Latest / Ridiculous History / A Circus, or a Cult? The Strange Story of Shen Yun

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A Circus, or a Cult? The Strange Story of Shen Yun · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Shout out to our super producer,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. This one might be the one that
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: gets us in uh and yet I don't want to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: say hot water uh in Dutch? Maybe in Dutch, maybe
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a Mandarin, maybe in Campanese. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's definitely
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: not something that we've shied away from on our other
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: show Stuff they Don't Want You to Know. But it's
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: definitely a subject that a lot of people may be
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: more familiar with this from the ubiquitous add and marketing
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: campaign of this thing that we're talking about today, shin
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  Speaker 1: n There's like literally memes where it's like you Shin
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: yun Billboard on the moon. Because whoever does in the
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  Speaker 1: marketing for this thing has it on lock pretty good.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Their budget must be through the roof. Yeah, I'm ben
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  Speaker 1: your knowl what's true? We do another show called Stuff
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: they Don't Want You to Know, where we have an
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: episode that might be a good counterpart to this called
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: What's going On with the Fa Lon Gong. We also
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: want to tell you, you know, I'm not a big
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: fan of over hyping stuff. But Stephen via SNL style,
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  Speaker 1: this story has everything. It's got some romance like you
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: would see in our Sisters show, ridiculous romance. It's got
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  Speaker 1: some crime like you would see in our Peer podcast
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous crime. And this thing is always in the news
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  Speaker 1: such that I wouldn't be surprised if our pals I've
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous News cover it soon. It's very true. It's also
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  Speaker 1: just kind of in the zeitgeist. It's everywhere you look,
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  Speaker 1: whether it's in like a little you know, leaflet that's
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  Speaker 1: shoved under your you know, car windshield wiper, like a
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  Speaker 1: little door knob hanger thingy, or just a flyer in
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  Speaker 1: a restaurant for example, or like I said before, a billboard.
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  Speaker 1: Shen Yun is a theatrical experience that really sort of
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  Speaker 1: almost circle style, focuses on dance and and um, you know,
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  Speaker 1: acrobatics and you know, the drama and all of that stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Is it's there's not really a story per se. It's
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  Speaker 1: more of a variety show and it on the surface,
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  Speaker 1: it's meant to highlight kind of the culture of China. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and it's visually it's stunning, like you could see it
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  Speaker 1: in Vegas the same way you would see Circle or
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  Speaker 1: Siegfried and Roy. It's also very transparent in uh it's
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  Speaker 1: overall narrative in a way that surprises some theater goers,
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  Speaker 1: which will we'll get into You wouldn't You wouldn't be
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  Speaker 1: able to tell uh much about the history and ownership
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  Speaker 1: of Nyan if you just looked at the flyers. But
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  Speaker 1: you have probably seen these if you live in a
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  Speaker 1: big city in the United States. One of the more
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  Speaker 1: popular taglines have used in the past is five thousand
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  Speaker 1: years of civilization reborn. Uh you can you like it's
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  Speaker 1: as his as ubiquitous as those cars for kids jingles.
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  Speaker 1: You will see a lot of people going just because
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  Speaker 1: they love the visuals. It feels like a cultural experience.
