Sima Nan
Encyclopedia
Sima Nan is a television pundit, social commentator, and journalist from the People's Republic of China. He is well known for his criticism of pseudoscience
and supernatural
phenomena, especially his opposition to qigong
-related fraud. He is also active as a blogger and owns a television production company. According to Ian Johnson
, Sima is "a longtime debunker of charlatans" who came to prominence following the country's ban of the Falun Gong
spiritual movement, and who has won a national "hero of atheism
" award.
, although Shandong
is considered his ancestral home. Sima was originally a peasant and later a construction worker, and now works as a journalist and television producer. He was banned from writing for three years as a consequence of his support for the 1989 democracy movement
, though he remains a member of the party
.
, a Chinese meditative exercise, Sima believes in the physiological benefits of Qigong, but opposes trickery. He is a fervent opponent of mystic spiritual masters, and claims to be avant garde in his scepticism: "I was exposing the fake 'masters' before the party leadership cared about them," he said. Sima says that the government had been harassing him until 1999, when they switched their attention to the fake masters. Sima authored a book, A Secret Record of Pseudo-qigong, and also produced a television film, The Inside Story of Mysterious Gong.
Sima studied qigong while at college. After graduation, at the end of 1981, he was assigned to work for the central government in Beijing. His biography published in the Skeptical Inquirer
states that he was influenced by the book Human Body Science by China’s leading physicist Qian Xuesen. As a result, he became involved in the Chinese Human Body Science Association, through which Sima had an opportunity to witness demonstrations of the prominent masters of the time, for whom he would run all sorts of errands. Sima says this included transferring title of property the masters received from grateful followers. By 1990, he became disillusioned with the deception practised by all the masters he had been in contact with; he had found the activities and behaviour of the organisation had little to do with serious research, but was in fact interested in the kudos of association with famous and influential people, and financial rewards. Sima says he is motivated purely by the satisfaction of unmasking cheats who he says prey on uneducated Chinese. His Skeptics biography alleged that, during the golden decade of qigong, the qigong network had sought to influence the highest level of the country’s leadership. Governmental departments set up qigong research and development units and invested large sums of money for that purpose; people of all socioeconomic levels were deceived.
Sima became a qigong master himself and worked as a leading qigong pundit in Beijing from 1990 to 1995. His work influenced China Central Television
to pull qigong performances from the annual CCTV New Year's Gala
from 1991 onwards. Sima held that qigong itself was scientific, but that other masters' claims of supernatural capabilities were super magic and deceitful tricks. As proof, he gave performances in front of large audiences exactly mirroring those by supposed supernormal-capable qigong masters. Hsiao says many believed Sima's performances, but were baffled, and some even regarded him as a high-level qigong master and tried to ask him for advice, yet he shocked his audiences when he disclosed it was not qigong nor supernormal capabilities, but magic. The media quoted him saying "I faked it! Who ever did it?" He would also embarrass other "masters" in the qigong field by attending their seminars and performances, exposing their fallacy in front of a posse of journalists who would follow him around — he would debate with qigong masters, ask difficult questions, thus raising doubts and causing problems for them. However, Hsiao says the media were favourable to Sima, stating they "consciously or unconsciously belittled qigong personnel who appeared to manifest supernormal capabilities." However, he was denounced as a traitor and expelled from the Human Body Science Association.
According to Christopher Hitchens
, following Sima's criticism of qigong groups, he was denounced by Li Hongzhi
, founder of the Falun Gong
spiritual movement. Li claimed to have secretly implanted a swastika (falun) in Sima's abdomen that "revolves in the wrong direction", and predicted that "[Sima] will be punished by lameness and blindness." Sima became very much in demand following the ban of Falun Gong, and went cross country to give lectures, only charging travel expenses. Sima said that although he supported the government's ban on Falun Gong because it is a fraud, he held reservations about the government's vitriolic campaign against the practice and hundreds of arrests. Sima believes that the government's campaign may have actually elevated the profile of what would otherwise have been an undistinguished group, thus giving free advertising to Li Hongzhi.
