The seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar is popularly known as "Ghost Month." At temples and other sites of Buddhist and Taoist rituals, both on dry land and on water, rites are held to relieve the suffering of souls in the next world. This year, on the seventh day of that month, one tour bus after another wound up a twisting mountain road, bound for a gathering at the True Buddha School's Vijaya Temple in Tsaotun, Nantou County. Later, on the 13th of the month, the Longhua Assembly of the T'ienti Teachings Association was held at the Tienchi Hsingkung Temple in Taichung. Though held late at night, it attracted thousands of devotees. Dressed in blue robes, they chanted the sect's sutras with deep concentration. The atmosphere was solemn, but a little weird too.

Why did so many-young and old alike-go so deep into the mountains? And why did they gather in the middle of the night to chant sutras with the aim of purifying Hell? Hsiao Hui-lun, who lives in Panchiao and is an executive with Kuo Hua Insurance, risked her husband's ire to go to the gathering in Nantou. "Every time I go to one, I always feel very happy and cleansed," she explained at the time. "You really get a sense of inspiration!" As she rode the bus back to Taipei in the middle of the night, Hsiao divided her attention between the bus's video of a lecture by Grand Master Lu Sheng-yen and the books on her lap that she had obtained at the gathering. Her admiration for Master Lu suffused her every word and gesture.

This altar is graced by the three "Saints of the West," with Matsu getting center placement. And there at the very front of the altar, sits a true-to-life statue of Lu Sheng-yen, the True Buddha School's Grand Master, who is referred to as a "living Buddha.".

Idols or street rats?

"Politicians have played important roles in fanning the religious flames," asserts Song Wen-li of the Graduate Institute for Social Sciences at Tsing Hua University. Former president Lee Teng-hui was a devout Presbyterian who said more than once that he planned to do missionary work after he retired from politics. In the early morning three days after his election, current ROC President Chen Shui-bian went to the Nungchan Temple in northern Taipei, where he visited Master Sheng Yen. Chen revealed that he had come there previously to meditate and listen to the master's enlightened words after Chen had failed in his bid to be reelected as Mayor of Taipei City. When the Dalai Lama came to Taiwan for his first-ever visit in 1996, and then again when the Fokuangshan Temple received the Buddha's tooth from Thailand in 1988, politicians appeared in droves, and tens of thousands of people gathered in celebration.

The common folk may profess to need the spiritual guidance of those on a "higher plane," but the exalted beings themselves seem to be a source of endless controversy.

In Taiwan 1997 was "the year of religious disorder." First, a group of young women on a religious retreat at the Chungtai Zen Monastery suddenly decided en masse to shave their heads and take their vows as nuns. Their families were outraged. Then it was discovered that Master Song Chi-li was selling photographs for large sums that had been doctored to show a holy nimbus of light. Frank Hsieh, now chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, got entangled in this scandal, because he had at one point knelt down before Master Song. Following on this incident came the news that Master Miaotien was selling compartments in an illegally constructed columbarium at the exorbitant price of NT$1 million a piece. After the illegality of the building was exposed, many believers could not get their money back. And finally the authorities accused Tai Chi Men, which is registered as a martial arts society, of engaging in such black arts as "cultivating ghosts" and "casting spells." It was brought up on charges of being an "evil organization."

"At that time, new religious groups were like rats running across a street. Everywhere were people shouting, 'Beat them!'" says Lin Chi-hsiung, the "founder and supreme lawgiver" of the Haizi Dao religion, which had the good fortune of escaping the media spotlight.

Amid the fierce flames, the Dharma Master takes ceremonial offerings to raise souls from their suffering and gives them one by one to the ghosts of the Underworld. Then he performs dazzling tantric Buddhist shouyin exercises with his clasped hands. This is the Humo Huogong ceremony of the True Buddha School.

Chants, spells and healthy living

"But it is not right to simply equate 'new religions' with 'disorder,'" says Chu Hai-yuan, director of the Institute of Sociology at the Academia Sinica, who is himself an atheist. Currently, Chu is leading a major academic study about new religious groups. After three years of widely conducting interviews and taking surveys, the researchers agree that there is a great diversity of new religious groups in Taiwan. Yet they say that it would be going too far to say that these groups have led to disorder and social instability.

