Invent a Religion

At any point in human history (or alternate history), invent a religion. It could be Abrahamic, Eastern, Animist, New Age, Restorationist, etc. It could be a cult, sect or denomination of an existing religion. It could be a spiritual philosophy, a syncretic faith, anything. Tell us its name, beliefs, tenets, doctrines, rituals, sacred texts, founder, history and anything else about it. Write about it in as much detail as you want, the more detailed the better. (And no parody religions like the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" or anything like that.)
 
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Hendryk

Banned
In my old TL "The Chinese discover America in 1435", I had the contact between the Chinese and Native American civilizations result in the birth of a syncretic religion blending Taoism and elements of indigenous shamanism: Shenqidao.

Philosophical considerations on the discovery of Dongsheng

The discovery of Dongsheng creates quite a stir in China's philosophical circles. One of the first consequences is the renewal of the theory of "universal mandate", which, although ritually proclaimed by every dynasty, has most of the time been tacitly acknowledged to be inaccurate, as it was usually quite obvious that the reach of the Imperial rule did not coincide with the world, or even with its larger portion. But here is a huge new continent inhabited by nomadic barbarians similar in their lifestyle and even their physionomy to those found on the periphery of the Empire, as well as two sedentary kingdoms similar to the Empire's vassal states ; what was conspicuously missing was the unifying and civilizing rule of Chinese overlordship. As Liu Xing, a court official, famously put it, Dongsheng was "an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the water of Imperial rule."

One of the first philosophers to visit Dongsheng is Chen Xianzhang (1428-1500). He is only 31 when he first arrives in Qingshan in 1459, but his mastery of both the Confucian and the Taoist classics is remarkable, and he has begun making a name for himself as the Master of the White Sands (from the name of his native village, Baisha, in the vicinity of Guangzhou). He spends the following eight years travelling in the coastal mountains and the interior plateaus of the new continent, meeting the natives and engaging them on philosophical and religious issues ; he soon realizes that these peoples, with their ancient traditions of shamanism, draw from the same spiritual wellspring as the founders of Taoism themselves. He later writes, in his treatise Reflexions on Man and Heaven : "Truly knowledge of the Way flows through every man's heart as the wind blows over every land ; for although the names differ, the intuition is true ; and names do not endure, but the Way does. Did not Laozi say, The name that can be named is not the enduring name ?" Leaving back to China in 1467, he brings with him a shaman from the Snohomish tribe, whom he teaches Chinese to and introduces to Taoist circles. That man, who is given the Chinese name Zhou Xuewen, stays in China for five years before returning to Dongsheng, where he founds a syncretic religion based on a Taoist reinterpretation of shamanism, the Way of the Spirit Breath, or Shenqidao.
 
In my old TL "The Chinese discover America in 1435", I had the contact between the Chinese and Native American civilizations result in the birth of a syncretic religion blending Taoism and elements of indigenous shamanism: Shenqidao.

Apologies for an off-topic post, but would you mind linking me to that?
 
In the "create your own colony world" thread in Future History, I created a planet that followed the Corbinian religion (named after an important historical figure). Interestingly, it dictated that the will of the gods is expressed in the will of humanity as a whole. As such, the priesthood was elected.
 
In the 1960's Lovelock proposed the Gaia theory that the Earth can be thought of as a single organism. In the 1970's New Age environmentalists gravitated to the notion of Gaia and formed neo-pagan cults to worship Gaia as a God. In the 1980's elements of the environmental/gaia movement form the Gaia Singh sect.

The sect borrowed from various (non-western) religions of the world and promotes the belief in shamanism and the practice of "magic". The Gaia Singh became very politically active and many Hollywood actors followed the religion from the late 1980's onward. Gaia Singh often engaged in non-violent protests but in 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused some protesters to turn violent and three Exxon facilities in California were vandalized. The violent elements of the Gaia Singh were ejected from the group and they formed a separate sect called the Rudra Gaia. The Gaia Singh continue as a peaceful and public faith but suffer from some persecution.

The Rudra Gaia, on the other hand, turned even more violent and went "underground". The Rudra Gaia sees mankind as a "pox" or "cancer" on the Earth. They believe the human population must be reduced, or even eliminated, if the world-entity of Gaia is to survive. The sect attracts violent environmentalist, anarchist, and animal rights extremist. After 2001 the group was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States government which now actively works to eliminate the sect.
 
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In my old TL "The Chinese discover America in 1435", I had the contact between the Chinese and Native American civilizations result in the birth of a syncretic religion blending Taoism and elements of indigenous shamanism: Shenqidao.

Sounds interesting. Could you go into more detail in describing what Shenqidao is? Like what are its beliefs, practices, etc.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Sounds interesting. Could you go into more detail in describing what Shenqidao is? Like what are its beliefs, practices, etc.
I didn't go into details in the TL itself, as I was more interested to speculate about its cultural incidence than its dogmatic tenets. But Shenqidao, in a nutshell, is essentially the belief that a spiritual lifeforce permeates everything in existence. It is, in and of itself, an impersonal principle, and too abstract to receive human worship, but it manifests in various ways in the world, through natural features, plants, animals, and the odd human being. It tends to resembles Shintoism, which isn't as strange as one might think, since Shintoism was itself developed from primal shamanism (one might note that Shinto is spelled 神道, while Shenqidao is spelled 神氣道). One novel aspect from the perspective of Native Americans is the eremitic dimension, i.e. the possibility for followers of Shenqidao to live as hermits; often those become "holy men" of sorts, and stories spread of their attaining immortality. While permanent buildings are erected for special ceremonies, most regular worship is conducted in the open air.
 
At any point in human history (or alternate history), invent a religion. It could be Abrahamic, Eastern, Animist, New Age, Restorationist, etc. It could be a cult, sect or denomination of an existing religion. It could be a spiritual philosophy, a syncretic faith, anything. Tell us its name, beliefs, tenets, doctrines, rituals, sacred texts, founder, history and anything else about it. Write about it in as much detail as you want, the more detailed the better. (And no parody religions like the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" or anything like that.)

BUMP!!!! Religions, invent some.
 
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