FW: China's Cult Buster Sima Nan
Wally Anglesea
Thought I'd pass this one along. Nice to see James Randi's methods having
an
influence in China.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Resource Center for Freedom of Mind Confidential Mailing List
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> Sent: Sunday, 21 November 1999 02:51
> To: List Member
> Subject: China's Cult Buster Sima Nan
>
>
> Resource Center for Freedom of Mind Confidential Mailing List -
> http://www.freedomofmind.com
>
> November 20, 1999 New York Times
>
> A Star Turn for China's Cult Buster By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
>
> BEIJING -- The animosity between Sima Nan and the Falun Gong spiritual
> movement goes back a few years, ever since Sima, China's one-man
> cult-bashing machine, denounced the group as a fraud in 1995, and the
> group's leader predicted that Sima would go blind and be crippled, Sima
> says.
>
> "As you can see my eyes and legs are fine," Sima said recently, with
> the swagger of a man who routinely captivates audiences by eating glass
> shards and cracking chopsticks with paper bills, all to prove that
> supernatural powers do not really exist.
>
> Indeed, in the course of his decade-long campaign against Chinese groups
> that he says encourage superstition and mystical beliefs, Sima seems to
> have made enemies across the political spectrum.
>
> He has been beaten by members of sects he has denounced and shunned
> by the government as a flamboyant upstart willing to "out" officials who
> believe in the supernatural, like the vice minister who for good luck
> invites a master of qi gong -- slow-motion exercises said to harness
> unseen forces -- to important events.
>
> But these days, Sima's longstanding feud with Falun Gong has
> transformed him into an establishment darling, featured in newspapers
and
> sent to state companies all over the country to lecture. In July,
Chinese
> leaders banned Falun Gong and they have since labeled it an "evil sect."
>
> The new role is unlikely and somewhat awkward for the 43-year-old
> former liberal journalist who turned to cult bashing -- and took the
name
> Sima Nan -- when he found himself out of a job after the 1989 government
> crackdown on protests in Tiananmen Square.
>
> "In 1995, I said Falun Gong was a cult and everyone said I was
> crazy," he said. "Now that President Jiang Zemin says it, people agree
> with me."
>
> Still, Sima is careful to maintain some distance from the
> government, refusing its payments for his lectures. "There are not many
> people like me who are willing to take on these masters," he said. "I do
> this because I feel a responsibility to tell the truth."
>
> Falun Gong has denied that it is a cult.
>
> The group says it blends traditional Chinese exercise, mysticism,
> Buddhism and Taoism to promote physical and spiritual health.
>
> Sima says he supports the government's ban on Falun Gong, which he
> thinks is duping China's masses. But he remains ambivalent about the
> government's campaign against the group, with vitriolic propaganda and
> hundreds of arrests.
>
> "I don't think they should let these people sit in Tiananmen
Square,
> but I also think it's really bad that the government is treating this
like
> a political movement," he said. "To have people criticizing each other
for
> practicing and old ladies in tears confessing on TV -- you don't have to
> humiliate people like that."
>
> Sima says the government's omnipresent anti-Falun Gong messages
have
> actually elevated the profile of what was, in his eyes, an
undistinguished
> group, catering to people looking for meaning at a time of vast social
> transformation.
>
> "People are tired of all the criticism, and they think if the
> government is paying so much attention to something, maybe it's
important
> and interesting," he said.
>
> In fact, he said, the state media's daily broadcasts and articles
> on the group "have been free advertising for Li Hongzhi," the founder
and
> leader of the Falun Gong, who lives in New York.
>
> Sima, the son of a traditional Chinese medical doctor, said he
> began his adult life as a believer in qi gong, which is said to improve
> health and, some say, gives practitioners magical powers.
>
> Falun Gong considers itself a type of qi gong, and there are
> hundreds of other schools in China that have flourished in recent years,
> most with their own belief system and master.
>
> Sima said that in his youth he certainly made the rounds.
>
> "I used to believe in supernatural powers, and I was very
impressed
> with those masters who could do amazing things," he said. But over time,
> he said, he grew skeptical of some of the stupendous claims, like being
> able to levitate or cure cancer. He says he still believes that qi gong
> exercises are good for body and soul.
>
> In 1990, he embarked on a personal quest against many large qi
gong
> and other quasi-religious groups that he says promote superstition and
> unscientific thought.
>
> Until this summer Falun Gong was just one of his many targets.
Sima
> said it is by no means the most popular of China's qi gong sects. He
> listed several others -- Zhong Gong, Yuan Ji Gong and Wang Gong -- which
> he said are bigger.
>
> He is critical of China's leaders for suddenly singling out Falun
> Gong, noting that other groups that he considers equally unscientific
have
> been granted legal status because they enjoy the patronage of government
> officials.
>
> "Instead of just saying Falun Gong is an evil sect, they should
be
> using science to be proving generally that there are no supernatural
> powers," he said.
>
> The government's troubles with Falun Gong started after 10,000
> members surrounded the leadership compound in Beijing in April,
demanding
> recognition.
>
> Not one to shy away from confrontation, Sima has been know to
> travel long distances to gate-crash qi gong meetings, confronting faith
> healers and qi gong masters. Last February, followers of one man, Hu
> Wailin, beat Sima and trapped him temporarily in a house in Shandong
> Province.
