Holy Mother (Thánh Mẫu) Spirit Writing (Giáng Bút) in the Early 20th Century

One among the many topics in Vietnamese history which scholars have not examined in much detail is a spirit writing (giáng bút) “movement” which took place in northern Vietnam at the turn of the 20th century. This was a complex phenomenon. It was an outgrowth of earlier practices associated with a type of text known as morality books (thiện thư).