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A Doctoral Student Breaking Away from "Falun Gong"
Editor's note: This is a self-account of an ex-practitioner of cultist "Falun Gong". Being a "Falun Gong" practitioner, he had become sadly bigoted and self-opinionated until he finally extricated himself from the mire of the cult. By retelling his nightmare and experiences as a "Falun Gong" practitioner Li has convincingly and penetratingly given a thorough exposition of the true nature of the cult. In this sense, his account is much worth reading. Things may be inconceivable in view of the account done in an abnormal regretful way and the sort of psychology under which he has long been tormented. If these are not to be correctly understood readers may find it hard to straighten out the mental entanglements and perverse thinking of Li and other "Falun Gong" practitioners.
Li's account may be regarded as a recountal of his repentance or remorse, as a fine piece of living teaching material. It tells us how "Falun Gong" as a cult has taken advantage of people's vulnerabilities and loopholes in our work to have caught us unawares and further brought the practitioners under control in the way their minds are poisoned and perverted and their human rights trampled upon. This points to the complexity of ideological work and the bitter struggle we have fought in beating back the onslaught of trickster Li Hongzhi with his cultist "Falun Gong" fallacies spread in China.
"Self-account" also shows that truth is by itself all-convincing and will not allow the least adulteration by cultist fallacies of "Falun Gong". Life has provided many instances of these for a sharpening of people's vigilance against "Falun Gong". Factual, reasonable, practical ideological work will help dump all cultist filth into the dustbin of history. This is especially so in the new situation of today's China.
It has been the consistent policy of the Communist Party of China to take good care of, educate and unite all former "Falun Gong" practitioners with the rest of society. "Falun Gong" practitioner Li Yixiang's self-account by way of repentance shows the great power of ideological work done by our Party workers and people on Li to help him come to his senses as a doctoral student away from "Falun Gong". This is as shown below by Li's self-account online all on his own: I am a student studying in Doctoral Class 5 in the Electric Machinery Department of Tsinghua University, at age 25. In May 1996, I began to practice heretic exercises, hoping to have an improved health. Soon I became obsessed with and fell into the trap of "Falun Gong" for it was said that the cult could help people have a prolonged life and help me to keep it. Cultist fallacies gradually dragged me away from leading a normal life and my life was no longer in the way I usually did, as a result. Since then I was found in many and various cultist activities and gatherings with eagerness and zest to help trumpet and beat gongs to clear the way for "Falun Gong". I had twice written a friend residing abroad about my views and attitude towards "Falun Gong", my protest against the government's ban on the cult, and my intent to withdraw as a CPC member from the Chinese Communist Party. With this, I splashed an open application to the university authorities for withdrawal from my postgraduate doctoral study at Tsinghua. My antics like these had brought serious political consequences without question on the campus and abroad. But leaders of the university didn't turn their backs on me for my stupidity. Instead of forsaking me, they took great pains to help me and do patient ideological work on me. To rescue me, they had many measures adopted and had even called on various social ties to help me break with cultist "Falun Gong". For their help and solicitous care and help extended from various quarters, including that of my dearest mother and mother's brother, I finally resolved to make a clean break with "Falun Gong". I am determined to get myself back onto the right road pointed out by the Chinese Communist Party and the university authorities. Being a "Falun Gong" practitioner no more, I find myself now most happy back to a normal life and as a young college student "refusing no man's food" on the campus of Tsinghua. 1. How Did I Fall into the Trap of "Falun Gong"
I was born in 1974 in Wuhan. After finishing my primary school days in 1986, I enrolled with an excellent mark score in a key junior senior high school known in Wuhan. In 1990, Northwest China University launched a college course for teenager talents enrolled on a nationwide scale. I was then at age of 15. Time flew by to make me a first-year grader for senior high school study. As I hoped, I was soon admitted to the juveniles' class by taking the fourth place on the name list of young enrollees in the university out of 500 teenager contestants from various parts of China. In December 1994, I sent in a written application for Party membership and had the honor to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party. After completing my course at the juveniles' class I directly went on taking up postgraduate doctoral study at Tsinghua. Looking back over the path I have traveled, I must say life has favored me and has all been plain sailing irrespective of an intervening nightmarish period of "Falun Gong".
People, moving on the campus of Tsinghua, were all young and talented, being completely devoted to their academic studies, as I had first found in the university. At an ebullient age, everybody on the campus seemed to have been born most hard working, leading a life most competitive and with a rosy future. But some time later, I felt I might become a loser on the campus for a poor health I had got. So things were in no way easy when speaking about my course study. Academic study had become something burdensome and intolerable to me. I found myself tired and most weak under a trying weight of large piles of books I had to read. Good physique was in crying need. I had to find an effective cure to my poor dilapidated body without doubt. I was forced to take up physical training for sure, doing morning exercises every day in order to catch up and take a due place in Tsinghua. With the passage of time my health was gradually improved as a result of physical training. But life seemed to have forced me onto a wrong path. I was introduced to Li Hongzhi's "Falun Gong" and the like fallacies as "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance" in May 1996. Subconsciously, unwittingly, and piteously, I was recruited. As a new recruit, I was first found among a troop of devout practitioners practicing "Falun Gong" on open grounds in the university. It was physical training that had got my health gradually improved but I contrarily attributed it to cultist exercises and my embracing of "Falun Gong" with which I became obsessed, as the first step I took, to inch my way into the trap of "Falun Gong".
