Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 196
reach Consummation, are the group‘s driving force.74 On the one hand, the group struggles
in the political sphere for its right to practice freely in China and on the other hand, the
group struggles to eliminate evil from the universe and reach Consummation. How these
goals will interact and affect one another is worth continued observation and study.
The Chinese Government
The questions raised for the Chinese government are many and pressing. The primary
question is is the ruler-sectarian paradigm still valid in the twenty-first century? Do
‗heterodox‘ sectarian and religious groups with certain characteristics actually pose a threat
and if so, what is the best way to occlude that threat? This over-riding question includes
other questions: Is the use of intense national campaigns productive or counter-productive?
Is the goal of ‗keeping stability‘ legitimately achieved through intense campaigns if they cost
the credibility and trust of the Chinese people? Are these campaigns believable anymore to
the Chinese people? Is the crisis management style of legitimating ‗ruthless and radical‘
actions against perceived ‗contradictions between the people and their enemies‘ still valid in
the post-Mao era?
Then there are the issues of violence in the culture starting with the demonization paradigm
and extending into the legal structure of detention without trial and re-education camps, as
well as the issues of police abuse and use of torture outside the established official legal
norms. Although the press in China is incrementally gaining openness and the ability to
report more freely, it may ultimately be a question of how much trust can be put into the
Chinese people to receive freely gathered news. It may also be a question of how much
trust can be put into the Chinese people to express views and openly discuss and debate
issues, even ones which differ from the Communist Party line.
The Chinese government may truly believe that the teachings of the FLG have been harmful
to those who practice it, that the FLG organization is a destabilizing influence, and that Li
Hongzhi is a potential charismatic leader with political intent, yet, the question remains is
the old paradigm still the solution? The government needs to ask: what is our society
lacking that could cause a group like this to be such a threat, and what is our society lacking
that we must resort to burning books and banning beliefs? The early answer given to the
first question has been ‗science‘ the people need to be educated so that ‗science‘ will win
out over ‗superstition‘. The early answer has been development of a ‗social safety net‘ to
decrease the anxiety level so that people do not turn to such ‗irrational‘ beliefs. However,
education and social safety-nets will not prevent ‗irrational‘ ideas from being promulgated,
they will not prevent people from being attracted to them, nor will they prevent ideas
unpleasant to the CCP from being offered and considered in the future. The question for the
Chinese government is how much longer can the old paradigm be used?
Acknowledgment
From Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter 2002). Reprinted by
permission from Frank Cass Publishers, London.
Notes
1 James Tong, ‗Behind the Falungong Façade: Organizational Structure and Finance‘, unpublished
article (Sept. 2000). The FLG tried to re-register with: the National Minority Affairs
Commission as a nonreligious, academic organization the China Buddhist Federation as a
nonreligious, cultural organization for the study of Buddhism and the United Front
Department as a nonreligious, academic organization. p.4. I want to thank David Rapoport for
requesting that I write this second paper on the issue, and for his continued encouragement,
patience and support. I also thank Catherine Wessinger for over a year of email discussions on
new religious movements and the FLG. Any errors or inadequacies in this article are solely my
responsibility.

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2 Randy Kluver, ‗Political Culture and Political Conflict in China‘, in G.M. Chen and R. Ma (eds.),
Chinese Conflict Management and Resolution (Westport: Greenwood 2001), received via
attachment Feb. 2001.
3 Ibid. pp.25–6.
4 Robin Munro, ‗Syncretic Sects and Secret Societies: Revival in the 1980s‘, Chinese Sociology and
Anthropology 21/4 (Summer 1989) pp.10–11. Munro credits Harrell and Perry for describing
Chinese ‗secret societies‘ as ‗syncretic religious sects‘.
5 To address objections to the use of the word ‗sect‘ I use the word ‗sectarian‘ in the hope that it will
not be taken as a derogatory term but as descriptive and historical. I use the word to refer to
groups considered unorthodox or heterodox by the ruling power in China.
6 Daniel L. Overmyer, Religions of China: The World as a Living System (San Francisco: Harper &Row
1986) p.37.
7 David Ownby, ‗Chinese Millenarian Traditions: The Formative Age‘, The American Historical Review
104/5 (Dec. 1999) pp.1–21, www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr.
8 Celestial Masters Daoism. Note: Daoism can also be spelled Taoism. I use Daoism except when
quoting.
9 Frederick Wakeman, ‗Rebellion and Revolution: The Study of Popular Movements in Chinese
History‘, Journal of Asian Studies 36/2 (Feb. 1977) pp.201–36.
10 Ibid. pp.205–6.
11 Li Hongzhi, Zhuan Falun II, http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/2fl2.html, accessed 31 Aug. 1999,
chapter entitled ‗Mankind in the Ending Period of Catastrophe‘ pp.3/4, 4/4. ‗The human
morality is slipping down rapidly and mankind are facing an impending danger …Each time the
catastrophe comes to the world, mankind have lost their morality. This is the manifestation of
the Ending Period of Catastrophe‘. Note: This book is not numbered sequentially, rather, each
chapter begins with number 1. I therefore give the chapter title and the page number within
the chapter. Also, this book used to be available for downloading in English from the Minghui
website, which is how I obtained my copy in 1999. As of December 1999 it was removed from
the list of English available books. It remains available in Chinese. This is one example of how
some FLG material is available to Chinese readers but not to English readers.
12 Judith A. Berling, The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en (New York: Columbia 1980) p.48.
13 Ibid. p.24.
14 .David Ownby, Transnational China Project Commentary, ‗Falungong as a Cultural Revitalization
Movement: An Historian Looks at Contemporary China‘, talk given at Rice University 20 Oct.
2000. Text based on audio transcript.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~tnchina/commentary/ownby1000.html.
15 Ownby (note 7) p.12.
16 James W. Tong, Disorder Under Heaven: Collective Violence in the Ming Dynasty (Stanford:
Stanford University Press 1991) p.59.
17 Thomas DuBois, The Sacred World of Cang County: Religious Belief, Organization, and Practice in
Rural North China During the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, PhD dissertation 2001,
University of California Los Angeles. See ch.7, ‗Yiguandao: Sectarian Recruitment, Wartime
Collaboration, and Showdown with the Communist Government, 1930–1960‘.
18 Munro (note 4) pp.102–3. In this 1985 Appendix titled ‗Sects and Societies Recently or Currently
Active in the PRC‘, 57 groups are listed including the Yi Guan Dao (Way of Unity).
19 DuBois (note 17).
20 Li (note 11), chapter entitled ‗All Ways Lead to the Origin‘, p.1/2.
21 Munro (note 4) ch.15, pp.49–84.
22 Kluver (note 2) p.25.
23 Munro (note 4) p.84.
24 Zhu Xiaoyang and Benjamin Penny (eds.), Chinese Sociology and Anthropology: The Qigong Boom
27/1 (Fall 1995) p.35.
25 Ibid. p.5.
26 Ibid. p.35. The phrase ‗Reading with the Ear‘ came to be synonymous with paranormal abilities.
27 Ibid. pp.37–8.
28 Ibid. p.42.
29 Benoit Vermandeer, ‗The Law and the Wheel: The Sudden Emergence of the Falungong: Prophets
of Spiritual Civilization‘, China Perspectives 24 (1999) p.19. ‗A petition calling for better
environmental protection, launched jointly by some Qigong groups from Sichuan and
Heilongjian managed to gather several hundred thousand signatures‘.