<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="74" > Nan Huaijin's "practice": non-objective practice, only deceptive subjective psychological experience</h1>
("Skeptical Explorer": This article gives up copyright and does not add originality, so that everyone can reprint it freely.) Reprints are also welcome. ）
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="69" > Nan Huaijin was never an academic, but a practitioner</h1>
Scholar Liu Zhaizhai recently wrote a passage in one of his headline questions and answers, which was an evaluation of Nan Huaijin's writings. He wrote very clearly:
"Because Mr. Nan never wrote for the sake of learning, not for the sake of research, not even for the sake of truth-seeking..."
What does this passage mean?
This means that Nan Huaijin is not a scholar in essence. Nor could he do it according to academic norms. The purpose of all his writings was to propagate the practice. Therefore, his articles are all aimed at "enlightening" people with a vision of cultivation and actively encouraging them to throw themselves into the embrace of metaphysical cultivation.
Nan Huaijin
It is precisely because Nan Huaijin has such a purpose, so his articles have a lot of intellectual wounds, and there are a lot of mysticism and supernaturalism. The reason why many cultural people denounced Nan Huaijin as a "liar" is because of the hard wounds of his knowledge, not to mention that so many mystical and supernatural elements abound - this is something that Nan Huaijin's fans cannot deny.
There is only one profound question, then:
Are cultivators all liars?
For example, there are many practitioners in history, such as Dharma, who is said to have "crossed the river with a reed." But this is impossible, it must be a kind of myth that the disciples have about him. But this mythological color helps people to increase their faith in Dharma. So, are Dharma's disciples a liar?
For example, there are many stories recorded in the Buddhist scriptures, which are not actually written by the Buddha alone, but were made up by monks throughout the ages. The purpose of their stories was to make more people believe, so they entrusted them to the mouth of the Buddha. So are they cheaters when they do this?
Nan Huaijin is a similar problem. In Nan Huaijin's writings, there are a lot of absurd things. What he met in the wilderness was the sword fairy, with a finger in his hand, a tree was split by the sword qi. What is to go behind the Yellow Emperor's mausoleum to drill a hole in the ground, walk thousands of kilometers of tunnels can also emerge from the other half of the earth. What "prehistoric civilization" invented the "Five Elements of Yin and Yang"... This series of bizarre claims is actually a "narcotic" deliberately given by Nan Huaijin in order to attract metaphysical enthusiasts to join the practice.
Practitioners
Metaphysical enthusiasts are dissatisfied with this real world from the heart, because it feels that science has "suppressed" their dreams, and the world cannot do as it pleases. The more bizarre things are, the more popular they are. And Nan Huaijin carefully weaves a series of strange dreams for them, which is enough to make them intoxicated. As a result, the cultivators all believed in Nan Huaijin as the "Southern Master", and even if he had some knowledge and hard wounds, it would not harm his elegance.
Regarding Nan Huaijin, I have some explanation.
It is not that the "few" identify him as a "liar", but that the academic community basically does not recognize his standards. At that time, the publication of Nan Huaijin's works was for the needs of the united front, not for the sake of its level. Therefore, the editor-in-chief of the publishing house resigned in anger and protested against the above publishing decision. As far as I know, it is not that They all explicitly say that Nan Huaijin is a liar, but that they have a tacit understanding: once they encounter someone forwarding his article or video, they will be vigilant and respectful. Whether he studied literature or theory, he did not quite recognize Nan Huaijin's level.
The vast majority of those who support Nan Huaijin are a kind of "monk praise monk" mentality. You are a cultivator, I am also a practitioner, and everyone is a group. According to years of investigation, the people who support Nan Huaijin, from the level of faith, are mainly obsessed with metaphysics, and from the intellectual level, they are not highly educated, and they love to read "traditions" every day, but they have not been exposed to the writings of professionals. Even if they are exposed to, because the writings of rigorous professional scholars are devoid of mysticism and supernaturality, they are not attracted enough.
