Where is li hongzhi 2010

Nevertheless, Li's a p. This therefore colours the information they give to the press. I gathered more information from reading Li's books and speeches. Copies are available on the Internet, but they're not necessarily the same as the originals. Also, in , Li instructed followers to destroy any unauthorised versions of his speeches a, pp. The Australian articles were slightly more favourable than the New Zealand ones.

These articles were so impassioned that they often appeared to be verbatim from practitioners' sources, and many contained strong anti-Chinese sentiments. They included: 1 alchemy stories of practitioners all female being healed of serious illnesses, testimonies of psychological benefits and even a reversal of the aging process; 2 heart-rending atrocity stories of members mostly female being tortured or kidnapped by the Chinese government, and 3 articles that had a propagandist tone.

These included numerous stories of protests against human rights abuses, as well as success stories in which the interviewees all male linked their success to practising Falun Gong. In this category I also included positive articles in which the author made qualifying remarks, such as "Leaving aside the rationality or otherwise of the Falun Gong religious movement.

Examples include reported debates about a Falun Gong float being banned from a Christmas parade, and comments about Falun Gong members being prohibited from using loud hailers outside the Chinese embassy. Most of these articles were brief summaries of international news. Most of these were reports of negative activities, where the authors added that Falun Gong members denied responsibility.

Examples include reports of practitioners allegedly self-immolating in Tiananmen Square, and hacking into Hong Kong newspaper websites to redirect people to a site containing Falun Gong messages. These either reported negative activities, such as alleged Falun Gong members slashing their wrists at Sydney's Villawood detention centre, or only quoted sources critical of Falun Gong, such as the Chinese embassy or Rupert Murdoch.

No articles were extremely negative, in the sense of appearing to have been authored by anti-Falun Gong or anti-cult sources. In this section I critically discuss the main themes in the articles. In when the first articles on Falun Gong appeared there were varying reports of membership numbers, but since almost all articles put the number of adherents at million worldwide. Usually journalists add the phrase "70 million in China". The first primary reference to this statistic that I can find is Li's a "A brief statement of mine" when he speaks of having helped million people achieve health.

Falun Gong members say that Li is quoting the original Chinese public security bureau statistics, but I have been unable to trace this report.

In any case, it seems unlikely that today one in every 58 people in the world is a Falun Gong adherent, or that one in 10 people in China practise Falun Gong. Bruseker has completed a thorough analysis and places the membership figure at between two to ten million , p. Deng and Fang , p. I would estimate that the numbers of members in Australia and New Zealand are 3, and respectively.

Several newspapers, quoting participants, say that Falun Gong is not a religion, just an exercise group like Tai Chi and yoga. However, as sociologists Wong and Liu point out, Falun Gong seems unusually proselytising for an exercise group , p. Also, most exercise teachers do not demand that participants practise in public places, on busy streets at rush hours. Additionally, Li himself said at an Australian press conference that Falun Gong and yoga are "totally different" Master Li, , but this statement does not appear to have been published in the media.

Nor do most exercise classes ask you to believe that the moon is hollow Li, b, p. On the few occasions reporters asked participants about these unusual beliefs, practitioners replied that they were not aware of them. Similarly misleading are the descriptions of the exercises as easy — just a few gentle arm movements and a seated exercise. However, holding one's arms over one's head for long of periods of time requires stamina especially at 6am. The gentle "seated exercise" is actually in the Lotus position, and in my experience usually goes on for over an hour.

Li acknowledges that this can cause intense burning pain in the legs, but teaches that the pain is karma being burnt off — and therefore one should remain in position Li, b, p. Many reporters describe Falun Gong as a meditation technique. The Townsville Sun, for example, offers an appealing invitation: "With spring here, why not try the ancient and powerful meditation-exercise system of Falun Dafa to revitalise body, mind and spirit?

Readers who follow the newspaper's advice and visit Falun Gong may get a few surprises. Newcomers are given scriptures in which Li warns that they will be attacked by demons while doing the exercises Li c, pp. Later they will discover that Falun Gong isn't about doing the exercises at all, in fact Li is contemptuous of those who just do the exercises everyday Li, a, p. The real purpose of Falun Gong, as set out in Li's teachings, is to save people from the imminent apocalypse.

Falun Gong's concealment of their apocalyptic doctrine from the public is illustrated by Falun Gong members' responses to the media in when Li visited Sydney and spoke at a convention. Journalists asked the conference organisers to release an English translation of the speech to the press. The organisers declined, but one told the Australian Associated Press: "Essentially it Master Li's address could not be summarised," but that the movement's "teachings were based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance and involved cultivation of body, mind and soul in a way which most people would describe as a form of meditation" Stavrinos, However, the transcript of this speech now available online , shows little instruction on meditation, and instead much apocalyptic rhetoric that the end of the world is upon us.

