Taoist faker had influential friends
By Wang Xiang |
August 21, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A ONCE-POPULAR Taoist priest who is now accused of fraud received help in his early rise to fame from Chongqing's former vice mayor.
The vice mayor helped Li grab control of two temples in Chongqing in the 1990s after the two became friends in Li's fake miracle shows, the West China Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
The paper didn't reveal the vice mayor's name.
Being a head of a local circus in the 1990s, Li used the vice mayor's name as a ploy to control the most famous Taoist temple in Chongqing, but the abbot of the temple refused him, the report said.
The vice mayor liked Li after being stunned by Li's performance of "human body electric treatment," in which Li poked spectators and made them feel electrified. Li claimed he could cure sick people with 220 volts of electricity running through his body.
When Li moved in as Shaolong Temple's abbot in 1998, the circus staff followed him and the temple kept the same scary miracle shows such as "stopping breathing for two hours under water" and "piercing the elbow with a steel needle."
These performances caught the eye of local television stations. The TV program "No.1 in the World" on Shanghai Television, broadcast on January 19, 1997, claimed Li was submerged underwater for two hours and 22 minutes. The Guinness World Records for remaining under water, however, is 19 minutes 21 seconds. Li was found to have only been sitting in a sealed air-sufficient container, which was submerged in water in a bigger glass cylinder.
A turning point came in 2009, when Li met Fan Xinman, a director of China Central Television, who promoted Li in a book in which she described Li as a super master of Taoism and an "immortal being."
Li suddenly became the most famous Taoist in China and frequently appeared in TV programs.
He allegedly attracted more than 30,000 followers, including many business bigwigs and showbiz celebrities.
An official of the Beibei District Bureau for Religious Affairs, who spoke under customary anonymity, said an investigation was launched into Li, who was accused of raping his female followers.
The vice mayor helped Li grab control of two temples in Chongqing in the 1990s after the two became friends in Li's fake miracle shows, the West China Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
The paper didn't reveal the vice mayor's name.
Being a head of a local circus in the 1990s, Li used the vice mayor's name as a ploy to control the most famous Taoist temple in Chongqing, but the abbot of the temple refused him, the report said.
The vice mayor liked Li after being stunned by Li's performance of "human body electric treatment," in which Li poked spectators and made them feel electrified. Li claimed he could cure sick people with 220 volts of electricity running through his body.
When Li moved in as Shaolong Temple's abbot in 1998, the circus staff followed him and the temple kept the same scary miracle shows such as "stopping breathing for two hours under water" and "piercing the elbow with a steel needle."
These performances caught the eye of local television stations. The TV program "No.1 in the World" on Shanghai Television, broadcast on January 19, 1997, claimed Li was submerged underwater for two hours and 22 minutes. The Guinness World Records for remaining under water, however, is 19 minutes 21 seconds. Li was found to have only been sitting in a sealed air-sufficient container, which was submerged in water in a bigger glass cylinder.
A turning point came in 2009, when Li met Fan Xinman, a director of China Central Television, who promoted Li in a book in which she described Li as a super master of Taoism and an "immortal being."
Li suddenly became the most famous Taoist in China and frequently appeared in TV programs.
He allegedly attracted more than 30,000 followers, including many business bigwigs and showbiz celebrities.
An official of the Beibei District Bureau for Religious Affairs, who spoke under customary anonymity, said an investigation was launched into Li, who was accused of raping his female followers.
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