The idea of salvationism, we can find almost in all folk religions in China.
First of all, this idea came not from the folk religions.
This idea came from Buddhism and Taoism, even from Confucianism.
For example, the idea of this salvation.
The idea to how to overcome this world was very popular, for example, in Taoism.
Let's remember the idea, the such and
such person, such individuals as immortals or [FOREIGN].
Who's immortal in Taoist tradition?
The person who found the secret, how to overcome this world and
became immortal in this physical body.
So that's once again, the idea of salvation Taoism.
In Buddhism, this idea is even more obvious.
For example, in Buddhism, you can be reincarnated.
So it means to save your life and
your physical body from the sufferings of this world.
So this idea was not in lieu for China.
But all this idea was a little bit differently
represented in Taoism and Buddhism.
They were not the central ideas, because the central idea of Buddhism and
Buddhism and Taoism were the idea of self-cultivation.
So popular religions, just borrow it.
Took some parts from Buddhism and Taoism not just general ideas and
general theory, but also some practice.
For example, the practice of meditation, the practices of the so-called,
the internal alchemy and transform it in its own, more simple way.
Anyway, the idea of the salvation,
first of all, became the idea of the moral self-education.
The idea of the more purification of your mind,
of your acts in this world, of all events and actions that you take part.
And now the point, all these religions were based on the very strong base of
the eschatology as well as the idea of the egalitarianism.
What does it mean, egalitarianism?
It's the idea that all people in the world are equal.
All these people are equal,
because all of them are children of the Buddha, for example.
So that means that there is no high official and low rank official.
There is not just a peasant and the seer.
There is not rich and poor.
All of them are just equal.
So the idea of the egalitarianism became one of the bases of
the organization of such groups, as well the organization of the Rubena.
So, some of these Rubena just promoted the egalitarianism ideas and
people was dissatisfied by the non-equality of the social order.
So, these sects became cradles of all this egalitarianism.
Another point that all of this folk religions were based on the idea
of the strong charismatic person, as a founder of this group.
So in majority of the cases, this founder was a real person.
So it was not just some kind of mythological person that you can find, for
example, in some Taoist or in some Buddhist sects.
So some of them considered, for example, unborn venerable mother or
in others as a patron or patroness of this religion.
But in all cases we can find a real person just at the beginning of the line
of such a religious tradition.
And this real person step by step became,
rated as deity or like a reincarnation, for
example, of Buddha of some old mother.
Usually, these kind of founders received a kind of divine revelation.
For example, sacral text or sacral knowledge from some deities and
the common story involved such fathers.
That the father, during his dream,
he saw some deity who opened his eyes or
opened some points, some points in his body and
put a knowledge like an oracle knowledge to his brain.
And after that time, he became just a kind of reproducer of this
knowledge like a bridge between the heavenly knowledge and this humankind.
So, the oldest founders became kind of missionaries in this world and
promoted some sacred knowledge.
Another very important point of all these groups is the idea of self-cultivation,
which could be developed in different ways.
For example, the most common practice was a meditation.
Sitting meditation, standing meditation or even lying meditation.
A lot of groups were involved in the practice of martial
arts like Wushu or Kung Fu.
Some groups, almost all groups exercised in different kind of breath
exercises like [FOREIGN] and [FOREIGN] and
another practice which became very important for these groups became healing.
Healing, it means like a exorcism.
It's not just traditional Chinese medicine, but
they use traditional drugs or herbal drugs.
But anyway, the healing, it was a healing by the name or
by the support of the Holy God, Holy Spirit who gave a force,
a power to cure, to heal another person.
So meditation, special exercises and
healing became part of the everyday practice.
At the same time, the members of these groups gather together almost every day or
every week, usually by the weekends around some shrine or
a local temple dedicated to the local patron of this group,
of this sect, usually for the old venerated mother.
And during these three shows, they danced, but the chanting,
they practiced some martial arts, especially in the 19th century.
They were involved with some group ritual, usually it was a dance.
And in this case, they went deeper into
some very deep somatic state of mind transformation.
So in this case, this kind of transformation was taken as an opening to
the Holy Spirit and as a possession of the Holy Spirit.
So, the idea of salvation.
