A Review on Experimental Research of External-Qi of Qigong

As one part of basic scientific research on Qigong, experimental research on external-Qi came to a climax in 1980’s, and gave rise to more general attention in society. A review of experimental research on external-Qi in the past 10 years is made and about 170 experiments were done which involved external-Qi. The paper points out that in view of experimental science, an affirming conclusion of the objective existence of external-Qi can not be reached yet. But not affirming does not mean denying. Regarding research, a subject that is not affirmed by experimental science might belong to pre-science, or science that is not realized by people yet, or pseudo-science; but not affirming does not mean it must belong to pseudoscience only. Thus the above experiments can not give enough bases to affirm the existence of external-Qi only, but there are not enough experimental bases to deny the existence of external-Qi either. Then the paper raises 2 definitions of external-Qi and 5 measures to advance experimental research on external-Qi. One definition is that external-Qi is one kind of biological acting force sent by well-trained Qigong practitioners onto the things out of the body without touching. The 5 measures include applying double-blind principle, advocating multi-control experiments, doing error analysis, describing the operational process is in the reports,encouraging repetition done by different experimental technicians in different laboratories,etc.