Enlightened Martyrdom; The Hidden Side of Falun Gong; James R. Lewis

Edited by

James R. Lewis [+–]

Wuhan University

James R. Lewis is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University. He is well-published in the field of new religious movements. His publications and edited volumes include The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, Controversial New Religions (with Jesper Petersen), Scientology, Children of Jesus and Mary (with Nicholas Levine), and, most recently, Violence and New Religious Movements.

Huang Chao [+–]

Wuhan University, China

Huang Chao is an associate professor in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University and Executive Director of Research Center for International New Religions and Cults at Wuhan University.

Further, Master Li actively discourages his followers from telling outsiders about his esoteric teachings; rather, he explicitly directs them to say that Falun Gong is just a peaceful spiritual exercise group being persecuted by the PRC. Not only has Falun Gong succeeded in propagating their side of the story in the media but the group will vigorously protest any news story that disagrees with their point of view. In more recent years, Falun Gong has attempted to silence critical scholars, including two of the contributors to the present volume.

Enlightened Martyrdom: The Hidden Side of Falun Gong provides a comprehensive overview of Falun Gong: the movement’s background, history, beliefs and practices. But whereas prior treatments have generally tended to downplay Falun Gong’s ‘dark side,’ in Enlightened Martyrdom, we have made an effort to include treatments of the less palatable aspects of this movement.

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 1-9

James R. Lewis,Huang Chao FREE

Wuhan University

Wuhan University, China

Huang Chao is an associate professor in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University and Executive Director of Research Center for International New Religions and Cults at Wuhan University.

When it became evident that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was on the verge of banning the Falun Gong movement, Li Hongzhi, the movement’s founder, and his family escaped China, relocating permanently in the United States. Subsequently, the dramatic crackdown on Falun Gong in 1999 made international headlines. From the safety of his new home, Master Li encouraged his followers left behind in the PRC to vigorously demonstrate against the Chinese government, even if it meant imprisonment or martyrdom. The present collection provides a comprehensive overview of Falun Gong: the movement’s background, history, beliefs and practices. But whereas prior treatments have generally tended to downplay Falun Gong’s ‘dark side,’ in the following pages we have made an effort to include treatments of the less palatable aspects of this movement. Enlightened Martyrdom will, in other words, provide a recap of what has been discussed in earlier scholarship, but will move forward to cover Falun Gong’s subsequent conflicts as well as the movement’s strident efforts to muzzle critical analyses of their ideas and their struggle.

Chapter 1

The Religion and Politics of Falun Gong [+–] 10-34

Junpeng Li £17.50

Columbia University

Junpeng Li is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University. A co-winner of the Sixth Worldwide Competition for Junior Sociologists from the International Sociological Association, he is interested in new religious movements, contentious politics, and comparative and historical analysis. He was an associated editor of Social Forces and is currently on the editorial board of Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. His research has appeared in Politics and Religion, Contemporary Politics, the Chinese Journal of Sociology, and other peer-reviewed journals.

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

Chapter 2

The Doctrine of Li Hongzhi: Falun Gong – Between Sectarianism and Universal Salvation [+–] 35-59

David A. Palmer £17.50

University of Hong Kong

David A. Palmer is an Associate Professor and head of the department of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, which he joined in 2008. A native of Toronto, he graduated from McGill University in Anthropology and East Asian Studies. After completing his PhD in the Anthropology of Religion at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, he was the Eileen Barker Fellow in Religion and Contemporary Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and, from 2004 to 2008, director of the Hong Kong Centre of the French School of Asian Studies (Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient), located at the Institute for Chinese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of the award-winning Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China (Columbia University Press, 2007), co-author with Vincent Goossaert of The Religious Question in Modern China (University of Chicago Press, 2011; awarded the Levenson Book Prize of the Association for Asian Studies), and co-editor of Chinese Religious Life (Oxford University Press, 2011). He is currently finishing the book manuscript Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality (co-authored with Elijah Siegler). He has published several articles, journal issues and edited volumes on Chinese religion, modern Daoism, the Baha’i Faith, and modern religious movements. His current research projects focus on local ritual traditions, transnational religious movements, and on faith-based volunteering and NGOs in the Chinese world and Southeast Asia.

