The Many Faces of the Golden Sire: Books and Readers in the Early Yiguan Dao

Yiguan Dao (YGD) is a millenarian religious community that quickly grew into one of the largest and most influential temple movements in 20th century China. Although scholars have examined the meteoric rise of YGD in the 1930s, its origins in the late 1910s and 1920s Shandong province are relatively unknown. This neglect is partly due to a lack of original data; all that survives of the early YGD community are eschatological scriptures composed during early 20th century séances and hagiographies written in 1970s Taiwan. While none of these documents is an objective representation of the early YGD, this author argues that analyzing these texts side-by-side leads to new insights into the activities, ideas, and charismatic leaders of this religious movement.