i'm listening to an interview with a chinese ufologist (don't even ask) and the interviewer is coming from a western perspective. so when the interviewee says that he initially thought that he was receiving communication from "ascended masters" or some other spirits, the interviewer was shocked. she was like.. "how did you know to even consider that?? i thought there was tight control over religion in china.."

does she assume that because there's "no religion" in china that there's no spirituality?

i'm not sure if the interviewee understood what she was asking. he was basically like "yes, i thought i was getting communication from spirits," whereas she wanted to know how he could even ~imagine~ such a thing since "there's no religion in china."

anyway, because i'm a schmuck, i posted a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_folk_religion and basically said like...just because it's a "communist country" and there's "no religion", there are still very widespread spiritual practices that are like thousands of years old. they got spirits, demons, and all kinds of heavens and hells. so yea.

anyway, if i'm way off-base here, someone please correct my understanding.

#CulturalAnthropology #ReligiousStudies #HearingVoices #SpiritualTraditions #ComparativeReligion