(CAST) and is now an investigator at a new branch of CAST, the Committee of Scientific Thinking, which he helped found. The agency will test claims of the paranormal, and has a standing offer of ¥
one million to anyone who can perform one act of "special ability" (i.e. paranormal) without cheating. American sceptic James Randi
made an agreement with Sima that anyone whoever wins his million-US dollar JREF prize would automatically win Sima's million yuan. In 2000, The Globe and Mail
reported that Sima had been asked by the Canadian government to assist them in combating illegal immigration from China: faced with many boat people
arriving on Canada's west coast from China who claim persecution as members of Falun Gong in order to gain refugee status, the Canadians are hoping for help in assessing the applications. Sima referred to ufologists as "romantics", saying that those who alleged to have seen UFOs or have had extraterrestrial encounters, all lack hard evidence to prove their claims via objective and scientific methods.
In September 2008, following the Beijing Olympics, Sima was interviewed by the BBC
, and defended Chinese censorship regulations and the media firewall on Falun Gong in mainland China. Sima said that the group disseminates material that is blatantly "anti-China" in nature and that the Chinese public has long grew irritated of Falun Gong rhetoric. However, Sima pointed out that, contrary to Western media perceptions, discussions on topics such as democracy and freedom take place regularly on the internet in China, and that he himself often engages in debates on these topics. In addition, Sima criticized the idea of "universal values
" and challenged the notion that Western liberal democratic values should be regarded "universal".
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
and supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
phenomena, especially his opposition to qigong
Qigong
Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
-related fraud. He is also active as a blogger and owns a television production company. According to Ian Johnson
Ian Denis Johnson
Ian Johnson is a writer and journalist, working primarily in China and Germany.A reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Johnson won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China...
, Sima is "a longtime debunker of charlatans" who came to prominence following the country's ban of the Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
spiritual movement, and who has won a national "hero of atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
" award.
Biography
Sima was born in JilinJilin
Jilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west...
, although Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
is considered his ancestral home. Sima was originally a peasant and later a construction worker, and now works as a journalist and television producer. He was banned from writing for three years as a consequence of his support for the 1989 democracy movement
Chinese democracy movement
The Chinese democracy movement refers to a series of loosely organized political movements in the People's Republic of China against the continued one-party rule by the Communist Party. One such movement began during the Beijing Spring in 1978 and was taken up again in the Tiananmen Square...
, though he remains a member of the party
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
.
Qigong
As a long time student and practitioner of QigongQigong
Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
, a Chinese meditative exercise, Sima believes in the physiological benefits of Qigong, but opposes trickery. He is a fervent opponent of mystic spiritual masters, and claims to be avant garde in his scepticism: "I was exposing the fake 'masters' before the party leadership cared about them," he said. Sima says that the government had been harassing him until 1999, when they switched their attention to the fake masters. Sima authored a book, A Secret Record of Pseudo-qigong, and also produced a television film, The Inside Story of Mysterious Gong.
Sima studied qigong while at college. After graduation, at the end of 1981, he was assigned to work for the central government in Beijing. His biography published in the Skeptical Inquirer
Skeptical Inquirer
The Skeptical Inquirer is a bimonthly American magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry with the subtitle: The magazine for science and reason....
states that he was influenced by the book Human Body Science by China’s leading physicist Qian Xuesen. As a result, he became involved in the Chinese Human Body Science Association, through which Sima had an opportunity to witness demonstrations of the prominent masters of the time, for whom he would run all sorts of errands. Sima says this included transferring title of property the masters received from grateful followers. By 1990, he became disillusioned with the deception practised by all the masters he had been in contact with; he had found the activities and behaviour of the organisation had little to do with serious research, but was in fact interested in the kudos of association with famous and influential people, and financial rewards. Sima says he is motivated purely by the satisfaction of unmasking cheats who he says prey on uneducated Chinese. His Skeptics biography alleged that, during the golden decade of qigong, the qigong network had sought to influence the highest level of the country’s leadership. Governmental departments set up qigong research and development units and invested large sums of money for that purpose; people of all socioeconomic levels were deceived.