Second, Li Hongzhi bragged about "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance" that had exerted the biggest captivating effect on me. Being a young man, having been born and grown up under an old traditional culture since childhood there had been called in my innermost heart a responsive chord for "truthfulness" and "compassion" as Li Hongzhi had spread. Since I was at a young age, knowing little about life, I was in no way to know things right from wrong, not to say a clear understanding of China's reform and opening up and many problems that had to be coped with on the course of the country's modernization. Following my instincts now as inflamed by Li Hongzhi's "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance", I made it my habit to make carping comments caviling indiscriminately at all things and social problems I found. Like many other fellow practitioners bewitched by Li's fallacies, tying myself up closely with "Falun Gong", I took part in every type of cultist activities, gatherings, meetings and assemblies organized. As a "Falun Gong" practitioner, I acted in the strictest cultist way with myself away from the life of normal people, in the words of Li Hongzhi, of the "ordinary (common) run". According to Li Hongzhi, they were would-be "devils" that had nothing in common with us "Falun Gong" practitioners. Moving and restricting myself among a pious small group of "Falun Gong" adherents, I shared with my fellow practitioners a life exclusive to our own. As "Falun Gong" practitioners we had cultist study sessions and exercises every morning and evening. At these, we also had exchanges of our views, thoughts and sentiments in the way we thought ourselves being an "elevated" group of adherents of no "ordinary run" inspired by "high ideals" and complete devotion and loyalty to "Master" Li Hongzhi. For us practitioners descending from many a varied institutional units, departments and social quarters, to all appearance, being a harmonious, deified and mutually dependent congregation assembled under the same cultist pennants of Li Hongzhi's "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance", we seemed to have been in a sublime retreat of Chinese Arcadia. In this "retreat", we found ourselves away from the secular world, free from a life of pressure, turmoil and worries since we had been taught to put ourselves day by day at a farther and farther distance from all worldly worries before our "all-round fulfillment" to ascend to Heaven.
Third, made a willing prey to "Falun Gong" through studying the cultist "Law". No "Falun Gong" practitioners had been excepted from this, I should say, for I was one among them having been made fools of the cult through studying Li Hongzhi's "scriptures". Li Hongzhi most cunningly said that his followers "should use lots of time in studying every scriptural word" he had mouthed instead of just mimicking a few movements he has created. Out of a welter of falsified stories, he used to cite a fantastic example: a "Falun Gong" adherent had avidly gone over 20 times reading his books hackers had penned on his behalf in one reading. Following his instruction, I had also applied myself indefatigably, days in and days out, to reading his books under the garb of Buddhism. I also watched his cultist audio-video tapes, piously copying and reciting passages out of all proselytizing verbiage of his until every bit of cultist stuff about "Falun Gong" had got embedded in my mind. In doing book reading like this, we "Falun Gong" practitioners naturally found many puzzles for the like absurdities he uttered that every soul, men and women alike under heaven, had been born ill fated to "karma retribution". No followers were otherwise allowed to inquire one bit into any of the puzzles found. They were demanded to learn "Falun Gong" as its founder had expounded. No "supreme" "supernatural" laws he concocted brook questioning. Every step a devotee took should proceed from and not go against or beyond his "scriptures" in order to bring about a change in their outlook from being a materialist to become an idealist and further to make himself a theist from a nihilist with a clean slate.
Fourth, caught up by complete cult founder worship and blind faith in "Falun Gong" trickster Li Hongzhi.. In actuality, I have never got a sight of this man, not to say something about a genuine life story, personal record or resume of him. At the beginning, in my mind, the man was merely a "Qigong" (air breathing exercise) master instead of an awe-inspiring "Buddha". Only after I had gradually become obsessed with his "Falun Gong" and got my brain washed did I begin to believe in various concoctions and sayings about him. I took the myth that "master" Li was all-powerful and the only "Buddha" and savior from the cosmos, and that he could save mankind and deliver people like me to Heaven. I believed in his omnipresence, omnipresence of his alter egos ("law-bodies" as he has usurped from Buddhism), omnipresent tests he prepared for me, and his "supernatural" power to look after and protect me at all time, arrange my future and give me a happy life in an unknown cultist empire. For my blind faith and complete cult founder worship I developed in cult "Falun Gong" I had made myself completely a willing follower of trickster Li. 2. Why Couldn't I Extricate Myself from Li Hongzhi's "Falun Gong" for Long?
To be frank, in the beginning, I couldn't accept a ban that should be enforced by the Chinese government on the cult "Falun Gong" I had embraced. Utterly befuddled, I had lost my bearing in a confused situation I was facing. This was especially so when I got to know a lot of written matters, newsreels and news releases on the Internet about many "Falun Gong" practitioners making appeals to government authorities for help in many places in China. For my stupidity I also made like appeals to some high-up government departments. Since my friend had made known my views and attitude and my stand on the ban of "Falun Gong" and the move I was going to take about my Party membership on the Internet abroad, things seemed to have come to a pass for me on July 28, 1999.
