was a message from the Eternal Mother, and that he was the incarnation of Jigong, a deified miracle monk that lived between the late 12th and the 13th century. However, few members welcomed the new claims; many challenged the validity of the revelation and left the group. For this reason, Zhang Tianran and his wife moved to Jinan in 1931. There, different religious groups were competing with each other, and Zhang Tianran began preaching Yiguandao himself. Zhang Tianran recruited hundreds of followers, and Jinan became the main base of Yiguandao. Many initiated members began preaching in other big cities, where Yiguandao was well received. From 1934 Yiguandao missionaries were sent to Tianjin and Qingdao. To facilitate the spread Zhang Tianran restructured Yiguandao, that since then had preserved the nine-levels structure (jiupin liantai) of Xiantiandao. The new structure had four levels, Zhang as the patriarch, and below him the leaders of the way (daozhang), the initiators (dianchuan shi), and further below the masters of the altars (tanzhu). The initiators functioned as missionaries, while the masters of altars were managers of administrative units composed of multiple congregations. With the rapid growth of Yiguandao, Zhang Tianran's status as a divine patriarch (shizun) was strengthened, with a large number of pamphlets published to justify his divinity. The following one is an example: Fuji, shanshu and rituals With its centralized authority and highly degree of organization, Yiguandao had an extraordinary power of mobilization. At first, fuji, the practice of receiving direct revelations from the gods which is closely linked to the Chinese intellectual tradition since the Song dynasty, contributed to the dynamism of the movement. Divine revelations were published in "morality books" (shanshu), and distributed to the general public for moral edification of the society. Divine writing was also used to offer oracles for everyday problems. Fuji was introduced into Yiguandao despite Wang Jueyi, the 15th patriarch of the lineage, discouraging it. Zhang Tianran distinguished between "innate writing" (xiantian ji), received by juvenile media and considered superior to "acquired writing" (houtian ji), received by old media. Youth purity is considered more conductive of divine revelation. Zhang stressed that only Yiguandao fuji is xiantian ji (revealing the original Heaven). Divinely inspired writing was later rejected by some branches of Yiguandao, as new scriptures produced new schisms, and gradually declined within the religion as a whole. Yiguandao also spread and gathered financial support through the performance of