Leaving Falun Gong
I spent 15 years believing in Li Hongzhi’s impending apocalypse. Now I’ve learnt to live again
I wish I was writing fiction, compelling you to read on because of creativity and brilliance. Instead, I am writing a personal story–where a trauma impacted youth laid the foundation for unwavering dedication to a new age, pseudo religion. Recounting memories of a secretive community filled with abuse–both self-inflicted and communal; suffocating levels of indoctrination; insane working practices; and one man’s mission to be regarded as a god while seemingly earning a fortune through the use of unpaid volunteers and his interpretation of performing arts. My story is a legacy of regret, shame and disbelief that comes from spending 15 years practising Falun Gong — the Chinese meditation practice banned in China for being a cult.
Writing an article like this is no easy feat, it’s both challenging and liberating. It’s an opportunity in many ways for me to (try to) make sense of the stunted life choices I made, while simultaneously attempting to openly face head-on the stigma that’s associated with leaving a quasi-religious community. It took a lot of courage, conviction and self-reflection to start writing, and even more to publish.
I want to share my experiences living within the Falun Gong community, and working inside many of its connected and closely guarded organisations where at different times I played extremely active and senior roles, helping to drive agendas which now simply make no sense to me. My accounts are true and unblemished, except for the names of people which, out of respect, I have changed.
I left the practice at the start of 2024, although for the last few years it’s fair to say I was very much on the periphery of the community. I have realised that considering my vast involvement and investment in the practice, I needed this period of time before finally being able to step outside of the mental frame of mind I had lived in for so long, and to give myself the buffer needed to start to ask uncomfortable questions of myself and my situation–which have led me here today.
One of the main catalysts for reassessing my situation was also one of Falun Gong’s darkest and in many ways dirtiest secrets — the quietly whispered, and yet often tragic occurrence of practitioners dying. But not just dying; facing death while often refusing medication and stuck in a horrible psychosis of self-blame and loathing, while holding out hope that Li Hongzhi–the founder of Falun Gong who is revered not just as a god, but the god of all gods by his followers–will save them.
Honestly, writing this down sounds crazy! To those unconnected to the practice, it sounds like the script of a badly written sci-fi novel, however to those connected to the practice it is a belief that is held firm by every practitioner.
In December ’22 I broke my hand in an ice skating injury which was quite inconvenient at the time, but helped me to simply stop as I was unable to work for 3 months. Tragically, I found myself helping a fellow practitioner who I will call Stephen, who was nearing the end of his life and had been diagnosed with motor neuron disease.
Spending time with someone in the latter stages of motor neuron disease itself was a hard task, and one that required delicacy, compassion and understanding as his life changed and unfolded in front of me. But it was even harder witnessing this in someone reasonably close whom I had known for many years, where not only was I watching the gradual effects take hold but simultaneously was watching a friend resist and refuse medical treatment and stagnate in an air of despair, which revolved around the belief that this had happened because he had not ‘cultivated’ Li’s Falun Gong well enough, and in many ways he believed he was being punished for past mistakes.
Let that sink in. Without meaning to be repetitive, not only have practitioners died, but because of their strong belief system if they die, they may do so blaming themselves, fearing damnation because they are not good enough, often refusing medical treatment and living in false hope that a conman living in the US will save them. As I said, it sounds like a badly written sci-fi novel, but for thousands of practitioners around the world this is not only a reality but their steadfast belief.
In the last few months of Stephen’s life I spent as much time as I could with him, although upon reflection it’s easy to look back and wish I had spent more time doing things to help. But while I was trying to support him, I was also struggling to come to terms with what I was witnessing and what this meant to me.
The truth is, I have seen and come across situations like this–generally in middle-aged to older practitioners–numerous times since I began the practice. I had almost become desensitised to the phenomenon. Coming to terms with that on its own is a hard process to acknowledge, let alone accept. I had also been struggling with my own illness–untreated and in denial–for many years since 2016. This came to a head in February 2024 when I was hospitalised with Crohn’s Disease. After multiple medical investigations, it became apparent I had been struggling with Crohn’s, Diverticular disease, a Hiatal hernia and Oesophagitis, all of which were diagnosed as chronic. So when I describe this rotten Falun Gong-associated phenomena, I speak from direct, personal experience.
Reflection this year also drew my memories to another practitioner, one of the first practitioners I had met and spent time with, who I will call Mike. Mike was an older, but not elderly, Irish practitioner who died of cancer within the first few years of my practice. Mike, like many practitioners, was constantly dedicating himself to Falun Gong ‘truth clarification’ projects. These are seen as mandatory for practitioners, because Li has instilled the three tenets of ‘studying the Fa’, ‘sending righteous thoughts,’ and ‘clarifying the truth. Studying the Fa involves daily schedules of reading and studying his scriptures. ‘Sending righteous thoughts’, also called Fa Zheng Nian (FZN), is essentially a combined meditation and chanting exercise, which practitioners are encouraged to do at set set times at least 4 times a day. Followers believe FZN will help heal themselves and eliminate karma from their bodies while also giving them the opportunity to eliminate evil entities around the world which cause disruption to Li’s carefully orchestrated plan to save the world from the impending apocalypse. Li describes this apocalypse as ‘Fa rectification’. The third tenet is ‘clarifying the truth’ which, in the context of impending apocalyptic doom, requires urgent and never ending effort.
I got to know Mike while I was the distribution coordinator for the Epoch Times in London. The Epoch Times is a newspaper founded by practitioners who believe the very essence of the paper can help to save people from Fa rectification, primarily because the paper is run by practitioners and their energy and mission is higher than any of ‘ordinary’ society. This mission and belief is reinforced, heavily, by Li.
Understanding the context of that belief is paramount if you want to understand why practitioners spend and exert so much time helping Falun Gong projects. To them it is their divine mission, and in many ways nothing else matters. This, in and of itself, can be very dangerous and can create a conflict for practitioners where they must always be prepared to put their mission above everything else, including family, normal relations and pretty much anything that is not orchestrated by Li.
I felt it was prudent to expound this area of belief, before highlighting that my main memories of Mike were spending up-to 12 hours a day standing outside London tube and train stations one or two days a week, trying to give people free copies of the Epoch Times. Completely unpaid and in many ways completely nuts, but I will always remember Mike’s fondness for sharing with me. Perhaps because I am half Irish, we had some common ground and in some ways he tried to help me, taking me under his wing when I was a new practitioner. I will always remember that on Christmas ’08, just before Christmas Eve and less than a year after I started to practice, he showed up excited and exclaimed he had a present for me. It was a bottle of non-alcoholic plum wine, non-alcoholic because, according to Li’s books and scriptures, alcohol is not permitted for practitioners because it affects beings and entities living in your body. It sounds like Scientology, and in fact I have come to summarise Falun Gong as a form of Chinese Scientology when trying to explain the practice to people recently.
That aside, I’ll always remember that simple act and gesture of kindness from Mike. He was just being nice, and even though the wine tasted awful (non-alcoholic drinks have developed a lot since then) I was greatly appreciative of the thoughtfulness behind the gesture.
My thoughts have been going back to Mike lately because the last time I saw him he was preparing to leave his home to spend his final days with family outside of London. He was dying of cancer and in the final stage of his life. I went to see him with another practitioner at his home. He was with his sister and a nurse, who was preparing to help him move. At the time I was struck by an air of awkwardness around saying hello to his sister, before Mike ushered us into another room. Mike was in truth a walking skeleton at this stage, a hard memory to remember. What I remember most was the manner in which he wanted to, and felt the need to, describe how he was still trying to do Fa study and exercises based on his physical limitations and trying to assure us that he still had faith in Li. It was as if he was on autopilot, you could feel there was a disconnect between what he was saying and what he truly felt and I think that was also reflected in us.
I recount the air of awkwardness because his sister was not a practitioner and in many ways must have had feelings of despair and blame towards the practice and situation her brother was experiencing. Now looking back, I have a deep sense of shame and regret that in situations like this I did not do everything within my power to encourage people to put down the practice and receive urgent medical support, medication and pain relief.
It is hard to visit someone going through end of life care, but even harder trying to keep a false pretence of hope. Seeing Mike’s frail body before me, I knew at the time this would be the last time I saw him.
I only stayed with him for a short time on this visit, but something I have only recently come to terms with was the reaction, both public and unspoken, from the local Falun Gong community to his death. There was of course sadness, that’s unavoidable in situations like this, and many had a genuine feeling of loss for their friend and fellow practitioner. But what I really remember feeling most was the undercurrent of ‘real’ feeling from different practitioners, which culminates in an obscure passive pressure to conform to the accepted status quo within the community.
I realised that the majority of practitioners had, to varying degrees, different understandings of death. According to Li’s teaching, if you are a ‘true’ practitioner then Li can heal you. So if you have died, it was effectively a result of you failing to live up to the standard in some regard, and as a result it was kind of your own fault for not fully trusting and believing in Li. Actually this is completely disgusting, and it pains me to write about or even infer a situation like this. But this is an accepted truth among practitioners, and one that they will do their best to conceal to outsiders.
You could describe this as the blind leading the blind, but it creates an obtuse environment where innocent people receive intense passive pressure to conform, otherwise facing the feeling of being an outsider or failure within the community many literally cherish with their lives.
As I studied more of Li’s books and scriptures a consistent theme became apparent to me among Li’s teachings. He will tell practitioners that if they are ill they can go to the hospital, but either in the same book or teachings there are multiple examples of Li expressing that he has the power and might to turn the tide for you and if you believe in him and most importantly ‘let go of your attachments’ to the material world and your body then he can and will save you. This is plausible deniability on a dangerous scale, and one where the freedom of thought and belief has been abused, causing pain not only to practitioners who have suffered and died, but also family members and friends of those who have passed.
To demonstrate how the community reacts to scenarios connected to practitioners suffering from illness, I have included below two emails which were sent to a public forum for practitioners in the UK. At times I was also close to this practitioner, and out of respect to their memory I have changed her name to Sarah. Both emails were sent to the UK practitioner group forum by a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association. A reminder that the abbreviation FZN refers to Fa Zheng Nian or ‘sending righteous thoughts.’
The first email was titled Join FZN for Sarah and was sent on 9th August 2020:
Dear All
Please be aware that we are helping Sarah to leave hospital as some interferences are delaying her aspiration, Please join group FZN at 8pm (start from 7:55pm) for 30 mins every night. As each practitioner covers one responsible ares, more people FZN together will be more powerful, let’s join hands together to help our fellow practitioners, eliminate all evils element and assist Master for fa rectification.
It goes without saying 4 Global FZNs are essential and please add your righteous thought to our fellow practitioners
The second email was sadly sent 5 days later, on the 14th August 2020, titled Sarah:
Hi All, We have been told by her family that Sarah has passed away peacefully in hospital at 5pm this afternoon, Her family thanks for practitioners’ help and support during this difficult period of time.
