This book is a harrowing tale of struggle and persecution in the authors life. Facing down a life-threatening illness, Zeng explores a variety of philosophies before coming across Falun Gong and their tenets of truthfulness, compassion and forbear­ance. Here she finds comfort, subscribing too the many and varied - and occasionally bizarre, not to mention financial - demands the cults leaders place on her. Then came the Chinese crackdown. Falun Gong, with it's unwise show of strength in having a massive 250,000 yellow t-shirt clad supporters performing tai-chi style exercises along Shanghai's Bund, soliciting alms and memberships from passers by - started to concern Beijing.

Investigations into the sect were short, swift, and lead to some bloody crackdowns. The author found herself incarcerated, and ultimately sent to a labour camp for ‘re-education". The scenes portrayed within the Chinese prison system are horrific, forced labour, abuse and separated from her family, she finally managed to obtain an exit visa for Australia after serving her term, which obviously left her with serious emotional, mental and physical scars. What was the point ? The book is interesting in it's portrayal of life inside a Chinese prison, and one wonders if the authorities were really barking up the right tree when subjecting Chinese middle-aged women mothers to this sort of treatment. It shouldn't really have to be like this, when the per­petrators of what is undoubtably a massive fraud masquerading as a religion are quite happily sitting overseas with all their millions of dollars earned from a sophisticated yet viciously damaging cult - in reality a business making squillions for the founders. The Chinese Government know the weaknesses of their people well, but Zeng and the other women involved in the Falun Gong for seeking answers in spirituality aren't much a threat to Chinese society as the States own on-going declaration of atheism. Zeng is a tragic figure, ultimately doomed to a life of rejection by her own country, yet free to practice a sham religion that is feeding the greed and avarice of the Falun Gong itself. One ponders if she's really on the right path, wonders how Beijing can justify the incarceration of middle aged women for seeking spiritual guidance, and ends up angry at the fraudsters who continue to perpetrate the myth of Falun Gong. No-one comes out it well, the entire episode being a lesson of truth in the ancient instruc­tion: "Beware of false idols".