Medicine in the west is undergoing a millennial sea change. Millions of people are exploring energetic healing. Doctors dismiss most of these New Age therapies as placebo effect or unscientific. I believe the most effective method of healing chronic disease to emerge will not be New Age, but rather an 5,000 year old method from China known today as Chi Kung therapy. Also spelled "qigong", this ancient art and science means literally "skill in managing your energy flow". One of its greatest uses may prove to be in healing cancer, which has defied western medical approaches despite billions of dollars in research for a "magic bullet".The ancient Chinese found the magic bullet. It is hidden in the flow of the life force within our body. They called it "chi". Chi is also the energetic matrix of our mind and of all existence. Chi is what links our body, our mind, and our spirit and the natural world into a unified whole. Once you learn how to mange your chi, or go to a chi kung master who helps your chi to heal you, you can literally dissolve cancerous tumors and areas of blockage.

While chi kung's medical effectiveness has been well documented in China by scientists for a wide variety of chronic illnesses, the stories of recovery from cancer are among the most frequent and most dramatic. Many patients have been told to go home and die, that not even chemo or radiation (widely used in China today) can help. They go home, and out of final desperation begin doing chi kung movements and meditations. Twenty years later, they are leading classes and writing books on how chi kung saved their life. I have been working with chi kung for twenty years and seen many so called "miraculous" healings. According to chi kung theory, these are not miracles, they are fully understandable scientific effects. Most disease is caused by emotional trauma and lack of sexual energy flow. This constricts the free flow of chi in the body. The type of emotion will usually determine where the tumor will appear. In the weakened areas, tissue begins to form around the stagnant chi, and then a virus, seeing an area of unconsciousness with nobody "living" in that part of the body, decides to take up residence and grow itself. This process is occuring in everybody, including healthy people not diagnosed with cancer, but it usually dissolves itself before a tumor grows. So according to Chinese medicine, nearly everybody has cancer, but it simply is not fatal or noticeable. If you understand that your "energy body", the sum total of your energy channels (used in acupuncture) and the quality of your overall "field" of awareness is constantly in flux, then it is easier to accept that you can dissolve your tumor without drugs or surgery. The physical body is not a "thing", it is a living process, only more dense than your emotions or thoughts. But the matrix of all three of these is the same -- the life force, or chi. Last year I co-led a National Qigong/Chi Kung Association delegation to China to view first hand the qigong doctors working in the main hospitals in Beijing, which all have qigong departments. The qigong doctors have studied both western medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), but have chosen instead to practice a different branch of this medicine, qigong therapy. They took a four year course in it at Medical school instead of acupuncture or herbology. They wear white coats, just like all the other doctors, and they get sent the most difficult cases that nobody else can heal. They have a very high success rate, although not everyone responds to chi healing. Cancer is considered to be one of the toughest blockages to dissolve, so it requires specialists and best results come with patients who truly want to live -- enough to practice at least 3-4 hours of chi kung a day.

I met with Feng Lida, a 74 year old woman scientist who has devoted the last 20 years to the scientific study of qigong. She showed me slides of cancer cells, taken with an electron microscope, before and after chi emission by a chi kung therapist. "The cells get zapped by chi, and they dramatically slow down their rate of reproduction and become more susceptible to immune cells gobbling them up', she told me. She points at a disintegrating cancer cell with jagged edges. "The best thing is not to try to kill the cancer cells, because we have observed experimentally that they fight back even harder. The chi kung therapist simply focuses on weakening the cancer cells, and on strengthening the healthy cells." Numerous scientific studies in China have shown that cancer patients who have undergone chemo or radiation and afterwards practice chi kung live twice as long on average as those who don't. They require less medication, experience less nausea, and recover the health more quickly after the debilitating treatment. Patients often get up early and practice in the parks daily with others who have the same type of cancer. The support group seems to increase their statisical improvement even more, an effect seen in western cancer support groups also. The Chinese say the group sharing opens the heart, and thus improves chi flow. Western medicine has no clear model for the connections between psychology and physical healing, but in Chinese medicine this is clearly mapped out. How realistic is chi kung therapy for the average western cancer patient?
This depends on how advanced the cancer is, how strong the willpower and constitution of the cancer patient is, and whether they are willing to practice chi kung daily. Chi kung does not rely on belief to work, but is more effective if you are not resisting it. Many cancer patients do not really want to live, they are tired of life or don't understand the alternative healing solutions available to them. So in my own sessions, that is the first question I ask: Do you really want to live? If I don't sense an authentic committment to the healing process I refuse to proceed on the spot. My own chi is too precious to waste fighting someone else's inner death wish. This is not being cold-hearted; it is simply accepting each person's free will, and going with their flow. Besides, there is nothing wrong with "dying", since no one really dies -- they just shift to a different energy state. The ancient Taoists understood this clearly. There is no struggle between Life and Death, only an apparent struggle between yin and yang, life in form (body) and life in the formless (spirit). Death doesn't really exist, it merely defines a transitional state between two experiences of life. But the cancer industry apparently thrives on the Fear of Death, so much so that the thought form "Cancer " has nearly become synonymous with the thought form of "Death". Buying into this is actually what kills most people, not the cancer itself. I'm sure many of you have heard stories of people who were first diagnosed with a cancer that they may have had for years, and die shortly afterward. I have developed a special chi kung form that I call Medical Chi Kung. It is based on a movement chi kung method used in chinese hospitals successfully for healing tens of thousands of patients suffering from chronic illness, including cancer. I have recently made the form more powerful by adding more"internal" chi kung methods which include special healing sounds and colors, facing in certain directions to get greater balance, and connecting your inner being to the Sun and the Earth as powerful centers of cosmic healing chi. It can be done even by the wheelchair bound or the bedridden, but is most powerful standing. The secret is to purify the clogged up energy channels in the body and embrace your love of life. The energy channels used in this chi kung form are deeper than the ones used in acupuncture, altho that is certainly an important support for many people. I consider the ultimate test of successful chi kung practice to be whether the person is now feeling in harmony with themself, not whether their tumor has disappeared. One of my clients, a 69 year old women named Molly from Asheville, came to me several years ago for chronic depression. I was not surprised when she was diagnosed shortly afterwards with lung cancer, because she was literally afraid to breathe. Molly intensified her chi kung practice, even though she had trouble practicing or holding concentration. Today the tumor is not gone, but Molly is now a happy person. "I am blissfully sick", Molly exclaimed. "Now I always feel happy, because I have connected with my chi flow. I've had to give up kayaking and bicycling, but I've got something much more profound. Sometimes I feel a glowing chi ball moving around inside me. What a delight! I couldn't have gotten through my cancer without chi kung. I can breathe better, I can get to sleep at night. My soul is healing, and I've lost my fear of death. My body is still trying to catch up, and nothing makes it feel better than chi kung."

Michael Winn is a past President of the National Qigong (Chi Kung) Association of USA, Professor of Tao Arts/Sciences and the founder of Healing Tao University in Big Indian, N.Y., the largest chi kung program in the USA with a faculty of 24 teachers. He also lead a Medical Qigong Training in China trip that gave healers clinical experience in major Beijing hospitals in September 2000.