Did The Qigong Master Really Materialize Herbs That Cure Cancer From The Palms Of Her Hands?

Unpublished Excerpt From Sacred Medicine

DISCLAIMER: Some of what I thought I witnessed and experienced during ten years of researching my book Sacred Medicine was so out there, “woo,” and mysterious- and some of the healers I worked with turned out to be so corrupt- that I wound up cutting huge swaths of my original manuscript from the final draft of my published book. As part of educating myself about what else had been written about energy healing and spiritual healing, I had read about 50 books (like this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one.)

Most of the books I read seemed full of hard to believe stories with little to no scientific rigor, medical evidence to back up the claims, or even the healthy skepticism and critical thinking one would expect from anyone with intelligence writing about such a controversial topic. (This is why I was so impressed when I read Jeffrey Rediger, MD’s Cured, Kelly Turner, PhD’s Radical Remission, Shamani Jain, PhD’s Healing Ourselves, and William Bengston, PhD’s The Energy Cure- because these authors had either medical degrees or PhD’s and all at least tried to apply critical thinking, healthy skepticism, and whatever science that lends itself to studying something so unscientific.)

The majority of the books I read were written by people who are energy healers themselves and seemed to have whatever skepticism they might have had blinded by what seemed to be a series of personal agendas- to promote energy healing as a legitimate alternative to conventional medicine, to improperly and manipulatively use pseudoscience to trick people without much real scientific understanding, and to make money and gain power for themselves. I came away from reading most of the books out there and perceived them largely as grandiose advertisements for energy healing, without the scientific rigor or healthy skepticism required to write anything actually trustworthy.

Once the idolized Oprah-endorsed and Omega Institute-endorsed alleged “psychic surgeon” João Teixeira de Faria (“John of God”) wound up in jail for 9 rape convictions and 500+ unlitigated allegations of rape and sexual assault, and once the truly horrifying 2021 John of God documentary on Netflix came out, I felt really grateful that I had only mentioned John of God as a cautionary tale in Sacred Medicine, rather than participating in validating, legitimizing, and promoting him (and potentially unwittingly participating in getting innocent victims raped) the way people like Oprah had done. I felt like I dodged a bullet- but just barely. I got bamboozled by some other healers whose spell I fell under, but I never quite made it to Brazil. It wasn’t because I was too smart to be vulnerable to his abusive mob boss, sexually abusing shenanigans. I could have been conned too by someone like him. I was vulnerable to pedestalizing people and revering them, just like Oprah was. It’s like a part of me that got orphaned too young was always looking for somebody to fill a “perfect Mommy” or “spiritual father” hole in my life. The only thing that spared me is that one of the healers who I did write about in the final manuscript spotted my vulnerability, took pity on me, and taught me a thing or two about narcissistic spiritual healers (as well as gently pointing out my own narcissistic tendencies.)

I almost gave my advance back to Sounds True and considered not even publishing Sacred Medicine after all the horrors I witnessed and experienced, both as bystander trauma and as direct trauma to me personally. But instead, I decided to write a very different book than the one I originally thought I’d write. I originally intended to write Part 2 of my New York Times bestseller, Mind Over Medicine, which I imagined would be a magical, mystery ride through the spiritual aspects of spontaneous healing. I had no idea that to be integrity with what I actually learned from traveling the globe in search of the truth about spiritual healing, I would write the book I actually wrote.

After many experiences I’ve not yet written publicly about, I got very motivated to both help people with the potentially useful aspects of energy/spiritual healing but also warn people about the dangers. I decided to publish a book of true stories and real science about any parts of energy healing, faith healing, spiritual healing, or trauma healing that might actually help real patients who feel hopeless because conventional medicine has been unable to cure them.

I count my blessings that I got properly schooled about how many of energy healers and spiritual healers I was studying, interviewing, and witnessing were at the extreme end of the narcissism spectrum. It can be easy to miss the red flags- because they’re hiding their narcissism where few people would think to look for it- under the cloak of being “spiritual” or “enlightened” or having a dedicated meditation practice or having the direct 411 to some healing God force. But when you break it down you realize…oh.

