Sung Chi-li

Sung Chi-li (born 17 September 1948), born Sung , is a notorious Taiwan cult leader and geomancer who founded the Sung Chi-li Miracle Association and the Great Sun Sect.

Sung was born in Xiaogang village, Kaohsiung County in the Taiwan Province on 17 September 1948.

He is the oldest of six children; four sisters and one brother.

His father was very adept at making money and worked at a wholesale fish market.

His family were the first in their village to own a television and telephone.

His eldest younger sister Sung Pao-lien (宋寶蓮) recalls Sung had developed mysophobia at the age of three and would eat in the corner and wash his own bowl and chopsticks.

Their father had high expectations of Sung but Sung didn't like to study so their father would get angry and beat Sung with a wooden stick but Sung was very gentle, a boy of few words and didn't get upset nor talked back.

Sung recalls it was at the age of seven that he saw a beam of light follow him.

When he told his classmate, they'd laugh at him.

When he told his father, his father said he is crazy.

Sung became a social outcast due to poor grades and being abnormal.

After highschool, Sung left home and studied at Tung Fang Design Institute, from that moment, he tried to seek answers and started to read Plato but couldn't comprehend it, then he read Socrates and Aristotle but still couldn't find an explanation for the beam of light he saw as a child.

After finishing military conscription service, Sung's father gave him NT$1 million to start a shipping business at Taichung harbor.

Sung worked there for nine and a half years.

His sister, Pao-lien, said she always worried about Sung because he was too kind and not cut out for business so she was taken by surprise when he became a religious master.

Sung went into hiding for two years after writing a bad check and was later imprisoned for two years.

During Sung's time in jail he saw that beam of light outside the windows and says when he was being released from jail at the age of 39 he saw the three Chinese characters Sung Chi-li (宋七力) written in the skies and changed his name to it.

It was during this time that Sung says he possessed the fenshen ability.

In 1987 when martial law was lifted in Taiwan, Sung, who was 39 at the time and out of prison, saw an opportunity and began to hang around tea houses, talking and demonstrating his skills.

As word spread about his abilities, he was noticed by someone who then spent large amounts of money to support Sung and helped him take photos.

In 1990, Sung founded the Academy of the Union of Humans and Nature and began recruiting members in Taipei.

A year later he founded the Sung Chi-li Miracle Association and members believed Sung was greater than Buddha in his past life.

He was embroiled in a scandal in 1996 and accused of swindling US$7 million from his followers.

In the nine years leading up to 1996, Sung had amassed followers and supporters numbering in the tens of thousands in nine years, including financiers and politicians.

At his prime, Sung would draw large numbers of followers who came and went in groups of cars.

Sung would tip them tens of thousands of NTD.

He recalls giving one elderly flower seller NT$50,000.

He said when he was on the run for bouncing a check, his friend refused to lend him NT$500 and he vowed he would not to become a miser himself.

The first time a Next Digital reporter, 賀照縈 (He Chao-ying), did an interview, Sung handed the interviewer an envelope containing NT$10,000 cash, telling him it was a gesture of good will that the reporter's boss need not know, to which the interviewer declined to accept the gift.

At the last interview, Sung tried to give the interview and his three colleagues an iPhone 6 which they also declined.

The interviewer noted Sung seemed desolate so he consoled Sung.

The scandal, known locally in Taiwan as the Sung Chi-li Incident, was first uncovered by Melody Chu Mei-fong, then Taipei city councillor who accused Sung of conning disciples by selling them high-priced photos of him demonstrating his supernatural powers and that by worshiping the pictures, his followers could become a buddha.

She also accused Frank Hsieh, who was legal consultant of Sung, of taking NT$16 million in political donations from Sung and that Hsieh's wife helped with compiling and publishing books for Sung.

Sung and 16 defendants were then sued by former followers and he was indicted on charges of deception for obtaining NT$3 billion in donations by claiming to have supernatural powers by which he could help people.

Sung was arrested on 13 October 1996

Due to a string of religious cult scandals making news headlines such as Sung Chi-li swindling NT$3 billion and Master Miao Tien swindling NT$2 billion, the Executive Yuan organized for the first time a forum to discuss the role and regulation of religion in Taiwan.

The forum was held in Taipei on 8 November 1996 and attended by 110 senior government officials, religious leaders and scholars from 12 religious communities.

He was convicted of fraud in 1997 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.

His verdict was later overturned in 2003 by the high court which cited freedom of religion was protected under Taiwan's constitution.

Sung claims to have supernatural powers such as the ability to appear anywhere at anytime (fēnshēn body-double manifestations) ), possessing divine healing powers and calls himself Yuzhou Guangmingti (宇宙光明體; lit. Cosmic Luminous Body).