Busted Qigong Masters

[GeneChing]

Follow up on this

Victim’s family gets RM1.49mil
NATION
Wednesday, 20 Oct 2021



Compiled by C. ARUNO, JUNAID IBRAHIM and R. ARAVINTHAN

THE family of a man, who died from fasting for 54 days after taking the advice of a Qigong master in China’s Heilongjiang province, was awarded 2.3 million yuan (RM1.49mil) in an out-of-court settlement, Sin Chew Daily reported.

Li Mouran, 27, had gone on an extreme diet under the guidance of self-proclaimed Qigong expert Liu Shanglin.

Among others, it involved subsisting on water for 70 days in order to purge toxins from his body.

He died at a rehabilitation centre after fasting for 54 days in what he believed to be a health treatment.

Police have detained Liu along with two senior workers of the centre.

Li’s family had retracted their civil suit and signed a settlement agreement.

The family’s lawyer said the settlement was reached last Friday and that the money would be used to cover funeral costs as well as other expenses.

According to local reports from China’s Shandong province, the woman had sucked too hard and created a vacuum with a suction force so strong that she was unable to pull the shell off.

She spent nearly half a day, trying to remove it before resigning to the fact that she needed help from the firemen.

One firefighter initially tried to “expand” the shell using hot water for easier removal but this attempt failed. They resorted to using an electric cutter to create a hole in the shell.

The hole managed to release the vacuum in the shell and they then removed it.

Internet users expressed their amazement at the peculiar cases which the firemen had to attend to.

He had suffered from complications from aspiration pneumonia.

Iijima joined the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) in 1957. He became the writer and director for the TV programme Ultraman in 1966.

From the first series in 1966 (simply titled Ultraman) up until the 2001 film Ultraman Cosmos: The First Contact, IIjima had often been credited as either the director or one of the writers.



The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.

[GeneChing]

‘I was frozen’: Woman accuses Qigong master healer of grabbing her breast
Otago Daily Times
13 Mar, 2023 10:33 AM
3 mins to read

Sonny Hang Chin in the Dunedin District Court. Photo / Otago Daily Times

One of the eight women who have accused a Dunedin healer of groping her emailed him the day after the incident to complain it was “inappropriate”.

Sonny Hang Chin, 65, has denied indecently assaulting her or any of the other complainants.

While he accepted touching many of the women, his lawyer Anne Stevens KC said the physical contact was legitimate Chinese medicine practised by the “qigong master”.

As the Dunedin District Court trial entered its second week yesterday, the court heard from a woman who had booked to see Chin in late 2019.

She said he came “highly recommended” by a family member.

The witness described being taken aback by Chin’s questions about whether she had been sexually abused in her childhood but said she felt the physical benefits of the treatment.

At her second session a week later, the woman said Chin slid his hand under her shirt, beneath her bra and grabbed her breast.

“I was frozen,” she said.


The Dunedin District Court. Photo / ODT, File

She estimated the alleged incident lasted up to 20 seconds but said it felt like “forever”.

Counsel Deborah Henderson suggested the complainant had consented to Chin touching her breast and had voluntarily removed her bra when he was out of the room fetching oil.

The witness said that was not the case.

She repeatedly denied there had been any discussion about what Chin did before he did it, and there was no explanation about the impact on her “energy”.

The day after the alleged indecent assault, the complainant emailed Chin - an exchange which was shown to the jury.

“It has triggered emotional distress since. It was not justified in the treatment; it was inappropriate,” the woman wrote.

“Yes I did touch the lower lobe of your breast but I ask you that I was going to touch that area to feel the coldness of how disengaged you are with your chest area that affects your grief and depression,” Chin responded.

“If you feel I did not do a good job. No payment.”

The complainant underscored her disapproval a week later:

“I absolutely did not give you authority to touch my breast and did not understand that it was your intention to do so,” she wrote.

Chin responded within minutes to explain he had been clearing the “stagnant chi” from the patient.

The final complainant is the subject of four charges, also stemming from 2019.

In a police interview played for the court, she spoke about how she had been treated by Chin as a teenager and then again more recently when her ailments recurred.

On one occasion the woman said the defendant stressed she had to use her voice.

He allegedly put his hand down her pants and said: “Look, am I hurting you? Do you want my hands down here?”

The witness said she did not and when Chin allegedly asked her to tell him to stop, she said she did.

“He pulled out his hand and said ‘easy, see’,” the woman told police.

She said she felt ashamed of repeatedly going to see Chin despite the alleged abuse.

“I feel like I was manipulated and groomed by someone I trusted. I feel like he used some of my past sexual trauma to figure out a way to get handsy,” she said.

“This is something I can do to have a bit of a voice again and stop it happening to other people.”

