Li Hongzhi

There are competing accounts of Li's life that surfaced before and after the suppression of Falun Gong began in July 1999, and there is very little authoritative information on his early life. Accounts between Li's supporters and detractors diverge significantly, and as a result, can be understood within the context of the political and spiritual purposes for which different narratives were developed. Hagiography An unofficial biography appeared in the first of Li's major publications, Zhongguo Falun Gong, and was written by journalist Zhu Huiguang. A second, official spiritual biography appeared in early editions of Falun Gong's primary text, Zhuan Falun, and was written by the Falun Dafa Research Society. By age eight, he had acquired "the superb great law with supernatural powers," The Kaiwind report documented how Li approached a friend in government service who helped him change his government identification papers in late September 1994, and that the necessary government clerk's signature was forged by a police woman named Sun Lixian, who changed his birthdate and his government identification number, after which he was issued a new identification card in October. but he said his date of birth had been misprinted as one of the pervasive bureaucratic errors of the Cultural Revolution, and he was merely correcting it. However, Li has claimed a variety of superhuman powers, such as the power to become invisible. ==Falun Gong==

Li Hongzhi followed Li Weidong's "Chanmi Gong" in 1988. Then, he took a class of "Jiugong Bagua Gong" offered by Yu Guangshen. Falun Gong was produced on the basis of these two practices. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Dafa, or the Great Law of the Wheel of Dharma, on 13 May 1992 (Li's 41st birthday as claimed) at the fifth Middle School in Changchun, Jilin. From 1992 to 1994 he traveled throughout China, giving lectures and teaching Falun Gong exercises; his following grew rapidly. Li's success was largely linked to the huge popularity enjoyed by qigong in the late 1980s and early 1990s under Deng Xiaoping's social liberalization. He differentiated Falun Gong by prioritising "accessibility to the public" and moral content, away from esoteric notions often found in other Qigong systems. Falun Gong's teachings are compiled from Li's lectures, and he holds definitional power in the Falun Gong belief system. Li claims that he holds supernatural powers like clairvoyance, an ability to prevent illness, as well as having eternal youth. He created a program that promises practitioners that they will have perfect health and supernatural powers quickly and easily. He was also critical of alternative systems within the Qigong movement, stating it was "rife with false teachings and greedy and fraudulent 'masters'" and set out to rectify it. Li said that Falun Gong was a part of a "centuries-old tradition of cultivation", and in his texts would often attack those who taught "incorrect, deviant, or heterodox ways". Li differentiated Falun Gong from other movements in Qigong by emphasizing moral values aimed to "purify one's heart and attain spiritual salvation" rather than what he saw as undue emphasis on physical health and the development of supernatural powers. Li's success also had a large part to do with people seeking alternative medicine treatments at a time when China's health care system was struggling desperately to meet demand. According to New Zealand scholar Heather Kavan, these principles have been repeated by Falun Gong members to outsiders as a tactic for evading deeper inquiry. Li has instructed his followers to lie to outsiders about Falun Gong. According to Falun Gong groups, Li's early success was recognized at the 1992 and 1993 Beijing Oriental Health Expos. At the first of these events, the fair's organizer remarked that Falun Gong and Li "received the most praise [of any qigong school] at the fair, and achieved very good therapeutic results". The event helped cement Li's popularity in the qigong world, and journalistic reports of Falun Gong's healing powers spread. The following year, Li was made a member of the organizing committee of the Beijing Health Expo, and won several awards and commendations at the event. During the early 1990s, Li developed a positive rapport with the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). In 1993, he provided treatment for 100 police officers who had been injured on the job, earning praise from an organization under the MPS. Li gave lectures at the Public Security University in Beijing in 1994, and contributed proceeds from the seminars to a foundation for injured police officers. The publishing ceremony for Li's book, Zhuan Falun, was held in the auditorium of the Ministry of Public Security in January 1995. ==Life abroad==

In 1995, Li declared that he had finished teaching Falun Gong in China, and began spreading the practice abroad. His first stop in March 1995 was to the Chinese embassy in Paris, where he had been invited to teach the practice. This was followed by seminars in Sweden. and in September 1996, China Qigong Research Society published a report which criticised Li for deifying himself, propagating superstition, spreading political falsehoods, and therefore deviating from the society's mission and the proper aims of qigong. Li Hongzhi moved to the United States in 1996 with his wife and daughter, and in 1998 became a U.S. permanent resident, settling in New York. In 1998, Li Hongzhi stated that he believes alien invaders walk the Earth and that modern science and race-mixing are part of their ploy to overtake humanity, and he has reportedly said that he can walk through walls and make himself invisible. Li says that he is a being from a higher level who has come to help humankind from the destruction it could face as the result of rampant evil. In May 1999, Li was welcomed to Toronto with greetings from the Mayor of Toronto and the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and in the two months that followed also received recognition from the cities of Chicago and San Jose. At that time, Li Hongzhi was living in the United States. The Chinese government's request to Interpol for his arrest was rejected on the grounds that the request was a matter "of a political or religious character" and lacked information on any "ordinary law crime he would have committed." On 14 March 2001, the Freedom House bestowed Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong with an International Religious Freedom Award for the advancement of religious and spiritual freedom at a ceremony in the United States Senate. He was nominated for the 2001 Sakharov Prize by over 25 members of European Parliament, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 and 2001, ==Shen Yun, The Epoch Times, and political involvement==

Performance arts group Shen Yun, the media organization The Epoch Times, and a variety of other organizations such as New Tang Dynasty Television operate as extensions of Falun Gong. These extensions promote Falun Gong and Hongzhi's teachings, and, in the case of The Epoch Times, promote conspiracy theories and far-right politics in the United States, Canada and Europe. According to a March 2020 report by Samuel Braslow published in Los Angeles Magazine: (Los Angeles Magazine retracted Braslow's article in September 2020 after Falun Gong filed a defamation lawsuit in May.) The exact financial and structural connections between Falun Gong, Shen Yun, and The Epoch Times remains unclear. According to NBC News: :The Epoch Media Group, along with Shen Yun, a dance troupe known for its ubiquitous advertising and unsettling performances, make up the outreach effort of Falun Gong, a relatively new spiritual practice that combines ancient Chinese meditative exercises, mysticism and often ultraconservative cultural worldviews. Falun Gong's founder has referred to Epoch Media Group as "our media", and the group's practice heavily informs The Epoch Times' coverage, according to former employees who spoke with NBC News. :The Epoch Times, digital production company NTD and the heavily advertised dance troupe Shen Yun make up the nonprofit network that Li calls "our media". Financial documents paint a complicated picture of more than a dozen technically separate organizations that appear to share missions, money and executives. Though the source of their revenue is unclear, the most recent financial records from each organization paint a picture of an overall business thriving in the Trump era. Falun Gong's cosmology includes the belief that different ethnicities each have a correspondence to their own heavens, and that individuals of mixed race lose some aspect of this connection. Falun Gong's teachings include belief in reincarnation and that one's soul (original spirit) always maintains a single racial identity despite having a body of mixed race. ==See also==