This article proposes a brief analysis of the doctrine of Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Gong. Four main themes dominate the master’s writings: (1) an apocalyptic theme, stressing the moral decadence of humanity and the omnipresence of the forces of evil. Extra-terrestrials are infiltrating themselves in the body of humanity through modern science, the great enemy of virtue; the Buddhist prophecy of the imminent destruction of the world and inauguration of a new universal cycle, is close to being fulfilled. (2) An exhortation to rigorous spiritual discipline, calling on followers to purify their hearts of all attachment to the things of this world. The gods have abandoned the orthodox religions of the past, which have already completely lost the spirit of the true Dharma. (3) A messianic theme: Li Hongzhi is the omniscient and omnipotent savior of the entire universe. He has revealed, for the first time in history, the fundamental Law of the universe, which is the only protection against the apocalypse. (4) A sectarian practice: Li Hongzhi’s adepts must concentrate exclusively on Falun Gong; it is forbidden to read or even think about any other religion, philosophy, or school of thought or of Qigong. They must devote themselves heart and soul to Falun Gong’s psycho-physiological discipline; the perceptions and visions triggered by this practice are attributed to Li Hongzhi’s supernatural power.

Chapter 3

From Spiritual Healing to Protest: Falun Gong’s Emerging Culture of Martyrdom [+–] 60-84

Susan J. Palmer £17.50

Concordia University

Susan J. Palmer is an Affiliate Professor the Religion Department at Concordia University in Montreal, Qeubec. She is a researcher and writer in the field of new religious studies. She is currently working on a SSHRC-funded research project, Exploring Government Raids on Religious Communities, at McGill University in Montreal. Her next book, Storming Zion: Exporing Government Raids on New and Minority Religious Communities, co-authored with Stuart Wright, will be published in Oxford University Press in 2015. She has published eleven books and volumes, among them Moon Sisters, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh Lovers (Syracuse, 1994); The New Heretics of France (Oxford University Press, 2011); Aliens Adored: Rael’s UFO Religion (Rutgers, 2004).

Falun Gong’s ongoing resistance movement and the escalation of Master Li’s apocalyptic ideology in response to persecution is the focus of this study. On the basis of field research and interviews with practitioners, the author proposes a four-phase model of conversion, culminating in an activist commitment to the Master’s call to serve in the protest demonstrations against the People’s Republic of China’s persecution of Falun Gong. Since Falun Gong’s civil disobedience has resulted in the deaths of over 343 practitioners, it is important to analyze the process of conversion/commitment to the cause, and the practitioners’ own spiritual understanding of their activist efforts in a two-tiered resistance movement that is concerned with global human rights, but also with a cosmic battle between gods and demons, called fa-rectification.

Chapter 4

Burning Faith: Interpreting the 1.23 Incident [+–] 85-109

James R. Lewis £17.50

Wuhan University

On the 23rd of January 2001, a small group of Falun Gong practitioners set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square. One practitioner died in the square and four were seriously burnt (plus the youngest burn victim subsequently died in a hospital). The government quickly held up the incident as an act of “cult violence,” while the Falun Gong movement just as quickly accused PRC authorities as having staged the incident in order to discredit Falun Gong. In “Interpreting the 1.23 Incident,” James R. Lewis sets out to assess the plausibility of these conflicting interpretations. Naturally, the two major parties to the controversy which form the background for this incident dismiss each other’s perspectives as self-evidently false. Specifically, PRC authorities consider that FLG’s defenders have been duped by Falun Gong propaganda, while FLG supporters summarily dismiss everyone who gives serious consideration to the Chinese position as either being on Beijing’s payroll or mindless zombies, and every single piece of accusation against them as Beijing-backed propaganda. Lewis restricts his analysis to discussing what the strong points made by each side of this controversy regarding the details of the 1.23 Incident, and then puts forward evidence to support an alternate interpretation of the event.

Chapter 5

Devil Killing and the Essence of Falun Gong [+–] 110-124

Fang Yong £17.50

Wuhan University, China

Fang Yong, PhD in philosophy, associate Professor, School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan City, Hubei Province. His research interests include Ethics, Religions Studies and Political Philosophy, and the focus of his scholarship is religious ethics, especially Christian Ethics and Buddhism Ethics.

Falun Gong practitioners claim that their most important task is to return human beings to their real (spiritual) home. As such, they consider Falun Gong’s opponents to be devils, who are challenging the laws of the universe. In Falun Gong, it is believed that devils reside amongst the common people, posing a threat to Dafa (Dharma). As Fang Yong argues in “Devil Killing and the Essence of Falun Gong,” some practitioners conclude that it is necessary to eliminate these devils, an interpretation which has led to the deaths of ordinary people. A clear distinction is made by Falun Gong practitioners between themselves and ordinary people. Part of the Falun Gong doctrine includes the idea that the common people should be thankful to Falun Gong for seeking to eliminate devils. The idea that devils reside in society leads to the real-life practice of “devil killing.” This practice tells us not only that Falun Gong is intolerant of those who oppose its views; in essence, the organization is also operating in a way that threatens human safety.