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  Speaker 1: But today's episode is about the the true owners, the orchestrators,
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  Speaker 1: you could say the puppet masters, but definitely the choreographers
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  Speaker 1: of shen Yan, a spiritual movement known as following gong
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  Speaker 1: or following data. Before maybe we get to their before
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  Speaker 1: we unpack that well maybe we uh, maybe we give
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  Speaker 1: the official like the shen Yan narrative of what shen
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  Speaker 1: Yan is. So according to the troop who performs this
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  Speaker 1: all over the country based out of their headquarters in
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  Speaker 1: New York. What is shen Yan? What what do they
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  Speaker 1: do in the story? Yeah, I mean it's like, well,
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  Speaker 1: it's like the tagline suggests, you know, it's it's it's
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  Speaker 1: a highlighting of the rich cultural history of China as
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  Speaker 1: a country, as a people. It really has a cultural
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  Speaker 1: kind of hub um and you know, in terms of
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  Speaker 1: the dance and the costumes and the various you know
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  Speaker 1: eras uh. They describe from the Yellow Emperor of antiquity
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  Speaker 1: to the splendor of the Tang dynasty, all the way
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  Speaker 1: to the exquisite elegance of the Qing. The lineage of
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  Speaker 1: Chinese civilization runs five millennia deep. It is a story
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  Speaker 1: brimming with heroes real and imagine, their legacy preserved in
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  Speaker 1: tales of courage and sacrifice, integrity and loyalty, co passion
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  Speaker 1: and virtue and stuff. Yeah. And they talk about China's
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  Speaker 1: ancient name, the land of the Divine. It is true
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  Speaker 1: that the history of the country of China does date
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  Speaker 1: back into mythology, especially when you get into the ancient days,
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  Speaker 1: and this is the place where people figured out some
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  Speaker 1: fundamentals of medicine, of calligraphy, paper, gunpowder, lots of stuff
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  Speaker 1: come from ancient China, and this seems like it's a
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  Speaker 1: cultural celebration of this. However, you're not gonna see the
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  Speaker 1: shen Yuan show actually in the PRC, the People's Republic
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  Speaker 1: of China, because the Communist Party thinks the UH thinks
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  Speaker 1: that shen Yuan and the its creators are a threat
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  Speaker 1: to the rule of the party, which sounds weird. It
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  Speaker 1: sounds like it almost sounds like we're saying, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the White House has banned cirque for all of their
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  Speaker 1: you know, anti capitalist leanings or something like. You would
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  Speaker 1: you would wonder, why are you hitting up a circus
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  Speaker 1: act like this. But as we'll see, there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: more to this story. China has systematically, especially during the
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  Speaker 1: Cultural Revolution, destroyed ancient treasures, they uprooted traditional beliefs. According again,
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  Speaker 1: this is shen Yan side of the story. According to them,
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, a group of Chinese artists,
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  Speaker 1: classical artists, came together an n y C and they said,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna revive the traditional divinely inspired culture of China.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna share it with the world. We're gonna do
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  Speaker 1: it through this thing we're calling shin Jun, and you'll
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  Speaker 1: see no like you can find their literature online or
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  Speaker 1: in person. When they talk about the artistic freedom they enjoy,
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  Speaker 1: they talk about how nothing like this can be seen
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  Speaker 1: in China today and they're not still not allowed to
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  Speaker 1: perform there, that's true. Uh, And they say that they're
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  Speaker 1: sparking a cultural renaissance. Fascinating, isn't it when these kinds
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  Speaker 1: of regimes come into power in a part of the
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  Speaker 1: world where so much history has laid the groundwork for
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  Speaker 1: for what is you know, the now, whether it be uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Romans sweeping in and trying to get rid
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  Speaker 1: of other faiths or whatever it might be. We just
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  Speaker 1: know that this typically does not work. But it creates
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  Speaker 1: so much division and um and backlash. So it is
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  Speaker 1: a really interesting thing to think about this being kind
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  Speaker 1: of this cultural revolution. But it turns out it's not
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  Speaker 1: quite as simple as that, right, Yeah, that's correct. The
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  Speaker 1: issue here is the organization the Spiritual Movement Fa Lung Gong.
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  Speaker 1: It was founded by a man named Lie hong Shi,
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  Speaker 1: who registered the group with the Chinese government back in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen two, and uh Le Hongi had to do this
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  Speaker 1: because after the Tianamen Square protests, the Chinese part Communist
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  Speaker 1: Party excuse me, required all social organizations to register with
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  Speaker 1: the party. He blew up really quickly. A lot of
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  Speaker 1: people started following him. They started holding these huge rallies.
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  Speaker 1: And if you look at if you look at what
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  Speaker 1: they're doing, they're practicing uh keegong or chi gong breathing exercises,
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  Speaker 1: right and and Lee himself said he developed this system
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  Speaker 1: after consulting and learning from more than twenty masters. But
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: in addition to the kind of breathing exercises you might
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  Speaker 1: be thinking of or picturing, he added a lot more
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  Speaker 1: mythological lore or spiritual lore teachings about a world full
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  Speaker 1: of demons and aliens, and his books became best sellers.
