Given that Qigong is many times the first step to getting into Falun Gong...
I thought readers of this forum would be interested in this.

My children go to a school in which pseudoscience was taught to them. However, it was something more insidious than "intelligent design." It was Qigong taught as science. One of my daughter's classmates fell unconscious while she was performing these exercises. Then the Qigong instructor ran to the victim and began moving his hands over her body, telling the students that he was healing her by moving his hands over her which was mainpulating body energy or "Chi."

I currently have a petition up to stop this nonsense:

[www.ipetitions.com]

This has supporting evidence to support the claims made. Please don't assume we have enough signatures. If this bothers you, please sign it and pass it on to other forward thinking people.

I'd be interested to know in what context this was being, 'taught' in a classroom situation.

Quote
zaflon
I'd be interested to know in what context this was being, 'taught' in a classroom situation.

This is what it says in the link to the petition:-

[i:cbbea4d52f]Over the past three years, the International School of Monterey, California, a public charter school, has had two "doctors of medical qigong" from the International Institute of Medical Qigong (www.medicalqigong.org) instruct their student body in "medical" qigong exercises. This was done without parental consent or notification. These "doctors" are not licensed by the State of California. In fact, to become a doctor of medical qigong, one has to learn among other things how to project energy balls, how to treat Spirit or Demon Possession, how to use hand seals and incantations to paralyze spirit entities, Faith Projection and Incantations, and finally how to understand psychic and sorcery attacks. The basis for these beliefs is the belief in a universal life force called "chi." This was also taught to the children. [/i:cbbea4d52f]

-A bit like when a school gets a few 'fundies' running it, (like the local school I went to was convinced I was evil and worshipped the devil) sounds like the head teacher etc must've been into new age or had these 'doctors' as their mates.

It's quite sneaky and nasty if they've been doing it without parental consent though.
Love
Kath

This is my first post, so I'll go into the deep end here. I am a rationalist, freethinker secular person but I have been practicing and teaching Chi Gong and Chinese martial arts for over 35 years. I have never known anyone to suffer side effects from such practices in themselves - but the `group contect' may be at work here. Many people in cults have `collapsed' as a result of hysteria rather than any phisiological effects. The social context may be very significant here.

Traditionally, such mind-body practices have been taught to individuals and families in China. Fa Lun Gong have introduced `mass appeal' so perhaps the dangers associated with evangelical zeal come to the fore?

Another thing caught my attention.

The petition talked about `psydoscience' and `occult practice'. This is a strange combination of terms. A skeptical athiest might use the term psudoscience to describe the claims of Fa Lun Gong, but a religious person (particularly of the conservative Christian tradition) would use the term `occult' to describe it. The use of BOTH terms in the petition is a source of mystery. Perhaps the author could elaborate?

Its very hard to imagine that Chi Gong exercise is going to cause a seizure. Hopscotch or Double-Dutch are much more likely to be injurious. However I have found that the very mention of a Chinese word like "Tai Chi" or "QiGong" can cause knee jerk reactions in your average rigid thinker. :lol:

If this so called class was mandatory then hire an attorney, unless you signed a permission slip. If it was an elective and or you signed a permission slip your screwed.