By: Zixian Deng, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science
Shi-min Fang, Ph.D. in Biochemistry
Revised May 31, 2000
An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Annual Conference of The American Family Foundation (April 28-29, 2000) in Seattle, WA
Equal authors listed in alphabetical order
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I do not talk about healing illness here, nor will we heal illness. As a genuine practitioner, however, you cannot practice cultivation with an ill body. I will purify your body. The body purification will be done only for those who come to truly learn the practice and the Fa.
Li Hongzhi, (Zhuan Falun, 3)
Those who practice at exercise sites will have my fashen to cure their illnesses. Those who study Dafa by reading the book on their own will also have my fashen to cure their illnesses...you have the protection of my fashen, and you will not be in any danger.
Ibid.,, 128-135
When I spoke about the issue of futi, I already removed futi - no matter what they were - from the bodies of genuine Dafa practitioners, and I have removed all those things inside and outside their bodies. When those who truly practice cultivation on their own read this Dafa, I will clean out their bodies as well.
Here we shall provide you with Falun, qiji, and all the mechanisms for cultivation practice and so on - more than ten thousand of them. They will all be given to you like seeds being planted in your body...After removing your illnesses, I will do everything that needs to be done and give you everything that should be given. Then, you will be able to truly continue your cultivation practice in our school until the end. Otherwise, without giving you anything, it is only for healing and fitness.
Ibid.,, 130-131
There are two theoretical barriers to a "miracle." First, the Master should not make it, for it only postponed Karmic retribution; Secondly, the disciple should not seek it, for it is an attachment. Nevertheless, miracles are reported daily in the Falun Gong distribution site Minghui. To categorize, the Falun Gong miracles included five types: health maintenance, spontaneous healing, accident survivals, levitation, celestial eyes, and clairvoyance. The first two are verifiable by our commonsense, they could be described and tested. The next two miracles are set in the context of the master's intervention for protection and perhaps in deep trance. The last two are beyond our common sense. Here, we briefly discuss the first two miracles. According to Li's reports, they included curing cancers, heart diseases, drug addictions, allergies, deformities, etc. Since these cases could not be independently verified, we tentatively accept the facts at face value. But we question the causality: What have caused these miracles?
What qualifies as a "miracle" should not be explained. However, to capture a highly sophisticated audience Li and his disciples never stopped explaining (or inventing) their miracles. It's interesting to observe that, although Li explicitly prohibited any terminally ill and mentally ill people from practicing Falun Gong, he and his disciples always claimed that Falun Gong had cured thousands of terminally ill patients who became a believer after failed medical treatments. However, it is general agreed in medical science that testimonials and self-validating statements in lieu of controlled scientific tests had no scientific value. It is well known that a significant portion (about one-third and sometimes higher) of patients could have spontaneous remission or response to placebo treatment (John E. Dodes 1997). Recently, Dr. Lili Feng, one of Li's leading disciples and an assistant professor of immunology in the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, announced, without presenting substantiating data and disclosing the source of funding (it is likely that taxpayer's or other private institution's money was used for this research, also note that the English version of this reported makes the institutions as the authors of this research, see our selected bibliography for citation), that her laboratory has discovered Falun Gong disciples have significant lower counts of neutrophil white blood cells than "ordinary people," and suggested that was the reason that "Falun Gong disciples never get ill." This result was obtained from a very small sample size (17 Falun Gong disciples in the Southern California areas with similar education and demographic backgrounds) and apparently did not run any proper control, therefore it was dubious in methods and invalid in its conclusion, despite being trumpeted as a breakthrough of science according to Falun Gong principle. Even if this result were valid, we could only surmise that Falun Gong disciples had neutropenia, a disease that has abnormally low counts of neutrophils that causes no symptoms yet. Such patients are still sensitive to bacterial infections. The overall miraculous health claim is not founded on a systematic tracking survey in a double-blind method. The use of inductive verification based on biased sample selection is also troublesome. It is more so when the author bended scientific principles for theological purpose in this report. Such methods are not new in Falun Gong.
When the "scientific" observations are twisted to fit the theological needs, other health "miracles" supplied by the disciples are even less rigorous in appearance. They did not require much physical evidence but self-reported feelings of health. Since thoughts are material in Falun Gong, they are consequently materialistic gains in health. According to the last systematic report conducted in 1998 (in preparation of rapid expansion through advertising) by a Falun Gong disciple in the Nanfang Hospital (a teaching hospital of the First Military University of Medical Sciences, one of the best medical institutions in China) of Guangzhou, though widely disputed in the medical circle, Falun Gong disciples reported the experience of spontaneous healing and are ability to cure diseases without medication. The survey was based on about 10,000 cases collected at the "practicing stations." Though studies of such, if accurately carried out, would help either to falsify or to bolster Li's claims to health effects, they are taken half-heartedly by other members of the group. The researches are peripheries at best, and dangerous at times. Thdanger is the implicit negation of the Master in the "cleansing" process, a variable that the researching disciples could not control.
