The
explanation of the campaign conducted against Caodaism is found in the
obstruction that gives rise to the reformed religion the number of faithful
which is in Cochinchina, for instance, more than one million out of three
million and a half inhabitants.
The former
governor of Cochinchina Blanchard de la Brosse is now
exposed to public
opprobrium for having declared practicable, and authorized this religion in the
territory under his jurisdiction.But the alarm is given and a crusade is
launched against the heretics.
Since then,
great progress toward understanding has been accomplished, and Caodaism is on
the way to becoming the official religion of the new State of Vietnam.
Le Cygne
(Bạch-Nga, Hànội) published a series of articles: The true visage of Caodaism
(9-36), from which we shall cite only the most curious passages.It was the
title indicates an objective report.We can’t pay a better compliment to it, for
the truth is also God’s service.
“Let my dear
readers be assured! Instead of pulling a long face in reading the subject of
this inquiry, looking me up and down with an astonished or skeptical or mocking
eye, murmuring imprecations against me, let them listen calmly to the
confessions of a man who, like them, and nearly all Tonkinese intellectuals,
has willingly ridiculized a religion newly born in his own country, simply
because he has understood nothing of it.“Newly born” is not quite the word;
following the Caodaist calendar, Humanity is in the year of the 3rd Amnesty of
God in the Orient; it is then ten years ago that this religion came into its
own.
An
experienced sociologist must notice that since the first quarter of this
century, Vietnam has undergone an abrupt shock.There has been a complete
overthrow of the destiny of people, its thought and faith.The return of two
Phan’s announced the first symptom of that fever which increases daily.From a
political point of view, that is revolution in all minds and hearts.From an
economic point of view, it is the intensive development of industry, the
formation of cooperatives and syndicates.From a literary point of view, the
radical reform of the language, the introduction of new concepts in Poetry and
Art, and as for the domain of religion, the birth of a new faith.”
To the
rebuke that Caodaism would be constituted only by ignorant and superstitious
masses, skillfully shorn by swindlers and charlatans, this reply:
The
thousands of Caodaist believers are not all credulous or superstitious persons.A
great number of those who practice the new religion in Cochinchina, in Tonkin,
in China, and in France, are intellectuals of the upper class, teachers,
lawyers, writers, journalists, deputies.It is not without reasonthat Caodaism
caused many to make mention of it throughout the world, that several famous
reviews of Paris, London, Lisbon, Warsaw, even of Rome and of Buenos-Aires have
started to study its dogma and doctrine. The author of this inquiry has had the
rare privilege of ransacking the archives of the Holy See of Tây-Ninh where he
could read letters and precious documents, bulletins of conversion addressed to
the Pope by foreign personalities from different capitals of Europe and
America.Even Japan, a country proud of its Bushido, has sent scholars to
Tay-Ninh trying to understand what is this new faith which has shaken the
world’s opinion”.
La Vérité
(The Truth), also, made a report (May 11, 13, 38) that was later put out in
pamphlet form (special edition of this daily of PhnomPenh) and from which we
note the following extract :
" During
the twelve years in which Caodaism has developed in Indochina, it is to be
noticed that no serious objective study has yet been consecrated to it,However
this social and religious movement touches hundreds of thousands of human
beings on an ever widening scale.The new religion feeling itself cramped within
the limits of its cradle, Cochinchina, has sent its missionaries to Cambodia,
to Annam and to Tonkin, where it flatters itself with some success.
It has its
temple in Paris China Siam India Europe .
The
Vietnamese pride is thus expressed unexpectedly in a field of action that was
unknown to Giao-Chi’s descendants.They brought nothing to human thought.Why?Mystery.
The Caodaism
seems to despise the enigma so put, for it pretends to the dignity of religion
at the same level as Buddhism.Moreover, is it not called Reformed Buddhism:
This
ambition alone of the new faith that counts, it is said, millions of followers
among which many intellectuals, induces us to study Caodaism carefully,Obeying
today to the injunctions of friends, we have decided to present to the waiting
public some truths bout the new doctrine, some observations and objective
analyses”.
