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Why has the Chinese government mobilized vast resources to crush Falun Gong? The answer has less to do with the strangeness of its doctrines than with the effectiveness of its organization.

"Religious Frames: Falun Gong in China" published on by Oxford University Press.

In July 1999, a mere seven years after the founding of the spiritual movement known as Falun Gong, the Chinese government banned it. Falun Gong is still active in other countries, and its suppression has become a primary concern of human rights activists and is regularly discussed in dealings between the Chinese government and its Western counterparts. But while much has been written on Falun Gong's relation to political issues, no one has analyzed in depth what its practitioners actually believe and do. The Religion of Falun Gong remedies that omission, providing the first serious examination of Falun Gong teachings and how those teachings relate to earlier Chinese religious ideas and contemporary society.

In July 1999, a mere seven years after the founding of the spiritual movement known as Falun Gong, the Chinese government banned it. Falun Gong is still active in other countries, and its suppression has become a primary concern of human rights activists and is regularly discussed in dealings between the Chinese government and its Western counterparts. But while much has been written on Falun Gong's relation to political issues, no one has analyzed in depth what its practitioners actually believe and do. The Religion of Falun Gong remedies that omission, providing the first serious examination of Falun Gong teachings and how those teachings relate to earlier Chinese religious ideas and contemporary society.

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- One: A Religious Sect Defies the State -- Two: Chinese Religions and Millenarian Movements -- Three: Falun Gong: Beliefs and Practices -- Four: The State vs. Falun Gong -- Five: The Persecution of Other Faiths -- Notes -- Index.

Falun Gong, founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992, attracted international attention in 1999 after staging a demonstration outside government offices in Beijing. It was subsequently banned. Followers then created a number of media outlets outside China focused on protesting the PRC's attack on the 'human rights' of practitioners. This volume focuses on Falun Gong and violence. Though the author notes accusations of how Chinese authorities have abused and tortured practitioners, the volume will focus on Li Hongzhi's teachings about 'spiritual warfare', and how these teachings have motivated practitioners to deliberately seek brutalization and martyrdom

The world first took notice of a religious group called Falun Gong on April 25, 1999, when more than 10,000 of its followers protested before the Chinese Communist headquarters in Beijing. Falun Gong investigates events in the wake of the demonstration: Beijing's condemnation of the group as a Western, anti-Chinese force and doomsday cult, the sect's continued defiance, and the nationwide campaign that resulted in the incarceration and torture of many Falun Gong faithful. Maria Hsia Chang discusses the Falun Gong's beliefs, including their ideas on cosmology, humanity's origin, karma, reincarnation, UFOs, and the coming apocalypse. She balances an account of the Chinese government's case against the sect with an evaluation of the credibility of those accusations. Describing China's long history of secret societies that initiated powerful uprisings and sometimes overthrew dynasties, she explains the Chinese government's brutal treatment of the sect. And she concludes with a chronicle of the ongoing persecution of religious groups in China, of which Falun Gong is only one of many, and the social conditions that breed the popular discontent and alienation that spawn religious millenarianism.