8.2. Does Ciro Santilli believe in or practice Falun Gong? (三西猴信仰或者练法轮功吗?)

Here are some things that he doesn’t like about Falun Gong for example: Things Ciro Santilli dislikes about Falun Gong (三西猴不喜欢法轮功的事情).

Ciro believes Falun Gong can be split into two parts, like any other religion:

Ciro thinks that FLG’s self-help part could potentially be good for you, just like many other meditative practices such as Yoga, Buddhist meditation, Tai chi, deep Catholic prayer, etc. As far as he has heard, all of it sounded good standard religious self-help: be peaceful, be good to others, etc. Like any other well managed religion, FLG does have good things to offer, see also: Christine Marie’s interview.

However Ciro believes that the metaphysics is all complete and utter bullshit, child stories made up by Li Hongzhi, and just as real as Father Christmas or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Also the "obligation to reach Salvation" is boring like for many other prophetic religion.

From a purely strategic point of view, the metaphysics is a trade-off:

  • some people will believe you are a freaking living God

  • others will laugh at you and say you are a charlatan

It may be argued however that Li played this card beautifully: since all Chinese power is concentrated in the CCP, any non-CCP movement dies out, so he was better off long run playing the metaphysics game. The only other choice would have been joining the CCP.

To Ciro it is obvious that Falun Gong is just one of the many very similar movements that came out of the Qi Gong Boom, such as: Zhong Gong (中功, 中华养生益智功, Qigong religion). It just happens to be the one that survived due to better luck and strategy.

The absolute truth is already known by the prophet, although he does not want to give clear evidence for reasons: Falun Gong never makes any predictions that can be reasonably verified by non-believers (法轮功从不做任何非信徒可以合理验证的预言), and Ciro finds that utterly boring. There’s no fun in living in a world where the absolute truth has been found.

For these reasons, Ciro cannot bother to read even into the self-help part: how can you read that when there is so much bullshit every other page?

Ciro would really like to know if Li Hongzhi (李洪志, LHZ, Falun Gong prophet) really believes in FLG himself, or is just a complete manipulating charlatan, but unfortunately we will never know that. Just imagine if before he died he published a video saying: "it was a joke, gotcha!". Now that would be epic!

Since Ciro is good-natured, it’s hard for him to believe that he doesn’t believe in anything, how can anyone be that evil? Maybe he believes in part of it, but made up some stuff to sell it better, maybe with good intentions that selling the fake part would also lead more people to see the good part?

Like any other prophetic religion, FLG gives tiny evidence that you can directly feel through meditation. The energies, which Ciro believe are real feelings. And then using that entry point asks you to believe a whole lot more, that you can’t feel: Falun Gong never makes any predictions that can be reasonably verified by non-believers (法轮功从不做任何非信徒可以合理验证的预言).

This becomes especially strong when a critical mass of believers is reached, and then they start interpreting all sorts of events as miracles, and you start to believe other believers without questioning them, and a circle is formed.

This post by a former believer gives what Ciro feels is a realistic account that matches Ciro’s observations: Me and Li by Ben Hurley (2017).

And yet, all those who love freedom, must oppose FLG ban, or be themselves enslaved by tyrants themselves: Why does Ciro Santilli say that democracy is a religion just like Falun Gong? (为什么三西猴说民主就像法轮功一样是一种宗教?).

In any case, at least FLG got one thing right: the commies are evil, and we have to get rid of them.