CLASSIC: What is Falun Gong?

Summary

Podcast Summary: “CLASSIC: What is Falun Gong?”

Podcast: Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Host: iHeartPodcasts (Ben, Matt, Noel)
Date: July 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the origins, spread, philosophy, and controversies surrounding Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa). The hosts unravel its transformation from a Qigong-based spiritual movement to a global phenomenon entangled with international politics, allegations of persecution, cult accusations, and information warfare. The conversation touches on Falun Gong’s conflict with the Chinese government, the Western media’s portrayal, the role of related enterprises like Shen Yun and The Epoch Times, and the shadowy funding and power structures underpinning its worldwide influence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Falun Gong's Emergence and Philosophy

• Origins: Founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi in China, claiming roots in Buddhist and Qigong traditions.
  • “It consists of two primary components: self-improvement through the study of teachings… [and] gentle exercise and meditation.” (Matt, 08:14)
• Core Principles: “Truth, compassion, and forbearance” (Matt, 08:14)
• Practices: Focused on low-impact, meditative exercises, and a comprehensive body of writings.
• Quick Adoption: Initially embraced by Chinese authorities and national Qigong bodies; quickly amassed a large following.

2. Religious Leader Li Hongzhi

• Central figure with sometimes supernatural claims—compared to Jesus, claims to teach levitation, and other extraordinary abilities.
• “He's talking to a western audience, right? He's saying, I'm not a God… then he's talking to a domestic audience and he's saying my true spiritual form is so huge that if I came down here… you'd be like standing, trying to gaze up past my big toe.” (Ben, 52:06)
• Reports of conflicting statements in different contexts and audiences.

3. Expansion and Chinese State Suppression

• Rapid Spread: International lectures (Paris, Stockholm, Sydney, Houston, NYC) by 1995.
• Shift to Dissent: Falun Gong grows increasingly independent, disassociating from official Qigong associations.
• PRC’s Crackdown (1999):
  • Nationwide suppression; Falun Gong banned as a "heretical" threat.
  • Creation of the 610 Office dedicated to eradicating Falun Gong.
  • “How serious are they about this? Well, they make a new security agency whose entire job is to eliminate Falun Gong.” (Ben, 27:35)
  • Mass detentions, public denouncements, censorship, and severe human rights abuses alleged.

4. Information War & Western Media Reception

• Polarized Coverage: “What you find on the Internet, save for a few mostly objective writers, is information that is extremely pro Falun Gong or extremely anti Falun Gong.” (Matt, 29:15)
• Western Sympathy: The US and European media portrayed Falun Gong as oppressed dissidents and hesitate to apply the “cult” label.
• Media Savvy: Falun Gong adapts to new tech and information platforms, protesting and lobbying internationally.

5. Cult Allegations and Internal Practices

• Questionable Recruitment:
  • “Exercises quickly begin to take a backseat to larger ideologically driven belief systems.” (Noel quoting Heather Kavan, 48:54)
  • Reports of bait-and-switch tactics—drawn in by exercise, indoctrinated into deeper dogma.
• Conservative Beliefs: Alleged anti-medicine, anti-LGBTQ stances, and strict obedience to leadership.
• Leadership Structure: Li Hongzhi regarded as a near-messianic leader by many; teachings sometimes exclusivist.
• Division in Public Perception: Debate over whether Falun Gong is an innocuous spiritual group, a coercive cult, or something else.

6. Persecution, Human Rights & Organ Harvesting

• Forced Repression:
  • Mass arrests, labor camps, torture in China.
  • Firsthand accounts of severe abuses; hard to verify true scale due to government and movement secrecy.
• Theatrical Protest: Practitioners stage dramatic public demonstrations re-enacting torture and abuses.
• Organ Harvesting Allegations:
  • 2019 Tribunal finds “clear evidence” of systematic organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners (Matt, 64:15).
  • Chinese government denies, claiming cessation of prisoner organ harvesting in 2015 (Ben, 65:47).
  • “That's just like—imagine...I'm standing right next to a burning barn...and I've got a handful of matches, a handful of gas. If people are like, hey, did you burn this barn? I'm like, what? That's crazy. I haven't burned barns...since 2015.” (Ben, 65:50)

7. Shen Yun and Global Influence

• Shen Yun Performing Arts: Touring dance company tied to Falun Gong, known for lavish, omnipresent marketing and spreading anti-CCP messaging through performance art.
  • “Visually, it's a stunning show. But it is in fact associated with and backed by Falun Gong.” (Ben, 67:38)
• Perception: Discussion of large-scale Shen Yun infrastructure, how performances double as political and ideological messaging.

8. Media Power: The Epoch Times

• Backed by Falun Gong:
  • Initially a small anti-CCP newspaper, but post-2016 became one of the most-viewed right-wing digital publishers in the US.
  • Leveraged Facebook and divisive US politics; amplified anti-China and conspiratorial narratives.
  • “Since 2017, they had been running some pretty interesting experiments… anti China slant...when they're on social media, they're posting stuff about anti vaccine screeds, ‘where did the coronavirus really come from’…” (Ben, 71:17)

9. Conspiracies, Intelligence Allegations & Funding Questions

• Speculation: Is Falun Gong connected to CIA or other intelligence agencies? (“It’s not out of the question.” Ben, 74:03) No hard proof, but suspicion persists due to US history of covertly supporting dissident groups.
• Funding Mystery: Unclear how Falun Gong supports vast initiatives—Shen Yun, global media operations. Lack of transparency fuels further suspicion.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ben, on the existential draw of belief systems:

  “This existential crisis is one of the great unifiers … It draws a lot of people to structured belief systems, religions of any humanitarian work …” (07:08)

• Noel, describing Shen Yun’s pervasiveness:

  “I was just talking to my girlfriend about Shen Yun the other night and how ubiquitous their marketing is … it’s so meme worthy.” (00:51)

• Matt, on information warfare:

  “It's extremely hard to find anything on the internet that isn't extremely pro-Falun Gong or extremely anti-Falun Gong.” (29:14)

• On Falun Gong’s persecution mythos:

  “If you defend the Falun Gong to the point where you are imprisoned, you are detained, you are tortured, then your bad karma is burned off, and this assures you a space in paradise…” (Ben, 61:20)

• Satirical moment:

  “I haven't burned barns for fun since 2015. You guys are wild.” (Ben, 65:47)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Falun Gong basics & beliefs: 08:14–12:11
• Li Hongzhi’s rise & international spread: 13:34–17:44
• Break with Qigong associations / PRC threat: 17:44–21:42
• PRC Crackdown & 610 Office: 27:17–29:14
• Western press coverage & numbers disputes: 29:38–34:30
• Cult allegations, ideology, and recruitment tactics: 47:42–54:04
• Persecution, torture, info war: 57:35–63:33
• Organ Harvesting allegations: 63:33–66:28
• Shen Yun & its role: 67:38–70:48
• Epoch Times & digital propaganda: 71:16–74:03
• Funding and intelligence agency speculation: 74:03–76:41

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Tone & Style

The hosts approach the subject with irreverent humor and skepticism while acknowledging the seriousness of reported abuses and the difficulties in discerning fact from propaganda. They frequently reference prior episodes (Scientology, “The Family”), employ pop culture analogies, and challenge each other's assumptions. Quotes are direct and the discussion often mixes personal anecdotes with research-based reporting.

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Conclusion

The episode leaves listeners with the understanding that Falun Gong is a highly complex and polarizing movement—part spiritual exercise group, part persecuted religious minority, and part media and political powerhouse. Its opaque leadership, allegations of cultic behavior, and deep involvement in global information wars make it both fascinating and controversial. The show urges listeners to approach the topic critically, recognizing the layers of propaganda from both Chinese state media and Falun Gong itself, and invites firsthand perspectives and additional evidence—highlighting that, in this case, truth is elusive and “there’s something they don’t want you to know.”