La Vérité
(The Truth)
In the
preface of the pamphlet, the author adds these considerations:
“Some have
loosed on the spiritist origins of the Caodaism much easy irony; they have
tried to clothe off by ridicule, divine messages transmitted by the turning
tables and the billed-basket.
What is
there then surprising, unexpected, in the eternal truth borrowing that vehicle
instead of making itself heard on a Sinai surrounded with lightning and
thunder, or expressing itself by the voice of inspired prophets or marvelous
apparitions.
Do not the
efforts of a medium elected to that mission, as noble as any, isn’t it at all
so legitimate, offer as many guarantees as any voice chosen until the present
to help Heaven to communicate with Earth?
As for the
persecutions of which Caodaism has been the object and of which the era is
perhaps not closed, may we not see therein the better proof of its celestial
origin and its supernatural character?All religions preaching like it justice
and goodness, founded like it on sacrifice and love, have known the hostility
of man, the rancour of the powerful, the anger and reprobation of all those
whose satisfied egos they came to trouble, whose authority they shook, whose
pride and tyranny they combatted.
To be
persecutor or persecuted, to dominate by force or to be a victim of violence,
to impose faith by arms or to accept martyrdom, there is not, in all history,
other alternative for growing religions.Had Caodaism any choice? Its only
weapon is gentleness.It could oppose to its enemies, but its resignation and
confidence in the final triumph of justice; it could, on submitting itself to
the laws, but proclaim, without weakening, its invincible attachment to the
truth come from Above; it could only endeavor to prove, by its firmness and
constance, the authenticity of its divine mission.That is what it has done.
And its
persecutors have been forced to bow before such heroic and quiet courage, to
recognize its right to life, to grant it freedom, the only favor it claims.
Victorious
over force, now disarmed, it remains to Caodaism to conquer the
misunderstanding of men, their blindness, their skepticism,These are
redoubtable enemies.
The other
religions, of which it is the synthesis, have already confronted them.They have
succeeded:Why shouldn’t it, too, succeed?
Of what we
can reproach it?Too much good faith, too much sincerety, too much tolerance?Is
it for proposing an ideal too broadly, too fraternally human that we might
reproach it?
Is it at all
contradictory in that fusion of diverse religions, each keeping, of its
primitive faith, the essence and what forms for all a kind of common fund, that
it must find means to make fraternity and the universal peace reign over
mankind?Here is how the Supreme Master, in one of his messages, explains the
necessity of that fusion:
“Formerly,
the peoples did not know one another and lacked means of transport: I then
founded at different epochs, five branches of the Great Way:Confucianism, The
Worship of Genii, Christianism, Taoism, Buddhism, each based on the customs of
the race called particularly to apply them.
“Nowadays,
all parts of the world are exploited; people knowing each other better, aspire
to a real peace.But because of the very multiplicity of those religions, men do
notalways live in harmony one with another,That is why I decided to unite all
those religions into one to bring them to the primordial unity.
“Moreover,
the holy doctrine of those religions has been, through centuries, more and more
denatured by those who have been charged to spread, up to such a point that I
have now firmly resolved to come myself, to show you the way”.
It is then
the whole world that now is offered to the apostolate of Caodaism, heir of the
antique doctrines that have already conquered the quasi-unanimity of men.
The task
shall be hard, for, as says the message we have just read, men have forgotten
the very principles of the doctrines, which they pretend to profess.They have
sometimes conserved the letter; but have more often lost the spirit.
The task
shall be hard, for though the land where the missionaries must go to prepare
the mission is no longer tillable, it is full of parasitic and poisonous plants
as vigorous and such solidly rooted as if all the evil human passions served
them for manure.
Never was
the need more felt of reminding men that they all are sons of one Father and
that the horrible fratricidal struggles, to which they gave themselves up
yesterday, to which they are ready to submit tomorrow, shall cause the ruin and
the sorrow not only of themselves, but of their children, and their children’s
children.