The trial continues.

'clearing the “stagnant chi”'

[GeneChing]

It's about meditation so worthy of posting on this subforum, right?

FBI Arrests Key Member of ‘Orgasmic Meditation’ Group in Mendocino County This Morning
Categories:Anderson Valley Crime FeaturedNews
Sarah Reith

June 6, 2023


[Stock image from Flickr user Oliver Riche]
FBI special agents arrested a leader of OneTaste, a “sexual wellness” company specializing in a practice it calls “Orgasmic Meditation,” in Mendocino County early Tuesday morning. Rachel Cherwitz, the former Head of Sales, was taken into custody without incident, on charges of forced labor conspiracy. Her co-defendant, founder Nicole Daedone, remains at large. The U.S. District Attorney’s Office would not comment on whether or not Daedone is considered to be a federal fugitive at this time.

Cherwitz appeared in court in San Francisco on Tuesday afternoon, and will be indicted in the Eastern District of New York at a future date.


Screenshot of Unconditional Freedom video showing Daedone
OneTaste claimed to offer sexual and spiritual wellness through a practice called “Orgasmic Meditation,” or stroking a woman’s genitals for fifteen minutes. The organization offered expensive courses in the practice, claiming it could heal past traumas.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced the charges against Cherwitz and Daedone saying, “Under the guise of empowerment and wellness, the defendants are alleged to have sought complete control over their employees’ lives, including by driving them into debt and directing them to perform sexual acts while also withholding wages.”

In October, we wrote about another organization that was founded by Nicole Daedone, Unconditional Freedom. The non-profit was operating in the Mendocino County Jail and Juvenile Hall, claiming to offer a restorative justice curriculum called Prison Monastery to inmates. We reported that all the Unconditional Freedom personnel involved in the program were also affiliated with OneTaste. At least one of the volunteers, Rachel Hemsi, was also listed as Director of The Land, a retreat center in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley. The Land’s website still offers visitors the opportunity to donate to Unconditional Freedom. Cherwitz was arrested at The Land at around 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday.


A flyer for a training Rachel Cherwitz participated in San Francisco
Mendocino County Sheriff Matthew Kendall terminated the relationship with Unconditional Freedom during the course of our reporting.

The article came out shortly before a Netflix documentary about OneTaste called “Orgasm Inc.” Paul Boylan, the same attorney who sued Netflix on behalf of fourteen anonymous women, claiming a violation of privacy, also sent takedown letters to this news site and others who published the same information by this reporter. None of the sites took down their stories.

According to an eight-page indictment filed in the Eastern District Court on April 3 of this year, Cherwitz, Daedone, and their co-conspirators, who remain unnamed, “induced the OneTaste members, including OneTaste employees, to incur debt, and at times facilitated OneTaste members into opening lines of credit, to finance expensive OneTaste courses that the defendants knew the OneTaste members could not afford.”

The indictment remained sealed until Tuesday morning because the defendants were “at liberty;” and the government wanted to “ensure that the defendants do not learn that they are under indictment and to prevent them from fleeing justice to avoid arrest and prosecution.”



The indictment further state that Cherwitz, Daedone, and their co-conspirators “recruited and groomed OneTaste members to engage in sexual acts with OneTaste’s current and prospective investors, clients, employees and beneficiaries, for the financial benefit of OneTaste and, in turn, the defendants. According to the indictment, Daedone and Cherwitz also instructed the OneTaste members to engage in sexual acts they found uncomfortable or repulsive as a requirement to obtain “freedom” and “enlightenment” and demonstrate their commitment to OneTaste and Daedone.”

The alleged abuses include providing and obtaining labor through the use of force and threats of force, public shame, humiliation, and retaliation. Between 2006 and 2018, the indictment claims, Daedone and Cherwitz “obtained the labor and services of a group of OneTaste members by subjecting them to economic, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse; surveillance; indoctrination; and intimidation.” Daedone and Cherwitz are also accused of failing to pay employees what they were owed and changing their employment status or locations so they would be entirely dependent on OneTaste.

While they are accused of committing a crime in Queens, the defendants’ area of operations is believed to cover a wide geographic range. The indictment includes a long list of affiliated companies using variations on the OneTaste name, as well as Mirror Clan Inc., Caravan Retreats Inc., Texas Limbic Network LLC, and The Next Right Thing LLC.

The property that Daedone and Cherwitz are alleged to have obtained through forced sexual labor is subject to criminal forfeiture. If they are convicted, the government will seek forfeiture of any property that can be traced to the offenses described in the indictment. If any of that property has been transferred to a third party or has diminished in value, the government will seek to make up the difference in value with their personal property.

Each defendant is facing up to 20 years in prison if convicted.