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  Speaker 1: There were more than two thousand following Gong practice stations
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  Speaker 1: in Beijing alone by the mid nineties. And at first,
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  Speaker 1: from what I understand, the at the very beginning, the
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  Speaker 1: Chinese government wasn't super opposed to them the way they
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  Speaker 1: are now. Yeah, that's right. Um, it was a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more of a of a cozy relationship at first,
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  Speaker 1: because it did focus on this pursuit of virtue and tradition,
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  Speaker 1: which I guess was something that the Chinese government officials
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  Speaker 1: were able to kind of get behind. UM even were
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  Speaker 1: praised for the focus on these kinds of these kinds
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  Speaker 1: of values. So the founder back then fell and Gong
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  Speaker 1: was credited in one of China's UM state run you know,
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  Speaker 1: UM bodies the Ministry of Public Security as a way
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  Speaker 1: of promoting traditional crime fighting virtues of the Chinese people,
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  Speaker 1: in safeguarding social order and security, and in promoting rectitude
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  Speaker 1: in society. Yeah, and then even the National Sports Commission said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: following Dafa, following Gong is helpful for individuals from a
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  Speaker 1: medical perspective, and it actually saves our country some money
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to healthcare. But as we explored and stuff,
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  Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, there was a turn,
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  Speaker 1: uh that there's a turn that went down in the
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  Speaker 1: ninety nineties, and the Communist Party began to be concerned
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  Speaker 1: that a large chunk of the population was more loyal
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  Speaker 1: to the leader of Following Gong than they were to
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  Speaker 1: the party, which is always a big, big no no
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  Speaker 1: in an authoritarian regime. So by this is where numbers
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  Speaker 1: get sticky, right, because movements Let's be honest, can some
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: times embellish their numbers, and governments can sometimes embellish the
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  Speaker 1: numbers of what they see as opponents, so take it
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  Speaker 1: with a grain. Assault by the Chinese government was estimating
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  Speaker 1: the group had seventy million members, which sounds like a
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  Speaker 1: cartoonishly impossible number until you remember that the country of
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  Speaker 1: China has one point three billions something people living in it,
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  Speaker 1: so it's not impossible. They started cracking down. There was
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  Speaker 1: there were protests that were being held in front of
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  Speaker 1: government compounds, as described by Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker.
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  Speaker 1: Eventually the authorities put out arrest at arrest warrant for Lee,
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  Speaker 1: but Lee was already long gone. He knew something was
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  Speaker 1: in the wind, and so he ghosted out the Queens
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  Speaker 1: New York, which would later go out to be the
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  Speaker 1: headquarters of shen Yan. Connecting some Charlie Day dots here.
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  Speaker 1: But as we know, a big hallmark of the Communist
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  Speaker 1: Party and of the Chinese Communist Party specifically is information
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  Speaker 1: controlled and censorship. Although that actually was one of the
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  Speaker 1: less problematic bits of backlash that Foulon Gong folks had
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  Speaker 1: to deal with. According to an access wire Peace that
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  Speaker 1: was republished in Yahoo Finance. In March of this year,
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  Speaker 1: human rights organizations estimated that thousands of Foulonog followers have
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  Speaker 1: been jailed and even killed for refusing to denounce their
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  Speaker 1: beliefs because again, a lot of this, this true backlash
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  Speaker 1: came from a concern that these folks were more loyal
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  Speaker 1: to the the founder of Foulonong they were to the
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  Speaker 1: Communist Party. So when they refused to denounce their beliefs
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  Speaker 1: essentially bend the knee, you know, or swear fealty if
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  Speaker 1: imhnee Game of Thrones fans out there, they were jailed
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  Speaker 1: and potentially even killed in certain situations. So Felling Gong
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  Speaker 1: went from being this sort of you know, running mate
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  Speaker 1: of the state, I guess, to being kind of persona
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  Speaker 1: non grata, and anyone associated with it had the potential
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  Speaker 1: to be you know, harassed and dealt with in the
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  Speaker 1: harshest possible terms. Oh yeah, yeah. The the idea of
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  Speaker 1: making a movement illegal sounds might sound very strange to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: people based in the US, but this is exactly what happened.