July 30, I was given leave home back in Wuhan by the authority of my faculty. Poor me, I hadn't expected harsh censures the moment I got home from my dearest elders for various antics and perverse acts I had been up to! My pride was terribly hurt. I couldn't say I had soon got myself all over from the bitterest "devilish" dress-down as I had thought to myself following Li Hongzhi's "scriptural teaching". Worse still, I had to face up to such a damned situation: Two of my faculty leaders unexpectedly stood right before me, under a sweltering summer heat, from Beijing. They were said to have come to help straighten out my deranged thoughts together with my elders at home in Wuhan! With the leaders' arrival was also a piece of printed matter held before me. Intuitively I felt it must be something from the Internet through which I had laid my hearts open to that friend of mine about my life, my views on "Falun Gong", and my intent to withdraw as a Party member from the CPC. With mixed feeling and a perturbed heart, I tried to conjecture what the leaders were up to with that sheet of printed matter. I was practically at a loss and did not know what I should do against such an awkward situation I was in. Originally, I wrote my friend merely in the way to let him know how things were getting on with "Falun Gong" in China. I didn't expect that what about my life and views should all be out on the Internet. Certainly, there was nothing confidential to speak of with that friend of mine, not to say the serious consequences I had to face, I said to myself. To my regret, I had to pity on myself for my stupid naivety and all the antics I had gone through. That very night, I saw that all things about me were recalled by an E-mail dispatch via the Internet.
August 8, I was back to my faculty, Beijing. I had help from all sides, from my teachers and classmates. My attitude and perverseness somewhat softened. But hearsay ran amuck: I was supposed to be expelled from the call roll of the university. Ill feeling overwhelmed me. I almost became mad and reckless as I could be. I decided to go headlong against all possible adversities since things had become desperately hopeless and irretrievable.
But I could in no way turn down help from the leadership and help by my teachers and classmates, especially my tutor and dearest elders. By mid August, I decided to quit "Falun Gong". I splashed a wall newspaper making known my attitude to cut my ties with all cultist activities of "Falun Gong". When declaring "I'll stop practicing 'Falun Gong' and surrender all my cultist materials I have kept away" I also rescinded my "application" for withdrawal of Party membership.
On September 2, I returned to the campus from an international academic conference. That evening, I went to see a "Falun Gong" practitioner of mine in his apartment. Unexpectedly, a night's exchange of ideas and views resulted in my relapsing into practicing "Falun Gong". I turned up early the following morning sitting in meditation practicing "Falun Gong" on a piece of open ground on the campus of Tsinghua. With this, I also released a written statement declaring "I haven't in the least wavered in my faith in 'Falun Gong'".
October 22 evening, I was arrested when I turned up in an illegal "Falun Gong" group gathering. All in all, the above facts and accounts as I have given show the erroneous thinking and perverse attitude I had long held on "Falun Gong" and the wrong stand I had taken toward the government's ban on the cult. Why all these? And the various stupidities committed and antics I had to go through? These may be told as follows:
First, why had I time and again refused help and ideological work from the leaders, my teachers and classmates? A direct cause was that since I became obsessed with "Falun Gong" my teachers and classmates were simply "souls of the secular world" born with a "karma" lot. So, in daily life, I loved to keep company with fellow practitioners instead of "secular souls". According to Li Hongzhi's "scriptural instruction", help and ideological work by "secular souls" were all "devilish doing" out of "devilish" purpose. This had put me on my guard not to be entrapped into various machinations of "mortal souls". Li Hongzhi told all human beings and things in the secular world, as I have been taught to know, had all been in an adverse "devilish" way to bring harm to us devotees in "studying" and practicing cultist "Falun Gong". To move away from the like human machinations and "devilish" things, I did my best not to have anything to do with newspaper reading, watching TV and other worldly enjoyments leading to "karma retribution". So, I decidedly gave up every bit of my secular demand for recreation and took care not to seek worldly joys and happiness. I took all online news releases repudiating Li Hongzhi's "Falun Gong" as falsified stories just as from the "secular world" and by "devils". "Since I am a 'Falun Gong' practitioner, I must follow close Master Li's teaching. I should always keep myself away from all accursed things of the secular world", I used to warn myself like this. To be in brief, this is how I had been made an easy dupe of Li Hongzhi's fallacies of "Falun Gong".
Second, what Li Hongzhi preached through cultist "Falun Gong" is just a noxious mass of fallacious jumble against science. Clear-headed people will see all this through when they should come to hear Li Hongzhi's like utterances. But why was I so bigoted to readily accept a heap of unbelievable rubbish? It was not true that I had given complete easy credence, from the start, to Li Hongzhi's fallacies on "Falun Gong". It was just because I had accepted such a theory he advocated "when you believe in it, it will work", failing to dig into the root causes of his heretic jumble. Still, Li Hongzhi is a born cheat, most shrewd. He demands complete obedience from his devotees and not allows the least challenge and questioning into "scriptures" he preached but causes by followers on their own. Problems should be found from within and on every practitioner recruited with a lot open to "karma retribution", he taught. When practitioners should aspire to a "higher level" of existence, they should read his books with complete devout. According to his panacea, no "Falun Gong" practitioners should be allowed to think about things of God in the way "secular souls" do. If not, the "door of Falun Gong" would automatically be closed to them and his "law-bodies" would give them no protection.
