Chatting with Falun Gong members
Daniel Ryan - 13th April 2026
Two newsletters back, I posted about Falun Gong visiting my local market and targeting children. I also posted a warning about the market on Reddit, in an NZ subreddit. The post got a lot of views, and then about two days later Falun Gong members found it and started posting all over it. Looking at the history of the accounts that were posting, most had been posted about their religion, and a number seemed to visit random subreddits to defend the group. Many of the same names popped up in similar discussions all over reddit.
The first posts from Falun Gong on my Reddit thread were weird; they all wrote in perfect, long paragraphs, like someone had checked them over. They didn’t really address the harm I brought up; they only said the religion was a good fit for them. All but one member was not from NZ, yet they were commenting in a NZ group they had never commented in before. I questioned whether it was coordinated damage control, but the ones who answered me just said they came across the post. The one from NZ had their account banned a few days later - I have no idea why.
I had some long discussions with a few members, which was a learning experience, and I was grateful that they commented on many things and didn’t delete their comments. So I can share some of my findings.
One of the things I pointed out was the harm Shen Yun was causing worldwide. Shen Yun is a nonprofit performing arts and entertainment company that operates as an extension of Falun Gong. They are based at Dragon Springs, a secluded 400-acre campus that is also the headquarters of Falun Gong, and their religious leader, Li Hongzhi, lives nearby. In 2024, Shen Yun had accumulated $290 million in assets. It seems like they are stockpiling assets and real estate. What good is this nonprofit doing from this stockpiling? No one could answer in my discussion, or they thought it was a non-issue.
There is plenty of press around the harms of Shen Yun, here is just some of it I’ve collated:
A Radio France Internationale (RFI) investigation found psychological coercion, untreated injuries, and forced labour involving minors. The NZ Herald talked to a former performer who likened the organisation’s business model to “human trafficking” with dancers’ passports taken and little pay for punishing hours. The New York Times has conducted a major investigation and published many articles. They found Shen Yun discouraged medical care, and commanded obedience to gruelling rehearsal and tour schedules through relentless emotional abuse and manipulation. Former dancers recounted performing through dislocated kneecaps, sprained ankles, or other serious injuries. A student musician, Eugene Liu, played in 200 shows but never earned more than $300 per month. The United States Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are conducting an investigation and have focused, at least in part, on possible visa fraud. There is also a class action lawsuit by a former Shen Yun dancer, who said Shen Yun generated hundreds of millions of dollars via forced child labour of vulnerable minors and depicts a system of coercion and controlled lifestyles. The New York State Department of Labor announced it was actively investigating Shen Yun for alleged violations of state child labour and wage laws, including claims that underage performers endured gruelling, unpaid or underpaid schedules.
The members who didn’t ignore me seemed to have very little compassion, responsibility, or even acceptance of any harm that I or others mentioned their religion had caused. It was like pulling teeth to get them to admit that anything had gone wrong, but they would never blame the religion. It was always the fault of something else, or just a “small problem”. I was continually blamed for showing the religion in a negative light, and never sharing any positives. They mentioned the CCP (more times than I could count) if they didn’t like certain negative comments, or if the papers were straight-up misinformation (and they would use their “The Epoch Times” news site - a mouthpiece for Falun Gong). I was accused of being paid for my posting by one member (although that person eventually deleted their own comment), another suggested I may have been paid, and one constantly repeated that I wasn’t discussing in “good faith.”
One of the things they did admit was that they don’t “actively endorse” homosexuality, and it’s “not conducive to self-improvement, and is considered a deviation from the ways taught to humans by the Divine.” They all seemed to point out that other traditional religions highlight the negative aspects of homosexuality as well, as a way of making their beliefs more acceptable. When I suggested that those views were not going to fly in NZ, and that they should support Pride Month, they saw it as “mockery”.
When asked for more details, one member gave an analogy about fat people exercising and then decided that wasn’t what he meant and then gave this one instead:
“If one is a carnivore, one will likely still be welcomed into a vegetarian cooking class, but don’t expect to be eating meat or remaining carnivore if one wants to progress and succeed in said class. If one is wanting to be ripped and wants to succeed in an exercise program but refuses to give up habits that precludes one from reaching that goal then one cannot reach that goal.”
I started reading their religious texts (Zhuan Falun) and found out why they don’t think highly of LGBTQ+ people. This is something I felt they downplayed with the discussions with me and others:
“Mankind, in this mental state devoid of virtuous thoughts, seeks after drastically different things than before…”
“Repulsive homosexual behavior meanwhile bespeaks of a filthy, deviant state of mind that lacks rationality.”
”…Many great awakened ones and prophets previously predicted that mankind would at this time have a massive disaster to worry about. Today’s mankind is even worse than what the prophets predicted, and good people are ever fewer.”
Their leader has also said:
“Let me tell you, if I weren’t teaching this Fa [Dharma] today, [the] gods’ first target of annihilation would be homosexuals. It’s not me who would destroy them, but gods… [G]ods can’t tolerate their existence and will destroy them.”
- Li Hongzhi, “Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Switzerland” (1998)
In the end, they stopped answering any of my questions. One of them blocked me, and I wondered if it was because he couldn’t control the narrative as I kept debunking his misinformation publicly, and he kept saying to private message him instead.
The chats with them did make me question if they fell under the “cult” label, or if they were just a more benign high-control group. Since there is misinformation on both sides, and most of the religion is underground, it’s hard to work out what is true. When I did some research on cults a while ago (when I joined the Eastern Lightning cult), I summarised definitions of cults from various sources. I just don’t know enough about Falun Gong to determine whether some of their problems are widespread.
I have read sources that say they don’t define Falun Gong as a cult, but some of those quotes are outdated (and plenty of cults started with good intentions), and then other experts say that they are a cult. We have people like Jaya Gibson, an ex-member for 14 years, calling them a cult in the media today, with the backing of the charity Decult. Wikipedia doesn’t call them a cult, but I do worry about this statement on the site: “According to scholar James R. Lewis writing in 2018, Falun Gong adherents have attempted to control English Wikipedia articles”. I have noticed a few negative article references are missing on the Falun Gong page.
For my next mission, I have decided to talk to ex-members and create a global picture to see what the religion is like, and whether we are dealing with isolated incidents of harm or a widespread issue. I was fortunate to have an active member reach out to me directly and share their full personal experience, which sadly involves plenty of trauma. They wished to remain anonymous as they were worried about their safety. But that’s a story for another time.