Modern Qigong Boom and Falun Gong

New religious movement

When I review the FLG movement and find that the qigong boom and FLG were inseparable, the explosion of qigong is one of the most significant cultural phenomena in the modern history in China.

In the 1940s, modern qigong, on the one hand, was created as a part of a movement to modernize, institutionalise and popularise traditional medical and health technologies that created a boom. On the other hand, the marketization of qigong was considerable towards increased commodification and commercialisation, the entrepreneurial business practices of the qigong masters triggered controversies over ‘fakes’ as well as its traditions stripped of the dross of feudalism and superstition. Indeed, the growing diversity of Chinese society, various religious and mystical sects in qigong boom posed new challenges to the CCP’s authority and such issues highly drew the concerns from the Chinese government.

In addition, qigong has been considered as a response to the ideological vacuum of the 1980s, and it was intensely connected with the political, social and cultural realities of the surrounding society.

Thus, understanding the emergence of FLG definitely requires to begin with the qigong boom, which began with the invention of modern qigong for improving health in the 1940s, its proliferation was catalysed by a wave of popular religious traditions and an unfulfilled moral and spiritual vacuum.

The primary goal of FLG practice is to achieve spiritual enlightenment and entering the Falun world, while this world became the stage of an apocalyptic moral battle between demonic forces and the great Fa. Where qigong allowed the fusion of practice and fantasies of health, prosperity and spirituality and involved open...

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...e problems to the intrinsic feature of a new religion without reference to that particular context where a NRM is born and nurtured.

My intention is to bring the public into wider scope to understand a NRM and the problematic view to examine the FLG movement in one positive or negative side. This dissertation is, by using Hall, Schuyler and Trinh’s model to suggests that violent episode are the interactive exchanges between the movement, the media and the government in that particular sociological context. Especially media play a very crucial role. Neither FLG nor the Chinese government itself can explain or forecast. It is also my hope to provide another reference point in order to study new religion in a broad and neutral sense because every NRM is very distinctive, special attention and a right attitude both are required for the investigation and analysis.