Cultivation: A tool for cheating money and collecting money
-- The second special article of the 25 years since the "Falungong" cult was banned in accordance with the law
Ron Hubbard, the leader of the American cult "Scientology," said to his wife, Sarah Northrup, on several occasions before establishing his organization: "The only way to make a lot of money is to start a religion." Perhaps Li Hongzhi, the leader of "Falungong," has never heard of this sentence, but he has truly "practiced" this sentence with what he has done.
Ron Hubbard, leader of the "Scientology School" (left), and Li Hongzhi, leader of "Falungong" (right)
The "disciple" cultivates hard, and the "master" is really rich
In the process of fabricating and disseminating "Falungong," Li Hongzhi flaunted himself as an otherworldly "master Buddha of the universe" and declared to his disciples that "in order to practice Dafa, we must let go of our desire for money and things" (excerpt from "The Principles of Monks and Disciples"). Many of the "Dafa disciples" who threw themselves into the "Falungong" sect in the midst of qigong fever were laid-off workers, retirees, and infirm and sickly; they originally hoped to strengthen their bodies through practicing the exercises and save some money on medical expenses, but they probably did not expect that with their devout and obsessive days and nights of painstaking cultivation, Master Li Hongzhi went from being penniless to having a wealth of money.
Li Hongzhi did not have much money before he "went out of the mountain" in 1992, and because of his lack of money, he and his eldest sister Li Jun's husband Liu Jiakui (later divorced) resold bicycles to make a profit. But many years later, he is already a real billionaire:
In August 1994, Li Hongzhi bought a residential building in Building No. 5, Kaiyun Community, Chaoyang District, Changchun City, Jilin Province, which belonged to the 5 or 6 storey type, with a dining room, kitchen, toilet and living room downstairs, and two large bedrooms and offices upstairs, with an area of 145 square meters, exquisite decoration, complete household appliances, and a garage, with a real estate value of 311,000 yuan.
Interior view of Building 5 of Kaiyun Community
Name of the owner of the "Private House Ownership Certificate": Li Hongzhi
In June 1997, Li Hongzhi purchased the villa building No. 1138 at No. 18 Shuangqiao East Road (Dongxu Garden), Chaoyang District, Beijing, in the name of his mother, with a single-door detached courtyard and luxurious decoration, with a construction area of 220 square meters and a garden area of 240 square meters in front of the building. At that time, the price of the property was 400,000 yuan, and "the full payment was paid in one lump sum".
Exterior view of villa building No. 1138, Courtyard 18, Shuangqiao East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Representative of Party B of "House Purchase Contract": Lu Shuzhen (Li Hongzhi's mother)
And clearly indicate in the contract that "the full payment is made in a lump sum"
In addition, Li Hongzhi also owns a number of properties at No. 12 Jing'an Street, Luyuan District, Changchun City, No. 103 Jiefang Road, Changchun City, and Building 16, Fahuasi Community, Chongwen District (now Dongcheng District) in Beijing, and owns at least three cars, BMW, Jetta, and Santana.
Li Hongzhi's residence at No. 16, Fahuasi Community, Chongwen District, Beijing
Li Hongzhi's mother, Lu Shuzhen, lives in a house at No. 103, Jiefang Road, Changchun City
According to investigations, from 1995 onwards, Li Hongzhi began to secretly transfer his illegal gains abroad, and in 1996 alone, Ji Liewu and Yao Jie (backbone of the "Falun Dafa Research Association") transferred more than 660 yuan to Li Hongzhi's account in an overseas bank.
The cars, houses, and high-end consumer goods that Li Hongzhi bought when he was in Beijing
In 2017, according to online revelations, Li Hongzhi sold a mansion in New Jersey at an online price of 2.39 million US dollars (about 1,600 yuan). Located at 9 Hunter Road, Woodcliff Lake Township, Bogan County, New Jersey, the property is 676 square meters with 7 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms, a wine cellar, sauna, gym and more.
