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"Spiritual Practice or Evil Cult"?:
Comprehending Falun Gong in the Context of China's Religious Policy 1

Zhonghu Yan

Center for the Study of Religion
University of Toronto

INTRODUCTION

At 3:00 PM, on February 12, 2000, in the International Student Center, University of Toronto, a group of about twenty was gathering in a ground floor room, half of them Caucasians and half of them Chinese. They were here to practice a kind of meditation that consists of four sets of standing posture and one set of sitting posture. An impatient observer might conclude that this meditation practice is not much different from some yogic practices that have been known to the West. But if that person lingered, he or she would soon find differences.

Finishing the five sets of posture was only a beginning of the overall practice. The practitioners were now to read aloud passages from either China Falun Gong or Zhuan Falun, the two books upon which the above meditation is based, but which is much more than a mere instruction manual. There in these two books, the practitioners believe, secrets of the universe have been revealed by the author Li Hongzhi, who is revered by them as an enlightened one. The recitation was followed by a question and answer session. Particular reflections on the passages just read were put forward for discussion. And then a testimony session began. As I observed, four came to the front to give testimonies on that day, three Caucasians and one Chinese person. The three Caucasians shared their experience with the audience on how they were first attracted to the exercise and how they had been transformed in the way they looked at the world and dealt with other people. The Chinese person gave a witness on how her chronic disease was cured after two years of practice and how this practice enhanced her understanding of the Catholic teachings in which she had been brought up. After what they called "experience sharing", they would share the foods that they had brought with them. Not wishing to take advantage, I left before the potluck began.

This group was engaging in the practice called Falun Gong or Falun Dafa, which was known to the world since their comrades in Beijing gathered in front of the compound of China's political center, Zhongnanhai. As I learned from my conversations with other practitioners, it is typical for Falun Gong followers to gather regularly to meditate together and recite Master Li's books and give testimonies in the countries outside China now, as they did in China before there was a crackdown and Falun Gong was officially labeled as an "evil religion" in July, 1999. 2

Some elements of Falun Gong practice quite resembled Christian fellowships that I have attended. Scriptural reading is meant to gain a new insight for practice, testimonies are meant to strengthen the faith or commitment of the followers, and food sharing is meant to associate and strengthen the bonds among the followers. Why is this apparently quite "normal" activity labeled as a "cult" and banned altogether in China?

Some reporters and political analysts claim that China was experiencing a period of economic and social crisis owing to the structural change in the system and the crackdown on Fanlun Gong was a means of diverting the people' attention from the domestic problems.3 I always have a suspicion of this "attention diversion theory". Suppose China is now free of all these problems, will the current regime tolerate any spiritual movement running out of its control? The answer will become clear as we are better informed of the mechanism at work in controlling unsanctioned doctrines and practices, especially those with religious nature.

CHINA'S RELIGIOUS POLICY IN A NUTSHELL

The current Beijing regime gained its legitimacy to rule the country from its triumph in the civil war against the Nationalist government in 1949. In its own words, "the regime came from the guns". For such a regime, if the guns are to be temporarily put aside to build a civil and stable society, consents from majority of the people are indispensable even at the nominal level. In order to have a majority of the people to tow the Party line, a mechanism must be in place to recruit new members who take the commitment to the Marxist ideology as a precondition and fill them in official posts and have them serve as models for those aspirants.

The number of Party members is reportedly around 50 million, who are serving on different levels of governments or Party organs. The number of aspirants, who are generally called youth league members, might be even bigger. Those who hold the Party membership cards are considered to belong in advanced class, and therefore have advanced knowledge about the things of the world as transmitted by Marx-Lenin-Stalin and Mao line. Then, where do those who expressly do not endorse Marxist ideology, especially his vision of religion come in?

The Communist China's policy towards those holding different views of religion and practice could generally be divided into three phases with different characteristics. The first phase was roughly from 1931 to 1966, when the Chinese Communists found it necessary to form a united front with those religious people to fight against the Nationalist government. In Mao's own words,

Communists may form an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal united front for political action with certain idealists and even with religious followers, but we can never approve of their idealism or religious doctrines (MacInnis, 1972:12).

The second phase ran roughly from 1966-1976, during which the Cultural Revolution reversed the religious policy that was generally practiced in the earlier phase. The most famous slogan in this period is " down with all the ox ghosts and snake spirits", without distinctions made between folk beliefs and established religions of native or foreign origins. Temples and churches were pulled down or converted into secular or military uses, monks were de-robed, ministers imprisoned, with the number of religious professional dwindling at a fast speed.

