What some are saying

I'd be remiss to write about Qi Gong and not mention the fact that some in the world of science have grave doubts about the real powers of Qigong.  When I did a recent SIRS search, I came across several articles that mentioned Qigong only in the context of "faith healing" and "placebo effect"--that is, these articles claim that Qigong works (and they do admit that it works) only because those who are using it believe that it will work, so that the curative powers reside in the believe him or herself, not in the actual Qigong activities. 

It's worth noting that many of these articles--the skeptical ones--come from science reporters, not scientific researches.  I need to do some more searching to see what the scientific literature (rather than popular science) says about this, to see if any real tests have been done.

But on another level, since Qigong is very much about controlling the mind (and, by controlling the mind, controlling the flow of Qi which, in turn, improves the body's health), then "faith" is, to some extent, what's being described.  Can a skeptic get the benefits from qigong exercises that a non-skeptic gets? I doubt it. 

The root problem here is that qi is not observable or measurable.  It's not like blood or cholesterol or something that can be seen in a microscope.  Health, of course, CAN be measured.  We can tell is someone is better or not better.  Can we be sure that a person gets better because the flow of qi is improved? I'm not sure; I need to search the literature about this.  I suspect that this can't be proven in the same way that we can prove that germs cause illnesses.

But what do we make of the fact that the Chinese have been using these theories as the basis for their medicine for many, many centuries?

This is where it gets complicated. 

I'll see what I can find about scientific tests involving Qi.