Chapter 6

The Self-contradictions in Li Hongzhi’s Statements about Illness [+–] 125-133

Yan Cao £17.50

Wuhan University, China

Cao Yan is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion, School of Philosophy, at Wuhan University, in Wuhan, China. His research interests include Buddhism; Hinduism; Sanskrit

Li Hongzhi, leader of Falun Gong, asserts that medicine does not touch the source of illness, which is karma. All that medicine achieves is to drive bad karma back into the body, thus delaying the maturation of the “bitter fruits” of disease. With this in mind, Li recommends that his disciples relinquish medical therapy and simply bear the suffering of illness. Li also insists that alternative practices like Qigong cannot be used to eliminate illness and bad karma; it is only Li himself who has the divine power to rid his disciples of their ailments. Additionally, Li indicates that he has the power to reintroduce bad karma to his disciples’ bodies if they do not properly follow his doctrine. In “The Self-contradictions in Li Hongzhi’s Statements about Illness,” Cao Yan asks, how can the contradictions in Li’s claims be resolved? Can he uphold his contention that he can totally eliminate bad karma if he also asserts that he can cause it to return to people? Such a statement implies that this karma was never completely removed in the first place; if it has ceased to exist, then surely it cannot be returned. It is argued here that Li’s words are more than mere statements about illness; they are also used as a tool to facilitate control over his followers, as revealed in these contradictions.

Chapter 7

Scientific or Anti-scientific: A Critical Analysis of “Science” Discourses in Falun Gong [+–] 134-159

Wang Chengjun £17.50

Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China

Wang Chengjun, PhD in Philosophy, Lecturer, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law and member of the International NRM Research Center of Wuhan University. His main areas of study include Medieval Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion and Religious Studies.

As many researchers have argued, the use of science to justify beliefs has long been a popular “legitimation strategy” in new religions. In contrast with other new religions that have adopted science as a source of legitimation, however, Falun Gong’s use of “science” discourse is confusing and inconsistent. While it is sometimes claimed by Falun Gong that its doctrines, creeds, and beliefs can be well explained by modern science, at other times its teachings are positioned as transcending the realm of natural science. Li Hongzhi has even gone as far as to suggest that science is responsible for many different types of modern social “disease” (including social and environmental problems). In “Scientific or Anti-scientific: A Critical Analysis of ‘Science’ Discourses in Falun Gong,” Wang Chengjun offers critical reflections on the science-related discourses present in Falun Gong. First, he analyzes such science-related discourses, arguing that they fall into three different categories. Second, he traces these discourses back to their origins in order to suggest that, even if science-based legitimation of the faith is effective in persuading its practitioners, it is by no means successful in a wider sense. Finally, he concludes with some more specific remarks on the ways in which “science” discourses have been used by Falun Gong.

Chapter 8

“You Don’t Want to Have That Kind of Thought in Your Mind”: Li Hongzhi, Aliens, and Science [+–] 160-194

Stefano Bigliardi £17.50

Al Akhawayn University

Stefano Bigliardi serves as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, a liberal-arts college in Morocco that he joined in 2016. He is the author of the Cambridge University Press Islam and Science: Past, Present, and Future Debates (with Nidhal Guessoum; 2023) and New Religious Movements and Science (2023).

Li Hongzhi has drunk deeply from the well of the paranormal, being especially attracted to ideas about extraterrestrial aliens. Like other flying saucer aficionados, Li teaches that modern technology was introduced to planet earth by extraterrestrials, including in the distant past (“ancient aliens”). He has also adopted beliefs (widespread in alternative circles) that (1) aliens have abducted and interbreed with human beings in ongoing efforts to create a hybrid race, and (2) terrestrial governments not only know about these activities, but actively conspire with aliens for their own sinister purposes. In addition to their hybridizing experiments, shape-shifting space aliens capture human beings for use as pets back on their home planet, and are planning to take over our planet via their false, immoral religion of “science.” In a 1999 interview with Time magazine, Master Li accused aliens of corrupting the human race, an activity that will eventually lead to an apocalypse. Some of Li’s most controversial statements have been made in the context of his descriptions of alien-induced human corruptions: People would stop at nothing in doing evil things such as drug abuse and drug dealing. A lot of people have done many bad deeds. Things such as organized crime, homosexuality, and promiscuous sex, etc. None are the standards of being human. Many Westerners who at one time regarded themselves as Falun Gong’s friends subsequently distanced themselves from the group after critics began to call attention to Master Li’s pronouncements against homosexuality, feminism, rock music and “race mixing.” The present chapter will analyze these teachings, tracing their sources to both Western paranormal literature and Chinese tradition.

