Healing or Harmful?

 

In a letter posted on the MogaDao Institute website, MogaDao founder Zhenevere Sophia Dao resigned as the primary teacher of MogaDao, while at the same time lifting up the practices and ideas that she developed. She states that these practices and philosophies are “beautiful and powerful in their own right, and remain potentials of healing.” Is this true? Are the MogaDao practices healing practices? Do they help people?

 

What if the practices are harmful instead of healing? What if the practices and philosophies (aside from the people, and personalities involved) lead to psychological instability, confusion, distress, or worse? What if they cause or exacerbate, rather than heal, physical or psychological ailments?

 

Wouldn’t that mean that anyone teaching these practices is hurting people, not helping them? Wouldn’t you have the moral responsibility to stop?

 

A recent testimonial on this website as well as Zhenevere’s own writing on the MogaDao website suggest that the origin of the MogaDao practices may not be rooted in anything other than Zhenevere herself. If they are not rooted in any vetted system of knowledge and practice and instead are a product of Zhenevere’s imagination and personal experience this is important for anyone who has practiced them, and especially anyone who is teaching them, to know.

 

I ask anyone with information about the true origins of the MogaDao practices and philosophies, including Zhenevere’s credentials, teachers and experience with qigong, Chinese medicine and healing (physical, psychological, sexual or spiritual) to share that here.

 

This is important because anyone teaching (or engaging with) these practices and philosophies is making an assumption that they are healthful and beneficial. Where is the evidence?

 

Actual qigong has been practiced for millennia. The evidence for its benefits comes from centuries of community practice, as well as more recent medical research. If MogaDao is not qigong (and it appears it is not) then how can we know it is healing?

 

In Zhenevere’s own words in her resignation letter she says there are “psychological and spiritual upheavals that the practices and ideologies can incur.”

 

In light of the number of people who have come forward as having been harmed by the MogaDao practices and ideologies (which are inextricably intertwined), those who teach them should be very aware by now that you are teaching practices and philosophies that have hurt people. When you teach them, you are responsible for the well-being of others. You have a duty to let your students know the origins, the risks and the benefits of what you are teaching. Do the “healing potentials” of these practices and philosophies really outweigh their harmful realities? Are you sure?