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  Speaker 1: The PRC since had been trying to crack down on
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  Speaker 1: the movement by blocking Internet access to websites that mentioned
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  Speaker 1: Following Gong. They called it an auretical organization. They even
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  Speaker 1: on the official website of the Chinese embassy in the
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  Speaker 1: United States, described Lee Hongshi as an evil figure who's
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  Speaker 1: udulent behavior has quote seriously disrupted social order and sabotage
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  Speaker 1: the hard earned social stability of China. And Following Gong
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  Speaker 1: also has been accusing the Chinese government of harvesting organs
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  Speaker 1: from imprisoned Following Gong followers. Yeah, and and now that's
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  Speaker 1: a hot that's that's a hot accusation. Many experts will
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  Speaker 1: dispute this, but nobody is disputing that the government is
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  Speaker 1: cracking down on Following Gong. And there's one thing that's
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  Speaker 1: tough here, which is that both both entities in this conflict,
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  Speaker 1: Following Gong and the PRC, the or the Communist Party,
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  Speaker 1: excuse me, they both communicate via propaganda. Remember how I
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  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier the tricky thing about embellishing numbers. It's kind
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  Speaker 1: of tough to triangulate the truth from these sources. You
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  Speaker 1: will see that Following Gong has been described for this
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  Speaker 1: reason as one of the most miss serious chapters in
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  Speaker 1: the history of modern China. The censorship regimen is simply
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  Speaker 1: growing and exploding. Still, we know that Following God members
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  Speaker 1: are genuinely persecuted. We just don't know to what degree
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  Speaker 1: that occurs. And you wouldn't know any of this if
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: you look at just a shen yan ad now, and
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  Speaker 1: you wouldn't know any of this if it weren't for
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: folks you know, in the system. They're putting themselves at
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: serious risk because again, as we know, the kind of
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  Speaker 1: iron fisted control of the Chinese Communist Party has over
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: information uh is very very real. So yeah, we were
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: not going to get any of the real details here
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: um outside of certain human rights watch groups who aren't
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: given access because they don't have to be right right,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: they don't really have a way to force the government
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: to give them unfettered access. And you see similar issues
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: with the weakers in Xinyang. So this is like, this
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: is a known pattern. But with shin Yun itself, you
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: gotta you gotta admit like it's a super lavish production.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: It's everywhere. You might be surprised to learn shen Yuan
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  Speaker 1: is a nonprofit despite the fact that has more than
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  Speaker 1: seventy five million dollars in assets, more than twenty two
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  Speaker 1: million dollars in annual revenue, and if you look at
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: how much money they spend, you might be surprised to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: learn that they're in the black in terms of accounting, right, like,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: they're not a losing proposition. And there's a great piece
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: in The Guardian that our research associate doctor Zach found
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: by Nicholas Hughan Brown, who talks about just how coordinated
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the advertising campaign is because it really is propaganda. And again,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: propaganda is not always inherently bad, just to be clear,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: but this this definitely does have a narrative and it
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  Speaker 1: it is a persuasive it's trying to convince you to
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  Speaker 1: believe certain things. And in that New York Or article
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  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, you can get in the weeds of
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the finances. You can see that we're talking about millions
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: and millions and millions of dollars. But we need to
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: note that the reason shen Yan's finances seemed to pencil
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  Speaker 1: out is because they have a lot of volunteers working there,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of following Gong followers, like just the one
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  Speaker 1: in the office in San Francisco has a hundred volunteers.
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  Speaker 1: The theater company has two hundred and eleven, they're making
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of money and off air, no, we've talked
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: about whether or not this was us coming down too
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: hard on the government of China. But just like in
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: our stuff, they don't want you to know episode we
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: see that there's a lot of questionable stuff on Following
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Gong side too. I mean, Following Gong is really waging
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a I want to call the war, but a propaganda conflict.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: They're using what's called anti communist ad jets, prop agitating propaganda,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and things got really weird for a lot of US
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: residents when they teamed up with a former Trump administration
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: what record scratch, So any New Yorkers might be aware
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of any number of you know pamphlets are small kind
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of run newspapers associated with certain ethnic groups in the city,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: some of which are really cool and and very very
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: interesting um and and not necessarily fully propaganda at all.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: But one in particular, The Epic Times that once was
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a very small, low budget newspaper with kind of an
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: anti China, not anti Chinese, anti China the state you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: know bent that was handed out and like much like
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: those other ones that I was talking about, for free
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: on the streets of New York. But around teen on
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the paper kind of pivoted uh and in a couple
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: of very important ways, and became one of the United
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: states most ubiquitous and and powerful really online um distributors
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: of information. The changes also gave way to the publication
