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JULIAN F. PAS
The third type of folk religious temples are the private temples other than ancestral halls (and distinct from privately owned temples of Buddhist or Taoist designation). Here perhaps the greatest confusion exists: the boundaries between these temples and other types are not well established and may change considerably as time goes on. Baity has well pointed out this nature of fluidity. What constitutes a private temple of this kind is their origin and control; although the gods enshrined may belong to any religious affiliation (Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, folk religion), and thus often are 'universalistic' gods, the fact that those temples are built and controlled by private individuals or families, makes them private rather than community temples. In many cases these temples are open to a limited public: either geographically (they then resemble neighbourhood temples) or by virtue of the worshippers they attract. A number of medium-temples are of that type. These temples are built for various reasons: sometimes just as a means to generate income (often in the case of medium-cults), but also from sincere devotion to a particular deity, e.g. as a result of a vow made in a time of emergency. In cases of a successful appeal to the public, these temples may be rebuilt on a larger scale and even be reorganized as community temples. Conversely, very often these smaller shrines lose their original stimulus and attraction, and may just become private home shrines. Like in other businesses, temples flourish and decline following the degree of success in gaining a clientele.
A considerable number of private home shrines, called shen or discussed by Baity as 'tan', cannot be grouped under the category of private temples, since they are not temples at all. They are rather ‘offices' of various spiritual practitioners: Taoist priests (officially ordained or not), diviners of all sorts, women who merely practice 'spirit-restoration' rituals, and mediums.
One final sub-category of the folk religion temples may be designated as sectarian temples. These may be private, semi-private or even public, although in some cases the type of worshippers is restricted. Membership in these temples or cults is often restricted (and perhaps can be compared to membership in secret societies) and the emphasis of the cult is sectarian, that is limited to the cult of particular deities and/or to the practice of certain ritual activities, especially divinatory ritual. To give examples of this type from