Sydney, Australia - LI Hongzhi, a former grain store clerk and trumpet player in a police band, looks like a typical successful businessman: well-groomed and smartly dressed.
But as far as the Chinese Government is concerned, the self-styled Buddha in a suit is the devil incarnate, enticing millions of people worldwide to follow him with promises of inner peace on earth.
Li, 52, is the founder of Falun Gong, an organisation that the Chinese Communist Party, which is suspicious of all religious groups, has sought to brutally suppress since it was outlawed in 1999 after a silent protest involving 10,000 followers in Tiananmen Square.
Li became China's most wanted man, accused of spreading "superstition and fallacies to deceive people, resulting in the deaths of practitioners". The wanted notice described Li as 1.78m and of heavy build, "with slanted eyebrows and single-fold eyelids".
But by this time Li had fled into exile in New York, where his message continued to attract devotees and millions of dollars in sales of his books, including Zhuan Falun, which sells for $39.95 in Australia.
Although Falun Gong has the appearance of a martial art, Li's wacky ideas make it sound like a cult.
Li believes he is a being from a higher level who has come to help save humankind from the destruction it could face as the result of rampant evil; that aliens walk the earth and are responsible for, among other things, aeroplanes and computers; that he can float through walls and become invisible.
Even Li's date of birth is controversial, with Chinese officials claiming he backdated it a few months so he could share it with Buddhism's founder, Sakyamuni.
Beijing has accused him of stopping people from seeking medical treatment, resulting in the deaths of thousands of followers, and that he has embezzled millions of dollars, claims vehemently rejected by Li.
There is little doubt that Falun Gong practitioners have been detained in China in "re-education through labour" camps as well as in prisons and mental hospitals. Amnesty International puts the figure at tens of thousands, and the US State Department suggests the death toll through torture and abuse is 500.
Falun Gong claims to have verified more than 1400 deaths, with the toll possibly as high as 10,000.
The practice of Falun Gong is similar to Tai Chi, its aim being to improve the body and mind through exercises and meditation. It draws loosely on elements of Buddhism and Taoism and the movement claims to have 60 million to 80million followers worldwide.
The most public manifestation of Falun Gong is the practice of a range of five exercises related to the ancient Chinese art of qigong, a kind of breathing meditation. Accompanied by special Falun Gong music, followers perform routines with names such as Buddha Showing a Thousand Hands and Falun Gong Way to Heavenly Circulation.
Falun Gong and its leader, who visited Australia in 1996, have been thrust into the spotlight following claims by two Chinese defectors who are seeking political asylum in Australia that Beijing has an extensive spy network here and that it monitors and even kidnaps adherents and takes them to jails or re-education centres in China.
The claims have been dismissed as slanderous and untrue by the Chinese foreign ministry.
The question is, why does the Chinese Communist Party feel so threatened by an organisation that peddles wacky ideas and runs martial arts classes?
It may seem absurd to outsiders, but charismatic religious groups have sparked political uprisings throughout Chinese history.
The avowedly atheistic Chinese Communist Party has learned the lessons of history. In the mid-1800s, a man who claimed to be Jesus' brother led a revolt in a civil war that killed millions. In 1900, the so-called Boxers -- a qigong cult that believed its exercises made members impervious to bullets -- rose up in an attempt to expel foreigners.
Several sources refused to speak publicly to The Australian about Falun Gong because they feared China would retaliate by refusing them entry into the country.
"The Chinese Government fears Falun Gong because many rebellions in Chinese history have had their origins in spiritual movements," a senior North Asia expert told The Australian last night.
"Falun Gong's rapid growth and ability to organise protests in the lead-up to 1999 simply spooked the Communist Party. I guess also Falun Gong's vigils outside Chinese embassies around the world are an affront to the Communist Party's pride. But in overreacting, the Communist Party has created a large headache for itself."
While denying this week that Chinese spies are kidnapping Falun Gong members, China's ambassador to Australia, Fu Ying, says monitoring the activities of Falun Gong protesters outside Chinese embassies and consulates in Australia is routine.
Speaking of defector Chen Yonglin's claim that his role was to spy on Falun Gong protesters, Fu says she does not believe that was his job.
"But if he wants to photograph them [Falun Gong members], I think it's quite normal," she says. "If they came to protest in front of the Sydney consulate-general, [we would need to] to notify the Australian police."
ASIO has warned Chinese diplomats not to overstep their official roles to intimidate Falun Gong practitioners.
At the same time, however, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has taken action to curb their music and banners at protests outside China's embassy and consulates as part of his role in protecting the dignity of foreign missions.
Founded as recently as 1992, Li Hongzhi's homespun philosophy quickly attracted millions of adherents.
Alien beliefs notwithstanding, there is no evidence Falun Gong is dangerous in the manner of the Branch Davidians, who committed mass suicide when raided by police in the US in 1993, or Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, which was responsible for the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.
Li claims that Falun Gong does not allow donations or fundraising activities. He preaches that if a person wants to give a seminar or a class, they should finance it out of their own pocket.
However, it is believed Falun Gong draws generous funding from a range of organisations concerned about human rights in China, particularly in the US as well as from pro-democracy supporters in Taiwan.
According to a New York Post report, Li also became wealthy through the sale of millions of his books and tapes, particularly Zhuan Falun, which includes a short biography.
Zhuan Falun was listed as the 14th most influential book in Australia in a recent poll conducted by the ABC. (Wuthering Heights was at No.13 and one book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series came in at No.15.)
Repression of religious movements in China is not restricted to Falun Gong: it extends to followers of Islam, Christianity and other faiths.
A multi-faith Christian group called Tears of the Oppressed has told an Australian parliamentary inquiry into Australia's relationship with China that up to 100 million Christian believers are at risk of persecution because of their religious convictions.
The group's national director Elizabeth Scott says there are only two legalised churches in China, the Three Self Patriotic Movement and the Catholic Patriotic Association.
"The teachings of these churches are strictly controlled by the Government, which has the right to appoint church leaders," she says.
"Teachings are often in conflict with traditional biblical Christianity and most Christians in China refuse to belong to official churches."
Scott says many Christians are forced to hold services and prayer meetings in their homes, which are known as house churches. But these were considered a threat to the Communist Party's beliefs, with house members frequently arrested, tortured and sent to the labour camps.