After the Falungong was banned in July of 1999, Li Hongzhi removed himself from public view and made no statements until May of 2000. Since then, Li has made sixteen statements on the Minghui website. Two of these statements from last December, and the most recent one, contain Li's apocalyptic, salvationist theme.
In his most recent statement posted 3/19/01 called "Persons in Charge of the European Fa Conference and All Attendees" he states:
"... if people's minds contain thoughts that resist Dafa, once this evil drama is over a large-scale elimination of humankind will commence ..."
In his statement of 12/2/00 titled "Eliminate Evil" Li states:
"When this test concludes, all bad people will be destroyed by gods. Those Dafa disciples who are able to come through the test will leave through Consummation. Those people who'll be left behind will have to eradicate sins by paying, with horrible suffering ..."
In his "Lecture at the Great Lakes Conference in North American" posted 12/23/00 Li states:
"Let me tell you, when this Fa-rectification matter is over, humankind will enter the next stage, and those people and beings who have in their minds `the Dafa of the cosmos isn't good' will be the first eliminated".
One person I know, a scholar of new religious movements, referred to this most recent statement of Li's as a "good sales tactic" and I suppose it is.
It is certainly an old one that has not only been used for hundred of years by many millennial groups to attract new follwers but to increase the intensity of participation for those who are already active followers.
I'm currently looking at the very long history of millennial groups in China and seeing how this group fits in, and it is astonishing how long this current pattern we're witnessing of sectarian sect threat and ruling power response, has been going on for. The similarity of tactics and beliefs on both sides of the equation are also rather remarkable.
Perhaps the newness of this situation is that the group in question has moved it's center to another country, opened an internet website with instant communication back into China and around the world, and has adopted the western stance of human rights to combat its oppression and to help formulate its identity.
Best regards.
Patsy Rahn
Original text from: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-asia&month=0103&week=d&msg=%2brI02qZnlHsu2V4x/c8DGw&user=&pw=