The third phase began with the end of the Cultural Revolution and lasts to the present. It is a period of religious recuperation. A new constitution was passed where religious freedom is guaranteed at least on paper, although its implementation is often subject to expedience of the circumstance in question. Other civil liberties are expanded too. While public speech against the government or the Party is not allowed, in private people can talk practically on everything without the fear of being persecuted. While religious activities are still confined to temples or churches, with the permission from the government department concerned, people are allowed to assemble beyond the temples or churches to attend lectures on qigong, a borderline case between scientifically based practice and superstitious or religious act. We will have occasion to examine this key term and its cultural and political implications. At this moment, it is enough to point out that Beijing rarely saw qigong practice as a political threat to the regime until Falun Gong's demonstration staged on May 25, 1999.

IS QIGONG RELIGOUS PRACTICE, HEALTH REGIMENT OR PSEUDO-SCIENCTIC CHARLETONISM?

The practice that I observed at the beginning of this paper generally belongs in qigong, a traditional health improvement exercise. The term qigong dates to 3rd or 4th century CE, but the practice bearing this name was popularized during the 1950s by a Chinese physician Guizhen Liu.4 Liu set up a clinic in a city near Beijing to cater to the needs of the clients who were mostly high-ranking officials. Since then, qigong therapy has been quite a success; divested of what might have been considered its religious or superstitious dimension, qigong gained approval from the government and the term itself quickly gained circulation. With possible exception during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1975), qigong has been promoted as a popular health improvement practice even by the government itself: qigong clinics are present in many state-run hospitals; some traditional Chinese medical schools offer a Master's degree program in the study of qigong.

However, as those who engage in qigong practice know, this is not a purely physical exercise. qi, the refined substance that a practitioner wishes to marshal through his or her physical conduits, has a strong spiritual dimension to it. A more traditional term for it is xiulian, cultivation, which has a connotation of "refining cosmic force by using the human body as a furnace". The exercise itself could be traced back to as early as 6th century BCE.5 In the Modern Chinese Dictionary, xiulian is defined exclusively as Taoist exercises such as breath control, energy cultivation and elixir making.6 While it is certainly true that original cultivation practice was more often than not associated with Taoism, whose ultimate goal of practice is physical immortality, the successful assimilation of Buddhism into China expanded the vision of Taoist cultivation practice. The ethical teachings of Confucianism also found its way into it.

This practice of xiulian with its rich spiritual, ethical and physical dimensions was transmitted through a master-disciple lineage within the Taoist, Buddhist or Confucian tradition, and long catered to the physical, spiritual and ethical needs of the Chinese people. Several times in history, this practice was used as a rallying force to challenge ruling regimes. The dynastic governments since the beginning of the last millennia have always been wary of a mass practice of it.

When Communism took over China, precautions were taken against the established religions based on these practices. Inspired by Marxist theory of religion, the Communists had all the necessary restrictive measures necessary in place. The state apparatuses are used not only to indoctrinate materialism and atheist outlook of life among the citizens, but also to prohibit religious activity outside the wall of temples or churches.7

These restrictive measures had one serious consequence: in the 80s and 90s, there emerged a succession of so-called qigong masters. These masters claimed to have an access to the traditional resources and possess supernormal healing powers, and yet tried to disassociate from Taoist or Buddhist religion. For, the term, "religion", had by now acquired a bad connotation through association with superstition by decades of anti-religious propaganda.8 Most of these masters, however, were not restricted by monastic disciplines. Their practices were often turned into selfish ends. This helps to explain why one master emerged after another, winning some popularity for a time and then discredited for moral decadence and fell into disgrace. Li Hongzhi was originally one of these masters and was treated by the government not much different from other masters. The suspicion grew stronger when the government discerned an unprecedented level of his popularity not only among the little educated masses, but also among intellectuals, officials and military officials, most of whom are Party members.

WHAT DOES FALUN GONG TEACH?

The exact number of Falun Gong followers is hard to come by. While its founder Li Hongzhi, now a resident in New York, claimed that there were 60 million in China alone, the Chinese government put the figure down as 2 million. 9 Whatever the truth is, its success is phenomenal. Li began to introduce Falun Gong to the Chinese audience in 1992, and was active in promoting it for two years before he went abroad to spread his teachings, and in spite of the persecution many Falun Gong practitioners in China are still clinging to their faith. Besides, he has a following of allegedly 40 million outside China.

