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Falun Gong (Chinese: 法輪功) is a spiritual practice founded in China by Li Hongzhi (李洪志) in 1992. Falun Gong has five sets of qigong exercises; its teachings are focused on the principles of "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance" as set out in the main books Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun. The books, lectures, and exercise materials have been translated into multiple languages and are freely available on the Internet.

This controversial movement emerged at the end of China's "qigong boom" as a traditional qigong cultivation practice and has been regarded as one of the most important phenomena to emerge in China in the 1990s. The differences to traditional groups include the absence of rituals of daily worship, a self-consciousness about outside critics, greater emphasis on morality and the apparently theological nature of its teachings, which make it appear to be a religion.

Because Falun Gong practitioners have no membership system, numbers are unknown. In 1998, the Chinese government published a figure of 70 million practitioners in China. Clearwisdom.net, a Falun Gong website, claims 100 million practitioners of Falun Dafa in "114 countries and regions around the world". Falun Gong's spread and sustained activism against persecution may be the greatest challenge to Chinese state power in recent history.

In April 1999 over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at Communist Party of China headquarters, Zhongnanhai, in a silent protest against beatings and arrests in Tianjin. Two months later the People's Republic of China government, led by Jiang Zemin, banned the practice, began a crackdown, and started what Amnesty International described as a "massive propaganda campaign." Since 1999, reports of torture, illegal imprisonment, beatings, forced labor, and psychiatric abuses have been widespread. Two thirds of all reported torture cases in China concern Falun Gong practitioners, who are also estimated to comprise at least half of China's labor camp population according to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, and the US Department of State respectively. In 2006, human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian secretary of state David Kilgour published an investigative report concluding that a large number of Falun Gong practitioners have become victims of systematic organ harvesting in China and that the practice is still ongoing. In November 2008, The United Nations Committee on Torture called on the Chinese State party to commission an independent investigation of the reports and to "ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished."

Beliefs and teachings

Falun Gong was introduced to the public by Li Hongzhi(李洪志) in Changchun, China, in 1992. Its teachings cover spiritual, religious, mystical, and metaphysical topics. Falun Gong is an introductory book that discusses qigong, which introduces the principles and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises involved in Falun Gong practice.

The main body of teachings is articulated in the core book Zhuan Falun (轉法輪), published in late 1994. According to the texts, Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) is a complete system of mind-body "cultivation practice" (修煉). Truthfulness (眞 Zhen), Compassion (善 Shan), and Forbearance (忍 Ren) are regarded as the fundamental characteristics of the cosmos—an omnipresent nature that permeates and encompasses everything. In the process of cultivation, the practitioner is supposed to assimilate himself or herself to these qualities by letting go of "attachments and notions," thus returning to the "original, true self." In Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi said that "As a practitioner, if you assimilate yourself to this characteristic, you are one that has attained the Tao—it's just such a simple principle."

Falun Gong draws on oriental mysticism and traditional Chinese medicine, criticizes self-imposed limits of modern science, and views traditional Chinese science as an entirely different, yet equally valid knowledge system, according to Yuezhi Zhao, professor in the University of California. Concomitantly, it borrows the language of modern science in representing its cosmic laws; she says: "Falun gong is not conceptualized as a religious faith; on the contrary, its practitioners, which include doctorate holders from prestigious American universities, see it as 'a new form of science.'"

Theoretical background

Qigong (or ch'i kung) refers to a wide variety of traditional "cultivation" practices that involve movement and/or regulated breathing designed to be therapeutic. Qigong is practiced for health maintenance purposes, as a therapeutic intervention, as a medical profession, a spiritual path, or a component of Chinese martial arts.

According to Xu Jian, writing for the Journal of Asian Studies, the discourses on qigong theory broadly divide into "naturalist" and "supernaturalist" schools. The "naturalist" discourse involves scientific research on qigong and seeks to understand it within a modern, empirical, paradigmatic framework, while the "supernaturalist" discourse is situated within a revival of nationalistic traditional beliefs and values and conceives qigong as psychosomatic and metaphysical. Xu says, "this discursive struggle has articulated itself as an intellectual debate and enlisted on both sides a host of well-known writers and scientists — so much so that a veritable corpus of literature on qigong resulted. Each strives to establish its own order of power and knowledge, its own 'truth' about the 'reality' of qigong, although they differ drastically in their explanation of many of its phenomena."

