Personal Quest and Anomic Events: Conversions to Daoism in Late Imperial China

This article presents the results of a preliminary study of the discourses on conversion found in Daoists’ biographies of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It first provides definitions of religion and conversion, inspired by Psychology and Sociology of Religion and by Religion Studies, then introduces the idea of anomic events, moments of growing tension(s) leading to a life-altering turning point. Next, it presents episodes taken from late-imperial primary sources that describe the pro- cesses leading people from different social classes to join a Daoist institution, study Daoist practice, and/or to live a Daoist-inspired life. Instead of attempting to recover data on the “actual” process of conversion, this article focuses on under- standing how the authors and general society made sense of, and reported on, conversions to Daoism. Finally, the article outlines a tentative taxonomy of the factors influencing conversion in the historical account and explains how contemporary scholarship on conversion agrees with some of the intuitions found in the biographies.