Third, why had I been so much recalcitrant as to insist on sending petitions to and harass government authorities for defending "Falun Gong"? Li Hongzhi's fallacies are to blame. Because of "Falun Gong" I held the absurd view that the central authorities defined "Falun Gong" as a heretic cult was a duplication of the 10-year calamitous "Great Cultural Revolution" (1966-1976) and that we must resolutely fight it back in counterattack in China. Hence I readily accepted many "moving stories" then circulated after the government's ban on "Falun Gong". One passing round on the lips of my fellow practitioners was that to send petitions to higher government authorities some adherents had resigned their job and sold their property as travel fare. And that they had traveled far and had to endure various hardships as keeping to streets overnight and in the wilderness. Falsified stories had "moved" me like these and I was very much encouraged. I decided to fight for "truth" in "defending 'Falun Gong'". To "defend 'Falun Gong'" I prepared to make whatever of personal sacrifices needed. In my mind's eye, I was deeply indebted to Li Hongzhi for his "scriptural instructions" provided. To me, "defending Falun Gong" became my surmount duty and the greatest test "master Li's had given me, an important "pass" I had to go through, a fine and the last chance for me to achieve a "higher level" of cultivation and "all-round fulfillment" to ascend to the celestial kingdom. What about the end purpose? I wanted to see that all my effort for learning and practicing "Falun Gong" would not be in vain so as to make myself an utterly devoted practitioner to finally "attain all-round fulfillment". In the meantime, I was also in the belief that Li Hongzhi's "law-bodies" had always been ready to give me complete protection. With Li's "law-bodies" giving me all-time protection, thus encouraged, I acted most daringly in taking part in various illegal "Falun Gong" activities and gatherings. I seemed to care not the least for any personal risks and dangers for there seemed nothing to daunt me whether being thrown into prison or put in custody in a detaining place. It goes without saying leniency and patience by government authorities and leadership of the university had been literally interpreted in my mind as the result of "omnipresent protection" of Li Hongzhi's "law-bodies".
Fourth, why had I not stood up to criticize and repudiate Li Hongzhi? On my part, until today, I have truly undergone an intense painful process of mental struggle. A practitioner as I had been, I should say things had not been so easy for me to give up cult founder worship, show the slightest disrespect to and cut my ties with cultist "Falun Gong". To call Li Hongzhi by his name was completely unimaginable since I had been taught to know "omnipresent protection" of "law-bodies" of Li Hongzhi and theories on practicing "Falun Gong" to ascend to the "higher level" of the celestial world. Other considerations were also not excluded such as not turning my back on the cut as a defect and not making myself a butt of fun to be poked at by people and a figure of notoriety on mass media in China. 3. How Have I Extricated Myself from the Trap of "Falun Gong"?
November 19,1999, I didn't expect I could be sent back to the faculty from my custody. Once on the campus, I immediately found myself before my tutor among many familiar faces. With a big crowd of friends, schoolmates, classmates, leaders and professors entirely in a homely atmosphere, I also saw my long-worried emaciated mother and mother's brother from home, Wuhan. I was reduced to tears. There was no more hearsay now about a slip of paper ordering my expulsion from the university but complete warmth, solicitous care and help from various quarters. Apart from lots of good wishes and happy greetings, I was told what was right from what was wrong so that I could be helped as much quickly as possible out of the quagmire of "Falun Gong".
