In various articles, Falun Dafa is also called by other names, such as Buddhist Law and Fa Lun Gong.
Not all accounts were completely accurate, so, in order to understand them better, it may be useful to compare some of them, so here are texts of articles from
For an accurate statement about Falun Dafa, here is a 5 June 1999 editorial from the Falun Dafa Bulletin Board [Note that the English translation on the web site now (2 July 2000) varies slightly from the 5 June 1999 English translation, which is quoted here. It should always the understood that the original Chinese language text is the most accurate text, and that all translations to other languages are approximations.]:
The peaceful Zhong-nan-hai gathering of 10,000 Falun Dafa practitioners to voice their grievances to the Chinese leaders was the last resort taken by Falun Dafa practitioners, who had been practicing cultivation under extremely difficult conditions in China. Those practitioners knew very well that they were risking themselves, nonetheless, they were still able to rationally and calmly explain Falun Dafa to the Chinese leaders and told them about the brutal harassment and crackdown of Falun Dafa practices that occurred in Tianjin and other places. They cultivate to become strong and healthy good citizens, but why have they not received support and understanding, but incurred all kinds of mistreatment, restriction and persecution?The cultivation of Falun Dafa only cultivates one's self. Therefore, we don't have any kind of organization whatsoever. Cultivation is achieved by individual's efforts to cultivate his inner heart; thus, any kind of organization does not have any effect upon cultivation. Because a cultivator has no interest in politics at all and he will never involve himself into politics or any antigovernment movement, such people can only bring about stability in any society. The characteristics of Falun Dafa cultivation in fact just fit the current situation in China -- "Stability should overwhelm anything else". The Chinese government can be completely ensured. The more the good people who practice Falun Gong, the better it will help the Chinese government sustain its social stability.
The complaints from the Falun Dafa practitioners were heard by the government and that incident had been settled in peace and understanding. However, a very small number of people with ulterior motives from some government departments began to interfere, and they kept spreading all kinds of rumors such as the "collective suicide at Xiangshan (Fragrance Mountain)" and so on, thus misled the Chinese government. The Chinese government then issued many new restrictions; they even considered some much more extreme policies. Such a situation is of course disappointing to people in all communities around the world. We hope the government would expose those people who have been creating the chaos in the sly, so that the government can avoid new mistakes which would disappoint and sadden 100 million good people in China.
All Falun Dafa practitioners can do is only to follow principles of "Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance) and to explain Falun Dafa, with compassionate hearts, to people from all social strata who do not understand the real situation. As for those who have learnt of Falun Dafa, whether they will support, oppose or suppress, it is all their own choice. We have fulfilled our commitment. Especially, to those who have already lost their consciences out of greed and have deliberately chosen to ill treat and crackdown Falun Gong while paying absolutely no attention to our objective explanations, we don't have to say any more or demand anything. Due to the complexity of the situations in China, practitioners in China should still adhere to their consistent past tradition, cultivating quietly and steadily, learning the Fa solidly, practicing the exercises in parks and cultivating normally. No matter how the situation changes, everyone should continue to cultivate firmly.
The situation abroad is different from that in China. People from all social strata are chasing after Falun Dafa and asking what Falun Dafa is. Of course, the angle, the background and the motivation for the inquiries differ greatly. Therefore, it is imperative that Dafa practitioners positively introduce Falun Dafa to all kinds of people through the media, various channels and various Chinese or English forums on the Internet.
Falun Dafa has been known to everyone in China, therefore, how the practitioners do in China should be different from that in other countries.
Falun Dafa Bulletin Board Editors
June 5, 1999
In its 10 May 1999 issue, Newsweek International carried an article by Leslie Pappas, the text of which is:
CHINAThe Power of the 'Force'
A fast-growing meditation group demands respect
It started in the northern city of Tianjin. A local magazine asserted that practicing Falun Gong, a type of meditation, had in some cases led to psychological disorders. On Monday, April 19, angry Falun Gong practitioners demanded an apology. When it didn't come, they staged a sit-down protest outside a college that housed the magazine; by the weekend, 6,000 protesters were joining the daily demonstrations. On that Saturday, police told the protesters to go home, allegedly beating and detaining a few. That fanned the flames. A day later, 90 miles away in Beijing, 10,000 protesters, up to eight abreast and meditating quietly, materialized at the gates of the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. As if by magic, the city faced its largest demonstration since the 1989 Tiananmen uprising.
