Mo Pai: The Neigong School of John Chang and Its Claims

Mo Pai is the name given to a secretive Chinese school of neigong ("internal work") associated with John Chang, a Chinese-Indonesian healer in Java whom Western readers know almost entirely from the books of Kosta Danaos and from a short sequence in Lorne and Lawrence Blair's documentary series Ring of Fire (1988). According to those sources, Mo Pai is an ancient Taoist lineage that cultivates yin and yang qi through a graded series of meditative levels, and its advanced practitioners can display striking abilities, such as producing electric-like shocks and heat; none of this has been independently verified.

What Mo Pai Is Said to Be§

In Danaos's account, Mo Pai (sometimes spelled Mo-Pai, and in his second book linked with the term nei kung, an older romanisation of neigong) is a Taoist school of internal cultivation handed down within a very small circle of Chinese masters and disciples. It is not presented as a martial art in the ordinary sense, nor as a religion with temples and scriptures. It is presented instead as a method: a sequence of meditative disciplines, each called a level, through which a practitioner is said to accumulate, refine and finally transform qi, the vital breath of Chinese thought.

The stated goal is not health or self-defence but what Danaos frames in the traditional Taoist language of immortality: the creation of a spiritual body that survives death. Abilities such as healing, the projection of heat or "electricity" and sensitivity to spirits are described as by-products of the higher levels, not as aims in themselves. The school is also said to be governed by strict rules of secrecy, restricting who may be taught, what may be written down and what may be shown to outsiders.

The meaning of the name is itself uncertain. The English books do not settle it with a documented Chinese form, and readers have proposed several possibilities, including a connection with the classical philosopher Mozi and his Mohist school. No historical source links Mohism with a tradition of qi cultivation of this kind, and the question remains open.

The Evidence for Mo Pai: Two Books and a Documentary§

Any account of Mo Pai has to begin by admitting how narrow its evidence is. There are, in effect, three sources. The first is the Ring of Fire series, filmed by the British brothers Lorne and Lawrence Blair during long journeys through Indonesia and broadcast in 1988, in which a man introduced as John Chang appears to set paper alight with his hands and to pass what the filmmakers experienced as electric current into their bodies. The second is The Magus of Java: Teachings of an Authentic Taoist Immortal (2000), in which Kosta Danaos tells how he sought out Chang after seeing such footage and became his student. The third is Danaos's sequel, Nei Kung: The Secret Teachings of the Warrior Sages (2002), which adds more theory, more about Chang's family and teaching, and Danaos's reflections on his own practice.

Beyond these, there are video clips that circulate online, usually attributed to later visits by students or film crews, and a large body of internet discussion. None of this amounts to the kind of documentation historians normally rely on: there are no Chinese texts of the school, no independent histories of the lineage, and no published investigations of the feats. The story of how the books came to be written is told in The Magus of Java: Kosta Danaos and John Chang.

John Chang in Java§

John Chang is described in these sources as a Chinese-Indonesian man living in Java, who worked as a healer, chiefly with acupuncture and the methods of Chinese medicine, and who kept his abilities largely private. Indonesia has long had a substantial ethnic Chinese population, with its own temples, family associations, schools of martial arts and traditional physicians, and Chang's practice belongs within that world. Danaos portrays him as a family man and a reluctant teacher, uninterested in fame and wary of publicity.

It is important to separate what is reported about Chang from what is known. Danaos's books are the main source for his biography, his teacher, his lineage and his level of attainment, and they cannot easily be checked against other records. Chang has not, so far as is publicly documented, written about Mo Pai himself or sought followers in the West. Fairness to a real person means reporting the claims made about him as claims, and not attributing to him statements or motives that the sources do not support.

Teachings: Yin Qi, Yang Qi and the Dantian§

As Danaos describes it, Mo Pai teaching rests on a distinction between two kinds of qi. Yang qi is generated within the body and is associated with warmth, activity and life; yin qi is drawn from the surrounding world and is associated with coolness, receptivity and, at the higher levels, with death and the realm of spirits. The early levels are said to consist of gathering and condensing yang qi in the lower dantian, the "elixir field" below the navel. A later level brings yin qi into the body and combines the two, and Danaos attributes the dramatic electrical phenomena to this union of opposites.