His basic teachings can be found in the above-mentioned two standard texts. Let me summarize some key points:

2. Emphasizing three distinctive qualities of the universe, namely, zhen (truthfulness), shan (compassion) and ren (forbearance), Falun Gong is meant to facilitate the process of that return.

3. In order to engage in Falun Gong practice, one has to be physically attuned. Li claims that the fundamental cause of human physical illness is karma-- the force that is produced by one's action either in previous life or in this life. The karma, as Li further claims, has its physical manifestation. It is a "black something" perceptible to an advanced master like himself. This "black something", however, could be removed as the practitioner disciplines him or herself with the guidance of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, the above mentioned three qualities of the universe.

4. Finally, on the more practical level, Li Hongzhi claims that his five sets of exercises are particularly designed from otherwise very complicated procedure to facilitate the practitioners to achieve the prescribed goal.

This summary has revealed certain features of Li Hongzhi's teaching that generally differ from other qigong masters. In spite of some uneducated mistakes such as taking the light year as a measure of time, Li tries in his books to give some coherence to his theory. Ontologically, there is a dimension of the world that is more real than that which we normally experience. Epistemologically, this dimension of the world can be accessed through the five simple sets of exercise. And teleologically, practitioners are to acquire three qualities, namely, truthfulness, goodness and forbearance, which express the cosmic principles. To give authority to this high claim, Li apparently synthesizes the teaching of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. In his own words,

Taoist cultivation lays stress on the identification of zhen, "truthfulness", telling the truth, behaving truly, returning to the origin and going back to the truth and eventually becoming zhenren, an immortal being, and the Buddhist cultivation puts emphasis on shan, goodness, growing compassion and offering salvation to all sentient beings. Our school aims at an integrated cultivation of zhen-shan-ren, cultivating directly in accordance with the fundamental qualities of the cosmos and ultimately becoming completely assimilated to the cosmos."(Li 1998a: 35)

Furthermore, Li makes use of a lot of scientific terms to give creditability to his own teaching. For instance, he explains qi as "the high energy mass in the form of light with very tiny particles in great density"(Li 1998a: 5). In another instance, when it comes to Falun Gong's unique efficacy in increasing life span, he says,

What Falun Gong does is as follows: to make a fundamental change of the molecular composition of the human body, store the collected matter of high energy in each cell and finally replace the composition of the cell with the matter of high energy. Then there is no more metabolism. When a practitioner has freed himself from the control of the five elements and acquired a body composed of the matter from the other spaces, he will not be subject to the restriction of time of our space and stay young forever (Li 1998: 43).

This is an interesting juxtaposition of the things relating to both science and religion. The fact that Li chose to do so is, I believe, a strategy in response to decades- long theoretical and policy orientations pitting science against the spiritual domain of human activities.

SCIENCE AS AN ALL-PURPOSE TOOL AGAINST ALL

The state propaganda machines used to crush Falun Gong invariably launched their struggle as a scientific mission against the superstitious nature of the latter. This practice of pitting science against the spiritual domain generally inaccessible to science was a common one in the 20th century China. In the early 20 and 30s, there was a hot debate between science and religious worldviews.10 The two sides of the debate ended up in agreeing to disagree, but the scientific circle seemed to gain some upper hand among the intellectuals. One implication is that esthetics found its way into the college curricula replacing religious education. When the Communists took power, Marxism was equated with scientific theory. With its anti-religious proclamation, the spiritual domain was even more narrowed. Religion and all other spiritual enterprises are considered a product of illusion, and will inevitably be replaced by rational scientific thought following scientific evolutionary circle of development. Underlying the religious policies formulated since the Communist established its Soviet regime in part of China in the early 30s well into the present is the conviction that religion or other theistic ideas will disappear. It is a policy expedience to allow existence of Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism (they are considered separately for historical reasons), and Islam, the only five religions recognized in China.11

To facilitate control, each tradition was encouraged to establish, a representative organization usually called "association", serving as a mediator between the faithful and the government or Party. All the religious activities have to register with the branch administration through one of the associations; otherwise they will be deemed as illegitimate and suppressed.

