Chi Kung For Magicians Options

Which is the best form or school of Qi Gong, one that works well with a persons development as a magician?

Have been practicing yoga for a while now and its benefits are astounding, wasnt keen on Qi Gong as the slow movements seemed to go against my more firery temperament but after much back and forth regarding the benefits of the two, yoga and qi gong, someone said it... that Qi Gong teaches you how to manipulate energy, yoga dosent, at least not at all in the same way. Sounds glaringly obvious but it swayed my opinion which was one for the marriage of yoga and magick as the perfect matrimony, being able to open physically blocked channels and assume new positions marking the progress of development etc.

Surprised to read just how many variations of Qi Gong there are, some involving elements such as sound into things and so I thought I'd ask and get a better opinion on which form would go well with Magick, am looking into the Alchemy of Baguazhang...

Think this should be in the Eastern section, forum has been sloooooow recently, not even sure if anyone is around (IMG:style_emoticons/default/face08.gif)

Peace
.M.

Which is the best form or school of Qi Gong, one that works well with a person’s development as a magician?

I am a bit late to this but I have recently been going though the same sort of investigations so perhaps I might be able to help by presenting where I have been. I have been looking for a while so this is going to cover a good bit so just gloss over what sound irrelevant to you; it probably is. And I will start it with a joke.

“How many kung fu masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just one, but a hundred to tell him they do it different in their school.” Chi gong is energy skill, its just a skill, much like painting. There are thousands of styles of painting but its just painting. That being said if you like abstract art you probably don’t want to study classical figure drawing. Same goes for chigong. There are hundreds of schools, and finding one that fits is a bit hard.

…Surprised to read just how many variations of Qi Gong there are, some involving elements such as sound into things and so I thought I'd ask and get a better opinion on which form would go well with Magick, am looking into the Alchemy of Baguazhang...

Personally, I find Martial Arts chigong lacking in magickal potential. I have studied bagua chigong for several year now, and caution against expecting it to transfer to magick. Same with iron body, and many - not all – of the TaiChi chigong practices. With the exception of Taichi, martial arts chigong deals with jing and the type of chi that is on the “lowest wavelength”, as it is often described. That sort of chi is very useful for knocking stuff over and punching a whole in something but lacks the finesse of higher vibration chi. It also has the particular limitation of being very much linked to the body’s movements. Again chigong is chigong and the same skills you learn in one will prove moveable when you use it in magick, but you will first have to strip away the martial arts from your chigong, which will leave you with a very barebones sort of chigong. Bagua is a Taoist martial art so it will expose you to most of the energetic functions of the body but this is where you have to worry about “inner-door teaching”. You might consider if bagua (or martial arts) is the sort of thing you want to spend five or six year learning and then have to relearn it all again when you apply it to magick. Again this is just from experience, but I have learned many time what I did doing bagua chigong, by using other systems simply because they focus on moving energy while martial arts focus on how energy is used in a fight. For example, every posture in the old-eight palms form is a chigong posture, but none of them help with moving energy my will. They instead use focus and body posture to allow chi to sink and move to the palms. Doing it will help your overall health and aid in a fight but will leave out emitting, absorbing, circulating, cultivating, and transforming chi that I have found useful in magick.

If you’re interested in Alchemy I suggest looking in to Taoist internal alchemy (Bruce Frantzis is popular though his system is too slow for my taste) if you want the eastern way, or Franz Bardon’s energy system for the western view. I was rather surprised to find that his system is held in high regard by chigong practitioners. It is not strictly chigong, but is analogues and teaches the same things in a slightly different manner using different words.

Have been practicing yoga for a while now and its benefits are astounding,

And they will continue to do so. Chigong depending on who you ask is more or less an elaboration on yoga. Taoist chigong for example spends a lot of time working with the chakras. They are after all the set of most of our karma, and the gates/input/output/energetic sense organs of the body, and regulate many of the bodies other energetic functions. The Buddhists have developed a very particular system for working with them that is more meditational if that is you thing.

From experience, I found that the chakras are easy to work with and I keep coming back to them again and again. They also have the distinct advantage of producing Siddhis and the accompanying states of mind that aid in magick. The issue is it takes a very long time to develop the higher states using Hindu yoga. Tantric practices and esoteric Buddhism help speed this along by focusing on dissolving the blockages through focus which will draw active energy to break up the blockage. That under the name “water method” is what Bruce Frantzis along with a few Japanese styles of Buddhism teaches. Japanese styles of Buddhism are considered “fire method” though because the force through blockages.