How many new religious groups are there in Taiwan? Academics invariably reply that because such groups are hard to define, they are also hard to count. In Chu Hai-yuan's major research project, for instance, seven or eight professors have been going through their own channels to collect information over a period of three years. Up to the present, they have found more than 50 new religious groups, as well as roughly the same number of kung-fu groups that claim to effect supernatural improvements to one's health. These groups have a variety of roots: some are exclusively Taiwanese; others have origins in traditional Chinese religions or in various denominations of Christianity or Hinduism; and still others can be traced to the "new age" religions now popular in the West.

The lack of clear definitions makes it simply impossible to determine the precise number of such groups. Chu observes that if you are purely using time of establishment as a yardstick, then even such eminently mainstream groups as Master Cheng Yen's Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu-Chi Association and Master Hsintao's Wusheng Taochang on Lingchiu Shan would have to be grouped among them. The issue is further complicated by organizations with unique sets of beliefs-such as Supreme Master Ching Hai's organization-that have all the characteristics of a new religious group, yet don't admit to being religions. On the other hand, the Falun Gong cult has been suppressed in mainland China and many of its adherents have been arrested. But even though its founder Li Hongzhi may be a mysterious ascetic, the organization of Falun Gong itself isn't much different from the taiqi groups that can be found exercising in parks. It has thus been classified as a "health cultivation group." Sorting out these issues adds to the difficulty of the researchers' task.

In a ceremony of the True Buddha School, the believers piously pray, while making lotus shouyin gestures with their hands to supplicate for peace and joy.

End of the world

The rise of the new religious groups reflects the spiritual desires of post-modern people. Yet after a series of incidents that have cast religious groups here in unflattering light, people in Taiwan cannot help but wonder if incidents like the Waco mass suicide or the poison gas attacks by the Japanese Aum Supreme Truth cult might not transpire in Taiwan.

Fortunately, "Taiwan isn't a place that supports such extremist beliefs," says Lin Pen-hsuan, an associate professor at Aletheia University who has been researching new religions for more than a decade. He observes that Chinese have traditionally held extremely practical religious beliefs, which have emphasized "seeking rewards in one's own lifetime." Chu notes that when Chen Heng-ming led more than 100 families to Texas last year so that they could welcome "their saviour" who was coming in a UFO, the Texas police feared they might have another mass suicide on their hands. But it turned out that such concerns were overblown.

"Chen Heng-ming only led such a large group to escape calamity because he felt that Taiwan was chaotic and unsafe. The 'redemption' that they were seeking was a very practical one. Suicide was the last thing on their minds!" says Chu Hai-yuan, laughing.

Wearing blue robes and reading a sutra, T'ientao Teachings Association believers chant prayers in the their Palace of Light Temple, which holds no graven images. They aim to dispel calamities for all the world's people.

Heretics?

In comparison with such groups elsewhere, Taiwan's new religious cults are not only less likely to engage in mass suicide; their leaders are also less prone to making an exclusive claim on salvation. They're not apt to say, "Those who believe me will obtain redemption, whereas those who do not will burn in Hell!" The basic beliefs of the Chinese have resulted in three different currents of mainstream religion: Buddhism, Taoism and folk religions. By their very nature, folk religions are a motley and piecemeal group. Organized Buddhism emphasizes "acting in accordance with one's situation" and Taoism stresses "nature," but neither puts much stock in exclusivity.

Look, if you will, at T'ienti Teachings Association of China, which has 300,000 members. Hao Kuang-sheng, who is currently the Church's secretary general, explains that T'ienti devotees worship the Creator, who is responsible for bringing to life all of the world's myriad beings. Their Lord, he explains, is the Jehovah of Judaism and Christianity, the Allah of Islam, and the deities of all the world's other religions combined. Thus the T'ienti faith allows its believers to maintain their original beliefs. Hao was raised a Christian and still wears a cross ring on his finger. He notes that since he began believing in T'ienti and opened his eyes to the notion of "communication between Heaven and mankind," he has many times witnessed people receive holy teachings from Jehovah. This has only strengthened his belief in Jehovah. Nevertheless, he was once sharply scolded when he went to a traditional Christian church and introduced himself as "a Christian, currently serving the T'ienti Teachings Association." "Please, don't refer to yourself as a Christian," he was told. "You're a heretic!"

