14
BARTHOLOMEW P.M. TSUI
that the spirit world is just an exact copy of the administrative world in Chinese popular religion or in Taoism, and worshippers carry on transactions with the gods just as they would have dealt with bureaucrats. Their offerings to the various gods are just like bribes to officials. In contrast to this, the veneration of the Supreme Deity is of a different nature. The praise of the deity and the acknowledgement of his greatness are the predominant sentiments. The only offerings made are one stick of incense and some flowers. No other gods are venerated. The holy shrine contains no images of any gods, thus giving an impression of austere reverence and an attempt to root out extravagant expressions which might be taken to indicate something superstitious. The exclusive veneration of the Supreme Deity follows logically from the history and teaching of the sect, but outside observers cannot help speculating just how much this is due to Patriarch Lo's early Protestant background.
Out of deference to the founder who has transliterated (Tien Chi Tao) as Tan Tse Tao, the latter title will be retained in this paper. Source material for this paper consists of the books FBIEZ, which contains Patriarch Lo's most important writings, the 太玄真言 and the 太玄漫言, 天昏道神靈治療釋義 and interviews with Mr. Alfred Lo, son of the founder and an Elder of the sect and Mr. Law Ping Chi (MM), current Person-in-Charge (E) of the sect. Responsibility for the accuracy of this paper is entirely mine.
2 The title 尊師 (tsung-shih) has been used to address the founder, whose Taoist sobriquet (道號) is T'ai-hsüan (太玄).
3 was later changed to 孫, in memory of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of the Republic of China. In fact, the Lo family is related to the Sun family.
4 Among these, the 少林拳, reputed to have originated from Bodhidharma and the Shao-lin (†) school. This account is taken from ZE › XL.
6 September 15, 1935, when Lo was forty-one years old.
7 經嘯。廣州東平路萬芳園內。
9 • Another account placed the second attempt at exercise on the following day. XILE · 1-This account also records that these events happened in the presence of family members who thought he was going crazy.
10 Is "the burning of incense" a matter of style of the Chinese language? It is inconceivable for Christians at that period to keep incense. None of my informants could answer this question satisfactorily.
11 The interpretation of this is that God uses Lo's own hand and words to convey His displeasure over Lo's unbelief.