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Do you dare to believe it? There is someone who claims to be able to intercept missiles with his mind and can extinguish forest fires with just a little "exercise." This person is Yan Xin, a qigong master who swept the whole of China in the 80s of the last century.
He amassed countless fortunes with his "miraculous skills", threatened to become a professor at Tsinghua University, specializing in the study of special functions, and later met with the President of the United States, and the name of the master is famous all over the world.
Who is Yan Xin? What is his "miraculous skills"? Where is he now?
Qigong heat
When young people today hear the word "qigong", most of them will scoff at it, because they know that the so-called "qigong" is nothing more than a charlatan trick in a vest, and it can only be regarded as a magic trick if it breaks through the sky.
Nowadays, people have such a clear understanding of "qigong" thanks to the popularization of compulsory education and the government's spare effort to break superstition and disseminate scientific ideas.
But in the 70s and 90s of the last century, the nationwide mass upsurge in learning and practicing qigong became the theme of that crazy era.
Of course, there is a universal connection between things, and when looking at the historical phenomenon of "qigong fever", it should be discussed in a comprehensive and connected way, because in the context of the Cold War, the entire human world was caught in a frenzied pursuit of special functions.
In 2017, under the influence of the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA released nearly 930,000 top-secret documents, including a Stargate project that had been secretly carried out for 20 years since 1970.
In the 70s of the last century, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was in full swing, and in order to bring down the other side, the United States and the Soviet Union had all kinds of strange tricks, insidious moves, and dangerous tricks emerged one after another, and the study of superpowers was the extreme product of the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
According to the contents of the declassified archives, at that time, the CIA searched for superpowers all over the world, including but not limited to wall penetration, stealth, thousands of miles of remote sensing, mind reading, etc., and some scientists participated in it, conducted various superpower tests, and also set up superpower units to carry out special operations against Soviet military bases.
In contrast, the Soviet Union was also conducting superpower research at the same time, and for this purpose a Unit 10003 was also established, which was composed of so-called superpowers, with extremely high levels of authority and secrecy.
Under the influence of the two superpowers, the whole world has entered a crazy "superpower era", but all countries that can be called are conducting superpower research, and many extreme cults have emerged during this period, such as Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, and the tragic subway sarin incident.
With the world caught in a frenzied pursuit of superpowers, it is not difficult to understand the rise of "qigong fever" in China.
The study of qigong in New China did not begin in the 70s.
As early as the fifties of the last century, Liu Guizhen, the first president of the former Beidaihe Qigong Sanatorium, integrated the ancient Chinese exercises such as breathing, guiding, meditation and health preservation, and named it "Qigong".
At that time, "qigong" was similar to the daily meditation of Buddhism and Taoism, and was essentially a way of relaxing the body and mind, meditating and recuperating the mind, and was not dyed with mysticism.
After President Liu Guizhen reported this set of "qigong" to the Ministry of Health, it was also commended by the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Health immediately promoted the "qigong" exercise compiled by Liu Guizhen to the whole country, with the intention of enhancing the physical fitness of the whole people, just like today's broadcast gymnastics.
However, as the number of people practicing "qigong" increases, people's hearts become mixed, and naturally those with evil intentions have tampered with the essence of "qigong" for their own selfish interests, making this nationwide upsurge of the masses learning and practicing qigong in a bad direction.
Fortunately, with the nationwide campaign to eliminate superstition in the mid-60s, qigong was completely banned, and those pseudo-qigong that swaggered and deceived disappeared.
It was not until the mid-to-late 70s that some "scientific experiments" with unknown truth and falsehood led to a new round of "qigong fever".
It is said that at that time, through instrument testing, it was found that those "superpowers" would have infrared, far-infrared, ultraviolet rays, and particle streams with specific information when they were exercising.
Some scientific researchers and qigong enthusiasts were ecstatic to the discovery, and immediately combined qigong with traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts, believing that qigong function had promoted a great revolution in medical science and biology.
As soon as the results of the study were made public, they immediately caused a social sensation with the help of the news media, successfully setting off a second wave of nationwide qigong craze, and the bulls, ghosts, snakes, and gods who had been suppressed in the past also made a comeback.
The crazy wave is coming, and at this time in Chongqing, a college student doctor is trapped in clinical work day after day, and he is at a loss for a future that can be seen.
At this time, he didn't know that the wealth of the sky was pouring towards him, and his name was Yan Xin.
Contemporary Jigong - Yan Xin
Yan Xin was born in Jiangyou, Sichuan, because he grew up in the temple, Yan Xin was exposed to the monks since he was a child, and he has a good understanding of Buddhist practice and traditional Chinese medicine.
It's a pity that the master in the temple taught him the means of healing, but he didn't temper his heart, so that he really became a doctor who hung a pot to help the world.
With the rise of qigong craze at the end of the 70s, Yan Xin, who was working at the Chongqing Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine at the time, saw many "qigong masters" earning a lot of money by opening a museum, so he had evil thoughts and wanted to make a profit.
But Yan Xin is just an ordinary doctor with no name, even if he calls himself a "qigong master", no one will necessarily believe him when he says it.
It just so happened that there was a monk named Shi Hai Deng in Jiangyou, Sichuan at that time, who was not only proficient in Buddhism, but also a Shaolin martial arts, and the world respected him as "Master of Hai Deng".
Under the wave of qigong fever, the martial arts of Master Hai Deng are also packaged as a kind of qigong intentionally or unintentionally, and many people come all the way to Jiangyou just to learn from him.