On the other hand, as qigong originally emphasized health improvement alone and did not belong exclusively to any of the five legitimate traditions, it obviously could not be registered under any of these organizations. With qigong in general attracting more and more followings, the government realized the necessity of regulating its activities. The Chinese Qigong Research Association was thus established. This name is suggestive of an academic or scientific mission. Reportedly, this association conducted some scientific experiments proving the existence of qi and efficacy of qigong practice. There has been no independent agency to verify the claim. Within the scientific community, there were two opposing views on qigong represented by two rather well known scientists in their own rights. One was He Zouxiu, a theoretic physicist, who later was to trigger off Falun Gong's Tiananmen assembly, and became a national hero for opposing Falun Gong. The other was Qian Xuesen, a holder of Caltech Ph.D. and the father of Chinese rocket technology. Because no conclusion could be drawn about the nature of qigong, the government's policy was one of "three no's", namely "no promoting", "no criticizing" and "no encouraging". Falun Gong was first registered as a member of the Chinese Qigong Research Association, and somehow it withdrew from it. In the April 1999 issue of a popular science magazine, He Zouxiu wrote an article on qigong, where he drew a negative picture of Falun Gong.12 Considering the negative report as a violation of the government's " Three No's Policy", Falun Gong practitioners assembled in front of the magazine editorial office in Tianjin for an apology. Failing to get the apology they wanted, around ten thousand practitioners gathered in front of Zhongnanhai,13 the compound of the Chinese top leaders: this famous incident made Falun Gong the headline news in the world mass media. It was also this incident that ultimately led to an official ban on Falun Gong in July 1999.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE OR EVIL CULT?

In Falungong's Challenge to China, the journalist Danny Schecheter poses a question: Is Falun Gong a spiritual practice or evil cult? In the context of our understanding of the Chinese religious policy in the last few decades, this no longer seems to be an important question. Beijing never bothers to understand how Buddhism may differ from Christianity and therefore lump them together as theism, nor does it care whether Taoist breath control exercise has a record success in curing chronic disease. What the government does want to make sure is that these religious traditions limit their activity within the narrow space prescribed for them. In the case of Falun Gong, and all qigong practices for that matter, Beijing does not care to prove these exercises do save medical expenses for the nation, for the financial waste of the government officials far exceeded that amount. Nor do they concern about whether moral standards of the Falun Gong practitioners are truly strengthened. If this is indeed so, it only proves Marxism ineffectual. What Beijing does want to make sure is that there be no weak link that would make the regime collapse. With a number of alleged 60 million followers, which exceeds that of the Communist party members in China, the fear of Falun Gong is real and in some sense understandable. While our conscience goes to those who suffered from the unintended provocation of this fear, we should not dismiss the government's assertion on the detriment of the practice altogether.14

A general implication that could be drawn from above discussions is that there seems to be a different perception between those of us trained in the West and the Chinese government and government patronized scholars. While we tend to first look at the nature or substance of social acts like Falun Gong and judge them in the light of a universal proclaimed standard, the Chinese government tends first to ask whether certain acts are socially beneficial and take actions accordingly. It seems to me that a viable solution to the conflict on the issue of Falun Gong and the human rights issue in general is to engage the Chinese government in dialogues. While this soft approach may take longer time to achieve a practical effect, the hard approach like economic sanction will only make the Chinese government defensive and close all the avenues of possible reconciliation. Indeed, if through dialogues the Chinese government is convinced of the causal relationship between restrictive religious policy and rampancy of qigong practice, as I have been trying to establish here, chances are good that the Chinese people will be allowed a reasonable level of religious freedom without being perceived as a threat to the nation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berger, Peter L. 1967.

The Sacred Canopy: Elements of A Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Doubleday.

Bush, Richard C, Jr. 1970.

Religion in Communist China. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.

Chan, Wing-tsit. 1953.

Religious Trends in Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press.

Dawson, Lorne L. 1998.

Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Li, Hongzhi. 1998a.

Zhongguo [China] Falun Gong. revised version, trans. by Translation Group Research Society of Falun Xiulian Dafa, Hong Kong: Falun Fofa Publishing Co.

Li, Hongzhi. 1998b.

Zhuan Falun [Revolving the Wheel of Law]. translated by some Falun Gong Disciples, Hong Kong: Falun Fofa Publishing Co.

MacInnis, Donald E. 1972.

Religious Policy and Practice In Communist China. New York: Macmillan Company.

