When asked to define Falun Gong on Canadian TV’s Nielsen Report" in 2001, Ian Johnson of the Wall Street Journal, who won a Pullitzer Prize for his reporting on Falun Gong in China, said, "It' hard to define"..." I think a cult implies something that has a doomsday
scenario, mass suicide as its goal / likely outcome. I don’t think Falun Gong is that. I think a sect is usually considered a splinter group of an existing religion. But Falun Gong is not that either."