does exist. Same with your articles, it seems these people set out right away to prove it does not exist. Even by their own claims how does this benefit a "double-blind study" atmosphere. If you want to prove something exists (or does not) you will generally only find the things that support you, so you are not wrong. This is inherent bias with any of these articles, I personally find it almost impossible when it comes to working with living subjects to have a true double-blind study because of the inherent need for people to prove themselves right.

Everyone can criticize studies etc. but very few (I honestly have yet to find any either for or against Qi) to approach it with true unbiased intentions. This is quite apparent on this thread as you have posted articles from true skeptics and I have posted articles from believers. Both have given credible b/g of doctors etc and cited credible sources, but it comes down to a he/she said type deal for all.

Though I must say I found this part of the article somewhat laughable:
Insofar as TCM offers a degree of comfort and hope for those in difficult situations, it seems to perform a similar role to those of vitamin supplements, chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy, and therapeutic touch, our homegrown Western pseudomedicines.
So vitamins have no scientific basis? Relieving pressure of nerves does not either? This struck me as odd even when you look at their source and explanation:
11. Many scientifically trained physicians accept that chiropractic manipulations could be beneficial for certain purely musculoskeletal complaints. However, medical scientists remain dubious about the underlying rationale for chiropractic still espoused by most of its practitioners. These theoretical "explanations" continue to fly in the face of scientific knowledge in the fields of anatomy and physiology (Jarvis 1987). Chiropractors who still insist that all diseases stem from spinal misalignments ("subluxations"), and can therefore be cured by joint manipulation, remain open to charges of pseudoscience. The same is true of the many chiropractors who continue to reject the germ theory of disease, oppose basic immunization, and use scientifically discredited diagnostic devices.

They say they do accept some of the claims, but now it is known that nerves that become blocked can cause chronic disease. Even some viruses, bacteria attack nerves specifically if they are weakend or damaged. I agree that some claims of these medicines as a "cure all" are outrageous. I don't claim this with TCM or Qigong. If any of these things were cure alls why do people still die from disease? There is no absolute, but combining treatment modalities (TCM and Western) has the very distinct possibilty of helping many more people than just one modality.

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