In July 1998, Cheng Qiuluan was drawn into “Falun Gong” cult before she could think it straight. At that time, she was only 40 years old. In the following ten years, she had been struggling in the claws of “Falun Gong” cult.
Her initial intention of practicing “Falun Gong” was to cure illness and improve health. However, it turned out that not only did her cultivation fail to cure her diseases but also took a heavy toll on her, leaving her scarred for life.
The common approach used by the “Falun Gong” cult to draw victims in was to boast lies that it could cure all disease or remove ill fortune. In order to make its “theories” sound more “reasonable”, the cult played its “tricks” to extremes. The cult founder Li Hongzhi declared that “practicing Falun Gong was the panacea for all ills” and that “practitioners would never suffer from illness”. Li also came up with a ridiculous “Dharma Body theory”, claiming that he could protect his followers 24 hours a day. He even boasted that “his followers would still under his protection even if they were on the Moon”. Furthermore, he cooked up a fallacy stating that “one person in a family practicing Falun Gong would bring benefits to the whole family”. The purpose of such a fabricated lie was to put his followers deeply under his mind control, and that’s why countless followers were trapped in the cult.
Like many other victims of the “Falun Gong” cult, Cheng Qiuluan got roped in clutches of her “Master” step by step
Cheng Qiuluan graduated from a high school and was a teacher in Tianzidi Primary School in Lingling District, Yongzhou, Hunan Province. She has a family of four, where her husband was in transportation business with a tricycle and their son and daughter were both smart and thoughtful. Their happy family life was admired by their neighbors. However, Cheng Qiuluan was in poor health and suffered from many chronic diseases in the prime of life, and she had to spend nearly all her weekends on seeking medical advices or searching medicines. She had been so plagued by illness that she had a strong desire for getting rid of all her diseases. By taking advantage of her situation, the “Falun Gong” organization made her a prey of the cult.
That day, at her uncle’s home in Shuangpai County, Cheng Qiulan learned about “Falun Gong” from her uncle for the first time. Her uncle told her that there were many benefits from practicing “Falun Gong”. And what interested her the most was the part that practicing “Falun Gong” could cure all diseases without any injection or medicine.
As the saying goes, a drowning man will grasp at any straw. In the past, every single traditional popular prescription she found would get her hopes up. So, it was impossible for her not to give such a “magical Gong” a shot since all her needed to do was to cultivate at home. Therefore, Cheng Qiuluan started to practice “Falun Gong” that was supposed to be able to “cure all diseases”.
But the “magical effect” of “Falun Gong” was the deterioration of Cheng Qiuluan’s health, which was the result of her refusal to take any medicine ever since she started to practice “Falun Gong”. According to her husband Tang Zhengyuan, her condition was getting worse and worse as she kept practicing at home day by day for more than a month. Therefore, he and their daughter had no choice but to forcibly take her to a hospital.
During the medical examination, the doctor advised her to believe in science and seek medical treatment if getting ill because cultivation wouldn’t cure any disease at all. In the following over one month, Cheng Qiuluan was steadily getting better as a result of taking medicines regularly.
Looking back on how Cheng Qiuluan changed before and after she practiced “Falun Gong”, Tang Zhengyuan said with a sigh, “The only resort one should turn to when being ill is a hospital, while practicing ‘Falun Gong’ wouldn’t do you any good. It is an out-and-out lie to boast it can cure all diseases.”
However, at that time Cheng Qiuluan was influenced so deeply by “Falun Gong” fallacies that she couldn’t come around and see the truth like us. The extravagant hope she attached to the role of the so-called “practitioner” made her teem with strange ideas. She believed that the reason why she failed to make a great progress in her cultivation was that she didn’t practice it long enough. She was also firmly convinced that as long as she spent enough time on practicing it, not only could she get fully recovered but also all her family could be blessed.
Afterwards, Cheng Qiuluan stopped taking medicines and started to wholeheartedly practice “Falun Gong” again. She practiced at home, participated group cultivation outside, and sincerely shared her “experience” with fellow “practitioners”. She would take back home some “Falun Gong” propaganda materials every couple of days. The further “advancement” she made on her cultivation, the less affection she showed for her family and less enthusiasm she had for her work. At last, she stopped taking care of family members and her students, and became deeply obsessed with the illusionary “vista of Dafa”.