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: essentially becoming a let's just say, a means of disinformation,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: not specifically about China, but about American politics. It became
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: kind of a leading uh spreader of right wing propaganda.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, big Thanks to Kevin rose Over the New
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: York Times wrote an excellent article about this. Because the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: they bet it, they bet big on Facebook and became
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a world class source of right wing misinformation. They treated
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: President Trump as an ally in following Gongs fight against
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the rule in Communist Party, and as US politics became
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: more divisive during the rise of the Trump candidacy in
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: later presidency, they bet increasingly on Trump and criticized his opponents.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: So they were able to do something that you know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Russian discan foe forces have done as well, creating dozens
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and dozens of dummy Facebook pages, getting a lot of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: viral clickbait like hey look at these unusual animal friends, Oh,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: what's that penguin doing? With that tiger stuff like that,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I made up the penguin tiger video, but send me
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: one if there's a real one, I'll watch it. They
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: found that this goal here, the goal of the Facebook
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: strategy was to turn the Epoch Times into the world's
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: largest and most authoritative media and then leverage that to
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: introduce millions of people to the teachings of following Gong.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And now even as we record, the Epic Times and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: its affiliates are a big force and right wing media.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: They have tens of millions of social media followers against
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you know, when you aggregate all the platforms and all
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the pages together. They also like there their audiences could
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: go toe to toe numbers wise with bright Bar or
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: The Daily Caller. And they also started influencing Trump's inner
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: circle absolutely. And it's interesting if you go to the website, uh,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the Epic Times dot com, you see exactly what we're
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: talking about. It is it looks pretty much like you
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: see something something you see on the front page of
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Bright Bar and they're, uh, you know, much like a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: lot of these um kind of spurl us let's say sources.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: They have a tagline that really emphasizes really hits home
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: just how just right and and uh and insteadfast and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and you know pure. They are truth and tradition, fact based, unpassed.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: So let's throw some more. Whereas some buzzwords there that
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: probably means the opposite of what is actually true. And
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: again we're not a political show here, but this these
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: types of whether you whatever side of the divides you
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: fall on, there are certain sources that it is impossible
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to ignore that they are just absolutely capitalizing on fearmongering
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and this information in order to serve another goal. And
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is it isn't even like the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: right wing goal of of of American politicians. It's something
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: else entirely m yeah, yeah, And it's just sort of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: a a coincidental common cause. We know that Trump administration
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: sat with reporters from Epic Times for interviews. They were
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in White House press briefings. Uh, this is this is
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: a success story because they're getting closer and closer to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the levels of power inside one of China's largest rivals,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: China's largest rival geopolitically full stop. Uh, they even you know,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: they still you know, we're repping their stripes. In two
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: thousand and six, Epic Times reporter disrupted a White House
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: visit by the Chinese president and they busted in and
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: they were just yelling evil people will die early. Uh.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Kind of hard to smooth that one over, you know, Like,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: what do you say that's a compliment in Queen's sir? Right?
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: How do they reconcile, Like, you know how much America
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: needs China and how just to kind of entrench the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: two countries are with one another. And you know, whereas
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I know that Trump did do some rhetoric kind of surrounding,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: you know, big talk against China, but then ultimately ended
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: up cozying to President She pretty good. Yeah, and that's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: cheese and ping the Yeah. The the issue is that
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: they're hoping to leverage a already increasingly radicalized base and
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: then insert their own beliefs and cause into that base,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: sort of make it a combo meal, right, Like how
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: big Coleslaw made it self part of every Chick fil
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: a combo. That's not a true story, but you believed
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: it for a second, didn't you did. Yeah, I'm I'm
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: an enemy of it as well. Sorry, I love most food,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: but cole slaw is just something's not right with it.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: So we have to we have to point this out.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: They also promoted a lot of conspiracy theories against Trump's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: political rivals were enemies. Uh, They've been linked to promotion
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of q and on conspiracy theories and spreading miss info
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: about voter fraud and so on. They also, of course,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: when covid hit called it the CCP virus, trying to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: link it to the Chinese Communist Party directly, I believe
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: are required to say that. The Epoch Times themselves says
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: they're independent and nonpartisan and absolutely not officially associated with
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: following Gong. That's right. And if we buried the lead
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: there and that that is where this this this publication
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: in its earliest forms was very much connected, you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: That's what it was. It was an anti Chinese state
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: publication that was handed out like almost like you'd you know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: get literature from Hari Krishna's at the airport or something