It breaks my heart to recount and think of situations like this now. Sarah was someone with whom I spent a lot of time reading online in my early years. Later on, we worked together on numerous different projects. She will always be sorely missed.
I think the email examples unfortunately speak for themselves, and I don’t want to talk too much about them. They do, I feel, provide an insight into a community with different understandings of illness and how that community approaches such situations.
With religious communities, from the outside perspective at least, there seems to be an assertion that people can simply leave the community or belief system, at which point this would fail to have an effect or impact upon them. This creates a sense and a kind of legal loophole where ultimate culpability is hard to gauge or prove. I feel the ultimate responsibility for many such situations lies with Li through his actions to either passively endorse, or worse actively encourage this damaging phenomena.
From personal experience, I can attest to the internal conflict and struggle practitioners face when thinking about leaving a community where they have invested so much time, effort and heart. Once embedded in a community it is hard to imagine life without it, and that is for those who joined voluntarily. When considering there are many children that have been born into the practice and had this belief system thrust upon them without a credible choice to not participate or engage–not just with the faith but the countless different projects that take practitioners’ time and energy–I now believe that the dangers of this practice and community have yet to be fully realised.
Over the last few years I had less and less communication and interaction with Falun Gong practitioners, primarily because I was not ‘stepping forward’ to actively dedicate my life to the practice. I gradually lost contact with many people I used to consider friends. I came to understand that while in my heart I believe, for the most part at least, Falun Gong practitioners are a bunch of good people aspiring to help and do good things, many get so caught up in the pressure of impending doom and the urgency to ‘save people’ that relationships become forged not on the value of kinship and humanness but rather the practical value of how much effort someone puts in to the various projects practitioners work on.
In the early years, I most definitely would have described myself as someone who was ‘all in’. Even if there were at times differences of opinion on projects, approach and even understanding of the practice itself with different practitioners, I think I would have been considered a trusted if not respected person–primarily because of the sheer amount of time and effort I dedicated to my faith. I used to travel to the United States annually to support Falun Gong Events.
My initial involvement with ‘practitioner projects’ came in the form of seemingly harmless ‘Hong Fa’ activities, which are events either independently set up by practitioners in busy shopping or tourist areas or at exhibitions and festivals with the simple aim to clarify the truth. These events basically inform people that ‘Falun Gong is good’ and try to raise awareness of, and support for, the believers incarcerated in China.
Soon I got involved with the Epoch Times, where among many other things I was, at different times, the distribution coordinator and then sales manager for the English language Epoch Times, UK edition. At times I heavily supported Shen Yun, a performing arts company from New York, headed and led by Li himself. Here I supported the organisation in multiple ways including (at different times and in different years) training coordinator, events coordinator, delivery guy, security team member, shopping centre sales, promotions set up… the list goes on and on. For a couple of years I was also in charge of coordinating national events for practitioners in the UK — for events commissioned by the UK Falun Dafa Association.
I also became quite involved with parliamentary lobbying campaigns on human rights concerns connected to Falun Gong and the allegations of forced organ harvesting in China. I did this independently for a number of years before formally aligning with DAFOH (Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting) where I was the government communications manager and then for a while the deputy director and director of government outreach and communications.
It sounds like I’m presenting my Falun Gong CV here, however I felt it important to highlight my direct involvement with various projects, and the types of activities I supported, to demonstrate my background and experience, and to say that I consider myself someone qualified to assess and comment on the community as a whole. I do so because I am aware that making public comments about the practice is itself frowned upon by the community and anyone who dares to speak about or against Li is ostracised and practitioners are encouraged to not engage with that person.
In a way this is daunting, but I have never liked bullies and always tried to stand up for what I believe in. It really has taken a lot of self reflection and courage to write this blog and while in the most part I anticipate the majority of practitioners will now see me as an outsider, and in some cases even the ‘enemy’, I have taken the decision to speak out about the practice because I feel it is the right thing to do.
Li Hongzhi And The Ever Present Threat of Fa Rectification
In this article I have tried to provide an insight into the wacky world of Falun Gong, it’s beliefs and some of its practices. I have done this because I truly feel it is important for people to have a better sense and understanding of this faith-based group. Falun Gong has numerous connected organisations, run by practitioners, which I feel are dominating their lives to the point of being extremely unhealthy. Some of the organisations such as the Epoch Times Media Group and Shen Yun have also begun to establish a significant footing in society. With that in mind I feel it is important for people to really get a better understanding of the faith that drives these projects.
I find it quite sad that so many people will continue to dedicate their lives to this faith. Li lives like a king in his compound, while so many of his followers seem to sacrifice their lives, accrue debt or waste their life savings, living chaotic and stressful lives. They do all of this because of the single-minded belief that Li is a god.
Words fail me when I try to truly express how I feel about this situation, but I believe that to describe it as dangerous, destructive and excruciating would not be unfair or unjust.
There are numerous instances of Li speaking publicly to his flock, with outlandish statements, instilling a never- ending urgency to continue their dedicated work. In July 2001 Li gave a teaching to his students called “Fa Teaching Given at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference”. In this teaching he decreed the following: Clarifying the truth is something each and every one of you Dafa disciples must do. I’m telling you this again. Anyone who tries to make excuses for himself and who’s never stepped forward is wrong. In the same lecture he also said:
Originally, the old forces’ arrangement was that there would be a total of twenty years, divided into a Fa-rectification period and a period in which the Fa rectifies the human world. During the first ten years, Master would do Fa-rectification and Dafa disciples would cultivate during the Fa-rectification period; during the latter ten years the future people would obtain the Fa. Then it would enter the new era, and at that time the new future would begin. But I’ve revealed this because things have changed, although not too much. Don’t get too happy about this. Those of you who haven’t done well, in particular, should know that time is pressing. Don’t think about anything else.
Statements like this, spread to the eager ears of the blindly faithful have contributed to the sense within the Falun Gong community that it is imperative to upend and stop their lives, and give everything to the urgent task of saving people. This is why many feel it is necessary to dedicate their lives in such an extreme manner.
In March 2002, from Teachings From a Tour of North America, Li stated:
Don’t worry that it will take a long time. I can tell you that Christianity rose after three hundred years of persecution. Is a Dafa disciple, with his important mission, not as good as an ordinary cultivator? What’s crucial is how we understand things. Let me ask you, if it would take another ten years to save all sentient beings, would you still do it? (The students reply together, “Yes!”) (Applause) That’s how a Dafa disciple should be. (Applause) Of course, there won’t be another ten years. It’s not allowed to take that long.
Statements like this have fostered and created a sense of zealous urgency among practitioners that their mission is vital and that time is pressing. This is one of the primary ways that I believe Li effectively manipulates his followers and so encourages devotion and single-mindedness. Leading an environment like this fosters infatuation, which is one of the key tenets I have come to acknowledge–rather embarrassingly–is prevalent among current and former followers.
Needless to say Li’s apocalyptic warnings did not materialise within 10 years, and a good question would be why, in that case, do his followers still believe what he says? An attempt to explain this conundrum is demonstrated below:
In May 2016, at the New York Fa Conference, a follower essentially asked this very question:
Disciple: Master said in 2002 that the persecution would not last more than ten years. On the Minghui website there are two understandings. One understanding is that this is because Master did not want disciples to fall into despair under huge pressure. Another understanding is that Master has postponed the time.
I note the rather contrived manner in which the question was asked. For reference, when Li used to hold larger scale conferences, if he chose to do a question and answer session it would usually follow a familiar format. Assistants, helping to support the event, would collect pre-written questions on bits of paper which would then be passed to a moderator. The moderator would then select questions which would normally be passed to Li directly on stage.
I am noting the process because I have really come to question whether processes like this are completely genuine. Because of reverence, esteem and respect it is possible a practitioner could have written a question like this. But it does feel rather convenient and provided Li with a platform to say:
Master: It was arranged for just ten years back then. Ten years for Fa-rectification and another ten for the Fa rectifying the human world, for a total of twenty years. Master did this thing systematically and arranged it. After the old forces interfered, the whole thing was ruined. I could have indeed concluded it within those ten years. If I say stop, it will stop. But a problem would occur. What problem? The old forces have seen it as well, so they persecuted a large number of practitioners and made them fall behind when they could not endure it; and they also made many lives that should be saved unsalvageable. This is their doing. So you tell me, should Master end this or not? If I wanted it to end, it would end, and naturally the remaining universe would explode. The goal of the old forces is to use their approach to rectify the last lives in the cosmic bodies in the Fa-rectification before they would loosen their grip. They do not let you finish it within that time. Should I end this or not, then? It cannot end, because so many Dafa disciples have fallen behind, so many lives have been lost, and so many sentient beings cannot be saved. The universe would become very tiny and incomplete. Should I end it? That’s why I have been saying all along that I am outwitting them at their own game.
However, judging from the present situation and how much I’ve done, as well as the present state, the days of this set of things they have arranged are numbered, right? Everyone is calling for the arrest of that archfiend Jiang. As soon as it is arrested, this thing will end, and it is just this soon. (Applause) It’ll be soon now, it’ll be really soon now, but there will be many regrets left.
This example is particularly telling and manipulative, because it both rebuffs his original statement but he also manages to dangle another apocalyptic carrot for his followers. Li, regardless of how you feel about what kind of person he is, is a clever communicator. Not only is his original statement rebuffed in a manner which implies that this has happened through his divine grace and majesty, but the end result for the practitioner community is one where they feel further indebted to Li.
Trying to summarise and explain this is challenging, as have been several parts of this article. Hindsight, they say, is a wonderful thing, but honestly as I recount this and try to explain these things in simple, direct language I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Then comes the realisation the “archfiend Jiang”–Jiang Zemin–who was the President of China when Falun Gong was banned, was never arrested and in fact died in 2022, aged 96, in his home city of Shanghai. To date, the fact that he passed away without being arrested or with everything ending has only been referenced by Li in a June 2024 article called “A Wake Up Call”. Simply noting that Jiang was now deceased, without any reference to the previous statement promising that things would end soon.
There are also troubling examples of Li seemingly encouraging his followers to take direct action in China–which may have put his followers at risk of arrest and persecution. In September 2015 Minghui published a formal notice from the Minghui Editorial Board, with a supporting comment from Li. This was titled Notice Regarding Suing Jiang and is included below:
For practitioners participating in reporting Jiang’s crimes, if your identity has never been exposed, then do not include your personal information. You may use a pseudonym. For practitioners who have been directly persecuted in mainland China, you can file a lawsuit using your real name. Non-practitioners can do so using their real names.
Minghui Editorial Board
September 7, 2015
_______________________________________________________________
I hope that everyone will do as above.
Master
September 7, 2015
Encouraged and stirred to take such action because of notices like this, there have been countless examples of practitioners who encountered arrest and investigation at the hands of the CCP.
