section_path: Sociological typology/Organised folk religious sects
section_name: Organised folk religious sects
paragraph_text: Organised folk religious sects
  
  China has a long history of sect traditions characterised by a soteriological and eschatological character, often called "salvationist religions" (Chinese: 救度宗教 jiùdù zōngjiào). They emerged from the common religion but are not part of the lineage cult of ancestors and progenitors, nor the communal deity religion of village temples, neighbourhood, corporations, or national temples.
  
  Prasenjit Duara has termed them "redemptive societies" (Chinese: 救世團體 jiùshì tuántǐ), while modern Chinese scholarship describes them as "folk religious sects" (Chinese: 民間宗教 mínjiān zōngjiào, Chinese: 民間教門 mínjiān jiàomén or Chinese: 民间教派 mínjiān jiàopài), abandoning the derogatory term used by imperial officials, xiéjiào (Chinese: 邪教), "evil religion".
  
  They are characterised by several elements, including egalitarianism; foundation by a charismatic figure; direct divine revelation; a millenarian eschatology and voluntary path of salvation; an embodied experience of the numinous through healing and cultivation; and an expansive orientation through good deeds, evangelism and philanthropy. Their practices are focused on improving morality, body cultivation, and recitation of scriptures.
  
  Many of the redemptive religions of the 20th and 21st century aspire to become the repository of the entirety of the Chinese tradition in the face of Western modernism and materialism. This group of religions includes Yiguandao and other sects belonging to the Xiantiandao (Chinese: 先天道 "Way of Former Heaven"), Jiugongdao (Chinese: 九宮道 "Way of the Nine Palaces"), various proliferations of the Luo teaching, the Zaili teaching, and the more recent De teaching, Weixinist, Xuanyuan and Tiandi teachings, the latter two focused respectively on the worship of Huangdi and the universal God. Also, the qigong schools are developments of the same religious context.
  
  These folk sectarian offer different world views and compete for influence. To take one example, Yiguandao focuses on personal salvation through inner work and considers itself the most valid "Way of Heaven" (Chinese: 天道 Tiāndào). Yiguandao offers its own " Way of Former Heaven " (Chinese: 先天道 Xiāntiāndào), that is, a cosmological definition of the state of things prior to creation, in unity with God. It regards the other Luanism, a cluster of churches which focus on social morality through refined Confucian ritual to worship the gods, as the "Way of Later Heaven" (Chinese: 後天道 Hòutiāndào), that is the cosmological state of created things.
  
  These movements were banned in the early Republican China and later Communist China. Many of them still remain illegal, underground or unrecognised in China, while others—specifically the De teaching, Tiandi teachings, Xuanyuan teaching, Weixinism and Yiguandao—have developed cooperation with mainland China's academic and non-governmental organisations. The Sanyi teaching is an organised folk religion founded in the 16th century, present in the Putian region (Xinghua) of Fujian where it is legally recognised. Some of these sects began to register as branches of the state Taoist Association since the 1990s.
  
  A further distinctive type of sects of the folk religion, that are possibly the same as the positive "secret sects", are the martial sects. They combine two aspects: the wénchǎng (Chinese: 文場 "cultural field"), that is the doctrinal aspect characterised by elaborate cosmologies, theologies, initiatory and ritual patterns, and that is usually kept secretive; and the wǔchǎng (Chinese: 武場 "martial field"), that is the body cultivation practice and that is usually the "public face" of the sect. They were outlawed by Ming imperial edicts that continued to be enforced until the fall of the Qing dynasty in the 20th century. An example of martial sect is Meihuaism (Chinese: 梅花教 Méihuājiào, "Plum Flowers"), that has become very popular throughout northern China. In Taiwan, virtually all of the "redemptive societies" operate freely since the late 1980s.