Never mind that at the end of the day the protesters left as quietly as they had arrived. The massive demonstration at the gates of communist power, organized with impressive discipline, shocked and amazed just about everybody in Beijing. As the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen uprising approaches in June, the government has been keeping close watch on intellectuals, students, laid-off workers and other possible sources of instability. Religious cults were included on that list, but few had reckoned on problems from Falun Gong practitioners. The group, which follows a spiritual discipline called Falun Dafa, includes some government officials and academics but draws most of its members in China from the ranks of retirees - predominantly women. Their power comes mostly from their numbers. Police estimate that Falun Dafa has 30 million adherents. The group itself claims twice that number in China and 100 million worldwide.
Its growth has been explosive. Like many new spiritual movements in China, Falun Dafa is rooted in Qigong, a traditional form of meditation and breathing exercises intended to harness the body's flow of qi - often translated as "life force." By performing these exercises and adhering to Buddhist and Taoist teachings, Falun Dafa's followers hope to reverse aging, rid themselves of disease and master supernatural feats, such as seeing across dimensions with a third eye. Falun Dafa believers say they follow only one master, Li Hongzhi, who founded the group in 1992. Coming under pressure from the government as his ranks grew, Li immigrated to the United States in 1996 but retains influence.
Li's followers have little patience for the media. They respond to just about any coverage with letters, phone calls and visits to editors, who are told that Falun Dafa is not a religion, but rather fosters the "cultivation" of "moral qualities" and the practice of truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance. After a BBC report on the group, the reaction was "quite extraordinary," says correspondent James Miles, "more response than to any article I've ever written in my entire career." A Chinese newspaper, after publishing a report on a Falun Gong practitioner who went mad, received "endless" phone calls and "harassment," says an editor.
The shock of last week's protest had many Chinese academics flipping through their history books for uncomfortable precedents. In the last century the Taiping Rebellion, led by a Christian who believed he was the brother of Jesus, captured Nanjing and threatened the government. Warriors of the Boxer Rebellion, a revolt against foreign influence, thought their martial art and mystical rituals made them invincible to swords and bullets.
Most cults, secret societies and folk sects were suppressed after the communists came to power in 1949. But the ban was lifted in the late 1970s. In 1985, the Ministry of Public Security reported secretly to higher party officials that the popularity of traditional sects was on the rise. Fourteen years later, the government still seems uncertain how to respond. It has cracked down swiftly against small, marginal political organizations like the China Democratic Party. But it has been wary of taking on large, grass-roots movements.
Beijing seems to have unwritten rules for protests of any kind: keep the gathering peaceful, have a specific&emdash;usually economic&emdash;complaint that can be negotiated and go home as soon as you've made your point. Last week's protest generally followed those rules; the demonstrators insisted that their complaint against the Tianjin magazine was apolitical. Still, the sheer number of protesters and the boldness of their demonstration have put Falun Dafa prominently on China's political map.
Now the question is what Beijing will do about the amorphous group. It was unclear who had called last week's protest or whether Li Hongzhi still exercises control from the United States; demonstrators who were interviewed said they showed up spontaneously. They nonetheless have inspired others. It was no coincidence that one day after the protest, 50 people gathered in the same spot to complain that they had been forced out of their homes in southern Beijing to make way for a new hospital. Whether or not Falun Dafa followers choose to display their might again, they have already changed China's political landscape. "They've shown their power," says a Beijing academic, "and it's huge."
In its 10 May 1999 issue, Time Asia carried an article by Anthony Spaeth, reported by William Dowell in New York, Jaime A. FlorCruz and Tim McCahill in Beijing and Lori Reese in Hong Kong, the text of which is:
Master Li's Brave New AgeFalun Gong, a mystical society guided by an absent master, may present the biggest challenge yet to China's communist leadership
By ANTHONY SPAETH
Just after sunrise, in virtually every park and town square in China, clusters of people glide in unison through a set of tranquil, ritualized movements known as qigong, prosaically translated as "breathing exercises" but representing an alluring blend of spiritualism and physical exertion. There are few sights more common across China's vast breadth.
