Inside dangerous fake ‘slapping therapy’ where vulnerable followers smack themselves & others to ‘cure’ deadly illnesses
BRITS have been warned to avoid a misleading fake “medical” practice where people pay hundreds of pounds to slap themselves and others to the point of severe bruising and bleeding.
Known as Paida Lajin, the dangerous concept falsely promises followers that they can cure deadly diseases like cancer.
Paida Lajin follows the idea in Chinese medicine that toxins can be purged from the body by clearing blockages.
Videos show its followers repeatedly slapping themselves, or slapping each other, leaving large bruises and drawing blood.
The bruising is thought to bring the ‘poisoned blood’ to the surface and expel chemical “odours” – but it is all psuedo-science.
Followers also stretch their legs painfully straight and upwards on a bench.
Most followers practice Paida Lajin in their own homes, slapping privately, but followers talk on social media and also go to group retreats.
On one Facebook page, believers share photos of their bruised bodies and testimonials describing their successes, while comments congratulate them.
One person who developed a limp repeatedly slapped their leg and said: “In applying the PL method, I found that the more I did it, the better I felt. The secret is persistence!”
“I feel good. I have no strong heartbeat. The pain in the neck and arm significantly decreased,” said another.
One woman even posted photos of her labrador’s belly rubbed raw after subjecting the pooch to the practice.
It comes after another woman died when she stopped taking insulin at a slapping therapy retreat.
‘Healer’ Hongchi Xiao was found guilty of manslaughter at Winchester Crown Court this month after Carol Carr-Gomm passed away at posh countryside hotel, Cleeve House, in Seend, Wiltshire.
Xiao, 61, of Cloudbreak, California, was leading the class in October 2016 when tragedy unfolded.
Carol, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1999, had been attending to find alternative treatment because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.
She had previously attended a retreat in Bulgaria, run by Xiao.
The court heard that she was left “howling in pain” and became seriously ill before she died on the fourth day of the workshop.
Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting said that by the third day “she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions”.
Mr Atkinson previously described how the defendant failed to get medical help for Carol before she died in the early hours of the fourth day.
Xiao was also extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old boy who also died after his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending the defendant’s workshop in Sydney.
The 61-year-old is due to be sentenced on October 1.
Carol’s son Matthew, 43, said at the time of her death that his mother had been “a victim of false hope”.
“She was convinced this alternative treatment was going to have a positive effect.
“She had a lifelong fear of needles so diabetes was probably the worst illness she could get. That was why she was so keen to try alternative therapies,” he said.
Bulgaria
One acolyte, Kamen Filipov, runs workshops in Bulgaria.
Filipov, 60, began teaching Paida after attending the same Bulgarian workshop that Carol did in 2016.
“I like divine simplicity in PL and immediate effect for anyone who accept this transforming way of wellbeing, like a natural daily pill,” he told The Sun.
Now, he says he doesn’t bruise.
“What Chinese medicine says is we will open the blockages and we will give energy to go through them, and if it works then the disease will disappear,” he said.
One video seen by The Sun of Filipov’s workshop shows a group of a dozen people squatting in a field and slapping themselves on the head.
“Slapping, tapping or patting is the same. I’m doing gradually with love on the level of individual tolerable pain till the pain reduce or disappears in one or a few session – time is individual.”
Another follower is Antonella Di Giola, who says she suffers from fibromyalgia.
Slapping therapy: Medical hogwash
- Paida Lajin therapy involved patients being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly.
- The name paida lajin derives from the Mandarin words for slapping the skin, while “lajin” is about adopting muscle-stretching postures.
- It is linked to the traditional Chinese medicine concept of “sha” – an idea that blood is poisoned by toxins and needs to be expelled.
- But the method has been criticised for having no scientific basis.
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist from the University of Wollongong, described the idea that bruising was poisoned blood as “nonsense”.
“In reality, all that people are doing with this therapy is self-inflicted injury,” he said.
The NHS says bruising is the “result of damage to the small blood vessels
under the skin.
“Depending upon the number of small blood vessels and their size so your bruise will be larger or smaller,” it adds.
The 47-year-old started Paida Lajin nine years ago after finding the slapping on Facebook.
She claims that the slapping has been a miracle for her and has cured a long list of ills including, numbness, bad blood circulation, uneven body temperature, constant pain, IBS and other ailments.