Haizi Dao, which has about 10,000 believers and worships the "Exalted Xuan Xuan," is an exception to the rule that new religious groups don't exhibit exclusivity. At each Haizi Dao meeting a list is read of former devotees who have turned from the flock, and a sorry fate predicted for them: "They will end up in dire straits, finding no place for themselves in Heaven or on Earth."

At 9:00 in the morning the music starts to play. It's time to get to work! At the T'ienti Teachings Hall of Worship in Yuchih, Nantou, believers go about their tasks in an orderly fashion .

Revered founders

It is the charismatic leaders of these religious groups-lofty-minded individuals who have freed themselves from bounds of convention and social etiquette-that make the biggest impression on people.

When the Grand Master Lu Sheng-yen, a living Buddha of the True Buddha sect, was 26, he found himself by chance at the Taichung's Jade Palace Temple, where the Fairyland Gold Mother helped him open his "Deva-eye." Later he studied with Taoist priest Ching Chen of Nantou's Chingcheng school and many other Sutrayana and Tantrayana Buddhist masters. He has come to believe that he is the white lotus boy of the Maha Twin Lotus Ponds of the Great Western Paradise, who was personally ordained as a Buddhist monk by Sakyamuni and has drifted down to earth on the instructions of Amitabha, the Buddha of infinite qualities. At the center of True Buddha School altars sit statues of none other than the Grand Master Lu Sheng-yen himself.

"My master is the lotus boy who was a reincarnation of Amitabha. What's wrong with being together with Amitabha?" asks the Dharma Master Lian-ying, who is the executive director of the group.

Dr. Lin Chi-hsiung, the "Supreme Lawgiver of the Haizi Dao Religion," describes himself as having descended to earth wanting to assist the Great Saviors, the Masters of the Sun and Moon. He too has placed himself in the middle of his cult's altar. When believers come to worship, they first bow down before him in the flesh and then to his statue on an altar to the side.

"I'm a god among men. But the image on the altar is of my godly form in Heaven. Of course, you should bow to it too," says Lin, as if any reasonable person should agree with him.

In his book Zhuan Falun ("turning the wheel of the law"), Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi does not go as far as to say that he is a demigod or Buddha that has descended to the world of men, but he does stress that he is the only person "in China or abroad who can truly teach this discipline at the highest level-at a level, for instance, that is higher than the Buddha-to-be."

Students who have completed an "authentic T'ienti meditation" course merely need to chant the 20-character mantra to cure illness in others.

No average Zhou

The leading figures in these new religions must of course have extraordinary courage and wisdom in order to establish the group, but this leads to an arrogance and bravado that contrasts unfavorably with the modesty and self-discipline of the Dalai Lama or Master Cheng Yen of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu-Chi Association.

"Non-believers may consider Li Hongzhi arrogant, but believers think he is rather modest," says Chang Ching-hsi, a professor of economics at National Taiwan University who is director of the Falun Gong Association in Taiwan. Su Tang-tang, an expert on vegetarian food and disciple of the Supreme Master Ching Hai's Quan Yin Method, says that most people only worship what can't be seen and lack respect for what can. "For instance, take my guiding light, the Supreme Master Ching Hai. Everyone can see that she is of flesh and blood, so people think, 'What's so special about her?' What they don't realize is that she is very extraordinary."

Since the leaders of each of these new religions are agents from on high with remarkable origins, they all tend to emphasize their supernatural powers. The books by Master Lu Sheng-yen are filled with stories about how he travels around the world in his sleep or in deep states of meditation, fighting demons and killing monsters. Master Lee Sun-don, who describes himself as the third-generation master conveyer of the Great Vehicle Zen school and has founded his own sect of Forshang Buddhism, says that after studying Zen for three months he was able to see through people's skins and view their internal organs. Now he purports to be omniscient and to fly back and forth between Heaven and Earth. Most people are apt to regard cult leaders' claims that their bodies give off golden light and have protective auras as something out of the Arabian Nights, but among the faithful, there isn't a glimmer of doubt.

