Why I’m leaving The Epoch Times and Falun Gong after 20 years
Published By admin
John was a Falun Gong practitioner, just like everyone that worked for The Epoch Times from the early days of the company in 2004.
Just like me.
I have worked for the paper since 2005, when it was founded in the UK. Back then we had a print edition and I not only edited the entertainment page but got up very early every Wednesday to hand out the paper in London’s City area.
It was hard work but we felt guided by a higher mission. We believed then—and Falun Gong practitioners still do—that the paper “saves” people.
That’s why I was willing to work for no pay until 2016 when I finally made it my full-time job.
Not because of ambition, but because I believed that the paper’s reportage on Falun Gong has the power to prevent the eternal destruction of people’s souls.
That’s more or less how the founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, puts it in his many teachings. You can read some of them on The Epoch Times home page.
The “Fa-rectification” as he calls it has been approaching for the last 25 years. It’s the reason for the existence of Shen Yun, the dance company you’ll find extensively covered by The Epoch Times, TV station NTD, YouTube knock-off Ganjing World, the NGOs Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting and Falun Info Center, and many other Falun Gong-related companies and projects.
I’m fairly sure John Nania died believing in it. Maybe he even believed that he had failed as a practitioner because he couldn’t identify his inner problems.
A friend of mine here in the UK died in excruciating pain believing that Li had “forsaken him.” His own wife, also a practitioner, believes that he simply couldn’t get to the bottom of his human attachments, and if he had he wouldn’t have died.
There are many people who work for The Epoch Times who have died; some of their graves can be seen in footage posted to X of a cemetery for practitioners.
In Falun Gong, it’s generally understood that practitioners shouldn’t die. Instead they should become more and more youthful the more they practice. If they die, it must be the result of them “having attachments,” or being persecuted by the “old forces”—Li’s name for gods other than himself—or because they were to be made an example of for practitioners to see.
And yes, you read that right: Li is regarded as a god by practitioners, which includes the entire upper management of The Epoch Times.
The “Creator” that he is referring to in “Why The Creator Seeks To Save All Life” is himself. But he won’t spell this out explicitly in order to maintain a little plausible deniability. “I never said I was the Creator.”
Just like he never told people not to go to the hospital when they get sick. Except you’ll have failed in some aspect of your practice if you do. But he never said not to go.
Many readers of The Epoch Times are Christian, and indeed Falun Gong’s political support, especially with the recent Falun Gong Protection Act, has largely come from Christian lawmakers.
But what these people don’t know is that Falun Gong practitioners do not believe that Jesus saves people any more. Only Li can save people because he is the highest god. The god of all gods, if you will. The “Fa”—which was created by Li—has actually created “millions and millions of Jesuses and Sakyamunis,” he said in 2002.
They also believe—or most of them do because it’s implicit in Li’s teachings—that Islam is an “evil religion.”
By telling you this, many practitioners believe I will go to hell. They believe I have been “dragged down by the evil.” It’s something I have had to come to terms with since I gave up practicing. Perhaps it’s something that will be with me for the rest of my life, because despite the numerous controversies surrounding Falun Gong, I doubt the practice will be affected much. I believe it’s a cult, after all.
Read the full article at the link below
Content retrieved from: https://www.backchina.com/blog/380600/article-412214.html.