Caodaism is
a synonym of peace, fraternity, love.May the millions of the believers it shall
some day count, and may that soon, remember to inspire their conduct by the
eternal maxim, that is found in the books of the Masters of all times, in which
are summed up all science and all wisdom: “Love one another”.
What is the
point of view of the caodaist Sacerdocy on this report: it is La Vérité (The
Truth) gives it to us.
“Our
objective inquiry communicated to the orthodox Church of Caodaism has earned
from its greatest Chief, the Superior Phạm Công Tắc, the charming letter from
which we cite below and excerpt concerning the relation of the Đại-Đạo to Minh
Ly movement.
Our readers
understand by this simple letter the broad tolerance of the Caodaist spirit,
which rejects no belief on account of its non-conformity or its
non-orthodoxy.Such an attitude honours the Caodaists, notwithstanding all other
social and philosophical considerations.
Ed. Note
Phạm-Công-Tắc,
Superior
Mr.
Director,
“The
Caodaist Sacerdocy and I are deeply touched by your high token of sympathy
toward our religion:We have read your report with interest,Further, it is the
only organ that has courageously defended our cause since the beginning,We can
say that it is our friend.This report is interesting from any point of view,
save some little errors of documentation of which we beg you to be so kind as
to grant us hearing.
“Caodaism
does not spring from the Minh Lý movement.We recognize that the Minh-Lý was
organized before us, but it is separated from us by mystic and philosophical
point of view.The truth is that the Vietnamese spiritualist movement came into
being spontaneously with the help of no foreign concept, doctrine or dogma.It
was unforeseeable.We can say that it was almost miraculous. As if led by an
invisible power, the manifestation is latent. Moreover, this movement has felt
in all the world,All the spiritualist organizations that were created after the
war were perhaps born of that unknown power.
“As for the
Caodaists, a group of intellectuals gathered to search for the possibility of
harmonizing the two civilizations, the Oriental and the Occidental.
“They have
tried in this case to bring close the two philosophies:Christianity and
Confucianism.The attempt is so encouraging by reason of the high morality of
the great thinkers who thus converge toward the Good and the Beautiful.There
exists then a spot where ideas can meet and thus thoughts be united.Knowing this,
the group of Vietnamese intellectuals took steps to prepare a field of mutual
understanding.They have had the satisfaction to see that great ideas can no
longer separate thinkers of the human race.Morals are one, it is only practise
that differs.Here is to them an obstacle or a catch.The power to act is not
within the reach of common men such as they.It is above their reach,A bit of
slowing down was seen in the Caodaist movement,These intellectuals seek for a
way: unity of faith and practise of all religions.
“Without my
describing it, you can guess the value of an attempt.
One of their
friends came from France
“The
conclusion is this: Faith derives from the Conscience. The Conscience is
impossible of subordination.It differs according to the state of the spirit of
each individual. It is impersonal and inalienable, because it is God’s
emanation (the universal Conscience).So, a liberty of conscience for all human
beings is proclaimed, but union in the spirit of the Beautiful and the Good is
obligatory, from which was born the Caodaist doctrine:the doctrine of broad tolerance.
One might
say that Caodaism is a purely philosophical religion, whereas the Minh-ly is a
body that limits itself to a cultural practice of the three Oriental
religions:Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, mixed a little with hypnotical
mysticism.
It is a
friend to Caodaism in its social manifestation, but it is not a blood brother.
We hope to
be able to meet it in the practise of the Beautiful and the Good of which we
make an apostolate of propaganda”.
Signed: Phạm-Công-Tắc.
And here is
one of the famous spiritualistic seances at the beginning of Caodaism:
It was in
1926, I was living in an apartment of the Audouit building, now become the
Huỳnh-Đình-Khiêm building,At my home, there came in and out young boys and
girls, students, republicans,progressionists and revolutionary militants.
One Sunday
morning, an unknown young man came into my office, took a seat opposite me and
blurted out, without ceremony, these words which, however, did not astonish
me:I have been, in fact, accustomed to this kind of visit and proposition.
-My dear
friend, if you like, we are going to strike up a friendship to study philosophy
and politics together.You know, no doubt, better than I, what relation these
two activities have to each other.
