Cults Inside Out: How People Get in and Can Get Out

by Rick Alan Ross

  Cracking the Program

  Ted Patrick once said, “When I hit on that one certain point that strikes home, I push it. I stay with that question whether it’s about God, the Devil or that person’s having rejected his parents. I keep pushing and pushing. I don’t let him get around it with the lies he’s been told.”777

  The fact that the leader of the group had accumulated substantial assets while simultaneously misleading others about his finances resonated with the young woman and became a point I began to push harder, reviewing document after document to further crack the group programming. Authors Conway and Siegelman summarized Patrick’s earlier approach by saying that once he found such a weakness in the cult program, he “hit it head on, until the entire programmed state of mind gave way.”778

  I hammered home the point that, according to the Bible, Jesus and his disciples were disinterested in material possessions and were essentially poor people. I also contrasted the leader of Call of God with the prophets, such as Moses. According to the Bible, in response to God Moses gave up his status and wealth to become a religious leader. Why was the leader of Call of God so preoccupied with accumulating real estate holdings? And why had he deliberately misled his followers to believe he wasn’t interested in money? Did this type of dishonesty reflect the pattern of leadership expressed in the Bible?

  At this point the group programming began to unravel. As Patrick once said, “When the person realizes he’s been lied to by the cult…it’s like turning on the light in a dark room.”779 As the lights came on and the cult programming crumbled during the final two days, the young woman increasingly began to ask critical questions. She saw how her group paralleled the examples I had given of other cults and also identified the pattern of coercive persuasion, which had been used to gain undue influence over her life. We went over each of Lifton’s eight criteria used to identify a thought-reform program.780 She could see these same criteria as the dynamics operating in the Call of God.

  For example, we discussed how the isolation the group encouraged and its dominant control of information and communication amounted to what Lifton labeled “Milieu Control” or control of the environment. She now could better understand why the leader had encouraged her to cut off her family; by consuming her time, the Call of God had further isolated her, thus negatively impacting both her marriage and parenting.

  We also discussed how the leader’s special letters from God could easily be seen as what Lifton calls “Mystical Manipulation” or planned spontaneity. That is, “initiated from above, it seeks to provoke specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that these will appear to have arisen spontaneously” but that “directed as it is by an ostensibly omniscient group, [it] must assume, for the manipulated, a near-mystical quality.”781 The supposed letters from God, rather than spontaneous pronouncements from a higher power, seemed to be calculated communications used to manipulate and control the group. This could be seen not only by the way the letters contributed to the authority and power of the leader but also through the way the letters were sometimes addressed to certain issues or people.

  Conclusion

  On the third day the young woman began to divulge previously unknown and critical inside information about the group. She talked about others in the Call of God who were struggling in their strained marriages and of other parents who were neglecting their children. The young woman also disclosed that one extremely devoted member had ultimately been forced to declare bankruptcy, which she suspected was due in part to the excessive demands of the leader. These disclosures offered immediate evidence that the group influence and control were fading away and that her own previously innate ability to think independently and critically analyze the facts had returned.

  At the end of the intervention the young woman’s primary concern was how to warn others not to become involved with the Call of God. We discussed the possibility of sharing information online through the Web in some effective way so she might warn others. The young woman ceased her involvement with the Call of God and moved on with her life. She was grateful that her family had made the effort to help her through the intervention effort.

  CHAPTER 12

  FALUN GONG

  Before discussing an intervention involving the controversial movement Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, understanding the history and issues surrounding the organization and its founder, Li Hongzhi, is important. The group has been officially declared an “evil cult” in China, and Li now lives as an exile in the United States. At one time there were reportedly millions of Falun Gong adherents in China, though the number of Chinese devotees seems to have steadily dwindled. Falun Gong reportedly has as many as ten thousand practitioners in the United States and four thousand in Canada.782

  2001—Self-Immolation in Tiananmen Square

  A particularly horrific event focused media attention on Falun Gong in 2001. This single event, perhaps more than any other, defined Falun Gong as an “evil cult” in the minds of the Chinese public. On the eve of the Chinese New Year, January 23, 2001, a small group of seven Falun Gong practitioners traveled within China from the city of Kaifeng to Beijing. Once in Beijing the group went to Tiananmen Square and set themselves on fire. A mother and her twelve-year-old daughter died. One man, Wang Jindong, survived but was hospitalized with severe burns. Two women, Hao Huijun and her daughter, Chen Guo, were both hospitalized with very extreme injuries. The two remaining Falun Gong members, including the man who had organized the self-immolation, weren’t seriously injured.

