GrandmasterP

Many thanks.

I've PMd our knowledgeable chum for further information. As posted previously my information such as it is is anecdotal, the two books are anecdotal. There is at least one research paper mentioning but not focusing on the MoPai and I await that with interest, there may be more so if anyone has links those would be most welcome. Thus far none of our knowledgeable friends appear able to identify the current temporal head of the JC 'continuing' MoPai by name. That is most surely a matter of record in Surabaya. Whilst we all have opinions and sometimes strong feelings on this subject, verifiable information is less easy to come by, hence my interest.

They don't make movies like that any more. Ahh such larks. ;-)

Yep, that would be my take on it too I guess. Was hoping maybe 3bob had another facet. He seems to have gone AWOL.

I'm the last person to be superstitious but I have heard from someone I trust, thus far; to be a reliable source that certainly one person offering MoPai branded snake oil in the west has come quite a cropper both physically and mentally. Now that's not to say his misfortune has come about as a result of what he was doing, simply to state what has apparently happened to one individual.

Which neigong is that OG? We offer healing at our centre as per website at my profile. The healers are always busy, it's free, donations accepted for charity. Always on the lookout for extra strings to the bow as it were.

Well if you circumscribe self... There it is... In the middle... Hence my puzzlement. Who is standing at the perimeter 'looking in at the circumscribed self? How? Why? And when is it time for bed?

You'd be lucky to come across any persons of restricted growth in Yoga class for the next couple of months, they mainly work in panto round his time of year. I dated one once, a happy if somewhat short liaison.

No way, I asked first.... How might one 'circumscribe self?'

The same lad was a keen vegetarian too. Loved his dogs, and was kind to his old mum. Just goes to show eh?

Hitler.

I supposed looked at that way it does seem a bit surreal but after a straight eight on a psychiatric ward twa**ing someone over the head with a stick feels darn good. Happy days.

Spirit guides can stick around for as long as they choose to do so and work with whichever medium they fancy. Some will work exclusively with one medium others might favour a small team of mediums. Now that's a contestable staement made by someone who is a semi pro ( I get paid ro do it when I do it but have a day job too) medium and at this point you are either on board or giggling. No worries. OK John Chang is or was a working medium, fact. He does standard medium tricks, he does spiritual healing, he works 'shock hands' and he comminicates with his spirit guide. At some point and foe some reason that spieit guide ceases to woek with John Chang who then aquires another spirit guide. That seems to coincide with Mr. McMillan and Mr. Danaos' time around JC along with that of the then young Aussie Andreas who is reported to have spent most of his times in Surabaya enjoying the social oppoetunities available locally. JC then either steps down from or is removed from the temporal leadership of the MoPai sect which subsequently divides into at least two factions both local to Surabaya with a gew followers wlsewhere around Java and Malaysia all of whom are wthnic Chinese and all from the same 'caste'. (Village-family mainland heritage groupings). Neither faction admits westerners. The chap who succeeds JC channels GM Liao JCs ex spirit guide and that section of the MoPai continues along with and in opposition to another faction based in a sports centre and chiefly consisting of younger MoPai who do not like the new leadership and wish for radical changes. Both the JC MoPai and the schismatic group cultivate a form of neigong with the schismatic younger element introducing changes to that. The MoPai is a spiritualistic sub sect within neigong cultivating their own forms of neigong. The mediums wiyhin MoPai woek as do mediums everywhere as did JC. No one needs to be a medium to become a MoPai you simply have to accept tha a spieit guide is the GM ans the temporal head of your branch of he MoPai channels said GM. What you do have to be to become a MoPai is ethnic Chinese with familial or caste relationship to said MoPai. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Cultivation is easier on the erse.

At a certain and popularist level that is quite true, however beyond reportage for a generalist audience , sometimes; a specialist technical-professional language is necessary. In my trade symbolic logic is the tool of choice, that is shorthand for thoughts when, to commit said thoughts into writing reams of paper and millions of words might be necessary and then only those who spoke that language would understand, whereas like symbolic math, symbolic logic is a universal language to those who can read it, irrespective of their 'mother' tongue ( a.k.a L1 in symbolic logic).

Up

I'm old school as far as MA concerned only took to it after I left the army and began nursing. Closest dojo to where we lived in London was Pa-Kua so I did that. It's down and dirty for sure and a young man's game competitively. Then Escrima came to London. Game over as far as I was concerned. No matter how big an opponent might be , unarmed; they are nary so big that they won't drop if one simply tw*ts them over the head really hard with a stick several times with a coup de grace delivered to the goolies. QiGong is a way of peace and health.

Nice boobs.

Of the two westerners who wrote books Mr McMillan is the one explicitly resistant to the spiritualism of the MoPai. I have posted Mr. McMillan's email address elsewhere ( at his invitation). As spirit guides are an integral part of the MoPai praxis then it is difficult to reconcile to what depth or extent Mr McMillan could fully engage with whatever it was JC chose to demonstrate to him. The analogy would be someone who rejected the concept and actuality of Qi attempting to learn QiGong with a view to teaching it to others. What is it that could be taught by such a person? Physical exercises at most.

Yes but in the context of 'self' how does that work?

Those were the days bro. Teetotal by upbringing first and raised in a very strict teetotal household. Tried boozing in the Army, didn't like it at all nor any of its toxic effects hence teetotal by choice this nigh on forty years past. I know what circumscribe means it was your concept of circumscribing the self. That's possibly quite profound. Do tell.......

The labourer is worthy of his hire and even teachers who did not formally charge students were seldom averse to receiving red envelopes containing thank you gifts. John Chang did not accept payment as his guide told him not do do so however he did accept a partnership in a business and his wealth grew from that. There's an old medium saying ... " If spirit wants you to work for spirit then spirit will feed you and your family". Nobody should ever begrudge a good teacher a fair living. Possibly the issue here is what it is that some of these self styled MoPai teachers in the west are actually teaching. They are all self-styled insofar as the on,y MoPai accredited teachers are MoPai and no westerner as far as I am aware is or ever was an admitted MoPai. Being an honoured guest or occasional student does not constitute , nor ever did; formal membership of that secretive and insular martial sect or its schismatic offshoots. The westerners who picked up a bit from JC only learnt that which he chose to demonstrate to them and much of that seems to have been parts of his 'stage' routine comprising mediumistic tricks. Jolly good tricks too and they have their place and use in mediumship but as far as serious cultivation guidance they seemed to be very partial. Hence Mr. McMillan and Mr Danaos have very different stories to tell. Both were shown certain things and some of those things were not the same things, westerners amongst the MoPai seem to have been audience to a show, a very limited and contextual show at that.

Grandmaster Chang on Tao..... "Not for talking... for LIVING!"

Our friends the Postmodernists did much the same, as does Chomsky, the superstring theorists and many others. Symbolic Logic exists by reason of the shortcomings of language. Greek, German and French are better languages to philosophise in than is English due to the wider choice of tense and concept terminolgy. Chinese ideograms are worse than useless for Western philosophising hence the schismatic nature of academic Sinology. Two sinologist = three translations plus several appendices with footnotes always longer than the journal article's original word count. Taoism cannot be communicated in the original ideographic forms to those brought up and encultured to interpret said ideograms, hence even less so in any English gloss on whatever interpretation anyone chooses to put on a text. That to me is its attraction, it is beyond language, hence truly-ironically transcendent.

'This is the way of the Tao' Is a self negating statement. The moment we seek to define Tao we are wrong and all else that follows is fanciful at best.