Just after sunrise, in virtually every park and town square in China, clusters of people glide in unison through a set of tranquil, ritualized movements known as qigong, prosaically translated as "breathing exercises" but representing an alluring blend of spiritualism and physical exertion. There are few sights more common across China's vast breadth.
But a buzz has developed around one particular breathing master whose exercises, his followers believe, can not only cure cancer and turn white hair black again, but also provide moral and spiritual guidance. Millions of Chinese are his adherents--so many that the government is visibly concerned. The qigong master, 47-year-old Li Hongzhi, departed China last year for the West and has since expanded his following worldwide. But Li's adherents back home pulled off one of the most astounding protests in recent Chinese history. To register their displeasure over government treatment of the group, 10,000 of Li's followers suddenly assembled on April 25 on the sidewalks around Zhongnanhai, the high-security complex that houses China's top leaders, and sat in meditative postures along a 2-km stretch. The demonstration was peaceful, entirely unexpected and the largest organized show of opposition since the Tiananmen democracy movement in 1989. It ended quietly, with the protesters even picking up their own litter, but only after 12 hours, an audience within Zhongnanhai with Premier Zhu Rongji and his aides, and a government promise that the group's grievances would be addressed within three days.
China isn't sure what to do with Li and his group, known as Falun Gong (literally, "Law of the Wheel Breathing Exercise"). Li estimates that 100 million people perform his exercises and buy his books and audio- and videocassettes. The numbers are impossible to verify, but it's not hard to locate Falun Gong devotees. Advance notice of the group's meetings--in such scattered places as New York, Geneva and Singapore--can be found on dozens of websites maintained by followers. In Beijing, thousands gather virtually every day in open parks to stand in disciplined ranks, eyes closed, and rotate their hands to Li's tape-recorded voice. "I read the Bible and a few Buddhist scriptures but settled on Falun Gong," says Han Zhixiong, 43, a Beijing environmental engineer who has done the exercises for four years. "It seemed to be the most scientific." Li and his followers deny the group is religious or political in nature, and one of their p.r. mantras is that nothing in Falun Gong is organized, including meetings and finances. They describe the recent protest in Beijing as having been spontaneous, as was an angry display in the city of Tianjin the preceding day, in which Falun Gong practitioners held a lively protest at the offices of a magazine that had ridiculed the group. (Local police had to disperse that gathering.)
Followers particularly dislike being dubbed a cult, stressing that Falun Gong improves health, cures illness, promotes moral character and gives new meaning to life. But not all of the disciples in China are aware of how Master Li's own thoughts have evolved over the years. Li speaks of himself in startlingly ethereal terms. "You can think of me as a human being," he told Time in New York City, where he is now based. Asked if he comes from Earth, Li replied: "I don't wish to talk about myself at a higher level. People wouldn't understand it." But what Li offers is just about as good as it gets. He says that Westerners believe in reaching heaven only after death. "In the East," Li asserts, "one can achieve a divine status ... while one is still alive." To many, such visions sound cult-like--and the numbers suggest Li is the leader of the largest such group in the world.
For Chinese officials, Falun Gong is either an unexpected headache or, even more troubling, the latest example of a populace growing restive. Public protests have become more numerous over the past several years. They usually take the form of small-scale demonstrations in the countryside--very rarely in the capital--involving workers who haven't been paid by their state-owned factories, or citizens complaining about arbitrary taxes or local corruption. In 1998 there were more than 2,000 bomb blasts, according to China's Academy of Social Sciences. So far this year, seven bombings have occurred, killing 33 people and injuring more than 100. A meeting of the Communist Party Politburo last week, held to discuss China's application to join the World Trade Organization, ended up focusing on Falun Gong, and Premier Zhu met with members of the Beijing municipal government to consider the group's demands. Beijing has yet to sanction Falun Gong officially as a martial arts group, which is what its members want. To slow the organization's growth, authorities banned publication of Li's books in 1996, although bootleg copies are readily available throughout China.
