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Healing Sects and Anti-Cult Campaigns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2003

Abstract

Charismatic forms of healing can be found both in Chinese medicine and spiritual practices. This article examines how qigong healing sects in contemporary China became subject to state regulation and medicalization. Such a move was intended to eradicate masters who were viewed as promoting superstition (mixin) or heterodox spiritual practices. Yet, the rise of masters who intertwined healing with spirituality was facilitated by market reforms that enabled entrepreneurial forms of medicine. When other popular forms of healing emerged in the late 1990s, the previous state response to qigong facilitated containment practices which continue into the 21st century. Recent state policy towards sectarian organizations based on the promotion of science are compared with the regulation of qigong a decade earlier.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The China Quarterly, 2003

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Professor Daniel Overmyer for inviting me to contribute to this special volume and for his useful editorial feedback. Diana Lary, Raoul Birnbaum and conference participants offered incisive suggestions for revisions. Special thanks to the Fundação Oriente and Dr Richard Edmonds for the Arrabida conference which enabled invaluable discussions. The earlier research on which this article is based was made possible with funding from the Committee for Scholarly Communication with the PRC (CSCPRC). My discussion of science, qigong, and falun gong is based on more extensive analysis in Breathing Spaces: Qigong, Psychiatry, and Healing in China (Columbia University Press 2003).