Investigating Woo: The dark side of qigong testimonials

By on April 17, 2012

This is a follow-up to a previous article I wrote about Spring Forest Qigong (SFQ) and the “study” widely claimed among SFQ enthusiasts to have demonstrated the efficacy of external qigong treatment for curing chronic pain. I criticized the study on numerous grounds, namely the fact that their sampling method was flawed, they lacked adequate controls, their data collection was extremely subjective and, lastly, they relied (and still rely!) heavily on anecdotal evidence to support their pseudoscientific claims. I wish to focus a little more on the last criticism—their reliance on personal testimonies as evidence that qigong works.

Here’s an example of one such personal testimony.

Chunyi Lin and Spring Forest have had an amazing impact on my life. It’s given me a way to live life more fully, happier. To me it’s a God send. The practice of Qigong is something everyone can benefit from. Once you have had an experience with Qigong you want to keep it a part of your life.

Qigong is prescribed for a seemingly endless list of maladies, such as allergies, arthritic, a bleeding brain stem, cancer, lymphoma, neck injuries, fibromyalgia, insomnia, lung disease, headaches, multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration, and much, much more. It is likely, however, that SFQ only posts the good reviews. Surely people must have had a bad experience. I was determined to find them, and I did. What I found shocked me; it really offered some horrific insight into the shady practices at SFQ, and the way they silence even the most innocent voices of dissent. Here is the testimony of a patient, Lindsy, who not only did not get cured, but was treated callously by the SFQ staff (bold mine).

Spring Forest Qigong (SFQ) in Eden Prairie, MN, is very highly rated and seems to help everyone with their physical and spiritual well-being. That makes it even harder for me to understand their treatment of me.

I started learning the Qigong exercises in June of 2008, and as the lessons came with a discount on getting a “healing, ” and because of my physical problems, I decided to try one even though it was very expensive (I live on Social Security) $70 with the discount, later, $85. Master Lin told me I would need 7 healing sessions.

I asked about financial aid but was only told about the discount that came with the lessons - which would basically double the cost. I had 5 sessions and was not only going into debt, but getting worse physically. I got more insistent about financial help - I could not see why the sessions were so expensive as they were only about half an hour long and involved no expensive equipment.

I was referred to one of the healers in training, Darcie Grim, who informed me that the healing were completely unnecessary, that all I had to do was keep doing the exercises (which I was already doing faithfully). Needless to say, I was pretty upset to be told this after Master Lin told me I needed 7 sessions, but I continued doing the exercises - and continued to get worse.

After a month, I called to talk to Darcie, but she would not talk to me, and May, the administrator just snapped at me, “There’s no guarantee! If the exercises don’t help, stop doing them!” I was beyond stunned, as the message one gets from Master Lin’s book and his talks is that everyone benefits and helping others is the purpose of his work.

I then wrote Master Lin asking for an explanation of this attitude and behavior. I never got a response. A few months later I wrote the person who runs the SFQ Guild. He was very surprised by my story and said he would ask about it. He never got a response either.

I can understand that the exercises might not help everybody, though that is certainly not the message given. What I CAN’T understand is that Master Lin didn’t have the courtesy, the decency, the concern, the responsiveness to reply to me, particularly in light of the kind of person he purports to be.

The treatment of this woman by the SFQ staff is just appalling. Lin swindled this poor woman for $350.00, only to be told after the fact that continued treatments were completely unnecessary! When she attempted to contact Lin to voice her concern about this fact, and the fact that her health was rapidly declining, all she got was silence. Lin and the rest of the SFQ staff wanted nothing else to do with her. They got their money, and threw their victim to the (figurative) curb. What is even more astounding and shocking is the venomous, non-sympathetic responses this woman got from other SFQ patients. Another reason I am showing the common responses to Lindsy is because they represent textbook cases of special pleading.

Special pleading is a logical fallacy that involves the introduction of additional details, considerations,or exceptions formerly left out in response to a seemingly valid refutation of the initial claims. In the case of SFQ, the treatment is lauded as some sort of miracle cure, consistently cranking out positive results. However, when a woman comes forward claiming that external qigong treatment failed to improve her condition, an exception is created and all-of-a-sudden she is to blame for her own inability to heal.