>
> Some critics say that with his broad smile and theatrical bent,
> Sima's greatest skill is not exposing superstition, but engaging in
> self-promotion.
>
> But after 10 years of crossing China in old trains and hundreds
of
> nights in spare government guest houses, he denies that fame or money
are
> his motivators. He lives on the income of a small television production
> company he owns.
>
> Still, he's a natural on stage -- breaking spoons with a touch of
> the hand and passing handkerchiefs though fire without igniting them. He
> clearly loves the limelight. This week he took a brief respite from his
> government assignments to perform with an American magician, James
Randi,
> offering a huge reward to anyone who could prove to be in possession of
> supernatural powers.
>
> NOTE: James Randi has been debunking people who claim to have magical
> powers for many decades and has inspired many other magicians to expose
> fraudulent cult figures. Premanand has been doing this in India, In fact
> he got a governement grant to train 2000 students to go out to remote
> villages and do magic tricks to debunk gurus and god-men. Steve
>
>
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>
Evan Morris
>Thought I'd pass this one along. Nice to see James Randi's methods having
an
>influence in China.
[snip]
> > Sima says he supports the government's ban on Falun Gong, which
he
> > thinks is duping China's masses. But he remains ambivalent about the
> > government's campaign against the group, with vitriolic propaganda and
> > hundreds of arrests.
> >
Say what?
1) Yes, Falun Gong is a silly and possibly destructive cult. So is the
Catholic Church.
2) The Chinese Govt. has no business "banning" Falun Gong. The possible
predations of this cult pale in comparison to the long-standing brutal
repression visited on the Chinese people by the government. Human rights
is the issue here, and I don't think it is the place of any free-thinker
to call for yet another "re-education" campaign, even in the name of science,
by the vermin responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre.
--
Evan Morris
wor...@word-detective.com
http://www.word-detective.com
Stephen Carville
10 centuries or so have been governments. No cult has ever been on
the same order of magnitude.
I think skeptics need to realize that banning a cult -- no matter how
bizarre is may seem to a sane person -- does not help the cause of
rationality. In fact is makes skeptics look like they have to resort
to force to promote our ideas. If that were true then skepticism
deserves to lose.
On Sun, 21 Nov 1999, Evan Morris wrote:
[snip]
-2) The Chinese Govt. has no business "banning" Falun Gong. The possible
-predations of this cult pale in comparison to the long-standing brutal
-repression visited on the Chinese people by the government. Human rights
-is the issue here, and I don't think it is the place of any free-thinker
to
-call for yet another "re-education" campaign, even in the name of
science,
-by the vermin responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre.
--
Stephen Carville
----------------------------------------------------
A well educated citizenry, being essential to the maintenance of a free
society, the right of the people, to keep and read books shall not be
infringed.
Ronald Orenstein
>1) Yes, Falun Gong is a silly and possibly destructive cult. So is the
>Catholic Church.
>
>2) The Chinese Govt. has no business "banning" Falun Gong. The possible
>predations of this cult pale in comparison to the long-standing brutal
>repression visited on the Chinese people by the government. Human rights
>is the issue here, and I don't think it is the place of any free-thinker
>to call for yet another "re-education" campaign, even in the name of
>science, by the vermin responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre.
>While I do not disagree with this, there is one bit of history, largely
>unknown in the west, that may explain part of the Chinese government's
>attitude.
In the last century, a cult arose in China, also based on a peculiar
"version" of Christianity, called Taiping. It led to one of the bloodiest
- perhaps the bloodiest - rebellions in history (1851-64), costing some 20
million lives. The following is from
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taiping.html:
"Hung Xiu-quan (1814-1864) was the son of a farmer and an aspiring Chinese
bureaucrat. He came under the influence of Christian missionaries, and
reached the conclusion that he was the younger son of Jesus sent to found
the Heavenly Kingdom on earth. Faced with the collapse of Qing dynasty
rule
(under Western onslaught), Hung tapped into the deep millenarianism of
the
Chinese peasantry (previously expressed in Buddhist terms) and began
a
rebellion - the Taiping Rebellion ("Taiping tien-quo" means
the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace").
"There were many other revolts, but this was by far the most serious.
Lasting from 1851 to1864 it took control of large swerves of south
and
central China, including the southern capital of Nanking. There
a theocratic-military government was established.
"Although it was millenarian in form, the Taiping leaders adopted many
policies which would later become the marks of modernizers in China:
prohibition of opium-smoking, gambling, the use of tobacco and
wine, polygamy, the sale of slaves, and prostitution. The promoted
the
equality of the sexes: they abolished foot-binding and appointed of
women as administrators and officers in the Taiping army. They also
tried to abolish the private ownership of land and property, and they
developed a program for the equal distribution of land."
>Although you might think the Taiping had more in common with hte
>present-day government than with the Manchus, I am not in the least
>surprised, as a result of its history, to find that a modern Chinese
>government of any stripe considers a cult to be a threat to the state.
For a highly entertaining fictional view of the Taiping, by the way, try
"Flashman and the Dragon" by George MacDonald Fraser (and if you haven't
discovered Flashman yet, you are in for a treat).
--
Ronald I. Orenstein Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2 mailto:orn...@home.com