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For Further Reading & Listener Contributions

• Listeners are encouraged to submit their own experiences or documented insights through social media or voicemail (see closing instructions beginning at 77:36).

Transcript

[Ben]

Folks, if you live in the United States and if you've ever been to a big city, you have doubtlessly seen a lot of flyers. One of those flyers is inevitably going to be for a performance called Shen Yun.

[Noel]

Shen Yun on the moon, baby.

[Ben]

Yeah. This is a. This one gets a special shout out to a lot of our friends in the Chinese diaspora, notably our good friend and phenomenal artist Junyi Liu, who actually, Nolan, I collect some of Junyi's art. Art. We can't say enough good about it. We have not asked Jun Yi about the parents of Shen Yun, an organization called Falun Gong, which is a religious movement to its proponents and champions, a cult to its critics and a terrorist organization to the government of China.

[Noel]

Yeah, he kind of nailed it there. Ben. I do just want to point out, I was just talking to my girlfriend about Shen Yun the other night and how ubiquitous their marketing is and how it's just as ubiquitous in Atlanta as it is here in New York City. And she pointed out to me that there are quite a few Shen Yun parody troops doing shows and like drag shows revolving around kind of campy parodies of the whole China before Communism theme that Shen Yun tends to promote. Is this a thing?

[Matt]

Can you guys recall? Is this a thing south park has covered?

[Noel]

I think they must have in some way, at least in terms of the ubiquity of the advertising, but I don't know if they did a full episode. But it's so meme worthy. Like, that's why I say Shen Yun on the Moon. I think I saw a meme where it was like a billboard of Shin, like on, you know, just the Surface of Mars or something.

[Matt]

Well, I'm just going back through the official shen yun.org website and looking at this huge write up they have with, with titles within this article, like why the CCP is After Us. It goes over their beliefs, it goes over things that the Chinese Communist Party has officially done to like, thwart them from being able to perform and things like that.

[Noel]

Because again, like, we'll talk about this in the episode, but they're big thing is promoting, you know, a certain part of Chinese cultural history that does not involve communism, which I think is. Is a real. Is a real bone of contention with the communist regime, saying that they're in some way, you know, disrespecting the current, you know, state of affairs. Is that, is that right, Ben?

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely on the money there, Noel. Since 1999, the government of China has made concerted serious efforts to suppress this movement, this spiritual pract, whether you call it Falun Gong or Falun Dafa. And there have been accusations of very evil things up to and including organ harvesting. So we recorded this back in 2021. We would love to hear your thoughts, especially if you yourself have ever attended a Shen Yun performance. Let's roll the tape. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, folks, have you ever picked up something at the grocery store that looked healthy? You know, but then you flip it over and you see the list of ingredients and you're saying, I can't pronounce half of these things.

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[Noel]

Hey, everybody. It's the guys from Stuff. They don't want you to know. And before we continue with the podcast, we'd really love it if you'd do us a solid and fill out these 37 forms about your listening history.

[Matt]

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[Noel]

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[Noel]

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[Kerry Brownstein]

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[Matt]

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[Matt]

Hello. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

[Noel]

My name is Noel.

[Ben]

They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our super producer, Paul. Mission control Deccan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. And that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. We'll start at a weird but very human direction here. Who hasn't amongst us in the audience today felt lost at one point or another? Think about it. Washing the dishes. You're working, maybe on a repetitive job, or you're stuck in traffic, heard the same song three times. You're walking up the street, the same path you always take, and it hits you all the suddenly, what does it all mean? Why are we even here? What's the point? Is existence just like a checkmark? Participation grade? Snitching?

[Matt]

Yes. Yes, Ben, all of those.

[Ben]

Okay, great. Me too.

[Noel]

That is bleak, fellas. That is bleak.

[Ben]

Oh, no, you haven't hit that yet.

[Noel]

Oh, God, yes. Are you kidding me? I use my GPS when I go down the street to the store. I mean, okay, that's a different kind of loss, but absolutely. Of course. I think we've all been there.

[Ben]

And this existential crisis is one of the great unifiers, I would argue, of the human species. It draws a lot of people to structured belief systems, religions of any humanitarian work, you know, secular stuff too. Even self improvement on a small scale, like, hey, I'm gonna exercise more. I'm gonna take up meditation. I might get a new hobby. Heck, I'll take that improv class. These are all answers to, you know, the scary questions of mortality and meaning. And there is no shortage of Individuals or organizations that are more than willing to give the lost and the troubled a feeling of serenity, fulfillment and purpose. This brings us to today's episode, the winding, mysterious, and at times troubling story of something known as the Falun Gong. In English, this literal translation would be something like law wheel practice, but it's a tricky thing to translate into English, so for now we're just going to say Falun Gong. So breathe deep. Here are the facts.

[Matt]

So Falun Gong is also known as Falun Dafa. And if you look at some of the official websites, you will see Falun Dafa a lot. It describes itself as a spiritual practice, as many as Ben just described earlier. It's rooted in Buddhist tradition, and it consists of two primary components that feel pretty good. The first one is self improvement through the study of teachings. And like many organizations, Falun Gong or Falun Dafa, has its own set of books and writings and teachings. And these are mainly about the qualities of the universe, the underlying stuff, the stuff that is, that makes up existence, you and me, and the connection to everything, truth, compassion and forbearance. If you go on their website, it says very specifically, truth, compassion, forbearance.

[Ben]

The second component is going to be pretty, I would say pretty familiar to a lot of us, and that is gentle exercise and meditation. By gentle exercise, we mean what is sometimes called low impact exercise. So this is not CrossFit, push yourself past your limit stuff. This is stretching, this is slow, this is meditative. This is not meant to break your bones. According to all the sources you can look at, including official Falun Gong sources, it was developed by a guy named Li Hongxi. He says that he was the recipient of teachings from more than 20 masters, Buddhism and qigong, from which Falun Gong is descended. He tested this. According to him, he tested this practice, this system out with several followers, AKA disciples first, and then eventually brought it public in May of 1992. So this is already. We know this is a very new religion. Even if the claims about its ancient roots are true, qigong is. We talked about this earlier, I think, in an episode called what is Qi? But qigong is primarily composed of these, frankly amazing breathing exercises. But Lee added something else to the mix. He added stories in here accounts, anecdotes, a world full of fantastical things and a world with hints of a forthcoming apocalypse. And his books became bestsellers. I don't want to. I don't want to poison the well here. But some of this path, not for nothing, have outside observers said this bears Some similarities with other leaders of movements like L. Ron Hubbard, who also wrote extensively. But this was accepted by the government of China. It was accepted by the qigong bodies. Right. Because there are many qigong movements. So the Chinese National Qigong Scientific Research Associ association, in that same time period of 1992, they also said, okay, yeah, we dig it. Falun Gong, you know what I mean? Full speed ahead.

[Matt]

Ben. Ben, can we just really quickly hit on those two books?

[Ben]

Yeah, totally. The first two were Xuan Falun and Falun Gong. These are kind of primers to the philosophy. Here is what we're doing. Based on what I learned. Here is the goal of what we're doing. You know what I mean? Filled with, again, filled with stories that did not ordinarily occur in previous traditions of this sort.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah, and I just want to go back to your Elrond Hubbard comparison here. It's interesting because in Elrond's writings, he kind of held off on the aliens and the stuff that went beyond some of the self healing.

[Noel]

He saved that business for when you paid your way in far enough.