“I slap everywhere, when I can’t get up I slap on my ankles, feet and knees, when I have a headache I slap on my neck, around the head and my face.
“The practice is not painful, it is VERY painful but it is worth it and life changing, I see people online taking so many medications and they r only getting worse while I am slowly getting better,” she said.
Di Giola said that she has never drawn blood but has seen the toxins coming to the surface when she bleeds.
Slapping workshops have happened all over the world, including in Britain, but Filipov’s Bulgarian workshops are currently the biggest with him hosting five in 2023.
One workshop he held was in the spa town of Devin in November, and cost £600.
It followed a program of other health activities including mineral baths, meditative jogging, sitting meditation, and just basic meditation.
Attendees also fasted for two days.
Video posted by Filipov from the event shows seven followers sitting around the resort’s lounge slapping themselves on their knees and each other on their feet.
Conspiracy
Followers distrust ‘big pharma’ and look to the slapping after a struggle to cure their ills.
But, members also engage in conspiracy theories saying vaccines are used for population control and money.
“Master says diseases are a piece of cake, it is important the person is willing to improve the condition in a natural way.
“It doesn’t matter what the name of the disease is,” says Filipov.
For example, if one catches cancer, followers say they can simply slap it away.
“If it’s working then the disease will disappear.
“It’s a journey and in this journey, you can transform yourself,” Filipov says.
Who was the 'healer'?
Hongchi Xaio was the ‘world’s leading expert in’ the ancient Chinese healing art.
Xaio is said to have ‘rediscovered’ paida lajin by travelling to the Chinese mountains to learn it from Kung Fu Masters and other alternative healing methods from fishermen and farmers.
After seven years of learning he made ‘public claims’ to being responsible for its ‘reinvention’, therefore making him the ‘world leading expert’.
During his trial, the 61 year old told jurors he moved from his home in China to America in 1980, where he worked in the financial sector in New York and Hong Kong for a few years.
However, to do something ‘more meaningful for myself and to the world’ he decided to try his hand helping people.
Explaining his motivation, he said: “My elder brother was a very clever young boy but once he got a fever he was treated in hospital with medication.”
He claimed the side effects caused him to have mental problems meaning he could no longer ‘eat, dress himself or go to the toilet’.
Xiao said he had to look after his older brother and was left wondering ‘how can you get rid of side effects’.
He added that his father had died of lung cancer and died ‘very quickly’ after undergoing chemotherapy and would argue with his mother – who was a western medical doctor – about her taking medication for high blood pressure.
He said he learned acupuncture and massaging and ‘all these kinds of natural healing without medication’.
Xiao said he spent time with the monks in Tibet, China, where people would travel ‘hundreds of miles’ to be treated by him.
However, he said he became ‘exhausted’ treating 100 people a day and decided to move from healing to self-healing, so he could get people to heal themselves.
He travelled to Chinese mountains where he spent up to seven years learning paida lajin from Kung Fu Masters and other methods including acupressure from fishermen and farmers.
Xiao said when he asked a ‘master’ why the methods were not more widespread, he was told: “It’s not because we want to keep it a secret, it’s because don’t not only believe you, they laugh at you.”
Asked why healing methods were better managed with him at a workshop than individually, he said: “When at home, it’s easy to give up.
“But in a workshop they joke and help each other. They also have assistance and encourage each other.”
On his book, he said: “Since this is self healing I want people to take responsibility for their own issues, especially medication.
“If you are not a doctor, whether something is effective or not, that is the number one criteria, especially in self healing.
“Many people think I’m cheating other people, but I have always made it very clear you have many ways to cheat other people – but not the healing thing.
“It works, or it doesn’t – if it doesn’t, people will know.”
Xiao said his priority was providing simple and safe treatment for people.
“Many people like me, we are not doctors,” he said.
“If it’s done by yourself, it should be very safe because you can harm yourself.
“Even in yoga, you have more complicated postures.”
During court proceedings His Honour Mr Justice Robert Bright said: “Hongchi Xiao Had made public claims to have rediscovered paida lajin, which he said was an ancient Chinese healing art which had long been forgotten.
“It was, essentially, his invention, or reinvention, with the result that he was the world’s leading expert in it.”
