Editing Falun Gong (section)

==Organization==
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Spiritual authority is vested exclusively in the teachings of Li Hongzhi.<ref name="Palmer241">{{harvp|Palmer|2007|pp=241–46}}</ref> Volunteer "assistants" or "contact persons" do not hold authority over other practitioners, regardless of how long they have practiced Falun Gong.<ref name="Chou" /><ref name="burgdoff" />{{sfn|Junker|2019|p=186}} Li stipulates that practitioners of Falun Gong cannot collect money or charge fees, conduct healings, or teach or interpret doctrine for others.<ref name="Palmer241" /> There is no system of membership within the practice and no rituals of worship.<ref name="Palmer241" /><ref name="porterthesis" /><ref name="GC">{{Cite journal |last1=Noakes |first1=Stephen |last2=Ford |first2=Caylan |date=2015-07-23 |title=Managing Political Opposition Groups in China: Explaining the Continuing Anti-Falun Gong Campaign |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305741015000788 |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=223 |pages=658–679 |doi=10.1017/s0305741015000788 |issn=0305-7410 |access-date=1 March 2024 |archive-date=14 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240514023813/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/abs/managing-political-opposition-groups-in-china-explaining-the-continuing-antifalun-gong-campaign/166ED80891F97564F01F61FA4C6933EF |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Falun Gong operates through a global, networked, and largely virtual online community. In particular, electronic communications, email lists and a collection of websites are the primary means of coordinating activities and disseminating Li's teachings.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lrQV2Wi1RdgC&q=Kevin+McDonald%2C+Global+Movements%3A+Action+and+Culture%2C+chapter+7%2C+%E2%80%98Healing+Movements%2C+embodied+subjects%E2%80%99%2C+Wiley-Blackwell+%282006%29&pg=PA140 |title=Global movements: action and culture |last=McDonald |first=Kevin |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2006 |isbn=978-1405116138 |access-date=25 October 2020 |archive-date=5 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405191428/https://books.google.com/books?id=lrQV2Wi1RdgC&q=Kevin+McDonald%2C+Global+Movements%3A+Action+and+Culture%2C+chapter+7%2C+%E2%80%98Healing+Movements%2C+embodied+subjects%E2%80%99%2C+Wiley-Blackwell+%282006%29&pg=PA140 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Outside Mainland China, the organisation stated that they have followers in more than 100 countries.<ref>{{Cite web |title=How a Persecuted Religious Group Grew Into a Global Movement |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/16/nyregion/shen-yun-falun-gong.html |date=2024-08-16 |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Li's teachings are principally spread through the Internet.<ref name=fieldnotes/><ref>Mark R. Bell, Taylor C. Boas, "Falun Gong and the Internet: Evangelism, Community, and Struggle for Survival", ''Nova Religio'', April 2003, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 277–293</ref> In most mid- to large-sized cities, Falun Gong practitioners organize regular group meditation or study sessions in which they practice Falun Gong exercises and read Li's writings. The exercise and meditation sessions are described as informal groups of practitioners who gather in public parks—usually in the morning—for one to two hours.<ref name=porterthesis/><ref name="fieldnotes">{{cite journal | first1=Susan | last1=Palmer | first2=David | last2=Ownby | title=Field Notes: Falun Dafa Practitioners: A Preliminary Research Report | journal=Nova Religio | issue=2000.4.1.133}}</ref><ref>Craig Burgdoff, "How Falun Gong Practice Undermines Li Hongzhi's Totalistic Rhetoric", p. 336.</ref> Group study sessions typically take place in the evenings in private residences or university or high school classrooms, and are described by David Ownby as "the closest thing to a regular 'congregational experience{{'"}} that Falun Gong offers.<ref name="Ownby313">{{cite journal |first=David |last=Ownby |title=Falun Gong in the New World |journal=European Journal of East Asian Studies |year=2003 |pages=313–314}}</ref>{{volume needed|date=May 2025}} Individuals who are too busy, isolated, or who simply prefer solitude may elect to practice privately.<ref name=Ownby313/> When there are expenses to be covered (such as for the rental of facilities for large-scale conferences), costs are borne by self-nominated and relatively affluent individual members of the community.<ref name=Ownby313/><ref>{{cite journal |first=Craig |last=Burgdoff |title=How Falun Gong Practice Undermines Li Hongzhi's Totalistic Rhetoric |journal=Nova Religio |year=2003 |volume=6 |issue=2 |doi=10.1525/nr.2003.6.2.332 |page=338}}</ref>

===Within China===
[[File:Origins-GuangzhouPractice.jpg|thumb|Morning Falun Dafa exercises in [[Guangzhou]]]]
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. As per the requirements of the CQRS, Falun Gong was organized into a nationwide network of assistance centers, "main stations", "branches", "guidance stations", and local practice sites, mirroring the structure of the qigong society or even of the CCP itself.<ref name=Tong/><ref name="McDonald">{{cite book |last=McDonald |first=Kevin |date=2006 |title=Global Movements: Action and Culture |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |pages=142–164 |isbn=978-1405116138}}</ref> Falun Gong assistants were self-selecting volunteers who taught the exercises, organized events, and disseminated new writings from Li Hongzhi. The Falun Dafa Research Society provided advice to students on meditation techniques, translation services, and coordination for the practice nationwide.<ref name="Tong">{{Cite journal |last=Tong |first=James |date=September 2002 |title=An Organizational Analysis of the Falun Gong: Structure, Communications, Financing |journal=[[The China Quarterly]] |volume=171 |pages=636–660 |doi=10.1017/S0009443902000402 |s2cid=154108066}}</ref>

