He's one busy dad

But as his family grew, so too did criticism from fellow worshippers, according to local media, which reported that he was ostracized from Yi Guan Dao. Liu won't say. In fact, beyond the questions he's frequently asked about legalities and living arrangements, he prefers to keep his family life private.

Legally, he has only one wife as Taiwan law prohibits multiple marriages.

The whole family lives together in a six-story building in Liu's native Lukang, he said, but chose not to respond to recent reports on ET Today (東森電視) that he shares his bed with more than one wife at a time.

His fellow worshipper, Lee Si-ming (李賜明), was more forthright. "Taiwan media are sick," he said and complained that news reports have unfairly made Datong Shengye out to be a kind of sex cult.

Liu founded Datong Shengye after talking with fellow Yi Guan Dao adherents who believed he had the ability to channel spirits. The difference between the two, Liu said, is that the ultimate goal of Datong Shengye is universal brotherhood, whereas Yi Guan Dao strives for the transcendence of the individual soul.

In practice, it has more in common with a pyramid marketing organization than a cult or religious sect. Datong Shengye practitioners earn commissions by getting new members to join. Prospective members can join for as little as NT$590.

In Chinese, 590 sounds like "I'll save you," but inductees are encouraged to join with greater amounts to obtain a better standing in the group and to receive nicer gifts.

Group members also earn money from the sales of a line of skin care products imported from Austria. A bottle of Neydharting Moor revitalizing cleanser costs NT$4,500. A 1l bottle of "miracle mud" costs NT$17,500.

Far from being solely a sales club, though, adherents are given courses in the living arts, with chapters on breathing, eating, sleeping, working, making love, studying, travel, entertainment and talking.

The group's manual on how to make love (房中說法) is even written in verse. "The remote and quiet valley stretches wide/And into it I respectfully, courageously stride."

It says nothing of polygamy nor of multiple sex partners.

Liu, in fact, is the only one of Datong Shengye's reported 600 adherents to have multiple wives -- a unique status the group's members accord him as readily as they accord him a kind of divine ordination. "God speaks through him," Lee said.

And how does he answer his detractors; those for whom the eight wives, the 32 children and the NT$17,000 bottles of mud are a bit too much? Liu looks out the window to the street below, where a cacophony of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism had paraded by hours earlier. "I don't have many people criticize me," he said.