Wolfgang's photos with the keyword: Tây Ninh

Monthly rituals are held at the Cao Đài Temples on the 1st and 15th days of each lunar month. Monthly and annual rituals (in Vietnam) are normally held at 12:00 midnight (Thời Tý) or 12:00 noon (Thời Ngọ). Twice a month, on the first and the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, believers must meet at the Thánh-Thất / Temple of their local area and attend the ceremony and listen to the teachings.

Dao Cao Đài (Caodaism in English) is the third largest religion in Viet Nam (after Buddhism and Roman Catholicism). "Cao" means "high"; "Đài" means "palace". Cao Đài refers to the supreme palace where God reigns. The word is also used as God's symbolic name. Caodaism is a syncretistic religion which combines elements from many of the world's main religions, including Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, as well as Geniism, an indigenous religion of Viet Nam.

Caodaiists credit God as the religion's founder. They believe the teachings, symbolism and organization were communicated directly from God. Even the construction of the Tây Ninh Holy See is claimed to have had divine guidance. Cao Đài's first disciples, Ngô Văn Chiêu, Cao Quỳnh Cư, Phạm Công Tắc and Cao Hoài Sang, claimed to have received direct communications from God, who gave them explicit instructions for establishing a new religion that would commence the Third Era of Religious Amnesty.

Adherents engage in ethical practices such as prayer, veneration of ancestors, nonviolence, and vegetarianism with the minimum goal of rejoining God the Father in Heaven and the ultimate goal of freedom from the cycle of birth and death.

Caodaiism stresses equality among men and women in society. However, in the spiritual domain, ordained women may not attain the two highest positions: Legislative Cardinal and Pope. The church claims this is ordered by God, who declared that because Yang represents male and Yin corresponds to female, Yin cannot dominate Yang spiritually or else chaos would occur.

Caodaiism has also faced schisms like other religions. Some of the Cao Dai sects that have broken away from the Tây Ninh Holy See are Chiếu Minh, Bến Tre and Đà Nẵng. Ngô Văn Chiêu founded Chiếu Minh when he left the original church structure, refusing his appointment as Caodaiism's first Pope. He was neither involved in the religion's official establishment in 1926 nor the Tay Ninh Holy See; he accepted another entity as Đức Cao Đài and the Chiếu Minh sect of Caodaiism was formed.

Tây Ninh is the centre of the Cao Đài sect. Their beliefs are an eclectic mix of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. The temple architecture is as extraordinary as the sect, whose patron saints include Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo and Winston Churchill. Caodaism was founded by Ngo Minh Chieu in 1926. The religion grew quickly and by the 1950’s one of every eight southern Vietnamese was a Cao Đài. Caodaism is strongest in Tây Ninh and the surrounding areas but temples are located throughout southern and central Vietnam.

The eye represents the heart. Source of twin pure light beams. Light and Spirit are ONE. god is the Spirits gleam. CaoDai is a universal faith with the principle that all religions have one same divine origin, which is God, or Allah, or the Tao, or the Nothingness, one same ethic based on LOVE and JUSTICE, and are just different manifestations of one same TRUTH.

There are a number of important figures in the Cao Đài pantheon. The major saints are Chinese revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, the 19c French writer Victor Hugo and the 16c Vietnamese poet Nguyen Binh Khiem. Lesser dignitaries who have manifested themselves in seances include notables such as Joan of Arc, Descartes, V. I. Lenin, William Shakespeare, and Winston Churchill. The organizational structure roughly follows that of the Roman Catholic Church with a pope, cardinals, bishops and priests. There are several million practicioners in (mostly southern) Vietnam and perhaps over a thousand Holy Sees, mostly in the Mekong delta. There are also practicioners in the west, though these are primarily in the expatriate Vietnamese communities.

Spiritism is the method that God chose to transmit this new religion to humanity. Simple mechanical devices were used as a means of communication between spirit beings and humans. e.g.: 1. a small movable platform on a Ouija board which is lightly touched by two or more mediums. During a séance, the platform is seen to move around the board and point to various letters, numbers and words. 2. a small table which the mediums touch lightly. During a séance, the table is observed to tip and tap on the floor. The number of taps would indicate a specific letter 3. a Ngoc co (basket with a beak), which consists of a wicker basket with a radiating stick about 26 inches long; a pen is attached near the end of the stick. In use, two mediums hold the basket; the apparatus moves and its pen writes out messages which are interpreted by a third person and written down by a secretary. This is a very efficient method of communication, because words are directly written. It is the preferred method used in Caodaism.