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