http://www.csicop.org/si/9609/china.html>>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.
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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)
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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.
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