Newspapers, periodicals, magazines, TV set and audio-video tapes on display were in large array as I found in a campus hostel's room in Tsinghua. Dean and deputy Party secretary of the faculty first helped me to a seat. After taking our seat he had a heart-to-heart talk with me though he was going to leave on mission. It had taken the secretary of the Department Party Committee several days to have a lengthy heartfelt talk with me to help me untie eleven "mental knots" formed in my mind. There was also help from my professors and classmates. They patiently kept my company and helped me out of various cultist jumbles of "Falun Gong". My mother and mother's brother spoke to me sometime amiably; at others, they talked in towering rage and even with hate for my irretrievability. Their words were like daggers directly piercing into my heart. But I could detect the warmth, worries and care they had for me. As my elders, they told many whys and hows on things from life I did not know. When making me know my stupidities, errors and the wrong path I took, I was also wanted to know all the hopes they have had in me. On November 21, evening, mother's brother, burning with anger, said to me: "If you don't listen to me and your mother we'll leave for home and we'll be all over with you tomorrow!" Though I gave no yield in my sophistry yet every word from him and my mother and those from my leaders, professors, classmates had struck home to bring me back to my senses. A whole night's intense mental struggle I had gone through. I reflected on my early life, as a child to be brought up, and my college life, life at the teenagers' class, life on the campus of Tsinghua, and as a young scholar with a bright future, totally at the expense of the state. But since the day I became "Falun Gong" practitioner a complete change of things had been wrought in my attitude and outlook on life. I concerned myself merely about how I could be a good disciple in "propagating" and "defending" "Falun Gong", "defending" "Master" Li Hongzhi and his cultist fallacies. I seemed to have made up my mind to go through "any tests" through which I could ascend to a new "higher level" of existence in the heavenly kingdom. Thus far, I seemed in no fear of any inconceivable adversities that might be found on my way ahead. Since I was in custody, being deprived of freedom of person, I went fasting without hesitation. I refused all food and water put before me since I firmly believed that I could go safe at least for as many as eleven days. Still, there was the "protection" of "law-bodies" of Li Hongzhi, I said to myself. Meanwhile, I had the fantasy that I might be unexpectedly set free at any time and in any place. But on the fourth day after I had gone fasting, having no food and not a drop of water, I almost went made for a painful stomach and a thirsty throat. All hopes for "protection" from Li Hongzhi's "law-bodies" and an unexpectedly release from custody totally vanished from my mind. I vacillated in my belief in "Falun Gong". Doubtless, penal arrest for my stupidity and my fasting had served to deal me a head-on blow. It was easy for one to fall into the trap of "Falun Gong" but things would not be that easy to get away from the mire of this cursed cult, especially for a recalcitrant "Falun Gong" practitioner like me.
I admit it is life that has by itself helped me out of various preposterous cultist fantasies. Being a young man, well educated as I am, I could enjoy complete freedom and full rights as I have been given to develop myself instead of a life to be put in custody. I thought of my past stupidities committed and antics I had gone through as a stupid "Falun Gong" practitioner. And all had been merely for a man who boasts his "omnipresence" and "a multitude of law-bodies" (?) representing him to give "protection" to disciples, say, like me, in confinement, with his protection badly wanted. Just then, where could his numerous "law-bodies" and his "protection" found? Complete nonsense! There is trickster Li Hongzhi, who is most skilled in practicing frauds. Instead of "protecting" a multitudinous number of disciples he has with his wife and children fled scot-free and lived with full complacence and in his luxurious residence bought in the US with large amounts of money he has cheated out of those poor devotees of his from the Chinese mainland. When thinking about my life in custody and stupidities I have been up to, is it not true that I had been made a dupe of Li Hongzhi and of his "Falun Gong"? Nothing I can say to soothe my conscience except that I have to feel sorry for my naivety and innocence.
Also, in my mind's eye, I could still see the expectant eyesight of those young policemen who had taken close care of me of their age during my days in custody. When they got to know that I am a doctoral student studying on the campus of Tsinghua University, they all looked admiration. Showing me brotherly feeling, they went to all possible pains to help me know how wrong and ridiculous I had been on the heretic path and what's on outside in China and abroad. There were times when I turned my back on them and gave a deaf ear to their warm words I usually found anxiety and a worry look in their eyes pitying me. To rescue me, help me wake up to the mire of "Falun Gong", they went so far as to allow visits specially arranged by leaders and teachers from Tsinghua to call on me in my detaining place. This was the first time that had got me to know the genuine feeling of ordinary people as those young policemen had shown me, their care and their hope and the hope leaders, numerous compatriots and the Chinese government have placed in me.
There were Li Hongzhi's heretic fallacies constantly harassing me so that I feel myself guilty and my innocence and stupidity unforgivable before my kith and kin, my instructor, the people and the government and all those who know and have helped me. If I had used my brain to think matters a bit carefully and look into various episodes Li Hongzhi cooked up, a motley of fabricated stories to liken Li Hongzhi to a "supreme God" and the only "savior" of humankind and of the earth from destruction will become all clear. He is neither a "master" nor a "Buddha" or "savior" to help people ascend to a "higher level" in the heavenly empire. He is at most a pseudo-Qigong (air breathing exercise) master merely with a smattering of knowledge about Buddhism, Christianity and Daoism. "Falun Da Fa" ("Wheel of the Law") is absolutely not a theoretical work, much less to say a systematic writing. In the final analysis, it is merely a fragmentary mixture of verbosity he has usurped from many a variegated sources.
I further thought of instances representing the sinister schemes of Li Hongzhi and his company in spreading heretic fallacies by confusing right from wrong and turning white into black via the Internet. As I believed in the "actuality" of online cultist propaganda about "Falun Gong" I had readily accepted all distortions and negations they made in denying their crimes committed that have been made known on mass media by the Chinese Government and the anti-human and anti-science nature of "Falun Gong". Sometime later, leaders from the faculty told me that the central authorities had been very much demanding on data collection about "Falun Gong" and Li Hongzhi's humbug and crimes committed in various places that must be all reliable and conform with the actual state of things. Otherwise people concerned must be held responsible for any errors or falsified things found. At this, I thought things must be amazingly true and that there shouldn't be anything untrue to speak of. The teachers are in no way to fool me. It is "Falun Gong" that has made a dupe of me. It gets me nowhere now to argue things out as I have done in the past. It is time now, as I think, to say good-bye to my "Falun Gong" days since I had been insignificantly and meaninglessly fooled.