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: like that. It was very much you know, spreading in
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: particular ideology and then it morphed into this. So if
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that affiliation went by the wayside, it's not really clear
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: from the from the record, but it honestly serves them
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: better to say they're not affiliated with that organization. Yeah,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and just the issue is at least for me, I
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: don't think that's true. I think they've just been told
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to say that. Uh. The New York Times contacted Following
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Gong practitioners and employees of Epoch Times to try to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: figure this out, and they said they couldn't divulge details
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of how the paper was actually run or how the
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: media outfit was run, and they said that speaking negatively
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: about the Epoch Times would be the same thing as
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: disobeying Mr Lee, who, of course the Following Gong disciples
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: referred to as Master Uh and the outlet. When when
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: The New York Times asked them some of these hard questions,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Epoch Times report replied by saying, you're defaming and diminishing
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: us because we're a competitor, and you are either being religious,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: you're attempting religious intimidation or outright bigotry by linking us
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the Following Gong. We will not be intimidated, we will
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: not be silenced. We will consider all legal options. But again,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: it seems like they're related from every everything that has
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: been discovered and is all in public record, it's true,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: and so that's just one weird turn of the story.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And again we're not intending this to be a hit
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: piece on any of these organizations, But there are some
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: very odd kind of details that that emerged the deeper
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: you dig. So we've we've gone into the China part
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of it, We've gone into how chin Yon was definitely
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: at one point is associated with this epic times. Now
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: let's get more into what the actual beliefs in practices
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of uh Follonong are and where maybe there might be
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: some slightly sketchy stuff contained there in as well, because
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: we you know, the early part of the story really
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: makes them out to kind of be these protectors of
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Chinese culture and these freedom fighters against you know, something
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: that we could rightly identify with as being a negative force,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the idea of the totalitarian regime that that does, you know,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: clamp down on censorship and and information control and all
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of that stuff. But when you really dig into the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: organization itself, there's some pretty stuff in there. Two yeah,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and this is where you get to the argument about
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: whether or not this organization should be considered a cult,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: which is very sensitive because as as we know, I'm
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: sure you don't have to tell you, folks, most organizations
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: that you would think of as cults will get offended
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: if you use the C word to refer to them.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So Lee hung sheet. If we're getting into beliefs, then
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: we see that former believers have some pretty disturbing pictures
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: of daily life under his control. They said, you know,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: we don't have access to information. We can't use modern medicine.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: He will tell us who to have a romantic relationship
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: with the practitioners. The followers are expected to devote their
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: lives to the message of following Gong and Master Lee.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: You've got to cut off friends and family members who
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: aren't going to get on board with the message. This
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: is classic day one cult stuff, Lee. If we want
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to get to this special of it beliefs, Lee says,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: stuff like evolution is made up. It's a hoax, it's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a fraud. He also says heaven practices racial segregation. People
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that Heaven is real, people of different races are going
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: to be separate. Homosexuality and promiscuity are unnatural. Let's see
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: what else. Oh, the reason people are dependent on modern
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: science is because aliens are trying to control humans through it. Yeah, yeah,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: that's that's an interesting detail. The the aliens, they are
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the ones that are that really have the strangle hold
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: on on the information UM not the Chinese government. So
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that's yeah, this is almost like the stuff you find
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: out about scientology once you get further down the bridge. Uh.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: And in one you know, very important hallmark of cults
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that we've talked about um is in the past here
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on the show and also on stuff they don't want
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you to know is the necessity of members too cut
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: off ties with outsiders, whether it be to whether it
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: be their family or friends or anyone that could be
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: seen as a negative influence or or in some way
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: contradicting what they're being taught under the tutelage of like
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: you know, the leader of the movement or whatever it
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: might be. Also to proselytize and spread the word and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: pass out these pamphlets and you know, go forth and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: all of that stuff. And that is a thing that
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: appears to be part of Fallon Gong's practices and the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: in the way they're you know, they expect their adherents
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: to behave m HM. And they also seem very at
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: least outsiders. They seem incredibly defensive and reactive not just
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a criticism, but the basic questions, you know, the kind
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: of stuff that you might ask as a person on
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the street if you want to learn more, you know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: teach me more about following Gong. What do you think
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: about this? Blah blah blah. That's why cult experts like
