Spontaneous qigong practice & possession

[Fatuous]

I'm practicing a certain form of spontaneous qigong that was transmitted to me by my instructor. (Not 5 Animals.) It's got 5 sections and a ritual to kick off each section that includes my hands in a certain position and saying a couple intonations & chinese words in my head. Different hand positions & words for each section. Spontaneous qigong involves letting go and allowing the qi to move the body, as opposed to intentionally moving the qi around. I always feel a release, unburdened, clearer, lighter after each practice.

 

Last night during meditation I felt a strong compulsion to practice my qigong (normally I do this in the morning). The full moon was rising, felt like holding my amethyst mala throughout, had done a big bike ride, and actually had already practiced the same qigong earlier in the day with a group and participated in a "group healing" (presumably included qi transmission as well as the instructor singing certain tones).

 

My practice last night was the strongest that I have ever felt in terms of the strength of body movements and sense of getting lost in the practice. At points, it bordered on scary to observe myself and the strength of my movements. In the first two sections I felt on the verge of ego death, losing myself completely. Normally each section ends gently on its own, but I felt so out of control and the practice wanted to keep going. I never felt unable to stop, but the feeling of stopping and interrupting felt strongly "wrong", so I allowed it to continue but did try to gradually slow myself down and assure myself that it was ok. I eventually starting speaking out loud to myself and repeated, "peace body [name]" where I addressed myself in third person. I mean - I addressed my "body" in third person... WTAF?

 

Often during the spontaneous qigong practice, my body does this gentle undulation of front-to-back where I imagine that maybe I am generating some sort of MCO. I dunno. But last night during the second and third sections, that undulation was borderline violent, like I was aggressively jumpstarting some sort of I don't know what. While the first and second sections were difficult to bring to a natural close, the third section just STOPPED after a period of pacing forward and walking backward.

 

In the fourth section, in which I often feel compelled to kneel, this time I felt kind of pushed backward via energy in chest / second dantian area, and then literally dove to the floor in kind of in a yoga cobra pose, and just laid there, completely still, for at least 5 minutes. That was what my body wanted. Felt nothing at first, and then the slow building of energy in my entire body, and then it was done and I knew it was time to get up. Again. WTAF?

 

The fifth section was pretty gentle, and usually is, and then drew to a slow and natural close.

 

I will not lie that the power and near loss of self (I refused to let go of the final thread of me) had me totally freaked out. Without going into tons of detail for now, I've also experienced some "weird stuff" this past year that I've had a hard time accepting. I've learned that I have a ton of fear built up around spirituality in general and am only now becoming open to other things beyond what my very recent agnostic-only beliefs allowed for. I am entering into qigong and spiritual practices with complete naiveté and openness and I realize this may be ill-advised. I have no experience or upbringing with spiritual matters and tend to lead with trust and sincerity.

 

So yes. I will be speaking with my instructor. But before I do that, I wanted to ask this group: 1) WTAF? but more importantly 2) Is there a spiritual danger in practicing spontaneous qigong? and 3) Is there a possibility that the gestures and phrases are somehow an invitation to enter me?

Edited September 21, 2021 by Fatuous

[Fatuous]

Would also like to append two things:

 

1 - I have been doing this qigong since the beginning of August. In July, during seated meditation one evening, I felt a strange compulsion that I should stand up and start moving around. So I did. For about 10 minutes, I kinda swayed around and moved around, kind of interpretive dancing. It wasn't very very strong and I didn't lose myself, but I definitely felt "something" and like something else was moving me. Tripped me the eff out a few weeks later when I took that very first qigong class and found that it was nearly identical to what I had "discovered" a few weeks earlier.

 

2 - The amethyst mala has the typical circle mala beads but also at the center, there's a large-ish carving of an animal creature. Guy at the shop wasn't exactly sure what, thought maybe a dragon (don't look like a dragon) and that he had gotten it in China on a trip awhile back.

 

Can't figure out how to add image, so put on Imagur. Thought it was interesting that there's a compass on its underbelly.

 

https://imgur.com/zk9gb4M

https://imgur.com/lxTrIgW

 

[Earl Grey]

@beingnature

[senseless virtue]

6 hours ago, Fatuous said:

I'm practicing a certain form of spontaneous qigong that was transmitted to me by my instructor. (Not 5 Animals.) It's got 5 sections and a ritual to kick off each section that includes my hands in a certain position and saying a couple intonations & chinese words in my head. Different hand positions & words for each section. Spontaneous qigong involves letting go and allowing the qi to move the body, as opposed to intentionally moving the qi around. I always feel a release, unburdened, clearer, lighter after each practice.

 

Can you name the style or the instructor?

 

 

6 hours ago, Fatuous said:

practiced the same qigong earlier in the day with a group and participated in a "group healing" (presumably included qi transmission as well as the instructor singing certain tones).

