Hun Yuan

Chang Yi-Jui (2 February 1944 – 13 January 2026), later known as Grand Master Hun Yuan, was the founder of Weixinism, also known as Weixin Shengjiao, a Taiwanese new religious movement. He also authored several books on I Ching and Feng Shui, and was a painter.

Background Chang Yi-Jui was born on 2 February 1944 in Zhongliao Township, Nantou County, Taiwan. For the first thirty-eight years of his life, he was not particularly interested in religion, although he developed an early interest in the traditional Chinese I Ching and Feng Shui.

His business career came to an unexpected halt in 1982, when Chang fell seriously ill. He attributed his seemingly miraculous recovery to a divine intervention, and decided from then on to consecrate his life to religion. Chang then went to a pilgrimage to Mount Dawu, in Taitung County, Taiwan, accompanied by some friends. On the mountain, he claimed to have received a new revelation. He reported that the Jade Emperor, a popular character in Chinese folk religion, admonished him “never to be selfish” and to “encourage people for self-cultivation.

Weixinism Hun Yuan is primarily known as the founder and leader of Weixinism or Weixin Shengjiao, a Taiwanese new religion with a presence among the Chinese diaspora in other countries and with some Western followers in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Spain; its global membership is "about 300,000, with a larger audience estimated by Taiwan's Ministry of Internal Affairs at 1,000,000". In addition, Hun Yuan is the author of several volumes popularizing I Ching and Feng Shui. One, collecting his Yang House Feng Shui Lectures, was translated into English in 2016 with the title Gui Gu Zi Heart Dharma in Taiwan: Yang House Feng Shui Lectures.

Education facilities In 1996, Hun Yuan founded a continuing education facility known as I Ching University, while the parallel institution Weixin College served as an academic facility for the study of I Ching and Feng Shui and was accredited as a university by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan) in 2013. In 2015, I Ching University stated that, from its foundation, it had completed twenty-three year-long courses, and the number of its students had exceeded sixty thousand. In 2016, I Ching University started acknowledging “pingxin virtuous fellows,” i.e. students who had studied there for 24 years. In 2012, the name of the Foundation was changed to “Weixin Shengjiao Merit Foundation.” According to the movement, the current number of members is around sixty thousand. (which was finally awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons).

Artistic production

Hun Yuan was also a prolific painter. Although rooted in the tradition of Chinese calligraphy and ink wash painting, his large works, often depicting dragons, are realized in a distinctive style. He often demonstrated publicly how they are produced in a few seconds with a single brush stroke applying black ink to Xuan paper. All branch temples of Weixin Shengjiao store paintings by Hun Yuan, but the largest collection is now at Weixin Museum, a museum that is part of Weixin Shengjiao's headquarters in Nantou County. Critics, and the movement itself, regard as most significant the 108 pieces of dragon-shaped ruyi ("auspicious," literally “everything goes as one wishes”) calligraphy, including the frequently reproduced The Stable Nation of the Golden Dragon. According to the movement, Hun Yuan also supplied designs for the two Eight Trigrams Holy Cities that Weixin Shengjiao is building in Henan, China and in Nantou County, Taiwan.