"In fact, all religions talk about 'supernatural powers,'" notes Lin Pen-hsuan. "Such claims are not unique to the new cults." The Bible, after all, describes Jesus giving sight to the blind and allowing the crippled to walk. The Buddhist sutras describe bodhisattvas who have remarkable powers, including the abilities to see-all (thanks to their Deva-eyes), hear-all (thanks to their Deva-ears) and read minds. These powers they employ to save the people.

At Tayuan Chingshe Temple, the Master Lee Sun Don of the Forshang Buddhist sect writes his "Nine Word Zen Prayer" to help his followers avoid calamity.

Here come the exorcists

"By their very nature, religions are channels for the mysterious and the supernatural," observes Lin. "If there were nothing supernatural about them, then they would become merely ethical systems imploring people to behave benevolently-in which case religion wouldn't be religion." But as traditional religions have evolved over thousands of years, the veil of mystery covering them has gradually been lifted. On the one hand, this has insulated them from accusations from civil authorities that they are "arousing people with wild talk." On the other hand, it has brought them closer in line with people's common sense notions about living in the world of the here and now. New religious cults, on the other hand, have short histories, few of their own texts, and teachings that are no match for the depth and completeness of traditional religions. As a result, supernatural powers have become an important tool they use to attract followers.

"Miraculous healing" is a common way for these new religions to display their supernatural powers. T'ienti at regular times provides free "cosmic qi healing." Wearing their "struggle suits"-yellow shirts with blue pants-the envoys of T'ienti first chant the 20-character mantra before turning themselves into mediums that use the "Great Spirit of the Universe" to cleanse their patients' bodies. From time to time they extend their arms to accept invisible golden pills into paper cups, which their patients wash down with water.

Supreme Lawgiver Lin Chi-hsiung stresses that he can "cross the air to effect a cure." Someone who is sick merely needs to put the receiver of a phone by the ill part of a body, and Lin can order the "airborne agents of the Way" to cross the sea and "exorcise the demons." Then Lin shouts "ha" into the phone nine times and-voila!-the patient is cured. A necessary prerequisite, however, is that the patient vow to make a financial contribution.

Forshang Buddhism emphasizes a coordinated program of spiritual and physical exercises. In each class, besides discussing doctrine and doing meditation, they also do exercises which will have spiritual as well as physical effects.

Invisible feeling or psychological effect?

Since these cults emphasize supernatural powers, it is very important that the believers feel them and respond to them.

Reactions vary. Chang Ching-hsi, a professor at National Taiwan University explains that he practiced Falun Gong for more than two years. Although he never felt the "eye of wisdom" opening as his master had described, and never felt the Dharma wheel turning inside his own torso, he did feel something rather unusual: "Once, after I had only been studying for about three months, I suddenly felt all the cells in my upper body moving, and a sound-"da, da, da,"-came from my throat," Chang recalls. "I didn't know what to make of it, but the Master's book describes this as something positive, a sign that the Dharma wheel is moving by itself. And so I didn't worry. Actually, it felt good."

Huang Min-yuan, who has been communicating with Heaven as a member of T'ienti for more than ten years, recalls that she was originally introduced to the group by her brother Huang Kuang-pien, who was then a student in the graduate program for aerospace engineering at National Cheng Kung University. When she just had started learning how to communicate with Heaven, she held a calligrapher's brush in her hand and closed her eyes to wait. She was surprised to feel the brush starting to move by itself.

In the decade since, Huang Min-yuan has been constantly accompanied by her spirit-teacher, whom she respectfully refers to as the "Lord of the Myriad Spirits." Every day she meditates and chants the sutras. When she feels a certain sensation of pressure, it is a sign that the gods and Buddhas are ready to communicate and she goes to the Palace of Light to receive the holy teachings. Usually, the gods warn the devotees to continue their work at spiritual cultivation and to keep praying so as to avert calamities. Because these feelings are so vivid and concrete, she has never held any doubts about the truth and holiness of such communication.

