Lord of the Three in One

The Spread of a Cult in Southeast China

Kenneth Dean

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780691028811
• eBook ISBN: 9780691261218
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Religions

An illuminating account of the steadfast resilience of rural popular culture in post-Mao China

Lin Zhao’en (1517–1598) set out to popularize Confucianism by combining Confucian studies with Daoist inner alchemical techniques and Buddhist Chan philosophy into something he called the Three in One Teachings. Despite periods of clandestine activity since its inception, the Three in One cult has undergone a remarkable revival in post-Mao China. Today, in more than a thousand temples by tens of thousands of cult initiates, Lin is worshipped throughout Southeast China and Southeast Asia as Lord of the Three in One. Many of the temples have been restored since the late 1970s, when China began to experience an explosive resurgence of popular culture and religion. In this book, Kenneth Dean draws on a decade of field work to document the reemergence of this cult, which seeks to transmit a universal vision of truth yet retains a strong local appeal through its healing rituals and spirit mediumism. Although the Chinese government still tries to suppress these resurgences in the interest of modernization, the cult’s locally based networks are unstoppable social forces.

Dean explores the organization and transmission of the Three in One’s unique cultural vision, the reception of this vision, and the construction of subjectivity within a vibrant ritual tradition. Outlining such features as inner alchemical meditation, scripture and iconography, ritual practice, and spirit mediumism, he demonstrates the cult’s transformative potential as well as its contemporaneity and dynamism. Rural Chinese popular culture emerges here as resilient, highly complex, and always evolving.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Ritual-Events
• Chapter Two: The Apotheosis of Lin Zhao’en
• Chapter Three: The Early Disciples
• Chapter Four: Inner Alchemy, Scriptures, and Liturgies
• Chapter Five: The Three in One in the Qing and Republican Eras
• Chapter Six: Ritual Traditions of the Three in One
• Chapter Seven: Current Cultural Range of the Three in One
• Chapter Eight: The Three in One in Contemporary China
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1 Editions of Lin Zhao’en’s Writings
• Appendix 2 The Chart of the Inner Landscape of the Nine Stages
• Appendix 3 Summary of the Xiawunijing
• Appendix 4 Scriptures to Popular Deities: The God of Theater
• Appendix 5 Ritual Documents in the Wubentang Guitiao
• Appendix 6 Ritual Calendars
• Appendix 7 Liturgies: The Purification of a Stage
• Appendix 8 Ritual Spells and Visualizations
• Appendix 9 The Evolution of the Dragon Mountain Hall
• Appendix 10 Chinese Text of the Bentijing
• Appendix 11 List of Three in One Books and Manuscripts
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index