I’m sorry about your negative experience - but, as with anything in life, the attitude you approach things with is the attitude you’ll receive in return. It just sounds like you weren’t prepared to spend that much money and were looking for someone to tell you it’s not worth it. I know Darcie and I highly doubt she would say something like that. It sounds like a simple misunderstanding. They usually tell you to do active exercises and meditation ALONG with the treatment.

If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. Let it be, sleep on it - but don’t strive to discredit a legitimate practice. They didn’t get where they are by not helping people. So, please, try to understand the situation first. I’ve been a patient of theirs for 3 years and I KNOW that the only thing they wish to do is help you.

Tell me, what actual medicine have you ever heard of that requires a “good attitude” in order for it to work? Sure, a good attitude in general makes life easier, but medicine and therapy are supposed to work no matter what mood you’re in. Lindsy was pressured into treatments she didn’t even need, and her symptoms got worse! Her attitude was good and her hopes were high until she started getting worse despite having had several sessions of treatment. Lindsey is paying for a service and SFQ is not providing it. All she is told is that it’s her own damn fault for not getting healed. These people are despicable.

Here’s another such response to Lindsy, though more venomous that the first (bold mine).

Sorry about your distress in this particular situation, Lindsy. However, this looks like a case where you expected a certain product/service to be carried out your way in all respects. Don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but the Customer isn’t always right. What price is it worth to pay for good health? How should people get back to you if things aren’t done your way? Master Lin works with 1000′s of people in an attempt (geniune) [sic] to help people. You came into the situation with a negative attitude and expected things done your way. If not, they were going to get the brunt of your complaint. Your just lucky that this site is made for consumers like yourself to vent. In many cases, for no more reason than the consumer was having a bad day. You should take a nap and sleep on it before you COMPLAIN again. You seem overtired [sic] and cranky. The internet (google) is full of examples on how Master Lin and Spring Forest Qigong helps people. You’re one person who simply didn’t give it a chance. Your complaint is not worth the electronic ink it was written with.

I am utterly baffled by the degree of venom on display here. My jaw is on the floor. There are many other responses equally brash in tone that I didn’t post here. Go see them yourself. The only reason I can come up with for these responses is that these people gain benefits from qigong due solely to a placebo effect. They say it themselves-qigong requires one to truly believe in it in order for it to work. When people, like Lindsey, start voicing skepticism and dissatisfaction with qigong, they are attacked, marginalized, and blamed for their own failure to heal. I believe this is a defense mechanism to silence dissenters in order to further maintain the illusion that qigong actually works. After all, if they question qigong, they may not receive the wanted results.

Discussion

Rill Wright

I’m not baffled by their venomous attacks. It’s bunk and they know it. They’re making money and they’re trying to protect it. I’m so glad you’re exposing them for the shameless scammers they really are.

drew hempel

Yeah Colin — is that all the dirt you can dig up on SFQ? haha. There’s a great comment I found from the ex-wife of someone I knew who was a regular SFQ student and now a certified teacher. She said he wasn’t paying alimony because he was spending it all on SFQ and that it was a cult and he wasn’t supported his kids.

So the logical fallacy you present — I don’t think it’s accurate. Consider the recent healing of Chunyi Lin’s wife. She was on her deathbed with cancer and the doctors told Chunyi Lin to prepare her funeral — she only weighed 60 pounds. Chunyi Lin’s wife had first gotten breast cancer back in China but she was healed by Shaolin master Yao, a qigong master described in Chunyi LIn’s book “Born a Healer.” Anyway so what Chunyi Lin did was get one of the Mayo Clinic doctors to persuade Chunyi Lin’s wife to forgive people in her past about whom she held deep anger. It was this release of deep anger from the Cultural Revolution in China that then enabled Chunyi Lin to heal his wife and she had a miraculous recovery. So the thing is as Chunyi Lin says that emotions are actually the number one cause of energy blockages and also that the mind’s intention will cause the symptoms to maintain themselves.

