In recent years, many people have fallen victim to cults and suffer a lot. Cults are like a plague, which spread everywhere and are hard to control. After analyzing the cases exposed by the media, I would like to offer the following four tips for the prevention of cults:
I. Do not believe in miracle-working doctors
The founders of cults often tout themselves as being able to delay the destruction mankind or doomsday. Additionally, they deceive their followers by claiming to have magical medical skills. Among them, Li Hongzhi is said to have the strongest medical skills as touted in his advertisements. The websites of Falun Gong have become feature pages of medical advertisements. Falun Gong claims to cure all kinds of diseases, including cancer, the toughest problem yet to be overcome in the world. According to Falun Gong, one doesn’t need to take medicine or injections. As long as the follower prays, they will be cured. The followers suffering from diseases tend to be under high pressure, and what they yearn for the most are shortcuts to be cured. In this way, they will be easily cheated by miracle-working doctors like Li Hongzhi. In fact, it is easy to expose the lies of Falun Gong. First, Li Hongzhi himself always seeks medical treatment. According to kaiwind.com, between 1983 and 1990, Li Hongzhi went to 19 hospitals in Changchun, and reimbursed medical expenses at work 48 times. Between July 8th and 18th, 1984, he went through acute appendicitis surgery and was hospitalized at Jilin People’s Hospital. Second, the backbone members of Falun Gong have died one after another, including Feng Lili, Li Guodong and Li Jiguang. Falun Gong cannot cure diseases, instead, it causes them. For example, a case cited from the Xinhua News Agency stated that on Feb.12, 2007, Guo Chunyan, a Falun Gong follower and resident of Lingwu, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, suffered from hepatitis and refused to go to hospital. Later, she became obsessed with the cult and was sent to a mental hospital. In the end, she couldn’t stand the mental torture and committed suicide.
II. See through the compassion of cult followers
There are many ways that cults attract new followers. The method adopted by Mentuhui was to make use of family ties to develop its follower network. In this way, people fall into its trap without noticing. The followers of Mentuhui call each other brothers and sisters. They do small favors for people around them. For example, they would offer gifts to people on festivals or give people a hand in the busy harvest time. By catering to people’s needs, Mentuhui followers seduce unsuspecting people by disguising themselves as friends. Liu Guojin, a farmer living in Taoping Village, Yinbin City of Sichuan Province, had long suffered from hip joint disease. The nephew of her husband, Chen Junshi, was a Mentuhui practitioner. Chen Junshi was told by his nephew that by praying every day, the disease could be cured without taking medicine or receiving injections. Apparently, praying could also ward off misfortune and bring more blessings. The followers from the neighboring village even brought three fellow Mentuhui practitioners to help harvest the crops for Chen for free. Chen Junshi was touched and from then on, he insisted on praying every day. Despite opposition from his son and daughter-in-law, he went out evangelizing. He delayed his wife from receiving medical treatment and she became paralyzed.
Li Ronglu was a local of Quzhou, Zhejiang Province. His wife died three years ago. A fellow villager named Zhang Yuejiao often visited him and helped with the housework. He felt warmth from her and fell into her trap.
Liu Min, a local of Lianyungang, was worried about the tuition fees for her daughter. At that moment, her neighbor Sun Zhipeng lent her RMB 2000. The couple was deeply moved. Soon they were persuaded by Sun and joined the Church of Almighty God. (All cased from kaiwind.com).
III. Caution against sexual seduction
The Church of Almighty God resorts to every means to attract followers. In some cases, it even requires female followers to seduce single or widowed men. According to kaiwind.com, there were two devout followers in Yudong, Henan Province who were recruited in this way. The father enjoyed a high reputation and the son was single until his 30s. To attract them, Almighty God sent a beautiful woman to sleep with the son. A female follower of the Church of Almighty God name Xiao Hong, admitted that she served as bait to seduce men who refused to join the cult. She often targeted potential male followers. Another example is the case of Huang Ligang, a retired director who was seduced into joining the Church of Almighty God. Initially, Huang wanted to find a computer teacher. The Church of Almighty God assigned a beautiful teacher named Peng Li, who claimed to have graduated from Hunan Computer College and served as a volunteer. In the end, Peng seduced Huang into joining the Church of Almighty God with her short pants and slim figure. Huang was deceived into paying a lot to the Church of Almighty God.
According to The Book of Rites, “Sex is the natural instinct of man.” As Confucius said, “One never sees anyone who desire sex more than virtues.” Sex is a strong motivation for men and women. In this materialistic world, we have to cultivate ourselves and resist untoward sexual seduction.
IV. Don’t be scared by doomsday theories
Cults often try to destroy the reasoning of their followers and push them into a state of extreme insanity. In this way, they can use the loopholes left for them. They usually intimidate the followers with theories of doomsday or the impending destruction of Earth. Li Hongzhi has openly stated that the earth has exploded three times. The first one was activated by his grand master, the second one by his master and the third one by himself. As the time of explosion is decided by Li, everyone shall follow his orders. This is the purpose for Li Hongzhi spreading the rumor of the Earth’s destruction.
The Church of Almighty God also propogated the rumor of Doomsday in 2012 and claimed that only its believers could survive. Its theory has been betrayed by the fact that 2012 has passed and the non-believers are all safe and sound. Many cult followers fell victim to their intimidation. According to Kaiwind.com, XieYun, a local of Yuelu District, Changsha City, became obsessed with Almighty God and hoped to “flying to the Heavenly Kingdom in the daytime.” He was isolated from his family and friends. He always dreamed of flying to Heaven and claimed that doomsday was coming. In early autumn, 2003, he committed suicide by drinking pesticide and died at 2:00 the next day.
Almost every cult spreads rumors of doomsday, so we have to be cautious of the sources of such rumors and believe in science. The purpose of the cults is to disrupt social order, create panic and accumulate wealth by unfair means.