Wang Zhongyi, the principal of the Tianzidi Primary School, said that after practicing “Falun Gong”, Cheng Qiuluan was gradually reluctant to communicate with other people. Once she talked to others, what she would talk about was all about “Falun Gong” stuff, boasting how marvelous “Falun Gong” was and how much one could benefit from practicing it, and asked others to practice “Falun Gong” together with her. Viewing the dramatic changes happened to her, all her colleagues were quite concerned about her and repeatedly tried to dissuade her from believing in the cult, hoping that she could get back to her normal life.
Unfortunately, the advice of her colleagues was totally ignored. Fooled by the so-called “Fa’s principles”, Cheng Qiuluan was unable to break free from the mind control of the cult. Later, she eventually quitted the teaching profession which she once deeply loved.
Because Cheng Qiuluan was misguided by Falun Gong and got drawn in the wrong path deeper and deeper, she couldn’t come to her sense even facing the fact that the “Falun Gong” organization was banned by the states according to state laws. As Li Hongzhi with hidden agenda sped up his process of beguiling his followers, harms inflicted upon her was deepening with each passing day. In June 2005, when unfortunate events happened to her husband, an extremely absurd idea struck Cheng and made her further convinced that her “Master” Li Hongzhi had “great magic power”.
That Year, her husband, Tang Zhengyuan, had several traffic accidents when running his transportation business by tricycle. Fortunately, he wasn’t injured except that his tricycle was destroyed. The incidents made deceived Cheng Qiuluan become more obsessed with her “Master” and the “Dafa”. She believed that “her level had enhanced” and she was making progress in her “cultivation”, and that the “Law Bodies” of her “Master” was protecting her family from harms. Therefore, she had every confidence in her “Master’s” statement that one person in a family practicing Falun Gong would bring benefits to the whole family.
By far Cheng Qiuluan had become a string puppet of her “Master”. Instigated by the “Falun Gong” cult organization, she took another step forward on the wrong path. According to Cheng Qiuluan, one weekend in 2005, when she was “practicing” with her fellow “practitioners”, cult members in higher level of the organization brought them many propaganda materials and asked them to hand them out furtively, claiming that what they were asked to do was “saving people” and “guiding people to be better ones.” It was emphasized that some slogans should be put up during the distribution when necessary. Because Cheng Qiuluan had lost her wit to tell right from wrong under the influence of those “Dafa” fallacies, she unwittingly followed orders of the cult along with other practitioners.
The Party and the government didn’t give up on Cheng Qiuluan. They always reached out to her and tried to save her from the cult. Anti-cult volunteers visited her at her home many times to analyze the real danger of the “Falun Gong” cult organization with indubitable evidence and expose its evil nature of ripping off victims, putting people in harm’s way and disturbing the social order. Although Cheng Qiuluan always turned a deaf ear to those earnest advices, the anti-cult volunteers never stopped trying to save her.
In 2011, things took a favorable turn that Cheng Qiuluan finally opened her mind for a change. That afternoon, the anti-cult volunteers presented two tragic cases of victims whom she knew as her fellow practitioners.
Case 1: Lao Li in the neighboring Liuhegong Village suffered from breast cancer during the period when she practiced “Falun Gong”, hoping that her “Master” could eliminate the “Karma causing her illness” so that she kept rejecting any injection or medicine. At last, Lao Li died in despair as reported.
Case 2: The partner of Lao Zeng who lived down the street also got sick during the period when she practiced “Falun Gong”. Although her stomach got so swollen, she strongly opposed to the idea of seeing a doctor. As a result, her obsession with “Falun Gong” got her killed.
With those living proofs and thorough analysis, Cheng Qiuluan’s mind gradually opened up to truth again, and finally she came fully to her sense.
Cheng Qiuluan said, “With the help of the anti-cult volunteers, I began to reflect on my past and wondered what benefits I gained from practicing ‘Falun Gong’ for more than ten years. Now, all my hair had gone grey, and all my teeth fell out, and I also suffered from many other diseases.”
“Li Hongzhi said that one person in a family practicing Falun Gong would bring benefits to the whole family, but what good did it do to my family? My husband had several car accidents. My daughter was mentally ill. My physical conditions deteriorated. I even set home on fire many times and turned on the water to flood my house. Therefore, theories boasted by Li Hongzhi were nothing but fallacies and lies without a shred of truth.”
After coming to her sense, Cheng Qiuluan resumed her old profession as a teacher to start a new and happy life again. Since she lost too much for practicing “Falun Gong”, she was determined to dedicate her selfless love to the society. After retirement, she set up a voluntary publicity team consisting of elder women to coordinate with anti-cult volunteers, and carry out campaigns to warn general public against cults, hoping that more and more people could recognize the evil nature and real danger of cults, more and more Falun Gong followers like Cheng could break away from the cult soon.
