The ‘Force’ Is With the Qigong Masters

Terminal cancer victims and other hopeless cases line up every day in a dingy building in Peking to be touched by the hands of Xun Yunkun--a man they see as their last chance for survival.

Xun is not a faith healer in the normal sense of the term, although he does have a picture of Jesus Christ on his desk. He is an expert in the ancient Chinese art of Qigong, a discipline that believers say can concentrate a person’s life force--the Qi (pronounced “Chee”).

“Unlike Jesus’ work, mine is not a miracle or even mysterious,” said 54-year-old Xun. “It is simply using human energy to heal humans.”

Masters Grow Tough, Strong

Masters who have learned to control the Qigong also become tough enough to withstand sledgehammer blows and strong enough to smash stone boulders, he said.

“But these are just fairground stunts; they benefit nobody. I use the force to heal people.”

Xun says he is so plentifully endowed with the warm energy that he wears only a thin shirt in deepest winter and his hands cause effervescence when submerged in water.

In his makeshift hospital in the western section of Peking, he treats a woman in her late 20s paralyzed after a stroke.

Summons the Force

His eyes bulge and his body stiffens. He summons the force to his hands, fixes her with a hypnotic glare and starts to transmit the force from his hands into parts of her body.

He massages her back and tells her to recount her progress in regaining the use of her limbs.

“When I came here, I could not speak,” she said slowly, her mouth partially immobile. “Mr. Xun is surely a miracle healer.”

Qigong is China’s most ancient healing art and uses the same basic principles as acupuncture, the Chinese needle therapy now used all over the world.

‘The Last Resort’

“I am the last resort for many patients. People are amazed to see I use no medicine, needles or surgical equipment--only my hands,” Xun said. “About 90% of stroke and paraplegia victims who come to me leave able to walk unaided.

“I have completely cured about 10 cases of cancer and nearly always manage to postpone its effects.”

More orthodox medical opinion is reserved about Qigong.

Dr. Patrick Pau of the Hong Kong Medical Assn. commented: “I am no authority on Qigong, but as far as curing cancer is concerned, I doubt very much whether it would work. If there is such a cure, it should have reached the notice of the (outside) medical world.”

No ‘Official’ Cures

Dr C. H. Leong, president of the British Medical Assn. in Hong Kong, said: “We don’t have any official records of such cures.”

Xun’s force treatment costs $1.80 a visit. He gets more than $95 a month from his private hospital, putting him firmly in China’s top wage bracket.

But just 10 years ago, in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, no one would have predicted that the ancient art of touch healing would become a modern money spinner.

“At that time it was called ‘witchcraft,’ so I chanted Maoist slogans like everyone else and shut up about touch healing,” Xun said.

Qualified for Patronage

Since then, Qigong has qualified for official patronage. In February, a national society was formed with an aim of “classifying and describing” the metaphysical force.

But one leading scientist trying to demystify and explain the art, Gu Hansen, gets no aid from the government for her efforts to reproduce the effects of the force through machines.

“A lot of officials still regard it as a feudal science,” she said. “Even after I have shown them the videotapes of my machines curing patients, some still remain blind to the breakthrough.”

Developed in 1978

The “breakthrough” is a machine Gu developed in 1978 that attempts to recreate the force in the form of a current comprising different forms of energy, including ultraviolet rays.

“The energy current is conducted through acupuncture needles to specific points on a patient’s body,” she said.