英文摘要 |
This paper introduces the new religious group, 'Kuan Tien Shih'. The leader of this group is the spiritual medium possessed by the new god, 'Kuan Tien Shih', since 1980. First of all, this study describes the group's leader, doctrines, practices and activities, and then the development of this group over the past two decades. This group was originated from a small folk religion temple in Taipep. Gradually this temple has been transformed into a new religious group. The groups charity foundation was set up in 1988, and many believers become the disciples. However, the group has long been organized loosely. Due to lack of institutionalized effort, the group ceased to grow after the late 1990s. Secondly, this study also attempts to understand who join this group and why they join. Hence, this paper analyzes the data collected from the interviews of 36 believers and 28 disciples. The main findings are as follows: (1) Career prosperity and the improvement in health are the two major concerns among the believers coming to see the spiritual medium for help. (2) Most of the believers and disciples were born in the 1950s, and grew up in the family of folk religion background. (3) A large proportion of disciples are 'mainlanders' whose fathers were from main land China after World War II, used to be atheistic or believe in Christianity. |