Also, I had been very much worried about "face saving". For a doctoral student studying in a world-renowned university I almost couldn't brace for a life that I have cut my ties with cultist "Falun Gong". Furthermore, I have already had a "statement" online declaring my "withdrawal" as a Communist from the CPC. How am I going to face all of my old acquaintances, friends, leaders, schoolmates and classmates? But at times, I thought to myself, the most important thing was whether I had really been wrong or how I could have been deluded to be on a cultist path. If I were wrong, as I thought later, it would be better early than late for me to turn back from the cultist path and confess my guilty conscience. By this would be meant less bad influence to the country and less loss to myself. Since I had been wrong, why couldn't I brace myself for the consequence and be brave enough to right the wrongs in the way an honest young man should do?
Still, I will never forget the days when I lived as a boy with various possible monetary help and material assistance given. My father had died early. Since I was born into the world I began to taste the bitterness of life. After I finished my junior high schooling, as I was demanded by my mother for she couldn't afford my tuition for new school life, I merely thought of continuing my study in a vocational training course then under the Municipal Public Facilities Bureau of Wuhan. Any sumptuous desire for a life of further study seemed on the horns of a dilemma. It happened however a key senior high school principal got to know my poor straits. He had for many times come in person into our house. Looking my mother up, he wanted me to receive a regular senior high school education instead of a vocational one at his school. True to his word, he had all my tuition exempted and further helped me with subsidiary money grants. Soon after a year in the first grade of the school, I was further encouraged to enroll in the aforesaid teenagers' class, thereby enabling me to step into the holy awe-inspiring campus of college education. Though in confinement I was still shown great care from my alma mater and teachers back in my home city of Wuhan. Unexpected help had further been given in various forms. As soon as I was given freedom of person I had even been taken by my tutor to go round several barber's to get my hair cut. The moment I was soon decked out and became fresh and energetic, I was happily found in the presence of my mother and uncle, mother's brother.
What a "Falun Gong" devotee aspired to was to be delivered by Li Hongzhi to "a higher level" of existence in the celestial world, according to a fallacy he had long hawked on the Chinese mainland. Since I accepted his fallacious idea as it were true, I couldn't do otherwise. Following the same logic, shouldn't I repay for all help I have been given, past and present, by those young policemen of my age, the government and the state, leaders, teachers, classmates, my kith and kin, those I know and those I do not know? And help given simply for nothing but to get me out of "Falun Gong" cultist mental trammels tying me so that I'll be again back on my feet. Was this not the hope to make me useful and fulfil the expectations of the government and the Chinese people to let me make greater contributions to the construction of the nation? I am soberly aware of all the help I have been given unselfishly and wholeheartedly in everyday life and the fact that there is no personal gain to a selfish end by my helpers. They have gone to great pains to help me. They have used lots of time and energy in rescuing me. I am deeply touched. A leader once compared me to a highly sophisticated computer working under a confused program with "virus" contracted. The leadership's demand is not to smash the computer but work on it after finding a cure to eliminating the "virus" found to make sure no loss could be incurred by the individual, school and the society as a whole, he said. What a good comparison made! For a dead rock, people may have the time to get it warm up. If I should not still be aware that I have strayed on the cultist path and have to mend my ways, I think, I would be an unworthy nuisance to let all people down who have helped and shown me care.
Needless to say, I was given up to a feeling of repentance and remorse after a sleepless night. The following morning, I rose up early and stood waiting outside the bedroom of my tutor who had kept my company those days. "I've sorted out my mental trouble. I'll make a complete clean break with "Falun Gong" in my thinking and action", I told my tutor unhesitatingly. 4. Look into the Cultist Trap of "Falun Gong" From Without
"The true face of Mt Lushan is beyond the ken of one deep in the heart of the mountain. The truth is incomprehensible to one too deeply involved to be objective". In my eyes, cultist "Falun Gong" had been representative of absolute truth. So, as a practitioner, to protect the cult, I simply couldn't bear to hear any different opinion or views from it. But once when waking up to the nightmare I had experienced, I can see clearly the true feature of "Falun Gong" and Li Hongzhi's fallacies in deceiving a multitude of innocent people like me in China.
First, the "karma" fallacy, theoretical basis of "Falun Gong", that had once spread as a dope of spiritual opium to bring practitioners into the spiritual control of Li Hongzhi. For a practitioner, when you should become infatuated with the cult you will have to accept "transmigration", "retribution" and the like fatalistic ideas. Li Hongzhi asserts that from "karma" there had been brought about various diseases, disasters and sufferings to men and that people could dispel "karma" only through practicing a few "celestial movements" he has created and an assiduous study of cultist books he has published for amassing illegal money. Though not all practitioners raised no doubts on heretics he peddled yet any questioning about his cultist authority would be turned down as "thinking karma". Likewise complete devotion and worship in "Falun Gong" and its founder were required. When a practitioner should be objective in his views he would not also be excused for his "disrespect" to "master" Li and denying "Falun Gong".
