A former Falun Gong practitioner has voluntarily shared the struggles of his conversion which he recorded in a diary while serving a jail sentence in China's southernmost province of Hainan.

Wang Heqing, a 32-year-old life insurance salesman, was sent to a re-education-through-labor camp for advocating Falun Gong and downloading from the Internet materials published by the banned cult, then printing and distributing the materials in bulk.

"We thought of the 'master', Li Hongzhi, as a saint, but he ignores us as human beings. The flesh and bone bodies of his followers were burned to a crisp by fire, but he refused to acknowledge them as his practitioners," Wang wrote in his diary on January 30, after viewing TV footage of devout Falun Gong followers attempting suicide by setting themselves on fire at Tiananmen Square.

Wang said he now clearly understanding how the cult manipulates its followers: Falun Gong practitioners are brainwashed into believing that if they submit unconditionally to the commands of the leader, they will reach true spiritual peace.

In 1996, Wang, a college graduate, moved from Hunan Province in central China to Hainan to seek his fortune, and was introduced to the cult's doctrine while on the lush island resort.

"Ever since I was a middle school student, I had admired wizard descriptions of supernatural phenomena and some peculiar functions of the human body in books and publications," Wang wrote in his diary.

"I finished reading the book 'Zhuandafalun' (or 'Turning the Wheel of Law', considered to be the Falun Gong's principal text) within one day. The supernormal mental state the book promised to its practitioners enchanted me so much that I thought I had been led into a magic world created by Li Hongzhi," Wang confessed.

In his diary, Wang said that since he worked full-time, he used to read the cult's texts on the bus on his way to work. He became so devoted to the cult that he decided to participate in appeals to government authorities to protect the Falun Gong doctrines and help spread the cult's creed-even to remote villages.

He saw many poor people willing to risk going bankrupt from buying expensive Falun Gong publications, video tapes and photographs of Li Hongzhi.

"My eyes were blurred by the disguise of Falun Gong's apparent good teachings of keeping the body fit and sound. Hypnotized by the premise, I abandoned all sense and reason to it," said Wang.

During his days in the penitentiary, the former devoted Falun Gong follower had time to think about many questions that he would have been too preoccupied to consider had he continued selling illegal leaflets of the cult which were outlawed by the Chinese government in July 1999.

In the diary, he exposed his initial skepticism of the cult's bluff that Li Hongzhi shared the same date of birth with Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism. He noted the destructive effects of Falun Gong practitioners' gatherings in Beijing.

The sacrificial burning of the practitioners in late January further awakened him. Wang wrote that he sincerely hopes diehard Falun Gong followers will learn from his disturbing and unforgettable conversion experience.

The sacrificial burning of the practitioners in late January further awakened him. Wang wrote that he sincerely hopes diehard Falun Gong followers will learn from his disturbing and unforgettable conversion experience.

(Xinhuanet 2001/02/11)