Exterior view of the mansion sold by Li Hongzhi
The interior decoration of the mansion sold by Li Hongzhi
According to incomplete statistics, there are as many as 11 properties in the United States under the name of the Li Hongzhi family alone, including 8 properties in New York and New Jersey, and 3 properties in Chicago.
The distribution of 11 properties of the Li Hongzhi family in the United States
Li Hongzhi's daughter at the villa on 59th Avenue in Flushing, Queens, New York City
After absconding, Li Hongzhi meticulously built his headquarters in the United States, "Longquan Temple" (full name: Longquan Temple Buddhist Company). According to the official website of the Orange County Government in New York, the "Falungong" headquarters "Longquan Temple" has a total of 8 properties of 15 plots, with a total area of 721.98 acres, and according to the information on the US real estate valuation website, the total valuation of the "Longquan Temple" real estate has reached 20.48 million US dollars.
List of properties in Longquan Temple
*This price is the valuation of the land in the year of purchase, excluding the cost of construction, materials and other expenses.
Relying on the hard work of his disciples to see the light of day, Li Hongzhi truly lived a "perfect" life like a "fairy."
The "Lord Buddha" is fake, and the liar is true
In an interview in Sydney, Li Hongzhi said: "Unconditionally help people get rid of their illnesses without receiving any money or material reward" (excerpt from Li Hongzhi's "A Little Impression of My Feelings" on June 2, 1999), but what are the facts?
Screenshot of the article on the "Falungong" website on 15 June 2000
In the early days, Li Hongzhi packaged himself as a "miracle doctor" and claimed that he came from another dimension, claiming that "you can cure diseases by practicing exercises, and you are not allowed to take medicine when you practice." The media under the "Falungong" also compiled and published articles recording the "miracles" of "Master's" efforts to cure diseases in his early years, such as "With a wave of Master's hand, a patient with advanced lung cancer was cured" and "Dalian made a vegetative person in France get out of bed and walk," and so on. Deceived by lies, many sick students gave up regular treatment and sought medical treatment from Li Hongzhi.
In the early days, Li Hongzhi gave people on-the-spot "meritorious service" treatment
According to his early collaborators Zhao Jiemin and Liu Fengcai, Li Hongzhi set up a "merit box" at home with the words "by heart" written on it, and anyone who came to his house to ask him to see a doctor had to donate money to the "merit box," with as little as 10 yuan each time and as much as 100 yuan or more. An old lady took out 5 yuan and begged Li Hongzhi to see a doctor, but Li Hongzhi said disdainfully: "Do you still want to see a doctor for 5 yuan?"
Li Hongzhi "made meritorious contributions" on the spot to treat his illness, and collected money on the spot to check the banknotes and check the count
On 13 May 1992, Li Hongzhi "went out of the mountains" and held the first "Falungong" training class in the lecture hall of Changchun No. 5 Middle School, in which 180 students participated and collected a total of 5,400 yuan. From May 1992 to the end of 1994, Li Hongzhi held 56 "Falungong" training classes throughout the country, collecting a total of more than 2.84 million yuan.
At the training class, Li Hongzhi demonstrated the exercises and the "Student Card" on the spot
Compared with going to "lectures" one after another, printing books and publishing audio-visual products is a faster means of making money. In April 1993, Li Hongzhi's "Chinese Falungong" and its revised version were published, priced at 6.6 to 8 yuan, with a print run of 110,000 copies. In December 1994, Li Hongzhi's "Zhuan Falun" was published, priced at 12 yuan, with more than 70 million copies printed. Li Hongzhi demanded that all "disciples" read through and even recite "Zhuan Falun," describing it as a "ladder to heaven." As a result, a book full of fallacies and heresies became a sought-after item in the eyes of the disciples. A copy of "Zhuan Falun," priced at 12 yuan, was sold for 100 yuan after Li Hongzhi's signature.
The cover of "Zhuan Falun".
