A History for Falun Gong: Popular Religion and the Chinese State Since the Ming Dynasty

Book Reviews 127 Falun Gong and the Future of China DAVID OWNBY. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. xi, 291 pages. ISBN 978-019532905 -6. US$29.95, £15.99 hardcover. In the immediate aftermath of the 1999 Chinese crackdown on Falun Dafa 法輪大法—known more commonly in the US as Falun Gong 法輪功—journalists wrote a great deal about the movement, on balance perhaps generating more heat than light. The prevailing discourse was framed largely in terms of human rights and religious freedom, with little analysis of the origins and history of the teachings and practices. Expatriate Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong’s distinctive system of qigong 氣功 managed to keep the ongoing suppression of the movement in the headlines for several years, but now, a decade after the movement was outlawed in the PRC, the world seems to have lost interest, weary of the unremittingly bad news coming from China. This is unfortunate, because in recent years scholars have made great strides in understanding the qigong movement and the decisive role Falun Gong played in its demise.1 In Falun Gong and the Future of China, David Ownby pursues several complementary agendas. One of the most important is his ongoing effort to determine the antecedents of Falun Gong in order to establish its proper place within the history of Chinese popular religion.2 Ownby’s conclusion, argued with subtlety and nuance, is that Falun Gong (and the larger qigong movement) represent a post-Mao revival of the moral teachings, general worldview, and body-centered spiritual practices that characterized late Imperial and Republican era “redemptive societies.” The thousands of groups, large and small, that Ownby calls “redemptive societies” (following Prasenjit Duara) have been collectively categorized under a variety of names in the past, including White Lotus, sectarian, folk Buddhist, syncretic, etc. All these names are problematic. By classifying these societies under a neutral, descriptive heading and recognizing their family resemblances, it becomes possible to identify their shared features—charismatic founders; a sense of uniqueness; body-based “cultivation” techniques leading to health, happiness, and salvation; traditional moral values, etc.—and rethink their place and role in the last several hundred years of Chinese religious history.3 Many of the redemptive societies were severely attacked under both Republican and Communist rule—especially during the Cultural Revolution—and most were assumed by outside observers to have been annihilated, but their teachings appear to have survived far better than nearly anyone suspected. Ownby makes a convincing case here that should lead to 1 See especially David Palmer’s excellent La fièvre du Qigong (Paris: Éditions de l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2005) as well as this book, of course. Editor’s note: Palmer’s book was reviewed by Benoît Vermander in vol.33 (2005) of this journal. 2 For an earlier effort see, David Ownby, “A History for Falun Gong: Popular Religion and the Chinese State Since the Ming Dynasty,” Nova Religio 6.2 (April 2003): 223-243. 3 Ownby convincingly argues that these groups are “religious,” at least in western terms, even if they are not by Chinese definitions and their own self-understanding. 128 Journal of Chinese Religions a major reworking of the history of late Imperial, Republican, and contemporary Chinese popular religion. A second, related concern is to provide an overview and analysis of the qigong boom of the 1980s and 1990s and sketch a preliminary history of Falun Gong. In this effort, Ownby nicely summarizes relevant findings from David Palmer’s La fièvre du qigong while adding his own insights and research. Ownby’s analysis of the complex teachings of Li Hongzhi 李 洪志, the founder and sole “master” of Falun Gong, is especially illuminating. In addition, Ownby provides a chapter-long discussion of social scientific fieldwork he conducted among North American practitioners of Falun Gong, mostly diaspora Chinese, who have worked tirelessly to keep the cause of Falun Gong alive. This North American fieldwork helps clarify the crucial differences between the apocalyptic rhetoric and “gnostic” teachings of Li Hongzhi and the relatively “normal” lives of practitioners. When objectively described and analyzed, the beliefs of Falun Gong appear bizarre, at least to most Westerners; however, the followers of...

