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spectful of State authority in some cases (one sect I studied states in its rules first published in the nineteenth century that leaders should not bow to official power).
The evidence suggests in fact that leaders were low-ranking, failed, or would-be scholars; scholars not taking the official examinations for patriotic reasons; merchants with some education but no degree; individuals with some education but no permanent or permanent well-rewarded occupation - herbalists, geomancers, tutors and clerks, story-tellers and petty traders; and occasionally retired military or civil officials unable to exert much influence in local society. Several leaders in China of sects with off-shoots in Singapore are recorded as herbalists in the lists of patriarchs; one was a school-teacher, another a merchant, and a present-day leader in Malaya joining his sect in China was a retired military official who previously studied Economics in Japan. The rural area must have included a number of persons of such kinds. In Ting Hsien members of esoteric "societies" are said to have included old-type school-masters and men without regular occupations.38
For an ordinary peasant living in a village, membership of a sect however might involve difficulties and dangers. The "kinship" system and its obligations might conflict with obligations of actual kinship and membership of the village community. Sectarianism in its ritual aspects, too, would tend to clash with ritual aspects of ordinary social institutions more than in the case of Buddhism. Whereas it was common for people to have Buddhist rituals performed at funerals for example (although sometimes by teams of Taoist priests) the sectarians often had their own special rites. The sectarian who had them performed would risk revealing his membership. This might be dangerous unless a large percentage of village members were in the sect. Many sectarian religions were also more demanding than Buddhism both in cash contributions and time to be devoted to religious tasks. Farming would not leave much time for religious practices and ordinary home-life was not conducive to their performance. Some sectarian customs conflicted with Chinese custom to which the majority of peasants ascribed moreover: men and women met together for worship for example.
The literature suggests that in village communities it was again the unattached, particularly the elderly who joined such sects and