Preliminary Material /Victor L. Oliver -- Préface /Victor L. Oliver -- Acknowledgments /Victor L. Oliver -- Introduction /Victor L. Oliver -- The Historical Roots of Caodaism /Victor L. Oliver -- The Establishment of Caodaism /Victor L. Oliver -- Tay Ninh and The Chieu Minh Tam Thanh /Victor L. Oliver -- The Development of Caodai Sectarianism /Victor L. Oliver -- Attempts at Reunification /Victor L. Oliver -- Conclusion /Victor L. Oliver -- Appendix I /Victor L. Oliver -- Bibliography /Victor L. Oliver.

Contents: Preface; Ideological and Historical Roots; Emergence of Caodaism; Caodaism Doctrine and Canon; Caodaism Spiritism and Millenarism; Caodaist Hierarchy and Rituals; Caodaism:1927-1930; Caodaism: 1930-1940; Foreign Mission; Caodaism: 1940-1955; Caodaism: 1955-1975; Tay Ninh Church; Caodaist Sectarianism; Caodaism in Post-1975 Vietnam; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

Dao Cao Dai (Caodaism in English) is the third largest religion in Viet Nam (after Buddhism and Roman Catholicism). "Cao" means "high"; "Dai" means "palace." Caodai refers to the supreme palace where God reigns. The word is also used as God's symbolic name.

What is the relationship between syncretism and diaspora? Caodaism is a large but almost unknown new religion that provides answers to this question. Born in Vietnam during the struggles of decolonization, shattered and spatially dispersed by cold war conflicts, it is now reshaping the goals of its four million followers. Colorful and strikingly eclectic, its “outrageous syncretism” incorporates Chinese, Buddhist, and Western religions as well as world figures like Victor Hugo, Jeanne d’Arc, Vladimir Lenin, and (in the USA) Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. The book looks at the connections between “the age of revelations” (1925-1934) in French Indochina and the “age of diaspora” (1975-present) when many Caodai leaders and followers went into exile. Structured in paired biographies to trace relations between masters and disciples, now separated by oceans, it focuses on five members of the founding generation and their followers or descendants in California, showing the continuing obligation to honor those who forged the initial vision to “bring the gods of the East and West together.” Diasporic congregations in California have interacted with New Age ideas and stereotypes of a “Walt Disney fantasia of the East,” at the same time that temples in Vietnam have re-opened their doors after decades of severe restrictions. Caodaism forces us to reconsider how anthropologists study religious mixtures in postcolonial settings. Its dynamics challenge the unconscious Eurocentrism of our notions of how religions are bounded and conceptualized.

This sacred scripture delineates the esoteric teaching of Caodaism and is originally written in Vietnamese.

This comprehensive work traces Viet Nam's history, a narrative of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious heritage, from ancient chiefdoms to imperial provinces, from independent kingdoms to contending regions, civil wars, French colonies, and modern republics.

This volume explores the relationship between religion and politics. It brings a varied sample of richly detailed comparative and case studies together with a set of analytical paradigms in an integrated framework. It is a major statement on a timely subject, and a plea for the acknowledgment of normative pluralism as firmly rooted in the history of religion. The editor shows that the fact of political diversity in the history of world religions compels the acceptance of pluralism as a normative principle.