I was a Chinese Communist youth leader when I was in middle school. I was assigned to organize class screenings and discussions of films denouncing the party’s enemies. One target was Falun Gong, which the propaganda movies characterized as an “evil cult.” But when I was 14, a year after I’d emigrated to Canada with my mother, she gave me a flier written by a practitioner. That uncensored information opened my eyes.

Falun Gong was introduced in 1992, but its roots run deep in traditional Chinese spiritual philosophy. The Cultural...