1939, Sổ's declamations were concurrently published. They took the shape of several small collections of texts written in verse (; ) that were distributed to the general populace free of charge. By the end of the year, Sổ gathered ten thousand followers and by 1940 had a following of over 100,000 converts. Also, Sổ had reached another two million people in Miền Tây through his preaching. The devotees were easily recognizable as they wore amulets that bore the inscription "Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương". Sổ was certain about the necessity for ordinary peasants to believe in the movement, and their pleas for allegiance were successful. There were two major reasons for his success: the prophecies he made about the outbreak of World War II and the conquest of Southeast Asia by Japan, and his work as a mystical healer—his patients claimed to have been miraculously cured of all manner of serious illnesses after seeing him, when Western medicine had failed. He proclaimed himself as the reincarnation of the Buddha, and he was regarded as such. According to the Austrian politician Joseph Buttinger, the masses held the movement's native origins in high regard. Sổ became a wildly popular leader as his faithful group grew in size. His influence quickly expanded beyond religious matters, and he became a powerful figure in lay affairs as well. The Hòa Hảo grew from a purely religious movement to encompass an impressive lay power structure centered on Cần Tho Province. Sổ's religious prescriptions quickly merged with nationalist, anti-colonial sentiment, and he quickly rose to prominence as a key nationalist figure. The group grew into the Mekong Delta's most powerful nationalist force, with strong sentiment against the colonial French rulers and the landlords who dominated the agriculture of Cochinchina. The Hòa Hảo played a crucial role in the anti-colonial, nationalist fervor that grew in the years leading up to World War II. It ultimately became a homegrown political movement in the region. Despite this, the Hòa Hảo, according to Edwin E. Moise, were patriotic and anti-nationalist in nature. He argued that they were too small to have a realistic possibility of governing a national government, thus a powerful central government had to imply control of their districts by a government ruled by people, not beliefs; they preferred a weaker government in order to gain a de facto autonomy. Meanwhile, other anti-French organizations arose, the most notable of which