I feel it is important to express here that in no way do I, or could I ever, support the intense and violent suppression which practitioners have faced in China since 1999. There are just too many instances of abuse, persecution, torture and deaths at the hands of the CCP for the ends to ever justify the means.
I have met many practitioners who have been personally subjected to incarceration, abuse and torture for their belief. I also know many, first-hand examples of practitioners who have had family members in China face repeated arrest, intimidation and detention because of their involvement in helping to clarify the truth in China.
China is a communist country with a known and extensive background of human rights abuses. In many ways it is because of these known abuses combined with my first hand experience of hearing about accounts directly from practitioners which stirred me to become so involved with the human right element connected to Falun Gong. Actually I would go further and say that because of so many first hand examples, I ended up devoting years of my life to raising awareness about the situation and working on legal, legislative projects to try to effect some form of change.
As a Westerner in a predominantly Chinese community, at times I felt it was my duty to speak up because communication for me was inherently easier because of my native tongue. Projects I supported were carried out with real heart and effort, and nothing will ever change that.
That being said, because of the public accounts of human rights abuses in China I now consider it to be completely reckless of Li to encourage his followers to take action in such an oppressive environment. All the while, living comfortably overseas and telling his believers that he was suffering much more than they were!
I also now feel that due to Li’s desire for practitioners to go out and clarify the truth in a country known for absolute totalitarianism–and that they refuse to cooperate with police when arrested by signing ‘guarantee statements’–the blood of many who have suffered is truly on Li’s hands. For years the concept of salvation clouded my thoughts through blinkered eyes. When I stop to consider now that this has all been done while Li has been living like a king is actually almost unfathomable to me. If Li decreed publicly to his followers to stop the incessant efforts to raise awareness in China, then many lives could have been and could still be saved–or at the very least changed drastically for the better. This is something I will never be able to forgive him for.
In the June 2024 article called A Wake Up Call Li decreed: Many of you who are involved in various media platforms need to start connecting your work with raising awareness and helping to free people from danger to their soul. If your only aim is to increase your click rate, that’s hardly the spiritual state of a Dafa practitioner, You are wasting large amounts of the limited time that is meant for rescuing people in these final days!.
I feel this is a clear example of Li exerting influence, through the power of belief, over practitioner affiliated media projects. For many this influence has been ever present and undeniable. With this excerpt you can also get a sense of how Li manipulates practitioners with apocalyptic uncertainty and the idealism that practitioners need to be in a special state to be able to fulfil his mission.
More recently, and in response to a New York Times article, Li recently gave an exclusive interview to the Epoch Times on 5th January 2025.
During this multi-part interview, Li stated that he had no knowledge of how Falun Gong affiliated companies are run, or very specifically their finances. Rather than provide an insight into a man that practitioners around the world call Master, the interview seems like a very public attempt to distance himself from recent legal lawsuits aimed at the Epoch Times, which focuses on money laundering allegations, and Shen Yun, which is centered around claims of illegal child labour practices and allegations of abuse.
When reading, and comparing, the English and Chinese versions of the article you will notice some stark differences.
During the interview Li made some extremely outlandish claims, relating to supposed super powers he possesses. Li described the following scenario in detail, and I quote the article:
Mr. Li said, I went over and took care of them one by one.” Soon, within seconds, they all got up, including those who couldn’t get up at all and those who were paralyzed. Mr. Li said: “You can go now!” The patients began to walk. Then Mr. Li said: “Now you can run!” And these people miraculously were able to run!. But these elements were only included in the Chinese version!
Practitioners, long believing that Li is a god, digest stories like this unquestionably and without hesitation.
In the same article Li also says veteran qigong enthusiasts had encouraged him to start qigong classes:
They helped arrange a venue, and the first Qigong class was soon held.
This is quite interesting because Li has always professed in his teachings that everything is arranged and the universe is undergoing a great renewal, personally arranged by him. This specific quote seems to imply that the start of Li teaching his Falun Gong was almost by accident and actually arranged by others.
While perhaps this may seem inconsequential, from my perspective this seems to be a sly attempt to distance himself, legally, from overall responsibility for Falun Gong — which is absolutely ridiculous.
The fact that certain parts were only published in Chinese raises a lot of questions about who the intended audience really is? Rather than an attempt to connect with the public at large, this article seems like a desperate attempt to regain control of the narrative and influence practitioners, most of whom are Chinese, in an indirect way.
Why would Li want to talk about his supernatural powers and the ability to heal paralysed people and not want this message spread to Western ears? I think it is because he knows full well that the majority of Western people who heard such claims would laugh, rebut and pour scorn over such claims.
Li Hongzhi was offered the opportunity to comment on points raised in this article, through the Falun Dafa Association. At the time of publication no response had been received.
I did, however, receive a message from a senior practitioner, who was formerly in charge of multiple Falun Gong related projects. The message seemed like an attempt to rebut many of the points I raised in my request for comment from Li Hongzhi. I was informed, in writing, that this communication was private and not an official response. As such, I will not include any details of the message in this article.
A Grand Revival of Journalism or Public Relations?
The Epoch Times was founded in 2000 by Falun Gong practitioners in America, supposedly with the aim of creating a new, balanced, independent media. It had the added distinction of bringing ‘China expertise’ and being able to report on–and draw attention to–stories other media organisations wouldn’t investigate or cover. In a lot of ways this was a cover, so that the media could run stories about the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners in China and find ways to publicly discredit the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).
From my experience, the Epoch Times has always been a practitioner led project, run under the belief that the Epoch Times is destined to become the most important media organisation on the planet because it plays a vital role in Li’s apocalyptic Fa Rectification. Many years ago the Epoch Times, which is printed in multiple countries and languages, merged with another similar practitioner-led project called NTD TV (which stands for New Tang Dynasty TV) and formed the Epoch Media Group.
Falun Gong practitioners have always been quite uneasy about drawing a connection between their spiritual faith and their media, often using examples of other national and international media organisations founded by Christians and highlighting that these organisations are not known as ‘Christian media’. I, myself, used to tout this line all the time, using it to deflect attention away from the true nature of the organisation and its internal beliefs. I would instead try to focus on these organisations’ ‘breakthrough’ stories connected to Chinese human rights abuses. This was met with varied responses, but on the whole it was an attempt at a natural approach to move the conversations away from areas I did not want to focus on and try to maintain control of the narrative.
My time with the Epoch Times was a period of intense and devout belief when I met a girl, got married and in many ways (from the outside at least) had the perfect life. But things are never really what they seem, and overall my memories of working with the Epoch Times are ones of confusion, mistrust and anxiety.
In 2011 I became the sales manager for the now defunct English (language) Epoch Times, UK edition. I worked in a run-down retail complex in North London for about one year. Ultimately I had to make the decision to leave, partly because of experiences within the organisation, but primarily because I simply was not making enough money to support myself and my new wife.
I also spent three months between December 2013 and March 2014 working in the Epoch Times head office in Manhattan, New York. Here I supported a multitude of different roles including (but definitely not limited to) helping the deliveries of the weekly edition of the English Epoch Times, handing out (and selling) copies of the paper outside metro stations, and working as assistant for the then marketing director.
For as long as I can remember Li has commented on the cosmic importance of the practitioner-led media during appearances at larger Falun Gong conferences in the US. He has also held three specific public meetings with the practitioners involved in these media–two in 2009 and one in 2018– which named the media organisations and were literally called ‘Fa teachings–the term Li uses to describe his spiritual teachings. So these are public examples of Li’s direct influence over these practitioner-led projects, which make it hard not to draw some inference or link between Li, Falun Gong and these media organisations.
Over the years the Epoch Media Group has had a few controversies, notably in 2019 when Facebook took the decision to ban the group–and any connected organisations–from buying adverts. During its frantic search to find a stable (ish) financial footing in society, Epoch Media had developed a right leaning reputation and was most definitely playing to–and profiting from–this approach. Before being banned, the Epoch Media Group had spent millions of dollars on adverts promoting right wing agendas and President Trump. It’s fair to say they started to gain attention from other media organisations and institutions. I believe this drew attention and suspicion, stemming really from the unknown elements surrounding practitioners and their secretive tendencies. People began asking questions about the group.
It had taken a hard stance, and in many ways drawn a line in the sand, aiming to support President Trump. The Trump connection is interesting because it seemed to generate great appeal with, and support from some practitioners. In many ways they started to see him as the supposed saviour of America, because of his strong stance with China. While perhaps not directly communicated, I believe many practitioners around the world felt that Trump had been chosen by ‘Master Li’ to help usher in the new era and help with his Fa Rectification.
In 2021 Li published an article on Minghui, which is the official website where Falun Gong practitioners share what they describe as cultivation experiences, along with examples of incarceration and abuse in China and most notably serving as a portal to release Li’s latest scriptures. The 2021 article was called Wake up and Li stated: The Fa’s rectification of the cosmos has finished, and now a transition to the Fa’s rectification of the human world is taking place. This is important because throughout numerous lectures Li has inferred that he will start to take a more active and leading role in practitioner-led projects during the ‘Fa rectification of the human world.’ I was invited to join a couple of practitioner meetings with Li in the UK, which were centred around his involvement with Shen Yun. I think I can say most practitioners took this as a signal that this new phase had begun and his involvement and leading of other projects was now commonplace.
More recently, there has been some upheaval in the group. In 2024, the former CFO of the media group, Mr Bill Guan, was arrested and charged after a $67 million money laundering investigation. Shortly after this, their ever steady CEO, Mr John Tang, resigned.
In June 2024, the Epoch Times appointed Mrs Janice Trey as the new interim CEO of the Epoch Times, and now serves as Chair of the Board. Mrs Trey is the wife of Dr Torsten Trey, who founded and is the executive director of DAFOH (Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting). I used to work closely with him. Torsten Trey is also a former member of the Shen Yun orchestra, and so has a link to Li. Mrs Trey has a non-media background as an HR executive. For me, this is another example of the link between Shen Yun–which is unquestionably led by Li–and the appointment of people with a close and long-standing connection to Li to lead some of the more significant projects for practitioners, such as the Epoch Times. I believe links like this demonstrate Li’s ability to influence these projects from behind the scenes.
Currently, the Epoch Times homepage also has a special section titled ‘Articles by Falun Gong Founder Mr Li Hongzhi.
The piece titled ‘The ordeals our spiritual discipline faces’ begins with ‘It was destined that Dafa practitioners would join me in saving lives at this historic moment. You vowed this before history began’. Li then goes on to say ‘The trouble that the practitioner-founded media company is now facing mainly owes to practitioners not doing well’.
The quotes in this article seem to be in response to the very public federal investigation into the Epoch Times. Having articles like this on the homepage of the Epoch Times seems to imply that the Falun Gong faith and media company are intrinsically connected.
