Iliketurtles

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As a heads up Verdesi charged a bus load of people $10,000.00 USD each to meet John. He shows up at John's house unannounced with a busload of people. Can you imagine how disrespectful to John that would be? Last I heard he was charging absurd prices for basic qigong classes, with the promise of meeting real masters later on. Caveat Emptor.

I think what makes the most sense is to look for practices which have good hard evidence behind them which show they can accomplish more than a placebo effect. Otherwise how do we know if we aren't just doing interpretive dance movements, and filling our heads full of weird metaphysics some delusional old guy made up?

Certainly investigating a matter first hand would be ideal. Short of that though, bringing in a team of scientists and medical doctors who do their best to rule out fraud occurring and capturing it all on video is the best we can do. Video is important because it takes things a notch above personal testimony, as it allows us direct access to what the people present themselves saw and witnessed. The human memory is fallible, and the mind filters what it sees, selectively remembers things, bias is a very real thing. Video captures what happened, exactly as it happened. Certainly people are manipulated by false evidence and people are even convicted of crimes based on false evidence. This is a human limitation. It is important that we base our beliefs on the best evidence available to us, and that we constantly re-evaluate our beliefs based on the new evidence. We will never get it right 100% of the time, but it is important we do the best we can to be reasonable, and rational. Yes video can be doctored, but so too can personal testimony be false, and so too can all other forms of evidence be altered and faked. If you are trying to make the case that we cannot accept anything anyone says ever, or any evidence which backs up their personal testimony ever then I would think it would be very hard for such a militant skeptic to live a normal life in this society.

Earl I agree with you on the topic of mopai. Ask the mods to do something about it, maybe if enough people ask they will.

John said worldwide there were 10 others who had gone further than level 4, if that is accurate I could not say for sure. If he was wrong and there are thousands or tens of thousands of people like John I also couldn't say for sure. I can only speak to my experience, and that is we could have had a mopai retreat center now for all the money we've wasted chasing dead ends. As to us believing everything John said as gospel, if we found a new teacher that could offer a demonstration similar to what John did and his teachings contradicted John's we would change systems. "we will not invest any time in a system until we see some extraordinary evidence of chi "

John's instructions were to sit on the ground. Jim asked if it snowed or rained for many days what could he do to continue training. John suggested a grounding wire for such instances. The grounding wire does not go inside the body into any orifices. Some people connect a smooth chain to it and wrap the chain around a cushion and sit on that.

People have different experiences and learn different lessons from them. The lessons that I and others that I associate with have learned is there just aren't that many legitimate teachers and systems out there and that the one that we follow is very very very very very very very very very very rare. That's just my perspective on it but hey I can be wrong I've been wrong before. Maybe the reality of the situation is as you describe that these Masters see us coming a mile away, and pretend to be charlatans as soon as we get there to run us off that might be what is happening. Then maybe they can go back to their normal lives and be like phew... we dodged a bullet with those creeps. Unfortunately because of our bad round of luck investigating things of this nature we're going to stick with what we got until we find evidence of something better and we're not going to keep traveling and spending exuberant amounts of money on people who are rumored to be this and that when it turns out most of the time that they're really not. I fully understand your argument that teachers aren't required to do anything and that students are. You also have to understand that we aren't obligated to go invest our time money and energy into teachers who most of the time wind up being more loneman pai type nonsense.

Pretty please could you address the constant accusations of sticking wires into our anuses I think that's probably not appropriate and as far as I'm concerned that's definitely trolling. If you guys could address that, it would be very much appreciated.

I'm very glad that you've had a different experience than we have. I know that other people that I associate with have offered one of his students who posted a YouTube video demonstrating some abilities they offered him quite a substantial amount of money just to do a demonstration behind closed doors with no cameras rolling and no travel required and they were told no. So maybe he is legit and maybe he has his reasons for refusing such a demonstration but it looks really bad to me and it looks really bad to the rest of the people that I associate with. So best of luck with all that. One other thing nobody that I know of who practices mopai puts wires in there orifices. As to why we have to sit on the ground that was literally what John taught as a requirement I don't know what more to tell you on that.

That's one of many avenues that have already been explored.

I and others I know have spent more money than you would believe possible travelling and seeking out teachers only to be left with nothing to show for it. If you want to pursue that you are free to do so.

I think what you are driving at is ultimately there is no way to prove anything, because all evidence can be fabricated. In such an imperfect situation it makes sense to me to do the best you can, with the best evidence you have.

Going and seeing for yourself isn't always an option. John is dead, Jiang is dead, Jiang's students refuse controlled private demonstrations, so... Sometimes you have to rely on the best evidence available to you. The people I know only give demonstrations to skeptics if they think doing so might result in a serious seeker pursuing the practice, otherwise it is a waste of time, money and energy.

There is no such thing. There is only what John actually taught, and teachings that diverge from that.