[Matt]

Yeah. But in these books, it's just right there in front of you as soon as you start getting into the materials. I found that to be interesting.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. There's, I guess you'd say, a little more transparency in that regard. But whatever you feel about those things, we want to be very clear here. We ourselves are not Falun Gong practitioners, although I think all of us have done things like meditation and mindful breathing and yoga. This is a different thing. And no matter how you feel about the claims that Lee makes, no matter how you feel about the practices of the organization in terms of exercise and philosophy, there's no arguing this. Those books were instant bestsellers. And people across the country of China loved this idea, loved this concept. And Lee started making public demonstrations of his. Of his perceived abilities, which also ties in a little bit to our episodes on faith healing and laying on of hands.

[Noel]

Okay, so back to the timeline. In December of 1992, Li Hongzi did his very first public demonstration of his abilities at the 1992 Oriental Health Expo in Beijing. Apparently, he caused a paralyzed and wheelchair bound man to walk, destroyed gall and kidney stones within another individual, and cured difficult, quote, difficult and complex illnesses of all kinds. So needless to say, he made quite a splash. And the director of the fair declared, is like you. You won the fair. The declared that Falun Gong was the star cultivation system.

[Matt]

Oh, wow.

[Noel]

What does that even mean? Like cultivating like the stars from the unit, from the galaxy.

[Ben]

I took it as a best in show.

[Noel]

Best in show, but still, that's very, I love the turn of phrase. Let's leave it there. To me, it really is like you're, you know, the brightest shining boy in the room.

[Matt]

Well, as Ben said there, the laying on of hands episode that we did, I think everyone can hear the similarities there. And you know, we, we weren't there in 1992. We can't tell you exactly what happened, you know, or if, if there were any plants in the audience. But if, if those things were true, they would be miracles.

[Ben]

Well, I was, you know, you guys know my schedule. I was busy. I just couldn't get over there.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

But I heard good things.

[Matt]

Yeah, I was, I was nine, I think, and doing something with a Nintendo,

[Ben]

pretty sure I don't think I should say where I was, but. In December of 1993, at the 1993 Expo, Lee was given two awards. This is the second iteration of his appearance there. He got the award for advancing boundary science and the Qigong Master most acclaimed by the masses. So that's like the, and I am not dismissing this at all just for an analog or a comparison. This is a lot like saying you got the audience appreciation Award.

[Matt]

Yes.

[Ben]

You know what I mean? People like you the most. So he started giving classes all over the country in the ways of this philosophy throughout the early to mid-90s. And for a while, as we mentioned, this enjoyed a great deal of domestic fame as well as what appeared to be somewhere between the open support of the Chinese government to the tacit support to at the very least, toleration of it. Right. Like they're not hurting anyone. They're not violating our, our unwritten law. Don't mess with the money, Let them go stretch in the park.

[Matt]

Exactly. And in a way, it's kind of a nice little cultural, at least information export. Right. It's an interesting thing. It's a cool little peace that we can share and wow, we've got this. I wouldn't say miracle worker, but you've got someone with essentially supernatural powers that practices in China. Cool. Enjoy. Be healthy. All good.

[Ben]

Yeah. This goes international soon after. Like, when you think about the spread of this movement, you have to say it's impressive. A few decades later, people would call this kind of growth viral instead of exponential.

[Noel]

Yeah.

[Ben]

By 1995 or so, Lee is spreading his message past the borders of China. He's lecturing in Paris and Stockholm. He's lecturing in Sydney and Houston, Texas, which Seemed a weird draw, but these are the facts. And New York City in 1996. But while he's out speaking abroad and spending less and less time in China, things aren't going so well on the home front, are they? No.

[Matt]

The tide was turning inside of China while he was gone, because in 1995, the organization Falun Gong left, the one that it had originally joined, the Qigong Scientific Research association, which, you know, could or could not be a big deal, but it does mean they're going independent. Right. It means they're. They're gaining power in. In some way. And the Chinese government started to see them as essentially a threat. And it's really because they were growing so exponentially and so quickly, and the. Some of these spiritual beliefs, the religious teachings that were in those books, they were going a little bit against what would be considered traditional, or at least the party line of what the party wanted its citizens to be thinking about, believing in. And ultimately, they feared that this thing would grow so big it would be a threat because it was independent of a lot of those internal institutions.

[Ben]

Yeah. And, you know, this doesn't come from nowhere or necessarily uninformed paranoia. There is a long history in this area of the world, going back to the dynasty days in China, of the governing bodies having to actively and aggressively work against the possibility of domestic dissent. In a way, the government at the time was reacting to what they saw as the precedent set by earlier domestic unrest.

[Noel]

What is it that you think about this religion, this movement that caused it to catch on so much?

[Matt]

It's just very appealing. I think if you look on the face of it, it's extremely appealing. You don't have to work too hard. It's mostly meditative, and it seems to have a kindness on the front. And we're going to talk a little bit more about some of the ways, some of the ways the ideas are spread and why they seem, especially when you bring in the persecution angle that we're going to get to, why it seems like something you'd want to join, to fight for.

[Ben]

And the majority of. From what we understand, the majority of Falun Gong members are recruited by members of their biological families. So there is a furthering and a deepening of the sense of community in this endeavor. And community, from what I understand, is a thing that people like. It's true. People dig it. So, as you said, the tide's turning against the practitioners of Falun Gong because it's seen as a threat to the status quo. We know that somewhere in this time period Members of Falun Gong started becoming active online. They were early adopters of the Internet. But it's difficult to know exactly when this occurred because, like the rhetors in Neal Stephenson's Anathem, they spend a lot of time changing the past. Or a more diplomatic way would be to say, and I mean both the Chinese government and some factions of Falun Gong, they carefully edit and curate old material from their websites. So it's tough to know some of the specifics of timelines here. But they didn't take this line down. They got mad, and the practitioners started protesting outside of various media outlets in China that if they felt those outlets were misrepresenting the goals of Falun Gong and the lives and aims of the practitioners, basically saying, stop being evil. That's it. That's not, like, on the face of it, that's a cool thing not to be. Yeah, don't be evil. Google once did that and no longer does.

[Matt]

I remember those days.

[Ben]

It's no longer their motto.

[Matt]

Right.

[Ben]

But also, don't be evil's way different from Be good.

[Matt]

Yeah, very much.

[Noel]

I always thought that was a weird one. Was it like sort of like a guiding principle, sort of a reminder to themselves to, like, do a good job with the power that you've been. You've given yourselves? It's a weird one. I always thought that was very strange.

[Matt]

So this is 1990. Like, we've led up to 96. Right. That's when they're doing the protesting. Then the next year, as pressure is mounting from the party within China, Lee, he ends up getting out of China. And where does he head?

[Noel]

New York City.

[Matt]

Okay.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Noel]

Wasn't he. Wasn't he beginning to be branded as a dissident already for years before?

[Ben]

Yeah. What I was gonna say is, you know, just picture Lee somewhere. He's been to New York before at this point, and he says, hey, kid, you can make it here. You can make it anywhere. And then he has that whole sitcom moment. Yeah, he does. He does go to New York. He knows something's in the wind, I would imagine. And let's pause here. We've got one. We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. So let's hear from our sponsors, who may not be Falun Gong today. We don't know.

[Matt]

It's probably not Falun Gong, but it is Shen Yun.

[Noel]

Ah.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Ah.

[Ben]

Spoilers. We'll be back to watch the hammer fall.

[Noel]

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And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together. And I heart women's sports because, let's

[Sam J]

be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

[Ari Chambers]

So Kelsey Findler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.

[Sam J]

My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating?

[Ari Chambers]

The highlights the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire

[Sam J]

timeline and the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week, every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

[Ari Chambers]

Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka.

[Sam J]

Shout outs to you, Naomi, you get the Palm.

