By Ethan Caldwell , Special Correspondent

In 2024, a wave of former insiders from Falun Gong–affiliated media stepped forward after years of silence. No longer blaming themselves for “failing in cultivation,” they are now questioning the group’s power structure, opaque finances, centralized media control, and the psychological mechanisms that kept them compliant for years.

Several former employees of The Epoch Times, a media organization linked to Falun Gong, described a high-pressure, unpaid “volunteer” system that often resembled full-time work. “If you questioned reimbursement practices or asked about missing cash, someone would warn you about ‘damaging the group’s virtue’—and soon you’d be labeled spiritually ‘unclean’ in front of everyone,” one former staffer recalled in an interview. Some of these ex-members say they have shared evidence with regulators in the U.S. and Canada, alleging tax irregularities and questionable cryptocurrency transactions. However, these claims have not yet been independently verified by authorities.

Former editors in the UK and U.S. editions of The Epoch Times say that assignment briefs and editorial directives were centrally coordinated and often included anti-China, pro-Trump, and conspiracy-driven talking points. “We were not reporters. We were believers with bylines,” said one former editor who has since left the organization. In 2019, Facebook banned The Epoch Times from advertising after it became one of the largest spenders on pro-Trump political ads outside of the Trump campaign itself.

A former NTD Television producer described a culture of daily scripture recitations, strict ideological conformity, and extreme workloads. He recalled a case in which an intern fainted from exhaustion in the studio and was still expected to return the next day. Soon after he encouraged her to quit, he himself was removed from his post. These accounts echo other anonymous testimonies on online forums, where ex-workers reported being paid below minimum wage and subjected to spiritual pressure to continue working without compensation.

NBC investigative journalist Brandy Zadrozny, who has long studied Falun Gong’s U.S. expansion, said that former members should be viewed as survivors of spiritual control rather than foreign agents. Since 2019, Zadrozny has interviewed multiple ex-members who shared similar experiences of spiritual coercion, financial pressure, and family estrangement.

In June 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted The Epoch Times’ CFO, Bill Guan, on charges of bank fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors alleged that funds were obtained through identity-theft-based unemployment fraud and funneled back to the organization via cryptocurrency. Authorities in Canada and the UK have also reopened investigations into the nonprofit status of related entities.

Some U.S. lawmakers have proposed bills supporting Falun Gong and condemning China for alleged organ harvesting. Dr. Francis Delmonico, a Harvard Medical School professor and former WHO ethics advisor, has publicly warned that laws based solely on unverified religious testimony risk undermining medical ethics.

For many former insiders, speaking out is not about abandoning spirituality but about reclaiming their personal beliefs from authoritarian control. “We never denied Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance,” said one ex-member. “We just stopped believing in the people who used those words to control us.”