Chi/Ki - the good, the bad, the ugly...

Tell me about it.I have fallen foul of these clowns myself.The truth is,at least in the UK,anyone can set up a Chinese medical practice without any recognised qualifications.The only practioners who can be trusted are those working in the health service who have to have recognised qualifications.I would advise anyone to steer clear of Chinese herbal shops as you don't really know what they are selling.

And Harold Shipman murdered four hundred of his patients despite being qualified in Western medicine.Does that suggest that all Western doctors are psychopaths and unable to cure their patients? I can't really see what tax evasion has got to do with treatment other than to demonstrate that greedy people exist in all walks of life.

Just because I practice qigong it dosen't mean to say I blindly believe in everything.My teacher has said that moving people with qi is complete nonsense and has more to do with students wanting to please their teacher than anything else.

It wasn't me who brought up this PMA.

None of my questions have been answered so I presume the answer is no?

 

Are they peer reviewed or is the usual anecdotal crap that gets put out as proof?

Before I get "I don't know" my question was rhetorical - of course it is not peer reviewed because then we would have to see evidence, which they cannot provide because it doesn't exist

If a cure is out there it would have made the discoverer BILLIONS by now, not to mention how many lives could have been saved.

This is exactly the same quackery as Psychic surgery in the Phillipines and "Miracles" at Lourdes; Anecdotal and unsubstantiated and as proof of the phenomena worthless

 

Shipman was a killer who happened to practiced a form of medicine that has cured and continues to cure. His behaviour does not invalidate the medical cures - which are peer reviewed and proven

A TCM practitioner on a fraud charge is only significant because then opens up the fact that there is little to no proof for the efficacy of the healing method as background to his subsequent conviction

 

Hannibal wrote

Its not a cure as such.Chinese medicine is aimed at keeping people healthy rather than treating a symptom.Sometimes these practices do effect a cure but the main aim is health maintenance.

I don't really see how qigong could be marketed in the same way as drugs as you can't put it in a packet and sell it on supermarket shelves.Once the method is out anyone can use it and it ceases to be a viable product.I would suggest the one thing that holds back alternative medicine is the lobbying of the major drug companies.They want it to fail and will do anything to discredit it.

I think we all know thay psychic surgery is fraudulent.That has been proven beyond doubt.But I wouldn't dismiss qigong out of hand.To do so would indicate that you think science has reached the point where it can't evolve anymore.Just because qi can't be measured now it dosen't mean that will still be the case in 50 years time.

 

oh, i see. it's a world-wide conspiracy to discredit <cure x>.

show us some scientific studies. or stop with the nonsense. one thing you don't get about drug companies is that they can't market a product that doesn't work at least some of the time.

what holds back "alternative" medicine is the fact that most of the time, it's no more effective than a placebo. the only reason it's sticking around is hope. people want to believe that their condition has hope, or the condition of a loved one. unfortunately, they fall easy prey to charlatans selling "alternative".

so i'll ask again, either put up some studies on the efficacy of qigong to do anything better than a placebo, or shut up.

 

Nice search engine for studies here:

http://www.evidence.nhs.uk/default.aspx

 

I think we can all agree that running has some good health benefits and works some of the time.By your way of thinking drug companies should be marketing running and making billions.But that isn't the case despite millions of people doing running as a recreational activity.In China you have around 80 million people practicing qigong on a daily basis.This is no different to the people you see jogging around parks and in the streets in the west.The truth is there is nothing to sell in either case.All you can market is books,clothing,shoes,teachers etc and that has already been done with both qigong and running.Most certainly a multimillion pound industry but miniscule when compared to the kind of money that drug companies make.

Some truth in that.Most "alternative" medicine is used for health maintenance before you get ill.As I pointed out earlier in this thread alternative medicine wouldn't be my first choice of cancer treatment but I would use it side by side with western medicine to aid recovery.

I think the search engine that In the Spirit linked will provided some evidence but I doubt if it will satisfy anyone.

 

I cant really gage the opinion on 'placebo' effect from what I have read on this thread thus far, but I don't think it should be dismissed. In many cases its just as effective as the medicine, sometimes more so, and sometimes less. In fact, I would say the placebo effect is a more interesting field with regards to healing as it seems to trigger healing from within.

If we apply this theory to Qi/QiGong, then its not really that far of a stretch to think that if a person is doing something that they believe will have a positive effect on them, actually produces a positive effect. Now whether this is from QiGong as a general activity, or specific application is probably not too relevant, I would think the main factor is really the persons own perception and maybe some specific state of mind, which may trigger healing... but who knows, this needs research.

Another interesting factor of the placebo effect is that it is not uniform to a group i.e.some people may get it, others not. I would guess that this is pretty much the same pattern with QiGong practitioners.