[Ari Chambers]

Naomi, you get the Palm for that.

[Sam J]

Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

Thirty years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.

[Ben]

Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Or will you trust the people five miles overseas?

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.

[Ben]

We reached for a feeling that exists

[Matt]

in this city, but we're not stopping, are we?

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

I'm Ben Nadif Haffrey, and for my new series on revisionist history, I took a deep dive into Staten Island's attempt to secede from New York city in the 1990s and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today. Listen to revisionist the Staten island problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben]

Fast Forward 1999. There is a massive protest against the government of China on the part of the Falun Gong. Shortly after that protest, the PRC begins a nationwide crackdown. And they go, Hamilton, there's this huge propaganda push. Their aim is to eradicate the Falun Gong. How serious are they about this? Well, they make a new security agency whose entire job is to eliminate Falun Gong. It's called the 610 Office. It was started in June of 1999 to describe some of the stuff that the government was doing against this organization. They were bulldozing educational tapes, you know what I mean? They were pulling all the stuff they could off the Internet if possible. They were publicly denouncing any members. It got to the point where, like, depending on your job, it might be dangerous for your first, your employment status to be a member of Falun Gong. And then soon after, it may be dangerous for your personal freedom. They also blocked, oh, they didn't just block Falun Gong websites. They blocked websites from other places. And there were a few other countries that mentioned Falun Gong. They were like, eh, sorry, I know your blog is mainly about your backpacking travels through Southeast Asia, but You mentioned the wrong organization. So now your whole website is shut down for 1.3 billion people.

[Sam J]

Wow.

[Ben]

So imagine you start as an exercise group and the next thing you know, you're in a full on information war with one of the world's most powerful countries, a country that's also becoming one of the world's leaders in this kind of asymmetrical warfare. This gets David and Goliath pretty quickly. If the story so far is true

[Matt]

and this is a good time to bring this up, maybe Ben, in our research for this episode. And Ben, you pointed this out and I also noticed it and Noel, I'm sure you did too. Really, what you find on the Internet, save for a few mostly objective writers, is information that is extremely pro Falun Gong or extremely anti Falun Gong, right?

[Noel]

Well, even the American media for quite some time was very pro Falun Gong, it would seem, because they sort of acted as this like, buffer against like the, you know, the distrustfulness that is pretty common around like Chinese information control. And they sort of represented almost this like, you know, example of the heavy handedness of the Chinese government. In fact, there's an interview with the founder of Falun Gong in time magazine in 1999. So I mean, in general, the American press was pretty, pretty kind to them as an organization.

[Ben]

The US would enter this information war later for motivations of its own, I suspect. Motivations of its own, but maybe I'm being a jerk. So back in 99, same year as that time interview, Falun Gong becomes illegal in China. However, the horse of dissidents has left the proverbial barn. The followers are widespread. And another thing that maybe the PRC didn't count on, these followers are tremendously media savvy. Remember I said they were earlier adopters of things like the Internet and emergent technology. So in the years since being declared a quote, heretical organization that threatens social stability, they have dispatched thousands upon thousands of press releases, these staged live events and protests, things that are purposefully and beautifully designed to gather headlines to get international eyes on the story. They've also kept a very strong Internet presence. You can check out some of their official official territories online. Now. They also became increasingly litigious and they would slap people with a defamation lawsuit if they published something saying stuff that to us might even seem innocuous. They would still try to bring the hammer down the way that the Chinese government was bringing the hammer down on them. And like we alluded to just a few minutes ago, Falun Gong adherents for a very long time were treated in an extraordinarily kind way by the Western press. They loved this David and Goliath story. They also sometimes supported the group's religious or political agendas. As you can imagine, Falun Gong becomes very strongly anti Chinese government. And when it broke in the west, when the US and Europe started entering this, you would see a lot of reports from politicians and journalists who were ridiculing the Chinese government. And they were saying, wow, these communist leaders are so paranoid, AKA they know their ideas are so bad that they're going to treat this group of quote, exercising grannies like counter terrorists. And they all had a good laugh about that right in the news cycle of the time. And they got some facts wrong while they were doing it. They got like, they got one big fact very much wrong.

[Noel]

That's right. Western sources originally had claimed that the PRC was reacting to popularity alone. They argued that the Communist Party had 60 to 70 million members, but Falun Gong had a hundred million. And this did not seem to be the case. But multiple scholars agreed that the Falun Gong only had about 2 to 10 million practitioners at that time. Also, why weren't other. Remember, this is all a product of a larger movement, the qigong movement. Why weren't other practitioners of those techniques banned?

[Ben]

Right. Again, there are multiple groups that are descended from this ancient tradition of, of mindfulness and exercise and meditation, and they seem to be just fine. Nothing wrong with those, folks. Sadly, as any longtime listener of this show knows, it is the opposite of unusual for world governments to repress movements they see as dangerous to the status quo on so many levels. There's an abundance, a plethora, I'm using the word correctly, of ridiculous examples of this. But if you dive into this, upon closer examination, we see that following all looks a lot different from the casual qigong group or even like a CrossFit club. And while we were prepping for this, folks, it became increasingly difficult for us not to continually ask ourselves about CrossFit. Which got out of hand for a second there, I think we can agree CrossFit got a little out of hand.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah.

[Matt]

Oh, it did. And I for one promise that I will hunt down the CrossFit demons and aliens that exist in the originating book somewhere that I've just never seen or read.

[Noel]

Yeah, I did CrossFit for a little while years ago, like had like a trainer situation. I can tell you from firsthand experience, the demons and aliens live in those T90X stretchy bands. That's where. That's where.

[Ben]

That's where that comes from a P90X

[Noel]

go T90 P90 Clamado Climato. But it was. They do sneak the Christian stuff in very subtly. You know, right when you're getting the most swole and then all of a sudden they sort of whisper some scripture in your ear.

[Matt]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I.

[Matt]

Maybe I just have no idea. Is CrossFit like a religious organization or arm?

[Noel]

Kind of, yeah.

[Matt]

Wow.

[Ben]

Maybe it depends on the trainer too.

[Noel]

No, I've always heard that CrossFit has sort of some kind of religious undertones.

[Matt]

I was being completely. I was joking about hunting that down, but now I'm serious.

[Noel]

Maybe I'm overthinking it too. There are definitely Christian CrossFit organizations. And like, here's an article here how turning CrossFit into a religion made its atheist founder, Greg Glassman, rich. Oh, interesting. Okay.

[Ben]

Huh.

[Noel]

So CrossFit itself is the religion, not necessarily a front for religion.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we go back to qigong and Falun Gong, what we see is that it isn't the same in many, many ways. And this is something that practitioners of Falun Gong would agree with. There is a web of conspiracy here. It's tough to suss out the strings of truth. Right. In this morass, there are allegations of everything from organ harvesting to cults to even front groups for intelligence agencies. So let's dive in. Deep breath. Here's where it gets crazy.

[Noel]

Yeah. China's state run media outlet Xinhua had a completely different take on why Falun Gong was being banned. They claimed that the west was attempting to make China look bad. They believed and argued accordingly that the Chinese government banned Falun Gong because Li had broken numerous laws, was responsible for over a thousand deaths, mainly from essentially coercing members into committing suicide or by not seeking medical treatment, which is a part of this whole, you know, belief system that we'll get into, was threatening public safety and because members had infiltrated the Communist Party in order to overthrow the government. That's a lot. And it sounds, you know, like the kind of high level conspiracies that's like, we live for things like Operation Snow White. Sounds a lot less like, you know, just doing Tai chi in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Right.

[Matt]

Yeah. And. And anyone listening may remember Operation Snow White, wherein the Church of Scientology or members, a few members of the Church of Scientology attempted some infiltration.