At the center of the debate is whether and how qigong can bring forth "supernormal abilities" (特異功能, teyi gongneng). "The psychosomatic discourse emphasizes the inexplicable power of qigong and relishes its occult workings, whereas the rational discourse strives to demystify many of its phenomena and to situate it strictly in the knowledge of modern science."

The Chinese government has generally tried to encourage qigong as a science and discourages religious or supernatural elements. However, the category of science in China tends to include things that are generally not considered scientific in the West, including qigong and traditional Chinese medicine.

David Aikman says that unlike in America, where many may believe that qigong is a socially neutral, subjective, New Age-style concept incapable of scientific proof, much of China's scientific establishment believes in the existence of qi. He contends that controlled experiments by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the late 1970s and early 1980s concluded that qi, when emitted by a qigong expert, "actually constitutes measurable infrared electromagnetic waves and causes chemical changes in static water through mental concentration."

Theories about the cultivation of elixir (dan), "placement of the mysterious pass" (xuanguan shewei), among others, are also found in ancient Chinese texts such as The Book of Elixir (Dan Jing), Daoist Canon (Tao Zang) and Guide to Nature and Longevity (Xingming Guizhi). Falun Gong's teachings tap into a wide array of phenomena and cultural heritage that has been debated for ages. However, the definitions of many of the terms used differ somewhat from Buddhist and Daoist traditions. Francesco Sisci says that Falun Gong "re-elaborated old, well-known Taoist and Buddhist routines, used the old vocabulary that people found familiar, and revamped them in a simple, persuasive way."

History

Beginnings

Falon Gong was founded by Li Hongzhi. According to a biography which appeared as an appendix to Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi was taught ways of "cultivation practice" (xiulian) by several masters of the Dao and Buddhist schools of thought starting at a very young age. The biography indicates that he was trained by Quan Jue, the 10th Heir to the Great Law of the Buddha School, at age four. He was then trained by a Taoist master at age eight. This master left him at age twelve, and from then on, he was trained by a master of the Great Way School with the Taoist alias of True Taoist, who came from the Changbai Mountains.

Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong to the public on May 13, 1992, in Changchun, Jilin. Invited by qigong organizations from each area, Li traveled to almost all major cities in China from 1992 to 1994 to teach the practice. For the first few years of spreading Falun Gong, Li was granted several awards by Chinese governmental organizations to encourage him to continue promoting what was then considered to be a wholesome practice. University of Montreal scholar David Ownby noted that neither Li nor Falun Gong were particularly controversial in the beginning. Li became an "instant star of the qigong movement," with his practice method celebrated at the Beijing Oriental Health Expos of both 1992 and 1993. Falun Gong was welcomed into the Scientific Qigong Research Association, which sponsored and helped organise many of Li's activities between 1992 and 1994, including the 54 large-scale lectures given throughout China in most major cities to a total audience of 20,000. The scale of the activities was unprecedented at that time.

After teaching publicly in Changchun, Li began to make his ideas more widely accessible and affordable, charging less than other qigong systems for lectures, tapes, and books. On 4 January 1995, Zhuan Falun, the main book on Falun Gong, was published and became a best-seller in China. Before 1999, people learned Falun Gong by word of mouth, and it was usually practiced in the morning in parks like many other forms of exercise in China. It attracted many retired persons, factory workers, farmers, state enterprise managers, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and students.

In 1994, Falun Gong was taught at the Chinese consulate in New York as part of the Party's "cultural propaganda to the West", alongside Chinese silk craft and cooking. The consulate at that time also set up Falun Gong clubs at MIT and Columbia University which are active to this day. Starting in 1995, Li himself taught the practice outside of China, chairing a series of conferences at the Chinese embassy in Paris, upon invitation by China's ambassador to France, according to David Ownby. According to Professor Scott Lowe, Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Falun Gong enjoyed "excellent public credibility" in China until 1999: "Practitioners talked enthusiastically of the benefits Falun Gong had brought to their lives, and this functioned as a powerful recruiting tool, especially within families and circles of friends."

Ideological and social context

Yuezhi Zhao opines that Falun Gong's spread in China in the 1990s "reflected the profound contradictions of the Communist Party's technocratic-oriented modernization drive." Falun Gong's rise, she says, was responding to the deep and widespread ideological and identity crises that followed the 1989 suppression of mass pro-democracy movement. In the early 1990s, Deng Xiaoping called for an end to debates about the political and social meaning of the economic reforms, urging the populace to participate in commercialism and the pursuit of material wealth. Falun Gong, in contrast, writes Zhao, "insisted on the search for meaning and called for a radical transcendence of materialism in both the mundane and philosophical senses."

