Misconceptions About Falun Gong: Why Falun Gong is Not a Cult

Since China’s leadership first began labeling Falun Gong as an “evil cult” in 1999, there has been much confusion even in the west about the nature of the practice. The cult label has been used to describe Falun Gong from time to time in media reports (although much less in recent years), and the Chinese government has pushed the term at every opportunity in order to justify their persecution of the group.

Upon a closer examination, however, Falun Gong does not possess many classic characteristics of a cult, as the chart below demonstrates.

Typical Characteristics of Cults	Falun Gong
Isolates members either geographically or socially.	NO. Falun Gong teaches that practitioners must remain in the society and maintain their regular social lives. (more)
Structures all or most activities so that there is little time for independent thought or privacy.	NO. A person is required to make time for independent thought or privacy to understand Falun Gong through personal introspection and come to one’s own conclusions. (more)
Promise or provide instant solutions to deep problems.	NO. Falun Gong requires addressing problems through gradual self-improvement. (more)
Employs covert or disguised hypnotic techniques.	NO. The meditation practiced in Falun Gong requires the person to maintain a completely conscious and clear mind. (more)
Keeps a list of members and does not allow them to leave the group.	NO. Falun Gong has no membership rosters and people are free to leave at any time. (more)
Fosters an “us” verses “them” mentality.	NO. Falun Gong teaches that one should treat all others with compassion and understanding. (more)
Places itself above the law.	NO. The teachings of Falun Gong require one to abide by the laws under which one lives. The notable exception is Falun Gong's resistance to the Chinese Communist Party's ban on the practice. (more)
Promotes doomsday theories.	NO. Falun Gong does not believe in any doomsday, but does believe that civilizations have been periodically wiped out as a result of moral decay. (see No Doomsday in Falun Gong)
The leadership dictates important personal (as opposed to spiritual) details of followers' lives, intervenes directly in the lives. Such as whom to marry, etc.	NO. Falun Gong's founder never intervenes directly with practitioners, particularly not their personal lives. (more)
Involves the worship of its leader.	NO. Falun Gong's founder asks practitioners not to worship him. (more)
The leader sets forth moral or ethical guidelines from which he/she is personally exempt.	NO. Chinese Communist Party reports on Li Hongzhi have been proven false or unsubstantiated (see On Falun Gong's Founder). On the contrary, there are numerous, consistent accounts of the humble and benevolent behavior of the founder. (link:Our Master)
Led by a leader who is believed to possess special abilities.	YES. Falun Gong's founder is believed to possess supernormal abilities developed through his previous practice. Among the abilities he openly professes to have is the ability to "purify" practitioners' bodies of illnesses as they practice—something a majority of practitioners claim to have personally experienced. But, practitioners are specifically told not to focus on these phenomena, and that benefits only manifest through improvement in one's moral character. (more) (link: Journey to Ultimate Health)
Followers are required to pay or donate large sums of money to the group.	NO. One of the few concrete rules of Falun Gong is that no money can be charged for the practice. All teachings and video instruction are available free online or through local volunteers. (more)
Uses jargon that outsiders don't understand.	NO. Westerners with no background in Chinese culture are unlikely to understand some terminology in Falun Gong, but those with a deep understanding of Chinese culture- particularly Buddhist and Taoist philosophy- would be familiar with the terms.
Provides a philosophy that seems logical and appears to answer and explain important questions in life.	YES. Falun Gong practitioners consistently state that the teachings answer all or most of the important questions they have had about life and the universe. (link: Jounney to Enlightenment)
The group routinely deceives outsiders.	NO. Truthfulness is considered essential, and Falun Gong's founder maintains he and his students have nothing to hide. All activities are free and open to the public. In fact, tens of thousands of practitioners' cultivation experiences are available online at www.clearwisdom.net and www.pureinsight.org .
The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members and exerts pressure on people to join.	NO. It is believed that a person should practice Falun Gong only if their desire to do so comes from their own heart. It is furthermore believed that forcing a person to practice is harmful. Most practitioners have been introduced to Falun Gong through word-of-mouth or by walking past a practice site, and have explored further on their own initiative. (more)
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.	NO. The founder has oftentimes answered numerous questions for practitioners when attending Experience Sharing Conferences. Questioning and disagreements are common at local group discussion, and doubt is seen as a normal part of the cultivation process. (more)
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary.	NO. Quite the opposite— only through assimilating to Truthfulness - Compassion - Forbearance in one's daily life will one be able to achieve inner peace. Even with the ongoing torture and persecution in China, practitioners are taught to stay steadfast with this principle, and that through having righteous thoughts the persecution will inevitably end.
The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.	NO. The founder routinely praises his students. Master Li encourages practitioners to work diligently in their cultivation and on efforts to stop the persectution in China. Practitioners too encourage each other. But they are taught that all actions should come from their heart; any pressure is forbidden. Ultimately, it is up to the person him/herself what they want to do in their practice. (more)
Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.	NO. Many practitioners choose not to participate in group activities. Practitioners are taught to take things naturally and thus practice/read more when they have more time, less when they have less time. Participation in group activities is done out of enthusiasm for the practice. (more)
The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group.	NO. Most veteran practitioners are able to achieve more of a balance with their families, work, chores, daily lives, and social activities along with Falun Gong. The teachings explicitly state that doing only Falun Gong activities all day is going to an extreme, and that the only way to effectively practice is through maintaining a normal life. (more)

In 1999 the Chinese government passed legislation banning “evil cults” and prescribing harsh measures to deal with all groups that it labeled as heterodox or “evil cults” (xie jiao).

In its analysis of China’s laws on ‘evil cults,’ Freedom House noted the following: “The state is not concerned with theological orthodoxy or heterodoxy, but with whether it is registered and operate under its control or not.” In other words, the Chinese government has singled out any and all spiritual groups that are not under its control as heterodox or evil cults.

There are five officially registered religions in China: The Chinese Buddhist Association, The Chinese Daoist Association, The Chinese Islamic Association, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Movement, and the Chinese Protestant Three-self Patriotic Movement. All of these religions are overseen by the state. Their leaders are appointed by the state, and their doctrines are altered to remove any teachings that might place God’s authority above that of the state. In their founding statements, these organizations promise that they will operate under the control of the Chinese Communist Party—an atheistic government.

During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards were urged on to destroy Buddhist and Taoist cultural relics across the country. When the Chinese Buddhist Association was first formed in 1951, many of its leaders were Communist Party members (a situation that persists to this day). They advocated doing away with the Buddhist Precepts—the moral code adhered to by followers of Buddhism.

A 112-year-old Buddhist Master who opposed abandoning the precepts was labeled a counter-revolutionary and was beaten to death by Communist Party members. Other Buddhists and Taoists who opposed the Communist Party changing their religious doctrines were also labeled counter-revolutionaries, sent to forced labor camps, and even executed.

In modern China, Protestants and Catholics are only allowed to read a censored version of the Bible. Catholics are to be loyal to the Communist Party, rather than to the Pope in the Vatican. Those who wish to practice the true form of their religion are forced to worship in underground ‘house churches,’ which are frequently raided and destroyed by the Chinese government. Underground Christians are also categorized as evil cults and are the subject of persecution.