One reason why Falun Gong has succeeded in growing so fast without provoking a major crackdown by the government may be that the movement appeared to be little more than a variation on the traditional Chinese meditation system known as Qi Gong. Many urban Chinese, both officials and ordinary citizens, practice Qi Gong as a way of keeping mentally and physically fit. By doing so, the practitioner could move to a higher level of what he saw as a multi-layered cosmos. He explained that Buddha and Jesus, as well as himself, were beings from higher levels who had come to help humankind from the destruction it could face as a result of rampant evil. Master Li's book became the bible of the new sect.
Practitioners read the work over and over again.
In 1996, the government banned the work as superstition and false science. But copies produced in Hong Kong are widely circulated in China. The government may have resisted taking any further action against the cult because many of its followers are leading intellectuals, as well as some Communist Party members and officials. Falun Gong groups have mushroomed on university campuses as well as abroad among highly educated ethnic Chinese. Some official newspapers have published articles attacking one of the central beliefs of followers, namely that true devotees are immune to illness and have no need to visit doctors.