In the last several years Li has also been featured in official Shen Yun programmes under the rather odd acronym ‘D.F.’ While Shen Yun is promoted as a traditional Chinese performing arts company, Li or D.F. is described as: Founder of Shen Yun. He has been its artistic and creative director, costume designer, and director of classical dance since the company’s inception in 2006. With this lengthy list of accolades I find it very strange that Li is not publicly listed on the Shen Yun board of directors on publicly available documents. I believe the reason for this is because Li has convinced his followers that he is god, and as such it would be inappropriate for him to be listed as a board member.
However, Li’s influence over all aspects of Shen Yun is undeniable. For a company which has amassed assets of more than $266 million, according to public tax records, it is quite unusual to have a person of significant influence who is not publicly listed. Factoring the current connections with publicly listed directors of other Falun Gong led projects, this seems to point to a disturbing trend of behind the scenes influence that may potentially exclude or limit legal liability and accountability.
In 2024 The Sound of Hope, which is an international Chinese language radio network founded by Falun Gong practitioners, was also accused of being directly influenced by Falun Gong’s belief system.
In February 2024 Minghui published a notice declaring that a well known practitioner, with a long standing affiliation to media projects, is no longer a Dafa Disciple. The ex-practitioner’s name is Ms Simone Gao, and this excommunication was explained because apparently Simone had: lent support to Yu Chao (alias Charles Hugo), who, in the name of a Falun Gong practitioner, has openly attacked master and Minghui.
In August 2023 Yu Chao was publicly branded a negative being by Minghui and they decreed: Dafa practitioners who are truly cultivating themselves should stop reading and listening to them.
For context, Yu Chao runs a YouTube channel where he has publicly raised multiple concerns arising from ex-practitioners speaking out about their experiences with the practice and Shen Yun. Yu first came into contact with Falun Gong in 1993 and was involved with multiple different IT-related projects in China, helping to install and create an encrypted IT network to try and help practitioners communicate more safely.
Yu also sadly spent more than nine years in detention in China because of public attempts to help clarify the truth and for his faith in Falun Gong. I don’t know Yu well, but I wanted to speak to him directly while writing about him to hear his story in his own words. I am actually quite shocked that someone who has given and sacrificed so much for his faith could be lambasted in such a public way for daring to ask questions and attempt to think critically about scenarios.
Following on from Minghui’s February 2024 notice Simone Gao published statements on X, where she described receiving a message from Zeng Yong, the president of Sound of Hope and who is a Falun Gong practitioner, telling her that if she still had contact with Yu Chao she must terminate this immediately.
Simone explained that she elected to not respond to the message from Zeng Yong and two days later she received another message informing her that any cooperation–be it related to advertising or any other project–between her and Falun Gong connected media would now stop.
The following day the Minghui announcement was published decreeing Simone was no longer a practitioner. Simone, in a separate statement, said: In this case, I just don’t agree that the head of a media company should have any control over who I associate with.
The fact that the head of a supposed independent media organisation has seemingly taken the initiative to endorse Minghui’s public notice about Yu Chao’s ex-communication–going as far as demanding immediate compliance–is concerning. I feel this demonstrates that the belief system, which is behind and central to Falun Gong, can and does play a direct role in management decisions.
It is commonly accepted among practitioners that only one person, Li Hongzhi, has the capacity to publicly decree whether someone is or is not a practitioner. Because of this I feel it raises questions about whether Li has the ability to directly or indirectly exert influence over Falun Gong practitioners and the companies they run.
From my own personal experience, situations like this did not happen when I first got involved with the practice and its related projects, and this presents a dangerous trend of absolute authority which cannot be challenged.
Situations like this set a deafening tone among practitioners within the Falun Gong community: comply unconditionally with all such future edicts or face expulsion from the community. In Simone’s case, not only has she had her faith ripped from her, she lost a long-standing relationship with the community she belonged to for so long, alongside monetary repercussions too — in the form of advertising contracts severed.
The consequences for Simone have been harsh and it is well known within the Falun Gong community that only one person–Li himself–can decide whether or not someone is a practitioner. This scenario demonstrates that Li can and does assert influence over Falun Gong media projects and their employees.
My memories working in the UK Epoch Times office are tarred because I would describe the working environment I experienced as both intense and toxic. In all honesty, this should have been a massive red flag about the community as a whole, and I feel most ‘sane’ people would have done a runner as soon as situations like this became clear. Alas, the dedication to my faith blinded me, and like so many others, I viewed these situations as ‘tribulations’ according to Li’s teachings, and endured them, believing they had a cosmic reason and Li was there to ultimately ensure things would work out in the long run.
When I started working full time for the English edition I was the only westerner working in a small sales office which predominantly consisted of 4 Chinese sales team members and the director of Epoch Times in the UK.
At this time the person ultimately in charge of the Epoch Times in the UK was also leading Shen Yun promotions in the UK, as the lead coordinator and the acting director of the UK Falun Dafa Association — an example of a direct, irrefutable and intrinsic link between Falun Gong, the Epoch Times and Shen Yun.
Out of respect for the Chinese team members–who at the time I most definitely considered friends (and on my part, that will never really change)–I want to keep this account as factual as possible, while doing my best to portray the intensity of the environment I encountered.
It became clear within the first few days of joining the office that there were some serious management issues with the UK Chinese edition, which I discovered had been commonplace pretty much since its inception. For example, I discovered a culture of intense dialogue, often spilling over into arguments, leading to a sense of bullying within the small team structure.
After the initial shock of finding myself in this situation, when I would see or hear conversations boiling over, I would try, often unsuccessfully, to counter the situations with attempts at humour or interjections, trying to bring down the temperature of situations. This lasted for a while, and gradually the other team members began to confide in me their personal stories and accounts of working within the organisation. From my perspective, the Chinese team members were all living humble lives, on low pay, doing extremely long hours, and they were doing this because of their belief. I could not stand to be in the office at times and I felt the practitioners were being taken advantage of. It was really that bad.
In many ways this was a result of the Falun Gong community culture where, when something happens to you, you must look inside and find your own faults. This essentially creates an environment of self blame and loathing, while on the surface holding a pretence and facade of liberation and enlightenment. It is a twisted form of logic which affected my life for a long time and one of my biggest regrets is that it took me so long to break free from the shackles of this thought process.
As relationships grew within the office, I was asked to join a private meeting with the Chinese sales team. This was away from the office, at the home of another practitioner. In this meeting I realised that my sharing and attempts to help change the office environment had not gone unnoticed as I had previously shared privately with all affected members that I felt the situation was wrong.
It became apparent that the other team members, prompted by my attempts at open hearted sharing, had spoken amongst themselves and come up with a plan. They asked me if I would help represent them, collectively, to negotiate with the main director to ask him to stand down and help install another well respected and liked practitioner in his place. In many ways I was relieved my attempts to help foster a better work environment had been heard, and also extremely touched that this group of individuals, who I really saw as my peers, would come to me with the hope and trust to try and help their situation.
It was a burden I took on seriously and sincerely, at the time it felt like my divine path was opening up. I felt Li was leading the way and this was what was meant to happen. I was, however, aware that for this process to take place and for the hope and aspirations placed on me to really be justified I would need every ounce of diplomacy, empathy and grit I could muster to try and help.
I don’t want to go into details about specific negotiations, as I write this I feel like I am almost betraying friendships and connections by even talking about this. However this tendency to not speak out is exactly the problem, making me now feel it is ever more important to do so. I won’t lie: while thinking about this specific situation and which aspects to divulge, I have been flooded with emotion, and shed a few tears along the way. What I now consider the insanity of previous life choices has had a very lasting effect on me, and in many ways I am still struggling to deal with it all today.
The negotiations were, however, successful, the director did stand down, and our proposal for a replacement was accepted. At least in that regard I was able to help some form of positive change.
I married in 2011 and divorced in 2018. We naturally grew apart and unfortunately our time together ended a little sour. When I look back on the pressures I encountered from Falun Gong and its never ending parade of projects, things like my marriage never really stood a chance. My faith always came first, and in the community as whole, around the world, there are many similar examples of young practitioners marrying and later divorcing. These were different reasons for this of course, but I think the overall culture of the community definitely plays an unspoken role in this regard.
I have not worked directly for the Epoch Times for a number of years, however I have always found attempts to distance Epoch Times and Falun Gong as laughable. I have never heard of a member of senior management with real influence within the organisation that is not a practitioner.
While working for the organisation it is also commonplace for practitioners to join, support and regularly take part in organised Fa study, FZN and Falun Gong exercise schedules.
Below is an example of an Epoch Times Falun Gong Employee attendance, Fa study, Falun Gong exercise and righteous thoughts register from January 2023. Note: The example register includes employees from London, New York and other cities around the world. This was supplied to me by an ex-practitioner, who wants to help raise awareness about the true culture within the Epoch Times. I have removed specific names and identifying characteristics out of respect and confidentiality. This provides an intriguing insight into the practitioner-led environment at the Epoch Times and I have published this because I believe it is in the public interest to do so.
At the end of each month there are also monthly totals taken from the register which highlight attendance rate, the average number of hours people have spent doing the Falun Gong exercises and most notably how many times a day on average people send righteous thoughts.
The fact that Epoch Times employees not only regularly attend group Fa study sessions, but even record the amount of times they sit down to send righteous thoughts (or skip a session) is an important insight into the media organisation. Examples like this go some way to rebut the media organisation’s claims about neutrality and independence. When you factor in that the organisation has always been exclusively run by Falun Gong practitioners, plus alongside the fact that faith-based practices such as religious reading and chanting are not only acknowledged but encouraged and recorded daily, demonstrates the faith-based culture that is prevalent there.
Quite a reasonable argument could be made that employees of any organisation are permitted to follow their own beliefs in their own time, and I would normally agree.
However, as with everything in life, context is key. When a group of individuals from a faith-based system start a media organisation, and that media organisation is exclusively run by members of that system, then I do not understand how an argument can be made feigning neutrality and independence. Going one step further, if a key component of the faith-based system revolves around an impending apocalypse, as taught by the leader of their faith, then I would consider it disingenuous and deceptive if a media organisation does not publicly admit that this is indeed a core component of the organisation itself.
The context centred around Li’s impending Fa Rectification cannot and should not be easily dismissed. If you, or any individual, believes that they are amidst a holy divine war and literally on the front lines of trying to save people, then I think it is hard to believe that this belief system would not play a pivotal role in both the day-to-day management decisions and the overall directional decisions of that organisation.
Because of my involvement in so many projects over so many years, I have met several of the people listed on the shown Fa study spreadsheet. In no way is this article an attempt to illicit a response from you, certainly even less so an attempt to cause any discomfort. I am trying to approach this topic with rationality and kindness. I do hope however that if any of the connected practitioners read this then at least some of the points I am raising will encourage them to pause and consider these things for themselves.
The Epoch Times was offered the opportunity to comment on points raised in this article. At the time of publication no response had been received.
