Most quit after the ban, many kept on practicing at home, while just some thousands went on protesting in Tiananmen Square. Nevertheless, the successful expansion of these sects illustrates the spiritual vacuum in modern China. The old, traditional system of values, centered on the family, worship of the ancestors and respect for the state, has long vanished after decades of communist persecution, and communism itself is no longer an issue of faith as it was during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and '70s. Communism is no longer a totalitarian belief - while Mao Zedong was deified, nobody believes President Jiang Zemin is god. Yet, spiritual needs are always there.
People seek a connection with nature, with what happens after death.
Falungong and other sects were able to satisfy these needs in a way that satisfied Chinese people better than Christianity could. Christianity, in fact, preaches a belief and culture that is largely alien to the Chinese mind-frame. It is interesting that many elderly military people fell for Falungong. Used to obeying orders, raised in a disciplined atmosphere, the tight hierarchy and neat, simple doctrine of Falungong was something they could relate to. For many ex-soldiers, the sect could effectively replace a Communist Party that no longer wanted to impose discipline and was setting up a modern society very different from the one they were used to in the 1950s.