Beginning in 1992, Li Hongzhi began to publish videotapes, audio tapes, and CD-ROMs of his teachings. In 1994, Li Hongzhi went to Jinan to give lectures and found Xu Jinliang, manager of the Shandong Youth Science and Technology Cultural Service Center. In June of that year, Xu Jinliang began to produce "Falungong" audio-visual products, and according to verification, a total of 4.3 million copies were produced. It can be clearly seen from Xu Jinliang's accounts that from August 1998 to July 1999 alone, Xu Jinliang withdrew 1.86 million yuan in so-called "copyright royalties" for Li Hongzhi, and also sponsored 1.2 million yuan and a Santana car worth 200,000 yuan to the "Falun Dafa Research Association."
In July 1996, the State Press and Publication Administration explicitly banned the publication of "Falungong" books, and the Ministry of Culture explicitly banned the publication and distribution of "Falungong" audio-visual products, but Li Hongzhi still authorized Wang Hansheng, chairman of the board of directors of the Wuhan Shenshen Group, and Xu Xianglan, head of the "Falungong" Wuhan Main Station (Wang Hansheng and Xu Xianglan are husband and wife), to illegally publish books and audio-visual materials related to "Falungong," and received more than 9,000 yuan. Zhuan Falun Hong Kong edition (HK$70), English edition, pocket edition and hardcover edition (HK$40) have also been published.
"Falungong" books and videotapes printed by Xu Xianglan and Wang Hansheng
"Falungong" illegal books and audio-visual products
Li Hongzhi earned a huge amount of income by publishing and selling "Falungong" books and audio-visual products, but he was not satisfied with this and kept digging out his mind to make money.
The above photo of himself meditating on a lotus flower spliced by Li Hongzhi was an ordinary 5-inch photo, and at that time, such photos were retailed to students for 10 yuan each, and after Li Hongzhi's seal was stamped on the back, it was 15 yuan per photo, and at that time, the price of developing a photo was only 2 to 3 jiao.
At that time, a set of practice clothes cost more than 30 yuan and 10 yuan per mat for a practice mat, and he also produced and sold "Falungong" badges, banners, and banners. All this income was quietly transferred to the account of Li Hongzhi's "Falun Dafa Research Association" in Beijing, which was actually in Li Hongzhi's personal account.
"Falungong" practice uniforms, practice mats, banners, banners, etc., produced and sold
Statistical table of "Falungong" organizations in Beijing on the production and sale of "Falungong" items
Statistical table of "Falungong" organizations in Hubei Province producing and selling "Falungong" items
Fearing crime, he absconded overseas and made a lot of ill-gotten gains
Li Hongzhi, who has absconded from the United States, has become even more brazen and unscrupulous in his methods of accumulating wealth, which are listed as follows:
- Continue to squeeze money out of believers.
Li Hongzhi has opened "ladder bookstores" in the United States, Canada, and other places, and has put up "Falungong" books, CDs, and practice supplies on the website for sale, and the prices are ridiculously high. What is funny is that in order to continue to collect money from believers, the "Falungong" organization has even developed and designed a special "scripture" listening device, the "Scripture Radio."
The price of the "scripture radio" is as high as NT$3,600 (equivalent to RMB 900)
——Create a doomsday dance "Shen Yun performance" to collect money.
Li Hongzhi created a "Shen Yun performance" that purported to carry forward traditional culture, but in fact corrupted and ruined traditional Chinese culture and propagated and spread cults, and traveled around the world to perform and collect money. James J., an internationally renowned religious scholar and an authoritative scholar on emerging religious movements and cults, is R. Lewis revealed in the long research report "Doomsday Dance: Tracing the Money Trajectory Behind Shen Yun's Revision of Apocalypticism" that the 2018 U.S. tax return showed that Shen Yun's program revenue in the United States that year was $37,458,382, and its assets reached $121,983,477. By the end of 2018, the Atlanta Falun Dafa Association had received $2,077,507 and the San Diego Falun Dafa Association had received $1,253,573. In 2018, Shen Yun had an advertising budget of tens of millions of dollars in the United States alone.