I did, however, receive a message from a senior practitioner, who was formerly in charge of multiple Falun Gong related projects. The message seemed like an attempt to rebut many of the points I raised in my request for comment from The Epoch Times. I was informed, in writing, that this communication was private and not an official response. As such, I will not include any details of the message in this article.
Shen Yun — The Beauty of Traditional Chinese Culture or a Clever Money Making Machine?
Shen Yun is a performing arts company headquartered in up-state New York. It has a stated aim of reviving traditional Chinese culture and often promotes itself using the tag-line China before communism. Led by Li Hongzhi himself, Shen Yun’s shows have a reputation for infusing anti-CCP propaganda with dance pieces aimed at showcasing multiple different eras and stories. Mixed in are Chinese operas, which provide a platform for Li to promote his beliefs, with undercurrents of anti-atheism, anti-communism, anti-evolution, as well as apocalyptic warnings and evangelical shows of appreciation for Falun Gong.
It has grown from one touring company to eight, and now boasts more than 800 live shows throughout its annual world tour. If you live in a city that hosts Shen Yun, the marketing efforts are not just hard to miss but almost impossible to ignore. Like it or not, awareness of Shen Yun is growing.
But as with most things, the surface is not always what it seems. There are many elements connected to the show–which is organised, promoted and run by Falun Gong practitioners around the world–that practitioners like to keep secret.
I had a lot of different experiences helping to support Shen Yun promotions in the UK, and other countries, over many years. One example of the extremities I would often display when helping projects during my ‘all-in’ phase comes from when I was helping to promote Shen Yun at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff in 2010. Local practitioners had rented a one bedroom flat, which was then segregated into two main rooms–for males and females–and would regularly house a large congregation of 12 or more practitioners. At the time I had just begun helping to organise promotional events at shopping centres, exhibitions and local festivals.
I was working full time as a deputy manager for a retail store, and arranged to work every weekend, so that I could have every Monday and Tuesday off to travel to Cardiff to help with promotional efforts. Expenses incurred were my own and there was absolutely no payment. Li has, in his teachings, described a conflict he had when starting Shen Yun promotions about whether practitioners should be paid for their efforts. He decreed that it was acceptable for practitioners to not be paid because selling Shen Yun tickets amounts to helping save people from his Fa Rectification. This is something that practitioners have blindly accepted, and considering now that public documents detail assets and cash amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s an aspect of the show which I feel essentially amounts to slave labour.
Many practitioners would disagree, instead arguing that they help and participate from their own free will, and that they want to do this. I, too, would have said this years ago.
It all stems again from the belief that Li is a god, and that selling Shen Yun tickets does indeed amount to saving a person. Once you remove this belief, the facade surrounding this, and many of Falun Gong’s practices, begins to fall away.
What I remember most about that year, apart from feeling lucky to be able to literally work seven days a week, was pretty much always feeling tired and the incredibly cramped conditions at the flat. Always one to work hard, I would often find myself working on my laptop until the early hours of the morning after a day of promotions. At this stage, the floor of the male room was generally already taken up with guys in sleeping bags, so I had the privilege of being able to share a bed, (although generally not more than a few hours at a time because of the intense schedules) with the main coordinator and another heavy set practitioner with a reputation for snoring!
While living in New York in 2013 and 2014, I received permission to be allowed to come and support construction work at the Falun Gong and Shen Yun compound known as Dragon Springs. This is a common activity on weekends for practitioners living in or around New York who are allowed to do so.
For practitioners this is regarded as a sacred opportunity, certainly not an opportunity everyone was presented with, and I travelled to Dragon Springs to work for the first time with my ex-wife. We made our way to the compound, eager and enthusiastic, not exactly sure what to expect, but trusting this was our path.
The following story is actually completely crazy, and while I take responsibility for my own actions here, in many ways I am glad I ended up having limited direct involvement with Dragon Springs itself.
Upon arrival at the compound, we were directed to join a team of volunteers who had been chosen to help that day. We were tasked with helping to clean concrete boards (those used to stabilise and form concrete when this is poured). We were working on the roof of one of the newer buildings erected in Dragon Springs, which was several stories high. Dragon Springs is a rather beautiful compound split into different sections. The newer sections are more industrial buildings, aimed to keep up with and support the ever-expanding Shen Yun operation. The original areas, however, are filled with traditional wooden architecture temples, with ornate craftsmanship, and the surrounding grounds are impeccable. I remember pausing a few times on the roof to look around, in the sunshine, and feeling grateful I had the opportunity to be there.
My gratitude was short-lived, however. After a few hours I was approached by someone in charge and asked if I could help with a task. How could I refuse? For many practitioners Dragon Springs symbolises paradise and the pinnacle of the community and I duly offered to help.
I was tasked with working with another male practitioner to help bring up more of these concrete boards to the roof, using a rickety scaffolding section which was adjoining the building I was standing on. To do this, we had to climb onto the scaffolding itself and then climb down to where the boards were and lift them up together to the top. I don’t know what, if any, sort of risk assessment might have been completed, in relation to unpaid volunteers working in this way. However, I didn’t receive a safety briefing and in hindsight allowing myself to work in this way was pretty unwise.
I should say from the outset that I have never been comfortable working at heights, it’s one of the few fears I have. You would never find me jumping out of a perfectly good plane for an adrenaline rush! At the time I momentarily stopped to consider if I actually wanted to help do this, but the excitement of being at the compound led me to think this is a good opportunity to let go of the attachment to fear of heights! So I pretty much did this without hesitation.
After climbing onto the scaffolding with my new colleague we were left to our task, and as we climbed down I am sure I felt the scaffolding sway, and paused. My heart started to beat fast and I remembered I am actually scared of heights. As I looked up I realised that the scaffolding we were standing on was free-standing and simply erected next to the building. I could not see any structural connection to the building itself. I don’t know what the rules are around using free standing scaffolding in the US but I know at that moment I felt quite unsafe and it appeared my colleague had the same realisation at the same moment. We paused and looked at each other, standing in awkward silence for a few moments before we both acknowledged the situation.
My colleague attempted to make light of the situation, and I suppose because I was caught up in the moment I also did so, even exclaiming out loud that I was scared of heights and this must be a test from Li to see how strong my faith is! Utterly insane, this was so dangerous. For context, I also have a background in construction, building and renovations. I fully believe the structure was not safe and should not have been used.
We did, however, complete our task with all the rigour that would have been expected of two young male practitioners, eager to get things done. The stark reality of the situation I had allowed myself to be put in only really hit home a few years later when I heard that a practitioner had died during a construction accident at the compound. I learned the power of belief really can compel you to go against your own, internal instincts and rationalise things that should never be rationalised. In many ways I feel I had a lucky escape.
After my scaffolding experience I was less enthusiastic about using the permission to work in Dragon Springs that I had been granted. Instead I chose to support a small local project that my ex-wife was supporting, in the community surrounding the compound on the weekends. On the surface I remember feigning pragmatism, stating my time and effort could perhaps be better used in other projects, but in truth I just did not want to go back and put myself in similar situations again.
One of the harsher moments experienced during my extended support for Li’s travelling show came just after I went through quite a dramatic, personal family trauma. In December 2018 and January 2019 one of my cousins was admitted to hospital and was tragically diagnosed with lung and throat cancer. Unfortunately, their prognosis was serious and evolved into him dying in hospital in January 2019.
This is the only time in my life I have been present when someone physically died in front of me. During this period I did my best to support family members as best as I could, while suffering from a mixture of suppressed emotions– borne from a practitioners’ belief about having a higher understanding of death and attempting to not be overly attached to things.
In truth this was a devastating experience to go through, not only because of the physical process which unfolded before me, but because I could also see, sense and feel the anguish this caused my family members.
Shortly after my cousin passed away, Shen Yun arrived in the UK, to embark on a multi-city tour. I had already agreed to support the shows, this year helping The Epoch Times and NTD TV coverage of Shen Yun in the theatres. My role was split into the daily routines of group Fa study sessions, followed by acting as a media liaison. This involved speaking to audience members during the interval and at the end of the show, to encourage people to come and do an interview for NTD TV, to exclaim how much they liked the performance. Once the shows had finished, I also then went to help the media team, by being assigned audio recordings of Epoch Times journalist interviews with audience members so that I could transcribe these for others to write into articles.
An example of how serious both the media organisations and practitioners took efforts such as this is reflected in a New York Times article, from 30th December 2024, titled: Shen Yun needed publicity. The Epoch Times wrote 17,000 articles. The title of the article says it all.
During the UK tour, I first travelled to Birmingham, and then found myself in Edinburgh and then Liverpool–again, all at personal expense, because what I was doing was apparently an important aspect of Li’s divine plan.
By this stage I believe some of my usual enthusiasm and rigour, which I normally used to help propel my motivation to help such projects, was already starting to wane. Looking back, I feel there was probably a large part of me which had hoped that being part of a fast paced, community-led project would in some way help me get over my recent experiences. I tried to share with one practitioner who I had considered a friend, only to be told the experience was just a part of life and, as such, I should not let it affect me.
I think at the time I really wanted some kinship and friendship to help recover from a traumatic process. However because of the ever-increasing pressure practitioners feel during Shen Yun promotion periods, practitioners really don’t have the time, energy or foresight to really pay attention to things like this. In this regard I actually feel really sorry for the community of practitioners which I have left behind.
During the different shows I also found myself speaking out against things that I felt were either not professional or good for the show, the project or the team… probably more so than I would ever normally have done. As a result, I was asked to not be a team member after the Liverpool shows, because apparently my approach had caused some conflict within the group.
What were my crimes? I dared to speak out against an older Chinese female journalist. When listening to her transcriptions, I had found several people were struggling to understand and speak with her because her English language skills were very limited. I also raised concerns that the community environment was not the same as in previous years. Perhaps this was a reflection of what I was missing, and indeed hoping for given my recent personal experiences, but I do remember raising some objective concerns. Then, perhaps the icing on the cake, was having the nerve to speak out against the husband of a UK Falun Dafa Association member, who had sworn at me on the concourse of a theatre.
Writing accounts like this really evokes a lot of raw emotions. I don’t feel that I harbour any resentment towards practitioners, especially now because I tend to see them as victims. Instead I now harbour the wish that me taking the time to try and speak out against these things may in turn help others in some way.
The rigidness of requirements for practitioners to help support Shen Yun has also increased and intensified over the years. Currently there is what I would describe as very intense passive pressure to conform to increasingly demanding daily group Fa study and exercise sessions. These are organised under the pretence that this is required to be a true practitioner which is a prerequisite for really being able to help projects.
I have included examples below which show UK Shen Yun shopping centre promotion team communications. These were sent to me in 2023 via the signal app. The first shows suggested online group exercise and ‘Fa study’ schedules, which start at 03:55 in the morning and continue until 07:30. It all then starts again at 20:55 and continues until 23:10! These are theoretically so that practitioners can be in a good practitioner state while they go out to spend all day working or helping promotional efforts.
