Paper Thrones, Inked Crowns

Daoist Deities and Celestial Officers of the Lanten Yao Living Manuscripts in Laos

Joseba Estevez (University of Hong Kong)

Friday, 29 August 2025, 4:15 pm – 6:00 pm CEST
Warburgstraße 26, 20354 Hamburg

This talk presents the Lanten Yao “living manuscripts” of northern Laos—a distinctive category of ritual objects that Lanten Dao Kong priests and Tai Kong masters regard as the embodiment of Daoist deities. Unlike conventional sacred texts, these manuscripts participate in Lanten rituals as active celestial officers, authorised to govern spiritual and social orders within a divine bureaucracy modelled on imperial-Chinese-like administrative systems.

The ritual activation of these manuscripts occurs through the “eyes” opening ritual, a ceremonial process that temporarily transforms the texts into luminous vessels. This procedure summons and manifests the deities they contain, as the manuscripts provide abode to both major and minor divine beings who convey ritual efficacy and heavenly mandate through their physical presence in the ritual space. The result is a direct conduit between human practitioners and divine authority, where paper and ink become the material foundation of supernatural administration.

Strict ritual protocols govern the production, handling, and manipulation of these manuscripts, particularly when they house deities whose names can summon potentially destructive powers. Some manuscripts contain deities with insatiable appetites for offerings and ritual payments that only major ceremonies can satisfy. Mishandling such texts risks not only the spiritual integrity of individual practitioners but potentially that of the entire community, revealing the serious consequences of improper engagement with this divine bureaucracy.

Over a decade of research among the Lanten of Laos has provided a comprehensive understanding of the Lanten manuscripts as a corpus; by focusing specifically on the “living manuscripts” category, the ritual mechanics underlying their activation and use, and by bringing ethnographic findings, the author illustrates how this divine bureaucracy embedded in paper-and-ink bodies shapes community practice and worldview—hence, revealing how a society positioned at the margins of former empires maintains sophisticated theological concepts through materiality that blur the boundaries between celestial presence and textual representation.

Please register to attend: