Falun Gong Evaluation and Further References

This part of my website is no longer maintained, except for irregular updates to the bibliography section. There is now a substantial body of serious Western academic literature, which makes my comments largely superfluous. I only retain it for historical purposes.

In the following pages, I present an introductory analysis of the Falun Gong movement in Chinese society and culture from the perspective of the scholar of traditional Chinese religious culture. The website includes extensive bibliographies, both of publications on paper (in "Part Three") and on the Internet (in "Relevant websites"). Apart from issues of human rights and religious freedom, my analysis focuses on the Falun Gong as a continuation of, as well as a departure from traditional Chinese religious culture. Its founder Li Hongzhi claims that his teachings are very old, but have been newly re-covered by himself. Nonetheless, I feel that the movement itself and the state's response to it cannot be understood without reference to the recent history of the People's Republic of China.