[Ben]

All right, now I can feel the shadow of our legal team.

[Matt]

I know.

[Ben]

So let me. How did. It's very careful with the writing on that one. The Official position of the Church of Scientology is that Operation Snow White was not sanctioned by their organization as a way to massively infiltrate the IRS and then blackmail the government in a crazy financial scheme.

[Noel]

Oh, good.

[Ben]

Several people disagree with that official position, including the U.S. supreme Court.

[Sam J]

Wow.

[Ben]

Right. Like that's what we could say. We said that earlier, right? There are people who disagree. So we have Mike Rinder on. I mean, our ship has sailed in that regard. But there is one thing, you know, that you, that they said that's really interesting here, Noel. The idea of infiltration of the government, that was true.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Yeah.

[Ben]

The Chinese government was telling the truth about this one. Falun Gong was all up in the state's military and the security apparatus and the media, educational establishments as much as possible. It's explicitly mentioned in one of Lee's books, Falun Gong. He talks about putting focus on getting support from state government leaders, like from these officials. And interestingly enough, if you read the English and French translations of these books, those specific mentions have been cut from the text. See, the past is changing. But in all fairness to Li, in all fairness to the practitioners of Falun Gong, we have to point out seeking powerful friends is not the same thing as planning a couple. You want to get, like a member of the high ranking member of the Communist Party on board with Falun Gong, well, then maybe first it's because you think it's good for them, you know, on a purely physical level. And then maybe secondly, you're like, hey, this person could help us out with a jam. Especially if we're being misrepresented. We have someone on our side who can say, here's the truth, and this is not propaganda. So it's not the same thing as a couple.

[Matt]

It sounds a lot like the family to me. Another episode we covered where evangelical Christianity was at least making those friends right in high places and actively working to increase just influence within those realms, not necessarily causing a coup.

[Ben]

Is that the episode where we got a little bit lost trying to figure out what the menu for the prayer breakfast was?

[Noel]

I'm always interested in that. I was just thinking, I was like, I don't know. Why am I thinking about eggs right now? That's right. There was that massive prayer breakfast that was such a, like a influencer kind of closed door situation that they essentially started.

[Matt]

Correct. It's always pancakes, guys.

[Ben]

Yeah, I just, I don't like. All right. I, I, I feel like a pancake breakfast is something that's cooler as a phrase than an actual thing. Like what, what makes It a pancake breakfast instead of just like pancakes and O.J. is there bacon?

[Noel]

I could maybe eat two pancakes. You know what I mean? Like, and I need variety. I. Sausage and some bacon. And I. I'm not a huge. Pancakes feel so much like dessert to me.

[Matt]

Look very heavy, you guys. When you're a tax exempt organization, you gotta keep costs super low and pancake batter is the way to go.

[Noel]

It's true. It is the people's. The people's food.

[Ben]

I thought you're gonna call it the people's cake. Pancake.

[Noel]

Also true. Also true.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. Pancake opinions aside, I just think. I don't know. Also portions in the US Are so cartoonishly large. If you go eat somewhere, I'm with you guys. Two or three silver dollar pancakes. I think I have some other stuff going on in the plate. But this is not something that Xinwa or the PRC was, I assume, talking about too much. They were concerned and they thought Western media was. And Western governments were being complicit in supporting what they saw as an increasingly subversive and perhaps even separatist organization. Today, the members of Falun Gong or the practitioners of. I think the members of the organization prefer the term practitioners. The practitioners are often overtly political and overtly anti China. They want the demise, if not of the government of China. They want the demise of the Communist Party. And if we're being completely objective here, you can see a couple of different reasons for this. The Chinese government may argue that their political beliefs are the reason this movement was banned. But we also have to ask if we're being fair. Are the people who are being overtly political here, are they just reacting in an entirely reasonable way to some extreme state level persecution? You know, is this an exercise group or a cult? That's a question that we're going to try to explore together after a word from our sponsor.

[Noel]

This episode of Stuff They Don't Want yout to Know is brought to you by Wise Code. Guys. You know, these days it feels like every product at the grocery store claims to be healthy and all natural or, you know, better for you than the other stuff. But that often ends up being quite the misleading proposition.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah. Once you turn the package over, you're left trying to figure out what these ingredients are. Often they're difficult to pronounce and understand.

[Ben]

Yeah, and that's where Wise Code comes in, folks. Wise Code is your new ultra processed food detector. It takes the guesswork out of grocery shopping.

[Noel]

Yep, it sure does. And all you have to do is scan your product, whatever you've picked up that you're questioning with your phone, and instantly you'll be able to see whether or not it is ultra processed. And it'll even give you even further insights into things like nutrition.

[Matt]

Oh, yes. With wise Code, you can look into all kinds of stuff on nutrition, quality, health quality. It'll help you understand what's inside that thing, especially if it's packaged before you purchase it.

[Ben]

Yeah. And it doesn't matter if you're shopping for yourself or your family or just trying to make more informed, healthier food choices, Wise Code is here to give you another layer of crucial information right at your fingertips.

[Noel]

It's quick, easy to use, and designed to help you navigate the grocery store with more confidence.

[Matt]

Download Wise code, that's W I S E C O D E. The ultra processed food detector on the app store today. And start discovering what's really inside the foods you buy.

[Ari Chambers]

What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

[Sam J]

Hey, what's up, y'? All? It's your girl, Sam J.

[Ari Chambers]

And we're the host of Everyone watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from together in iheart Women's sports.

[Sam J]

Because, let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

[Ari Chambers]

So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.

[Sam J]

My first thought is just like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating?

[Ari Chambers]

The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire

[Sam J]

timeline and the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

[Ari Chambers]

Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka.

[Sam J]

Shout outs to you, Naomi.

[Kerry Brownstein]

You get the palm.

[Sam J]

Naomi.

[Ari Chambers]

You get the palm for that.

[Sam J]

Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

Thirty years ago, an island off Manhattan almost brought down New York City.

[Ben]

Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust? The people five miles overseas.

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

This is a story about neighbors turning on each other and what happens when a forgotten place decides it's had enough.

[Ben]

We reached for a feeling that exists in this city.

[Matt]

But we're not stopping, are we?

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

I'm Ben Nadif Haffrey, and for my new series on revisionist history, I took A deep dive into Staten Island's attempt to secede from New York city in the 1990s and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today. Listen to revisionist history, the Staten island problem on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben]

I'm Mangesha together and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science.

[Sam J]

I can make a brain for you.

[Ben]

And then we can test what drug is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to

[Matt]

be almost a four to five year

[Ben]

acceleration and get myself into a world world of trouble.

[Sam J]

I'd say probably start bone smashing.

[Ben]

That doesn't work.

[Noel]

Make it look more defined.

[Sam J]

They say it works. I don't know.

[Ben]

Listen to Skyline Drive, how to live Forever on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noel]

And we're back. Okay, so before the break we posed the question, what really is this? There's a lot of divisive talk surrounding the Falun Gong. So what is it? Is it, is it a kind of innocuous mindfulness meditative exercise group or some sort of nefarious cult? Or perhaps something in between? While the again state sponsored Chinese media calls Falun Gong occult, Western media seemed very hesitant to do so. In fact, really like we talked about, that 1999 Time interview did give them a platform and treated them almost with a lot of deference. And we gotta ask ourselves why?

[Sam J]

Why?

[Noel]

Some scholars argue that it was because of pressure from Falun Gong itself. Perhaps that litigiousness we talked about. Still, there are some accounts and evidence showing recruitment tactics that could be described as pretty sketchy, at the very least cult like at the most, as Heather Cavin writes in Falun Gong and the Media, what can we believe? The exercises quickly begin to take a backseat to larger ideologically driven belief systems.