Li tells disciples that they are in the last days the time of the "great havoc" , and thousands of demons are entering the world. This, he says, is evidenced by numerous evils including interracial marriages, homosexuality, and ugly toys for children. Only he can save humanity. His teachings, he says, surpass those of Jesus and Buddha, and his spiritual body is so large that disciples would be looking upward from under his big toe Li, b.

Even more significantly, in this speech Li preaches that true followers do not seek medical help — a teaching that participants deny when questioned by outsiders. For example, when a reporter questioned a New Zealand practitioner about followers not seeking medical treatment, the woman responded by laughing, and exclaimed "That's ridiculous" Disturbing the peace, The inevitable outcome of keeping Li's teachings secret and passing the apocalyptic religion off as a healthy exercise plan, is that practitioners are left unable to explain why Falun Gong is illegal in China.

Unable to say that Falun Gong was banned because Li's divine claims and other unusual teachings were considered to be a threat to public safety, and his ability to mobilise large numbers of protesters was a political threat, they tell reporters, that they are "mystified" by the ban. Members imply that they are arrested because of their wholesome life style: "As a practitioner of Falun Gong her the practitioner's lifestyle of meditation and exercise led to her arrest.

Reporters seem to agree: "It seems hard to believe that shutting your eyes and gently waving your arms around could threaten a nation's safety, but insecurity works in funny ways" Greeks, In a recent speech, Li criticises the media of "each country in the world" for not reporting on the persecution and "keeping silent while crimes and sins are committed" a, p.

There can be little doubt that these events happened — that adherents have been detained and sent to labour camps, and many have been tortured. Practitioners describe — to name a few methods — members being shot with electric stun guns, hanging from shackles on the wrist for prolonged periods, and piercing with sharp bamboo sticks.

Protestors often re-enact scenes in public demonstrations. Banners with photographs of victims highlight the harrowing nature of the experiences. There is no way of verifying the numbers of human rights abuses. The press often quote Amnesty International, but Amnesty's reports are not independently verified, and mainly come from Falun Gong sources for example, Amnesty, A slightly more reliable source is the Hong Kong Centre for Human Rights, which is actually not an organisation, but one man — Lu si qing.

However, statistics of arrests from both Amnesty and the Hong Kong Centre are often much higher than those reported by Western journalists who were at the scene in China Rahn, , which suggests that other information may be similarly exaggerated. Nevertheless, one aspect of the persecution that is well-reflected in the media is the predominance of women as victims.

Sixty eight percent of the articles involving torture or kidnapping of Falun Gong members were stories about women. Chang , p. One of the most powerful stories, which The Canterbury Express quotes, is that of Wang Lixuan, a 27 year old woman who was arrested in China with her eight-month-old baby. Police allegedly hung the baby upside down to force the mother to recant. Wang Lixuan refused to renounce her faith, and both she and her baby died of torture Peaceful art, For Falun Gong members, Wang Lixuan is a heroic martyr.

She went eight times to Beijing to protest, including three times while pregnant and twice while carrying her child Clearwisdom, Readers may be left wondering what is it about Falun Gong that inspires such intense devotion that a woman risks her baby's life.

Participants I spoke to were unanimous that the appeal of Falun Gong was the sensation of peace they feel. After a compelling meditation outside Wellington Parliament building, one practitioner asked me rhetorically, "Can you see why people are willing to be shot for this? However, meditation benefits are rarely the only impetus for martyrdom, and there is another angle to this story. Li teaches that he has only planned enlightenment for a limited number of Falun Gong members. So, with allegedly swelling numbers and the imminent end of the world, he is fast weeding people out.

Members therefore have to pass a test called "stepping forward" Li, a, Li, c. Stepping forward means activism and the resulting martyrdom forces the victim's karma to be burnt off, thus gaining them a place in Li's paradise. Also included here are discussions of - The origins of qigong and the long-forgotten meaning of "self-cultivation" - The roots of illness and the fundamental qigong method of healing.

It has attracted over million people worldwide since its public introduction in due to its outstanding health and spiritual benefits. It revealed classified information for spiritual enlightenment that are imparted exclusively from master to trusted disciples since antiquity in China. Falun dafa exercise instructions by Hongzhi Li Visual 5 editions published between and in English and held by 60 WorldCat member libraries worldwide This video features demonstrations and instructions of the 5 sets of exercises included in Falun Dafa.

Falun da fa yi jie by Hongzhi Li Book 10 editions published between and in Chinese and held by 44 WorldCat member libraries worldwide. Zhuan fa lun fa jie by Hongzhi Li Book 10 editions published between and in Chinese and held by 41 WorldCat member libraries worldwide. Falun gong : English version by Hongzhi Li Book 8 editions published between and in English and held by 39 WorldCat member libraries worldwide.

