My name is Zhang Wenbo and I live in Tiexi District of Siping City in Jilin Province. I used to be interested in various qigong practices when they were popular in China in early 1990s.
It was the summer of 1994, my wife and I went to Handan City in Hebei Province to visit my mother. She did business there. One day, I went to shopping alone and saw someone distributing leaflets, saying that Master Li Hongzhi was going to the city to teach Falun Dafa, that he would convey Gong to the audience and heal the sick, and that this was a golden opportunity and local people shouldn't miss it. Li and I share the same hometown and I wanted to meet him long time ago for he was very famous at the time. So I went to Handan Workers' Cultural Club and spent 10 yuan in buying an entrance ticket. The lecture teaching the Fa hadn't started yet and I saw big posters about Li Hongzhi at the entrance and several groups of people selling study materials about Falun Gong, including Zhuan Falun sold at ten yuan each, CD at ten yuan each, and the pictures of Li Hongzhi sold at 50 yuan each.
People flowed into the Workers' Cultural Club, most of them were old people and some even lay on stretchers. There was a table at the center of the stage and the staff in exercising clothing was busy there. Then Li Hongzhi stepped onto the stage surrounded by his men. He was in apricot yellow exercising clothing with hair side parted, wore a pair of ordinary white shoes. He was about one meter and seventy, not too fat and not too slim. He was in good spirit.
Li Hongzhi sat down and said he came at the invitation of Hebei Province Handan Qigong Association and would stay here giving lectures for three days only. "I was born on May 13, 1951 and started to follow Buddhist Master Quanjue to practice in the same year. I soon achieved consummation and had various magic powers of moving things, letting things stay where they are, and making myself invisible. Then I follow Buddhist master to practice Dafa till I left the place. My power is hundreds of thousands of times higher than that of Sakyamuni. When you are in trouble, just call Master Li Hongzhi and my Law Body will be there with you immediately." The audience was impressed and thought the money well spent this time, for this was a real "Master" in front of them.
After the self introduction, Li Hongzhi started to convey gong. He asked the audience to stand up and to face toward him stretching both hands with palms up. Then he asked: "Do you feel the heat in the palm? I'll convey gong to all of you in next ten minutes. The sick people will get cured while the healthy ones will also benefit from it." I did what he said. But it was hot and the crowded meeting place was stuffy. Neither of my palms felt anything unusual.
Then Li Hongzhi taught us several exercises but I couldn't remember what they were since it was a long time ago. The next thing Li Hongzhi did was to "open the divine eye" and I remembered that quite clearly. Before teaching us how to do it, Li Hongzhi told us a story. "Once upon a time in Ming Dynasty," he said. "There was a practitioner with a snake demon in his body. Later on, the snake took possession of his body and appeared as a man. But his nature never changed. He then transformed into a big snake and made troubles. I couldn't bear it anymore and caught it by hands. Then I used great power of transformation and changed the lower half of his body into water. But his upper body ran away…Last year, he came out making trouble once again. He had done too many bad things and disturbed me when I taught Dafa. So I destroyed him completely." (After the lecture, I borrowed Zhuan Falun from my colleague and read the similar description of the "transformation power". And the introduction in the book was more vivid than I heard. It seemed that Li Hongzhi was so proud of his transformation power that he not only publicized it all around but wrote it down in his book.) After introducing to the audience his "great power", Li Hongzhi told us to close eyes and to point our index and middle fingers at the point between the eyebrows, saying he was going to "open our eyes" by sending forth his power with his will power. I did as he told but still felt nothing except for the hot weather.
Then he started to treat the sick people at the meeting place. The first one coming to the stage had arthritis and Li Hongzhi slapped him on the joints. After his palms were in the air, he would make the special gesture as if picking up a flower with thumb and middle finger. As he was doing this, Li Hongzhi said: "I was sending forth my power to his joints". It was hot that day and, after half an hour, Li Hongzhi started to sweat. Then the man said: "Alright, alright, it doesn't seem to hurt so much." At his words, I thought to myself, although I didn't feel a thing when Li Hongzhi sent forth his power to me, but it seemed that he had something with him for he could cure people. But when I saw what happened next, I knew I was wrong.
After the man suffering arthritis stepped down, another one came up. He was humpbacked and in his 40s or 50s. His back hunched so much that it looked like he had a big backpack on his back. He begged Li Hongzhi to straighten him up and Li Hongzhi said: "Let me see. If all of you don't mind, I'll treat him here. I just can't leave him like that." Taking a good look at him, Li Hongzhi started to do all the tricks on his back, slapping and rubbing all over. His hands moved so fast that it reminded me of the top martial masters treating people in kungfu movies. But nothing changed with the back of the man and Li started to push it with his knee. At each push, the hunchback shouted aloud in pain. With sweat dripping from his face, Li Hongzhi had to stop and asked the man to step down. Li Hongzhi then told the audience: "The hunchback has too much karma but I have removed most of it for him. He'll straighten up after a while." I heard the whispers around me saying doubting words such as "That's all a master can do" and "He's talking horse".
Then some people carried a man with a stretcher onto the stage. It seemed that the man was very sick and couldn't walk. I could see that the yellow exercise clothing on Li Hongzhi was wet with sweat. He had a look at the man on the stretcher and told him: "You're sick because you had too much karma resulted from your previous life. It will take me a long time to cure you and it's not right to waste the time of the audience. Why don't you go down first and I'll treat you after the lecture." So he was carried down, which resulted in more discussions among the audience and some left the meeting place.
Li Hongzhi continued his speech on the stage, saying something like "illness was caused by one's karma during the previous life; if you want to get well, you should have faith in practicing, stop taking medicine, stop seeing doctors, and someone will come to cure you". At realizing that the "magic power" of the "master" was nothing but empty words, I lost any interest in it and left before it ended.
Coming out of the Workers' Cultural Club, I found it was early and had time to do some shopping. After a while, the lecture concluded and I saw the audience coming out from the main entrance. Several people carried the sketcher I saw just now and drove away in a van. Then I saw the hunchback with the back still humped coming out; he hesitated for a while and then got on a bus and left.
(Kaiwind.com, September 1, 2009)
