The Problem of The Falun Gong Chinese Sect in Russian Religious Studies

Abstract

This article provides an analytical review of the Russian-language religious studies literature in the field of Falun Gong research. The relevance of the topic is discordant with the rather limited number of publications and the number of researchers in Russian Sinology and Religious Studies. The reason for this is rooted in the incompleteness of the religious and philosophical system of Falun Gong, the inaccessibility of sources and the problem of their translation into Russian, which creates methodological problems in its analysis. One of the underdeveloped topics in most studies is the study of the background and reasons for the spread of Falun Gong, which in most cases are reduced to the socio-political conditions of life in China and less attention is paid to the spiritual. Critical studies of religious and philosophical concepts differ from each other in the depth of the study of cosmology, anthropogony, eschatology, soteriology, but in all cases little attention is paid to the issues of comparative religious studies. Almost all publications raise the question of the extremist orientation of Falun Gong, but some conclusions are ambivalent. The increase in interest in the practice of Falun Gong is being driven by a general increase in interest in esoteric systems. The attractiveness of this teaching is based on emotional attractiveness for adepts, as well as the solution of practical problems: recovery, gaining peace of mind, tranquility, gaining paranormal abilities.