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Approved For Release 2000/06/1 #26) AURD gs -6073 ad0300400002-9 Introduction Far East, and especially China, have preserved to this days many useful skills and practices, developed and perfected over millennia, that only now are gaining recognition in the West. Not long ago a report about achieving, by means of inserting skin- deep a few tiny needles into the patient's body, a sufficient degree of anesthesia required to perform appendectomy would meet with laugh and total disbelieve. Yet, at present, nobody laughs at acupuncture any more. This ancient art of healing is slowly but steadily gaining world-wide replication even though we are still far from the full understanding on how and why it works. Over a decade now has passed since China emerged from the disasters of the cultural revolution. With a gradual departure from the strict doctrine and the rigid traditional view-point, China moved toward a more open society. With the mechanism of repression eased, people who once feared to show their unusual abilities are more open in their practices. Those in turn, uncensored by the media, lead to new discoveries and stimulate public interest. By the end of the 1980s there were already some 20 million Chinese practicing qigong. Most of them working towards small improvements of their mental and physical health with modest but noticeable degree of success. There is however a handful of well-known qigong masters displaying well documented abilities that are indeed beyond anyone's comprehension. At 2 Approved For Release 2000/08/11 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000300400002-9