Falun Gong taken in this context is a Chinese manifestation of "a worldwide backlash against capitalist modernity" Though it is grounded in Chinese cultural traditions and responds to unique post-1989 Chinese realities, Zhao says Falun Gong also addresses universal concerns, "asking humanity to take a 'fresh look' at itself and re-examine its dominant value system. It is partly for this reason that Falun Gong appeals to some non-Chinese people in the West."

Zhao opines that, while Chinese authorities condemn Falun Gong as having "fallen prey to premodern superstitions," the practice "articulates a mixture of premodern, modern, and postmodern sensibilities." In Zhao's view, Falun Gong has established a 'resistance identity', resisting prevailing pursuits of wealth, power, scientific rationality and "the entire value system associated with the project of modernization".

Li Hongzhi addresses precisely the actors and aspects of subjectivity bruised by the ruthless march of Chinese modernity... and provides an alternative meaning system within which individuals can come to terms with their experience. The multiple unfolding struggles over this resistance identity match, both in speed and intensity, the wider social transformation in China.

In a reversal from the 1989 outpouring of desire for political participation, many Chinese turned to Falun Gong precisely because they saw it as "an apolitical response to their individual and social concerns. By focusing on self-cultivation and individual moral salvation, and by urging its members to take lightly or give up 'attachments' to the desires, ambitions, and sentimentality that ordinarily rule modern human life, Falun Gong is reactive, defensive, and politically conservative." Zhao regards the required discipline as a form of religious fundamentalism, and is subsequently not "a purveyor of 'a social project'". Yet, she says, it has turned out to be "the most politicized and highly mobilized form of social contestation in post-1989 China." No other disenfranchised social group has staged a mass protest near Zhongnanhai, she says. And while the post-Mao Chinese state attempted to avert ideological struggles, " ended up having to wage a Maoist-style ideological campaign against the movement. Such is the dialectic of China's 'economic' reforms."

Scott Lowe reports in a study of an internet survey he conducted, published in Nova Religio, that practitioners understood the reason for Falun Gong's rapid growth within China to be related to "family ties and community relationships," which, he says, still retain great power. In this context, "whenever someone discovers something good, they automatically wish to pass it on to their family and friends." He says the "tremendously positive" word-of-mouth generated by practitioners naturally led to the rapid spread of the teachings within close-knit Chinese communities.

The Economist asserts that much of Falun Gong's success in the 1990s was due to claims that it could heal without costly medicine, as many citizens had lost medical benefits and services due to changing economic conditions. Some in China maintained that Falun Gong was the most popular qigong practice in the country, and that many professors from Beijing University practiced the exercises every day on the campus grounds until the crackdown in 1999.

While Lowe acknowledges sociological "macro-issues," such as economic insecurity, free time, the collapse of moral standards, worries about health and medical care, the desire for existential certitude, and other factors as explanations for Falun Gong's rise, he suggests these were secondary, if not completely irrelevant, to the thinking of the individuals who took up Falun Gong practice. Falun Gong appeals to individuals on several levels of understanding, he says: "For beginners, health benefits seem to be a primary concern. Over time, as good health comes to be a given and as their study of Master Li’s books deepens, the metaphysical system of Falun Gong seems to take precedence as cultivators work to shed their attachments and move to higher levels..." Over time, followers appear to find in the teachings an "intricate, orderly, and internally consistent understanding of the cosmos," he writes. Other qigong practices were unable to provide "clear, unambiguous explanations of life’s deepest mysteries" and such a "complete and intellectually satisfying picture of the universe," as practitioners see it, he says.

Situation in mainland China

In April 1999, physicist He Zuoxiu published an article in the Tianjin College of Education’s Youth Reader magazine, entitled “I Do Not Agree with Youth Practicing qigong,” and criticized Falun Gong. Practitioners found his treatment of Falun Gong unfair, and believed it to be part of a wider campaign to discredit the practice; they subsequently gathered to protest the article. Police were allegedly called, who then beat and arrested a number of them. They were directed to take their appeal to the capital. On April 25, around ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners lined the streets near Zhongnanhai in silence, seeking legal recognition and protection of the practice in light of the alleged beatings and arrests in Tianjin. A few months later, on 20 July 1999, thousands of practitioners were arrested in the middle of the night, the media campaign to vilify the practice began, and the persecution was officially underway.