Grandiosity. Check. Superiority complex. Check. Preoccupied with fantasies about being special. Check. Exaggerate or lie about achievements and talents. Check. Feel deserving of adoration or special treatment. Check. Need excessive attention and centering. Check. Expect special favors. Check. Take advantage of others to get what they want. Check. Have an inability and unwillingness to recognize and acknowledge the needs of others. Check. Expect to be treated as superior even without any obvious achievements. Check. (For more signs and symptoms of narcissism, check out this Mayo clinic list.)

Once I realized I was dealing with a lot of corrupt, power hungry narcissists, not enlightened beings, the rose colored glasses came off, and I started to doubt everything I had previously, in my naive gullibility, at least considered believing to be true. I had to rethink everything. Anyone who has done their psycho-education to understand how narcissists operate knows that people at the extreme end of the narcissism spectrum have no problem and no remorse about lying, exaggerating, confabulating pure fiction, and conning innocent, traumatized, and sick people out of their hard earned cash- all the way to the bank. What was true? What was just narcissistic drivel?

Most of these healers had some fascinating and intoxicating origin story that I initially believed but later came to doubt. They also told me a lot of wild stories about their own magical powers and greatness that I had no reason not to believe, at first. But I wised up and came to realize that while some healers are pure con artists and charlatans, others might have some real healing powers- or at least the ability to help activate the innate healing powers in the client. But the ones you’ve heard about are also very often narcissists, drunk on power.

Because I didn’t want to publish stories that I couldn’t prove were true, I decided not to write about a lot of the healers I later realized were not good people. To protect the attempt at purity and integrity in what I did publish, I initially cut about 1/3 of what I originally wrote. Then, after so many of the people I had initially written about by name went off the deep end into Covid denialism, QAnon, and anti-vax propaganda during the pandemic, I removed all of those chapters as well. I just did not want to promote or validate with my medical degree and reputation as a scientist anyone who was so ruthlessly interfering with public health measures aimed at saving lives. I wound up cutting 2/3 of the unwieldy original manuscript and whittled it down to the published book you might have read. God bless the editorial team at Sounds True for sticking by me through that process. They were beyond wonderful. (You can get SACRED MEDICINE here if you haven’t read it and want to.)

I didn’t know what to do with all that I had written, so I took a lot of those true stories about corrupt, unkind, money hungry people preying upon the vulnerable, people who I would never mention by their real names because I don’t want you to get hurt by them, dear reader, and I turned them into barely fictionalized fiction. What you’re about to read really did happen. (I’m loosely the “Piper” character.) But I found out later that the “Qigong master” who I wrote about is as corrupt as John of God wound up to be. I’ll be publishing the rest of what I think might be helpful or at least entertaining for my paid subscribers here on Substack. But today, I’ll release the first one for all of you. It’s a story about the “Qigong Master” that I did write about in the final draft of Sacred Medicine- in the chapter about narcissistic healers who hurt people on purpose, the shadow of Sacred Medicine, and how to keep yourself safe from shady characters like this. So with that disclaimer, here’s the first of many unpublished stories I cut from Sacred Medicine. Read at your own caution! You’ve been forewarned…

If Piper had ever gone to a psychic who predicted that she'd one day wind up in the suburban home of a Chinese Qigong master reputed to cure cancer and manifest healing herbs out of the palms of her hands, she'd have laughed and asked for her money back. After all, she was a doctor, a scientist, a skeptic, a level-headed realist who grew up thinking psychics and healers were a crock of baloney, preying on the naive and gullible people foolish enough to fork over hundreds of dollars.

Yet, there she was, in one of those Southern California McMansions that sprung up during the housing boom in the first decade of the new millennium, which had been transformed into a temple paying homage to the Medicine Buddha. Nearly every inch of the generic plaster walls had been adorned with tapestries featuring the Medicine Buddha and Quan Yin, and the floor space overflowed with statues of deities and altars full of flowers, fruit, and candles.

Piper was there for a healing session, and as she entered the makeshift temple, she was instructed to put $500 cash in the vase on the altar. As she paid the Qigong master's hefty fee, a candle next to the vase flickered to life without anyone lighting it, as if someone had turned on a light switch. It scared Piper at first. Then she began to wonder if she was on Candid Camera, getting livestreamed to the doctor's lounge of her hospital, as a joke. She could just imagine everyone laughing their asses off, watching the good doctor startle at the spooky candle magic trick.