Practically, performing miracles is a tall task for Li himself. He promised but does not produce. In a videotaped conference in Changchun in his earlier days (perhaps around 1995), Li refused his disciples request to demonstrate the "four great gongs" (supernormalities) that he alone possessed, cursing his disciples for making a monkey out of the master. Nevertheless, disciples are attracted to the health claims, believing it at least as good as qigong.
To state that Falun Gong has the side effect of health benefits is unchallenged in the western mass media. They have accepted the meditation and yoga practices as an exercise method and equate Falun Gong as a type of qigong. The interest reflects the searches for alternative/ancient treatments under prevailing health concerns worldwide. Falun Gong in this case takes the advantage of the positive images of qigong in the west.
Recently, Li's spokesman Zhang reintroduced Falun Gong as a branch of Qigong in his interview with BBS, despite Li repeatedly denied the exact points in his writings. However, Such branding increases its acceptance in the United States as it did in China in 1992. As reported, some meditation practices may enhance one's health or the feeling of health, thus may actually improve the overall physical conditions in the mind-body relations.
If Falun Gong were a type of Qigong, it undoubtedly would be expected to share some common characteristics with other types of exercises, such as breathing control mechanism that may have health improvement effects. However, Falun Gong lacks this process. Since medical research in this area is thin and the controlling variables are frequently unobserved, Falun Gong at best could not demonstrate superior health benefits than any other approaches. Moreover, as Li always insists, Falun Gong should be called Falun Dafa, which is not Qigong per se. Therefore, we are not allowed by virtue of such fundamental difference to infer health effects of Falun Gong by analogies of other Qigong. Moreover, the belief in the health benefits by way of Li's teaching actually may lead to the believers' premature demise.
This adverse causality is theoretically possible and should not be ruled out because the number of repetitions to the contrary. Li always views that the causation of disease is the effect of past karma, which could not be removed (ZFL E, 71). Suffering from the retribution is the only solution to release this "black material," paying back the karmic debts. Seeking medical attention is only a delay tactic that would backfire with increase harmful potency.
In addition, Li's formal rule forbids the disciples engaging in curing any diseases with his Dafa (DYMF E, 33). The doctrine of retribution even prompts a physician disciple to ask whether he is violating the Dafa in prescribing medicines to patients. We have sufficient theoretical doubt of Falun Gong's health claims even if the cases are true. A miracle could not be produced without the intention of creating it or receiving it. Both are explicitly denied in Falun Gong (see ZFL E, 46, 133, 155, 210).
Li and his disciples tempted the prospective disciples and new initiates with "miracles." This is evident in Li's scripture. But Li denied ever doing so. Instead, he is so impatient with patients in his earlier years of practice that it is reported he hit on a patient who sought a miracle to straighten his backbones (he claimed it a success).
To conclude, there are theoretical and empirical barriers to miracles by Falun Gong. They are not "allowed" without the violation of the supreme karmic rule. They are unable to deliver without the disciples' desiring them, invalidating Dafa. The widely accepted health claims should be reexamined with care by the medical circle, and cautions should be given to those believing, as Erping Zhang, Lili Feng, and Gail Rachlin claimed to believe, that Falun Gong disciples would never contract diseases.
Notes:
53. Another type of miracles is survival in accidents. Li reports this category in his core scripture (see ZFL BJE, 64, 77)
54. This is the reason Minghui issue a warning to the disciples: Don't seek truth from this site. It is for the new initiates or non-believers, when they publish this kind of reports. The writers of such reports also took the hint. At every paper, there is a disclaimer: it is only personal experience and does not represent Dafa. One has to wonder, how many stories together will represent Dafa?
55. See < http://www.minghui.ca/gb/0001/Apr/02/shizhongxing_cell_040200.html> for details.
56. There is now no mention of Li's personal gongs in the new edition of Zhuan Falun and China Falun Gong. It first appeared in the "introduction" of the first edition of Falun Gong, in Chinese.
57. Li's passage was a misunderstanding of Buddhism when he said that the Buddha would cure all diseases at once for all human but chose not to do so.
(New Threads, Revised May 31, 2000)
