Qigong

Lore & Background

Qigong has roots in ancient Chinese culture dating back more than 2,000 years, with forms developing within traditional Chinese medicine, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Chinese martial arts. Contemporary qigong blends traditions including Taoist internal alchemy, circulating qi, standing meditation, and daoyin. Traditionally, it was taught by master to students through training and oral transmission.

The term qigong was promoted in the late 1940s through the 1950s to refer to a broad range of Chinese self-cultivation exercises, emphasizing health and scientific approaches while de-emphasizing spiritual practices. In 1949, Liu Guizhen established the name to refer to life-preserving practices based on daoyin and other traditions. The first published book on qigong, 'Qigong Therapy Practice' (1957), noted that qigong was originally used to strengthen the body and promote health and longevity, evolving into a method for treating diseases.

From the late 1940s through the 1950s, the Chinese government tried to integrate disparate qigong approaches into a coherent system. Qigong was banned in the mid-1960s but rehabilitated in 1979 with support from high-level figures. Popularity grew rapidly through the 1990s, with estimates of 60 to 200 million practitioners in China. However, claims of extraordinary abilities and pseudoscience led to controversy, and in 1999 the government cracked down on public practice, banning groups such as Falun Gong (Falun Dafa). Since then, qigong research and practice have only been officially supported in the context of health and traditional Chinese medicine.

Reader's Guide

Qigong's significance lies in its integration of body, breath, and mind for health and self-cultivation, rooted in Chinese philosophy and medicine. It represents a diverse set of practices—dynamic, static, meditative, and those using external aids—that have been used for recreation, exercise, relaxation, preventive medicine, self-healing, alternative medicine, meditation, and martial arts training. The term itself, combining 'qi' (vital energy) and 'gong' (cultivation), reflects its purpose of cultivating and balancing life energy.

Historically, qigong was shaped by government efforts to standardize and scientize it, leading to a boom in popularity in the late 20th century, but also to controversy over pseudoscientific claims and cult formation. The 1999 crackdown marked a turning point, restricting public practice to state-approved forms under the Chinese Health Qigong Association. Despite these shifts, qigong remains widely practiced globally, though its scientific basis remains disputed. Its legacy includes both its role in traditional Chinese medicine and its complex interplay with state control, spirituality, and modern science.

Did You Know?

• In the mid-1960s, qigong was criticised and banned in China.
• In 1999, the Chinese government cracked down on public qigong practice, banning groups such as Falun Gong (Falun Dafa).

Etymology: Decoding Qi and Gong

The word qigong is a romanized pairing of two Chinese characters that together encode a philosophy of embodied practice. Qi sits at the intersection of the physical and the metaphysical: its most literal sense is air, gas, or breath, yet it is routinely rendered as vital energy or even universal energy encompassing heat, light, and electromagnetic force. In traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts, qi functions as the foundational principle threading through the body. Gong carries connotations of cultivation, skill, and achievement through sustained effort, the same root that appears in kung fu. Together, the compound describes a deliberate system for nurturing and balancing life energy toward health and wellbeing. The specific term qigong as we know it was not ancient coinage; it was promoted in the late 1940s and 1950s to unify a scattered family of self-cultivation exercises under one label, deliberately foregrounding health and scientific framing while downplaying spiritual mysticism and elite lineage claims.

Ancient Roots and the Web of Traditions

Qigong's lineage stretches back more than two millennia within Chinese culture, and its forms have grown organically across distinct social and intellectual milieus. In traditional Chinese medicine, it served preventive and curative roles; within Confucian circles it was tied to longevity and moral refinement; Taoist and Buddhist practitioners wove it into meditative discipline; and martial artists used it to sharpen self-defensive capacity. Contemporary practice is a mosaic that fuses at least three older streams: the Taoist meditative tradition of internal alchemy, the ancient techniques of circulating qi and standing meditation, and the slow gymnastic breathing exercises known as guiding and pulling. For centuries, transmission was intimate and hierarchical, a master passing knowledge orally to a small circle of students. Scholars tended toward the meditative, contemplative side, while the working masses favored the more dynamic, gymnastic forms. This dual character, intellectual and physical, has remained a defining tension in how qigong is understood and practiced.

State-Led Modernization and the Qigong Boom

After 1949, the mainland government undertook an ambitious project to consolidate the many scattered qigong lineages into a single, scientifically grounded system. In 1949, Liu Guizhen formalized the name qigong for the life-preserving exercises he and colleagues had developed from daoyin and related philosophical traditions, a move some sinologists mark as the birth of modern, scientific qigong. The trajectory was turbulent: by the mid-1960s the practice had been criticized and banned. Its rehabilitation came in 1979, propelled by high-profile champions including physicist Qian Xuesen, General Zhang Zhenhuan, and Sports Minister Wu Shaozu, who secured official recognition as a component of Chinese medicine. Qian went further, advocating a new somatic science to study purported extraordinary human abilities such as telepathy and photokinesis. The China Qigong Science and Research Society was established in 1985 to regulate denominations and masters. By the 1990s, estimates placed practitioners between sixty and two hundred million across China, making qigong a genuine mass phenomenon.

Controversy, Pseudoscience, and the 1999 Crackdown

The very scale of qigong's popularity bred a constellation of problems that ultimately eroded its institutional standing. Masters sometimes claimed abilities bordering on the supernatural; pseudoscientific explanations were marshaled to lend credibility to those claims; a mental condition dubbed qigong deviation emerged among some practitioners; and certain groups drifted into cult-like formations. The research program into paranormal aspects of qigong, despite the backing of figures like Qian Xuesen, consistently failed to yield replicable experimental evidence, and the broader somatic science project was increasingly dismissed as pseudoscientific. From the early 1990s, Chinese authorities and academic critics grew skeptical, questioning qigong organizations as unscientific. The absence of reproducible results led to declining support in both scientific and political circles, and the movement became a target of public ridicule. In 1999, amid a broader revival of spiritual and mystical traditions perceived as challenging state authority, the government moved to tighten control and crack down on qigong organizations, marking a decisive turning point in the practice's modern history.