So then someone on abovetopsecret told me they called the SFQ to get a phone healing and the receptionist would not let them get a phone healing until they first started practicing SFQ on their own, by purchasing the training course. When I called the SFQ healing center I was asked what I needed to be healed but after I wondered about the somewhat cold manner of the receptionist she informed me should had a limited data field to enter data in her computer.

So I think that Chunyi Lin is encouraging people to heal themselves and as he said his own wife was not practicing qigong previously but now she practices 2 hours a day. Also Chunyi Lin is encouraging selling his products but that is how he funds his business.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MerE0BXoq5E

Consider Skyler Krull — this took place in my town of just a few hundred people! Are you going to dismiss this as a placebo effect? He had severe epilepsy and the Mayo Clinic put him on 40 medications at once as a final desperate approach to treat his condition but to no avail. He was on the sofa for 2 years until he was healed by the new Spring Forest Qigong master Lesley Vincent. Still his mom was open to taking this new complementary healing through meditation and now Skyler is studying it professionally at a college in Colorado.

So the qigong training is based on several factors — emotions are the top factor but then it’s nutrition and the third is the environment to practice in — and this includes if people allow someone to practice without being attacked, etc. So for example Chunyi Lin told a healing story of a lady who was getting phone healings for cancer and her doctor had given her six weeks to live and so Chunyi Lin charged up water. The lady was getting regular phone healings but also drinking the energy water every day. She lived for months longer than the six weeks the doctor had given her. But then her husband attacked her and wouldn’t let her get the qigong healing anymore, nor drink the healing water.

Sometimes if the illness is very severe then the best that can be done is to relieve the pain and to help the spirit transition to a better place after leaving the body. Chunyi Lin does heal dead people also in their spirit form and I know this because I even saw the ghosts coming to him to get healed. Chunyi Lin confirmed that this was the case even though I had not told anyone I had seen these yellow forms shaped like humans come floating into the room from outside — hovering over Chunyi Lin. But this was also corroborated in the biography of Phra Ajahn Mun, the most famous Buddhist monk of Thailand — http://www.luangta.com/English/site/book8_biomun.html

So I suppose you are dismissing Asian religious training as fake, etc.? haha. Anyway I have a long thread on abovetopsecret wherein I address many naysayers about paranormal healing based on my model of nonwestern music as the logos. You want to limit yourself to left brain logic but logical inference is the secret of qigong training. The source of the I-thought requires no belief and it was the teaching of Socrates. This is also the teaching of Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Dan Zahavi has a good philosophy book on it.

So it’s up to the individual practitioner to have a good enough job to afford the healings, etc. and to practice on their own if they have a serious condition as such practice will help the healing. I mean the person doesn’t need to believe in the healing to be healed but they also don’t need to believe in qigong to practice the exercises. Visualization is a right brain practice that doesn’t require belief in any ideology or tautology, etc. Here’s Dan Zahavi’s review of a science book on cognitive science and phenomonology — http://www.scribd.com/doc/25450399/Dan-Zahavi-Revew-of-Evan-Thompson

“According to the latter theory, cognition is not a faithful representation occurring between two separate and independent entities, mind and world. On the contrary, rather than being something inside thebrain or inside the body, cognition is viewed as something that cuts across the divide between body, brain, and environment.”

I recommend reading and studying Gregory Bateson’s book “Mind and Nature: A necessary unity” as he deals with this paradox of what he calls the “syllogism of metaphor.”

flow

Boom! Drew, Boss! haha.

Colin Wright

Still waiting for actual studies with proper control groups. All Drew has ever given me are anecdotes and personal testimonies. That is not sufficient. Not by a long shot, and Drew knows it. He feels that simply inundating me with personal testimonies is somehow making his case stronger. It doesn’t. Drew still has the burden of proof on his shoulders to demonstrate the validity of qi gong. He has done nothing to relieve this burden, and operates under fallacious reasoning and faulty principles. I need evidence an reason, not anecdotes and credulity.

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