Piper had initiated this visit to the Qigong master because a plastic wanna-be white shaman who claimed to have received special powers from Indigenous wisdom keepers had told her that Master Zhao could materialize holy water and smelly medicinal herbs out of the palms of her hands. He'd even seen her manifest medicines remotely, as if she psychically knew someone would wake up sick so she'd leave little medicine bundles on the bedside tables of people who woke up with the flu.

He claimed she earned these spiritual powers through her lifetime of devotion to the manifesting spirits, especially the Medicine Buddha. Because her heart was so pure and her Boddhisatva intentions were so benevolent, she had been given access to other realms, where she could bring boons and blessings from some holy otherworld across the veil into this one, like the Indian guru Sai Baba was reputed to do, only he had turned out to be a fake. Master Zhao, however, was supposed to be the real deal.

Piper might think she's paying hundreds of dollars to satisfy some mystical curiosity. But it's really because Piper finds herself magnetically attracted to "special" people, people who are different and powerful, people with genius intellects or mad talent or supermodel looks or celebrity influence or filthy wealth or are maybe even a little bit strange, witchy, or thought by some to be spiritually enlightened. She wants to consider herself worthy of such people, so some part of her gets a hit off proximity to special people. But deep down, she feels very boringly ordinary. She has a bit of imposter syndrome when she's around people she deems special. It's why she went to medical school, although she tells herself it's because she wanted to save lives. After all, who wouldn't want to be special enough to have the power to save a life and influence life or death? But Piper doesn't know this about herself yet, dear reader. She only knows that she gets a boost in her self esteem when she is granted an audience with someone special, and it's a balm on secret parts of her that don't feel the least bit exceptional.

If there was even a 1% chance that the rumors about Master Zhao were true, Piper had to see it with her own eyes. She had read The Autobiography of a Yogi during her religious studies class in college. So when someone told her about Master Zhao's manifestation tricks, she remembered that when Yogananda Paramahansa was on his quest to find a spiritual teacher, he claimed the gurus he sought out could perform similarly hard to swallow spiritual magic, manifesting perfume from the palms of their hands and curing disease.

Piper suspected it was probably just a cunning charlatan's slight of hand, rather than anything supernatural. But what the hell, she figured. If the $500 turned out to be the price for witnessing some fake spiritual side show, she'd certainly wasted her hard earned cash in more frivolous ways before.

When she sought out a session with Master Zhao, Piper wasn't actually sick or in need of healing.  Or to be more precise, it would be years before Piper realized how much in need of healing she actually was. Her motivation for scheduling a session was more about fascination and morbid curiosity than some medical condition the Qigong master might cure.

But when she called Master Zhao's assistant Rajani, using the phone number she had been given as stealthily as if Master Zhao was a drug dealer, Rajani informed her that she would need to wrestle up four more people in need of healing, to make it worth paying her translator, since Master Zhao didn't speak any English and Rajani didn't speak any Mandarin. Piper questioned the ethics of reaching out to her patients, the ones with mystery illnesses she hadn't been able to help much. Was it okay to invite them to plop down $500 alongside her, so Piper could satisfy her curiosity? Maybe they could get some symptom relief, even if it was just the placebo effect. Piper wasn't sure, but her curiosity about the magic tricks outweighed her conscience.

One of those patients was twenty-six year old Carrie, who had a laundry list of the kinds of diseases Piper hated trying to treat- chronic pain in her jaw that nobody had been able to relieve, chronic Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, a variety of food and chemical sensitivities, and other bizarre symptoms that didn't fit into any diagnostic category. Carrie had come with her middle-aged mother, a fundamentalist Christian who didn't believe in some Medicine Buddha. Carrie's mother was beside herself with worry that her daughter would never get to live a normal, healthy life and was happy to pay cash if there was any chance for a cure, even if it meant bracketing her own religious beliefs.

Piper, Carrie, her mother, and the other patients Piper had recruited to come with her were all instructed by Rajani to sit on the meditation pillows on the floor in front of the altar and meditate until Master Zhao arrived. 

"You have to prepare the field so the Medicine Buddha can work through the Master," she said.

Piper complied, closing her eyes but feeling ridiculous, imagining that her dead father, a Stanford professor and biologist, must be looking at her from the other side, shaking his head in utter disappointment at what a gullible dupe she had become.