Liu Zhaozhai saw it very clearly, and he said: "The essence of Nan Huaijin's book is not 'guoxue' but 'Buddhism'; on methods, it is a self-imposed and opportunistic statement, which is very side-by-the-way; on the content, it despises the theory of zhongzheng and ease, and most of it is shocking and vulgar, and the remarks of 'superstition' are overlooked. His books, never pursuing impartiality, and even less seeking the truth objectively, are not suitable for entry into 'sinology' or even anti-'academic'. "The main point that Nan Huaijin attracts fans is not knowledge, but Buddhism. As long as Buddhism attracted them, it didn't matter what Nan Huaijin's academic level was.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="72" > Nan Huaijin's "practice": non-objective practice, only deceptive subjective psychological experience</h1>
People who are obsessed with Nan Huaijin also say that "the Southern Division is practicing", but I also pointed out that the so-called "practice" of Nan Huaijin is not "real". Because it does not follow a rigorous scientific research approach, it often falls into the illusion of self-deception. For example, Nan Huaijin said that he experienced "true qi, which is actually the physiological effect of somaticization that appears in his state of psychological suggestion." This physiological effect deceives the human brain, and Nan Huaijin is doing subjective experience. Due to his long-term paranoid obsession with the supernatural, his mental and physiological organ functions more and more away from the objective world.
There are many admirers of "NanShi" on the Internet who say that "Nan Huaijin's learning is empirically proven by practice, higher than science", but I want to tell you the truth: many practices or spiritual explorations similar to Nan Huaijin are dangerous, easy to cause mental illness, and this exploration has caused the illusion of temporal lobe lesions. Some religious transcendental sensations are actually these delusions, which are exemplified in psychiatry and brain science.
Beliefs in the non-objective world
For example, Nan Huaijin, it is said that he has practiced to the point of "feeling the flow of qi moving in the eight pulses of the Qijing". Many people who are superstitious about the "Southern Master" believe that the "air flow" of Qigong is real, which is the evidence that Nan Huaijin obtained through the "practice" of practicing physical practice.
But I want to point out the truth seriously: religious or metaphysical cultivation methods are not true practice. Because these methods belong to the subjective experience of the individual. Their feelings come from the physiological and psychological responses of the human body catalyzed by faith.
Judging subjective or objective is not based on personal feelings, but has strict conditions.
First, there must be a third party from a non-stakeholder involved in the evaluation. Does the Qigong Association evaluate whether Qigong has "external qi" and can it hold a fair and objective position? Without "external qi", the appeal of Qigong to enthusiasts will be greatly reduced, and the membership of Qigong Associations will be reduced, which is in their vital interests. Therefore, it must be done by a third-party institution with no interest in research and evaluation.
Second, judgments cannot be made from one's own standpoint. For example, if your beliefs are similar to those of someone, your judgment will inevitably be biased. For example, researchers at the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, if they themselves believe in a certain religion, they will have private purposes when researching, and they will not be able to achieve academic objectivity.
Third, it depends on whether the conclusions are verifiable. This verifiability cannot be any folklore, personal experience, personal physiological experience, or even the belief that "seeing is believing." Instead, it follows rigorous scientific methods and norms, and builds mathematical models with strict correlation on the basis of large-sample double-blind experiments, rejecting empiricism. And the conclusions of the experiment must be repeatedly verified by qualified authorities within the scientific community.
Obviously, the "true qi" that Nan Huaijin experienced was not within the scope of scientific norms, and it was not a real "practice." Without the "practice" of rigorous scientific experiments, we can only think of it as a personal subjective experience based on faith. There are many examples of this in psychiatry, psychology and physiological medicine. People's psychological cues can indeed produce physiological reactions, as long as they reach a certain intensity, psychological and physiological hallucinations will appear. I wrote in "Is Magical Qigong Real? Presence of external gas? Finally settled" article lists a large number of examples, there is a typical case:
A research institute once designed an experimental scenario in which an unsuspecting female patient was "treated" by a researcher posing as an "authority in the field of qigong", who said to the patient that you were pregnant. In fact, the woman was not pregnant. When the woman heard the news of her pregnancy, she immediately felt a violent pregnancy reaction in her body, and then her stomach bulged day by day. I went to the pregnancy test report and found that the progesterone index on the report sheet was also very high. Later, the researchers told the woman that you weren't pregnant, and soon her pregnancy reaction disappeared without a trace, and her stomach went down. Then do the blood test, and all the indicators on the report are restored to their original state!
In scientific terms, the response of mental changes in the body is called somatization. The reason why Nan Huaijin and Zhu Qingshi have the feeling of "true qi" is essentially due to the phenomenon of somatization caused by their own strong psychological suggestions, which can also be said to be a kind of self-hypnosis. This state can lead to hallucinations that they want to achieve in their beliefs. The so-called "faith is there" is this truth.
