Photo and copyright by Janet Alison Hoskins. Seeking reconciliation with the current religious administration in Tây Ninh, Trần Quang Cảnh became the first non-Vietnamese citizen (he was born in Vietnam, but is a naturalized American) to be formally accepted into the ranks of the religous hierarchy in 2011.

Snapshots Before the War: Saying Goodbye in 1944, Announcing the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Recipients, September's Best Reviewed Science, Technology, and Nature Books, September's Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies, Five Books, One Play, and One Film on the Meaning of Texas, The 6 Best Books About True Crime on College Campuses, The Modern Detective: Inside the Secret World of Private Investigators, Alison Stine on Dystopian Nightmares and Her New "Climate Chaos" Thriller. Janet Hoskins, "Cao Dai California Temple", [Garden Grove, California], SAH Archipedia, eds. The greatest job in the literary world is accepting applications again. After many months of conversations with this spirit, they were instructed to prepare to inaugurate the new religion, formally called “the Great Way of the Third Era of Redemption” (Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ) on the lunar New Year (Jammes 2014; Hoskins 2015). On the other side of the worship center, facing the altar, is the character that stands for breath, the chi flow, which represents vital energy and human efforts. He is balanced by the Mother Goddess (Diêu Trì Kim Mẫu), the “mother of humanity,” who represents the darker, responsive and preserving forces of “yin” (âm). 1925: Séances began in July in Saigon (then the largest city in French Indochina) with the participation of the three founding mediums: Cao Quỳnh Cư, Cao Hoài Sang, and Phạm Công Tắc, plus Cư’s wife … A series of short-term presidents served in the government, including Caodaist Phan Khấc Sửu (from 1964–1965), and a new organization emerged to try to unite different religious groups under the flag of Caodaism.

Photo and copyright by Janet Alison Hoskins. At the Garden Grove Cao Dai temple in southern California, I was welcomed warmly, taught the motions for participation, and told to “pray my thoughts.” After the service, over a free and heaping plate of vegetarian pho, the two English speakers present—college students who had joined their mom to pay respects to their father at the shrine—told me that they don’t know anything about Victor Hugo, but reassured me I don’t need to either: the part of the religion that matters is the left eye of God, which hovers above all the other figures and represents the sacred that exists within each person. Just like he distributed his work evenly through future decades, he also spent some of his Jersey exile distributing his work illegally through France. Cầu Kho Tam Quan was formed in 1931 in Cầu Kho in the third district (Tam Quan), at a temple where the Saigon Teaching Center held séances in the 1960s and 1970s.

Caodai religious property was “nationalized,” and most temples were closed down. Discover the Cao Dai Temple in Duong Dong Town, Phu Quoc Island and learn more about this fascinating religion.

In different centuries, both Hugo and the Cao Dai founders used séance not for purely symbolic reasons, but as a practical tool for affirming their beliefs and identities. In return, Caodaists formed a “state within a state” in Tây Ninh, with their own police, tax-collectors, schools and local administrators, sheltered to a certain extent from the violence of the war against the French. 1995:  The Reformed Religion (Ban Chỉnh Đạo), the second-largest Caodai group, and Celestial Unity (Tiên Thiên), both of Bến Tre, were recognized by the Vietnamese government, as well as the Transcendent Enlightenment (Chiéu Minh Long Châu) sect of Long Châu. It is monotheistic, in the sense that the Jade Emperior (Cao Đai) is seen as the creator of the universe, who sent all other religious teachers. Jammes, Jeremy. And they are not allowed to hold spirit séances, which were the engine to generate new doctrine and to receive divine guidance on how to run religious affairs (Hoskins 2015; Jammes 2014). Chiếu Minh Long Châu was formed in 1956 in Long Châu, Kiên Gaing, by disciples of Ngô Văn Chiêu, following a demanding ascetic tradition. Title: Timeline of Cao Dai: Published: November 17, 2016: Last Updated: November 22, 2016 2000:  Cao Dai Faith of Unity was published in English by Bùi Dấc Hum and Ngasha Beck. Werner, Jayne S. 2015. Image #7: Do Van Ly. (Image at right) In the Taoist account of creation, which Caodaists share, these two opposing forces came together to create the universe and humanity, and continue to operate as influential polarities in all movement (Bui and Beck 2000). 1957:  The Caodai Armed Forces were disbanded, and Phạm Công Tắc escaped arrest by fleeing to Cambodia. Tac proclaimed that Victor Hugo was actually the reincarnation of 18th-century Vietnamese poet Nguyen Du.

Caodai dockworkers trained as an informal militia in the port. Life of Cao Cao, Chinese military dictator and founder of the Wei state. The number of Caodaists had been estimated at 2,500,000 in the 1960s, and for many decades these statistics seemed to have stagnated (since there were many disadvantages for younger people in Vietnam who had a religious affiliation). Seances, once crucial to the generation of new doctrine and for offering guidance to the administrators of the religion, have been illegal in Vietnam since 1975. Image #5:  Left eye on globe. Ask a French reader about the legacy of Victor Hugo and you might get an answer strikingly different from an American rundown of works that have been adapted for Broadway and Disney. Bạch Y Liên Đoàn Chơn Lý (White Clothing, True Principles) was established in 1935 and reorganized in 1955 in Kiên Giang, following Tiên Thien practices. But if his obsession with posterity and self-promotion are one reason for Hugo’s perpetual notoriety, his unexpected, posthumous ascendance in the Cao Dai religion was also born from the best themes of his work: the dissent in his political writing, the love in his poems for Léopoldine, and the humanism in his fiction. Bui, Hum Dac and Ngasha Beck.

