I came across a “secret” report that the Indochina Section of the Far Eastern Bureau of the British Ministry of Information in New Delhi filed in 1944. It is an account of Caodaism that was written “by an Annamite who was educated in France and, later, was deported from Indochina for writing anti-French and anti-Japanese articles.”
I don’t know who this author was. However, his account is quite interesting. Much of what he wrote is by now well-known, but there are little details here and there that are fascinating. Perhaps those who know more about Caodaism than I do (and I don’t know much) are aware of everything that is in this report. Nonetheless, I think it is worth sharing.
The report opens with a passage on the origin of Caodaism and the circumstances of its birth. The author states that “Caodaism made its appearance in Cochinchina about 1927. According to Phạm Công Tắc, one of the founders of this new religion and interim ‘Pope,’ this religious movement was born from a chance event.”
“A group of Indochinese officials and intellectuals amused themselves evoking spirits by table turning. Accidentally, the spirit of ‘God’ interposed itself and announced itself as the ‘Master of [the] Universe.’ On the advice of the ‘Master” a new religion was created, giving as its aim the salvation of the Indochinese population from their present misfortunes and the unification of all the faiths into one religion which was henceforth called Cao Đài (in Chinese 高枱) which means High Altar.”
While this author says that Caodaism was “was born from a chance event,” he says that “socially speaking this movement was not accidental but coincided exactly with the decline of the nationalist movement in Cochinchina.” In particular, “the imprisonment of nationalist leaders such as Nguyễn An Ninh. . . [and] the betrayal of Bùi Quang Chiêu. . . as well as the repression against strikers had for effect the demoralization of the partisans of Cochinchinese nationalism.”
The author then states that “The state of mind found its manifestation in the orientation of nationalists towards this ‘neo-Buddhist’ religion which claimed to be able to seek the aid of gods and goddesses for solving political as well as social questions. Caodaism was therefore the issue of this desperate situation of the Cochinchinese nationalists and the fruit of political events of that time.”
I find the use of the term “Cochinchinese nationalists” in this report intriguing. Did the author mean “Vietnamese” nationalists from Cochinchina? Or did he see these people as Cochinchinese who promoted Cochinchina as a nation?
The report goes on to talk about the idea of Caodaism, its organization, the history of the movement, and its various sects. In talking about the main sect based in Tây Ninh, the author provides some interesting information about activities at the time World War II began.
“With the Japanese threat in the Pacific and the growing military strength of Germany, the political character of Caodaism declared itself. The predictions made by the “cơ” [i.e., spirit writing brush] about certain victory of the Axis powers in the coming war as well as the sanctification of the heads of these governments as disciples of the “Master,” sent on earth to reorganize the world, were whispered among the Caodaists without their leaders daring acknowledge publicly its authenticity.”
The Caodai leaders, however, did dare to seek to contact the Japanese, and this author contends that they did so through “the intermediary of a Chinese called Xoi living at Phnom Penh.”
According to this author, however, the ultimate ambition of the Cao Đài leader, Phạm Công Tắc, “was to have the Catholic religion liquidated to the advantage of his own religion and this, with the aid of Japan. His talks about patriotism or racialism were nothing but a screen.”
The author goes on to state that “At the declaration of war by France, being conscious of the dangerous consequences of his acts, [Phạm Công Tắc] for a change proposed to M. Catroux, Governor-General of Indochina at that time, to accept the mass enlistment of Caodaists for the European front, on condition that they were authorized to wear their religious costumes.”
“The strange offer,” the author states, “was rejected.”
There is also a passage here on one Cao Đài sect, the Tiên Thiên sect, that is quite interesting.
In the 1940s this sect was led by Lê Kim Tỵ. The report states that “During big ceremonies he liked to wear theatrical costumes and gave himself the title of ‘Great General of the Master.’ He professed the strict observation of vegetarian diet and the training of the ‘Ascension.’”
What was the Ascension?
“Following his advice, his followers, after a long period of fasting and meditation, tried to jump into space, from the top of towers built for this purpose, and some got their arms broken while others their legs, but they never gave up this attempt for the ‘ascension,’ pretending that their failure was due to the insufficiency of their observation of divine laws.”
The author of this report clearly did not believe in Ascension. He stated that “This ridiculous practice formed the object of public ridicule and contributed very little to the development of this sect.”
[I found this report in the Australian National Archives. See, NAA: A1067, PI46/2/4/1 Gazeteer of Indo China. Far Eastern Bureau, pages 161-168.]
Do you know why this report is at “the Indochina Section of the Far Eastern Bureau of the British Ministry of Information in New Delhi” and was filed in 1944?
The British, the Americans and the Free French (as opposed to the Vichy French government that the Germans had set up) all tried to get intelligence about what was happening in Japanese-occupied Indochina.
There was a network of three guys who provided information throughout most of the war, and I think this was the main source of intelligence to the British/Americans/Free French. They were known as “GBT,” the initials of their last names: Gordon-Bernard-Tan (Laurence Gordon, Harry Bernard, and Frankie Tan).
Then when the Japanese took complete control in March of 1945 and arrested the Vichy French officials, it became too dangerous for those 3 guys to operate. So the US started to work with Ho Chi Minh, and reportedly Frankie Tan and HCM went into Vietnam and sent information back to US officials who were based in southwestern China at that time.
However, the British, Americans and Free French must have looked for other sources of information, and that is probably where this report came from. I don’t know who this “Annamite who was educated in France and, later, was deported from Indochina for writing anti-French and anti-Japanese articles” was, but he provided helpful information, as I’m sure the British wanted to know who in Vietnam was close to the Japanese.
Thank you so much!
i don’t know what is the “table turning”. Please tell me. Thank you very much!
“Table turning” or “table tipping” refers to various techniques that were used to communicate with spirits. Look at the picture of the three men sitting at a table with their hands on the table. That’s what they are doing.
Sometimes people would use a special object (like a Ouija board – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija) that had letters of the alphabet on it, and when people sat around the table, the spirit they were trying to communicate with, would move their hands over letters in order to spell out a word.
At other times, people would hold the edge of the table and lift the table up and down so that it made a sound. Each sound represented a letter in the alphabet, and they would spell words that way.
So for a spirit to “write” the word “bắc” for instance, the table would have to move up and down 4 times (to get to “b”), and then 2 times (for “ă”, and them 5 times (for “c”). I don’t know how/if they indicated tones.
a, ă, â, b
a
a, ă, â, b, c
Table turning was part of a movement in Europe and North America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century called “Spiritualism.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritualism