Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China

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

Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China
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Book Summary Information

Author: David A. Palmer
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-03-20
ISBN: 0231140665
Number of pages: 356
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Book Reviews of Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China

Book Review: A Tour de Force
Summary: 5 Stars

Palmer's brilliant retelling and analysis of modern Chi Kung history deserves the applause it has received from all quarters.

Everything's here: the initial impulse in the fifties to turn the traditional body technologies into modern healing sciences; their temporary choking in the atmosphere of deadly top-down dogma during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution periods; the practitioners like Guo Lin who kept teaching even when you could be arrested for it, so that cancers could be cured; the sudden upsurge of the modality after the Deng reforms, leading to the period of 'Fever' when every Beijing park had a dozen systems, masters grew charismatic, and stories of strange psi powers abounded; the 'new Chinese science' promised, that would make real at last the utopia the people had believed in so long; the strange experiments, the miracles, the fakes, the government nervousness; the commercialization of the spiritual past; and finally the advent of that cynical, millenarian, messianic, sectarian, religious Jungian shadow of the Communist party itself, falun gong, which told the rest it could go to hell.

On every spiritual, scientific, cultural and historical level this is one of the most astonishing tales you will ever hear! And in David Palmer it's found a worthy storyteller. He has not only done the most tremendous amount of research, he manages to keep a sense of drama in laying it out that is sadly lacking in all too many academic treatises. Probably better informed than all of those without his bardic flair (I've read some of 'em), he finds no need to namecheck trendy po-mo theorists to keep to his brief, and when he does bring in theoretical architecture, it is genuinely illuminating. He also puts the whole period in context by referring to older movements in China that foreshadow it. (I hear he's working on some very interesting new projects, including a study of the global spread of Taoism with Elijah Siegler -- I'll be looking out for that.)

The book is also a treatment of the Chi Kung subject that manages to make a case for its importance without being in any way biased. Palmer states his own practice was "powerful", involving mental and physical change that made him feel "anything was possible", and putting academic objectivity in jeopardy -- nonetheless, throughout the body of the text he sedulously avoids claims about effectiveness or the truth of any 'extraordinary powers', leaving the history of the practice and the power it has exerted on its practitioners to speak for themselves. This scrupulously fair rendering adds a most useful flavour of careful reason to such a combustible historical cocktail of powerful spiritual techniques and experiences with all-too-human beliefs and hopes. You couldn't wish for more interesting times.

I've read this book twice now and will do so again I'm sure. I think just about anyone would be interested in it if the sociology, psychology, religious politics and spirit-power stuff grab them. But if you practice any form of Chi Kung at all, don't miss it. You will get a compelling grounding in the history and source of your practice that isn't obtainable anywhere else.

Summary of Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China

Qigong?a regimen of body, breath, and mental training exercises?was one of the most widespread cultural and religious movements of late-twentieth-century urban China. The practice was promoted by senior Communist Party leaders as a uniquely Chinese healing tradition and as a harbinger of a new scientific revolution, yet the movement's mass popularity and the almost religious devotion of its followers led to its ruthless suppression.

In this absorbing and revealing book, David A. Palmer relies on a combination of historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives to describe the spread of the qigong craze and its reflection of key trends that have shaped China since 1949, including the search for a national identity and an emphasis on the absolute authority of science. Qigong offered the promise of an all-powerful technology of the body rooted in the mysteries of Chinese culture. However, after 1995 the scientific underpinnings of qigong came under attack, its leaders were denounced as charlatans, and its networks of followers, notably Falungong, were suppressed as "evil cults."

According to Palmer, the success of the movement proves that a hugely important religious dimension not only survived under the CCP but was actively fostered, if not created, by high-ranking party members. Tracing the complex relationships among the masters, officials, scientists, practitioners, and ideologues involved in qigong, Palmer opens a fascinating window on the transformation of Chinese tradition as it evolved along with the Chinese state. As he brilliantly demonstrates, the rise and collapse of the qigong movement is key to understanding the politics and culture of post-Mao society.

(11/1/2007)

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