Image #9: Tran Quang Canh, the first non-Vietnamese citizen to be part of the heirarchy.

The Cao Dai (pronounced “Cow Die”) religion of South Vietnam appeared in 1919 and it is said that religion originated on Phu Quoc Island. Hồ Tấn Khoa became the highest-ranking medium, or Bảo Đạo, until his retirement in 1983. It was not connected to Caodai organizations in Vietnam, and was initially anti-communist in orientation (Jammes 2014; Hoskins 2015). Image #6: Phạm Công Tắc meditating and “following the path of Gandhi.” Photo and copyright by Janet Alison Hoskins. The text of Hugo’s séances was not published until the 20th century and reached French Indochina (now Vietnam) in 1925, the year before the formation of Cao Dai. Caodaism is a congregational religion which holds prayer ceremonies three times a day at its temples (at six in the morning, , noon, and midnight), with particularly large and important ceremonies on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month (corresponding to the new and the full moon), and on an extended series of religious holidays. Dr. Hung Bui quoted Tennyson on being lifted from the evolutionary impulse to live in a way that is not “red in tooth and claw.” Ultimately, it is a religion with a humanistic approach, and its deep connection with literary figures—Shakespeare and Li Po and Pearl S Buck have also made their way into the pantheon of spiritual advisors—is just one more manifestation of that.

This was balanced by the “executive body” (Cửu Trùng Đài, Nine Level Palace), headed by the Interim Pope (Jammes 2014; Hoskins 2015; Werner 1981). And it was this stand against an imperial ruler by which he smuggled himself into the minds of Vietnamese civil servants grappling with the injustices of French colonialism. The temple’s design mimics those built in Vietnam, and combines many of the characteristics of Catholic cathedrals (such as a nave and apse) with the nine ascending levels of Buddhist pagodas, as well as aspects of the religious architecture associated with Taoism and ancestral temples. Caodaism was founded in 1926 with the official name “The Great Way of the Third Era of Redemption.” Since 1930 it has been the third largest religion in Vietnam (after Buddhism and Catholicism) and there are roughly 4.4 million Caodaists in the world. Fayetteville, AR:  Emerald Wave. Lê Văn Trung headed the delegation and became the Interim Human Pope (Giáo Tông), who would lead the executive body of the religion during his lifetime. There are two towers on either side of the entry, which features five concentric steps that lead to the main door. Since 2006, half a dozen new Caodai temples have been built replicating the distinctive architecture of Tây Ninh, including new temples in Garden Grove, California, New Orleans; Dallas; Houston; Seattle; and Wichita, Kansas. 29-53 in Atheist Secularism and its Discontents:  A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia, edited by Tam Ngo. Stay up-to-date with what is happening on Phu Quoc Island. The final day of reckoning is represented by the many pastel pillars surrounding the altar that feature dragons curled around them. 1954:  French forces surrendered after their defeat at Điên Biến Phú in the North. “When he lectured he was addressing not us alone but the whole world. To navigate the timeline, click and drag it with your mouse, or click on the timeline overview on the bottom. Caodai dockworkers were trained by the Japanese as an informal militia in the port, and in March 1945 Caodai militia members from Tây Ninh assisted the Japanese in overthrowing the French colonial presence in Saigon (Jammes 2014; Hoskins 2015; Werner 1981). But his most pressing concern was to contact literary giants and to solicit advice about the place of a writer in the afterlife. It appears that you have disabled your Javascript. The history of Cao Dai at a glance. During this period, the Confucian education system was thrown out, students were expected to write in the romanized version of the Vietnamese alphabet, and their exposure to literature and culture was centered squarely on French achievement. States & Territories 1997:  The “Vatican” of Caodaism (Tòa Thánh Tây Ninh), the first and largest branch, was recognized by the Vietnamese government. In 2011, Trần Quang Cảnh became the first American citizen to be admitted into the Tây Ninh administrative hierarchy (Hoskins 2015) (Image at right). Leiden: E.J.Brill. The Spirit of Things: Materiality in the Age of Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia, edited by Julius Bautista, 43-60. A pediment hanging from the ceiling just in front of the altar displays the five levels of spiritual attainment, which descends from the way of Buddha, to that of the immortals, to that of the saints, to that of local spirits, and then the way of humanity. Was Abstract Art Actually Invented by a Mid-19th-Century Spiritualist? Caodaism: Vietnamese Traditionalism and Its Leap Into Modernity. But by 1949, in the midst of the Indochina War which liberated Vietnam from the French, Hugo’s role in the religion had changed. 1998:  The White Clothing Unification Group (Bạch Y Liên Đoàn Lý) of Kiên Giang was recognized by the Vietnamese government. If you have a query or an account access issue, please e-mail us via the Correspondence Section of your CAO Account (or the Contact section of the website).