Qigong, which became very popular under Deng Xiaoping's leadership in the 1980s, has been jokingly referred to as the ‘fifth modernisation’ (di wuge xiandaihua). In many instances qigong refers to the reinter-pretation of Daoist practices under the impact of modern medicine, but the wide range of practices called qigong renders a precise definition of this term impossible. Qigong is nowadays known mostly as a meditative practice with life-maintaining and therapeutic effects (Kohn 1989, N. N. Chen 1995), but opera singers, calligraphers, and other artists also use it to enhance their performance skills (Ma 1983:8). One can practise qigong alone or in groups; or it can be applied from a qigong master to his or her clients, in which case effects can be evoked similar to those of a hypnotist (Sundararajan 1990). Telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and other phenomena that are studied in the West under the rubric of parapsychology are often said to result from the practice of qigong. The ability to achieve the latter effects, called ‘extraordinary qigong’ (teyi qigong), is said to depend on a person's xiantian (constitution), while health status and artisitic ability are considered to be improved in anyone through qigong meditation.

The word qigong has only recently been used in this sense. It occurred earlier in texts on self-cultivation as a technical term with another meaning, supposedly for the first time in a text of the Jin dynasty (AD 265–420) (Despeux 1988:9). Although it was already being used in its modern sense during the Republican period (1911–49), it was only in the struggle for the legitimation of Chinese medicine after the Communist revolution that it became more widely known.