Spring Forest Qigong (SFQ) in Eden Prairie, MN, is very highly rated and seems to help everyone with their physical and spiritual well-being. That makes it even harder for me to understand their treatment of me.

I started learning the Qigong exercises in June of 2008, and as the lessons came with a discount on getting a “healing, " and because of my physical problems, I decided to try one even though it was very expensive (I live on Social Security) $70 with the discount, later, $85. Master Lin told me I would need 7 healing sessions.

I asked about financial aid but was only told about the discount that came with the lessons - which would basically double the cost. I had 5 sessions and was not only going into debt, but getting worse physically. I got more insistent about financial help - I could not see why the sessions were so expensive as they were only about half an hour long and involved no expensive equipment.

I was referred to one of the healers in training, Darcie Grim, who informed me that the healing were completely unnecessary, that all I had to do was keep doing the exercises (which I was already doing faithfully). Needless to say, I was pretty upset to be told this after Master Lin told me I needed 7 sessions, but I continued doing the exercises - and continued to get worse.

After a month, I called to talk to Darcie, but she would not talk to me, and May, the administrator just snapped at me, “There's no guarantee! If the exercises don't help, stop doing them!" I was beyond stunned, as the message one gets from Master Lin's book and his talks is that everyone benefits and helping others is the purpose of his work.

I then wrote Master Lin asking for an explanation of this attitude and behavior. I never got a response. A few months later I wrote the person who runs the SFQ Guild. He was very surprised by my story and said he would ask about it. He never got a response either.

I can understand that the exercises might not help everybody, though that is certainly not the message given. What I CAN'T understand is that Master Lin didn't have the courtesy, the decency, the concern, the responsiveness to reply to me, particularly in light of the kind of person he purports to be.