That was his biggest fear when she finished her Ivy League studies on the East Coast and settled down to practice medicine in California. "California is the land of fruits and nuts and flakes," he had said. He'd roll over in his grave, Piper suspected, if he saw her now.

Piper's memories of her skeptical father must not have sullied the Buddhafield enough to cause trouble, because a gong chimed, and when she opened her eyes, Master Zhao was bowing before her. Piper had imagined some saffron robed monk or at least someone garbed in a red kimono, but Master Zhao looked like she was on her way to the gym in a short sleeved white t-shirt and black stretch pants. Her short black hair was cut in a bowl cut and she wore no make up or jewelry. Her youthful, wrinkle-free face seemed plastered into a perpetually beatific smile, as if nothing ever rattled her.  Piper wondered if she still smiled that way when her husband threw his dirty socks all over the floor or the kids started smearing pizza on the walls. Or maybe she didn't have a husband or children.

"If I didn't have a husband or children," Piper mused, "Maybe I'd be able to channel that kind of imperturbable equanimity too." She found herself mimicking the Mona Lisa smile, only to crack herself up and blow her cover.

Right then, Rajani announced that Master Zhao's spirit guides had chosen Carrie to go first. The rest of the crew were instructed to sit in a circle around Carrie and "hold the space" while Master Zhao went into a trance, where she would allegedly encounter the Medicine Buddha, who did all the healing work through her. Her ability to do this, they were told, required her to spend six hours per day in meditation, cultivating her relationship with the Medicine Buddha so she could stay in his favor and keep her spiritual superpowers. If she were to grow arrogant about her powers, she would lose them, Rajani explained. So she must bow before the Medicine Buddha every morning before her healing sessions, to demonstrate her humility and prove she is worthy of the gifts.

Sitting in front of Carrie, Master Zhao closed her eyes and waved her hands and then started coughing and blinking fast. She spoke in Mandarin, and the translator explained that Master Zhao was telling him that Carrie's health problems were the result of the two babies she aborted when her college boyfriend got her pregnant.  

Carrie's mother flew off the handle. “She has not had any abortions! My daughter is a good Christian girl, and I will not have some Oriental hack casting aspersions upon her character like that! She would never murder a living creature. Never. Ever. Carrie has given herself to Jesus, and she is still a virgin. This is nonsense.”

She stood up and grabbed her purse, as if preparing to leave, while Piper's faced registered shock. How had Master Zhao known this? Piper knew this to be true, because Carrie had confided in her after a bout of pelvic pain instigated a gynecologic work up. But according to Carrie, the only other person she'd ever told was the guy who got her pregnant and the doctors who did her abortions at Planned Parenthood.

Upon seeing her mother's outrage, Carrie burst into tears and was hiding her face with her hands, apparently paralyzed with shame at having had her secret outed by the psychically intrusive guru. Apparently, those abortions had been a secret that she never shared with her mother.

Rajani ran after her, explaining to Carrie that she need not worry, that Master Zhao would arrange to help her heal from the damage she did to those discarded baby souls. But Carrie had flown out the front door, with her mother chasing after her.

A big red flag went off in Piper, as she noticed a rush of rage pulse through her body. As a physician, she was schooled in basic medical ethics and bound by all kinds of privacy and confidentiality rules. She felt horrified that Master Zhao had violated all kinds of boundaries by pointing out Carrie's abortions, not only in front of Carrie's mother, but in front of perfect strangers who had only just met Carrie moments before. Piper had a ferocious part that felt protective of Carrie as her patient. She was gobsmocked over the cruelty she had just observed and shocked that someone allegedly so enlightened and pure of heart could be so insensitive to a young woman who was sick.

This would not be the last time Piper would feel shocked and horrified because of the shit poor boundaries she observed in healers like Master Zhao. It would take her many more years to figure out that this kind of boundary-violating behavior is common among such healers, because most of them have wounded boundaries themselves, through no fault of their own. Nobody respected their boundaries when they were vulnerable children, so they never had anyone model good boundaries or protect their own confidentiality. Piper wouldn't learn about Master Zhao's severe childhood trauma until Rajani told her those stories months later. So she could not access trauma-informed compassion for the boundary wounded healer in that moment. She just felt outrage against the Qigong master and empathy for her patient.

