Coupling qigong and electricity for a miraculous cure

www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2003/06/08/2003054493

Lee Yuan has spent over 40 years practicing qigong and is now using
electric therapy to treat people with problems
By Lisa Chiu
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Sunday, Jun 08, 2003,Page 17


The room is bright with a couple of wooden tables and matching chairs.
In one corner of the room is a computer that runs a program diagnosing
the patients before they enter the room and are treated by Lee Yuan (��
ԭ), the man who has spent more than 40 years practicing and teaching
qigong, and treating patients with electric qigong.

Inside the room, a sign reads, "Do stand away from the parameter if
you are not here to be treated, or your [sic] will inhale bad qi." Lee,
dressed in a gray polo shirt, with his trademark white silky hair, is about=

to treat Huang Shih-min (�SԊ��), a 12 year-old girl whose parents
want Lee to treat her for a nose allergy.

"She used to breathe with noises in her nose, and her nose would often
be blocked," said Mrs. Huang, as he daughter awaited treatment.

Everything is set and Lee is ready to perform his treatment. He holds
two wet towels that are folded in his hands. He begins to unwrap them,
revealing two keys wrapped in wet paper towels. The keys are
connected to a live wire, which is plugged into the socket right next to
the bed.


"See, I wrap them in wet towels because normal people cannot take the
current straight from the keys. That's why I wrap them in a towel," Lee
says.

The feeling of the electric treatment is like a massager with a spiky
surface. It is a bit like touching a refrigerator that is leaking electrici=
ty.
Lee controls the current through his hands and the qi stored in his
stomach controls the power, Lee says.


Ready to treat the girl, he takes a deep breath and looks at ther lying
flat on the bed with her two hands folded on her stomach. She seems
tense, but lies obediently. Lee uses his body as the medium to transfer
the current from the wire to his patients. He claims that he is able to
control the current depending on how sick the patients are. He says he
has never burned a patient.

Lee says that he practiced conducting electricity on himself hundreds of
times before he started treating other people. "More importantly, I have
been a vegetarian for more than 20 years. My body is clean and my
mind is pure. That's why my patients are safe with me."

Pointing to his ample belly, he says, "Feel how hard my stomach is ...

This is qi."

The wire connected to the keys releases approximately 110 volts. Lee
says wrapping them in wet paper towels increases the power 50 times.
As Lee holds the towels against the acupuncture points around Huang' s
nose, she grimaces but does not cry. When Lee continues to press the
towels on her nose for a few second more, however, tears well up in
the corner of her eyes.

"These are not tears from pain," Lee says. "Rather they are the essence
of the cause of her breathing problems, which is leaving the body. I
have cleared the passages by pressing the good qi into her body so that
the good qi can begin to help her inner circulation, especially in her
nasal area."

Coming from a famous qigong family, Lee began taking lessons from his
grandfather when he was four years old. According to Lee, qi means
the circulation of blood in the body. If the qi is weak or bad, then
diseases often follow, he says.

Electric qigong is based on traditional qigong, which originated in China. =

In his early 20s, Lee traveled to China, Thailand other countries in South =

East Asia in search of a master to help him improve his qigong.

He found Lee Ching-hun (��`c�a) in China and as part of his training,
took poison and learned to channel electricity by standing in a thunder
storm, an experience which he calls a "dazzling sensation."

In the first phase of his electric qigong training, Lee burned himself
repeatedly, but he persevered. In some of the qigong literature that Lee
has published, he says that a human body can accumulate electricity by
meditation and qigong exercises.

A human body is also a magnetic field, he says, and if the electricity in
the body is weak then the person's magnetic field will also be weak. He
says his body acts as a battery charger for his patients.

"I am able to cure my patients because I have been practicing qigong
for a long time. I can easily release good qi from my body to my
patients," he says. "Using electrical equipment combined with qigong [I
can] release the good qi to my patients in order to cure their illness."

On his travels in South East Asia, Lee says he can't recall how many
types of herbs, medicines and poisons he tried out to determine their
qualities and powers. But, he does know he survived four bouts of
malaria and two cases of dengue fever.

He says that he was unconscious for days after eating poisoned
mushrooms in Cambodian. "If I hadn't been healthy and hadn't
exercised qigong for many years, I would not have lived."

Though Lee has been practicing electric qigong treatment for almost 20
years in South East Asia, it wasn't until two years ago that he began his
practice in Taiwan. For the last two years, he's treated patients with
minor strokes, chronic pains, paralysis and even patients with tumors
and cancers.

Lee says many of his patients will vouch for the efficacy of his
treatments. He quotes the case of a paralyzed patient who can now
walk again with some assistance; and says doctors confirmed that a
tumor had reduced in size because of his treatments with another
patient. A young boy confined to a wheelchair can now move his arms
and legs after five treatments, Lee says.

Besides conducting electric qigong treatment, Lee promotes qigong by
teaching and publishing. "I believe that two brains are better than one,"
he says. "I hope that by spreading the practice of qigong, I am helping
more people to become not only healthier, but also more spiritual."

Lee believes there are some fundamental steps to qigong exercises.

"First of all, you have to release the toxins in your body in order to get =

rid of illnesses. Then there is meditation, and last, exercising qigong.

"The last thing you want to do is take medicine. If you maintain your
health with qigong, you will not need medicine because your body is
constantly circulating qi, which is the most important part of maintaining =

a healthy body," Lee says.

Though seen as an ancient healing alternative, qigong and electric
qigong have been adapted by many medical institutions in Germany,
says Liu Hung-jen (������), a 35 year-old psychiatrist, who has been
practicing qigong since he was in university.

Liu says the effectiveness of breathing exercises can be scientifically
assessed. "The amount of air you inhale can be measured and
monitored as it circulates around the body."

He says modified qigong breathing exercises have been used in western
medical treatments to balance the sympathetic nervous system and help
patients. "In some cases, doctors have used the breathing technique to
deal with anxiety problems."

While Lee's electric qigong treatment is new in Taiwan, it has been
practiced in China for many years. Michael Cheung (�R����), the
founder of the Qigong Culture Society of Taipei, is ambivalent about the
effectiveness of electric qigong. Based on nearly 50 years of practice, he =

says qi can be sorted into three categories: material, physical and
mental.

"In a material sense it is the same as light, sound or an electromagnetic
field. It is a combined electromagnetic field. When a person exercises qi
by using the proper techniques, then the radiation can be transformed
into energy inside the body," he says. "And a person can only do that
when he reaches `qi chi datian,'" [accumulated qi in the lower part of
abdomen].

Qi chi datian is most important, Cheung says, adding that once a person
is born, he or she is given qi that is stored in the lower part of the
abdomen. As a person grows older, the qi in the body begins to leak
out. "Without proper techniques to reproduce qi, a man becomes weak
and gets sick easily," Cheung says.

He says Lee's electric qigong treatment is like rubbing a piece of iron
against a magnet so that it becomes magnetized, and the good qi flows
into the patient. But he reserves judgement about the medical effects.

"Electric treatment and qigong exercise are two different stories,"
Cheung says, believing electric treatment just scratches the surface of
the skin and only represses the illness temporarily. "But when you
practice qigong, it begins a long-term process that leads to the
reorganization of your internal organs."

Cheung says qigong emphasizes meditation, breathing and harmonizing
to create a peaceful connection with nature.

"But electricity is artificial. It is not the same as using the power of
nature, so it does not last," he concludes.
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