In the
feverish social and political atmosphere in which we lived at that time, which
seems already strangely distant, I did not wonder either to read on my caller’s
card: Vietnamese Revolutionist.
On the
evening of the day before appearing for the examination for the first part of
his B.A., this good boy was expelled from school.His crime? To have written to
Mr. Cognacq, at that time Governor of Cochinchina, to protest against a certain
speech of his.Since that moment, this student had set himself to read
enormously; to steep himself in various philosophical systems; to be convinced
of the necessity of revolution.To manifest in his new faith, he did not
hesitate to have his calling cards printed as I have showed above ...
The fanatics
of my friend type were so numerous that I didn’t suspect him to be a
provocateur.Later I found that my new friend was highly educated; that he was
versed in spiritualistic philosophies and that “spiritism” interested him
particularly.That is how I was led to know the movement of turning tables and
medium communications.One evening in November, my friend was reminding me for
the Nth time of the marvels of turning tables, which he had learned from the
works of some promoters of French Spiritism, now departed, Allan Kardec and
Léon Denis.I threw out a categorical challenge as to the veracity of these
phenomena, defying to attempt an experiment. He brought me at once to some
authentic chiefs of an occult school at that time newly born, the later
activities of which were to have a great influence on the formation and
development of Caodaism: his school was called Minh-lý Đạo, which may be
literally translated: The Way of Enlightened Reason.
I hasten to
acknowledge that I was placed in the presence of extremely kind and honest
men.They were bumble employees in administration and business, eager for
self-improvement and rising in society thanks to their continued efforts,They
were ten who gathered in a kind of coterie to discuss spiritualistic
philosophies, and then when the theories were well assimilated to a new canon
they created themselves, with a view to venerating their saints and sages.
I was very
surprised at their broad spiritualistic learning.They all were capable of
citing from me entire passages of the greatest works of the spiritists.Better
than their French Masters, they had the audacity to use Henri Durville, the
renowned occultist, in their pursuit of truth.
That is how
one of the leaders, Mr. Xứng, kindly inaugurated the author’s relationship with
his group by a hypnotic experience.I confess, however, that I found in it
nothing truly conclusive.
After having
me shut my eyes, he made various movements in the air with their two broad
hands all around my head without ever touching it.After a quarter of an hour of
this hypnotic preparation, he ordered me with a clear and caressing voice to
incline my head in a certain direction, or to make certain gestures with my
arms, which I did without difficulty.
The
spectators who were members of the group and my friend X were visibly satisfied
with the experience:As I insisted on attending a seance of some importance, Mr.
Âu-Kích, the most esteemed of the group, prepared it.
On a table
used as an altar, he had nine candles placed triangularly:He then explained to
me that the figure nine as well as the geometrical placement imply the number
three (three angles in a triangle, actually) and have a symbolic importance,
that only the initiate can understand.Then began the ceremony of offerings.The
members of the group prostrated themselves before the altar, the chief,
Mr.Âu-Kích placing himself in the middle.They recited prayers, the recognized
themes of various Asiatic religions.Besides, their catechism does not hide the
fact that their philosophy is a synthesis of the Buddhist, Confucianist and
Taoist religions.But here it was suddenly, that the chief drew strange
movements in space with his right arm.All fell silent as if by magic.- X.
whispered in my ear that the “Spirits” were going to make communication through
Mr.Âu-Kích.
In fact, the
latter having seized a big pencil which had been placed beforehand on a small
table with some paper, set to transcribe the divine words, his eyes closed.They
explained to me that he was the preferred “medium” of great spirits; venerated
by the faithful, which the Bodisatva Quan Âm had dedicated to me through the
chief of the group.I was, in fact, very proud to learn that during my “former
existences” I had accomplished great works, and I was “exiled in this valley of
tears” only to atone for the crime of pride of which I was guilty.I should have
been an unbearably proud man “in the course of my successive existences”.
This my
friends believe in mediumnity, that is to say in communications with the
“Beyond” and consequently in the survival of the soul.Differing from the
Catholics, they do not speak of eternal hell, but about transmigration of the
soul, which, by leaving the physical body, may live in other earths than ours.
