Quick Facts
Date:
1993 - present
Areas Of Involvement:
millennialism

Chen Tao, new religious movement that was founded by Chen Hong-min in Pei-pu, Hsin-chu county, Taiwan, in 1993.

Chen, a former professor of sociology at Chianan College of Pharmacology and Science, founded a religion that is an eclectic mixture of Buddhism, popular religion, Christianity, and New Age Western cults with belief in extraterrestrial intervention in human affairs. Chen laid out a complex theology based on ideas of spiritual energy—a variation of Chinese ch’i-kung thought—modifying traditional Chinese popular ideas in accordance with his reading of Western physics and Asian and Western ideas of demonology. Preaching that much of the world is dominated by evil spirits, he integrated Christian millennialist and eschatological ideas into his theology, calling himself a prophet who was able to chart the course of the coming conflagration and the road to individual salvation. Pei-pu was the chosen place because, according to Chen, it was a place where spiritual energy created by God would flow from heaven to earth.

Chen developed his cult, published texts and works on his doctrine, and, according to some sources, convinced his followers to give him money to gain passage aboard the spaceships—disguised as clouds—that would land on earth in 1999 and take them away. He also persuaded these followers to move to San Dimas, California, U.S., to await God’s coming; they migrated in 1995. He then became convinced that Garland, Texas, would be the place where God would come, for to his ears “Garland” sounded like “Godland.” He and his followers then moved to Texas in 1997.

Chen predicted that God would announce his plans and materialize on earth in human form, recognizable to Chen, on March 31, 1998. Before his incarnation—or, as Chen believed, simultaneous multi-incarnation—God would announce his formal Second Coming on channel 18 on television on March 25. When the day came and nothing happened, Chen revised his predictions. In the weeks that followed, he relocated his cult to New York state, and many of the members returned to Taiwan or applied for legal immigrant status in the United States. See also millennialism.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.
Table of Contents
References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics
Pinyin romanization:
Daoism
Key People:
Laozi
Zhuang Zhou
Liezi
Zhao Youqin
Kou Qianzhi
Top Questions

What is Daoism?

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What are the basic teachings of Daoism?

Who were the great teachers of Daoism?

How does Daoism differ from Confucianism?

Taoism, indigenous religio-philosophical tradition that has shaped Chinese life for more than 2,000 years. In the broadest sense, a Taoist attitude toward life can be seen in the accepting and yielding, the joyful and carefree sides of the Chinese character, an attitude that offsets and complements the moral and duty-conscious, austere and purposeful character ascribed to Confucianism. Taoism is also characterized by a positive, active attitude toward the occult and the metaphysical (theories on the nature of reality), whereas the agnostic, pragmatic Confucian tradition considers these issues of only marginal importance, although the reality of such issues is, by most Confucians, not denied.

More strictly defined, Taoism includes: the ideas and attitudes peculiar to the Tao-te ching (“Classic Way of Power”), the Zhuangzi, the eponymous Liezi, and related writings; the Taoist religion, which is concerned with the ritual worship of the Tao; and those who identify themselves as Taoists.

Taoist thought permeates Chinese culture, including many aspects not usually considered Taoist. In Chinese religion, the Taoist tradition—often serving as a link between the Confucian tradition and folk tradition—has generally been more popular and spontaneous than the official (Confucian) state cult and less diffuse and shapeless than folk religion.

Taoist philosophy and religion have found their way into all Asian cultures influenced by China, especially those of Vietnam, Japan, and Korea. Various religious practices reminiscent of Taoism in such areas of Chinese cultural influence indicate early contacts with Chinese travelers and immigrants that have yet to be elucidated.

Both Western and Chinese scholars themselves have distinguished—since Han times (206 bce–220 ce)—between a Taoist philosophy of the great mystics and their commentators (taojia) and a later Taoist religion (taojiao). This theory—no longer considered valid—was based on the view that the “ancient Taoism” of the mystics antedated the “later Neo-Taoist superstitions” that were misinterpretations of the mystics’ metaphorical images. The mystics, however, should be viewed against the background of the religious practices existing in their own times. Their ecstasies, for example, were closely related to the trances and spirit journeys of the early magicians and shamans (religious personages said to have healing and psychic transformation powers). Not only are the authors of the Tao-te Ching (Pinyin: Daodejing), the Zhuangzi (book of “Master Zhuang”), and the Liezi (book of “Master Lie”) not the actual and central founders of an earlier “pure” Taoism later degraded into superstitious practices but they can even be considered somewhat on the margin of older Taoist traditions. Therefore, because there has been a nearly continuous mutual influence between Taoists of different social classes—philosophers, ascetics, alchemists, and the priests of popular cults—the distinction between philosophical and religious Taoism in this article is made simply for the sake of descriptive convenience.

There is also a tendency among scholars today to draw a less rigid line between what is called Taoist and what is called Confucian. The two traditions share many of the same ideas about man, society, the ruler, heaven, and the universe—ideas that were not created by either school but that stem from a tradition prior to either Confucius or Laozi.

Viewed from this common tradition, orthodox Confucianism limited its field of interest to the creation of a moral and political system that fashioned society and the Chinese empire; whereas Taoism, inside the same worldview, represented more personal and metaphysical preoccupations.

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In the case of Buddhism—a third tradition that influenced China—fundamental concepts such as the nonexistence of the individual ego and the illusory nature of the physical world are diametrically opposed to Taoism. In terms of overt individual and collective practices, however, competition between these two religions for influence among the people—a competition in which Confucianism had no need to participate because it had state patronage—resulted in mutual borrowings, numerous superficial similarities, and essentially Chinese developments inside Buddhism, such as the Chan (Japanese Zen) sect. In folk religion, since Song times (960–1279), Taoist and Buddhist elements have coexisted without clear distinctions in the minds of the worshippers.