How Chi Gong Works on Cancer

[Excerpt from Paul Dong's book, Chi Gong: The Ancient Chinese Way to Health, Paul Dong and Aristide H. Esser, 1990, Marlowe and Company]

Haughtiness invites ruin; humility receives benefits.
-I Ching (The Book of Changes)

Paul Dong has a personal interest in the effect of chi gong on cancer which he explains as follows:

Because several of my relatives and friends died of cancer, I always felt particularly fearful of cancer. When I came across a Chinese book on five chi gong exercise techniques and discovered that chi gong can cure cancer, I became highly interested and started collecting materials on this subject. I also went to China in 1984 to see for myself, and found that it is definitely true that chi gong is being used to cure cancer. In the eleven years since 1979, the Chinese have cured hundreds of cancer victims through chi gong, and thousands upon thousands have used chi gong to achieve improvement and to prolong their lives. When news of this spread outside China, many medical professionals from other countries came to mainland China to observe. Members of the staff at Harvard Medical School have shown great interest in this area and have been to China twice to observe the practice. According to the article "Cancer Does Not Mean Death" by Ke Yan,1 an American oncologist (the article doesn't give the doctor's name) visited China and requested an interview with the pioneer of chi gong cancer treatment, Mrs. Guo Lin (1906-1984). Guo Lin said, "Even if I tell you about it, you wouldn't believe me. You'd better find a patient of mine to talk to." The oncologist found quite a few of her patients in the Beijing district chi gong cancer class, spent four days talking with them, and saw the facts for himself

Doctors have taken two contrasting approaches to cancer. The first approach is to consider the cancer to be an isolated condition localized at one spot in the body and to attack it directly using chemicals, surgery, or radiation. The second approach, which is gaining more and more prominence today, is to consider the condition of the whole person as the environment for the cancer, and to strengthen the body's resistance to cancer. This may come under the modem heading of psychoneuroimmunology (discussed in chapter 13) and relies on many factors, including exercise, diet, and mental imaging to combat the disease. Chi gong is part of this second approach.

The use of chi gong cancer treatment in China originated with Ms. Guo Lin, a Chinese traditional painter, mentioned above. In 1949, she was afflicted with uterine cancer and had it removed by surgery in Shanghai. The cancer recurred in 1960. This time it had metastasized to the bladder, and she had another operation in Beijing to remove part of the bladder that was cancerous. When she had another relapse, the doctors gave her six months to live. However, she did not give up hope, and in her struggle against cancer, she remembered that her grandfather, a Taoist priest, had taught her as a child to practice chi gong. She determinedly began to research and practice chi gong, hoping to recover her health in this way. After initial practice with no effect, she turned to the ancient chi gong texts willed to her by her grandfather and created her own exercise schedule. She practiced diligently for two hours every day, and in half a year her cancer subsided. She was strongly convinced of chi gong's ability to cure diseases, and in 1970 started giving lessons in what she called New Chi Gong Therapy. According to Cyrus Lee, Master Guo's therapy is not based on the external energy (wei chi) of others, but upon the inner energy (nei chi) of the patient (for these distinctions, review chapter 1, "Special Section on Chi"). Her therapy combines "active and passive exercises in three stages: relaxation (sung jing), concentration (yi lian), and breathing (tiao hsi)."2

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