In part 8 of this expose on Falun Gong, I explore how the meditation group initially responded to the CCP’s harsh crackdown during the 1999-2005 period. I am a former long time FLG practitioner who is using the anonymity of Blind to share some info on how FLG went from being a meditation group in China to a worldwide right wing disinformation machine. Thank you for bearing with me. Li Hongzhi faced a dilemma in the early 2000s. With so many of his practitioners being forced to give up FLG and the CCP destroying FLG’s reputation in China, how could he keep his FLG business (literally a business) alive? The solution that he initially sought was two-fold. Publicly he would organize some media companies and Falun Gong websites to tell the FLG side of the story and publicize the persecution that they faced. Privately, he would continue to reach out to the CCP and use whatever contacts he still had in the CCP to get it to stop the crackdown and restore FLG to legal status in China. The crackdown also raised a massive crisis of faith among practitioners in China. If Li Hongzhi really was spreading a true path to Buddhahood and he was a divine figure (Primary Buddha of the Universe) then how could the CCP get away with the crackdown? Why did Li Hongzhi’s 1999 millenarian prophecy about the end of the world followed by Dharma Rectification of the Universe seemingly not come true? Facing the threat of losing the faith all of his followers, Li Hongzhi invented a new theory. Namely that the world had changed forever on July 20, 1999 but the change which he had prophesied had been interrupted by the “Old Forces” of the universe. A fierce struggle had happened between Li Hongzhi and these Old Forces in another dimension that we can’t see but basically this was an opportunity for practitioners to not only obtain Buddhahood for themselves but “save sentient beings” ie save non-practitioners by getting them to have a positive attitude towards FLG which supposedly will save them from total destruction when Dharma Rectification comes and wipes out the Old Forces. In Li Hongzhi’s new teachings, there was also an implicit threat that if practitioners failed to take part in activities to “save sentient beings”, they risked not only losing Buddhahood but even going to hell. In practice this meant that Li Hongzhi made himself more and more divine in his teachings and practitioners focused less on cultivating a better moral character and more on spreading the word about FLG (“clarifying the truth”). It should also be mentioned that Li Hongzhi at this point encounter a lot of Christian texts in New York and infused Christian elements into FLG doctrine (eg naming himself the Creator). Back in China, many practitioners faced the dire choices of either following Li Hongzhi’s teachings and getting themselves arrested for “saving sentient beings” by “clarifying the truth” or risking going to hell. Some chose to go to jail but in jail the CCP forced them to sign confessions denouncing FLG and these confessions were publicized in Chinese media to make FLG look bad. Li Hongzhi decided to effectively renounce any practitioner who signed such confessions even if under pressure or torture. He said in his teachings that any practitioner who signs such confessions under any circumstances will not attain Buddhahood. Curiously even practitioners that died in prison were declared to have not attained Buddhahood. This meant that arrayed FLG practitioners were pressured by their own Master to resist to the end but if that end is death they still failed. This led to many tragedies. There is a cultural angle to this. In traditional East Asian cultures, prisoners of war are looked down upon and if a prisoner of war surrenders to his captors or gives up information then he is considered a hated traitor by his own side even if he did so under extraordinary circumstances. The label of traitor also effectively cancels out any merits he had before being taken prisoner. Meanwhile around 2002, a new practice was added to Falun Gong: Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts. This activity was meant to destroy evil Old Forces in other dimensions and was done to fight back against FLG’s enemies in the real world when they are powerless to do so. Initially this would be used only against the CCP’s 610 Office and also anything causing problems for a practitioner like illness or a mean boss but later it would expand to Jiang Zemin, the CCP, any critics of FLG, the Democrats, Hillary Clinton, , Biden, opponents of January 6th, etc. The Righteous Thoughts consisted of thinking these verses when meditating: 法正乾坤、邪恶全灭、法正天地、现世现报。灭! Or in English: Dharma rectifies the entire universe, destroy all evil. Dharma rectifies the heavens and the earth, retribution will come in this lifetime. Destroy! As you can see, an element of hatred had seeped into FLG by the early 2000s and it is understandably from the fierce persecution it faced in China. But once hatred takes over, there is no turning back. By the end of 2001, Li Hongzhi and his new top lieutenants in the US gave up hope on Chinese President Jiang Zemin ever calling off the crackdown so they began to call him a demon in FLG literature and associate him with the evil Old Forces. But Li Hongzhi still held out hope that the CCP would redeem him. From 2002 to 2005, China’s Paramount Leader gradually transitioned from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. FLG lobbied hard with Hu Jintao’s administration who were completely separate from Jiang Zemin’s administration and had no hand in the crackdown to reverse Jiang’s policy. Hu Jintao was not vested in the crackdown but he was a weak leader and with Jiang’s allies still holding high offices, Hu Jintao couldn’t shut down the crackdown altogether. But under Hu Jintao, the persecution subsided dramatically. No more mass campaigns were launched against FLG, no more large scale arrests were made, attempts to transform steadfast practitioners were scaled back to just making them read critiques of FLG and actual Buddhist scripture (which contradicted some of FLG doctrine). Many arrested practitioners were quietly released. However, practitioners who were convicted of seditious acts still had to serve out their sentences (often ten to twenty years), FLG remained banned in China, police continued to monitor former practitioners (paying them periodic “friendly” visits to talk). As this was going on, people around Li Hongzhi were trying to influence him to take on the Chinese government in its entirety. The overseas Chinese community includes a large anti-CCP segment who want to see the CCP overthrown because of various reasons (personal bad experience with the CCP, ideology, people wanted in China for legitimate crimes, supporters of the Taiwanese independence movement, supporters of the KMT, Hong Kong dissidents, Tibetan and Uyghur separatists, etc). Li Hongzhi at first was reluctant to do so but Hu Jintao’s refusal to legalize FLG combined with the increasing influence of these anti-CCP practitioners in New York around Li Hongzhi led to his fateful decision to redefine FLG and the path to Buddhahood as a crusade against the CCP. From 2004 onwards, FLG literature would equate the CCP with the Old Forces and FLG media would go from reporting on actual persecution of FLG which was usually true to becoming an anti-CCP propaganda mouthpiece which often spouted transparent lies.
7.449 characters none are tc
you say you are a former long time flg member. anyone could say that not the least of which could be the ccp itself doing disinformation campaigns. this should not be on blind anyway
Did you read part 7 which talks about the CCP’s torture of FLG practitioners? Would the CCP include that in a disinformation campaign?
Ex-apple exactly, it reads like propaganda. It’s not worth taking it seriously. Nor should it be on blind. But most importantly… they forgot tc! 🤡
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Why is this on Blind?
Thank you for asking. I am a former FLG practitioner who is concerned about how FLG has gone off the rails. There is currently a massive crisis and FLG leaders try to prevent information from leaking out. Both the CCP and FLG dislike dissenters on this subject and so I must use absolute anonymity when exposing these facts. I apologize for doing so.