Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 165
former prisoner at a Shanghai facility who claims that inmates were viciously tortured.
Some Falun Gong devotees claim to have been treated with brutality, particularly in prisons.
Of course one may choose to doubt what Rosedale terms the ―alleged mistreatment‖ of
religious sectarians in terms of brutality, imprisonment and abusive involuntary confinement
as a strategy of political control. However, one always goes out on a bit of a limb when
accepting at face value the defensive denials of an extremely authoritarian/totalitarian
regime (or for that matter an extremely authoritarian ―cult‖). For many years the Soviet
Union was accused of ―psychiatric terror‖ in terms of a politicized abuse of mental hospitals
to control and incarcerate political and religious dissidents. These claims were denied
vehemently by the Soviets even after they withdrew in protest from the World Psychiatric
Association in 1983. The WPA only readmitted the Soviet Union in 1989 after the
Gorbachev reforms, ―when their psychiatrists finally admitted the abuses and slowly set
about correcting them.‖16 In other words the hidden authoritarian secrets ultimately surface.
Rosedale complains about distorted equations of American anticult counseling procedures
applied to persons leaving cults and the ―deceptive and coercive recruitment processes‖ of
cults. The latter entail a climate of ―coerced conformity‖ which impedes exit from a group.
―People who are counseled and choose to leave the group still have the option to return to
the group if they so desire.‖16 Rosedale does not acknowledge that this ‗right of re-entry‘ is
precisely what is denied to Chinese Falun Gong devotees whose ―cult‖ is outlawed and
whose members‘ sectarian persistence risks prison or forced hospitalization.
A Dangerous Cult and Disturbed Cultists?
It may be claimed, of course, that Falun Gong members (and political dissidents)
institutionalized in Chinese mental hospitals are really seriously disturbed—driven crazy by
sinister mind control. But as we have seen and will see further, an official diagnosis can be
transparently spurious and politicized, as in the Chinese psychopathological diagnoses of
―delusions of reform.‖ Munro cites an article in an official Chinese police encyclopedia which
identifies ―people taken into police psychiatry‖ as persons ―commonly known as ‗political
maniacs‘ who shout reactionary slogans, write reactionary banners and reactionary letters,
make anti-government speeches in public and express opinions on important domestic and
international affairs.‖18 Munro also presents the case of a forty-five-year-old female
religious devotee related in 2000 in the Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychological Medicine.
The woman, notes Mirsky, ―was arrested for being a member of Falun Gong and practicing
the qigong exercises.‖ She was allegedly ―having a mental disorder caused by practicing an
evil cult‖ (an official diagnosis). However, notes Mirsky, ―the only ‗mentally dangerous‘
symptom or activity cited in the forty-five-year-old woman‘s police psychiatric report was:
‗even after the government declared Falun Gong to be an evil cult, she refused to be
dissuaded from her beliefs and continued gathering people to practice Falun Gong‘.‖19
Presumably the arrested political dissidents demonstrating or sympathizing with
demonstrators in 1989 Tiananmen Square (or the earlier dissidents writing politically
incorrect slogans on ―Democracy Wall‖) were not motivated by psychopathology and mind
control. Or does Mr. Rosedale feel that Chinese political dissidents, repressively controlled
in a manner similar to Falun Gong members and labeled ―political maniacs,‖ are really
disturbed and brainwashed? Whatever the problems of Falun Gong, it appears that the
institutional police psychiatry system in China is politicized and corrupt such that Chinese
diagnoses of pathology cannot be uncritically accepted at face value when applied to
political and religious dissidents.
Falun Gong claims that its qigong exercises improve spirituality, understanding and health.
Until 1999 Falun Gong was praised as beneficial in mainstream Chinese
medical journals and high officials were among its millions of practitioners its
former prisoner at a Shanghai facility who claims that inmates were viciously tortured.
Some Falun Gong devotees claim to have been treated with brutality, particularly in prisons.
Of course one may choose to doubt what Rosedale terms the ―alleged mistreatment‖ of
religious sectarians in terms of brutality, imprisonment and abusive involuntary confinement
as a strategy of political control. However, one always goes out on a bit of a limb when
accepting at face value the defensive denials of an extremely authoritarian/totalitarian
regime (or for that matter an extremely authoritarian ―cult‖). For many years the Soviet
Union was accused of ―psychiatric terror‖ in terms of a politicized abuse of mental hospitals
to control and incarcerate political and religious dissidents. These claims were denied
vehemently by the Soviets even after they withdrew in protest from the World Psychiatric
Association in 1983. The WPA only readmitted the Soviet Union in 1989 after the
Gorbachev reforms, ―when their psychiatrists finally admitted the abuses and slowly set
about correcting them.‖16 In other words the hidden authoritarian secrets ultimately surface.
Rosedale complains about distorted equations of American anticult counseling procedures
applied to persons leaving cults and the ―deceptive and coercive recruitment processes‖ of
cults. The latter entail a climate of ―coerced conformity‖ which impedes exit from a group.
―People who are counseled and choose to leave the group still have the option to return to
the group if they so desire.‖16 Rosedale does not acknowledge that this ‗right of re-entry‘ is
precisely what is denied to Chinese Falun Gong devotees whose ―cult‖ is outlawed and
whose members‘ sectarian persistence risks prison or forced hospitalization.
A Dangerous Cult and Disturbed Cultists?
It may be claimed, of course, that Falun Gong members (and political dissidents)
institutionalized in Chinese mental hospitals are really seriously disturbed—driven crazy by
sinister mind control. But as we have seen and will see further, an official diagnosis can be
transparently spurious and politicized, as in the Chinese psychopathological diagnoses of
―delusions of reform.‖ Munro cites an article in an official Chinese police encyclopedia which
identifies ―people taken into police psychiatry‖ as persons ―commonly known as ‗political
maniacs‘ who shout reactionary slogans, write reactionary banners and reactionary letters,
make anti-government speeches in public and express opinions on important domestic and
international affairs.‖18 Munro also presents the case of a forty-five-year-old female
religious devotee related in 2000 in the Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychological Medicine.
The woman, notes Mirsky, ―was arrested for being a member of Falun Gong and practicing
the qigong exercises.‖ She was allegedly ―having a mental disorder caused by practicing an
evil cult‖ (an official diagnosis). However, notes Mirsky, ―the only ‗mentally dangerous‘
symptom or activity cited in the forty-five-year-old woman‘s police psychiatric report was:
‗even after the government declared Falun Gong to be an evil cult, she refused to be
dissuaded from her beliefs and continued gathering people to practice Falun Gong‘.‖19
Presumably the arrested political dissidents demonstrating or sympathizing with
demonstrators in 1989 Tiananmen Square (or the earlier dissidents writing politically
incorrect slogans on ―Democracy Wall‖) were not motivated by psychopathology and mind
control. Or does Mr. Rosedale feel that Chinese political dissidents, repressively controlled
in a manner similar to Falun Gong members and labeled ―political maniacs,‖ are really
disturbed and brainwashed? Whatever the problems of Falun Gong, it appears that the
institutional police psychiatry system in China is politicized and corrupt such that Chinese
diagnoses of pathology cannot be uncritically accepted at face value when applied to
political and religious dissidents.
Falun Gong claims that its qigong exercises improve spirituality, understanding and health.
Until 1999 Falun Gong was praised as beneficial in mainstream Chinese
medical journals and high officials were among its millions of practitioners its
