Too Many Voices

Abstract

By allowing God to become just one more god, the new movement brought all the inherently complex possibilities of local popular religion into play. God became enmeshed in the ethnic, localist, and above all political (both pro- and anti-government) potentials of the local religious mixture. When the first God Worshiper became possessed, the movement took another gigantic step into its own dissolution into local popular practice, even as it transformed that practice. The first possessions probably began in late 1847, just as the temple destruction movement was losing its power, and as Feng Yunshan was removed from the scene. The first medium may have been someone called Yang Qingxiu.³⁴ As Hong Rengan later described the episode:

Yang Ch’ing-hsiu [Qingxiu] was able to ascend to heaven, and in the sky there was the sound of drums and music. An angelic boy also descended to announce Hung’s [Hong’s] name and say: “Three eight two one; grain is food of jade; a man sits over all the land to be the guide of the people.” Each time when there was a proclamation, an angelic boy would come down and speak (in Michael, 1966–1971:4–5).

The “angelic boy” undoubtedly described a possessed medium.