“Dian Qigong” 电气功 and a Visit to Master Luo Kangqi
When I first visited Master Jiang Feng’s hospital in Anhui in 2014 and felt and witnessed their electric-like qi emission, I was both surprised at how strong it was and how, well, “electric” it was. I asked him, “What would you say is the main difference between this electric qi and the electricity produced by a machine?” He responded simply, “the energy of a machine is dead, qi has life.” A response that perhaps creates more questions than it answers!
Below, I will share some thoughts on the relationship between electric/electromagnetic phenomena and “electric qi” phenomena. Although this topic is way too vast for a single post, I will summarize a few points.
In the “members only” section, I will also relate some of my experiences so far in which I have compared training methods and masters who use assistance from electrical devices (aka “dian qigong” or “electric qigong”) to those who only use “natural” bioelectric qi from their bodies, specifically my experiences with Master Luo Kangqi as well as some of his students.
Is Electric-like Qi “Just” Bioelectricity? And What Would That Mean?
The exploration into the study of human bioelectricity is a fascinating one and something that is currently at the cutting edge of science. Qi can certainly not be simply reduced to bioelectricity, but I think there is no doubt that qi phenomena such as the electric faqi 发气 would certainly be an example of, in modern language, what we’d call human bioelectric phenomena that is beyond what is generally accepted as humanly possible. Some might feel that labeling this specific manifestation of qi as “bioelectric phenomena” would be something that reduces it to a more or less mundane phenomena. I don’t think we have to see it that way because…
- The question ultimately does not depend on whether we prove certain qi phenomena to be more or less equivalent to another “scientifically known” phenomena (i.e. electromagnetic phenomena), but rather it depends on a person’s general worldview, their worldview’s metaphysical assumptions, and then how the phenomena fits into that worldview.
- Science has only barely cracked the surface in understanding bioelectricity, and more generally, physics and its related metaphysical interpretations are continually evolving.
For a philosophical materialist (a set of metaphysical assumptions often conflated with science itself), essentially everything is composed of inert substances at base, including conscious life itself, and therefore it is hard to see how anything is but ultimately meaningless. For someone who sees the substratum of reality as something inherently fused with consciousness and life, meaning is immanent in reality. What we call electromagnetism and pretend to fully understand could actually have much deeper meaning and significance. It depends on how you see the bigger picture.
Dian Qigong Practice and Therapy
The use of electrical devices for qigong practice (some call this dian qigong 电气功, meaning “electric qigong”) and also for therapeutic energy treatment, seems to especially be a thing in Southeast Asia, for whatever reason, and is also sometimes referred to there as “electric massage.” Some use it to provide treatment and are always hooked up to a wire that pumps electricity through their body into the recipient, others, such as Mr. Elektro in Bali, seem to be able to “hold a charge” and perform a type of faqi (emission of qi) without being hooked up directly to the wire for a time, but eventually they run out of juice and need to charge up from a device (or wires coming out of the wall) again.
The use of electricity from a machine for both personal practice and to provide treatment to others brings up a lot of questions when comparing this to “natural” qigong practiced without a machine and “natural” fagong 发功 treatment that comes solely from the body of the person emitting the qi. The artificial version feels quite similar to the natural electric-like emitted qi, at least at first before a more careful comparison. However, after experiencing both a number of times, I found that there is a distinct and noticeable difference. So does it have the same effect on the body? Is practicing with a machine really helpful? Does it have any negative side effects? These are some important questions that come up.
There is a lot that could be said on this subject. I will do my best to only briefly relate some of my thoughts on this, and also share my first-hand personal experiences in trying this type of practice out and receiving this type of “dian qigong” therapy from others, including Master Luo Kangqi. Part of this will be restricted to “members only” content below, however, I will offer a spoiler here: after trying the machine-assisted “dian qigong” practice for the first time, I more or less never did it again. I received this type of therapy a couple of times, and it was generally not a great experience, definitely different from “natural” faqi treatment (which I have received many times), and not something I generally seek to do again.
Some General Thoughts on Machine Electricity vs Bioelectricity
Natural vs Artificial
Now, I know electro-acupuncture is already a pretty big thing, and there are already loads of alternative healthcare companies out there offering all sorts of EMF therapy devices. I have yet to experience most of those devices and treatments. My firsthand experience is mainly with these types of “dian qigong” found in Southeast Asia, in which much cruder sources of electricity are used. However, I do feel a few general comments can be made.
For one, this topic gets into the wider discussion of natural vs artificial creations, in particular things that are consumed or applied to the body in some way, and their effects on humans. Are human creations seeking to replicate natural things really successful in making something artificial that is “close enough” to the natural thing that any differences are negligible? Or do artificial things have significant differences that we are not able to fully account for yet, and possibly pose the risk of significant side effects over the long term? This is a vast and hotly-debated subject. I usually tend to want to be cautious and usually fall more towards the side of the latter, erring on the side of going with what nature created when possible. Humans have a long track record of thinking we’ve done something clever, thinking it causes no harm, and then finding out later that we were horribly wrong.
I also feel that this preference for following nature and using what is natural is very deeply tied into traditional Chinese culture and schools of thought such as Daoism or even just traditional yangsheng 养生 health culture. Take air conditioning for example. The artificially-cooled air produced by air conditioning devices is wide-spread in China and many can’t resist it on the hottest days. However, overall it seems to be used more sparingly and its overuse is considered harmful by many Chinese, especially those who follow traditional health practices. Most Chinese probably wouldn’t ever leave the AC on while they sleep, yet most westerners wouldn’t even give it a second thought. Chinese even have a term for the type of air coming from an air conditioner, “ying feng” 硬风, meaning “hard wind,” and consider it harmful due to its artificial nature.
Electrical Current is Not the Same as Faqi Current
In terms of comparing electrical current from a device to the current of bioelectric qi emitted from a human capable of faqi, there are a number of differences that we have to account for. The source of the current is obviously very different in one versus the other. Electricity through a wire from a machine is the flow of electrons, whereas there are various sources of bioelectric flows within an organism which rather involve the flow of ions. In addition to that, there are other factors to consider such as the current’s frequency and waveform. The practitioners using dian qigong that I have encountered are all using fairly crude sources that do not control these aspects (you can only increase or decrease the voltage). Some of the expensive EMF therapy devices on the market do seem to offer more in terms of fine-tuning the current they emit. However, we still don’t know enough about human bioelectricity yet, nor have there been enough measurements on adepts performing faqi to even begin to do a proper comparison.
How does the bioelectric current emitted during faqi change over time? A biological organism is complex, there could be various feedback loops involved and other more subtle forms of information flow happening between emitter and recipient that modify the effect. Certain types of qi cultivated in practitioners also seem to have an intelligence of its own that would not be found in the electrical current of a machine. There is a lot we don’t know and plenty of reasons to be suspicious that using electrical devices could have a very different and possibly harmful effect. After my firsthand experience with dian qigong I felt these suspicions were even further confirmed for me. While on the surface the immediate effect feels very similar, there is a distinct difference, and the feeling afterwards was definitely different and not in a good way (more on that below).