Maybe some room for thought there.

Here are some links to interesting articles on this stuff:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/placebo-effect

 

Chi threads seem to be becoming more common recently, don't they?

From the last one in the KukSool forum:

With regard to sexual practices:
According to Daoist theory (as I understand it, and to be honest, I've not gone in depth with this for a couple of years now), when a person is born, they have a finite amount of 'pre-natal chi' - which is what has been inherited from the parents, particularly the mother.

Pre-natal Chi supposedly cannot be resupplied via any practice - once it is gone, it is gone, and the person dies. It is lost through expulsion of bodily fluid, commonly via ejaculation during sexual intercourse or masturbation.

On a more complex level, applying Yin/Yang theory, supposedly during sexual intercourse, a woman represents the Yin side of the Taiji circle, whilst the man represents the Yang side.
Yang energy (the male) is powerful, but burns out quickly, thus having to return to the Yin state to rest. This is supposedly why men get very tired after sex, whilst the woman (Yin, infinite) feel more energised after sex. (Seriously, I am cringing as I write this next bit) The woman has supposedly absorbed the man's Yang energy, which unites with her own Yin energy, giving her a boost in her energy levels, whilst the male is depleted of his Yang energy, leaving him exhausted.

So, what does this have to do with abstinance? Really, absitaining from sex is not 'necessary' for these practices. However, semen retention techniques (training the ability to 'dry-orgasm') supposedly help to preserve Pre-natal Chi, which supposedly will then help to lengthen the practitioners life span.

Again, I haven't looked into this subject for a while, so some of the details may be slightly inacurate. If anyone is desperately interested, I could dig out a book on the subject and clarify things.
I'll also say, I'm not stating that "THIS IS THE TRUTH!" - all I'm saying is this is the theory, and it can relate in some ways to the discussion about Chi. And I'm not saying I buy into all of this, either.

 

Dan bian wrote

I think the main reason for it is due to the body using up large amounts of energy to produce sperm.Interestingly Dan Docherty says that sexual abstinance for a 100 days is a requirement for his nei gong practice.He is a no-nonsense practical guy and wouldn't say this if it wasn't a requirement.My teacher was also trained in the same method of nei gong and he has said the same,especially if people are training to withstand heavy contact.

 

The problem I have with this definition is that it fails to define exactly what type of energy Chi actually is.

Energy is "the strength and vitality required for sustained physical or mental activity."

When we eat, our bodies use caloric energy to convert the food we eat into fuel our bodies can use to, well, stay alive.

When we breath, according to answers.com, this happens:

body uses oxygen for the production of energy by the respiratory chain reactions and the oxidative phosphorylation which will result in the formation of high enegry molecules such us ATP and NADPH.


It is misleading, at best, to say that everything is made of energy and that energy is chi. While it is true that everything is made up of energy, it is grossly misleading to attribute that energy to "chi" as there are different forms of energy. My computer isn't powered by chi, nor was the softball I was hit with as a kid propelled by chi.

 

You see, that's the thing. All the Jedi's say 'Chi' as if it is a definate term - but really, there are all different Chi's.

'Chi' the word, is the same as 'energy' the word. One word, but with different meanings.

So, the Chi we get from eating food, is the energy we get from eating food. Just one word.
But it is different from the Chi we get from breathing. But it's all Chi. But it's different Chi.

At best, Chi is an umbrella term for different kinds of energy. Certainly nothing special.

 

Again, sexual practices aren't really my main thing. But, from what I understand, the semen retention techniques prevent the body using up the energy to produce sperm.

Of course, I could be way off the mark, and I'm happy to cede the point if I'm wrong

 

you can easily find studies linking running to increased cardiovascular health. can you find studies linking qigong to increased health? i looked at some, but not all of the studies from the link that was posted. most of them proved inconclusive, no better than a placebo.

 

I cannot say for certain about chi/ki or anything like that but what i can say for certain is i dont beleive in it. I spend 5 (count them) 5 years in the society for Psychical research in the UK. We looked at everything from Chi/Ki/Qigong to Ghosts, poltergeists, psychokines, telepathy, hauntings the lot. And in those 5 years not one experiment was produced that was replicable (beleivers found proof, non beleivers did not, people who didnt think one of the other also found nothing) not one case where what was there was not proved to be fraud, trickery, natural occurance or the natural power of the human mind to delude itself. Nothing....nada..zip ...bupkiss. Thats 5 years of seeking it out and WANTING to beleiver (i really did want to, i love supernatural fiction, fave authors are H.P lovecraft, Mike carey, edgar allen poe, love the tv shows to) but i just didnt find a single thing. even though i really wanted to. My desire to beleive in this stuff because it sounded cool slammed into the brick wall of the fact that if this kinda thing was real, the thousands (and i mean litterally thousands) of experiments to try to find psi/qi/ghosts etc would have some concrete, unnassailable proof by now. But we dont. If its any consolation i think it sucks too. Wish i could move things with my mind, chi blast guys etc.