 

This could be a problem. Spontaneous qigong as a group means that each of you are creating a field of energy that occasionally interacts, which can lead to experiencing karma and emotional layers of others. There should be some mechanism in the style that shields from excess karmic entanglement. Psychological grounding is especially important also, more so than with other qigong methods. Group healings and qi transmissions have the same issue, so you would have to trust that you don't receive any unpleasant karma from the other person in exchange.

 

 

6 hours ago, Fatuous said:

1) WTAF? but more importantly 2) Is there a spiritual danger in practicing spontaneous qigong? and 3) Is there a possibility that the gestures and phrases are somehow an invitation to enter me?

 

1) There are different types of spontaneous practice. If you can't trust the process, then it's not good to practice. In any case, spontaneous practice is supposed to be a minor phase in balancing the energy-body: Spontaneous moving lasts few years at most and becomes completely inactive when your energetic balance is settled. You could ask your instructor how long he has been doing it and ask his opinion whether continuing 5+ years of spontaneous practice is alright in his opinion.

 

2) It depends on the style and its principles of the spontaneous practice. The basic tenet of all qigong is that the peacefulness and stillness of the heart-mind leads to good health and progress. If you don't have peace because of the spontaneous work, then you should reconsider what you are doing. I myself have experience with a spontaneous style that was corrupt, so I know very well that there can be bad consequences with flawed teachings.

 

3) If there are gestures and esoteric components in the practice, then it's pretty difficult to guess what is the intended working mechanism. Nevertheless, I find the possibility of getting into spirit possession or entity attachment in one's aura, which is easier to get, to be negligible. The threshold for actual possession is high and even entity attachments require that your aura is weak due to ethical breaches or substance consumption. The danger in flawed qigong practice does exist and spontaneous styles are especially susceptible: emotional trance states are bad in this regard.

 

I'm paging @freeform because his teacher has much experience in treating deviations in spiritual practice.

 

In the meanwhile, listen to your own heart. What do you want to do really? Long walks in lush nature and charitable activities among people could really nourish your inner harmony and help you ground better.

Edited September 21, 2021 by fool’s virtue

[freeform]

8 hours ago, Fatuous said:

1) WTAF? but more importantly 2) Is there a spiritual danger in practicing spontaneous qigong? and 3) Is there a possibility that the gestures and phrases are somehow an invitation to enter me?

 

Reading your report, I didn't come across anything out of the ordinary for spontaneous movement. No there's nothing entering or possessing you - it's all normal stuff

 

The full moon brings Yang Qi up - so it's no wonder your movements are stronger.

 

I went through all kinds of zifa gong movements (zifa gong is what this spontaneous method is known as).

 

It can be really quite strong and violent - everything from powerfull shaking, spasming, jumping, flailing around, sprinting at top speed... spinning in a circle for hours... also screaming, shouting, laughing hysterically, saying all sorts of stupid things or even spontaneously singing and reciting mantras.

 

This is all normal and expected. It's not possession or anything like that.

 

It's also pretty much just garbage coming out.

 

As in it's just stuff in your subconscious (the subconscious mind, but also the subconscious aspects of your body, Qi and emotional centre).

 

When Qi moves and starts hitting blockages in these areas, you'll tend to 'act them out'... sometimes it's body based, sometimes it's energetic, sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's mental...

 

It's not important - you simply let it do its thing... kinda like letting a fart out... it just takes a little while (up to a couple of years) to let it all out.

 

If things get too intense, you're right that you shouldn't try to stop it completely. Just soothe yourself a little... say shhhh, relax your mind, tell yourself 'calm down, relax, slow down, shhhh'.

 

There's nothing inherently spiritual or 'special' about this stuff. It's best to approach it with an attitude of humour, playfullness - and not treating it too importantly.

 

Don't let your focus, emotions or thoughts get too intense - don't indulge in experiences... if these things come up and you keep the above attitude of humour, playfullness and indifference, then they'll simply move through - if you do the opposite (indulge, treat them as important or special) then your mind will 'attach' to them - which is essentially a way to further solidify and entrench a blockage.

 

It becomes difficult when the Qi starts working on more energetic and spiritual blocks - because they inherently feel kinda special and very outside of normal perception... stuff like strange mantras, mudras, weird visions and feelings etc... that's when it's even more important to double-down on the humour and indifference. In my school we helped that along by teasing eachother

 

Eventually this all stops. All the outward madness calms down. The energy movement goes deeper inside... that's when the deeper work can begin

 

Hopefully the system you're practicing has more to it than the spontaneous movements. If people are doing spontaneous exclusively for more than a few years, it might be better to look at other options.

 

Otherwise, this stuff is great - it's pretty fun and it's one of the most efficient ways to clear out a lot of blockages really quickly. Enjoy the process and don't get too attached (remember it's a big, long fart - admittedly satisfying, rather exotic and fun, but a fart nonetheless)

[Fatuous]

Thank you so much to everyone for your thoughtful responses. This was super reassuring. My spontaneous qigong practice continues!