[Ben]

Here's a quote.

[Noel]

On newcomers second or third visits, they are given scriptures showing Lee's rejection of those who simply do the exercise part and not, you know, the, the other stuff which we'll get into when six months into the field work a member told me that Falun Gong was not about doing the exercises at all. And I was not surprised.

[Ben]

Yeah, so Heather Kavan wrote this awesome paper where she did this ethnographic study, I believe, in New Zealand. And she was meeting up with members of Falun Gong every day for a time and doing these exercises in the morning. And she got. They were very welcoming. And she got an increasingly intimate perspective of the day to day actions of practitioners, as well as, you know, some of the larger things that they believed to be true. And this got into ideas of like having visions. Visions are very big in Falun Gong. Having clairvoyance moments or moments of bilocation. And then also there were sketchy things where she would ask, like, she did this for pretty more than a year, I think. And there was somebody she was meeting every day and she said, hey, what do I call that woman that I've been meeting with every day? And somebody just looked at her and was like, just call her the woman. Which is kind of a sketchy thing to say. I don't know, I don't know. I'm an outsider. But this told her that there was a maybe to your point, a bit of bait and switch. Kind of like you're come for the exercises, stay for the truth about the universe. And I'm not being dismissive. I mean, that's kind of the process. And those for people who continue deeper into the belief system, ex Falun Gong practitioners say that the beliefs and values are what might be called surprisingly conservative. The forbidding of interracial marriage, the condemnation of homosexuality, and to our earlier point, discouraging the use of modern medicine. For their part, Falun Gong officially denies that this is true. So again, we're in a. One side said this, one side said that situation. But if this is, if we were to define this as a cult, which Falun Gong emphatically says it is not, then we would naturally find ourselves with a couple of questions off the bat. The first is this, this observation. Cults need leaders. So people who are critics of this organization, those who accuse Falun Gong of being a cult, say they do have a leader. And that role is played by the founder, Li Hongqi. So weird thing about Li Hongxi is that we have conflicting stories about him, his life, his current beliefs, his aims for the organization, or aims for the movement. And the even weirder thing about this is, to Matt's earlier point about an information war, some of these reports are coming from people who would be totally happy if he never existed, AKA the Chinese government. Some of these reports are coming from his disciples and then some of his conflicting reports are coming straight from him at different times when he's talking to different people. Like he's talking to a western audience, right? He's saying like, I'm not a God. Don't try to make me a God. And then he's talking to a domestic audience and he's saying my true spiritual form is so huge that if I came down here, you know, in my true form, you would be like standing, trying to gaze up past my big toe.

[Noel]

Totally a God. AKA yeah. Interesting. Wow.

[Matt]

It's very weird. I mean, in the past, hasn't Lee said that he's like Jesus or a savior or the person who is going to. Yeah. Save humanity?

[Ben]

Right? Yeah, he said that he's compared himself at times in speeches to the biblical Jesus Christ where he said that, you know, lines like, christ has a 16 karat gold path. I have a 24 or 20 something carat gold path. You know, we have to admit maybe we're, maybe we're losing some context in translation, but there's a repeated pattern of this stuff. He also says things will be familiar to people who have had experience with exclusionary organizations. Says that if you're a member of Falun Gong, you're superior to ordinary people. And this might be familiar to longtime listeners. Also says you need to relinquish affection for kinsfolk, love between a man and a woman and affection for parents, feelings and friendship. You need to focus on the path. What was that guy we did episode on benjito Massaro?

[Noel]

Wasn't he like in like Sedona or something like that? He was in somewhere, somewhere in like New Mexico and he had this whole like, kind of sweat lodge tech bro cult situation.

[Matt]

Careful.

[Noel]

What?

[Matt]

Careful.

[Noel]

Disgusting.

[Matt]

Yeah, I, I still get his newsletters.

[Noel]

Oh boy.

[Ben]

He subscribed.

[Noel]

Interesting. Well, no, you're right, Ben. And, and it gets weirder. Like, and he's, he isn't, he's not shy about this. And it's, it's even a little inconsistent, right? Like when he's gonna go big and talk about the big toe, you know, God situation or downplay and say, oh, no, no, I'm just a. But a humble meditation instructor. I'm, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but in that Time article, he talks a lot about being able to teach people to levitate off of the ground. And then also he talks about how you shouldn't ever show this, these abilities to outsiders. The Time reporter says in your book, Zon Falun, you talk about people levitating off the ground. But you say that they should not show other people. Why is that? And he, Lee says it is the same principle that Western gods in paradise should not be seen by ordinary mortals because they cannot understand its meaning. And then time asks, have you seen human beings levitate off the ground? And he responds, I have known too many. Can you describe any that you have known? To which Lee responds, david Copperfield, he can levitate and he did it during performances. Not trying to rag on the guy too hard, but very mixed messages here. He's saying, you know, you. I can teach people to do it. It's something that's inherent in this belief system. Also, I don't like the idea of them showing anybody. But the one he cites is an American illusionist where everyone knows that he's not really levitating. Very unusual.

[Matt]

It may have just been a joke in some. A form of a joke. Who knows?

[Ben]

Yeah, maybe. And then also, this is, this is interesting because again, we go back to the question of not just context, but the question of motivation of the sources. There's an interesting example. So we talked a little bit about how there might have been pressure from Falun Gong that influenced Western media's portrayal of the group originally. It reminds me a lot of Reverend Moon and the Washington Times when the Moonies owned that there were clear conflicts of interest that would come up over time. Just like obviously Xinhua has conflicts of interest because it's state media, just like multiple organizations do. It's more unusual to be like a ProPublica without as much of an editorial bias. So I think we built an okay case to show that. But first off, a lot of statements from this guy have been conflicting over time with earlier statements he's made or with statements he goes on to make afterwards. Secondly, there are some claims he's made that seem pretty extraordinary and that don't seem all too out of the realm of cult leader. But we're telling you why some people have argued that the other thing that keeps. So we're kind of ping ponging back and forth across what's happening here. Here's another thing that's happening. Falun Gong practitioners have for years and years and years alleged that since,

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

gosh,

[Ben]

more than two decades now, that since 1999, maybe even a little before, they were being persecuted and are being persecuted by the Chinese government. That is true. That's the thing. They're not making that up. After the ban, tens of thousands of people were arrested. They were sent to labor camps without a trial. And Many of these people who have survived, who came out of these said that they were tortured. Again, the numbers may be exaggerated. It's tough to get transparent numbers of incarceration from the Chinese government, and it's tough to really. And this is not a ding on them. It's tough to understand the credibility of numbers offered by an organization like this on its own. Membership rates on what happened to whom and when, just because they might not. I'm not saying there's any necessarily any ulterior motive here. They may not have the capacity to keep that kind of accounting, but the detainment was definitely real.

[Noel]

Yeah. So in the Wall Street Journal, a journalist named Ian Johnson documented his investigation into the repression that we're talking about in a series that he wrote, which he received a Pulitzer Prize for part of. And there's definitely something strange going on. Xinhua in pretty stark, if not very surprising. As we discussed, contrast depicted the prisoners as being happy playing basketball. We've talked about this in the past episodes as well. Eating amazing, you know, platters of food and all of that, with local police stations acting as centers for them to receive counseling to help these poor, you know, brainwashed souls essentially get an education and become, I guess, more acclimated or reintroduced into traditional, civilized Chinese society. In this, you know, really supported the narrative the government was pushing of this being a dangerous separatist cult. However, practitioners of Falun Gong describe members being treated much, much differently, describe them being hung by their ankles upside down for long periods of time, hit with, like, cattle prod type implements or stun guns, actually cut or pierced with bamboo sticks, beaten and raped and kept in tiny, tiny spaces where they can't even move for days at a time. Prohibited from using the restroom facilities for long periods of time. Showing brutal imagery displayed throughout these facilities, things like police brutality. And often in some of these public demonstrations that they would do, they would reenact historical torture scenes in alarming and disturbing ways.