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Rick Allen Ross, who founded the Cult Education Institute, devotes
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: two chapters to following going in his book Cults Inside Out,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: How People Get In and Can Get Out. Uh. He
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: has worked in d programming following Gong followers. He says
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: they are a cult. He says they're a destructive cult.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: He compares Master Lee to l Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and uh. He apparently also Ross has been able to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: get more ideas about the inner workings of following Gong,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and he said Lee claims to possess supernatural powers, and
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: uh says that shen Yuan is ultimately, at the end
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of the day, a multimillion dollar marketing and recruiting arm
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: of Lee's financial empire. I still gotta say, though, man,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to go back to Shenya and back
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: in my college days, and after learning the stuff we
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: did on Stuff Then What You Know and a couple
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of other shows that I appeared on, I feel pretty conflicted,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: like would you guys still go to Shenyan Shenyan performance
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: knowing this, Oh no, not knowing where the money is
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: funneling back. I don't think so. I actually did they.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I used to work at a theater back in in Augusta,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: where I grew up. I worked at the kind of
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a mid sized you know, maybe a thousand seats the
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: theater a little less, and we hosted shen Yan once.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Or if it wasn't Shenion, it was something very Shenyon adjacent.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: It was very similar, and I might be conflating it
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: in my mind. If that's the case, then then forgive me.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: But uh no, I don't think I would. You know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: there there are also reports that, you know, people that
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: have left, or let's call it escaped. I guess this.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: This organization have claimed that, uh, the leader believed that
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: he could or they they were led to truly believe
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: that the leader could read their minds and uh and
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: and pull out their deepest, darkest thoughts and judge them accordingly. Yeah,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I know, I was. I was actually pretty creeped out beforehand,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: because right before we're recording, I was teaming lunch and
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I was just like watching the news and a shen
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Yon commercial came on. I'm like, oh wow, we are
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: literally about recording episode about this. I've been reading about
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: this like this is a creeping me. But I have
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: one question for you guys. This cult expert Rick Allen Ross,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: that's a different Rick Ross, right, Yeah, No, Unfortunately it's
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: a different Rick Ross, which is why he had to
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: go with Alan Ross. It would be cool if if
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: they were the same guy. Yeah, and uh, I believe
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Rick Ross, the MC and producer has has in the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: past compared Baby Williams to something of a cult leader
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: or definitely predatory, but that might be a story for
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: another day. Again, this is one of the most important
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: things we have to say here is we're obviously not
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: denigrating anybody's personal spiritual beliefs. We just think it's important
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to know what, uh like the murky story behind shen
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yan and when we know on we did this for
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: stuff they wants you to know. We had a lot
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: of folks writing and what their experiences watching the show
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and how they how they felt about the themes of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: persecution that are tied into the historical narrative of the performance.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: So we would love to hear your thoughts folks on
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: If you've ever been to a Shenyane performance, did you
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: enjoy it? Have you ever been to like a falloon
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: gong gathering? If so, what did you think? Did you
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: meet Master Lee? Is he chill? What's he like? Just?
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Could he read your mind? Because he was he like
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: shining at you? Uh, let us know you can find us.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: It's best to just find us as individual people. Ben,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I believe you're on Twitter, um until until that thing
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: implodes in the meantime, aren't you Ben Bowling hs w uh?
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: No you remember, thanks, but it's nameing my birthday. Yeah,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter as appen Bowling hs w uh one
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: of the big things there is. You can also find
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Max Williams on Twitter until until uh Ellen burns it
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: down and you can you can also find me on Instagram.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: You can see all the weird adventures I'm getting into
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and research i'm doing. Uh spoiler, I guess stuff coming
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: up that I probably can't talk about air, but I'll
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: sneak mentions of it on the old I g where
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I am at ben Boland And if you're on Instagram,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: that's where you can also find Mr Noel Brown. It's
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: sure I'm an open book. You can find me at
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: how Now Noel Brown on the old Instagrams In the meantime,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Huge thanks to super producer Max Williams uh for just
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: sticking with us. I know you said you were a
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: little punchy and and I didn't notice any of that.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you have you really you rolled right
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: through those punchies. Big big thanks to a research associate,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Dr Zach Big thanks to our own master Lee Jonathan Strickland,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: a k a. The Quister, Eve's Jeff Coach Christopher Hasciotis
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: you know him? You love them all the hits, Folks.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: It's Friday. We're about to get out of here. I
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: think I might go see a show. I don't know
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: what it'll be, but it's probably not gonna be Chanelle Saving.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I think I might just go to like a Farmer's
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: mark It or something instead. Uh, we'll see you next time, folks.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.