The second screenshot is a good demonstration of the passive pressure practitioners feel to conform. Not only do they have to contend with the intense suggested schedule of group online sessions, but here the coordinator has chosen to publicise who is joining the meetings to encourage further attendance.
Note: I have removed peoples’ names and any identifying characteristics out of respect and confidentiality. I feel it is important to highlight that I decided to share these screenshots as I believe they provide a compelling insight into the intense environment practitioners now face.
Shen Yun has recently received media attention in the form of exposes written by investigative journalists from the New York Times, centered around accounts from former Shen Yun performers and Falun Gong practitioners. During their investigation they interviewed more than 80 people, with 25 ex-dancers willing to share their stories publicly. Their accounts detail stories of dancers routinely being discouraged from seeking medical care because of Falun Gong’s belief system. Further accounts describe them being pushed to their physical and mental limits, working 15 hours a day, suffering from an abusive system and feeling used.
Before the first article was even published, the Falun Gong propaganda machine kicked into gear with the Epoch Times publishing an expose of their own, declaring that the New York Times was preparing a hit piece against Shen Yun, as well as alleging the article would be biased and somehow connected to the CCP. They stated the New York Times … have specifically sought out former artists who might have left the company years ago with a grudge.
What I found most interesting was the response from the purportedly unaffiliated and independent Epoch Times. In their own reporting they interviewed and quoted several Falun Gong practitioners, without declaring an open connection to the practice, which would itself be a conflict of interest. Instead they chose to introduce them by professional designations, trying to portray a balanced narrative.
On 3rd September 2024, The Epoch Times broadcasted a programme titled Shen Yun Artists Respond to New York Times Articles stating that: For the first time tonight, you’re going to hear from the people that have been most affected. At no point during the programme were any of the ex-performers, who spoke to the New York Times, interviewed. Instead, this was very clearly a propaganda piece published, in my opinion, as an attempt to control the narrative.
Where was the supposed balanced journalism? One key aspect which I feel has not been included is the fact that the majority of current and former Shen Yun dancers and performers are not only Falun Gong practitioners, but come from families which are bedded into the practice. If a current or former performer felt the desire and determination to speak out and share their experiences, then one of the first thoughts they would have to consider is the prospect of losing contact and any real connection with their family members. Let alone the community and friends that their whole life has revolved around.
This would be daunting for most people, but when you factor in people may be struggling to come to terms with emotional, mental and physical turmoil while considering this choice, this is, I believe, another example of the passive, intense pressures practitioners face.
There are numerous examples of the Falun Gong community taking a hard line against apostasy or heresy (although they don’t call it this), where former practitioners are declared non-practitioners and the community is warned not to engage or even have contact with them. So the threat, confusion and uncertainty that ex-Shen Yun performers would feel when considering whether to speak out is real. I wonder why aspects such as this were not considered or discussed by the Epoch Times when they were speaking to the people that had been most affected?
Shen Yun’s response has been questionable too, in the context of apparent conflicts of interest and a lack of disclosure. On Shen Yun’s official X page, called Shen Yun Community, it appears their own internal propaganda machine went into overdrive after the New York Times articles, desperately trying to reclaim and control the narrative. These include interviews with dancers and parents of dancers, who are not declared as Falun Gong practitioners.
If you scroll through the feed of orchestrated interviews on the X channel in the aftermath of the New York Times articles, you will also find two examples of known Falun Gong practitioner doctors providing interviews to rebut the claims which were discovered during the New York Times investigation. These were personal accounts from ex-performers who said they felt pressured not to receive appropriate medical care. Again, a clear conflict of interest, as this connection is not highlighted. This appears to be a public attempt to discredit the personal stories from people who have described abuse and harrowing conditions living and working with Shen Yun.
As a relatively new ex-practitioner, I was shocked by the clearly biased and agenda-driven propaganda that was on display, from Falun Gong practitioners. In 2024 I had the opportunity to join a small, but growing, community of ex-practitioners online and I connected with several people who had shared their stories and experiences with the New York Times. My shock turned to anger when I realised the people described by the Epoch Times as having a ‘grudge’ were actually people like me, struggling to come to terms with the stories they described. One thing I was kindly, but constantly, encouraged to do was to seek and explore therapy and counselling, something I did for several months.
The people apparently holding a grudge are not arrogant or disgruntled ex-employees. They are people trying to recover from being deeply involved with a cult for years, and in some cases, almost a lifetime.
The reaction from Falun Gong practitioners was also fairly extreme. Practitioners were encouraged not to read the articles and instead blamed their publication on demons and ‘the old forces’, which are vague beings that Li regularly mentions in his lectures and conveniently blames a lot of things on.
A public email was also sent by a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association, which I feel demonstrates this feeling. The email was sent on August 17th 2024 titled: FZN to disintegrate evils behind NYT. The email read as follows:
Dear Fellow Practitioners,
In light of the recent attacks on Dafa and Shen Yun by The New York Times, it is evident that the old forces’ malevolent elements and corrupt demons are using the CCP and its accomplices to interfere with Master’s Fa-rectification and the salvation of sentient beings. I urge fellow practitioners, during the four global righteous thoughts sessions each day, and at 8:55 PM UK time each evening, to concentrate our powerful righteous thoughts on this malicious incident involving The New York Times. Let us dissolve all evil beings and elements of the old forces behind the NYT and put an end to its interference and sabotage of Dafa and Shen Yun.
The public interest around the allegations exposed by the New York Times is increasing and it seems to be a fluid and evolving situation. One article was about the New York State Department of Labor opening an inquiry into Shen Yun and its alleged treatment of the children and teenagers who stage its shows worldwide.
Then on 25th November the New York Times published an announcement that a former dancer, Ms Chang Chun-Ko, filed a lawsuit accusing Shen Yun and its leaders of trafficking vulnerable children to work. Ms Chang was recruited into Shen Yun at the age of 13, in 2009, and stayed with the performing arts company until she was 24 in 2020. I can only imagine the internal conflict Ms Chang would have gone through when considering whether or not to file charges, making the choice to permanently sever all connections to an organisation that had played an enormous part of her life. Importantly, Li and his wife have both been named as defendants in the case.
Ms Chang has requested the judge to certify the lawsuit as a class action, so it can represent a larger group of Shen Yun performers. It will be interesting to see how this plays out within the US legal system and within the Falun Gong community.
On 2nd December 2024, Li published an article titled Our practice and the term religion, where he declared that going forward Falun Gong will now legally be classified as a religion. Using a similar, double barrelled approach, Li said: Falun Dafa practitioners around the world have registered their organizations as religious or as engaging in religious activities. While also inferring that he had not done so before because his practitioners: were being subjected to suppression and persecution by the CCP.
This happened only weeks after Shen Yun, and importantly Li was named as defendants in the US lawsuit, brought by Ms Chan. Before this it is fair and reasonable to acknowledge and note that Li had always previously stated that Falun Gong was not a religion. There is growing public awareness and scrutiny on Falun Gong, Shen Yun and other connected projects, which also includes multiple legal proceedings currently ongoing in the US. The timing of this announcement, which seems to be a public attempt to avoid legal liability and hide behind freedom of religion laws, cannot and should not be discounted.
Off the back of the initial New York Times investigations, I reached out to the lead journalists to share my story with them. From my experience, they have been extremely professional and understanding. Most importantly, I believe that their investigations have been borne from a genuine desire to investigate and expose a multitude of concerns, which are now more frequently being raised, as the number of ex-practitioners speaking out about their experiences rises.
I was featured in a New York Times article on 29th December 2024, titled: How Shen Yun tapped religious fervor to make $266 million. Off the back of my inclusion in the article, an email was sent to the UK practitioner forum on the evening of the 29th December, by the head of the UK Falun Dafa Association. The email shows how the community reacts if someone speaks out against the practice and is included below for reference:
Dear all
Please note: The New York Times published a new hit piece today in which Rob was one of the interviewees. The article is entirely aimed at attacking Falun Dafa and spreading a large amount of misinformation about our practice.
Rob Gray has been removed from the UK mailing group, as he said he is no longer a practitioner. Please be mindful that any communication or correspondence with Rob could potentially be used against us.
Additionally, please prioritise sending righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil elements in other dimensions that are behind the attacks and slander against Dafa and Shen Yun.
This communication demonstrates the type of reaction that practitioners face if and when they take the decision to speak out publicly about their experiences. Being publicly expelled from the group, with a warning that the people, some of whom I have known for fifteen plus years, should now be mindful about speaking to me.
The New York Times articles have been sobering and insightful. I would recommend reading them so you can gauge the stories for yourself.
Shen Yun was offered the opportunity to comment on points raised in this article. At the time of publication no response had been received.
I did, however, receive a message from a senior practitioner, who was formerly in charge of multiple Falun Gong related projects. The message seemed like an attempt to rebut many of the points I raised in my request for comment from Shen Yun. I was informed, in writing, that this communication was private and not an official response. As such, I will not include any details of the message in this article.
The Falun Dafa Association
The Falun Dafa Association, which is also referred to as FXH (an abbreviation of its Chinese name, fo xue hui), is a network of senior Falun Gong practitioners in a given country who help relay communications from the North American Falun Dafa Association, which is overseen by Li. They are small groups of practitioners who do this voluntarily, with the aim of helping to oversee practitioner projects, organise local group fa study and exercises classes and are seen as responsible for the local group of Falun Gong practitioners.
There has always been a serious attempt to distance Shen Yun and Falun Gong, with a clear focus to state that the organisation and faith are completely independent of one another. I have an example of an internal communication which I feel demonstrates how practitioners really see the connection between Shen Yun and Falun Gong:
Greetings to everyone! All FXH should now start to organize Master’s 9-day video lectures and promote this activity to the general public — this will provide those who wish to learn Falun Dafa with an opportunity to obtain the fa. In particular, such activities should take place in cities / countries where Shen Yun has performed. Thank You.
This message was circulated to the UK group by a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association on 18th February 2024, highlighting that this had been sent by a member of the Falun Dafa Association in the US, which is known to have close and direct links to Li.
I believe the message is itself self explanatory, and shows a clear, behind-the-scenes link between practitioners’ efforts to help, stage and support Shen Yun shows and an agenda to drive forward the Falun Gong belief.
I have included another example of communications sent by a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association, which I feel demonstrates the same theme. The below message was circulated to UK practitioners on 14th October 2024 — titled North American FXH notice:
Dear all:
1) Shen Yun season is about to begin; so please give full support to this most important Dafa project where the show is available.
2) Please continue the effort of truth clarification to the general public as well as to the government/VIPs.
3) Make the 9-day video seminars available for newcomers.
