Both Scientology’s resilience to French anti-cult laws and campaigns and Tai Ji Men’s strength in front of tax and media harassment prove that public slander can be successfully resisted.
by Donald A. Westbrook
*A paper presented at the CESNUR 2024 international conference, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France, June 12, 2024.
I have had the honor to speak about Tai Ji Men at a number of conference and events—in the United States (Washington, DC, and Walnut, California), Taiwan, and now in Bordeaux, France, as part of the 2024 annual conference of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR). I do not always have the chance to attend the annual CESNUR meetings but felt compelled to come this year, especially since I recently published a short book with Cambridge University Press entitled “Anticultism in France: Scientology, Religious Freedom, and the Future of New and Minority Religions.”
This work surveys the history of modern French anticultism, with an emphasis on state-sponsored expressions such as the controversial MIVILUDES, the French governmental Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviances (dérives sectaires). The American-born Church of Scientology, which has been in France since the 1950s, is taken up as an example of a group that, though marginalized in modern France, has managed to overcome legal and public relations challenges, in display of a resilient religious culture. April 2024, for instance, witnessed the grand opening of the Church of Scientology and Celebrity Centre of Greater Paris in Saint-Denis.
I concluded that book with a reference to the national motto of France and made the case that one of the everyday challenges for new and minority groups, in addition to state-sponsored (and state-funded) opposition in form of groups such as MIVILUDES, and the private anti-cult organizations UNADFI, CCMM, and FECRIS, is that very often “ordinary” or rank-and-file members are unknown to the general public.
As I wrote: “The implication that relatively few French citizens have firsthand experiences, friendships, or family that would bring them into contact with members of new, alternative, and minority communities suggests that another antidote to French anticultism is far simpler than dissolving MIVILUDES or protesting anti-secte [i.e., anti-cult] legislation. That is, getting to know one’s neighbors, colleagues, friends, and fellow citizens and respecting their beliefs, practices, and cultures on their own terms. This means putting into practice the ideals of liberté, égalité, and, perhaps especially, fraternité” (“Anticultism in France,” p. 38).
I think this message is highly relevant to other groups, both in and out of France, including the ongoing marginalization of Tai Ji Men in its home country of Taiwan. To its deep credit, Tai Ji Men has gone out of its way to make itself and its members (dizi) known to the public—and to public officials. It actively participates in intercultural events that showcase martial arts, dancing, and musical performance, and these are just a few of the group’s contributions. The leader, grand master, and shifu of Tai Ji Men, Dr. Hong, travels the world in support of a message of peace, love, and conscience that regularly includes invitations to dignitaries, human rights leaders, and scholars, many of whom have rung Tai Ji Men’s “Bell of World Peace and Love.”
This is precisely the kind of public relations outreach that helps connect a group with a wider community and fosters fraternity that, in turn, builds a bridge toward the full realization of liberty, equality, and justice. In the case of Tai Ji Men and Dr. Hong, this bridge-building and consciousness-raising has taken dizi around the world. It is my hope that Tai Ji Men will continue to foster fraternity and good will in its homeland and at a grassroots level as well. In other words, the pursuit of fraternity, equality, and liberty ought to be realized from the “top down” as well as the “bottom up” to bring about lasting change in the face of persecution, marginalization, and misinformation.
Tai Ji Men has already done an admirable job on this front, not only with its emphasis on interpersonal communication and savvy social media outreach but in other ways, such as print publications. One of my favorites, which I have mentioned before in conferences, is the compilation “Embodying the Wisdom of Tai Ji: Achieving Inner Peace & Balance,” written by a dozen dizi as “a joint effort of medical doctors, psychologists, social workers, as well as special education and counseling teachers” (p. 235). It is available online, free of charge, from the Tai Ji Men Qigong Academy. Its sections are divided in terms of life stages, from childhood to middle age and, finally, old age—i.e., the “golden period of life” (p. 185) —and a grand total of 55 stories are provided. Along the way, “Tai Ji Psychology” maxims are marked in bold and draw the reader’s attention to particular themes and life lessons.
In closing, allow me to share one of these “Tai Ji Psychology” life lessons, since it offers a glimpse into the balanced, adaptable, and resilient mindset of Tai Ji Men dizi in everyday life in a way that is relevant to conversations about anticultism in France as well as Tai Ji Men’s ongoing fight for justice in Taiwan as discussed by others here today.
One of the maxims is that “only by combining toughness and softness can you be truly free and unrestrained” (p. 35). This lesson is followed by a discussion about the limits of individualism and liberty in a civil and democratic society. “Liberty,” the volume explains, “does not imply the ability to do anything. Conscience functions as a compass, allowing us to tell right from wrong” (p. 35).
The section goes on to quote from John Stuart Mill’s 1859 essay “On Liberty,” and delivers a famous line from Mill that is well worth remembering from Bordeaux to Taipei: “The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it” (p. 35).
Donald A. Westbrook has taught at San José State University, UT Austin, UCLA, University of South Florida, Cal State Fullerton, and Fuller Seminary. In addition, he’s held a postdoctoral fellowship at San Diego State University and worked with FVG Antwerp. His first book, Among the Scientologists, was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press as part of the Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism series. This was followed by L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology Studies (2022), Mariachi in the Twenty-First Century (2024), and Anticultism in France (2024), all published by Cambridge University Press.
