The Government's limited oversight is wielded through the martial arts department of the Sports Commission. Last year, that department began evaluating qigong sects for legal approval. But a scholar who advised the department, Luo Shao, said that the evaluation methods were ill-defined and that many officials were followers of qigong, insuring a lack of critical oversight. So far the agency has studied only 11 sects out of hundreds, not including Buddhist Law, and approved them all, said Mr. Luo, an expert on Buddhist history at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a strong critic of the group. New offshoots like this one, with charismatic leaders and broad-ranging mystical beliefs, have been attacked as heretical cults by some scholars here as well as by mainstream qigong groups and Buddhist leaders.
Members resent the characterization.
Buddhist Law was accepted into the semi-official China Qigong Science Association in 1993, but expelled in 1996 for what were considered its extreme claims.