This is in response to the "visitor comments" as posted under the
section on Falun Gong in the groups database.

I have studied the books and lectures of Li Hongzhi and have personally not found anything in them that would lead someone to label Falun Dafa a cult or even religion. Of course, the lectures do deal with subject matter of a spiritual or other-worldly nature and so one would expect those not innately inclined toward that type of discourse to call it "wacko" or "bull****". Falun Dafa isn't for everyone and why should it be.

Have some adherents of Falun Dafa taken things to extreme and shocking levels? It seems so. But so do fans of Star Wars, Jesus, and Soccer. But that does not make Star Wars, Jesus, and Soccer dangerous ideas or activities in and of themselves. There is always that small number of people who just go beyond reason, who knows why.

Many people say that Falun Dafa is bad or dangerous because its
followers are taught not to seek medical treatment. Nowhere, however, in any of the literature does it state that a person should not seek medical treatment if they are sick. What Li Hongzhi does say, though, is that a true practitioner will not get sick. How someone interprets that is up to them. Seeking or not seeking medical attention is a personal choice. There's plenty of people who instinctively avoid doctors, hospitals, and modern medicine for lots of personal reasons that have nothing to do with Falun Dafa. So what's so controversial or dangerous about that?

Whatever your opinion of Falun Dafa, the fact is the Chinese government is guilty of massive human rights violations, they have killed, tortured, and imprisoned many innocent people, and not just Falun Dafa practitioners, but pro-democracy demonstrators and anyone else they feel is a threat to the Communist party. This has been well-documented and people around the world have known about these violations for a long time and it's only natural that pracitioners of Falun Dafa would want to defend themselves by appealing to the public, and the justice systems and leaders of foreign governments to help with the situation in China.

As for the propaganda coming out of China about the "threat" of Falun Dafa--well, who are you going to believe? It seems to me if there is any cult mentality at work here it is the Chinese Communist Party. Aren't these the same guys who purposely withheld information about the spread of SARS from the medical community?

I didn't realize there was so much bad information out there about Falun Dafa until I read some of the articles on this website. If you want to know about an organization then read the primary source materials of that organization. Falun Dafa's foundational principles are Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance--considering the world that we live in, I guess those are pretty dangerous ideas. Just imagine what would happen if people actually took them seriously.

nFalun Gong appears to be a destructive cult led by a racist, bigot and megalomaniac.

See [www.cultnews.com]

Don't be taken by Hongzhi or the rhetoric of his cult following.

Hongzhi's devotees have made a concerted effort to flood the Internet with apolgies on behalf of their leader and attacks against the Chinese.

But they can't change the facts. That is, the written and spoken statements made by their bizarre and seemingly demented leader.

Hongzhi is just another would-be messiah and totalitarian leader exploiting his followers with grandiose and often destructive delusions.

Sadly, many reporters within the Western media have been taken in by this con man and the never-ending public relations spin of his followers.

With all due respect, you are mistaken about Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a very beneficial meditation practice. (If you e-mail me, I'd love to discuss it with you.)

Falun Gong is not a cult. But it is very helpful for the Chinese government that you say it is. They can, therefore, use you as a reference to "prove" that others think it's a cult, too. However, you are in a very small minority of people educated on the subject that think Falun Gong is a cult. In fact, I would argue that the more someone knows about Falun Gong, the more likely they are to know that it isn't a cult.

The only truth that practitioners are trying to clarify, as you mentioned in your article, is the truth about the persecution. The average Chinese person doesn't know that their government are arresting, torturing, and killing people who peacefully practice Falun Gong in the quiet of their own house. They said "clarify the truth of the persecution" and you dropped off the "of the persecution" and attributed your own ending to the phrase.

But I guess, this IS your website, so you can post any erroneous thing you want. Outside of China, it is a free world. But if you are in China, and you have any movement that contains more people than the Communist party, then beware!!

Scott