MacInnis, Donald E. 1989.

Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.

Needham, Joseph. 1956.

Science and Civilization in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Orr, Robert G. 1980.

Religion in China. New York: Friendship Press.

Schechter, Danny. 2000.

Falun Gong's Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or "Evil Cult"? New York: Akashic Books.

Shi, Ji. 1999.

Qishi hairen de Li Hongzhi jiqi Falun Gong. [World-deceiving and Humanly Damaging Li Hongzhi and His Falun Gong]. Beijing: Xinxin Press.

Wang, Songling 1989.

Zhongguo qigong de shi li fa. [The History, Theory and Practice of Chinese Qigong], Beijing: Huaxia Press.

Xingzhengyuan Luweihui [Executive Yuan, Mainland Committee] 1996.

Dalu zongjiao xiankuang jianjie. [A Synopsis of the Current State of Religions in Mainland China]. Taipei.

REFERENCE NOTES

1. Copyright 2001. Zhonghu Yan. Mr. Yan is a graduate student at the Center for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. This paper was presented at the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion, Denver,Colorado, November 12, 2001. It appears here with the kind permission of the author. The paper may not be loaded on another web site or copied for other than personal use without the written consent of the author.

2. Renmin Ribao [The People's Daily], 7/27/1999.

3. This is the comment that I have heard often from Falun Gong practitioners in Toronto as to why Chinese government cracked down on their movement. We read the US congressional research service report by Thomas Lum to a similar effect. See Danny Schechter 2000, p.199.

4. See Jiao, Guorui, "Qigong", the Traditional Chinese Medicine volume of the Chinese Encyclopedia, 1988, p.314. The term qigong first appeared in Jinming zongjiao lu [Records of Jinming Teachings] attributed to Xuxun (239-374). Early in the 20th century, a couple of book titles used this term. But it is generally agreed that Li Guizhen made qigong a popular term as well as a popular therapy.

5. In Science and Civilization in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956, vol.2, p.143, Joseph Needham quoted from H. Wilhelm an inscription of probable breath exercise on twelve pieces of jade dated back to the 6th century BCE. In fact, that is a jade cylinder with twelve faces now still kept in a museum in Tianjin.

6. Xiandai hanyu cidian [Modern Chinese Dictionary], revised edition, Beijing: Commercial Press, 1996, p.1416.

7. Dalu zongjiao xiankuang jianjie {A Synopsis of the Current State of Religions in Mainland China], 1996 contain a number of articles serving as a good introduction to institutional religions in contemporary China.

8. Falun Gong practitioners including Li Hongzhi himself argued for non-religious nature of the movement in a way that does not appear convincing. Their argument is that Falun Gong has no ritual, no organizational structure and no professional clergy. Careful observations on their activities tell us that these three elements are all present, though in a non-traditional form. It is a bit of irony here that while we here in the West try to uphold the sacred right of religious expression for Falun Gong, the practitioners themselves consciously detach themselves from any association with religion.

9. As none of the claim is based on a sound survey, the number given by both sides is likely to be exaggerated. For the official claim, see Qishi hairen de Li Hongzhi jiqi Falun Gong [World-deceiving and Humanly Damaging Li Hongzhi and His Falun Gong], p.11. For Li's claim, see his statement in response to the official suppression: http://minghui.ca. 7/22/1999.

10. Details of the debates could be found in Wing-tsit Chan's Religious Trends in Modern China, Chapter VI.

11. The English language publications on religious landscapes in Communist China include among others Robert G. Orr's Religion in China, Donald E. MacInnis's Religious Policy and Practice in Communist China and Religion in China today: policy and practice. as well as Richard C. Bush, Jr.'s Religion in Communist China.

12. He Zouxiu ," Why I do not encourage adolescents practicing qigong", Keji qikan [Science Periodical], no.4 (1999).

13. Zeng Huiyan, a journalist from Lianhe Bao [United Newspaper] put the number down as several ten thousands. Lianhe Bao, 4/28/1999.

14. In a pamphlet mentioned in note 8, there are reportedly 1404 deaths attributable to Falun Gong. The nature of the pamphlet is such that exaggeration of the actual figure is expected. But we should not assume that Falun Gong or qigong practice in general is safe to practice for all age groups and under all physical conditions.

"Spiritual Practice or Evil Cult"?: Comprehending Falun Gong in the Context of China's Religious Policy 1