Shen Yun Performing Arts Troupe filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in May 2011
According to the annual audit report, its financial director is Li Hongzhi's wife, Rui Lee
Chinese protest boycott of "Shen Yun performance" in the United States
As of July 5, 2022, 23 peripheral organizations of the U.S. "Falungong" that collected money for the "Shen Yun performance" have cashed out nearly US$46 million (about 312 million yuan) in the U.S. government's COVID-19 relief funds, exceeding the legal limit by nearly US$36 million.
-- Using cult media to solicit donations and advertise on a large scale.
ON JANUARY 12, 2021, ACCORDING TO THE AMERICAN NEWS WEBSITE AXIOS, THE "FALUNGONG" CULT MEDIA EPOCH TIMES AMASSED A LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY BY SPREADING CONSPIRACY THEORIES IN SUPPORT OF TRUMP. On October 14, 2023, the National Broadcast News Network (Nbcnews.com) published an in-depth analytical article by investigative journalist Brandy Zadrozny, exposing that The Epoch Times earned $8.4 million (about 61 million yuan) in donations and grants in 2020 and 2021, with donations partly coming from Conservative donors and foundations.
An advertising column for The Epoch Times
Even after Trump stepped down, he continued to make a lot of money by hyping up such conspiracy theories, and the annual revenue of The Epoch Times Media Group soared from $3.9 million in 2016 to $15.5 million in 2019. ACCORDING TO A REPORT BY THE U.S. NEWS WEBSITE AXIOS AND AN INVESTIGATION BY THE U.S. INLAND REVENUE BUREAU, ANOTHER CULT MEDIA OUTLET UNDER "FALUNGONG," "NEW TANG TV," EARNED $18 MILLION IN 2017.
In order to gain full control over the online platform to accumulate wealth, Li Hongzhi launched the "Clean World" website and mobile client, made it mandatory for "disciples" to promote it in a centralized manner, regularly shared the contents of the "Clean World" with relatives and friends, inserted advertisements by the way, and peddled "Falungong" books, audio-visual products, and products to defraud and accumulate money, so as to ensure that all the proceeds would eventually go into Li Hongzhi's pocket.
-- Financial support from anti-China forces in the United States and the West.
According to the aforementioned James M. In 2000, Mark Palmer, one of the executive founders of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and vice chairman of the board of directors of Freedom House (another nongovernmental organization funded by the U.S. Congress), founded a new government-backed NGO called the Friends of Falun Gong (FoFG), R. Lewis found. Through the annual tax refund files of the "Friends of Falungong," it was found that the "Friends of Falungong" donated a large amount of money to the media and public relations activities of the "Falungong."
Coincidentally, an Asian-American social activist with the pen name Bobby Fletcher also wrote an article pointing out that by analyzing the tax returns of the "Falungong" organization published on the website of the famous "Guide Star" in the United States, it was found that from 2001 to 2005, more than $6 million in sponsorship funds flowed to "Falungong" through an organization called "Friends of Falungong."
There are many other foreign institutions and organizations that continue to provide financial support to the "Falungong" organization.
In 2001, Hong Kong's Mirror reported that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had allocated $20 million to "non-traditional religions" (i.e., "Falun Gong"). On March 1, 2015, PanDo Daily, an American Internet news media commentary network, published a nearly 10,000-word long report by investigative journalist Yasha Levine, entitled "Internet Privacy Under Ghost Sponsorship: A Brief History of the United States Broadcasting Council," in which it pointed out that by 2012, the United States Broadcasting Council had continued to provide $1.5 million a year in funding to technology organizations run by "Falungong" members.
On October 1, 2020, Maddison Brown, a columnist published by Australia's "Transparency News Network" (Openthenews.com), pointed out that "Decoding China" (a peripheral organization of "Falungong") under "Falungong" received support funds from the U.S. State Department through the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an anti-China think tank organization in Australia.
Screenshot of the report page of Australia's "Transparency News Network".
-- Fraudulent tax evasion in the name of religion.