Blessed by a Forshang Buddhist Master, "heavenward rice" sprinkled over the body of a deceased will result in a cremation yielding crystallized pellets. These are usually left only after the cremation of especially holy Buddhist monks. Who knows what secret powers are held by this "heavenward rice"?

My choice

Lin Pen-hsuan points out that because these new cults encourage their followers to speak out about their real experiences, "The worshipers gain a sense of participation, which encourages them to find support for their faith in their own experiences and to become fervent believers."

What's more, whereas devotees of traditional religions typically have acquired their beliefs as a result of their families or locale, members of these new cults have usually decided for themselves to join. The fact that outsiders view such cults very skeptically only more inclines their members to prove to outsiders that they have made the right choice.

S.L. Liu, an attorney who was formerly the director of the ROC Association for Medical Law, converted to T'ienti a year ago. His family members, who are pious Christians, still can't understand his decision, but Liu is determined in his faith, and carries books of sutras with him at all times. Any kind of audience is all that is needed for him to launch into long and patient explanations about his faith.

"Confucius doesn't talk about supernatural powers and spiritual beings, and so we must ask, 'Do they really exist?'" says Liu. "If the universe does hold such things and modern man has the advanced technology to conduct tests to look for them, then why must we avoid these issues?"

Overcoming skepticism is not easy

Belief divides those who see universal truth from those who just see superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Lin Pen-hsuan, who counts himself among the doubters, has been researching religion for more than ten years and has all the while maintained his skepticism. He is highly suspicious of the anecdotal accounts that believers offer as evidence to support their faith.

"The events they describe only support their faith because they want to interpret them that way." Lin recently went to a ceremony held at Taipei's Great Emperor Bao An Temple. At the temple gate, he saw his beloved old car-which he parted with only very reluctantly-pass by. Lin notes that if he were a believer, he would have described this as a glimpse of the universe's beauty, ironclad evidence in the ubiquity of Bao An's spiritual power. "Yet as far as I am concerned, it was just a coincidence!"

Quite modern

Another characteristic of these new religious cults is that they tend to distinguish less between "clergy" and "laity." The Dharma Master Lian Ying, director of the association of the True Buddha school, used to be a 9-to-5 civil servant. At night, he presided over a temple he had established in his own home, using Taoist teachings to answer people's questions about life. Lee Sun-don, the founder of Forshang Buddhism, founded his own Buddhist sect as a member of the laity who had never been a monk. The Supreme Master Ching Hai was a nun when she was younger. Now she observes Buddhist rules but doesn't shave her head. In fact, she even dresses up like a cover girl in designer clothes from head to foot. The feeling she conveys is very modern.

"One's level of Buddhist cultivation isn't measured by outer appearances," argues Liu Mei-ting, a Forshang Buddhist lecturer. "Practicing Buddhism as a member of the laity is a better match for modern life." Forshang Buddhism aims at being modern, scientific and part of people's everyday lives. In order to spread Buddhist teachings beyond the realm of religion, the group also sponsors Chinese chess competitions, and Master Lee Sun-don, its leading figure, works with the ROC Olympic Committee to help train the Chinese Taipei Olympic karate team. Furthermore, due to the involvement of Ho Li-kang, a Forshang disciple who is professor of pharmacology at National Yang Ming University, Forshang has supported Human Genome Project research in the hope such research will yield scientific evidence to support the group's religious teachings.

This brings us to another salient feature that distinguishes these new cults from traditional religions: they reflect trends in the current world and the fast-paced lifestyle of urban people. Still, one may wonder if such groups haven't taken on too strongly the attributes of "fast food" culture. For instance, once practitioners of Falun Gong learn to bring their Dharma wheels down to their bellies, they can spin on their own without needing to do any Falun Gong exercises. They can even spin them when doing office work or conducting business. This greatly reduces the time the practitioners need to spend on spiritual cultivation. The Forshang sect makes it even easier on its adherents: After someone dies, special rice blessed by Forshang's master can be sprinkled over the body before it is cremated. Because tradition holds that Buddhas turn into crystallized pellets rather than ashes when burned, this sect holds that these burned rice grains signify the same, enabling the deceased to go directly to paradise!