 

This is what I've found "chi" to mean as relates to our body. "“Our body's biofield is an accumulation of electromagnetic energies emitted from all of our cells, tissues, organs, and glands."

This was quoted by Dr. Chuck Cochran as explaining how the ANS (Autonomic Nervous System) works as it gets it's information from our biofield. Major breakthrough research has been done by a physicist name Fritz-Albert Popp, PhD who discovered biophotons. Essentially that all our 70 tril cells produce photons of light and is the communication of the body. Biophotons are packets of light that carry information within and without the cells. There also exists a biofield or energy field around the body that can be detected by highly sensitive equipment.

If you want to read more about it, I posted a full article here:
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1074457644#post1074457644

 

Hahah that would be cool, I would just chi blast my room to clear the mess. Wooosh! aaaah, then chill watch some tube.

 

I'm somewhat unconvinced by this argument, given that nerves work on an ionic chemical basis and the autonomic reflexes are fairly well understood.

Uh...biophotons were claimed as a discovery by Alexander Gavrilovich Gurwitsch as a member of the Stalin regime, for which he received the Stalin prize. Not seen any evidence that biophotons are anything other than more woo.

Light doesn't really penetrate solid matter particularly well. Would it perhaps make more sense to assume that signals are carried by, oh, nerve impulses which are chemical in nature, can be easily detected, and shown to cause a reaction in nerves rather than relying on some special type of photon which can interact with cells while still being able to penetrate them, and can also miraculously slow down so that the reactions are not near-instantaneous (as they would be with light) but show a delay between stimulus and response roughly equal to the time for a chemical nerve impulse to travel the same path?

Well, there is a 'field' of infrared radiation which often comes off the body, mainly since it's warmer than the surrounding environment in most cases. There is also a very, very weak electromagnetic field since there are electrical impulses travelling constantly through the body. I very much doubt that this is what they are referring to, as neither of these 'fields' have magical properties.

 

Dang son! It sounds like you are well researched!! Thanks for your helpful contribution. Was wondering what your take is on Dr. Klinghardt's ART method of muscle testing? I've had a visit with him where different samples were placed in my energy field (near my head) and the energy frequency of the sample influenced my autonomic system, which would show the muscle test to go strong or weak. This is his comprehensive method of diagnosing and was able to detect several problems through this method, that wasn't uncovered by traditional labs and the conventional area of medicine.

I know that the human system is a very complex system, so perhaps you could check out Dr. Klinghardt's teachings and see if any of it jives with you.

I'd be interested in what you have to say.

 

I have had a look at his teachings, and I'm skeptical of them to say the least. There seems to be very little on the actual procedure and theory, and all I can find is that supposedly there's a variation in muscle strength when an organ suffering from unspecified toxins is tested.

Firstly there's no reason that a muscle would be affected by a 'test' involving materials being waved near the organ, and that's the only details on the method I've managed to find. The strength of a muscle would definitely not be affected - that would require a physical change in the amount of muscle tissue involved, and such a phenomenon would be deserving of much more study in that it violates several basic laws of physics.

There also seems to be a fundamental understanding of the autonomic nervous system - it doesn't maintain bodily well-being, that's the responsibility of the emergent intelligence in charge of the body - what it does is through complex feedback maintain homeostasis. While an incredibly complex system, no biophotons, quantum physics or other ill-defined mechanisms are required to explain this.

On top of that all of the diagnosis methods involved in ART are declared to be non-invasive - with a condition which requires a trigger (food allergies when not actually triggered, for example) there is nothing out of order or wrong about the body when the condition is not in effect. Genetic testing, or a blood test for certain antihistamines, would be able to determine such an allergy - or applying the trigger and seeing the result. There is no reason to suspect anything in a theoretical 'biofield' would be at all affected by such a condition.

Sadly it just appears to be more faith healing type stuff. This doesn't mean it is not, in it's way, helpful. The placebo effect is known to be very, very effective and so the therapy will show some degree of success in those who believe in it - equally so would a completely misapplied version of the therapy, as has been demonstrated in various studies. My problem with such treatments which play on the placebo effect are the prices charged for them, although the efficacy of a treatment does seem to correlate quite nicely with it's effectiveness as a placebo.

Most of my research comes of studying Medical Physics at university, so will tend to have a bit of a physics bent to it - my knowledge of biology is lacking in some areas.