Zhu Qingshi
I talked to a researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences about the so-called "true qi" and "supernatural experiences." Many professionals study Nan Huaijin's experience as an objective phenomenon and analyze it from a physiological point of view. In fact, the reason why many Qigong practitioners eventually develop mental illness is because Qigong is essentially a psychological cue therapy with national characteristics, and if the practitioner does not operate properly, it will artificially induce mental patients. Although some people know the dangers in advance, because there is no "safety standard" for meditation, the probability of "deviation" is still very large. "Deviation" is the fire in the category of Qigong, which in medicine refers to mental illness.
So, why is it that "practice" such as qigong is so easy to fall into the magic? This can be illustrated from a psychological and medical point of view. Scientifically, Qigong cultivation is making self-psychological suggestions, similar to "hypnotherapy." This is consistent with the "brainwashing" of MLM. To achieve the effect of hypnosis, there must be two prerequisites:
The first is absolute cooperation. The second is very much believing.
For example, if Nan Huaijin did not believe in mysticism at the beginning, and did not believe in anomalies such as qigong and special functions, it would not be easy for him to enter the hallucination. Mysticism and science, logic, and reason are mutually exclusive, and once a person masters science, logic, and reason, he will naturally have doubts about mysticism, so that when he experiences "true qi", he cannot be distracted. That is, there is no silence.
Please note strictly that all religious practices emphasize the word "jing". Usually in the form of "meditation" and "concentration", all of his spiritual power is injected into the guanguan. Psychology and medicine prove that a person in an too quiet environment will have a high probability of leading to mental hallucinations, and people who often do this experience will get mental illness. The famous psychologist, the Swiss Carl Gustav Jung, pointed out that meditation can lead the subconscious mind into confusion. Why is that? It has to do with the evolution of man. The history of human civilization is actually very short, about 10,000 years. In prehistory, humans had millions of years of tragic experiences of wrestling with nature, and poisonous snakes and beasts and natural disasters could easily take human lives. A primitive person often faces various life and death tests of survival, which can be described as hungry and precarious, because the great power of nature is powerful and unpredictable in his eyes, he causes great psychological pressure in this harsh environment, and the subconscious has hallucinations, fantasizing about all kinds of invincible supernatural forces in the world. After human beings entered the era of civilization, due to more and more conquests of the natural world and more and more objective factors of human contact, this primitive subconscious was suppressed. But because of the transmission of genes, seeds cannot be completely eliminated. Once humans enter the spiritual world of overly focused meditation, the illusions experienced by the ancestors in the subconscious are stimulated. Hallucinations lead to physiological phenomena in humans. This is also the reason why some practitioners in India always say that they can communicate with "gods".
Some people believe that the universe and life sciences need "practice" to understand, which is whimsical. For example, a meditation method of Nan Huaijin is actually by controlling the breathing rate and changing the concentration of carbon monoxide in the body, causing hallucinations in the human brain. The quieter the hallucination, the more it induces and exacerbates this hallucinatory effect. Hallucinations are not a pathway to understanding the universe and the life sciences, and can only lead to high-risk mental illness. Modern science has limited explanations for some phenomena, but the method path is correct, as long as it accumulates over time, the truth can be solved, and we cannot be superstitious about the so-called subjective "practice" and "empirical evidence" because we cannot explain all the phenomena for the time being. In fact, science has long explained human physiological phenomena clearly, strictly proving that there is no "external gas" in the human body, and some people understand the long-confirmed pseudo-science of "human life science" as a mysterious "unsolved mystery", so that they are superstitious about "practice" other than the scientific method. If you take the wrong path, you can only go further and further wrong, deviating more and more from the truth.
Practicing Qigong also follows the basic principle of "quietness". All Qigong places great emphasis on keeping the practice process quiet, and the practitioners should be undistracted and immerse themselves in the whole mind and body. They can perceive that "true qi" "flows" in some parts, which is a psychological illusion.