Julia Ching from the University of Toronto suggested that it was the Zhongnanhai incident which led to "fear, animosity and suppression." A World Journal article suggested that certain high-level Party officials had wanted to crack down on the practice for several years, but lacked sufficient pretext until the protest at Zhongnanhai—which it claims may have been partly orchestrated by Luo Gan, a long-time opponent of Falun Gong. Jiang Zemin is held by Falun Gong to be largely personally responsible for the final decision. Cited motives include suspected personal jealousy of Li Hongzhi, anger at Falun Gong's widespread appeal, and ideological struggle. The nature of Communist Party rule and a perceived challenge to it is also a commonly understood reason for the persecution.

The ban

On 20 July 1999, following seven years of rapid growth of the practice within mainland China, Xinhua issued a statement saying the government was banning Falun Gong:

China today banned the Research Society of Falun Dafa and the Falun Gong organization under its control after deeming them to be illegal.

In its decision on this matter issued today, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said that according to investigations, the Research Society of Falun Dafa had not been registered according to law and had been engaged in illegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability.

The decision said that therefore, in accordance with the Regulations on the Registration and Management of Mass Organizations, the Research Society of Falun Dafa and the Falun Gong organization under its control are held to be illegal and are therefore banned.

Xinhua further declared that Falun Gong was a highly organised political group "opposed to the Communist Party of China and the central government, preaches idealism, theism and feudal superstition." It sought to make a distinction between "ordinary core members" and the leaders, which it referred to as "a small number of behind-the-scenes plotters and organizers who harbor political intentions." It struck a warning-bell against some important Party and government officials who were practitioners. Xinhua also affirmed that "the so-called 'truth, kindness and forbearance' principle preached by Li has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve."

Li Hongzhi responded with a "Brief Statement of Mine" on July 22:

Falun Gong is simply a popular qigong activity. It does not have any particular organization, let alone any political objectives. We have never been involved in any anti-government activities. I am a cultivator myself, and I have never been destined to be involved in political power. I am just teaching people how to practice cultivation. If one wants to practice qigong well, he/she must be a person of high moral standards...

We are not against the government now, nor will we be in the future. Other people may treat us badly, but we do not treat others badly, nor do we treat people as enemies.

We are calling for all governments, international organizations, and people of goodwill worldwide to extend their support and assistance to us in order to resolve the present crisis that is taking place in China.

A nationwide crackdown ensued with the exception of the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. In October 1999, four months after the ban, legislation was created to outlaw "heterodox religions" and applied to Falun Gong retroactively. The Chinese authorities branded Falun Gong, along with some other practices, movements or organizations, as 邪教 or "xiejiao", which was translated into English with the somewhat inaccurate term "cult" or "evil cult."

Protests inside mainland China

Protests in Beijing were frequent for the first few years following the 1999 edict, though they have largely been silenced since. Practitioners' presence in mainland China has become more low-profile, as they opt for alternative methods of informing the citizenry, such as through overnight letterbox drops of CD-ROMs. They have occasionally hacked into state television channels to broadcast their material, with harsh repercussions. Practitioners are also globally active in appealing to governments, media, and the people of their respective countries about the situation in China.

Outside mainland China

Since the 1999 persecution, Falun Gong practitioners abroad have held activities directing attention to the human rights situation in China. Practitioners' lobbying has raised the profile of the practice around the world, particularly in the United States.

Reception

The scholar Benjamin Penny of the Australian National University has given a detailed treatment of Chinese Buddhist publications and has written on Falun Gong. Scholars Susan Palmer, David Ownby, and anthropologist Noah Porter, have made ethnographic studies of Falun Gong as it is currently transmitted and practiced in the United States. James Tong has written about the development of the campaign to repress the practice in Mainland China and discussed the use of the Communist states' media outlets in its portrayal of Falun Gong as a well-financed organisation.

David Ownby, director of the Centre of East Asian studies at the University of Montreal, has analysed Falun Gong from a historical Chinese perspective as well as commented on his personal experience of meeting modern Falun Gong practitioners. Ownby has also speculated on Falun Gong as a cultural renewal of ancient Chinese cultivation forms starting in the Ming dynasty. Stephen Chan has written about Falun Gong's relationship to Buddhism and other qigong, as well as commenting on deeper reasons behind the ban in Mainland China. Barend ter Haar argues that Falun Gong "and the state's response to it cannot be understood without reference to the recent history of the People's Republic of China" .

