James_H
And I like to roam the land
- Joined
- May 18, 2002
- Messages
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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:
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:
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:
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)
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:
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:
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:
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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