Little is known about Master Li himself. He comes from China's remote, mountainous Jilin province, and he reportedly worked as a government clerk and a trumpet player in a theatrical troupe. Li claims to have started studying qigong at the age of four, instructed by teachers in two different schools, though he won't name them or even place them geographically, except to say they were "in the mountains." The most intriguing aspect of the Falun Gong phenomenon is how Li transmuted himself from humble breathing master--a figure who normally influences only as many people as he can personally train--to a leader known to millions. It was a transition made possible largely through the power of the printed word and, especially, the Internet.
Conditions couldn't have been riper than in China. Maoism and Marxism are on the wane as free-market practices become increasingly entrenched, and millions of Chinese seem to be searching for something to fill the ideological and spiritual void. Buddhism has come back in a big way--officials estimate that up to 300 million people adhere to a form of the religion--along with Christianity, charismatic cults and secret societies. In the early 1990s, China's officials loosened regulations on qigong groups, which they judged to be localized and unthreatening. Thousands of breathing masters stepped forward to help people control the body's qi, or vital energy. Quacks abound--at least two people were arrested last year, one in Beijing for "occult activities," the other in Shanghai for alleged murder. In March, a top figure in a sect called Zhu Shen Jiao, or Supreme Spirit, was jailed in Hunan province for helping the group defraud locals of cash and tens of thousand of kilos of grain. (Prosecutors said he also persuaded female followers, including girls younger than 14, to have sex with the group's leader. Zhu Shen Jiao, which has 10,000 members, apparently has also called for an overthrow of China's government.) But sects continue to mushroom along with a belief in qigong and its powers. In China's cities, hospital patients frequently complain of qi ailments. The term "Qi Gong-Induced Psychosis" was recently included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the bible of America's psychiatric professionals, where it is described as a culturally bound disorder with painful psychosomatic symptoms.
According to Master Li, he started Falun Gong reluctantly in 1992. He says he had no interest in doing what other masters do, but those mysterious teachers in the mountains insisted. He recalls: "They said, 'What you do will be different. These people who are teaching how to cure illnesses and teaching fitness are paving the road for your coming out.'" Li published his first book, China Falun Gong, in the mid-1990s, and it became a bestseller. In 1997 Li decided to apply for immigration to the U.S. because, he says, China's security organs were getting concerned about the rising number of his adherents.
Since Li left China last year, his followers have only multiplied, especially outside China, thanks to the Internet. Falun Gong is apparently organized in small cells of acolytes. Sophie Xiao, a 32-year-old investment analyst in Hong Kong, is one believer. Xiao's enfeebled mother in Beijing had gotten well through Falun Gong, and she sent her daughter Master Li's books. "I was always so worried," Xiao says. "I was constantly exhausted." When she too experienced rejuvenation, she passed along the books to several friends. "I finished the books in four days," says a neighbor, a Mrs. Hui. "My husband came home and said, 'Why do you look so good?' For me, it's the philosophy. It's like finding the answers to all the problems in my life." Mrs. Hui's once-gray hair has turned black, her husband has taken up Falun Gong and their six-year-old daughter has memorized the master's first book. If that seems unlikely, consider a story widely circulating among Falun Gong practitioners: an impoverished, illiterate 80-year-old acolyte in Beijing suddenly found herself able to read--after staring at a copy of one of Li's books for a length of time.
Practitioners are reluctant to discuss Falun Gong's finances. It is said that certain believers anonymously bankroll the movement's big get-togethers in the U.S. and Switzerland. Whether Li has central control of the organization is hazy, and perhaps deliberately so. "It's a very savvy group," says Nancy Chen, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, who is writing a book on qigong sects. "It has to be flexible so that it can evolve or react to political whims." It's a delicate balancing act: the group must appear powerful in order to attract members, but also unthreatening to the government in Beijing.
Whether the faithful are ready for the master's new message is an intriguing question. Li says that extraterrestrials are among us. Some look like ghosts. "One type," he says, "looks like a human but has a nose that is made of bone." The aliens have introduced machinery and computers to Earth in an attempt to corrupt mankind, get control over the human body and create an entirely cloned world. Master Li's teachings are, apparently, an antidote. It seems that a great many of the converted haven't imbibed these higher parts of the Falun Gong doctrine. But it's also clear that many are looking for more than good health.