Falun fo fa, jing jin yao zhi by Hongzhi Li Book 12 editions published between and in Chinese and English and held by 38 WorldCat member libraries worldwide. There is an iron rod in India whose iron content reaches over 99 per cent. The use of modern smelting technology cannot even produce iron with such high purity as it already surpassed the level of modern technology. Who created that civilization?

Human beings should have been micro-organisms at that time, so how was it possible to create these things? But where von Daniken and his ilk see such phenomena as evidence of prehistoric extra-terrestrial technology transfer, Li sees them as proof of civilisations on earth prior to our own.

Through unearthed relics, we have found products that are not of only one period of civilisation. It is thus believed that after each of the many times when human civilisations were annihilated, only a small number of people survived and they lived a primitive life. Then, they gradually multiplied in number to become the new human race, beginning a new civilisation.

The Zhongnanhai protest clearly caught the Chinese leadership as much by surprise as it did the foreign press. Some of the later, much more extreme, official reaction to Falun Gong can perhaps be put down to the state of mind of the leadership at that very particular time. This unusual protest did not, of course, come out of nowhere. The specific and particular spur for it actually took place outside Beijing itself, in nearby Tianjin.

Their protests were met with action by police, and some people were detained. In my introduction I noted the difficulties with different sources of information on Falun Gong. Here is a case in point. The official reaction to the demonstration could not, at this stage, have been more different from the reaction to the democracy protesters of ten years before.

Nonetheless, adherents still, clearly, felt able to speak to foreign journalists. Their choice of words to describe Falun Gong shows them falling into a very particular vocabulary without too much thought.

The knee-jerk reaction, then, was to fall into the language of cults, sects and quasi-religions. This language and its referents has, however, become the stock in trade of the Chinese Government in its attacks on Falun Gong. To return to the narrative: on 22 July , the Ministry of Civil Affairs banned Falun Gong, declaring it an illegal organisation. There followed a widespread crackdown.

Many ordinary practitioners protesting the crackdown are reported to have been detained by the police but most were released after a few days. At the time, police arrested 70— alleged leaders of the movement and hundreds of teachers at lower levels. For the party members who were involved, there were self-criticism sessions and demands that they denounce the teachings and the teacher. Television featured film footage of heavy equipment destroying videos and tapes.

All the books disappeared from sale. The following activities were explicitly banned: hanging up or posting banners, images, symbols, and logos; distributing books, audio-video products, and other propaganda; gathering a crowd to conduct activities; holding meetings, parades, and demonstrations in the form of sit-ins or visiting superior authorities; disturbing the social order by means of fabricating or distorting the facts and deliberately spreading rumours or using any other means to instigate, organise, link up, or direct activities opposing decisions of the government.

The propaganda effort focussed on five main topics concerning Li Hongzhi. First, Li is alleged to have falsified his own background claiming a strange and wonderful spiritual life.

The main evidence produced for the public to criticise Falun Gong centred on the dual claims that Falun Gong induced some of its followers into self-destructive behaviours and that in general, they were forbidden to visit doctors and seek orthodox medical treatment. This crackdown has continued at various levels of intensity ever since. There have been televised court cases of high-ranking officials who were sent to gaol, official statements of the seriousness of the threat still posed by the movement, continuing arrests, alleged cases of self-immolation.

First, whether you believe the figures of the Chinese authorities or of Falun Gong, this group was large, numbering in the tens of millions. There are, of course, serious difficulties in assessing exactly how large because practitioners have never signed up to Falun Gong as people would to a political party or gym club.

And, like any movement of this kind, there are those who are deeply committed and those who are only mildly committed. When the crackdown came, one can imagine that for many people letting go of Falun Gong was not onerous at all; they just moved on to another, more acceptable, form of qigong. One thing that is certain, given the history of more orthodox religions as well as sectarian traditions in China, is that when and if Falun Gong practitioners are allowed to be public again, many will re-emerge.

As well as having a large number of practitioners in China, Falun Gong also seems to have had a large number of adherents who were Chinese Communist Party members. Nonetheless, as it became clear that Falun Gong was not simply a standard qigong method, but one that possessed a reasonably well-developed ideology and that ideology was clearly not compatible with the ideology of the Party, perhaps a crackdown became inevitable. It has to be noted here, in this talk of large memberships, that Falun Gong was by no means the only group of this kind in the mid-to-late s.

Also notable was the group known as Zhonggong, which was banned in January , with a leader, Zhang Hongbao, who currently resides on Guam. Nasty Breaks PDF. Nicht auszuhalten PDF. No Dominion PDF. Nobilitierung Versus Divulgierung?

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