The papers in this volume go back to a conference held September 14-15, 2002, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., in honour of Prof. Daniel L. Overmyer on his retirement. The contributions pay tribute to this renowned scholar of Chinese religious traditions, whose work is a constant reminder to look beyond text to context, beyond idea to practice, to study religion as it was and is lived by real people rather than as an abstract system of ideas and doctrines.
Contents

PHILIP CLART: Introduction
RANDALL L. NADEAU: A Critical Review of Daniel L. Overmyer’s Contribution to the Study of Chinese Religions.

I. Popular Sects and Religious Movements
HUBERT SEIWERT: The Transformation of Popular Religious Movements of the Ming and Qing Dynasties: A Rational Choice Interpretation
SHIN-YI CHAO: The Precious Volume of Bodhisattva Zhenwu Attaining the Way. A Case Study of the Worship of Zhenwu (Perfected Warrior) in Ming-Qing Sectarian Groups
CHRISTIAN JOCHIM: Popular Lay Sects and Confucianism: A Study Based on the Way of Unity in Postwar Taiwan
SOO KHIN WAH: The Recent Development of the Yiguan Dao Fayi Chongde Sub-Branch in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand
PHILIP CLART: Merit beyond Measure. Notes on the Moral (and Real) Economy of Religious Publishing in Taiwan
JEAN DEBERNARDI: "Ascend to Heaven and Stand on a Cloud." Daoist Teaching and Practice at Penang’s Taishang Laojun Temple.

II. Historical and Ethnographic Studies of Chinese Popular Religion
JOHN LAGERWEY: The History and Sociology of Religion in Changting County, Fujian
KENNETH DEAN: The Growth of Local Control over Cultural and Environmental Resources in Ming and Qing Coastal Fujian
PAUL R. KATZ: Religion, Recruiting and Resistance in Colonial Taiwan: A Case Study of the Xilai An Incident, 1915
WANG CHIEN-CH’UAN. Transl. PHILIP CLART: The White Dragon Hermitage and the Spread of the Eight Generals Procession Troupe in Taiwan
TUEN WAI MARY YEUNG: Rituals and Beliefs of Female Performers in Cantonese Opera
JORDAN PAPER: The Role of Possession Trance in Chinese Culture and Religion: A Comparative Overview from the Neolithic to the Present.

III. The Religious Life of Clerics, Literati, and Emperors
JUDITH BOLTZ: On the Legacy of Zigu and a Manual on Spirit-writing in Her Name
STEPHEN ESKILDSEN: Death, Immortality, and Spirit Liberation in Northern Song Daoism. The Hagiographical Accounts of Zhao Daoyi
ROBERTO K. ONG: Chen Shiyuan and Chinese Dream Theory
BAREND J. TER HAAR: Yongzheng and His Buddhist Abbots.

Glossary – Index