In this, they resemble the Buddhists, with, however, this important
restriction: whereas Shakyamuni’s disciples admit that a human soul may come
back to earth and live in the body of a beast.Minh-Lý’s followers, more modern,
reject this hypothesis.In their new faith, the law of attraction replaces, in
very unexpected fashion, the Buddhist transmigration of the soul. It is
unnecessary then to have the wicked come back to this earthly life in the skin
of a pig or a dog to atone for past faults.This would be moreover presenting
the Author of Creation asto cruel a judge.No, the law of attraction, that plays
in space, suffices for celestial justice.Such, who through a life of sacrifices
should be “deified” after death, thanks to the attraction, arrive at a superior
world in space.On the contrary, the wicked, the selfish “shall fall
themselves”, after their departure from the earth, into a planet whose
conditions of existence are still more painful.All this is done naturally,
automatically, “as it were”:
Though these
latter lines are not very clear, or are disputable from a Latin spiritualistic
point of view (the Anglo-saxon spiritism does not admit of a return to the
earth, but of progress in spheres of space), let us come to the “utility” of
Caodaism:
“Nevertheless
with the triumph of capitalism, the old Cochinchinese patriarchal economic
structure was broken down.The Gia-Long Code which recognized only the
collective personality of the village and the family, thoroughly
anti-individualistic, was abolished or almost so, in Cochinchina, where the
individual freedom recognized more or less by the modified codes is the cause
of the discard of Confucianism.After all, the latter has really constituted a
religion with its Canon, its clergy, its temples, and not just a morality.
It is clear
that under these conditions, a father’s authority as well as that of a husband
or a landowner, could be more threatened in Cochinchina than in other parts of Vietnam
If the
Shakyamuni doctrine can be subdivided into two great schools:that of the
Greater Vehicle also called “Northern” which comprises in Indochina the
Vietnamese Buddhist population, and that of the Lesser Vehicle or “Southern”,
which influences Cambodia and Laos, why should it not be able to take upon
itself the modern form of Caodaism?
We pass by
all that is connected with the persecutions in this pamphlet.
Concerning
the future of Caodaism, two remarks:
1) Whatever
one may say about Confucianism, it was the “national religion” of China and
Vietnam.In these countries, the spiritual and the temporal powers are joined in
one man’s hand, the Emperor’s, the Son of Heaven, consequently, master of soul
and body of his subjects.To have religion, there must be temples of worship or
churches; a canon; clergy.These conditions have been met by the “Nho”
Doctrine.The temple of worship, is it the paternal house itself.While the “four
classics” and the “five canons” sum up the catechism of the “Saint of the land
of Lo” (Confucius).The clergy was a society of men of letters who, in fact,
held both powers, spiritual and temporal, with, as a kind of Pope, the Emperor,
the Son of Heaven.
The development
of capitalism in Cochinchina with its consequent abrogation that favours
individualism to the detriment of Confucian collectivism, undermined favourable
conditions to the survival of the religion of the sages.It is thus,
historically, that the dawn of new religious sects, and particularly of
Caodaism, must be explained.
2) It is
characteristic in our century of international capitalism, this religious
Reform of ours is contemporary with an Asiatic movement of the same essence,
the same historic mission.For, in Japan and China, the tormented elements of
the feudal bourgeoisie seek to create a social superstructure by founding a
thousand and one modern neo-buddhist sects,The Caodaists and Minhlyists of our
country will profit by comparing their doctrines with those of the Japanese and
Chinese Reforms.
I add that
the Minh-lý was but a new sect among many other sects that grew like
mushrooms.But it represented the sect the most disciplined, the most educated
from a philosophical point of view, and which possessed a theory wholly
expressed in its catechism.
