In Part 2 of Angela's story, the realities of Falun Gong’s grip on her family deepen. Angela reflects on the emotional toll of a cult that prioritized spiritual salvation over physical health—even as her mother’s condition worsens. But escaping isn’t easy when your family remains deep in the cult’s ideologies… Angela’s journey out of this cult is filled with heartbreaking revelations and the resilience that defines a true “Survivor”.
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TYLER: We met Angela. She's an outspoken TikToker, and she talked about her childhood growing up in a wide-reaching cult known as Falun Gong.
LIZ: Falun Gong began in China, guys, in the 1990s by a man referred to as Master Li, who claims to have superpowers and in spirit likes to watch young kids all day long like a spiritual pedophile Santa Claus.
TYLER: Ho, ho, ho! The movement/cult/dance company/levitation consultation is now banned in China, but it continues to have a significant presence throughout the rest of the world, including Europe, Canada, Taiwan, parts of Southeast Asia, and New York, where the Shen Yun dances are headquartered.
LIZ: The group remains vocal today in its opposition to China and is the entity that is behind the Epoch Times.
TYLER: Yes, an avid reader, am I? Angela got pulled into this group by her mother, who at the time was dealing with some serious chronic pain and was introduced to Falun Gong by someone close to her.
LIZ: So, the group persuaded her that Falun Gong's methods, “healed” her. And well, the rest is history.
TYLER: We left off when Angela was 16 years old and was being trained heavily to live the dream of becoming a Shen Yun dancer one day.
LIZ: Which, news flash, no one asked her, and was something she had zero interest in ever becoming.
TYLER: So, with all of that, and now you know a bit about Falun Gong. This is the Falun Gong Show. Do you guys remember the Gong Show? You are too young for the Gong Show.
LIZ: No, the Gong Show came back with Mike Myers, remember?
TYLER: I don't remember that.
LIZ: I was at the pilot taping. I think it lasted about three episodes.
TYLER: The Gong Show was a terrible and wonderful show at the same time. But that's enough of that rubbish. Let's get to our Falun Gong Show, the second part of Angela's story. Here she is talking about her involvement in Falun Gong as a whole.
ANGELA: I was in and out of it a lot, because I would go to school, and I would see all my friends, and they were all Christians and Catholics. And I thought, “wow, that's kind of dumb.” And then I would look at myself and be like, “oh, it's kind of the same thing, except I believe in aliens and not eating raw meat, because there are spirits in there.” So I would have a lot of doubt, but I couldn't express that. So I just kept the fact that I was in this cult a secret from my friends who are in school. I was aware that people called it a cult, and I was hesitant, of course, to call it a cult myself. We would be at a booth trying to, like, sell tickets or get people to sign petitions against China or whatever, and the Chinese person would come by and be like, “you stupid cult people!” A big breaking point that came for me was this girl moved into our community, and she was like 16 at the time, I was also 16, and she came in, and her guardian was very vocal about “none of the girls can go close to her because she's lesbian, and we're trying to get her to be straight, so please try not to tempt her.”
LIZ: Yes, because being within 50 feet of a lesbian automatically means you'll turn into one.
TYLER: That is called the Lesbian Osmosis Theory, which I'm about to make up, and it is when you stand too close to lesbians, you have a propensity for driving a Subaru and adopting too many cats.
LIZ: Now, I can actually make that joke because my sister is a lesbian with far too many cats. I guess she's bi though, but the scale tips much more 80-20 towards the Lesbiano side. That's just based upon what she said to a date the other day. She went on a date with a guy and she's like, “you know what, I think I'm 90 percent gay. I'm going to go home.”
TYLER: That would be a definite check, please sentence if a woman said that to me.
LIZ: He still wanted to hang out.
TYLER: Maybe he likes cats.
ANGELA: I had the experience at school of being ostracized by a group of people before, and I empathize with that. So I was like, “why not just be friends with her?” So I did, and all the other girls, they weren't rude about it, but they also were very actively ignoring us while we were hanging out. After a while, I guess a rumor got out that we were dating or something. So someone in the community came up to me and they were like, “you need to stop talking to her.“ Like, ”if you talk to her and we see that, we will beat you and then we will hit her too. We're serious.“
LIZ: Falun Gong, the movement that is committed to “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance“, and threatening violence to innocent young women.
ANGELA: And that scared me. So, I did stop talking to her. But the whole time, I was like, “why? You're preaching Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, and you're threatening people with violence?“ I had a big revelation there. Maybe we're not as kind as we say we are. The core values, Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, are fake. Then what else is fake?
TYLER: Cults. That's what's fake, because they're the biggest hypocrites in the world. Cults.
LIZ: But if you recall from Part One, Angela was being trained, whether she liked it or not.
