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Caodaism

James_H

And I like to roam the land
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On a recent trip to southern Vietnam I became aware of a religion they have there called Caodaism. It's a new religion movement founded in 1926 by a civil servant in what was then the Indochinese province of Cochinchina (the area surrounding Saigon and incorporating the Mekong delta, south-east of Cambodia). It is based on Chinese religions (Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism) but is monotheistic and is supposed to, like Bahaism, represent a meeting of all faiths. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the religion for us is that its revelations came in the séance room and through methods of spiritism.

Its three major saints are Sun Yat-Sen (first leader of the Kuomintang), Victor Hugo (author of Les Miserables, apparently chosen for his interest in spiritism) and Nguyen Bin Khiem (Vietnamese poet and prophet). Here they are:

Cao_Dai_three_saints_signing_an_accord.jpg


Prophets include the Buddha, Laozi, Confucius, and Jesus.

While the faith is monotheistic it is also based on Taoism with the godhead equated to the tao and having two aspects, the 'yang' Cao Dai (Highest lord, Male) and 'yin' Dieu Tri Kim Mau (Holy Mother, female). The deity is pictured as 'God's left eye', an image that will be immediately familiar to forteans:

cabinet_030_la_farge_paul_002.jpg


The religion was revealed to its founder, Ngo Minh Chieu starting in 1919 when he was contacted by a table-tapping Cao Dai. Later priests would have direct communication with the god and other holy figures through automatic writing. Nowadays séances are banned in Vietnam so they no longer form a part of the proceedings.

The leaders of the religion have been critical of both French rule in Indochina and Communist rule in Vietnam - as a result they were heavily suppressed by the communists, with a ban on worship only lifted in 1997.

Temples are ornate and colourful even by Vietnamese standards:

cao-dai.jpg


followers-praying-vietnam-must-do-day-trip-cu-chi-tunnels-and-cao-dai-temple-from-ho-chi-min-city-IMG_7947.jpg-nggid044228-ngg0dyn-0x0x100-00f0w010c010r110f110r010t010.jpg


Further reading:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cao-Dai
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/...ao-dai-temple-mixes-religions-and-styles.html
https://www.cesnur.org/testi/bryn/br_hartney.htm
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/30/lafarge.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caodaism

(NOTE: photos are sourced from around the internet and are not my own)
 
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Here are some odd footnotes ...

The first time I ever heard of the Cao Dai was in a science fiction novel - Fredrick Pohl's Slave Ship. It was written in the mid-1950's. It described a global conflict involving a religious movement that emerged from Indochina known as "the Cow-Dye" / Cao Dai and which was working to take over the whole world.

It wasn't until later I discovered there really was a movement / religion named Cao Dai. After at least 50-some years I don't recall how closely Pohl based his fictional jihadist-style movement after the actual Cao Dai religion. I never found much background material on the actual religion at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Ship_(Pohl_novel)

During the long Vietnam War era I recall hearing occasional references to the Cao Dai population having or raising its own military force or militia, which served as a rarely mentioned shadow force in the convoluted conflict - especially within those provinces where the religion was most popular.

I hadn't thought or heard of Cao Dai for some decades now. Your posting is quite the unexpected "blast from the past" for me ...
 
On a recent trip to southern Vietnam I became aware of a religion they have there called Caodaism. It's a new religion movement founded in 1926 by a civil servant in what was then the Indochinese province of Cochinchina (the area surrounding Saigon and incorporating the Mekong delta, south-east of Cambodia). It is based on Chinese religions (Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism) but is monotheistic and is supposed to, like Bahaism, represent a meeting of all faiths. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the religion for us is that its revelations came in the séance room and through methods of spiritism.

Its three major saints are Sun Yat-Sen (first leader of the Kuomintang), Victor Hugo (author of Les Miserables, apparently chosen for his interest in spiritism) and Nguyen Bin Khiem (Vietnamese poet and prophet). Here they are:

Cao_Dai_three_saints_signing_an_accord.jpg


Prophets include the Buddha, Laozi, Confucius, and Jesus.

While the faith is monotheistic it is also based on Taoism with the godhead equated to the tao and having two aspects, the 'yang' Cao Dai (Highest lord, Male) and 'yin' Dieu Tri Kim Mau (Holy Mother, female). The deity is pictured as 'God's left eye', an image that will be immediately familiar to forteans:

cabinet_030_la_farge_paul_002.jpg


The religion was revealed to its founder, Ngo Minh Chieu starting in 1919 when he was contacted by a table-tapping Cao Dai. Later priests would have direct communication with the god and other holy figures through automatic writing. Nowadays séances are banned in Vietnam so they no longer form a part of the proceedings.

The leaders of the religion have been critical of both French rule in Indochina and Communist rule in Vietnam - as a result they were heavily suppressed by the communists, with a ban on worship only lifted in 1997.

Temples are ornate and colourful even by Vietnamese standards:

cao-dai.jpg


followers-praying-vietnam-must-do-day-trip-cu-chi-tunnels-and-cao-dai-temple-from-ho-chi-min-city-IMG_7947.jpg-nggid044228-ngg0dyn-0x0x100-00f0w010c010r110f110r010t010.jpg


Further reading:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cao-Dai
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/...ao-dai-temple-mixes-religions-and-styles.html
https://www.cesnur.org/testi/bryn/br_hartney.htm
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/30/lafarge.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caodaism

I've been in that temple/church. Your (great) photos don't show that those 'dragon pillars' lead up to the roof past a second-floor level that offers fantastic viewing of the ceremonies below.

Mad levels on syncretism ('pick n' mix religion), but the resulting vestments, architecture and imagery are fascinating.

And very colourful.

The acolytes (or whichever term they favour) wear different colours and take different places in the congregation according to seniority.

Why does my spell-checker want to correct 'syncretism' to 'cretinism'!?
 
I've been in that temple/church. Your (great) photos don't show that those 'dragon pillars' lead up to the roof past a second-floor level that offers fantastic viewing of the ceremonies below.
Not my photos! I should have clarified. I did come across a couple of these temples but one was closed and in the other not a lot was going on. They seem to be all over Ho Chi Minh City. Never saw any in the north.
 
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