At the 12-hour demonstration in Beijing last week, a remarkable scene occurred around sunset. A group of devotees stood up in unison, faced the setting sun and started clapping. "Do you see it? Do you see it?" they cried. "Yes I do, I do!" A vision had appeared to them above the hazy Beijing skyline. What it was, they wouldn't say. Master Li teaches that devotees, with proper study and practice, can levitate and see the future--a knack that would be useful for China's leaders facing a messianic figure with millions of followers.
In a 10 May 1999 web-only feature, Time Asia carried an interview with Li Hongzhi in New York by time correspondent William Duvall, the text of which is:
Interview with Li HongzhiOn April 26, Erping Zhang, a close associate of Li Hongzhi, the mysterious leader of the Falun Gong religious movement, called TIME in New York to say that major events were transpiring in Beijing. "It looks as though quite a few people have shown up," he said. When we asked how many, he guessed that it might be 10,000. "But this is getting bigger," he said. "They are planning to go to the government offices." As it turned out, Zhang was correct. At least 10,000 Falun Gong members gathered in front of Zhongnanhai, the seat of China's government, to demand recognition from authorities and freedom to practice their beliefs. The demonstration appeared to indicate that Falun Gong--which may have as many as 100 million adherents worldwide, mainly in China--is tightly organized. But Zhang insists that the protest was "spontaneous."
A few weeks before the demonstration, TIME interviewed Li Hongzhi, the soft-spoken 47-year-old creator of Falun Gong, in Manhattan where he settled after leaving China a year ago. Li believes the ancient Chinese art of qigong (Falun Gong is one variation) can endow practitioners with superhuman powers. He also says the world is in chaos today because the human race has been invaded by aliens from other planets who hope to challenge mankind through scientific means, especially through human cloning. If Li's ideas seem far fetched, it is worth noting that he has fans and followers worldwide. On Oct. 11, 1996, Houston mayor Robert C. Lanier proclaimed the date to be Li Hongzhi Day. Li was interviewed in New York by TIME correspondent William Dowell. He spoke in Chinese and Zhang acted as interpreter.
Here is the interview:
TIME: How does Falun Gong differ from other types of qigong?
Li: There are different practices of qigong in China and in other countries, but they are primarily aimed at healing illnesses or keeping fit and maintaining good health. I am teaching a higher level of qigong. It encompasses a greater content. It is like the Tao, which is known in the Western world.
TIME: And this expresses an inner energy?
Li: You probably know that some people have supernormal capabilities. They are unique capabilities that are created during the course of the cultivation practice. In order to reach a higher level, we require people to reach the perfection or completion of cultivation. In Chinese we call this attaining the Tao.
TIME: In your book [Zhuan Falun] you talk about people levitating off the ground but you say that they should not show other people. Why is that?
Li: It is the same principle that Western gods in paradise should not be seen by ordinary mortals because they cannot understand its meaning.
TIME: Have you seen human beings levitate off the ground?
Li: I have known too many.
TIME: Can you describe any that you have known?
Li: David Copperfield. He can levitate and he did it during performances.
TIME: You have said that this type of qigong should not be used to cure illness. Why is that?
Li: Healing illnesses belongs to the lower level of qigong. A person with an illness cannot practice to a higher level. One has to purify one's body in order to have gong. Healing and fitness are for laying a foundation at a lower level of practice.
TIME: Would you use qigong to cure an illness?
Li: I can do all of this, but I won't do it.
TIME: Why not?
Li: Because I only teach people how to learn this dafa [great law] and to practice cultivation. I only teach the principles of fa to mankind. I won't do anything else.
TIME: What is the final goal?
Li: The ultimate purpose is to enable people to attain the Tao and to complete their cultivation practice. In the end they can free themselves from the worldly state. I know that human lives are not created from the dimension that human beings think they know.
TIME: Why does the master reveal this path to the qigong now?
Li: Mankind has many things that it never knew before. What I can tell you is that human moral values are no longer good. In the course of the cultivation practice, one can upgrade oneself. Many people will be able to complete their cultivation and attain the Tao. There will be some who will not be able to complete cultivation but will become very good people.
TIME: Why did you come to New York?
Li: In China, the government is a centralized government. Because the number of our practitioners is large, the government may feel pressure.
TIME: It is difficult to teach in China?