Second, the fallacy about adherents to be "delivered to a higher level" of existence in the celestial kingdom, a venomous bait hatched by Li Hongzhi to recruit practitioners. Followers were bewitched and thrown into utter mental confusion by many a variegated contradictory cultist "laws" Li concocted. Following different cultist "laws" to a specific "celestial level", they could in no way live and think like normal men. To take care not to be demoted to a "low" level of the mortals there were naturally no doubts, inquiries, criticisms or different views from the practitioners to speak of. Li Hongzhi says "level" decides the future lot of a practitioner: the higher, the better, and the brighter. Only when having been elevated to the "highest level" "Falun Gong" could be correctly understood and there lies the only possibility for adherents to be relieved of their "karma" and sufferings from birth to death, Li Hongzhi told. To seek for ascending to a " higher level", practitioners could do nothing but life-long cultivation of complete devotion to, studying, upholding, propagating and defending "Falun Gong", a life world apart from that of people in right senses.
Third, "wholehearted conscientious study of the supernatural Law of Falun Gong" by which practitioners were bewildered and told that they were no more human beings of the common run but devotees to "Falun Da Fa" ("Wheel of the Law"). An all-time demand on them was that they had to make fullest use of their available time in reading cultist books and watching audio-video tapes Li Hongzhi had produced and through which he amassed money, to the exclusion of every bit of normal people's partiality or likes in daily life. "Living thoughts", experience and personal gains through book reading were exchanged along with citations made of "model" persons, actions and deeds nearly in every "study course" among the practitioners. Li Hongzhi was likewise revered as "supreme God" as he has wanted to be doubly rewarded by a wide distribution of illegal publications, a large fortune no doubt, and a general segregation of adherents away from social community, crawling submissively at the feet of this "Falun Gong" founder.
Fourth, "propagation of the Law", chief way employed by Li Honghi and a handful at the controlling top to seek for an enlarged force and organization of "Falun Gong". In the name of "propagating the Law" of "Falun Gong", Li Hongzhi has shown his fullest ability for deceit before he fled to the US from the Chinese mainland. He had called for various possible illegal mass meetings, gatherings and assemblies to be held in public places in order to build up a big force and a great influence to be wielded by "Falun Gong" under him. "Propagating the Law of 'Falun Gong' is a practical righteous act to raise your cultivation 'level'", Li Hongzhi said to his innocent followers he duped. He never forgot during his days on the Chinese mainland to whip up a great zeal for "promoting the Law of 'Falun Gong'" by cultist "instruction stations" and "practice sites" among practitioners and to have new followers recruited. "Propagation of the Law should be launched by all 'Falun Gong' practitioners among their kith and kin, relatives, friends and others in the way they'll be influenced and join us", he demanded. "In order to be elevated to a higher 'level', no practitioners should grudge time and energy in propagation of the Law", he bluntly told his followers in his "scriptures" surreptitiously circulated.
Fifth, "defending the Law of 'Falun Gong'", a baton used by the cultist founder in coercing followers to stand up to all risks and harassment and work themselves to the bone for him. Under this baton, practitioners were demanded to oppose and combat any thing harmful or individuals holding an opposite view to "Falun Gong". In May 1998, soon after laying siege on Beijing TV Station following an order from the leading core of "Falun Gong", Li Hongzhi summarily issued "scriptures" denouncing adherents with a different view against the siege. Soon Li Hongzhi instigated from behind the scene a fanatic drive for "defending the Law of 'Falun Gong'" and finally a siege, also on order of this cultist founder and his cohorts, by a large congregation of practitioners, on Zhongnanhai, the site of the Chinese Government in Beijing. As soon as the Ministry of Public Security imposed a ban on the cult the practitioners naturally, following the baton of "defending 'Falun Gong'", regarded it as another "test" arranged by Li Hongzhi. The result was that many practitioners had left home and had for a time gone on their way to send petitions to and besiege government authorities in Beijing and many other places in China. There were some that had even vowed to prepare themselves for a life sentence in jails for "defending 'Falun Gong'". But these were far from meeting the demand of Li Hongzhi. Acting on his sinister schemes he still censured his adherents for no '"blood shed" to bring about a chaotic situation in China.
Sixth, "all-round fulfillment", the greatest deceit practiced on "Falun Gong" practitioners by Li Hongzhi. Li Hongzhi alleges that so long as practitioners could pass various "tests" he arranged they would be elevated to a varied higher "level" of cultivation and they would finally realize their dream to attain "all-round fulfillment" in the celestial kingdom he designated. For one hoping to achieve "all-round fulfillment", he should make up his mind, with not the slightest hesitation, to move away from a life of the vulgar materialistic secular world and seek instead their celestial "happiness" in the nether world. The practitioners were told to indefatigably apply themselves to cultivation to that end and strive for a complete change in their outlook on life and death. When practitioners should become bewitched by the cultist "all-round fulfillment" they would naturally believe in the fallacy to have "a celestial life" awaiting them after death. According to Li Hongzhi, "it merely means to 'discard a flesh body'". Otherwise it would get them nowhere to merely speak about love in their life. Li Hongzhi said practitioners should seek for a life in the celestial world and should not be the least affected by feelings for their dearest.