Since 1999, falun gong has been one of the most burning and sensitive political and religious issues in China, brought to the attention of the public around the world by demonstrations and media reports. Until Maria Hsia Chang's book, Falun Gong: The End of Days, was released this spring, no balanced book-length account of the facts surrounding falun gong was available. Chang's book provides the general public with an informative summary of the development of falun gong, its basic beliefs, the history of its repression by the Chinese state, and its connection with millenarian and sectarian traditions in Chinese religious history. However, the journalistic style and sources of the book underline the need for a thorough academic study of the phenomenon.Chapter one, “A religious sect defies the state,” outlines the story of falun gong from its foundation in 1992 to its continued repression today following the Zhongnanhai demonstration of 1999. In chapter two, “Chinese religions and millenarian movements,” Chang summarizes the history of Chinese religions, secret societies, and millennial and apocalyptic movements, including the Eight Trigram, Taiping and Boxer rebellions, and argues that the Chinese Communists tapped into China's millenarian tradition in order to gain power. She then stresses that falun gong, contrary to its claims that it is not a religion, draws heavily from Chinese religion, and particularly its millennial and apocalyptic strands. Falun gong teachings are described in chapter three, “Beliefs and practices,” in which falun gong's cosmology, theology and eschatology are outlined with ample reference to the writings of Li Hongzhi. The next chapter, “The state vs. falun gong,” goes through the Chinese state's charges against falun gong. Chapter five, “The persecution of other faiths,” begins with a critique of the “rule of law” purportedly called on by the CCP to deal with falun gong, and argues that the accusations made against falun gong could just as well be made against the CCP itself. It then discusses the vast social dislocations in contemporary China that create a fertile soil for the emergence of apocalyptic movements such as falun gong, and describes how the persecution of falun gong is part of a larger policy to eradicate underground religious groups, several of which are presented. Finally, Chang concludes that, in the face of widespread social dissatisfaction, the fear of millenarian uprisings is the main motivation for the CCP's fierce suppression of falun gong – but its intolerance of “heterodox” faiths only reinforces their politicization into oppositional movements, increasing the likelihood of the CCP “reaping the fate” it so dreads.

This book treats Falun Gong as an example of one form of Chinese popular religion, and the core of the volume, based on a close reading of founder Li Hongzhi's writings and on fieldwork among Falun Gong practitioners in the Chinese diaspora in North America, offers a detailed description of the doctrine, practices, and appeal of Falun Dafa (the term practitioners use to describe their “cultivation practice”). It is argued that Falun Gong, and the larger qigong movement out of which Falun Gong emerged, should be understood as part of reform era China's religious revival and that the historical roots of Falun Gong may be traced through qigong to the redemptive societies of the Republican period and even to the White Lotus sectarian tradition of late imperial times. The nature and historical importance of these groups has often been obscured by a state discourse of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, which the study of Falun Gong allows us to problematize. The ongoing campaign of suppression waged by the Chinese state against Falun Gong suggests that this discourse is alive and well and illustrates the state's role in the politicization of popular religious organizations. The volume concludes that religions like Falun Gong have played a more important role in China's modern history than has been recognized and are likely to continue to play such roles in China's future.

This chapter analyzes the factors of religion and politics in the trajectory of Falun Gong. Falun Gong’s trajectory can be viewed as a conflict-amplifying process in which the interplay between the group as a religious actor and the state policies and apparatus of religious control led to the eventual crackdown. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the state’s policies toward religion and civic organizations created a unique niche for qigong. In the early 1990s, after qigong successfully opened up a space in the gray zone between state and society, Falun Gong emerged as part of the state-sanctioned “scientific” qigong movement by adopting a strategy of accommodation that eschewed explicit spiritual teaching. In the mid-1990s, faced with increasing state suspicion of qigong and fierce competition from thousands of qigong groups, Falun Gong brought its spiritual dimension to the fore and became a new religious movement. This proved a huge success as it met the needs of spiritual seekers in the gray market. Unsettled by Falun Gong’s ideological challenge, the state began to take measures to keep Falun Gong out of the political realm. However, the minor irritations that ensued convinced the practitioners that the state was merely misinformed. To convince the state of its “apolitical” nature, Falun Gong launched a persistent “truth clarification” campaign, but the small-scale demonstrations further warned the state of Falun Gong’s defiance of its symbolic order. The linkage and clustering of the events eventually exploded into the massive Zhongnanhai protest of 1999. Shocked by Falun Gong’s mobilization capacity and ideological challenge, the state officially banned the group and has since harshly purged its practitioners. But the crackdown only served to fully release Falun Gong’s political potential. While Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, previously only vaguely referred to evil, the crackdown polarized and intensified Falun Gong’s apocalyptic message, which now unequivocally views the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) as a nefarious force. Falun Gong in exile has become a major anti-CCP force that has built a coalition with other political forces and launched waves of political activities aimed at the overthrow of the CCP. The conflict between Falun Gong and the state brings us to the question of what is political and what is religious, as the escalation of the level of conflict can be seen as a result of conflicting interpretations of what counted as “political” and what counted as “religious.” In communist China, religion and politics are often fluid spheres in society and always intersect with other social phenomena. Different interpretations of religion and politics by the state and Falun Gong played a huge role in the eventual politicization of the Falun Gong movement. As a result, the story of Falun Gong is one of unintended consequences. The organizational evolution of Falun Gong is an illustration of the religion of the non-religious and the politics of the apolitical in an authoritarian state.