  Chen Guo later explained, “We wanted to strengthen the force of Falun Gong. We decided burning ourselves was the best way.”783 Chen Guo, once a promising musician, lost both of her hands. Her mother was also severely disabled and disfigured.784 As the story of the self-immolations was broadcast around the world, Falun Gong refused to accept any responsibility for the tragedy. Spokespeople for the group insisted it was not their teachings or influence that had led to the tragedy; rather it was somehow a Chinese government conspiracy to discredit the organization.785

  Li Hongzhi

  Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, was born in northeastern China. He reportedly graduated from high school, worked on a farm, and played the trumpet. During the 1980s he was a clerk at a cereal company. But by 1992 Li decided to join the growing ranks of self-proclaimed “qigong masters” and began giving lectures. In 1995, after Falun Gong was declared an “evil cult,” Li Hongzhi moved to the United States. He is now apparently a wealthy man. In 1998 he reportedly bought a house in New York for $293,500. Later the following year he purchased a second home for $580,000 in New Jersey.786

  Li’s followers see him as a “living Buddha.”787 Falun Gong practitioners believe he has “deep insight into the mysteries of the cosmos,” and he claims to know “the top secret of the universe.” Li tells his followers that “no religion can save people” but only the “almighty Fa,”788 which he supposedly and exclusively represents.789 According to his official biography Zhuan Falun, Li claims he first recognized his special powers at the age of eight. These powers purportedly include “floating through walls,” becoming “invisible,” and also having the ability to “rise into the heavens.”790 Li also claims he “can move himself anywhere by thought alone” and that his alleged supernatural powers “averted a global comet catastrophe and the Third World War.”791

  What Is Falun Gong?

  Nancy Chen, an anthropologist at the University of California in Santa Cruz, describes what Li Hongzhi teaches as an “amalgam” or “combination of different traditions, a kind of New Age variety.”792 But Guy S. Alitto, professor of history and East Asian languages and civilizations at the University of Chicago, notes, “Falun Gong’s demand for doctrinal purity, organizational exclusivity, and its fixed inflexible organizational structure would have been utterly incongruous in traditional Chinese society.” Alitto concludes, “Therefore it represents more of a rupture than continuity with Chinese religious traditions.�
�793 He adds, “Falun Gong gatherings…are devoted completely to the study and discussion of the writings of Li Hongzhi…Falun Gong teachers through the ranks are relegated only to preaching proscribed doctrine.”794 In this sense Falun Gong, like other groups called “cults,” appears to be a personality-driven organization largely defined by its leader, Li Hongzhi.

  Much of Falun Gong’s supposed healing power is based on the belief that Li Hongzhi can telekinetically insert into his disciples the spinning “falun,” or mystical “wheel of law.” Once this is done, the “living Buddha” can allegedly transfer energy to the believer. Li has said, “The only way to find yourself comfortably free of illnesses is through cultivation practice!”795 Udo Schuklenk, a professor of philosophy at Queen’s University who currently holds the Ontario research chair in bioethics, observes, “Falun Gong adherents believe fervently that practicing Falun Gong can cure ailments ranging from brain cancer to arthritis and many other diseases.”796 Schuklenk warns, “The delusions of the Falun Gong adherents matter, because they might not go themselves to receive life-preserving medical care when they could benefit from it, or worse in another form of child abuse they might not take their children to see a doctor when they could and should have.”797 Chinese officials have reported that nineteen hundred Falun Gong practitioners have died in China due to medical neglect.798 This was one of the reasons China officially banned Falun Gong in 1999, declaring it an “evil cult.”

  Li’s teachings also include telling his disciples they will appear younger and that elderly devotees “will have less wrinkles and eventually they [the wrinkles] will almost be gone.” He also claims that elderly women “will again have their menstrual cycle.” Li says that this will be accomplished because “all cells in the bodies of practitioners will be replaced by high energy matter.”799 In response to criticism of this bizarre claim, a practitioner wrote me, “Can you prove that elderly women who practice Falun Gong don’t regain their menstrual periods? Have you ever considered the possibility that Li’s teachings in this regard are true? I know for a fact that they are true. I suggest you do more research on the subject before mocking these teachings.”800

  Psychologist Margaret Singer noted the apparent lack of reasoning and critical thinking that is common in cult groups and which Falun Gong practitioners often display. In describing her experience with Falun Gong devotees, Singer explained that a practitioner will “actually say ‘Don’t Think. Just recite the Master’s teaching.’” She concluded, “If you want a good description of a cult, all you have to do is read what [Falun Dafa followers] say they are.”801 Singer said, “Imagine an inverted T. The leader is alone at the top and the followers are all at the bottom.”802 A destructive cult is not only totalitarian, but, according to Singer, it employs “the overriding philosophy…that the ends justify the means, a view that allows [such groups] to establish their own brand of morality, outside normal society bounds.”803

  Cult and communication experts Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman describe cultic practices that lead to a diminished ability to process information and employ critical thinking. They said, “Almost every major cult and cult-like group we came upon teaches some form of not thinking…as part of its regular program of activity. The process may take the form of repetitive prayer, chanting or speaking-in-tongues, self-hypnosis or diverse methods of meditation….Such techniques, when practiced in moderation, may yield real physical and mental health benefits….Prolonged stilling of the mind, however, may wear on the brain physically until it readjusts, suddenly and sharply, to its new condition of not thinking. When that happens, we have found, the brain’s information-processing capacities may be disrupted or enter a state of complete suspension…disorientation, detachment…hallucinations, delusions and, in extreme instances, total withdrawal.”804