[Ben]

Theater is a weapon, right? It's a real thing, and it can be a powerful thing. There's an interesting and somewhat troubling interpretation of this persecution. This persecution is, to a degree, aspirational. As much as I hate to say it, within the movement, there's this one speech where Lee talks about stepping forward. Stepping forward is a euphemism referring to a series of tests that practitioners must pass to gain entry into his version or his realization of heaven or paradise or enlightenment.

[Matt]

Going up the ladder, crossing the bridge, stepping forward.

[Ben]

Okay, do you want to get a seed? Simpson's Reference. So. So yeah, here's how he explained it. He said he had only planned enlightenment for a limited number of Falun Gong members, but with the increasing amount of practitioners, again, they might be inflating the numbers here. And with, of course, the eminent end of the world, he had to start weeding people out quick, fast and in a hurry. And so he said that if you defend the Falun Gong to the point where you are imprisoned, you are detained, you are tortured, then your bad karma is burned off, and this assures you a space in paradise. Practitioners must not recant their faith, even if their retraction is insincere. Even if, like we proved in earlier episodes on torture, you're just saying whatever you think people want to hear so that they'll stop pulling out your fingernails or shocking your testicles or what have you. He says, look, even if you fake recanting Falun Gong, you're a terrible person. And then he goes on, think about this. He goes one step further and heavily implies that he purposefully orchestrated the torture, that it was all under his control the whole time because he needed to expose these weak willed folks. And he refers to these folks who were cant under torture as quote, malignant tumors. So the torture's real, but the interpretation of it and the degree to which it's real is still up for debate. Cause there's just not an unbiased source here, really. And it's tough. The Wall Street Journal, these are top notch journalists and they're having a tough time cutting through the propaganda and cutting through the purposely deceptive tactics of the government. And we have to go to one other thing, which is probably the thing people, a lot of people in the west probably first heard of Falun Gollum because of this. And we've covered it in both video and audio in the past. Organ harvesting, the quote, unquote, red market. Yep.

[Matt]

And this is again, as you said, Ben, this is one of the things that brings a lot of people into the conversation because it's such a sensational concept that the Chinese government is somehow or for some reason harvesting organs directly from Falun Gong practitioners. And this is, this is something that is alleged and it's usually organs being taken from detainees, people who are already detained by the government. At least that's what's said. In 2019, an expert panel of independent researchers said they heard clear evidence that organ harvesting had taken place over at least 20 years. Wow.

[Ben]

Directly tied to 1999.

[Matt]

Yep.

[Ben]

When they were declared illegal. If you look at the timeline, questions about the bias of this tribunal, the China Tribunal, it was set up by a group called the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China. So it definitely starts from assuming this is happening, and they just want to prove it's there. This panel said it was beyond a doubt a fact that there had been forced organ harvesting. Not just because of one, like, crooked doctor or one crooked warden, which this is very important. But they said it was happening on a systemic scale, state supported. And here's the worst part. Beijing has repeatedly denied these accusations. They did not start with Falun Gong. To be very clear, as we talked about earlier, this is an ongoing thing, or this was an ongoing thing at the time. But I want to draw special attention to their reasoning here, their support of their claim that they didn't do this. You guys, they literally said, no, we don't forcibly take organs from people. That's a bunch of Western propaganda. I mean, for Pete's sake, fellow humans, we stopped taking organs from executed prisoners way back in 2015. And that was, like, four years ago. You guys are living in the past.

[Matt]

So 2015, come on.

[Ben]

That's just like. Okay, like, imagine. I'm not gonna say somebody burned a barn, but imagine, like, I was standing right next to just like the old Dre Eminem song. Look, I'm standing right next to a burning barn in this instance, and I've got a handful of matches, a handful of gas. If people are like, hey, dude, dude, did you burn this barn? I'm like, what? That's crazy. I haven't burned barns for fun since 2015. You guys are wild. And that's unfair. But, like, you see what I'm saying?

[Matt]

No, totally.

[Ben]

I'm saying it's right to be suspicious.

[Matt]

It is right to be suspicious. And it's also just something to point out here. We talked about the demonstrations that Fallon gone practitioners have done, showing the police brutality, the torture. One of the things that they harp on, or at least have in the past, is this bread market. And they will go through the motions of having a detainee, not really, but having their organs ripped out in a very gory fashion in a demonstration in front of a building, a government building or something.

[Ben]

And then this leads us to maybe one of the biggest things we need to note here. The information war that started in the 90s continues. It's been going on for decades. There's something we mentioned a little earlier. We've talked a lot about this off air in preparation for this episode in the US There is this amazing traveling show called Shen Yun we talked about this, I think last week or so. Like, we always wanted to go. I definitely always wanted to go. Felt the tickets were a little pricey. But it is in fact associated with and backed by Falun Gong. Visually, it's a stunning show.

[Noel]

It's the kind of thing too, where it's like, I don't know where this budget is coming from, but the marketing blitz behind this show is out of control. A lot of it's just kind of like street team type situations where you'll see, you know, flyers for it at every restaurant and coffee shop and, you know, juice, Juice bar in town. But they have billboards everywhere. And like in New York City, especially, a friend of mine was saying how he ended up in a cab or a lift or something that was driven by very clearly Falun Gong, you know, kind of hardliner. And there were even Xunyan advertisements within the cab and he had like stacks of Falun Gong pamphlets as well. It's almost like a modern day Hare Krishna thing. Remember how you used to see the Hare Krishnas at the airport passing out their pamphlets and stuff? This is sort of like that to me.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah. It makes itself known. So let's talk about exactly what we're seeing here in this beautifully choreographed dance, interpretive dance and cultural exchange at Shen Yun. What do you see?

[Ben]

Yeah, so you see it's heavily rooted in traditional Chinese culture. So we'll see. You'll see songs, you'll see intricate choreography and dance numbers. You'll also see a. And admittedly transparent narrative and overall message, which includes the reenactment of some of those acts of persecution. Also includes a very pro Falun Gong, pro Shenyan message. And it talks about the evils of persecution. It's clearly a show with something to say beyond witness, this ancient tradition of Chinese dance.

[Ben Nadif Haffrey]

Yeah.

[Matt]

And you can read a lot about Shen Yun. One thing you can, you can hear about at least is the upstate New York training facility where Shen Yun, I guess Falun Gong practitioners, or just Shen Yun dancers and performers go and learn really interesting stuff.

[Noel]

I mean, to me, it's. It's like it has to have a massive base of operations, right? Because, I mean, it's got to be hundreds and hundreds of individuals that are performing in these various iterations of this show. Right? I mean, like, and like. So you're saying there's a training facility almost like you think of for Cirque du Soleil?

[Matt]

Yeah, it's. It is called the Fei Shen Academy and it's in Middleton or Middletown, New

[Ben]

York and, you know, post pandemic. If you, depending on where you live, it's pretty easy for you to see this show when it comes into town because it's, you know, used to travel a lot before COVID locked us down. One thing I noticed is it seemed like a Shin Yun show was always on the way or it just left. It's definitely a business.

[Matt]

Just quick shout out to the New Yorker, Angel Tolentino. I think that's her name. A 2019 article you can read called Stepping into the Uncanny Unsettling World of Shen Yun. Just, it describes to you exactly what you see.