Following its departure from the CQRS in 1996, Falun Gong came under increased scrutiny from authorities and responded by adopting a more decentralized and loose organizational structure.<ref name=porterthesis/> In 1997, the Falun Dafa Research Society was formally dissolved, along with the regional "main stations".<ref>{{harvp|Tong| 2002|p=641}}</ref> Yet practitioners continued to organize themselves at local levels, being connected through electronic communications, interpersonal networks and group exercise sites.<ref name=porterthesis/><ref name="Tong2009">{{harvp|Tong|2009}}</ref> Both Falun Gong sources and Chinese government sources claimed that there were some 1,900 "guidance stations" and 28,263 local Falun Gong exercise sites nationwide by 1999, though they disagree over the extent of vertical coordination among these organizational units.<ref>{{harvp|Tong| 2002|p=642}}</ref> In response to the persecution 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.<ref>{{cite book |first=Patricia |last=Thornton |chapter=Manufacturing Dissent in Transnational China |title=Popular Protest in China |editor-first=Kevin J. |editor-last=O'Brien |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2008}}{{ISBN?}}</ref>

Following the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Chinese authorities sought to portray Falun Gong as a hierarchical and well-funded organization. James Tong writes that it was in the government's interest to portray Falun Gong as highly organized in order to justify its repression of the group: "The more organized the Falun Gong could be shown to be, then the more justified the regime's repression in the name of social order was."<ref>{{harvp|Tong| 2002|p=638}}</ref> He concluded that Party's claims lacked "both internal and external substantiating evidence", and that despite the arrests and scrutiny, the authorities never "credibly countered Falun Gong rebuttals".<ref>{{harvp|Tong| 2002|p=657}}</ref>

===Dragon Springs compound===
Falun Gong operates out of [[Dragon Springs]], a {{convert|400|acre|ha|order=flip|adj=on|abbr=off}} compound located in [[Deerpark, New York]]. Falun Gong founder and leader Li Hongzhi resides near the compound, along with "hundreds" of Falun Gong adherents. Members of Falun Gong extension Shen Yun live and rehearse in the compound, which also contains schools and temples.<ref name="COLLINS-2019"/> The compound is registered as a church, Dragon Springs Buddhist, which gives it tax exemptions and greater privacy. Scholar Andrew Junker noted that in 2019, near Dragon Springs, in Middletown, was an office for the Falun Gong media extension ''The Epoch Times'', which published a special local edition.<ref name=JUNKER-2019-33-101 />

The compound has been a point of controversy among former residents. According to [[NBC News]]:

{{blockquote|
[F]our former compound residents and former Falun Gong practitioners who spoke to NBC News{{nbsp}}... said that life in Dragon Springs is tightly controlled by Li, that internet access is restricted, the use of medicines is discouraged, and arranged relationships are common. Two former residents on visas said they were offered to be set up with U.S. residents at the compound.

Tiger Huang, a former Dragon Springs resident who was on a United States student visa from Taiwan, said she was set up on three dates on the compound, and she believed her ability to stay in the United States was tied to the arrangement.

"The purpose of setting up the dates was obvious", Huang said. Her now-husband, a former Dragon Springs resident, confirmed the account. Huang said she was told by Dragon Springs officials her visa had expired and was told to go back to Taiwan after months of dating a nonpractitioner in the compound. She later learned that her visa had not expired when she was told to leave the country.<ref name="COLLINS-2019"/>}}

Acquired by Falun Gong in 2000, the site is closed to visitors and features guarded gates, has been a point of contention for some Deer Park residents concerned. In 2019, Falun Gong requested to expand the site, wishing to add a 920-seat concert hall, a new parking garage, a wastewater treatment plant and a conversion of meditation space into residential space large enough to bring the total residential capacity to 500 people. These plans met with opposition from the Delaware Riverkeeper Network regarding the wastewater treatment facility and the elimination of local wetlands, impacting local waterways such as the [[Basher Kill]] and [[Neversink River]]. Local residents opposed the expansion because it would increase traffic and reduce the rural character of the area. Falun Gong adherents living in the area have claimed that they have experienced discrimination from local residents.<ref name="ASSOCIATED-PRESS">{{Cite web|date=2019-04-30|first=Michael| last=Hill|title=Falun Gong US compound's neighbors fret over expansion plans|url=https://apnews.com/article/north-america-us-news-ap-top-news-dance-environment-420a741ec19c4db3993d408747874b2d|access-date=2023-02-10|website=AP News|language=en|archive-date=15 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211015215136/https://apnews.com/article/north-america-us-news-ap-top-news-dance-environment-420a741ec19c4db3993d408747874b2d|url-status=live}}</ref>

After visiting in 2019, Junker noted that "the secrecy of Dragon Springs was obvious and a source of tension for the town". Junker adds that Dragon Springs's website says its restricted access is for security reasons, and that the site claims the compound contains orphans and refugees.{{sfn|Junker|2019|pp=100–101}}