Chapter 9

Falun Gong’s Attack on Academic Freedom [+–] 195-212

Helen Farley £17.50

University of Queensland

Helen Farley is Senior Research Fellow within the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland. She has taught and researched across a broad range of areas including eastern religions, meditative traditions, the history of esotericism, religion in immersive virtual environments and the history of divination. She is also an Associate Professor (Digital Futures) at the Australian Digital Futures Institute at the University of Southern Queensland.

As an academic in a progressive Western democracy such as Australia, academic freedom is something usually taken for granted. With impunity, academics can critique government policy, make a stand with or against matters considered important to society, or bring to light those things that may be unknown to members of the general public. In this environment, as an academic in the discipline of studies in religion at a major Australian university, Helen Farley wrote a number of book chapters about the little-known Chinese movement of Falun Gong. As a result she attracted the attentions of a member of that movement who took exception to what she wrote. This chapter describes the systematic attempt that individual made to discredit her as an academic and to have her dismissed from her employment. It describes her employer’s responses to the event and the responses of those academics, societies and publications in the field. Upon further investigation, she wasn’t the first academic to have received this sort of treatment from aggrieved Falun Gong practitioners. This chapter looks at how Falun Gong practitioners justify their persecution of academics who are seen to have presented Falun Gong in an unfavourable light.

Chapter 10

Friendly Fire: How Falun Gong Mistook Me for an Enemy [+–] 213-229

Heather Kavan £17.50

Massey University

Heather Kavan is a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand where she specializes in teaching Speech Writing. On the research front, she is fascinated by unconventional spiritual paths. Her PhD is in Religious Studies, and her publications have focused on phenomena often associated with transcendent states of consciousness, including visions, glossolalia, and spiritual channeling. Her research has extended into diverse fields, including film. In 2015, Kavan was invited to appear as academic commentator in a documentary on Falun Gong protests about the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tour of the United States.

This paper provides an account of more than a year’s fieldwork with a small group of Falun Gong members in New Zealand. The narrative begins in 2005 with my hopes of helping the group, and ends in a haze of mysterious communications, threats and accusations, which continue today – a decade after the research project was finished. The chapter shows how Falun Gong members in Western countries have forged an identity for their spiritual path as a group subjected to human rights violations for simply doing breathing exercises. The Rachlin media group (Falun Gong’s former Public Relations organisation) created the narrative, re-casting apocalyptic leader Li Hongzhi as a hero akin to Gandhi, who has mobilised millions of followers to non-violently resist an oppressive regime. In accord with this story, practitioners have staged headline-generating events, despatched thousands of press releases, and protested any portrayal that is not in accord with their new image. But Li’s writings to members tell a different narrative to the one told in the Western media. Drawing on my ethnographic research, the author discusses the differences between the group’s public and private communications. Using James Scott’s frame – the higher the stakes involved, the greater the discrepancy between an oppressed group’s public and hidden transcripts (Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. Yale University Press 1990) – Heather Kavan observes that while practitioners revised their publicly proclaimed ideology to appeal to Western moral ideals of amelioration of suffering and personal freedom, these ideals were not part of their in-group communications. Rather, sacrifice, martyrdom, and exclusivity were intrinsic to members’ beliefs and life choices. To illustrate the focus on suffering and martyrdom, the author analyses practitioners’ responses when a frail, older member was denied refugee status and was returning to China to her likely imprisonment. Heather Kavan discusses why practitioners refused to pass on a message that would assist the woman and possibly save her life, preferring to embrace Li Hongzhi’s views that suffering is to be prized. The chapter closes with an outline of the responses to Heather Kavan’s study. She discusses the internet passages about her that resulted in several Falun Gong authors being banned from Wikipedia, and the lingering shadowy harassment of which she could never be sure whether the protagonists were from the Chinese government or Falun Gong. Heather Kavan interprets harassment from Falun Gong as an expression of Li Hongzhi’s ‘stepping forward’ ideology in which practitioners must defend his version of the fa to compete for entry into heaven, which only allows for limited numbers.

