I've been studying Falun Gong for about 3 weeks now, I've read the Zhuan Falun I and II, the further advancements, and am by their defenition already a very virtueous person with very little attachment, as are alot of people on here I assume. With this in mind I aim to give a quick rundown of Falun Gong from an unbiased hermetic perspective.
I am not a Falun Gong shill

What is Falun Gong?
Falun Gong is essentially a mix of Buddhism and Qi Gong. Its 3 tenants are Zen, Shan, and Ren, meaning truth, compassion, and forebearance. It mainly focuses primarily on the cultivation of inner strength and spiritual virtue and, indirectly, on energetic cultivation and the road to godhood. Whereas for example Robert Bruce's energy system focuses on working the many energetic circuits and chakras of the body with intent to awaken certain qualities within one's self, Falun Gong takes an indirect approach to energetic development through cultivation of inner virtue, and seeking a balanced and harmonious existence. By living virtueously, you heighten your connection with The All. The All is energy, it is life, and through cultivating your connection to the source you increase the energetic current courseing through you, which thus increases your energetic circuitry to compensate, which leads to more magical power and thus siddhis, magical authority, etc.

What is Falun?
Alot of what will attract us honed wizards is the talk of the Falun, a spinning orange image of The Buddha that actively cultivates the energybody while we go about our day-to-day routine, cultivating virtue and resisting temptation. I don't believe this is what Falun is. Now, keep in mind, I've only been doing this for 3 weeks under the label of Falun Gong, but I've been doing this kinda thing for a long time, point is, I've kinda did things differently, so this isn't absolutely a sure representation of the typical Falun Gong transformation. Anyway, I haven't noticed anything of the sort in my etheric body, and I've made an automatic energywork thoughtform, albeit with limited results as I wasn't too dedicated. With this in mind I believe the Falun is merely a metaphor for daily cultivation, think about it, "You go through day-to-day life focusing on virtue, and the Falun spins around the microcosmic orbit cultivating your energybody for you", I believe this is a simplified explanation of how cultivating virtue does cultivate energy, and the spinning is referring to your thoughts and actions (your microcosmic orbit) being focused on Falun Gong and virtue, thus resulting in higher virtue and energy, but I could be wrong, whatever.

Is Falun Gong right for me?
Overall I think Falun Gong is a pretty good system for someone who wants to take the long and less trodden path to absolute godhood, but doesn't want to give up their day to day life. Personally I feel it's not for me cause I've always been looking for a way out of that life, again, personal preference, there's not much for me to gain from it anymore. For someone starting out in occultism, this probably isn't the best system however, it's mostly focused on living in balance and cultivation of virtue, and while it does speak briefly on the higher mysteries, it simply isn't as suited to teaching the broad span of all magical practices like Hermeticism, Qabbalah, or New Thought. For an advanced occultist like a high-initiate who has gained access to the Akashic Records, it's great because after you learn all the workings and methods of the occult, there isn't much to do besides just keep practicing and getting better, and Falun Gong's focus on daily virtue is a good way to pass the time you spend grinding your magic up to adepthood

tl;dr: 8/10 post-campaign side quest

Oh, and the Falun Gong community is strongly anti-communist. A little bit because it's a shit system for most of humanity, and a little bit because communist China had thrown Falun gong practitioners in concentration camps for torture and organ harvesting in the early 80's just in case they were plotting to over throw the Chinese government!

Links
All the original texts written by Falun Gong's founder, Like Hongzhi:
http://en.falundafa.org/falun-dafa-books.html

>>851
>I've been studying Falun Gong

>>856
>in the early 80's
>In 2006, allegations emerged that a large number of Falun Gong practitioners had been killed to supply China's organ transplant industry.[8][18] An initial investigation found that "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and concluded that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners".[8] Ethan Gutmann estimates 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs from 2000 to 2008.[19][20] Following additional analysis, the researchers significantly raised the estimates on the number of Falun Gong practitioners who may have been targeted for organ harvesting.[21] In 2008 United Nations Special Rapporteurs reiterated their requests for "the Chinese government to fully explain the allegation of taking vital organs from Falun Gong practitioners and the source of organs for the sudden increase in organ transplants that has been going on in China since the year 2000".[22]
Dude be careful what you say.
Nice thread.

Chinese translation best translation?

>>858
Probably, I've been using the direct translations from Hongzhi and I assure your they're the real deal
>>857
lel, woops

>you are so healthy powerful people hunt you down for your organs
I mean, that speaks volumes regarding the beneficial effects of the practice but damn... Shit is dark as fuck.

>>873
Wow good point, I didn't think of that

http://en.minghui.org/
This is the official website for practitioners. It's not among the top results in a web search and not shilled a lot so you're not likely to notice it unless you're part of the community.
Updated daily with articles mostly from China, it'll give you insight on what's going on in the movement.

>>1674
I don't know. Everything they write has this over the top, subtle boasting / exaggeration Chinese people use a lot. I can't discern how much of it is cult mentality and how much is true.

>>1675
There is a lot of paranoia among chinese exiles (for good reasons), they suspect anyone of being a commie spie. This was one of the things I learned when I started interacting with the community and went to a demonstration. Some chinese guy came up to me and said he had been at tiananmen square in '89. After he left, a FG practitioner said to me
>chinese people lie without blinking
I asked what they meant by that and got no reply.
Later I started grasping the meaning of this when I got to know a chinese girl. She had quite recently moved from China and applied for asylum. Her mother had been arrested by the communist party and sent to labour camp so she was allowed to stay. I asked her what it was like living in China (I wanted to know about the commie police state obviously) but her only comment was
>there was more manga available in China
The fact her mother was sent to labour camp didn't seem to bother her in the least. Soon after I heard the rest of the local chinese community had told everyone to stay away from her, because they suspected her of being a spy.

Chinese people are still in some 1950s soviet cold war mentality, most of the weird stuff probably relates to that imo.

>>1678
Yeah. I spent dsome time studying in China and it's the same. But it includes their personal life as well. As long as they save face, they lie without a care.