Very good question, Faune! I don't know if my comments will be of any help, but this is similar to something I've been struggling with also. Someone earlier implied that in order for SFQ to work a person has to believe it works (unless I totally misunderstood what they meant). This makes no sense to me at all...IMO either SFQ (eventually) works, or it doesn't, independent of the person's belief system.
An individual might *want to believe and yet not be able to (at least not in the beginning). The same with "knowing". Perhaps the "knowing and the belief" come with time and positive experiences in Qigong? If so, this would indicate that a person doesn't *have* to believe (or know) at first, but merely continue working with it to see if positive things eventually do occur.
I'm very new at SFQ as well so in order to deal with the 'to believe or not' dilemma, I finally decided to just forget about it, keep practicing and hope that good things will occur. If they do, then great; if not, then at least I've met a lot of interesting and nice people along the way. 
Lynn-Marie
