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He repeated that his shrine catered for believers from all religions and added that his spirit medium is a Roman Catholic religious novice. Wu T'ien-chu, whose festival is celebrated annually on the 13th day of the ninth lunar month, is portrayed by an image of a seated mandarin with a red and a blue demon, one under each of his feet.
Examination of the legends surrounding local deities who lived or died in the vicinity of present-day cult temples, or who are worshipped in one of their branch temples, reveals that they can be either distinguished citizens or ordinary people, often nonentities, but all now characterised as shen (spirits).
A great many heroes and worthies, and tens of millions of ordinary people, live and die and are never deified, and those who are have been identified as such by their possession of ‘ling' (supernatural power) which can increase or wane depending upon a number of circumstances. 'Ling' can fade until the deity is deemed powerless by devotees and ignored or deposed, or the 'ling' can be renewed by ritual means.
It is readily understandable that major heroes of antiquity, revered nationwide for many centuries, are now worshipped for their accumulated power. They were powerful in life and since death their ability to protect and guide devotees has been well authenticated to the satisfaction of devotees. However, lesser deities, local heroes and worthies and especially the spirits of ordinary people, have to ‘earn' their deified status by result, and cults grow, wither and disappear entirely depending upon their ability to provide an adequate response to devotees' pleas and requirements. Some have become major deities within comparatively large communities; in Taiwan, for example, several have become the patron deities of immigrant groups from an individual county back on the mainland.
Whereas it is reasonably clear why charismatic local heroes and worthies came to be deified, usually by public acclaim (though some have achieved sanctification by wealthy families pushing their ancestor's case) it is less simple to understand why some ordinary people and not others have been deified. It is even more perplexing why a few local thugs who originally had nothing going for them have also been deified. An excellent example of this is the cult of Liao Tien-ting in Pa Li, across the Tanshui River from Tanshui town in northern Taiwan. Liao, who was killed in about 1920, is now honoured with