# Caodaism · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

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The Cult Dossier · No. 140 · Syncretic / Other Nrm
Caodaism
Đạo Cao Đài; the Great Faith of the Third Universal Redemption
1926 – present · Tây Ninh, Vietnam
XIII. FILLING THE GAPS — ASIA, AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA
Fully religious — syncretic Vietnamese religion
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 1921 Ngô Văn Chiêu receives the first visions of the Divine Eye.
- 7 OCTOBER 1926 The religion is formally founded by declaration; the Tây Ninh Holy See follows. By 1940 it claims over a million members, perhaps a fifth of the population of Cochinchina.
- 1940s–50s Maintains its own private army of tens of thousands; a major political force in southern Vietnam.
- 1955–56 Suppressed by Ngô Đình Diệm; the army is broken.
- 1975 BANNED. North Vietnamese forces take the South; Caodaist lands are confiscated. THE HIERARCHY IS ABOLISHED BY AN ELEGANT MECHANISM — the state simply PROHIBITS THE SPIRIT-WRITING SEANCES, which is how the religion appoints its dignitaries. No seances, no new clergy, and the structure dies of attrition without a single church being closed.
- 9 MAY 1997 THE STATE DOES NOT LIFT THE BAN SO MUCH AS TAKE OVER THE RELIGION. The government approves the charter of a new body at Tây Ninh, with a GOVERNING COUNCIL at its head whose senior members had served on the provincial Fatherland Front. THE CHARTER RENOUNCES SPIRITISM — the seances through which the religion had always appointed its clergy — so that clergy can now be appointed without them. THE RELIGION’S PROPERTIES INCLUDING THE HOLY SEE ITSELF to it. Many believers refuse recognition at that price.
- 1997–present THE RELIGION IS NOW SPLIT: the original 1926 body, which continues to seek independence, and the state-constituted CAO ĐÀI 1997. Religious activity requires state approval, and the travel and sermons of clergy are restricted.
- 2010s–2020s THE SPLIT IS ENFORCED AT THE GRAVESIDE. State-registered adherents have blocked unregistered Caodaists from performing rites — preventing the burial of LE VAN NHA at the Cuc Lac Thai Binh cemetery, allegedly demolishing graves of unregistered members there, and requiring a registered clergyman for a widow’s ninth-day rites for her husband.
- Present Roughly 4–6 million adherents, the third-largest religion in Vietnam.
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