When I began research on the topic of the CCP and folk religion, I did so expecting that it would be a story of conflict between ordinary people and the regime, especially in the countryside. It was, certainly, largely a story of repression in which the new Communist government suppressed religious institutions, such as temples, monasteries, and spirit halls, and ritual specialists, such as monks, nuns, household Daoists, diviners, geomancers, and many others. But that turned out not be the whole story. There were instances in which ordinary folk defended temples and stood up to local officials who tried to suppress temple fairs; and, occasionally, as with the redemptive religious societies or, in a different way, with blind fortune-tellers, acts of collective resistance in defence of folk religion did take place, albeit never on a mass scale. The relatively low level of resistance was partly due to the fact that ordinary people had a clear-sighted understanding of the historically unprecedented power of the party-state at the local level and were reluctant to test it. But there were other factors involved, including features intrinsic to folk religion that skewed it in a conservative direction, not least because of the strong imprint of Confucianism upon it, which valorizing social harmony, loyalty to the powers-that-be, and to the ancestors. In addition, supernatural politics, discussed in the companion volume, fostered ambivalence in the populace, who resented the arbitrariness of officials, but who saw in the figure of Chairman Mao – understood as the possessor of the Mandate of Heaven or as a bodhisattva – proof that the regime had the interests of the people at heart. But ultimately folk religion survived because it provided meaning and guidance on matters beyond the purview of the party-state. The Communist regime represented a more intense form of domination over the masses than had existed historically, and its ideological apparatuses were remarkable successful in setting the terms of what was thinkable. Yet those who maintained their faith found ways of accommodating to it and, crucially, of offering support to the regime yet reserving the right also to withhold it. Mao’s China was a world in which millions saw nothing contradictory in being supportive of the Revolution yet faithful to the gods.