Can we talk about spirituality?

I do not refer to a politely equivocating spirituality, to the New Age patter so heartily embraced in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. No, I refer to a spirituality with sharp edges, one loathed by the pious and atheists alike. It is egalitarian, scientific, demonstrable and falsifiable—in other words, it is dangerous. Fundamentalists on all sides would prefer it did not exist.

Please take note: I am not asking you to believe this. Let’s just talk about it for a moment.

At a sufficiently high level, martial arts and spirituality are entwined. At the same time, spirituality is clearly a religious issue, and religion is a political issue. So…can we talk about politics too? [Read more →]

Recent news items from the world of martial arts…

Enroll Now in Jedi Knight 101: Intro to the Jedi Order

Source: Telegraph UK

The UK’s first Jedi course is on offer at Queen’s University Belfast in November, and hopes to attract Star Wars fans and introduce them to the joys of continuing their education through open learning.

According to its publicity material, the course ‘Feel the Force: How to Train in the Jedi Way’ teaches the “real-life psychological techniques behind Jedi mind tricks”.

It also claims to examine the “wider issues behind the Star Wars universe, like balance, destiny, dualism, fatherhood and fascism”.

No prior qualifications are required and the blurb informs students that “light sabres are not provided”.

Remember that in the Star Wars universe, the Galactic Empire regarded the Jedi as a pack of rebels, or terrorists… [Read more →]

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

Trenchant and timely words from Eric Hoffer, one of Bruce Lee’s favorite philosophers:

There is always a danger that the suppression of a specific clearly defined evil will result in its replacement by an evil that is more widely diffused—one that infects the whole fabric of life. Thus, the suppression of religious fanaticism usually gives rise to a secular fanaticism that invades every department of life. The banning of conventional war-making may result in an endless undeclared war.

[Read more →]

The following passage is excerpted from “The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine” by Anne Harrington—a recent addition to my recommended reading list.

The End of Medical Exorcism in Europe

Appreciating the interweaving religious, philosophical and political stakes [in 18th century medicine] is important, because it can help us make sense of an episode whose significance we might otherwise misinterpret: the showdown between the German exorcist Father Johann Joseph Gassner and the Viennese physician Anton Mesmer.

Gassner was an exorcist whose ability to cast out devils was legendary. People came from all over to be healed, and in dramatic public performances—witnessed by crowds from all sectors of society—Gassner would oblige. Official records were made; competent witnesses testified to the extraordinary happenings. All agreed on the basic facts. On being presented with a supplicant, Gassner would typically wave a crucifix over his or her body and demand in Latin that, if the disease he was seeing had a “preternatural” source, this fact must be made manifest. The patient would then typically collapse into convulsions, and Gassner would proceed to exorcise the offending spirit.

Sometimes he added flourishes to this basic routine: in one dramatic instance, for example, he ordered the demon inside a woman to increase the poor woman’s heartbeat and then to slow it down. [Read more →]

Excerpted from Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China by David A. Palmer

There were no officially sanctioned qigong activities in China until its rehabilitation in 1978, after the end of the Cultural Revolution. However, one woman, Guo Lin, an artist and cancer victim from Guangdong province who had cured herself by practicing qigong during the 1960s, was brave enough to teach other cancer patients in the parks of Beijing as early as 1970. Her ‘New Qigong Therapy’ inaugurated a new, collective form of qigong teaching and practice that would later be adopted by most qigong masters. Guo Lin can thus be said to have triggered the qigong wave of the 1980s.

Born near Zhongshan, Guangdong in 1909, Guo Lin was trained as a young girl in traditional body technologies by her paternal grandfather, a Taoist in Macau, where her family had fled following the 1911 revolution. Later, as a student of landscape painting, she visited several holy mountains; the breathing technique she used when climbing the steep slopes would become the basis for her future qigong method.

In 1949 Guo Lin was hit by uterine cancer, which was treated by hysterectomy. The cancer recurred in 1959 while she was teaching at the new Beijing Painting Academy. Guo Lin remembered the techniques that she had learned in her youth, and decided to practice them to treat her cancer. [Read more →]

Excerpted from Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China by Nancy N. Chen

Qigong in the Scientific Community

Qigong began to be actively debated within the [Chinese] scientific community during the 1980s, when scientists, especially physicians, sought to legitimate the phenomenon of qi. While popular publications focused on practice or gave life histories of particular masters, the discussions of qigong among scientists addressed questions of how to measure the force field of qi energy. Qi as a material phenomenon had to be quantified. This interest paralleled attention to the phenomenon of teyigongneng, or special psychic abilities.

…The doors of scientific research opened when Qian Xuesen, the prominent founder of China’s space research, declared that teyigongneng merited serious study. In his account of this movement, Paul Dong, a US-based qigong master, described how young children in China were tested for their abilities to “hear” characters being written and to perform psychokinesis (the power to move objects with their minds); there were reports of pills disappearing from bottles only to materialize outside their containers.

Scientific experiments also commenced during this period, as many researchers believed that special abilities could be enhanced with qigong. Over a dozen scientific journals and publications, among them, Zhiran Zazhi (Nature magazine) and Dongfang Qigong (Eastern qigong), began to discuss human potential and somatic science. [Read more →]

Did you really think we want those laws observed? We want them to be broken…We’re after power and we mean it.

Martial artist: are you an inherent threat to decency, morality, and public safety? No?

We, your elected government, say yes.

Make no mistake, martial artist: your avocation violates several contracts, agreements and laws. Never mind the combative trivia of kicks, punches and takedowns; how will you defend yourself against us, the shameless political opportunists who would punish you for your crimes?

[Read more →]

In 1966, the Chinese government began a violent purge of traditional culture. Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong called for the abolishment of all things old, and enlisted a youth militia to perform the destruction. Local police were forbidden to interfere.

Mao’s regime criminalized the practice of traditional wushu. Threatened by harassment, imprisonment or torture at the hands of the Red Guard, some martial arts experts went underground. Other unfortunate practitioners were “re-educated” to death.

The first Cultural Revolution has ended, but wushu now faces a new peril. This second revolution transcends national boundaries, and there is little hope of escaping its reach. [Read more →]

By day, I am a mild-mannered software developer; when darkness falls, I step away from the computer for more vigorous pursuits.  During the past few days, I’ve been moonlighting as a private dick.  My latest case: to find those responsible for the destruction of the Shaolin Temple village, and bring them to justice. [Read more →]