The levels are described in more detail in The Levels of Mo Pai Neigong: Yin and Yang Qi. The books themselves give only outlines of method and repeatedly warn that the practices should not be attempted without a qualified teacher. In keeping with that warning, this library describes the system and does not reproduce any practice instructions.

Mo Pai and Chinese Neigong, Qigong and Neidan§

Whatever its history, Mo Pai as described by Danaos speaks a language that any student of Chinese religion will recognise. Neigong is a general term for internal training in the martial and meditative arts: relaxation, alignment, breath and the cultivation of qi, as distinct from muscular "external" work. It overlaps with the modern umbrella term qigong, whose twentieth-century history is surveyed in Qigong and the Internal Arts.

The deeper framework is that of Taoist internal alchemy (neidan), which since the Song dynasty has described the refining of essence (jing) into qi, qi into spirit (shen), and spirit into emptiness, with the lower dantian as the crucible of the work. The pairing of yin and yang, the idea of reversing the body's natural depletion, and the goal of an immortal spirit body all have long histories in neidan and in the older pursuit of transcendence described in Taoist immortality: the xian and the elixir. The cosmology behind them is introduced in yin-yang and the five phases.

There are also differences. Classical neidan literature is mostly concerned with inner transformation and treats paranormal powers as distractions, a view shared with Buddhist meditation traditions. Danaos's books, by contrast, give demonstrable power a central place as evidence that the system works. Mo Pai's sharp distinction between internally generated yang qi and externally absorbed yin qi is also not a standard neidan scheme, though it echoes widespread ideas about gathering qi from heaven, earth and nature.

Reception, Debate and Scepticism§

The Magus of Java found an enthusiastic readership among martial artists and meditators in the early 2000s, and Mo Pai became a recurring subject on internet forums. Some readers tried to reconstruct the first level from hints in the books; others sought out Chang or claimed to have studied with him or his students. Commercial courses offering "Mo Pai" methods have also appeared, and their connection with Chang is generally unverifiable.

Sceptics point out that the footage was not made under controlled conditions, that similar effects can be produced by conjuring and electrical tricks, and that the twentieth-century history of Chinese qigong includes many claims of extraordinary powers that did not survive careful testing. Defenders reply that genuine masters avoid exhibitions and that the testimony of witnesses who felt the effects should count for something. These arguments, and the kinds of evidence that could settle them, are weighed in Mo Pai, Evidence and Scepticism. For the historian, Mo Pai is in any case a revealing case study in how a modern Western audience has received, and reshaped, Chinese ideas of qi and immortality.

Frequently asked questions§

What does Mo Pai mean?§

The meaning is uncertain. Pai means a school or faction, but the English sources do not establish the Chinese form of "Mo", and the suggestion that it refers to the Mohist philosopher Mozi is speculation rather than documented history.

Who is John Chang?§

John Chang is a Chinese-Indonesian healer from Java who appears in the 1988 documentary series Ring of Fire and is the central figure of Kosta Danaos's books. Nearly all published information about him comes from those sources, which present him as a master of the Mo Pai lineage.

Is Mo Pai a form of qigong or tai chi?§

It is neither a public qigong method nor a martial art style. It is described as a closed lineage of meditative internal training (neigong) whose language and goals come from Taoist internal alchemy, though its specific methods are known only in outline.

Can Mo Pai be learned from the books?§

The books do not contain a complete method, and both Danaos and the school as he describes it warn against unsupervised practice. Anyone interested in Chinese internal cultivation is better served by established, openly taught traditions with experienced teachers.

Sources and further reading§

• The Magus of Java: Teachings of an Authentic Taoist Immortal — Kosta Danaos, 2000
• Nei Kung: The Secret Teachings of the Warrior Sages — Kosta Danaos, 2002
• Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey — Lawrence Blair and Lorne Blair, 1988
• Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China — David A. Palmer, 2007
• The Encyclopedia of Taoism — Fabrizio Pregadio (ed.), 2008
• Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century — Peter A. Lorge, 2012
• Daoism and Chinese Culture — Livia Kohn, 2001