Customer Reviews

Caodai Spiritism: A Study of Religion in Vietnamese Society (Studies in the History of Religions, Supplements to Numen)

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Caodai is easily one of the most fascinating religions of the twentieth century. Emerging in the 1920's from rather dramatic private séances held by lower-echelon Vietnamese civil servants in the French colonial government and fusing such diverse elements as Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Judaism, Taoism, and Victor Hugo into a highly original if dizzyingly complicated synthesis all their own, this relatively new religion gets honorable mention in just about any general survey of Vietnamese culture or history. But few dare to dig any deeper. That alone makes Victor Oliver's unique study here enormously valuable.

It's a bit lopsided as a book. Oliver's primary interest is not so much in Caodai doctrines or rituals as in its convoluted organizational history and structure, and so one gets one short chapter briefly but succinctly outlining Caodai beliefs and the various religious influences and social factors that help contextualize those beliefs. Then the latter four chapters analyze in fine detail the establishment of Caodai in 1926, the organizational structure of Caodai and the Caodai leadership at Tay Ninh (its institutional center), the early schism between the more church-like Tay Ninh and the more individualistic and ascetic followers of Ngo Minh Chieu (one of the key founders in 1926 who later went his own way), the rise of countless splinter groups and the primary reasons for this phenomenon, and the later birth of various Caodai organizations whose aim is the eventual reunification of Tay Ninh with these scattered sects. Caodai's internal administration, its social services work, its ambiguous relationship with Vietnamese independence movements and political involvements, various scandalous controversies, and like subjects get major coverage. So while the approach is a tad "just the facts" and all, what the reader gets in the bargain is definitely a massive amount of information, all of it important and interesting. And "Caodai Spiritism" is the one and only place you'll get any of this info, at least in English.

Still, as this is the only real book-length monograph on the religion, one may have wanted just a little more material at least on just what the average Caodai adherent thinks, believes, says, and does--of what this religion does for him or her. But that's a task for someone else, I suppose. The book has other minor faults, it must be admitted. It sometimes seems a bit unorganized, as if the wealth of data Oliver was trying to handle got out of control. This sometimes makes it really hard to keep track of what's going on, of who's who and what's what. And there's no index with which to double-check. Oliver also gives in to the annoying scholarly temptation of leaving French quotes untranslated when citing from French sources; sometimes these seem to be incredibly significant key passages, like one supposedly defining the divergent exoteric and esoteric branches of Caodai--but I'm not going to study a whole language just to find out for sure. Finally, it's just an unavoidable fact that this book, completed in the early 70's and originally published in 1976, can not but be a bit dated. A lot's happened in Vietnam since then. How has Caodai weathered the ups and downs of Vietnamese history in the past few decades? Well, that too is a story for someone else to tell. Be that as it may, this fine book will prove to be an essential and indispensable foundation for any subsequent efforts in shedding light on the endlessly complicated but endlessly fascinating subject of the Caodai religion.