Seventh, "founder worship", to mark all descriptions of cults. Summarily speaking, so-called founder worship means that the followers believe that the founder is a god and that he has exceptional powers and functions, such as the ability to predict the future, eliminate disasters and diseases, summon the winds and command the rain, and subdue demons and monsters. Most importantly, he is believed to be able to save mankind and take it to a wonderful society at a higher plane of existence in the celestial kingdom. Li Hongzhi proclaims that he himself is an almighty hierarch, much wiser than Sakyamuni, and that he has supernatural powers, such as the ability to move objects without lifting a finger, fix articles at any spot, control other people's thinking, make himself invisible and what not. But facts have turned out as Li has by himself as he is now lurking in the US that all fallacies he has spread are sheer humbug to the utmost extreme. Otherwise since he is supernatural and almighty he should go on with his stay and practice his cheat in China! Life has by itself called me to the right senses. From being made an ignorant recalcitrant fool of cultist founder Li Hongzhi' fallacies I have been led to know the full importance for theoretical study of knowledge and science. Instead of leading a nightmarish life as back in the "Falun Gong" days, I must be armed with advanced scientific knowledge and theories to guide my future life and strive to have a correct approach toward various social problems and contradictions to be met with. Otherwise, it would be inconceivable for me to stand at the forefront of scientific activities. Though one may have more knowledge about natural science yet this does not mean that he has got right ideas on life and things of the world let alone scientific outlook. Li Hongzhi's cultist fallacies run counter to common knowledge of science. But why and how did I as a doctoral student studying natural science regard his fallacies as "supernormal science"? Why and how can Li Hongzhong's modern superstition be revered as an "unknown realm" of sciences? Why can not scientific knowledge be used by me to expose the anti-science nature of "Falun Gong" and how can an elevation of heretic "level" theory be held as the only way to seek "happiness" in the celestial world? This is due to a lack of scientific knowledge, knowledge about dialectic materialism and historical materialism.
I am a young man to have grown up during the days of China's reform and opening up. In the spring days of emancipation of people's thinking, what I had seen and come to know had all been vexatious things, grumbles and sayings in criticizing past ultra-Liftist mistakes made by the Communist Party. In contrast, I knew little about the historical exploits performed and hard struggles carried out by the Chinese Communist Party in leading the Chinese people in fighting against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism in China and past miseries of the Chinese nation at the hands of imperialist powers in history. What is more, I am lack of personal experience and actual knowledge when talking about world-shaking advances made by China since its launching of reform and opening up to the outside world. In my brain, there were merely China's backwardness and disparities between the country and its Western counterparts irrespective of the fact that the Chinese nation had long remained "poor and blank" because of imperialist aggression. No doubt, I concerned myself with various difficulties and problems found though world-shaking changes have taken place in China in the past 50 years since the founding of the People's Republic, especially in the last 20 years since launching of reform and opening up to the outside world. To my regret, I had neglected all possible effort and meritorious work that should be attributed to the Chinese Communist Party and its great achievements and progress made in finding solutions to China's problems and difficulties in building socialism with Chinese characteristics. It goes without saying I lack the high awareness of a CPC member in politics. Instead of consciously acting on decisions and firmly placing myself at the service of the Communist Party in the struggle to fight against cultist "Falun Gong" I had been readily made a dupe of cultist "Falun Gong" taking my stand opposite to the Communist Party.
For a great nation making big strides side by side with other nations of the world all fine cultural achievements claimed by men should be well studied and exploited without doubt. This requires due qualities that must be acquired and effort made by all social members like me in the country. I have had my grievance in the fact that I did not acquire a genuine understanding of modern and ancient Chinese and Western cultures and thoughts I have studied. Under the evil influence of Western films, ideology and ideas on values and life, democracy, liberty and bourgeois individualism I had forgot my duty and obligations to the Chinese nation. I had succumbed at the feet of "Hollywood" heroes. Fooled by Li Hongzhi's fallacies and his "Falun Gong", I cared merely about a life to "ascend to a higher level of" cultivation in order to finally "attain all-round fulfillment". My ties formed with "Falun Gong" could be explained to be a concentrated expression of my past ill feelings, confused ideas, vexations and my discontents with society long accumulated in my mind that I must give vent to. If I had not found this outlet for the like ill feelings of mine as I have said I might find the others too. This is my near-tragedy from the nightmarish "Falun Gong" days.
After extricating myself from the spiritual bondage of "Falun Gong" I find myself now completely relaxed and back again to enjoy a busy, hard, yet rich, colorful and varied life studying for a doctorate in Tsinghua. Personal errors and grievances tell me that when I should want to have a life with things going all plain sailing in the future my political theoretical study shouldn't be the least neglected on this campus of Tsinghua I will never forget. I must do my best to make an intensive study of dialectic materialism and historical materialism and strive to see things from a dialectic and historical materialistic point of view. I must foster a correct world outlook to make myself a qualified young scholar armed with scientific knowledge to help in the modernization drive to build up China at a possible earliest date of the 21st century.
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