Hongchi Xiao, the ‘slapping therapy’ healer convicted over two deaths
Published By admin with Comments 0
Over the decades, juries at the imposing crown court in Winchester, Hampshire, have heard all kinds of extraordinary stories.
Few can have been quite as strange as the twisty tale of Hongchi Xiao, a Chinese-born banker turned “master” of alternative medicine who, by his account, learned a long-forgotten method of self-healing, paida lajin, from kung fu masters and hermits and spread the message across the world, attracting millions of followers.
His disciples see him as a guru, a revolutionary; his critics believe he is a dangerous fraud who enjoyed the acclaim and power that paida lajin, “slapping therapy”, afforded him.
Xiao was born in China, the son of a “western medical doctor” and an electrical engineer. He studied finance in Beijing and the US, and worked in banking in New York and Hong Kong. He also claims to have helped design the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
At the age of about 40 he decided he wanted to do something more meaningful with his life than making money, and embarked on “a quest” to learn from masters of ancient Chinese medicine.
He says he travelled for up to seven years, learning techniques from kung fu masters, hermits, farmers and fishers in what he called the “faraway” mountains of China, and came upon paida lajin, which he says is a form of self-healing, a “precious gift” bestowed on humans by God but abandoned in favour of modern “western” medicine with its “toxic” side-effects. “We are our own best doctor” is a basic tenet.
The technique, which he says can be picked up in minutes, has two elements. Paida involves the use of hands or paddles to repeatedly slap parts of the body to “enable smooth energy flow” in the meridians (energy channels in the body), while lajin is stretching the limbs and joints to aid the energy flow.
Xiao claims that practising paida lajin boosts qi (vital life energy) and blood flow, enhancing self-healing power.
Content retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jul/26/hongchi-xiao-slapping-therapy-paida-lajin.