Sima became a qigong master himself and worked as a leading qigong pundit in Beijing from 1990 to 1995. His work influenced China Central Television
China Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...
to pull qigong performances from the annual CCTV New Year's Gala
CCTV New Year's Gala
The CCTV New Year's Gala is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Central Television. Broadcast on the eve of Chinese New Year on its flagship CCTV-1, satellite channels CCTV-4, CCTV-9, CCTV-E, CCTV-F, and CCTV-HD, the broadcast has a yearly viewership of over 700 million viewers, making it...
from 1991 onwards. Sima held that qigong itself was scientific, but that other masters' claims of supernatural capabilities were super magic and deceitful tricks. As proof, he gave performances in front of large audiences exactly mirroring those by supposed supernormal-capable qigong masters. Hsiao says many believed Sima's performances, but were baffled, and some even regarded him as a high-level qigong master and tried to ask him for advice, yet he shocked his audiences when he disclosed it was not qigong nor supernormal capabilities, but magic. The media quoted him saying "I faked it! Who ever did it?" He would also embarrass other "masters" in the qigong field by attending their seminars and performances, exposing their fallacy in front of a posse of journalists who would follow him around — he would debate with qigong masters, ask difficult questions, thus raising doubts and causing problems for them. However, Hsiao says the media were favourable to Sima, stating they "consciously or unconsciously belittled qigong personnel who appeared to manifest supernormal capabilities." However, he was denounced as a traitor and expelled from the Human Body Science Association.
According to Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
, following Sima's criticism of qigong groups, he was denounced by Li Hongzhi
Li Hongzhi
Li Hongzhi is the founder and spiritual master of Falun Gong , a "system of mind-body cultivation" in the qigong tradition. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong on 13 May 1992 in Changchun, and subsequently gave lectures and taught Falun Gong exercises across China...
, founder of the Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
spiritual movement. Li claimed to have secretly implanted a swastika (falun) in Sima's abdomen that "revolves in the wrong direction", and predicted that "[Sima] will be punished by lameness and blindness." Sima became very much in demand following the ban of Falun Gong, and went cross country to give lectures, only charging travel expenses. Sima said that although he supported the government's ban on Falun Gong because it is a fraud, he held reservations about the government's vitriolic campaign against the practice and hundreds of arrests. Sima believes that the government's campaign may have actually elevated the profile of what would otherwise have been an undistinguished group, thus giving free advertising to Li Hongzhi.
Later career
Since 1990, Sima Nan has collaborated with the China Association for Science and TechnologyChina Association for Science and Technology
The China Association for Science and Technology is a non-profit, non-governmental organization of Chinese scientists and engineers, which is composed of 167 national professional societies and hundreds of local branches at various levels....
(CAST) and is now an investigator at a new branch of CAST, the Committee of Scientific Thinking, which he helped found. The agency will test claims of the paranormal, and has a standing offer of ¥
Chinese yuan
The yuan is the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The yuan is the primary unit of account of the Renminbi.A yuán is also known colloquially as a kuài . One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo or colloquially máo...
one million to anyone who can perform one act of "special ability" (i.e. paranormal) without cheating. American sceptic James Randi
James Randi
James Randi is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation...
made an agreement with Sima that anyone whoever wins his million-US dollar JREF prize would automatically win Sima's million yuan. In 2000, The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
reported that Sima had been asked by the Canadian government to assist them in combating illegal immigration from China: faced with many boat people
Boat people
Boat people is a term that usually refers to refugees, illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who emigrate in numbers in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made...
arriving on Canada's west coast from China who claim persecution as members of Falun Gong in order to gain refugee status, the Canadians are hoping for help in assessing the applications. Sima referred to ufologists as "romantics", saying that those who alleged to have seen UFOs or have had extraterrestrial encounters, all lack hard evidence to prove their claims via objective and scientific methods.
In September 2008, following the Beijing Olympics, Sima was interviewed by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, and defended Chinese censorship regulations and the media firewall on Falun Gong in mainland China. Sima said that the group disseminates material that is blatantly "anti-China" in nature and that the Chinese public has long grew irritated of Falun Gong rhetoric. However, Sima pointed out that, contrary to Western media perceptions, discussions on topics such as democracy and freedom take place regularly on the internet in China, and that he himself often engages in debates on these topics. In addition, Sima criticized the idea of "universal values
Universal values
Something is of universal value if it has the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people. This claim could mean two importantly different things. First, it could be that something has a universal value when everybody finds it valuable. This was Isaiah Berlin's understanding of the term...
" and challenged the notion that Western liberal democratic values should be regarded "universal".