1. Introduction: Assembling a Spirit Image Every cult statue has a story. In the common religion of modern-day Taiwan, some statues, or more precisely “spirit images” (shenxiang 神像), have had fascinating lives: their stories spill over with chance encounters, miraculous events, esteemed acquaintances, and national celebrations. For other statues, their lives, and their stories, have only just begun. This study examines the birth of a single cult statue in the city of Taipei, detailing how the statue comes into being, from initial divination, to the actual artistic process, to the rites of consecration, and finally to the ritual installation of the cult statue on a patron’s altar, a progression that unfolds over the course of about fifteen months. During this time, through an integration of artistic and ritual processes, the single cult statue at the heart of this case study comes to be understood as an instantiation of the ancient Daoist god Guangcheng Zi 廣成子, the Master of Vast Attainment (see fig. 1, hereafter Master Guangcheng), a deity
who first appears in the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). How should we understand the relationship between these artistic and ritual processes and the resulting spirit image that is born out of them, specifically in a way that approximates the perspective of those people involved in the statue’s commission, creation, and consecration? As a response to this opening question, I argue that the statue of Master Guangcheng emerges and endures in the context of its religious lifeworld not as a discrete entity, not as first an object of craftsmanship and then an object of devotion, but rather as an “assemblage,” a coming together of the people who contribute to it, the materials those people use for their contributions, and the specific spirits and divine powers those people invoke. What brings together and binds those people, materials, and spirits are the ritual and artistic processes involved in the statue’s development, from its initial conception to its ultimate enshrinement. Through these processes, the people who contribute to the statue may leave material traces on its physical exterior, visible markers of its creation and consecration. Concurrently, and more importantly for the statue’s gradual movement toward becoming an instantiation of a god, those same people leave immaterial traces of...