Li: In China, there are more than 100 million who practice this. The official estimate of the number of practitioners is 60 million. I want to teach people to be good and not to be involved in politics. I told people not to get involved in political events to make sure that they have a very good practice in their environment without interference.
TIME: So why is the Chinese government concerned?
Li: America is a country with democracy. You probably don't understand what it is like in a country that has a centralized government. The Chinese government knows that what I am teaching is good and that I am teaching people to have high moral values. They are only concerned because there are so many people practicing cultivation.
TIME: When did you learn about qigong?
Li: I started to learn when I was four years old. I was very young, and my teachers taught me aspects that were very simple.
TIME: Who were your teachers?
Li: I do not wish to have their names known. I had masters in two schools. Prior to the Cultural Revolution people enjoyed quite a bit of religious freedom. Chinese were quite used to such things. It was like going to church in the West.
TIME: When did you start teaching?
Li: I am more than 40 years old, and I have been practicing qigong for many years. When qigong became popular, I did not come out in the public. I did not want to teach about stopping illnesses or keeping fit.
TIME: What made you finally come out?
Li: When these masters asked me to come out. At the time I said that there were too many people practicing qigong, and I said that I did not want to cure illnesses or to help people keep fit. They said, "What you do will be different. These people who are teaching how to cure illnesses and teaching fitness, are paving the road for your coming out."
TIME: Where were these masters?
Li: They were in the mountains.
TIME: How did the movement spread?
Li: Many people practice qigong in China. They all want to practice it to the higher levels, but no one was teaching them. They all wanted me to teach them. Some people organized the events and applied to the government for approval.
TIME: When did you decide to come to America?
Li: I came here last year, and I started the application the year before that.
TIME: Did you feel you were in danger in China?
Li: The government did not express a clear position, but the security ministries felt that there were too many people practicing. When we tried to hold meetings, they did not approve them because they felt there were too many people.
TIME: What is the wheel that is Falun?
Li: It is a pattern, or a symbol on the surface. What it is inside is much better.
TIME: So it is an idea?
Li: In the West, the spirit is separate from the body. In the East these are things that are very real and concrete.
TIME: You talk about placing the wheel into the body.
Li: I can use my mind to direct and order things to happen.
TIME: Is cultivation achieved through mental effort or physical exercise.
Li: Both are needed.
TIME: What happens after one attains the Tao?
Li: We have all heard about the Chinese deities. When one completes cultivation, one has special powers.
TIME: Can qigong prevent death?
Li: In the West, one can reach paradise through cultivation practice after death. In the East, one can achieve a divine status through cultivation practice while one is still alive.
TIME: You talk about the period of the end of Dharma.
Li: While Buddha Sakyamuni [563-483 B.C.] was teaching his Dharma, there was no written language so the Dharma was passed by word of mouth. After 500 years, human discourse changed Buddha Sakyamuni's original words and it came to an end. The ending of the Dharma means that the cultivation method began to become chaotic and could no longer enable people to practice cultivation.
TIME: Why does chaos reign now?
Li: Of course there is not just one reason. The biggest cause of society's change today is that people no longer believe in orthodox religion. They go to church, but they no longer believe in God. They feel free to do anything. The second reason is that since the beginning of this century, aliens have begun to invade the human mind and its ideology and culture.
TIME: Where do they come from?
Li: The aliens come from other planets. The names that I use for these planets are different . Some are from dimensions that human beings have not yet discovered. The key is how they have corrupted mankind. Everyone knows that from the beginning until now, there has never been a development of culture like today. Although it has been several thousand years, it has never been like now.
The aliens have introduced modern machinery like computers and airplanes. They started by teaching mankind about modern science, so people believe more and more science, and spiritually, they are controlled. Everyone thinks that scientists invent on their own when in fact their inspiration is manipulated by the aliens. In terms of culture and spirit, they already control man. Mankind cannot live without science.
The ultimate purpose is to replace humans. If cloning human beings succeeds, the aliens can officially replace humans. Why does a corpse lie dead, even though it is the same as a living body? The difference is the soul, which is the life of the body. If people reproduce a human person, the gods in heaven will not give its body a human soul. The aliens will take that opportunity to replace the human soul and by doing so they will enter earth and become earthlings.