4) It is critical to ensure a healthy cultivation environment by holding daily group Fa reading and having exercises in the public areas.
Thank you!
As a follow up to these important instructions the UK Falun Dafa Association began organising 9 day lecture series events, which are organised by practitioners where they will play Li Hongzhi’s original 9 day video lecture series. This is typically accompanied by practitioners teaching people the Falun Gong exercises.
Recent events in London have also been organised on Eventbrite, advertising that the lectures will explore themes including healing, perfecting your character, loss and gain and a serene mind. They also espouse the benefits of practising the exercises, which include improved physical health, mental clarity, higher energy levels and inner peace. I think that is kind of ironic as when I left the practice my health was in a bad state, my mental state has required months of counselling trying to come to terms with living within the community for so long, and as for my energy levels and inner peace, honestly I feel it is quite deceptive.
What these events don’t mention is the extreme daily fa study and exercise schedules increasingly expected of practitioners. Neither do they draw attention to Li’s instructions about the three things you must do to be a genuine practitioner–study the fa, send righteous thoughts and clarify the truth. I feel that hiding these things from new entrants is quite disingenuous. Why do practitioners like to keep these aspects secret? What are practitioners, or Li, really afraid of? Do they think that people will not want to join and get involved if they know the true essence of the practice in advance?
The schedules true believers are encouraged to follow are incredibly gruelling. To demonstrate just how extreme they are, I have pasted the below picture taken from the UK Falun Gong community’ forum, — where practitioners have the opportunity to share reflections about the practice and announcements are made by the UK Falun Dafa Association and practitioner project coordinators. This is an example of the organised daily fa study and exercise schedules, which are organised online for practitioners.
On Monday, for example, believers will rise before daybreak to do the Falun Gong exercises from 4.10am to 6.10am, then study the teachings until around 8am before getting on with their day. In the evening they will be back again to read for another two hours from 7pm to 9pm. The suggested schedule is repeated daily, as shown.
The above is a screenshot which provides an overview of the UK Falun Gong community’s available daily schedules. Again, I have taken the decision to share these because I feel it is in the public’s interest to do so.
I should highlight that these schedules are organised as voluntary, and there is no mandatory requirement to join. But there is a general communal feeling within the community that real practitioners will join regularly to help foster a good group cultivation environment and good cultivation state.
Since leaving the practice I have looked into and watched documentaries about cults, trying in many ways to understand what I was really involved with for so many years and also trying to better understand myself. I found a series online about Scientology, hosted by Leah Remini. Although there are some basic differences, more often than not I have found that there are a lot of disturbing similarities between what I have found out about Scientology, and what I experienced in Falun Gong.
Most notably, I have come to realise a basic tenet of the practice now seems to revolve around keeping people busy, extremely busy. Combining an exhaustive set of online schedules with a never ending list of urgent projects keeps practitioners in an ever tired state as they labour through a gruelling communal routine. Systems like this make it very difficult for practitioners to think critically for themselves, keeping their attention solely focused on the practice itself and the divine and urgent mission to save people.
I have included another email, which was forwarded by a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association on 2nd September 2023 titled Another Important FXH Notice, which was originally sent by a member of the US Falun Dafa Association:
To all FXH and Dafa project coordinators:
Please immediately inform all practitioners in your country and/or in your Dafa projects to read Master’s latest article “Cultivation in Dafa is a Serious Matter” published today on September 1, 2023. The new article is now available in the Chinese language only and its link is: https://shorturl.at/emJ19 （The translation of other languages will become available soon).
Please have Dafa practitioners pay special attention to and read this very important article, and practitioners should share and reflect their own understandings of this new article within your Fa study groups and projects.
https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2023/9/2/211136.html
Thank you!
The above email is a good portrayal of the seriousness and sense of urgency that practitioners feel towards Li’s lectures and the kind of communications which are sent whenever Li publishes a new article or statement.
There are many examples of communications which exert pressure either passively or directly. I believe that practitioners, more often than not, feel the need to conform with and support formal notices, otherwise feeling like they are not true practitioners or indeed not doing what they should be doing to help.
I have also included an excerpt of an email, sent by a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association to the UK practitioner public forum. This email was sent on 1st February 2024 and titled Dafa disciples need to correct their unrighteous views on Shen Yun:
Recently, not only one Western practitioner has provided feedback on their views regarding Shen Yun performances, but also tend to express suggestions to Master or the Shen Yun Office for making some modifications to the programs. I’ve heard similar thoughts from Western practitioners in earlier years as well. I consider this a serious issue, so I would like to share my views in hopes of drawing attention from fellow practitioners who may have similar thoughts.
I emphasize the seriousness of this issue because it pertains to the correct understanding of Master, the Fa, cultivation, and Shen Yun. It also concerns the issue of positioning the relationship between Dafa disciples and Master and the Fa correctly. This is something that Dafa disciples need to take seriously.
Dafa disciples must not harbour any negative thoughts about Shen Yun! This is because the artistic director of Shen Yun is Master, and all Shen Yun performances are determined by Master.
The email goes for a little while and finishes with a disclaimer, of sorts: This personal understanding is for reference only. Let the Fa be our Master.
Receiving emails like this was common throughout the time I was connected to the community. I wanted to draw attention to this specific email because it highlights the reaction to critical thought that practitioners can receive when asking or posing questions. In many ways it is also an attempt at promoting unquestionable and total adherence to the practice’s beliefs and demonstrates a totalitarian mindset.
The dangers of systems like this cannot be understated, and I hope as more practitioners speak out about their own experiences, awareness within the community will increase and hopefully less people will be victims to its many insane practices.
At times in my cultivation I was very supportive and spent a lot of time helping to run projects organised or commissioned by the Falun Dafa Association in the UK. None more so than when I was the coordinator for practitioner events in the UK. I walked away from this responsibility in 2019, primarily because–very similar to my experience of working for the Epoch Times–I found the internal environment and dealing with specific members of the association to be rather toxic in nature.
Looking back there were several instances where I encountered extreme, and at times verbally violent reactions from some members, mainly because I was trying to help instil a more professional ethos. When I first took on the role, I was able to help change the organisational approach to events, which is still in place today. Like so many previous experiences however, when I encountered extreme behaviours or tendencies I often blamed myself, which resulted in a long-standing and difficult mindset to break free from.
The Falun Dafa Association was offered the opportunity to comment on points raised in this article. At the time of publication no response had been received.
I did, however, receive a message from a senior practitioner, who was formerly in charge of multiple Falun Gong related projects. The message seemed like an attempt to rebut many of the points I raised in my request for comment from the Falun Dafa Association. I was informed, in writing, that this communication was private and not an official response. As such, I will not include any details of the message in this article.
The Monetization of Meditation
One of the first and in many ways biggest draws to Falun Gong for me at the beginning was that all aspects of the practice–in particular videos, books, and supplementary materials–were available online for free. There were of course opportunities to buy printed copies and DVDs of different materials, but overall Falun Gong seemed quite different to other spiritual practices, or that at least was my initial impression.
Over the years it seems to me there has been a steady increase in opportunities for practitioners to part with their money, involving what were at first quite subtle approaches. This now seems to have morphed into an extreme and never ending attempt to take money from practitioners.
In the first few years of practising it was common for one or two practitioners to occasionally sell T-shirts and clothing, normally at quite reasonable and fairly cheap prices. Practitioners would often buy these and wear them at Falun Gong parades or events, which most countries host several times a year.
Everything was quite informal and this was not something I ever really gave too much thought about until recently.
In January 2021, the Falun Dafa Association, on Minghui, published an announcement called “Beware of Counterfeit, Illegal Products”. This stated that “some businesspeople have plagiarized the Falun emblem, produced undershirts and T-shirts, and sold them online” and went on to declare: “Please be aware that people wearing such clothing do not represent Falun Gong. Any actions they take in public are not related to Falun Dafa, either. No practitioner is to produce, sell, or buy such illegal products.”
There is now a formal portal for practitioners to buy clothes called Shen Yun Dancer, which as of writing has a range of different clothing items for sale. These include T-shirts which start around $16 per item and include multiple items within the $100 to $200 bracket. The most expensive item for sale is a women’s coat for $1,200.
Because of the previous official announcement on Minghui, I feel practitioners will feel obliged and pressured to purchase official items of clothing from Shen Yun Dancer. Items are purchased voluntarily, and this is an individual’s decision. However with such a strongly worded announcement and this being an official portal for such items, many practitioners happily purchase them without giving it much thought. The branding and clear connection to Shen Yun, which again is revered by practitioners because it is led by Li, would also play a critical role in their decision making.
There are also numerous examples of practitioners receiving emails that either promote or encourage them to purchase clothing items through official channels.
On 5th April 2024, a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association sent the following email, declaring this message was communicated on behalf of the North American FXH. The email title was: Newly Designed Yellow Polo Shirt Available to Order.
In order to have a uniformed outfit and a consistent message during Falun Dafa practitioners’ group activities, in addition to Dafa practitioner winter jacket, Shen Yun Dancer is introducing a new 100% cotton long sleeve yellow polo shirt (unisex) for warmer weather. Since this yellow Polo shirt is for practitioners only, we are asking each regional FXH to collect detail order info from local practitioners and submit as a group order on our website directly.
Price: $20/each
** ShenYun Dancer will need to ship the goods to the UK, and there will be added costs for shipping, customs clearance, duty, and VAT for each piece of clothing.
Expect the price to be around £22 per item.
The email then provided a direct link so that readers could order immediately, if they so wished.
Thank you for your continued support!
Shen Yun Dancer, Inc.
The email then went on to include the following:
For those who haven’t had a chance to order a Dafa practitioner Down Jacket yet, you can do so by clicking on the link below, which is estimated price around £180 after arriving in UK.
And again, another link so practitioners can place orders.
On 17th April 2024, a member of the UK Falun Dafa Association sent the following email to the Falun Dafa group forum public email titled FXH Notice:
Dear all:
Depending on local weather conditions (for example, the southern and northern hemispheres have opposite seasons), all FXHs should consider having our practitioners wear the newly designed Dafa jackets or Dafa shirts in all future Dafa public gatherings/activities to look more orderly and organized.
Thank you!
Email communications like this have led me to question whether or not the aim of companies like Shen Yun Dancer is for mainstream society or whether they have actually morphed into a practitioner-focused arm of Shen Yun, with the aim of generating profits from practitioners.
There is another official portal, called Shen Yun Collections, which promotes and sells all kinds of products. These are mostly connected to Shen Yun Performing Arts and include items like scarfs, bags, ties, ornaments, and a plethora of other trinkets. Prices range from around $20 for smaller items to hundreds of dollars for others.
They also have a very extensive jewellery section that includes collections such as the Falun Dafa Collection and Zhen Shan Ren Collection. At the extreme end of the scale there is a selection of white gold Falun pendants on sale for $2,250 each, which are supported by a further recommendation to purchase a matching white gold chain for an additional $755. Combined together the total cost for two items is a staggering $3,005.