This chapter chronicles the conflict between Falun Gong and the Chinese state. It begins by tracing the flagging fortunes of the qigong boom beginning in the mid‐1990s, a decline which prompted Li Hongzhi to leave China in 1995 and to establish residency in the United States. Falun Gong practitioners in China reacted to increasing media criticism within China by engaging in large, peaceful protests directed at the newspaper, magazine, or television station which had criticized the group. This strategy led eventually to the massive Falun Gong demonstration outside CCP headquarters in Beijing on 25 April 1999, which resulted in the launching of the suppression campaign against Falun Gong. The chapter devotes considerable attention to the competing wars of representation fought by the Chinese state and Falun Gong as each sought to sway public opinion. Falun Gong ultimately lost this battle and became increasingly political, a stance symbolized by the founding of a Falun Gong–run newspaper, the Epoch Times, which tirelessly criticizes the CCP.

The teachings of Falun Gong explicitly forbid suicide, yet in 2001, five protesters set themselves ablaze in Tiananmen Square resulting in the death of two. Allegedly, their stated aim was to bring the world's focus onto the repression of the movement by the Chinese government. Falun Gong spokespeople were quick to speak out in defence of founder Li Hongzhi, saying that the movement strictly forbids suicide in line with the traditional Chinese belief that says that suicide is an affront to the ancestors. They further claimed that the Chinese government had staged the suicides in order to stir up public opinion against the movement and indeed the tide of public opinion did turn against Falun Gong and its founder (Bell and Boas 2003, 285). Even given Falun Gong's stated opposition to suicide, the movement does encourage its adherents to refuse to take medicine or accept medical treatment and some consider this refusal of treatment could be considered to be suicidal. Chinese state media seized upon Li's writing in which he expressed that illnesses are caused by karma, and claimed that in excess of 1000 deaths were the direct result of adherents following Li's teachings. Authorities also maintain that several hundred practitioners had cut their stomachs open looking for the Dharma Wheel that turns in response to the practice of the five meditative exercises characteristic of the movement. Indeed, many of their fellow followers had been arrested in Tianjin, following condemnation of their movement by physicist He Zouxiu of the Chinese Academy of the Sciences. He had claimed that Falun Gong had been responsible for several deaths (Bejsky 2004, 190). This paper will examine the complex relationship between Falun Gong and the Chinese government, exploring the reality behind the claims and counterclaims in relation to the former's stated opposition to suicide. This will be contrasted with other Falun Gong writings which encourage adherents to refuse medical treatment and medication in order to rid themselves of karma.

The teachings of Falun Gong explicitly forbid suicide, yet in 2001, five protesters set themselves ablaze in Tiananmen Square resulting in the death of two. Allegedly, their stated aim was to bring the world's focus onto the repression of the movement by the Chinese government. Falun Gong spokespeople were quick to speak out in defence of founder Li Hongzhi, saying that the movement strictly forbids suicide in line with the traditional Chinese belief that says that suicide is an affront to the ancestors. They further claimed that the Chinese government had staged the suicides in order to stir up public opinion against the movement and indeed the tide of public opinion did turn against Falun Gong and its founder (Bell and Boas 2003, 285). Even given Falun Gong's stated opposition to suicide, the movement does encourage its adherents to refuse to take medicine or accept medical treatment and some consider this refusal of treatment could be considered to be suicidal. Chinese state media seized upon Li's writing in which he expressed that illnesses are caused by karma, and claimed that in excess of 1000 deaths were the direct result of adherents following Li's teachings. Authorities also maintain that several hundred practitioners had cut their stomachs open looking for the Dharma Wheel that turns in response to the practice of the five meditative exercises characteristic of the movement. Indeed, many of their fellow followers had been arrested in Tianjin, following condemnation of their movement by physicist He Zouxiu of the Chinese Academy of the Sciences. He had claimed that Falun Gong had been responsible for several deaths (Bejsky 2004, 190). This chapter will examine the complex relationship between Falun Gong and the Chinese government, exploring the reality behind the claims and counterclaims in relation to the former's stated opposition to suicide. This will be contrasted with other Falun Gong writings which encourage adherents to refuse medical treatment and medication in order to rid themselves of karma.