When such people grow up, they will help replace humans with aliens. They will produce more and more clones. There will no longer be humans reproduced by humans. They will act like humans, but they will introduce legislation to stop human reproduction.
TIME: Are you a human being?
Li: You can think of me as a human being.
TIME: Are you from earth?
Li: I don't wish to talk about myself at a higher level. People wouldn't understand it.
TIME: What are the aliens after?
Li: The aliens use many methods to keep people from freeing themselves from manipulation. They make earthlings have wars and conflicts, and develop weapons using science, which makes mankind more dependent on advanced science and technology. In this way, the aliens will be able to introduce their stuff and make the preparations for replacing human beings. The military industry leads other industries such as computers and electronics.
TIME: But what is the alien purpose?
Li: The human body is the most perfect in the universe. It is the most perfect form. The aliens want the human body.
TIME: What do aliens look like?
Li: Some look similar to human beings. U.S. technology has already detected some aliens. The difference between aliens can be quite enormous.
TIME: Can you describe it?
Li: You don't want to have that kind of thought in your mind.
TIME: Describe them anyway.
Li: One type looks like a human, but has a nose that is made of bone. Others look like ghosts. At first they thought that I was trying to help them. Now they now that I am sweeping them away.,
TIME: How do you see the future?
Li: Future human society is quite terrifying. If aliens are not to replace human beings, society will destroy itself on its own. Industry is creating invisible air pollution. The microparticles in the air harm human beings. The abnormality in the climate today is caused by that [pollution], and it cannot be remedied by humans alone. The drinking water is polluted. No matter how we try to purify it, it cannot return to its original purity. Modern science cannot determine the extent of the damage. The food we eat is the product of fertilized soil. The meat we eat is affected. I can foresee a future when human limbs become deformed, the body's joints won't move and internal organs will become dysfunctional. Modern science hasn't realized this yet.
At the beginning you asked why I did such things. I only tell practitioners, but not the public because they cannot comprehend it. I am trying to save those people who can return to a high level and to a high moral level. Modern science does not understand this, so governments can do nothing. The only person in the entire world who knows this is myself alone.
I am not against the public knowing, but I am teaching practitioners. Even though the public knows, it cannot do anything about it. People can't free themselves from science and from their concepts. I am not against science. I am only telling mankind the truth. I drive a car. I also live in the environment. Don't believe that I am against science. But I know that modern science is destroying mankind. Aliens have already constructed a layer of cells in human beings. The development of computers dictates this layer of body cells to control human culture and spirituality and in the end to replace human beings.
On 3 May 1999, The Chicago Sun-Times carried an article by Ernest Tucker, religion reporter, the text of which is:
When more than 10,000 people gathered quietly outside a Chinese government compound last month, attention focused on Li Hongzhi's Falun Gong, a movement with an estimated 100 million members worldwide - including scores in the Chicago area. "There may be a couple of hundred here, but it's growing," said Andy Cook of Riverside. Followers of Li went to Buckingham Fountain on Sunday to introduce themselves by showcasing their exercises, a mix of movement and meditation. "`It's easy to learn, and once you teach somebody, they're on the road," said Cook, 35, who has studied Li's teaching for three years.Eight days ago, more than 10,000 adherents - some said to see through walls - lined up in Beijing, seeking freedom to practice their beliefs, which include concepts that can be confusing at times, even for devotees. Despite the English translation of Falun Gong as "Buddha Law," the movement is not a strain of Buddhism. There may be some overlap, but experts link it more to ancient Chinese qigong tradition, in which physical and spiritual forces are intertwined. "It's definitely not a religion," Cook said. "There's no formal structure. We do not pray to anybody. We do not gather in a church. No money is collected."
Mark Allee, professor of early modern Chinese history at Loyola University Chicago, said definitions vary. "People want to pigeonhole [Buddha Law], but it may offer different benefits to different people who participate in it. For some, it may just be about health. For others, it could be spiritual," Allee said.
A Web site lists volunteers such as Cook in every state as well as worldwide and gives information about precepts taught since 1992 by Li, 47, a Chinese native reportedly living in New York. Li occasionally meets with followers but has not been seen publicly in Chicago. Without great fanfare, his works have spread via the Internet, books and videos. Groups now meet regularly in Chinatown, Riverside, Downers Grove, Northbrook and Schaumburg, sometimes at businesses and sometimes in public buildings such as libraries.
