* Central Leading Group for Preventing and Handling the Problem of Heretical Organizations ( related to Falun Gong );

Falun Gong differs from Buddhism in its definition of the term " karma ," Ownby says, in that it is taken not as a process of award and punishment, but as an exclusively negative term.

Falun Gong teaches that the spirit is locked in the cycle of rebirth, also known as samsara due to the accumulation of karma.

Falun Gong states that karma is the reason for suffering, and what ultimately blocks people from the truth of the universe and attaining enlightenment.

Ownby regards the concept of karma as a cornerstone to individual moral behaviour in Falun Gong, and also readily traceable to the Christian doctrine of " one reaps what one sows ".

Ownby says Falun Gong is differentiated by a " system of transmigration " though, " in which each organism is the reincarnation of a previous life form, its current form having been determined by karmic calculation of the moral qualities of the previous lives lived.

* 1992 – Li Hongzhi gives the first public lecture on Falun Gong in Changchun, People's Republic of China.

Stephen A. Kent analyzes and summarizes the use of the brainwashing meme by non-sociologists in the period 2000-2007, finding the term useful not only in the context of " New Religions / Cults ", but equally under the headings of " Teen Behavior Modification Programs ; Terrorist Groups ; Dysfunctional Corporate Culture ; Interpersonal Violence ; and Alleged Chinese Governmental Human Rights Violations Against Falun Gong ".

In spite of this, dissent continued to be suppressed, and President Jiang Zemin launched a brutal crackdown against the Falun Gong religious sect in 1999.

* May 13 – Falun Gong is introduced by Li Hongzhi in China.

The use of the swastika by the Bön faith of Tibet, as well as later syncretic religions, such as Cao Dai of Vietnam and Falun Gong of China, can also be traced to Buddhist influence.

Falun Gong emphasises morality and the cultivation of virtue in its central tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance (), and identifies as a qigong practice of the Buddhist school, though its teachings also incorporate elements drawn from Taoist traditions.

Through moral rectitude and the practice of meditation, practitioners of Falun Gong aspire to better health and, ultimately, spiritual enlightenment.

Falun Gong emerged at the end of China's " qigong boom ", a period which saw the proliferation of similar practices of meditation, slow-moving exercises and regulated breathing.

Western academics have described Falun Gong as a qigong discipline, a " spiritual movement " based on the teachings of its founder, a " cultivation system " in the tradition of Chinese antiquity, and sometimes a religion or new religious movement.

Although the practice initially enjoyed considerable support from Chinese officialdom, by the mid-to late-1990s, the Communist Party and public security organs increasingly viewed Falun Gong as a potential threat due to its size, independence from the state, and spiritual teachings.

By 1999, some estimates placed the number of Falun Gong adherents in the tens of millions.

In October 1999 it declared Falun Gong a " heretical organization " and began banning Internet access to websites that mention Falun Gong.

Human rights groups report that Falun Gong practitioners in China are subject to a wide range of human rights abuses ; hundreds of thousands are believed to have been imprisoned extrajudicially, and practitioners in detention are subject to forced labor, psychiatric abuse, torture, and other coercive methods of thought reform at the hands of Chinese authorities.

In the years since the suppression campaign began, Falun Gong adherents have emerged as a prominent voice in the Chinese dissident community, advocating for greater human rights and an end to Communist Party rule.

On 13 May 1992, Li Hongzhi gave his first public seminar on Falun Gong ( alternately called Falun Dafa ) in the northeastern city of Changchun.

Falun Dafa is said to be the result of his reorganizing and writing down the teachings that were passed to him.

Outside Mainland China, a network of volunteer ' contact persons ', regional Falun Dafa Associations and university clubs exist in approximately 70 countries.

In 1993, the Beijing-based Falun Dafa Research Society was accepted as a branch of the state-run China Qigong Research Society ( CQRS ), which oversaw the administration of the country's various qigong schools, and sponsored activities and seminars.

The Falun Dafa Research Society served to provide advice on meditation techniques, translation services, and coordination for the practice nationwide.

In 1997, the Falun Dafa Research Society was formally dissolved, along with the regional " main stations.

From their point of view, " Falun Dafa is knowledge rather than religion, a new form of science rather than faith.

Two days later on July 22, the PRC Ministry of Civil Affairs outlawed the Falun Dafa Research Society as an illegal organization " engaged in illegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies, hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability ", and the Ministry of Public Security declared it a crime to practice Falun Gong in groups, to possess Falun Gong's teachings, to display Falun Gong banners or symbols, or to protest the ban.

The official Chinese press agency, Xinhua News Agency, and other state media asserted that the self-immolators were practitioners, though the Falun Dafa Information Center disputed this, on the grounds that the movement's teachings explicitly forbid suicide and killing, further alleging that the event was a cruel but clever piece of stunt-work.

Falun Gong-related commentators pointed out that the main participants ' account of the incident and other aspects of the participants ' behavior were inconsistent with the teachings of Falun Dafa.

Falun Gong volunteer instructors and Falun Dafa Associations are currently found in over 70 countries outside China, with the most active communities in the United States and Canada.

It is organized by regional Falun Dafa Associations and contact persons who volunteer to teach the practice.

The Falun Dafa Information Center states that the group welcomes gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to the practice, that they are not accorded special treatment, and that while Falun Gong teaches that certain practices " generate more karma ", this does not equate to a position statement, social stance, or regulation.

The Falun Dafa Information Center responded that this aspect of the practice's cosmology " in no way amounts to an endorsement of racial purity ", adding that many Falun Gong practitioners have interracial children.

it: Falun Dafa

To " turn the wheel of dharma " ( Zhuan Falun ) means to preach the Buddhist doctrine, and is the title of Falun Gong's main text.

Falun Gong is a multifaceted discipline that means different things to different people, ranging from a set of physical exercises for the attainment of better health and a praxis of self-transformation, to a moral philosophy and a new knowledge system.

The extent of Falun Gong's reliance on the internet as a means of organizing has led to the group's characterization as " a virtual religious community.

In response to the suppression that began in 1999, Falun Gong was driven underground, the organizational structure grew yet more informal within China, and the internet took precedence as a means of connecting practitioners.

According to David Ownby, Professor of History and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Université de Montréal, Li became an " instant star of the qigong movement ", and Falun Gong was embraced by the government as an effective means of lowering health care costs, promoting Chinese culture, and improving public morality.

On 7 June Chen's claims of a thousand-strong spy network were supported by Hao Fengjun, a former police officer with the 6-10 Office, a special security force established to eradicate Falun Gong by whatever means they deem necessary.

The lord usurped 1, 500 farms in 350 parishes throughout Sweden, from Kalmar to Falun, through economic and political means.