In spite of
the simplicity with which the doctrine of Buddhism is exposed, it does not seem
to us that this work and especially the philosophy which he attempts to bring
within the scope of the average intelligence, can deeply penetrate the European
masses, the principle of the “non-self” and that of causality, as conceived by
the Buddhists being found, for the Occidental mentality, too much in opposition
to the conception of the majority, that will always prefer to cast upon that
entity, under the name of “Destiny”, the responsibility of their sufferings,
rather than acknowledge “the natural harvest of grain sown ”.That which, in Mr.
Entai Tomomatsu’s work, seemed able to retain our attention most particularly
is, besides Buddha’s psychology, to which the author restores his profoundly
human sense, the statement of the attempt made by certain Japanese
intellectuals to bring Buddhism back to its original nobility by freeing it
from the conceptions of certain interested sects, which, for believers, prayer,
meditation with crossed legs and especially offerings, constitute the
essential.
That
movement, to which we cannot help giving all our sympathy and which relies on
the fact that Buddha, since his satori (illumination) always attached more
punyas (merits) to the social act than to the most earnest prayer, the most
severe mortification, that movement, even if it must remain purely Asiatic, is
yet worthy to be known by us, for, permitting the adaptation of Buddhism to the
practical life, it could be very heavy with consequences in the whole world.
And if we
consider that no text exists, facilitating the knowledge of Buddhism, we must
thank Mr. Entai Tomomatsu and his faithful translator for having given us that
work by way of introduction to the study of a philosophy able, so says the
author, to penetrate not only into an epoch, but all epochs.
The
opposition breaks out, still more brutally, in such an echo as this:The secrets
of the “Mahatmas” in Brazil
While the
Bulletin des Amitiés Spirituelles (No 40, page 17) sets itself to depreciate
the “faith” of the “superhumans” and to reduce them to proud little Luciferians
compartmented in a corner of the Created and wishing to dethrone God (sic),
Pensamento, Saint Paul’s great initiatic review, passes in review the faculties
developed by those “initiates” despised by Sedir (p.396) and his christic sect.
1)
Possibility of entering into relations with the planetary beings of the solar
system;
2) Our cosmos
has no more secrets for them because of their internal vision;
3) Knowledge
of the future;
4)
Possibilities of acting on matter;
5)
Transmission of sound to great distance;
6) Limited
influence upon the actions of other men;
7) Reading
of others’ thoughts;
8)
Spontaneous understanding of all languages;
9)
Possibility of prolongation of the physical life (Elixir of a long life);
10) Healing
of sick persons;
11) Power of
duplication, etc.
For
despicable little “Initiates”, confined in a small corner of the Created, that
is not so bad!
But what is
painful - and with which people play - is to oppose these possible faculties of
the Mahatmas” to Christ’s virtues, to denounce them as incompatible, in order
to succeed by “cultivated ignorance” to maintain the party spirit, instead of
opening their arms to all men, without category or distinction!Though some be
not ready for that universal embrace, we see that by limitation, being
prejudiced, they try to impose it upon others.
O Astro
(5--39) has estimated that in 1926, there still were in Japan 71,281 Buddhist
temples frequented by 58,621,000 inhabitants.Where is Christianity in the
Nippon Archipelago: according to La Luz del Porvenir which borrows the details
from the great spiritualistic association Oomoto Internacia (in Esperanto), we
believe now dissolved, and its leaders hunted down and incarcerated.Sixty years
of evangelization by missionaries have succeeded in converting only 250,000 Japanese,
a stable figure in spite of the enormous increase in population these last
years.At the same time, new sects and religions with a Buddhist and Shintoist
basis draw to themselves thousands and thousands of new believers:Oomoto, for
instance, counts more believers than Christianity.
A man to all
men must say:
Li-Tai-Pe
was for China Greece Scotland
Quan-Thánh-Đế-Quân
was for China France
Buddha,
LaoTze, Confucius were what They are and Thee, Thou, are a son of God as I am
thy brother.Thy suffering is my suffering.Let my joy in being a son of God be
thy joy in being my brother.
Buddha,
LaoTze, Confucius were what they are and thou, and I, are sons of God.So as for
Thee, thou art I and I am thee.If thou understandest that, afterwards thou
shalt understand peace, harmony and the joy of being.
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