(Minghui.org) Practitioners in Mainland China have experienced tremendous hardship during the severe persecution, especially while they were detained and imprisoned. However, compared to prisons, brainwashing centers are even more deceptive and vicious. Many practitioners could not hold up under the pressure and were instead coerced to “enlighten” to crooked understandings. Below is a brief description of the deceitful tactics employed in brainwashing centers to force practitioners to give up their belief.
The mistreatment in prisons is usually direct and clear. Practitioners are fully aware of what's being done to them; it's basically a matter of enduring physical torture and verbal abuse. They're able to withstand the persecution with righteous thoughts. The tests at brainwashing centers are drastically different. Instead of physical torture, brainwashing center staff often start by warmly welcoming the practitioners, and the living conditions are relatively comfortable. They not only provide good meals and daily necessities, but also chat with practitioner as if they're trying to make friends. When practitioners fail to remain clearheaded, they tend to go along with the staff and even begin to sympathize or feel sorry for them, thus they gradually lose their righteous thoughts.
Some former practitioners (collaborators) also talk with you, mentioning how determined they used to be and how well they did with Fa-study in the past. Their purpose is to mislead you and so that you will gradually agree with what they say. In Essentials for Further Advancement II , Master said, “No matter how well they acted when arrested or beaten, all of that was setting the stage for their leaping out today to persecute the Fa and confuse students.” If practitioners become interested in how or why they've changed, are curious to hear more about their theories, or even try to analyze whether their words are reasonable, they can easily be trapped. Many steadfast practitioners were “transformed” this way and stopped practicing afterwards.
When one calms down and thinks things over, it's not difficult to see through the tactics used at brainwashing centers. If the staff and collaborators really want to have a discussion with you or share understandings, why didn’t they talk with you in a free environment instead of abducting you and placing you in the confined environment of a brainwashing center? When practitioners become confused or are willing to exchange thoughts with them, they may have accepted their theories without realizing it. In Zhuan Falun, Master said, “Some people even went to other qigong masters’ classes and after going home felt very uncomfortable. That is for sure. Why didn’t my fashen protect you? What did you go there for? By going there to listen, didn’t you want to seek something? If you did not listen with your ears, how could it get into your body?” We need to learn from such lessons.
Once practitioners agree to discuss with them, staff and collaborators seldom apply violence on them because, after all, brutality may wake up one’s righteous thoughts. Instead, they provide you with Dafa books but at the same time, force their deviant understandings on you. They take words out of context and use them to support their theories.
Some practitioners cannot pass this test. They may no longer consider the brainwashing center a vicious place because they are allowed to read Dafa books there. Feeling sympathetic with the staff and collaborators, these practitioners may gradually give up practicing and write statements to denounce Dafa.
While prisons mainly abuse practitioners physically, brainwashing centers focus on undermining practitioners’ righteous thoughts. Some practitioners choose not to follow the collaborators' theories, but if you have not fully recognized the viciousness of the brainwashing centers, the staff may try to approach you with sentimentality. They treat you well, complain about how hard they work, mention their willingness to work there, and ask practitioners to be considerate of them. Some staff, or even top officials at the brainwashing center, may even claim to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to pretend to support you.
Although practitioners don't want to give up their practice, they may be deceived by the staff's pretense. With no violence and living in a relatively comfortable environment, they feel sorry for the staff who appear to work so hard. Such notions can easily be taken advantage of, leading to practitioners’ letting go of their righteous thoughts. The brainwashing center doesn't care whether you announce that you quit your practice willingly, or unwillingly. As long as you make that statement, they've achieved the goal of destroying you.
Of course, for practitioners who are clear-minded and able to discern these tricks, the staff and collaborators soon stop the pretense and replace it with brutality. They will deprive you of sleep, or threaten to send you to prison. There are many such reports on the Minghui website.
Practitioners who've accepted the collaborators’ theories are often unwilling to resume practicing Falun Gong after being released. When they return home, they may not want to do the exercises, study the Fa, or they are not focused when sending forth righteous thoughts. In addition to being reluctant to do the Three Things, their appearance and facial expression has changed—this is because lots of vicious substances have been installed in their bodies.
The best way to help these practitioners is to wake up their righteous thoughts and to encourage them to expose the tactics used in the brainwashing centers. This way, they can recognize what loopholes have been taken advantage of. This not only applies to practitioners who come out with favorable opinions of the brainwashing centers—even practitioners who've managed to walk out of brainwashing centers with righteous thoughts need to study the Fa and cleanse their minds.
We hope that more practitioners can discuss this issue so that we can improve together.