But if they originally did not believe that Qigong had "external qi", even if they practiced intensively, they would not experience "true qi". This is the effect of people's "preconceptions". Let me give you an example: Some people look up at the sky and say that a cloud in the sky resembles a bodhisattva. This is the "preconceived" belief of these people that "a bodhisattva is what it looks like", so they believe that the clouds are like bodhisattvas. It can be said that it is determined that "the bodhisattva is like this" in the front, and that "the clouds are like the bodhisattva" in the back. If they had never been exposed to the teachings of Buddhism in their lives and did not know bodhisattvas, they would naturally not have uttered such a parable. Similarly, Qigong practitioners originally believed that there must be "external qi", and since they admitted the existence of "external qi" in advance, when they practiced, psychological cues would catalyze psychological and physiological reactions, allowing them to experience the flow of "true qi" in the meridians. So they mistakenly thought, "I'm doing this."
Pseudo-practice
So why does psychological cues lead to this pseudo-psychological and physiological response?
According to psychological and medical explanations, human beings have evolved eight senses, including the five most basic physiological sensations of hearing, smell, taste, vision, and touch. These feelings point directly to the outside world, mainly to perceive what the outside world is like. These five senses provide 95 to 96 percent of the information to the human brain. But in addition to these five basic feelings, there are three other senses, but they point to the inside of the human body, including the sense of body, the sense of balance, and the sense of internal organs. For example, when humans are hungry, frail, sickly, and seasick, these three feelings can be felt. These three sensations are called "dark feelings" by psychologists. Scientists have shown that these sensations can be simulated when properly induced. A person who is in a state of non-concentration, non-meditation will not experience them unless they are hungry or sick and motion sickness. But if a person does focused meditation, brain neurons emit simulated signals that trigger this otherwise unclear "dark feeling." The so-called "true qi" is the impetus of people's illusory feelings that are not clear in the original body. In the final analysis, the "qi induction" of Qigong practitioners originates from artificial inducements to physiologically illusory feelings, which are not real, but the more this sensory experience, the more likely it is to produce mental illness. Some research data show that the longer qigong is practiced, the greater the danger.
In fact, in addition to concentration and meditation, there are other ways to induce people to enter into hallucinations. For example, specific images and sounds can be done. Psychologist Jung believed that these elements could induce practitioners into psychological illusions, which they thought were "communicating with God." For example, in some remote village, a person suddenly plays the role of a deceased person, who seems to have a clear understanding of the deceased's situation and is considered to be "reincarnation". This is first of all the remoteness of the mountain village and the superstition of people, this person originally believed in "reincarnation", and after being stimulated by certain images and sounds, he would have mental hallucinations. There are also some professional wizards, who are not just "pretending", they have been exposed to mystical culture for a long time, there have been fission and deformity of personality, and they have been unable to distinguish between reality and subjectivity. Foreign researchers call them patients with dramatized personality disorder, and they can no longer distinguish between true and false, and will play another role at any time. They are also artificially induced mental illnesses.
It can be said that Nan Huaijin's "practice" is completely a self-deception style, this set can only fool his followers, for the real scientific literacy, at a glance, you can see that his "practice" is neither rigorous nor relevant, and there are flaws everywhere. His personal practice is a worthless pseudo-practice that has nothing to do with practice in the true scientific sense. His set of religious practices is definitely not a true practice, but a subjective psychological experience. Many medicinal hallucinogens and psychological hypnosis can also achieve the kind of spiritual experience that Nan Huaijin calls. What is true practice? It is to design a set of rigorous verification systems according to strict scientific norms, rather than playing a seat and tuna a few times is called practice. People who are obsessed with cultivation are often in this subjective state, they cannot correctly recognize themselves, and they mistakenly regard the psychological suggestive effect as "practice."
As for touting Nan Huaijin's "erudition", it is not worth a damn. The key to learning is not whether it is "erudite", but in knowing how to find the right knowledge, the right understanding of knowledge, and the right creation of knowledge. It is not to read hundreds of miscellaneous books of good and bad, and then to pull a bunch of them, to move hard, and to force them to be called powerful.
People and categories, Nan Huaijin and these fans he has, this is the "right" and "right symptomatic", this is the market demand.
From a sociological point of view, when a dominant belief in society recedes, other beliefs will inevitably emerge to fill people's spiritual needs. Even if there is no South Huaijin, there will still be North Huaijin and East Huaijin. This is a chaotic era of fierce competition of faith, and confused Chinese people are eager to "gain" because they have "lost" too much. Mysticism happened to invade strongly at the low tide of the old faith, under the banner of "reviving Sinology", and hit it off with those who longed for it, and eventually won a large part of the market.
Author: Skeptical Explorer