Zhen, Shan, Ren is Chinese for Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, which are the publicly recognised tenets of Falun Gong. Collections branded this way seem to indicate that the target audience is Falun Gong practitioners. I am not sure who else would be interested in products like this.
This has led me again to question the motivations behind what is an extremely vast product range, sold under the banner of Shen Yun. I have no doubt that during its many annual shows many products are sold to willing audience members, but the extent of the collections and cost of some of the items has made me question who this is really targeted at. I am not aware of another performing arts company which has such a connected catalogue of items for sale.
Purely from a business perspective, having a large product range takes time, investment, and manpower. I would also assume that decisions on what kind of products to produce would be made on realistic assumptions about potential market interest in your products and whether or not you would consider yourself to have a regular and stable customer base.
Shen Yun Collections also provides a loyalty programme for its members, which is broken down into a tier system. The initial tier is bronze, where you earn 1 point for every $1 you spend. The loyalty programme upgrades you to different tiers, depending on how much you have spent. For example, to be upgraded to the silver tier you need to have spent $400. Your opportunity to earn points then increases with each level — at silver you gain 2 points per $1 spent — and it progresses in that manner until you reach the diamond tier. The diamond tier requires a whopping 30,000 points, but it’s OK, because being at this level earns you 5 points for every $1 you spend.
The loyalty programme resets its tiers at the beginning of each year, which, from a marketing perspective, seems to be an attempt to encourage repeated and continued purchases.
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My own journey into Li’s cultivation world stemmed from a turbulent and in many ways abusive childhood. I grew up with an aggressive, controlling and manipulative father so it is kind of ironic that I ended up spending a large portion of my life in a community which I would also describe in a similar fashion. The therapists who I have spoken to, which includes a specialist in cult recovery, have helped me come to terms with and let go of many of the experiences which I held onto for a long time. Counselling has had a tremendous impact on me, this is something I should have done a long time ago and for anyone in a similar situation I would greatly encourage people to consider doing this for themselves.
In many ways I was held back from doing this because of the culture and environment which practitioners live in. When I first began practising I came to believe, because of Li’s teachings, that the experiences I had encountered in my early childhood were a result of karma and essentially this was my own fault. This led me in many ways to suppress and ignore trauma which then fostered inside of me, without resolution, for many years.
At multiple times during my Falun Gong journey I pushed myself past my limits and burned myself out, through the intensity of project demands and living in a culture of extremes. At times I stepped back from projects and I often blamed myself, feeling somewhat inadequate, and that I had omissions in my understanding of Li’s divine Falun Gong or that I was simply not good enough.
It’s quite difficult to earnestly express the roller-coaster of emotions I experienced over the years. When I look back now at the times of project-led burnout over the years I feel I was really trying to overcome my instincts. I knew that something simply just was not quite right with the community and faith I had become embedded into.
I encountered similar traits of a trauma-laden past in countless practitioners that I got to know over the years. Many practitioners shared with me troubling, traumatic experiences that they had encountered before taking up the faith. I have come to realise that I was in a vulnerable, impressionable and emotional state when I first met practitioners and essentially dived head first into the community.
I feel this vulnerability was taken advantage of by Li and the Falun Gong belief system which I was formerly so devoted to. Which is why I now feel that practitioners generally are victims and why I feel that Falun Gong is a cult which poses a significant and dangerous threat to people.
Therapy has allowed me to see past the constraints of the lifestyle I used to live and open up a renewed perspective. I have realised, through immense self reflection, that many of the core characteristics of Falun Gong are similar to universally accepted and acknowledged cult traits. Author Steven Hassan, while writing the books Combating cult mind control; Releasing the bonds; and Freedom of mind, developed what is referred to as the BITE model, where he outlines common traits associated with cults. This model, which focuses on behaviour control (B), information control (I), thought control (T) and emotional control (E) really summarises the Falun Gong community and my experiences–in quite a stark and unnerving way.
The adoption of extreme behaviours which regulate a person’s physical reality is the only place to start when attempting to analyse a system like Falun Gong. Through Li’s teachings, which revolve around his apocalyptic Fa Rectification, practitioners earnestly believe that they are on the path not only to heaven, but to cultivate into gods themselves. I can’t think of a stronger example of an extreme distortion of a person’s reality than that. Because of this fundamental belief, practitioners then willingly sacrifice their life, in so many ways, under the false pretence that they are doing so for a higher, moral cause–which is literally trying to save the planet. It just sounds like Scientology to me now! This also leads to the obscure belief that practitioners are in a different physiological and spiritual state than everyone else.
The simple term ‘practitioner’ is repeatedly used by Li in his lectures, communications, and by the Falun Gong community as a whole. For believers of Falun Gong, being a practitioner signifies your ideal aspirations and is used to encourage self censorship, obedience and as a form of indirect control over the group by Li. Any modifications or adjustments to the standard of being a practitioner would be communicated by Li and zealously listened to by his followers. This in turn creates the environment where practitioners refer to everyone else as ‘ordinary people’.
This distinction creates an insider vs outsider mentality which then provides a platform for practitioners to adopt and go along with the extreme manner in which information is controlled within the group. The culture which is then propagated among the community keeps practitioners in such a busy routine that they are unable to really think about things for themselves. I am sure many inside the community will disagree. However the tendency to suppress or shut down alternative or critical thought, which I have highlighted in this article, cannot be ignored or denied. Neither can the general culture of mistrust of any news sources other than the divine and Li-ordained Epoch Media Group. Many practitioners truly believe that other sources of information are drenched in the propaganda of the Chinese state, which leads them to instinctively reject and repeal reason.
These characteristics, which are not exhaustive, lead very tellingly to rigid, black-and-white thinking which dominates the practitioner community. By far, Falun Gong’s largest community is now in the US, which is a predominantly Christian country. I wonder what prominent US figures and politicians would really think if they were truly aware of the extent of Falun Gong’s beliefs? According to Li, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Protestantism are considered orthodox religions. Other, globally recognised religions are considered false, and modern spiritual practices are fraudulent and not to be trusted. During Li’s teachings about his Fa Rectification he has also expressed that orthodox religions are no longer able to save people too. This literally is a perfect example of the BITE model in play.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect that I had to overcome when I was releasing the shackles of Falun Gong in my life was the effect of emotional control. Living in a community where you consider all previous life difficulties as a direct result of your own misgivings or failures is psychologically damaging. Having a distinct distrust of the wonderful world we live in cannot lead to positive outcomes, unless you are the person telling their followers what to believe. Combining these with the troubling trait of suppressing and ignoring emotions is something it may take me a long time to truly recover from.
I am happy to say that clarity of mind has helped me move on in ways that I previously could never have imagined. This also leaves me with a sense of sadness, knowing that there are thousands of practitioners around the world who have become entrapped by Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong.
Many of the accepted ‘classic cult traits’ have also been widely accepted as being dangerous, not only to vulnerable people but the wider population. Dr Margaret Singer put forth the conditions commonly associated with cult mind control. These centre around keeping the person unaware of “what is going on, controlling the person’s social / physical environment, creating a sense of powerlessness, manipulating a system of rewards that both inhibit behaviour not conclusive to the cult environment and promoting the system’s ideology and promoting a closed system of logic.”
Unfortunately, there seems to be a misconception among the wider public that people who have joined or stayed within a cult for a long time are perhaps presupposed to such systems. I have come to a different understanding, that in many cases people are actually recruited and it’s the manipulative and controlling tendencies of systems like Falun Gong which can trap people and have the potential to cause so much harm.
Through study and research I have learnt that many of the accepted forms of manipulative mind control methods that cults use to control people are not limited to one demographic. In Falun Gong, a lot of practitioners have quite high academic qualifications. One telling example of how Falun Gong pulls in its followers, is the discrepancy I outlined between the introductory classes and how this is portrayed in comparison to the actual real life experience and requirements for practitioners. Notably Li’s requirement of the three things, namely sending righteous thoughts, studying the Fa and clarifying the truth are never mentioned when introducing the practice, rather it is promoted as a gentle Qi-gong exercise system.
Manipulating people like this can lead to almost anyone being potentially susceptible to cult control methods and should be seen as a major red flag and cause of concern for governments around the world when they are considering the Falun Gong situation.
I have outlined numerous examples of Li’s nutty proclamations, and personally I do not think it would be far-fetched to describe Falun Gong as a doomsday cult. I have also attempted to draw attention to the fact that he tailors his approach to his audience. A perfect example of this is in Li’s January 2025 Epoch Times interview where the contrast between the English and Chinese narratives is plain for all to see. I have to ask again why there would be such a discrepancy between two translations of the same interview? My sense is because Li feels that he is under pressure legally, and he is desperately attempting to use the US legal system and the rights of freedom of expression and religion to his own benefit. In the Chinese translation Li made statements about healing paralysed people. This seems like an attempt to garner reputation from his followers, which I would say is reckless, irresponsible and deceptive.
I would be very surprised if senior figures within the US, UK or European parliaments would take kindly to official parliamentary channels endorsing such beliefs, which also includes practitioners levitating and other secretive super-normal abilities. A large part of the English translation of the interview is aimed at creating sympathy against the Chinese state.
Because China is a Communist country, with a suspect human rights record, most governments, to some degree, have an acceptance of the danger and environment Chinese citizens can face. However the known and accepted reputation of the CCP does not and should not mitigate against the dangers of Falun Gong. Neither should the ill treatment of Falun Gong practitioners in China mean that other countries around the world have to endorse, support or actively encourage what is essentially an extreme apocalyptic cult.
There seems to be an ongoing smear campaign against the New York Times which alleges that any publication of stories that do not align with the Falun Gong narrative stem from Chinese state influence. How can it be that any positive comments or narratives about Falun Gong are propagated widely among the community and politicians but anything negative always stems from the CCP? From my own research in the last 12 months I have found numerous sources of information which contradict, question and delegitimize many of Falun Gong’s public approaches. As a Westerner I have even asked myself how I got involved with or connected to it at all.
There can be no excuse or justification of the CCP and its extreme methods or approaches to the Falun Gong problem in China. However, in the age of communication, neither should there be a platform for extreme cults such as Falun Gong to attempt to hide behind freedom of religion legislation to operate freely–and with tax reliefs.
I am not a professional writer and I have done my best to try and encapsulate and share the warped community which Falun Gong practitioners live in. I hope that this article helps provide an insight into a community which, through projects like Shen Yun and the Epoch Media Group, is fast establishing a significant commercial footing in society.
I sincerely hope that organisations, governments and citizens pause and consider whether they really want to contribute to and support a belief system like Falun Gong and whether doing so actually helps or hinders society as a whole.
And I hope–perhaps fool-heartedly, by sharing my experiences, I will somehow help practitioners wake up and smell the roses!
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