Daniel L. Overmyer – författare

A variety of religious traditions has revived in China in the last fifteen to twenty years, with important implications for society and politics. This volume is an introduction to their activities in their cultural and political contexts, intended for non-specialist readers. Articles include: Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China, Local Communal Religion in Contemporary Southeast China, The Cult of the Silkworm Mother as a Core of Local Community Religion in a North China Village, Local Religion in Hong Kong and Macau, Religion and the State in Post-war Taiwan, Daoism in China Today, 1980-2002, Buddhist China at the Century's Turn, Islam in China: Accommodation or Separatism?, Catholic Revival during the Reform Era, Chinese Protestant Christianity Today, Healing Sects and Anti-Cult Campaigns.

“Precious volumes,” or pao-chüan, were produced by popular sects in the Ming and early Qing dynasties. These scriptures were believed to have been divinely revealed to sect leaders and contain teachings and ritual instructions that provide valuable information about a lively and widespread religious tradition outside mainstream Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Largely neglected until now, they testify to the imagination and devotion of popular religious leaders.This book, the most detailed and comprehensive study of pao-chüan in any language, studies 34 early examples of this literature in order to understand the origins and development of this textual tradition. Although the work focuses on content and structure, it also treats the social context of these works as well as their transmission and ritual use.

Anthropologist David Jordan and Daniel Overmyer, a historian of religions, present a joint analysis of the most important group of sectarian religious societies in contemporary Taiwan: those that engage in automatic writing seances, or worship by means of the phoenix" writing implement. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.