Ownby states that Falun Gong is "by no means a cult" that the People's Republic of China asserts it to be. Livia Kohn, Professor of Religion and East Asian Studies at Boston University and a scholar in Daoism, claims Falun Gong has "a high success rate in creating friendlier people, more harmonious social environments, and greater health and vitality." Benjamin Penny considers many aspects of Falun Gong "deeply traditional", at the same time, the system, "completely modern." According to him, "The best way to describe Falun Gong is as a cultivation system. Cultivation systems have been a feature of Chinese life for at least 2,500 years."

Psychologist Margaret Singer called the practice a "cult" at a Seattle conference, claiming that practitioners' relatives had approached her with concerns about the practice. Singer's credentials regarding this matter have been questioned. At the same conference, Patsy Rahn argued that "the crackdown on Falun Gong in China has helped the movement's reputation in the United States, because most of the news accounts here focus on the issue of human rights violations by the Communist government in Beijing." Rahn has also said that she believes the true story lies somewhere between the Communist Party's description of Falun Gong as an "evil cult" and the American news media's portrayal of Communist China as an "evil empire". Political scientist Patricia M. Thornton at the University of Oxford refers to Falun Gong as a cybersect, due to the group's reliance on the internet "for text distribution, recruitment and information-sharing among adherents".

According to Brian Edelman and James T. Richardson writing in the peer-reviewed Journal of Church and State, China has incorporated many theories of the "anti-cult movement" into its campaign against the Falun Gong. "However, most of the claims put forth by the ACM lack empirical verification or general acceptance within the scientific community." Moreover, Edelman and Richardson argue that "the definition allows the government to employ the restrictive anti-cult legislation to target a wide array of religious and spiritual organizations. The evidence suggests that this is precisely what has happened." As for the anti-Falun Gong legislation in China, "such infringements are not within the bounds of state discretion. As a result, they are in violation of international customary law. Furthermore, although China's discretion in relation to its restrictions on religious practice is greater, its actions also seem to overstep the bounds of the margin of appreciation. State edicts and legislation appear to be discriminatory in nature." The researchers conclude that "the anti-cult movement and its ideology have served as useful tools, helping efforts by the party to try to maintain a delicate balance and create the illusion that the rule-of-law has been upheld, even as actions in violation of international customary law are being taken against the Falun Gong."

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69. Jane Green and Patrick Ryan v. Maharishi Yogi, US District Court, Washington, DC, 13 March 1991, Case #87-0015 OG
70. Patricia M. Thornton, "The New Cybersects: Resistance and Repression in the Reform era. “ In Elizabeth Perry and Mark Selden, eds., Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (second edition) (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 149-50..
71. Brian Edelman and James T. Richardson, "Imposed limitations of Freedom of Religion in China: A Legal Analysis of the Crackdown on the Falun Gong and other "Evil Cults," Journal of Church and State (Vol. 47, Issue 2), pp. 243-268

Further reading

• David Ownby, Falun Gong and the Future of China (Oxford University Press, 2008) ISBN 978-0-19-532905-6
• Maria Hsia Chang, Falun Gong: The End of Days (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004) ISBN 0-300-10227-5
• Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong (Law Wheel qigong) (1993)
• Li Hongzhi, Zhuan Falun (English translation 2000)
• Danny Schechter, Falun Gong's Challenge to China (Akashic Books, 2000) hardback ISBN 1-888451-13-0, paperback ISBN 1-888451-27-0

External links

Sites run by Falun Gong practitioners

• FalunDafa.org
• FalunInfo.net
• Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group

Critical sites

• Condemn Falun Gong Cult — a series of anti-Falun Gong articles of the state-run Xinhua news agency
• Falungong Part 1: From Sport to Suicide, Francesco Sisci, Asia Times, January 27, 2001

Other sites

• Articles on the Falun Gong, (Pulitzer Prize winner) Ian Johnson, Wall Street Journal, 2001
• Falun Gong: Cult or Culture?, Produced by Chris Bullock, Radio National, 22 April 2001
• Center for Studies on New Religions press archives
• Carrying a Torch for China, Ethan Gutmann, The Weekly Standard, 21 April 2008
• Spiritual Society or Evil Cult?

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from July 2009
• Falun Gong
• Culture of the People's Republic of China
• Religion in the People's Republic of China
• Society of the People's Republic of China
• Victims of Communist repressions in China
• New religious movements