When Carrie came back into the room, pushed from behind by her mother, Piper gave her a look that she hoped registered as "I'm sorry."

Carrie's mother said to Master Zhao's translator, "Tell her you've brought shame to my daughter and our family, but my daughter says it's true that she had the abortions. So I'll deal with her later. But for now, you might as well do whatever it is you do to help her."

Master Zhao nodded and then approached Carrie in front of another altar adorned with a candle that spontaneously lit as Carrie approached. Master Zhao waved her hands around in front of Carrie, her hands flying so fast Piper couldn’t fully see all the positions her hands made. Some of the hand positions looked like the mudras her yoga teacher taught them in class, but the shape of her hand positioning changed lightning fast. Her eyes were closed and fluttering and her body shook a little. After about three minutes of wild arm waving, the translator asked Carrie to put out her hands, palms up. She complied.

Then Master Zhao opened her eyes, stopped waving her hands, and held her hands, palms down and fists curled, over Carrie's open palms. Rubbing her fingers and thumbs together, she excreted something that looked a bit like a mixture of potting soil and loose leaf tea out of her right hand into one of Carrie's hands. From her left hand, she dropped a whitish chalky powder. Whatever appeared to have manifested out of the palms of Master Zhao's hands had a medicinal aroma so strong they could all smell it. Rajani brought out two little plastic baggies, scooped the "heavenly medicines" out of both of Carrie's palms, collected them into Ziplocs, and explained that they were holy medicines, gifted to Master Zhao and Carrie by the Medicine Buddha.

The spectators, including Piper, watched with wide-eyed, open mouthed bewilderment, while Carrie just kept crying throughout the whole "treatment."  Piper felt frightened as she watched this spectacle. Although Master Zhao was wearing short sleeves and Piper couldn’t detect any obvious sleight of hand, Piper couldn't believe what she was seeing. She'd been told what to expect by the shaman who had referred her to Master Zhao, but she didn't actually believe she would witness someone appear to materialize stinky Chinese herbs out of nothing.

Piper felt creeped out by what she witnessed.  She vowed to watch again next time, to see if she could spot Master Zhao palming the medicine beforehand or hiding it elsewhere and slipping it into her palms, like a good magician might pull a coin out of someone's ear. But it sure did look like herbs grew straight out of the palms of the healer.

Rajani wrote down the dosing instructions Master Zhao's translator dictated to her. Carrie was instructed not to consume any garlic, ginger, green onion, onion, or red meat during the six weeks she was instructed to take the medicine. She was also instructed how to appease the souls of the babies she aborted, who were supposedly sucking off her energy field. She was given a red flag-like piece of paperish cloth, printed with Chinese imagery, which Master Zhao called a “passport” that would allow the stuck souls to go about their journeys. The passport looked like it must have cost about $1 in Chinatown, but Carrie was told she’d have to pay an extra $100 for it.  Master Zhao instructed her how to burn the flag in a ceremony so the baby souls she had aborted could clear from Carrie's energy field and go on their merry way to wherever such entities go once they unstick.

When it was time for the next patient, Piper positioned herself strategically, so she could get a good look at what Master Zhao was doing with her hands. She asked Master Zhao and her patient if she could video it, and they both nodded. For the life of her, she couldn't spot any sleight of hand trick, even when she played and replayed the video later. It sure did look like she materialized the next batch of heavenly medicine right into the open palms of the next patient out of thin air.

When Piper asked Master Zhao whether it was the herbs responsible for the stories Piper had heard about how Master Zhao had cured “incurable” diseases, like metastatic cancers, Master Zhao laughed and whispered something to Rajani. Rajani laughed too and said, “She says no, the heavenly medicines aren’t what cures the illnesses. She says Universe Energy is what cures the illnesses. The heavenly medicines just make people believe Universe Energy is real.”

Piper still hadn’t seen any before and after medical records proving that the Qigong Master’s claims to have cured metastatic cancer were real. But Piper pondered what the translator had said and thought, “God damn. Now that’s one fancy, impressive placebo.”

*I’ll post the story of what happened when Piper becomes the Qigong Master’s patient in the next installation for paid subscribers.