Despite the polarised debate which has raged in the media over whether the Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong should be seen as an ‘evil cult’ or as an innocent ‘cultivation system’, there is little doubt that most objective Western scholars would categorise Falun Gong as a new religious movement (many of which have also been accused rightly or wrongly of being ‘cults’ or ‘sects’). Indeed, the controversy surrounding Falun Gong has attracted considerable media and scholarly attention, so that the Falun Gong is now undoubtedly the best known of Chinese new religious movements and, as I argue elsewhere, a key to the reevaluation of a centuries-old tradition of popular religious practice in China which has long been condemned and suppressed by Chinese authorities. The present article, based on fieldwork in North America, on research in Falun Gong written sources and on my previous work in the history of Chinese popular religion traces a portrait of Falun Gong practices both in China and in North America.

The paper examines the geopolitics of the Falun Gong (FLG) and how its practices challenge the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) authority within the Chinese state. Drawing upon Laclau and Mouffe’s concept of discourse, I analyse the FLG’s scriptures in order to understand how its millennial ideas of ‘telling-truth/saving-life’ and ‘reviving five thousand years of civilization’ have developed since the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) ban and crackdown on the FLG since 1999. Based on the FLG’s resources and my fieldwork data, this paper also demonstrates how the concepts of ‘telling-truth/saving-life’ were practised and coordinated globally. This paper presents the dynamic relationship between spirituality and geopolitics. It demonstrates how politics are spiritually interpreted and how critical spiritual discourses are converted to geopolitical practices that challenge the authority of an atheist state.

Brill is grateful to Peter Coebergh for successfully leading the company over the past four years.

<i>From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Practice in Contemporary China</i>, by Gareth Fisher. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2014. x+263 pp. US$50.00/HK$390.00 (cloth).

Falun Gong (FLG) is a Qi Gong group that entered into conflict with the Chinese state around the turn of the 21st century, and gradually transformed into a political movement. Qi Gong, in turn, is an ancient system of exercises that has been compared to yoga. Falun Gong was founded in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by Li Hongzhi (LHZ) in 1992, in the latter part of what has been termed the Qi Gong “boom.” As the leadership of the PRC became increasingly critical of the traditional folk religion and superstition that was emerging within some of the Qi Gong groups, Li Hongzhi and his family emigrated to the United States. From the safety of his new country of residence, LHZ directed his Chinese followers to become increasingly confrontational, eventually staging a mass demonstration in front of government offices in Beijing on April 25, 1999. The movement was subsequently banned. Falun Gong’s story does not, however, end there. Prior to the banning of FLG, Li Hongzhi had gained a following outside of China, both among the overseas Chinese expat community as well as among citizens of other countries, particularly Western countries. These followers quickly created websites and other alternative media that helped shape public opinion outside of China. Falun Gong sources portrayed the crackdown against FLG practitioners as particularly harsh, eventually claiming that thousands of followers had been brutalized and murdered. These claims gradually expanded to include the accusation that the PRC was “harvesting” organs from live practitioners and selling them on the international organ market. In more recent years, FLG “Shen Yun” troupes have been touring the world, marketing their critique of the PRC as part of music and dance routines.

The relationship between qigong and science is considered, with the latter being both friend and foe to the movement at different times. The nature of this association has to some extent influenced the relationship between science and Falun Gong. The chapter concludes with an examination of the ideologies of Falun Gong in relation to the contemporary scientific worldview as expressed by its charismatic founder, Li Hongzhi.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, started as a qigong movement but increasingly acquired a stronger religious character. It organized the largest demonstration since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, which precipitated the Chinese state's crackdown on Falun Gong. However, Falun Gong activists inside China persisted in protests over the years. Meanwhile, Falun Gong groups outside China have used diverse means to publicize their cause and attack the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Falun Gong is a grassroots movement in China that combines an exercise regimen with meditation and moral tenets. However, this group stirs much controversy in China. The Chinese government accuses Falun Gong of resembling a cult, whereas it is claiming itself as a spiritual movement. Since 1999, many practitioners have left China and continued their practices in overseas Chinese diasporas. This paper will examine the construction of Falun Gong identity and its ideological implications through the critical examination of three news articles selected from the Epoch Times, a newspaper affiliated with Falun Gong movement. The paper intends to find out how this group identifies itself in its struggle for legitimacy, and in its resistance against the official Chinese state ideology. Critical Discourse Analysis is employed and the analysis demonstrates that by portraying itself as a more authentic representative of Chinese culture. Being part of the US-China ideological confrontation and competition, Falun Gong successfully distinguishes itself from the CCP, both in the construction of identity and in its resistance and challenge to the official ideology of the Party and State.