  Racism

  Li Hongzhi has also garnered attention because of his racist remarks. He claims that mixed-race people are part of a plot hatched by evil extraterrestrials. In 1998 Li told a gathering in Switzerland, “By mixing the races of humans, the aliens make humans cast off gods.” He claims that “mixed races” are supposedly excluded from the “truth” and “have lost their roots, as if nobody in the paradise will take care of them. They belong to nowhere, and no places would accept them… The higher levels do not recognize such a human race.”805 According to Li Hongzhi the offspring of mixed race unions are therefore “intellectually incomplete” or “with an incomplete body.” In such cases only he, Master Li, can “take care of it” by resolving that “incomplete” state. This can supposedly be done only if “such a person wants to practice cultivation” according to the precepts of Falun Gong.806

  Members responding to an article I once wrote about such racist teachings didn’t deny that Li Hongzhi made the statements quoted but instead insisted that they must be understood in context. A Falun Gong practitioner defending Li said, “My understanding is that when gods created man, we were created to god’s image, different races was created by gods of different races and when a child is born from a marriage of two people from different races it will be hard for the gods to trace the child’s origin and therefore hard to save.”807 The strain this must cause affected relationships is not considered, nor is the potential for emotional damage concerning the children of such couples.

  Homophobia

  Statements by Li Hongzhi also seem to encourage the hatred of homosexuals. Li said, “The disgusting homosexuality shows the dirty abnormal psychology of the gay who has lost his ability of reasoning at the present time,” Li Hongzhi wrote this in volume two of Zhuan Falun or “Turning the Law Wheel,” which was translated into English in 1996. In a talk in Switzerland, Li also stated that “the gods” would eliminate gay people. While visiting Frankfurt, Germany, Li was asked in 1998 whether gays might practice Falun Gong. He answered, “You can cultivate, but you must give up the bad conduct.”808

  During 2006 in the gay-friendly city of San Francisco, city supervisors voted on a resolution of support for Falun Gong; this caused controversy and angered many residents. “What a disappointing vote. I have compassion for the practitioners but I think the supervisors have been duped by the master’s party line,” Thomas Brown told the press. “I challenge any gay person in this city to get any Falun Gong practitioner to state they do not agree with their master’s belief. I have never heard them refute what he has said. There is deception here.” He added, “I think it is a vote that will come back to haunt some of the supervisors.”809

  Brown’s roommate, Samuel Luo, called the resolution “a huge disappointment” and warned that the group will use it “to recruit members. It makes it hard for people like me to get family members out of the cult.” Luo’s concern included his parents’ involvement with Falun Gong and how the group has affected their lives and family relationships. Thom Lynch, executive director of the LGBT Community Center, told the press, “I think it is great that the leadership in the Chinese community recognizes the homophobia of this group and I would support their efforts not to let them march [in a Chinese New Year parade].”810 In response to such statements, one Falun Gong practitioner wrote me, “Actually all orthodox (upright) religions view this matter in the same way, Christianity included, it is very hard to reach heaven when practicing homosexuality.”811

  Falun Gong Media

  In 2006 a woman named Wang Wenyi briefly drew attention through what seemed to be a purposely planned publicity stunt. Attending a White House event to honor Chinese president Hu Jintao with an official press pass, Wang unfurled a banner for Falun Gong and screamed at presidents Bush and Hu. Wang had gained entrance to the highly secured area with an official press pass issued through a newspaper called the Epoch Times.812

  Falun Gong appears to have followed in the lead of the Unification Church, which effectively controls the Washington Times. Followers of Li Hongzhi control the Epoch Times. John Nania, editor in chief of the Epoch Times US editions; its Boston editor, Martin Fox; and the newspaper’s opinion
editor, Stephen Gregory, were reported to be Falun Gong practitioners.813 A cable television network named New Tang Dynasty Television, which is a New York City nonprofit satellite broadcaster, is also operated by a staff that includes members of Falun Gong.814 These media interests seem to essentially function as public relations arms for Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong. As one news report about the Epoch Times noted, the publication “tends to be remarkably sympathetic to the controversial sect and generally provides a platform to preach Falun Gong’s beliefs.”815

  When Wang Wenyi interrupted the White House function, she shouted, “President Bush, stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong! Falun Dafa is good.”816 That wasn’t exactly a question from the press or behavior expected from a legitimate journalist. But it does reflect the public relations agenda of Falun Gong. Wang’s outburst was described as a “banshee shriek.”817 The Epoch Times tried to distance itself from any potential embarrassment due to her inappropriate conduct. An official spokesperson for the newspaper acknowledged, “Dr. Wang attended this event on Epoch Times press credentials” but then added the caveat, “However, her actions…were her own. In protesting in this manner, she didn’t act on behalf of the Epoch Times.”818 It seems that whenever Falun Gong practitioners engage in unflattering fanatical behavior, the movement attempts to deny any connective culpability and accepts no responsibility.