[Ben]

And let's stick with the New York Times. Let's also stick with allegations of front companies because Falun Gong has a success story that may be familiar to a lot of people in the US Though you may not know the full story. It's a bit conspiratorial. Great journalist over at New York Times named Kevin Rose wrote this piece on a newspaper called the Epoch Times. Epoch.

[Matt]

That sounds so familiar. Okay.

[Ben]

All right. So for years, the Epoch Times was a kind of small, low budget newspaper that was against the government of China. And if you're walking around the corners of some New York neighborhoods, you would have this thing handed out for free to you. People like free stuff, stuff. It's a smart strategy. But in around 2016, 2017 or so, the paper made a couple of changes that turned it into one of the country's most powerful digital platforms, most powerful digital publishers, I should say. They became a world class source of right wing information by betting the farm on Facebook. I don't know why I have so many farm analogies today, guys. Sorry. But so they like when Donald Trump came forward to become president, to become a presidential candidate, all this stuff, they got super on board and they embraced the Trump presidency. Most likely, if you had to guess, because of his strong anti China stance at the time, more than anything else, it was just like an enemy of my enemy kind of thing or I guess a cow with my pig of my chicken, whatever. So the coverage that they had of US Politics beforehand was very much like neutral. Also ran straight up reporting, right? Like this bill passes, this bill doesn't pass. This person is blah, blah, blah of New York. But then it became super partisan. And in 2020, this article was written in November 2020. Rose reports that the Epoch Times and its affiliates are a force in right wing media with tens of millions of of followers spread across dozens of pages. And they have an online audience that rivals the audiences of the Daily Caller. And Breitbart since 2017, they had been running some pretty interesting experiments. And you can also get a taste of the kind of stuff they cover. They cover real world events, they cover international news. An anti China slant. But then they also, you know, when they're on social media, which are very adept at, according to Rose, they're posting stuff about like anti vaccine screeds. Where did the coronavirus really come from? And why doesn't the PRC want you to know? Was made to lab on purpose by them. Cause they're evil. That's the whole headline. Why is Bill Gates directing the pandemic? What's up with this Jewish mob that controls the world? Like, that's the kind of stuff they're right.

[Matt]

And if you listen to those headlines and those topics, it sounds very similar to the stuff you've probably seen floating around on Facebook.

[Ben]

And I think this is an important thing. It's a very strange turn of events. This started as like a spiritual movement or an exercise group. How did it become a media powerhouse? How did it become associated with this traveling show that we want to see that almost weaponizes theater? What's the true story of Li Hongxi? And at the very end of today's show, we have to advance the even crazier stuff. I'm sure I can't be the only person wondering, is Falun Gong an asset of a foreign intelligence agency? It's not out of the question. That's the thing. No harsh proof of this has come to light. Please send us some if you have some. But of course, people are wondering, is the CIA involved? Because this is like textbook CIA. You get a dissident group that may be disruptive to the status quo, and boom, you got some independent freedom fighters. You got a bunch of college students who just happened to overthrow a government because they believe in these very US friendly ideals and they just somehow got some guns. That's the thing. That's why people are asking this. And Falun Gong has not done some kind of armed attack on a Chinese building at this point. But people are asking these questions primarily because the west has such a terrible track record and terrible precedent for interfering in affairs this way. And also, these are human beings. Falun Gong people are human beings. I hope it's not a hot take that human beings shouldn't be tortured or kidnapped.

[Matt]

Nope. That is a very cool take. Great take. Thanks, Matt.

[Ben]

Cool takes come for the hot ones, stay for the cool ones. Stuff they want you to know. But there's one, there's another point I Think one of us mentioned this earlier. There's another big mystery. Where is all the money coming from that's powering these initiatives? Is this really all coming from, like, subscriptions to things owned by the Epoch Media Group or ticket sales from Shen Yun? I mean, I don't know. This is. This is big. We want to. We want to know what you guys think.

[Matt]

Yeah. If you have any information on the tithing process or like, donation process or membership that it, you know, whatever it takes to stay within the organization. If you have info on that, we'd love to hear it. Because it's difficult to find anything transparent coming out of the organization or anything that you could believe coming out of an opposition writer. So, yeah, please write to us about that.

[Ben]

Yeah, I just keep, like, imagine you're trying to decide if you should eat a sandwich and there's one person left saying, this is the best sandwich ever. If you don't eat it, you're going to die. And then there's a person on the other side of the table saying, this is the worst. It doesn't even qualify as food. If you do eat it, you'll die in a slow, agonizing way in a Chinese prison. Like, this is very intense and it's tough to figure out the truth. But I think there's. I'm going to say, I think there's some sketchy stuff going on. No matter how you slice it, there's something. There's something they don't want you to know. Multiple instances of it. Please let us know if you have experience, please let us know what you think the future of this organization or these kinds of organizations will be and what it can tell us about the world today. We try to be easy to find on the Internet.

[Matt]

Yep, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. We are conspiracy stuff. On Instagram, we're conspiracy stuff show. If you do use Facebook, head on over to here's where it gets crazy. That is the page where you can hang out with all the other conspiracy realists who are listening right now who want to talk with you and comment and be nice and they will be nice and they'll be cool or else our awesome mods will take care of them.

[Noel]

You can also find us all over the Internet in other places. The usual Facebook spots where we're conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. You can also give us a Telephone call at 1-833-STDW Y TK. Once you hear the sound of Ben's chime, like vocal intonations, leave a voicemail. Try to keep it three minutes. They cut off at three. Do us a solid. Don't like spam us with like three or six messages. Try to like, you know, practice brevity. Get your story in in one and you might hear yourself featured on one of our weekly Listener Mail episodes. But please do let us know if it's okay to use your voice, why you'd like us to call you, or if you prefer to remain anonymous and

[Ben]

feel free to give us a rating on your pod scraper of choice should the spirit move you. So if none of that quite gives you the truth, compassion and forbearance you are looking for, there's one other way to reach out to us.

[Matt]

You can email us directly where we are [e-mail]. Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Ben]

Hey folks, have you ever picked up something at the grocery store that looked healthy? You know, but then you flip it over and you see the list of ingredients and you're saying, I can't pronounce half of these things.

[Noel]

That's true. And that's exactly why you should check out Wise Code, the Ultra Processed Food Detector. All you got to do is scan a product and instantly you can see whether it's ultra processed.

[Matt]

You can even take a step further by viewing its nutrition quality and health quality, giving you a better understanding of what's really in the food you're picking up.

[Ben]

So don't delay. Download Wise Code, that's W I, S E code all one word on the App Store today and make grocery shopping a little easier.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Hey Portlandia fans, Kerry Brownstein and Fred Armisen here, the dream of the 90s

[Noel]

is alive in podcast form.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We're launching Podlandia AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.

[Noel]

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Crow, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Kyle is going for it. Here you fully improvised, not just words, but a song about.

[Matt]

Well, I thought you were all going

[Noel]

to write a song.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia Aao rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ari Chambers]

What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

[Sam J]

Hey, what's up, y'?

[Ari Chambers]

All?

[Sam J]

It's your girl, Sam J.

[Ari Chambers]

And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I heart women's sports.

[Sam J]

We're breaking down the biggest headlines.

[Ari Chambers]

Naomi Osaka showing out shout outs to you, Naomi. The viral moments.

[Sam J]

I've been obsessed with Chrisean Rock's boxing journey. She looks good, her combos are swift.

[Ari Chambers]

And the stories everyone's talking about across

[Sam J]

women's sports because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben]

This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse, the

[Noel]

world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here

[Ben]

to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem.

[Noel]

Do you know I just found out who Sydney Sweeney was?

[Sam J]

If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamaneika, and I'm out. Listen to youo're the Problem with yamaneika

[Noel]

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

[Sam J]

wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.