Chen Tao

Chen Tao, new religious movement that was founded by Chen Hong-min in Pei-pu, Hsin-chu county, Taiwan, in 1993. Chen, a former professor of sociology at Chianan College of Pharmacology and Science, founded a religion that is an eclectic mixture of Buddhism, popular religion, Christianity, and New Age Western cults with belief in extraterrestrial intervention in human affairs. Chen laid out a complex theology based on ideas of spiritual energy—a variation of Chinese ch’i-kung thought—modifying traditional...