In about the 90s, books came out by authors such as Mantak Chia, Yang Jwing-Yin, etc. They began to come out with some videos, but as it is today they are a mixed bag of useful and schlock. … Mantak Chia's books tend to be a bit dumbed down or oversimplified, but this is perhaps necessary with beginners. Most of his books cover the microcosmic orbit, a favourite basic exercise. I also like Bruce Kumar Frantzis and his books.

I really like Yang Jwing-Yin, who wrote a book on muscle/tendon changing & marrow /brain washing that is very helpful martial arts and basic practices to tonify chi. I never could read Mantak Chia, though I hear his videos are very useful intro.

There are some other good books that deal with the more magickal side of chigong. Shou-yu Liang and Wen-ching Wu wrote a book called “Qigong Empowerment” that covers medical, Buddhist, Taoist and martial chigong in great detail. Also, I would recommend reading up on Acupuncture and Medical Chigong because they focus on very discreet sets of exercises to get your chi healthy and flowing and do so for every one of the 30-some odd energy ways in the body. Mchawi, If you’re in good shape you might not need to deal with the medical chigong too much. It is useful for finding the Chi paths in the body which has other more occult uses, but I had to deal with medical chigong because my chi was stagnant do to a lot of cultivation that was not properly conducted.

There are exercises specifically to develop sensitivity, but generally speaking as your energy becomes stronger and healthier you become more sensitive to energy. Being able to sense energy is useful in many ways if only in building your confidence that you are actually doing something valid rather than just waving your arms and legs around.

Ha. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That is part of the reason why it is useful to have a teacher. You often have a hard time telling if you’re doing anything besides weaving around your hands. If you can find someone who has been doing chigong for about a year to practice with they will usually be sensitive enough to tell you if you at least on track or not.

By the by Goibniu, could you list some of the exercises? I have been trying to explain to a partner of mine how to tell the difference between chi and the effects of chi moving in the body.

Just about any school of Chi Kung will lead to competency if you apply yourself and learn the principles behind the practices. One particular school is not much better than any other in that regard, although some are more thorough than others. Ultimately to learn the full breadth there is no one tradition to study in that you will find concentrated in one place. In part this is due to the breadth of the practice itself, and in part it is because different teachers find themselves able to teach different skills.
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I have only had a single Chi Kung instructor proper, and she indicated to me that although there are many esoteric methods in many schools of practice, really the 'secret' teachings of Chi Kung boil down to daily practice allowing Chi to do what is in it's nature, and that if you practice keeping your energy unblocked, Chi can flow unimpeded, and will do those things because that is the nature of Chi. That our unhealthy habits are the product of blockages that confuse our instincts.

When there are no blockages, the Chi flows; when Chi flows properly, the body seeks harmony; as the body seeks harmony, our health improves; if we maintain this state, our chi will be more plentiful; plentiful chi leads to all manner of wonders.

Plentiful chi does bring wonders, but it is also useful to ask what that chi is doing. Most of the chigong courses and books available today deal with improving health, and some also deal with longevity. Having plentiful chi that circulates well will do both nicely. That is the easy part, and the chigong can benefit the practitioner in many ways but they will all manifest around the body, such as the case of chigong masters who shock people and can light things on fire, or the iron body master who can take a spear in the throat and break the spear. Coming from a back ground in western magick with the idea that magick should affect the cosmos and provide some gain in line with the users will, I’m not too interested in shocking people with chi. Rather, chigong for the occultist and magician, should provide a entrance to working with higher vibration energies. Chigong for acupuncture and healing (especially distance qi gong massage, though I have only herd of it from 600 year old books) help with this somewhat, but for my own practice I have found that magick as we think of it in the west is more associated with what a have herd called “making strange things happen”.

From my limited use of the Taoist system, Shengong or spirit skill is one of the systems that allow you to work with higher vibration energies directly. In particular shengong takes the principle that chigong functions on – that of the human body being a conduit for universal energy – and teaches uses for working inside of that energy to accomplish some task. These tasks are often very esoteric like harmonizing with change and finding the Dao within and meeting the Dao without, but they can be as practical as constructing magick talismans for all the sorts of things we often do in the west, and changing the weather, seeing the future and altering your “destiny”.

I have only found two authors who talk about this. Fromnm the Taoist side of things a man named Jerry Alan Johnson has produced many, many very good works, but they assume at least intermediate level of chigong and a strong foundation on Taoist energetic anatomy. His books aren’t much help unless you are there already but if you’re interested in it will provide a very versatile system of magick based almost entirely on energy manipulation. The other author is a Frenchman named Francois Lepin who uses a basically intact system of kuji-in and Majutsu that comes out of esoteric Buddhism and Taoist alchemy (the Buddhist and Taoists steal for each other alot) and mixes in a good dose of Japanese style magick. You will find kuji-in talked about in some other books but as far as I have found he in the best author in English. This system is not a complete system so to speak, more of an application of the Siddhis developed as you work with your chakras. You can study it on its own and use Majutsu to supplement your other magick or practice it with chingong and drop the Majutsu part. Either way it will help resolve karma and develop a key part of your energy system. It was described to me, that is the relationship between magick and chigong/yoga as the same as between an engine and a steering wheel. Magick is all about the steering while chigong and other energy development systems are like the engine. You can be a great driver but if your driving a tricycle then you'll not get very far. The more about energy you learn the better car you drive.


Do hope this helps and good luck.

Personally, I find Martial Arts chigong lacking in magickal potential. I have studied bagua chigong for several year now, and caution against expecting it to transfer to magick. Same with iron body, and many - not all – of the TaiChi chigong practices. With the exception of Taichi, martial arts chigong deals with jing and the type of chi that is on the “lowest wavelength”, as it is often described. That sort of chi is very useful for knocking stuff over and punching a whole in something but lacks the finesse of higher vibration chi. It also has the particular limitation of being very much linked to the body’s movements. Again chigong is chigong and the same skills you learn in one will prove moveable when you use it in magick, but you will first have to strip away the martial arts from your chigong, which will leave you with a very barebones sort of chigong.

It's hard for me to say that it is at all universal, but I found that transferring the skill from martial arts to higher energy work to be very easy. But, I've been told that if you teach me how to build a box I can build a house. However, I believe that in most traditional martial arts environments the 'external' is taught first largely because it teaches us to more completely integrate our chi with our bodies. In bagua, for instance, chi is lead through the use of posture, etc. But, what the student is ultimately learning is to lead with intention and not willpower. Leading the chi with one's intention should be as easy as directing chi by assuming a posture. In martial arts, this understanding is carried through from the external arts to the internal arts, and thence into more esoteric meditation practices (though, not in many schools these days will you find a complete program of this nature).

Then, in a way, instead of stripping the martial arts away from your chigong, you are instead integrating the movements of the mind, body, and spirit towards one unified goal. But, I do not believe that they have to be taught in this order, though there is something unique to be gained from any direction.

Coming from a back ground in western magick with the idea that magick should affect the cosmos and provide some gain in line with the users will, I’m not too interested in shocking people with chi. Rather, chigong for the occultist and magician, should provide a entrance to working with higher vibration energies. Chigong for acupuncture and healing (especially distance qi gong massage, though I have only herd of it from 600 year old books) help with this somewhat, but for my own practice I have found that magick as we think of it in the west is more associated with what a have herd called “making strange things happen”.

Yes, and I think that is what westerners have been most interested in finding through Chi Kung. A fascination with material miracles. Not that other cultures don't have similar myths, but I really do blame Jesus for that...

In any case, I have understood the nature of Chi to be one that increases connection, as it were, and communication. In the body proper it can strengthen the integrity of tissues and increase the communication between the parts of the body - but also communication between the body, mind, and spirit, and further from body to body, mind to mind, and spirit to spirit. If the 'space' allows for Chi to cultivate and grow, then this increased communion and connection arises naturally. Not that it cannot be guided in that direction purposefully, of course. But the principle is simply that with a decent foundation, a student can go far with little instruction by following their Chi, as it were. It is in it's nature to reach this state of communion and connection, and if the student learns to be aware of that nature and to follow it even passively, I believe those higher energy elements can be explored from a foundation of even more physical chi kung. However, I think that wherever you get the foundation, as long as you get to the point that you can be aware of your Chi, and develop the patience to follow it, with diligence you will ultimately reach many of the same esoteric practices and uses that are included in the more magical traditions of chi kung.

peace