Chapter 11

The Falun Gong Political Narative: Creating the Illusion of So-called “Forced Organ Harvesting” [+–] 230-243

Campbell Fraser £17.50

Griffith University, Australia

Campbell Fraser is Director of the International Business Program in the Department of Asian Studies at Griffith University in Brisbane Australia, and an international authority on human organ trafficking. He sits on the advisory boards of several organ procurement organisations and kidney disease advocacy groups, and is an active member of The Transplantation Society and the International Society of Organ Donation and Procurement. Fraser has developed protocols for proactively combating human organ trafficking, and implemented investigative and reporting mechanisms to verify claims of such activity. He has specific interest in the link between human organ trafficking and terrorist funding, and the emerging problem of political special interest groups fabricating stories of so-called forced organ harvesting. His work regularly appears on television, radio, newspaper and on-line media in several countries and in multiple languages.

The Falun Gong (FLG) organization have for the last several years placed stories of so called forced organ harvesting as central to their sustained and concerted effort to undermine the Chinese government, and specifically, the Communist Party of China. These claims have been comprehensively investigated by a team of internationally renowned experts in human organ transplantation, and dismissed as fabrications. Despite the fact that this expert group has reached this conclusion, based on several trips to China, the FLG continue to lobby governments and international organizations with what they claim to be evidence of ongoing mass murder of their members in China. There is a clear reason for this; the FLG have invested so much time and effort into promoting so-called forced organ harvesting as their central battleground theme, they must find ways to perpetuate these rumors for fear of loss of face in the international community. The FLG have been careful to position themselves as victims, and have used this mentality throughout in order to present their case as an underdog against the might of China. In “The Falun Gong Political Narrative – Creating the Illusion of co-called ‘Forced Organ Harvesting,’” Campbell Fraser explores the manifestations of this victim mentality, through an analysis of the FLG organization and its supporters.

Chapter 12

“Clarifying the Truth”: Falun Gong’s Media Strategies [+–] 244-259

James R. Lewis £17.50

Wuhan University

The Falun Gong organization has been mostly successful at promoting itself to the world outside of mainland China as a peaceful spiritual exercise group being unfairly persecuted by the Chinese government. This is partly the result of denying or downplaying the aspects of Li Hongzhi’s teachings that are vengeful, belligerent and violent. However, as James R. Lewis argues in “’Clarifying the Truth’: Falun Gong’s Media Strategies,” this is also the result of a conscious media strategy which involves, on the one hand, creating its own media outlets that focus on persecution and human rights themes, and, on the other hand, deploying a sophisticated media strategy that takes advantage of anti-PRC sentiments in Western media.

End Matter

Index [+–] 260-269

James R. Lewis,Huang Chao FREE

Wuhan University

Wuhan University, China

Huang Chao is an associate professor in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University and Executive Director of Research Center for International New Religions and Cults at Wuhan University.

When it became evident that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was on the verge of banning the Falun Gong movement, Li Hongzhi, the movement’s founder, and his family escaped China, relocating permanently in the United States. Subsequently, the dramatic crackdown on Falun Gong in 1999 made international headlines. From the safety of his new home, Master Li encouraged his followers left behind in the PRC to vigorously demonstrate against the Chinese government, even if it meant imprisonment or even death. Further, Master Li actively discourages his followers from telling outsiders about his esoteric teachings; rather, he explicitly directs them to say that Falun Gong is just a peaceful spiritual exercise group being persecuted by the PRC. Not only has Falun Gong succeeded in propagating their side of the story in the media but the group will vigorously protest any news story that disagrees with their point of view. In more recent years, Falun Gong has attempted to silence critical scholars, including two of the contributors to the present volume. Enlightened Martyrdom: The Hidden Side of Falun Gong provides a comprehensive overview of Falun Gong: the movement’s background, history, beliefs and practices. But whereas prior treatments have generally tended to downplay Falun Gong’s ‘dark side,’ in Enlightened Martyrdom, we have made an effort to include treatments of the less palatable aspects of this movement.

Reviews

Except for a few terms, Enlightened Martyrdom can be a fairly accessible reader for college students who may be religious studies majors. The readership may include anyone who is interested in FLG or new religious movements. The 9-page “Introduction” provides a good summary of each chapter as well as the whole book.
As in the fable of the blind men and the elephant, Enlightened Martyrdom presents some other aspects of the FLG elephant. The fact that FLG is at once a new religious movement and a highly political organization makes it extremely complicated and difficult to explore. In the long run, however, with each new aspect being examined, we may move one step closer to the “truth” of Falun Gong.
Nova Religio

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Enlightened Martyrdom

The Hidden Side of Falun Gong

James R. Lewis [+–]

Wuhan University

Huang Chao [+–]

Wuhan University, China

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