Warren Tai, 52, a Chicago banker who took up the study several years ago, said he was attracted to the teaching "to be a good person. Right now, with all the violence, it appeals to people." Side effects that some believe come as a result of training - the power to see through solid objects or to peer into the future - are not goals of the order, backers said.
On 7 May 1999, at 4:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, an Associated Press article appeared in The New York Times AP online, the text of which is:
BEIJING (AP) -- Shocked by throngs of meditating protesters on their front door, Chinese leaders are preparing a methodical campaign to discredit and rein in the martial arts sect they now see as a threat to Communist Party power.President Jiang Zemin has formed a high-level task force to monitor the group, and government operatives have started taking names and infiltrating the sect, Chinese sources inside and outside the party said.
The swift preparations underscore how rattled senior leaders were by the sudden sight of thousands of silent practitioners of Falun Gong, the Wheel of Law, outside party headquarters on April 25. At once, the group was transformed from an obscure school of Yoga-like exercises and meditation into a challenge to the communist hold on China's future.
During the daylong protest, the devotees sat on the sidewalks around the dark red-walled Zhongnanhai. At a late-night meeting with Premier Zhu Rongji, demonstrators suggested that they, not communism, could save China, said a party source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
``I'm an atheist,'' the source quoted Zhu as saying. ``You can't force me to believe your teachings.''
It was the largest demonstration in Beijing -- internal police estimates put the crowd at 30,000 -- since the military crushed student-led democracy protests on Tiananmen Square 10 years ago, and it came six weeks before the sensitive anniversary of the crackdown. On top of that, the protesters surrounded Zhongnanhai, something the students of 1989 did not dare.
Unnerved by their brazenness, Jiang wrote a seething directive chiding security agencies and provincial leaders for being caught unaware and undermining a five-month clampdown on dissent to ensure peace this year.
``We called for `stability above all' but our stability has fallen through,'' the party source quoted Jiang's letter as saying. ``Our leaders must wake up.''
The Wheel of Law has been considered politically neutral. It is one of the many forms of qigong, a blend of Buddhist and Taoist ideas and slow martial-arts exercise that channel unseen forces to benefit health and clear the mind.
The Wheel of Law has become one of qigong's most popular schools since it was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, an ex-soldier who has since left China for the United States. The Chinese government estimates its devotees number 10 million to 70 million.
Wheel of Law followers state total faith in ``Master Li'' and are convinced practicing his teachings makes people healthier and more moral citizens. His lectures hint of dark forces at work in the universe and suggest expert practice brings clairvoyance and other supernatural powers.
After a magazine article by an eminent scientist warned Chinese youths to stay away from the Wheel of Law, followers thought their practice was under threat. They converged on Beijing from several provinces to demand legal protection for the Wheel of Law.
But the party source contends their demands went far beyond that: The small group of demonstrators who confronted Zhu wanted state media coverage of their teachings and special meeting areas -- privileges granted only to party-approved groups.
Organizers of Wheel of Law activities in Beijing reached by telephone declined comment on the Zhu meeting or the demands. One said all participants in the meeting had left the capital.
Party leaders are convinced by the demonstration that the group is disciplined and well-organized, despite its claims to have no hierarchy. In their eyes, the Wheel of Law verges on the semi-religious secret societies that sought to overthrow unjust emperors.
Leaders will have to move carefully against the group. Unlike the cults they dealt with ruthlessly in the past, the Wheel of Law is prominent in big cities -- where unemployed workers are already angry with government policies, said Wang Shan, an author and political commentator.
A special task force headed by Vice President Hu Jintao and Luo Gan, the party's senior law-and-order official, is coordinating strategy against the Wheel of Law, the party source said.
Officials ordered qigong practitioners and masters to register with authorities in the early 1990s, said Nancy Chen, an anthropologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz. One Beijing resident said police have already started doing so in a village on the city's outskirts.
State media are likely to begin publicizing stories to show the dangers of the Wheel of Law. According to the source, one says that a female devotee in northeastern Chaoyang city jumped to her death from a building, shouting Li Hongzhi's name.
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