And Yan Xin took advantage of the convenience of the building near the water to successfully worship the master of the sea lantern.
Of course, we have no way of knowing whether Yan Xin learned real kung fu by the side of Master Hai Deng, but the golden sign of "Master Hai Deng" can be regarded as a successful acquisition by him.
Immediately afterwards, Yan Xin began to walk the rivers and lakes in the name of "the disciple of Master Hai Deng", and in order to quickly accumulate fame, Yan Xin began to promote his "qigong" to cure diseases and save people.
For ordinary people, compared to King Kong is not bad or perspective through the wall, the medical skills of rejuvenation are more attractive.
Every time he saw a doctor, Yan Xin would pretend to "exercise his skills", falsely claiming to use external qi to treat patients, and some patients temporarily recovered under Yan Xin's psychological cues, and Yan Xin used this as an example to hype up his "qigong" for treatment.
Time came to 1984, after a period of publicity, Yan Xin became famous in Sichuan under the name of "Qigong Doctor", and "Sichuan Workers Daily" came to interview Yan Xin.
By 1985, well-known magazines such as "Sports Lovers" and "Qigong and Science" also reported on Yan Xinqi, and Yan Xin became a well-known existence among qigong enthusiasts across the country.
In the same year, Yan Xin was invited to Beijing, and took the opportunity to get in touch with Zhang Zhenhuan, chairman of the Chinese Qigong Scientific Research Association, and several professors at Tsinghua University who were interested in qigong.
In order to explore the scientific basis of Yan Xin's qigong, these professors dragged him to Tsinghua University to carry out experiments on the so-called external qi changing the molecular structure.
Although the results of the experiment were not made public at that time, this experience enabled Yan Xin to obtain capital comparable to Tsinghua University, which became another signboard for his swagger.
After the trip to Beijing, more news media reported on Yan Xin's deeds and special functions, and under the media publicity, Yan Xin was even called "contemporary Jigong", and truly reached the level of household name.
In order to cater to the new "qigong market", Yan Xin has also expanded its business scope.
After the forest fire broke out in the Daxinganling Mountains in May 1987, Yan Xin was actually invited to fight the fire, and what is even more outrageous is that Yan Xin claimed that he could intercept the atomic bomb with his mind, which frightened many qigong enthusiasts.
At the beginning of the reform and opening up, people's ideological field was relatively chaotic, their ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood was not strong, and they were curious about the new things that were constantly emerging, so there were many qigong enthusiasts.
But with the advent of the 90s, many scientists and scholars began to crack down on counterfeiting on a large scale, and qigong faded from its mysterious aura, and Yan Xin was also pulled off the altar.
Pull down the altar
In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States halted the Stargate project and ended the exploration of special functions, and in the past two decades, the only result of the Stargate project has been to prove that there are no superpowers in the world.
At the same time, Chinese scientists were no longer silent and came forward to find out the truth of qigong.
For example, Zhang Hongtao, former director of the scientific research department of Tsinghua University, solemnly stated that the Tsinghua experiment mentioned by Yan Xin in the book "Yan Xin's Qigong Phenomenon" has nothing to do with Tsinghua University.
Professor Guo Hai, a senior engineer at the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Peking University, posted that Yan Xin's use of qigong to crush gallstones in vitro has not been confirmed by experiments.
Zhang Xiaowen, former president of Tsinghua University, revealed that in 1987, Yan Xin had the intention of becoming an honorary professor of Tsinghua University, and specially asked a Tsinghua professor to recommend him to Zhang Xiaowen.
So Zhang Xiaowen asked Yan Xin to fill out a letter of appointment in person and said: "I heard that you can move objects with your mind, and now the stamp is placed in my safe, if you can move the stamp out, I will issue you a letter of appointment." ”
Yan Xin's face was as earthy as the color of the earth, so he could only leave in a huff.
Under the fierce bombardment of a group of scientists and scholars, Yan Xin's mask as a "qigong master" was completely torn off, and his former supporters also abandoned him one after another.
Yan Xin, whose reputation was discredited at home, could only flee abroad in embarrassment and continue to use his "qigong" to fool the American people, not only publishing relevant articles in American magazines on many occasions, but also being received by US President Clinton.
But immediately afterwards, some Chinese scientists in the United States also encircled and suppressed Yan Xin's "qigong", such as the famous Nobel laureate Li Yuanzhe, who bluntly said at the young student meeting:
"In the United States, I have seen Yan Xin's electrical performance, he holds the wires at both ends of the light bulb in both hands, and the current passes through the light bulb, which is a parallel effect, and the current passing through the human body is very small, and his performance of changing the voltage is meaningless. ”
It can be seen that in front of real scientists, Yan Xin is like a circus clown, with nothing to hide.
In the mid-to-late nineties, as the central government issued a document to crack down on "pseudoscience", former qigong masters were either arrested and imprisoned or fled abroad.
Yan Xin, on the other hand, obtained a U.S. green card and went into exile before the iron fist of the law fell.
Today, the "qigong masters" of the past have long disappeared, and the intoxicating qigong of the past has also become black humor, which has increased laughter.
Although the qigong craze has gone away, that period of crazy history always reminds us that for a country and a nation, breaking superstition and pursuing scientific rationality is the right way in the world.
This article was originally written by "On History and the Present", and has been opened for the whole network to protect rights, and may not be reproduced without authorization, and infringement must be investigated.