Li Hongzhi

Li Hongzhi (born 1951) is the founder of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa), born in Jilin City, Jilin Province, China, where he worked as a civil employee at the Changchun Public Security Bureau. On 13 May 1992 he began publicly teaching Falun Gong in Changchun, combining qigong exercises with a spiritual framework centred on the moral principles of "truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance" (真善忍).

Falun Gong spread rapidly through networks endorsed by China's state qigong administration before separating from the official qigong system around the mid-1990s. In his central text Zhuan Falun (published 1994), Li claimed supernatural healing powers and cosmic divine authority, and taught that practitioners should not seek conventional medical treatment. Around 1998 he moved to the United States, residing primarily in the New York area. After the Chinese government banned Falun Gong in July 1999, he continued issuing statements through the Minghui website and exercising significant influence over practitioner-affiliated media platforms including Epoch Times and NTD. International academic researchers, including David Ownby, have characterised Li Hongzhi's teachings as exhibiting several features typical of totalistic movements, including exclusive claims to divine authority and a closed doctrinal system.