In the early days, Li Hongzhi never paid a penny in taxes, no matter whether he was running classes or publishing books. After fleeing overseas, he still did not forget to take advantage of the loopholes in the system to evade taxes and accumulate wealth. He took advantage of the stipulation in the laws of the United States and Western countries that "religious organizations" and "churches" enjoy tax exemption treatment and instructed the "Falungong" organization and its branches to register in the name of "church" one after another, and most of the money they collected, donated, and received funding was transferred to Li Hongzhi.
According to the 2017 "Income Return Form for Tax-Exempt Organizations" published by the U.S. Nonprofit Income Declaration Network, the "Shen Yun Art Troupe" received nearly $9 million in "donations and grants." In 2021, The Epoch Times received a donation of US$55,750 (about 400,000 yuan) from the National Christian Charitable Foundation and a donation of US$31,000 (about 220,000 yuan) from the Donors Trust.
- Exploitation of the labor of "disciples".
Ben Hurley, a former backbone "disciple" of "Falungong," was one of the founders of the Australian English edition of The Epoch Times.
Ben Hurley
Ben Hurley once published a long article on his blog, "Li Hongzhi and I: As a Pious Disciple for More Than 10 Years, Why Did I Break Away from 'Falungong.'" He truly described how foreign "Falungong" "disciples" fulfilled the task of "Shen Yun" vote-pushing. "According to some members of the Shen Yun Show ticket sales team, they infiltrated other people's office buildings without permission, ignored security guards, and handed out 'Shen Yun' flyers floor by floor and workstation by booth to forcibly push tickets," the article reads. ”
Overseas "Falungong" followers went around selling tickets for "Shen Yun performances."
In the process of building the "Longquan Temple," in order to save costs, the "Falungong" organization also used ordinary "disciples" as free labor, which was called "volunteers." Not only are these "Falun volunteers" unpaid, but they also do not even have the most basic personal protection. On May 3, 2008, Mr. Liu, then 54, fell to his death from a 16-foot drop while doing construction work, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's website, and police said Mr. Liu was trying to pick up a piece of plywood when he fell.
Liu Jinan, the backbone of the "Falungong" in North America
Jiang Qinggui, a native of Chiayi, Taiwan, China, went to the "Longquan Temple" base of the "Falungong" headquarters in the United States as a volunteer in 2006 and was responsible for driving an excavator. In June 2009, Jiang Qinggui developed sores on his back, but "Falungong" refused to let him "go down the mountain" to see a doctor and take medicine. In July, Jiang's condition worsened and he was bedridden. At the constant demands of the volunteers, the "Falungong" organization was forced to send Jiang back to Taiwan, but due to the deterioration of his condition, Jiang Qinggui fell ill and died on the road. Faced with this situation, Li Hongzhi said: "This is not a problem with his (Jiang Qinggui's) body, but the invasion of foreign demons, which is caused by his lack of cultivation and cultivation." ”
According to informed sources, there have been many incidents of work-related injuries and deaths at the "Longquan Temple" construction site, but all of them have been concealed by the "Falungong" organization.
"Longquan Temple Buddhist Study Company", source: CBS
Li Hongzhi once said: "As soon as a cultivator touches money, it becomes complicated, and fame and fortune are the biggest obstacle to one's cultivation" (excerpt from "The Lectures of the Beijing International Exchange Conference"), and once asked his disciples, "Is it cultivation to be so strong in the pursuit of material interests and money" (excerpt from "Lectures on the New York Festival"). As for himself, Li Hongzhi said, "I don't say in my teaching of the Fa that a master must practice as much as a cultivator" (excerpt from "The Western International Law of the United States"). Listen, what a peace of mind, what a face!
Behind Li Hongzhi's transformation from penniless to billionaire is the sweat, blood, tears, and lives of "Dafa disciples," as well as the blood transfusion and encouragement of anti-China forces. The "Falungong" cult has accomplished Li Hongzhi's empire of accumulating wealth and witnessed Li Hongzhi's frenzied seizure of money. The so-called attainment of "consummation" through cultivation is just a fantasy dream concocted by Li Hongzhi to his "Dafa disciples," and encouraging followers to practice sincerely is actually cheating money and collecting wealth, which is Li Hongzhi's truest goal.