Appealing to intellectuals

Because they claim to be scientific and modern, and lack much of the rigid dogma of traditional religion, these new cults are especially attractive to intellectuals.

"It used to be said that 'the poor or lazy became monks in order to eat,' and that only idiots believed in such superstitions," says Lin Pen-hsuan. "But now many of these new cults target intellectuals and place many of them in high positions within their organizations." Almost all of the "envoys" at T'ienti's Leili'a Temple in Nantou have undergraduate or graduate degrees. Falun Gong draws its main base of support in Taiwan from the business and law schools at National Taiwan University. The Supreme Master Ching Hai is particularly popular in the Taoyuan-Hsinchu-Miaoli region, and many of her followers are technology professionals who work at the Hsinchu Science Park.

"Intellectuals shouldn't remain aloof from religion. After gaining faith, you will understand life and handle the affairs of this world better," says T'ienti's Liu Hsu-lun. He gives himself as an example: In his more than 20 years as an attorney, he often came across cases where "someone who was accused of a crime had in fact been minding his own business away from the scene of the crime. Nevertheless, because all of the evidence pointed to this accused person, there was no way for me to mount an effective defense." He used to find such cases extremely frustrating. Yet after joining T'ienti, he has accepted the "cycle of cause and effect," and the notion that one eventually gets punished for one's misdeeds. He now believes that "the visible is controlled by the invisible" and that "although sometimes things in the human world don't seem to make sense, they do when the laws of Heaven, humanity and Hell are all considered together."

Not all intellectuals are happy about this trend of intellectuals becoming enthralled with religious cults. Remarks Chu Hai-yuan, who doesn't believe in invisible forces and the karmic cycle of cause and effect, "Even if such things do exist, what of it?" In his view, religion is valuable when it conveys exalted and transcendent ideas, which shouldn't be linked to nonsense about ghosts and demigods.

While religions can broaden believers' understanding about the universe and their lives, outsiders are bound to view their more occult elements as simply weird. In extreme cases, this can result in believers separating themselves from society. For example, some followers of the Supreme Master Ching Hai wear an amulet with her likeness to ward off evil, and some won't even let others touch their belongings.

"In reality, there isn't anything mysterious about this," says Lu Mei-nu, a Ching Hai disciple who went through this process herself. They are practicing a technique that involves "cleansing your magnetic field." When first practicing this technique, she explains, your formerly rough magnetic field becomes extremely sensitive and outside interference becomes hard to bear.

"For a while, I would never dare to leave the house after meditating," she remembers. "Food markets, in particular, give off a heavy sensation of death, full as they are of tortured and terrified animals. When I came into contact with this sort of disturbed magnetic field, I would immediately go weak in the knees and want to vomit. I wouldn't dare go in." As her own magnetic field gradually grew stronger, she was able to recite a few spells of love to the living beings killed at the market. Only then was she able to overcome this obstacle.

Nothing to lose?

Chang Ching-hsi is a major academic figure who was once chairman of the Taipei Association. Cultivating the "truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance" that are at the heart of Falun Gong has opened his mind and made him indifferent to fame and wealth. He is so changed that old comrades from the associatioin ask what has gotten into him and what has become of his critical faculties.

Chang has his own way of looking at his transformation: "Of course you've got to be able to think critically, but if you can't raise up people's character from the base, your criticism, no matter how brilliant, will simply serve as window dressing and won't accomplish anything. Why not promote Falun Gong instead, which has much faster results!"

"When I used to be involved in social protest movements, whenever our efforts brought us into conflict with the system, I had to consider whether I could bear the consequences," Chang recalls. Chang gave a lot of thought to his decision to start practicing Falun Gong as well. Finally he came to this conclusion: Practicing Falun Gong doesn't cost any money, and it doesn't require you to do anything undignified or unconscionable. Even if the promise that devotees will become Buddhas is preposterous, the worst thing that can happen is that "you will become a good person." "Since there is nothing to lose," Chang thought, "why not give it a try?"

Is there really nothing to lose? No one can say for sure. But if you grow curious when you see the pious faces of the believers and hear these groups' assorted and mysterious insights, why not come and have a look?