The Anglican Church of Tianmu (Pronounced Chaanmoo) is a New Age internet religious organization founded in 2025 by @MYTHOTROPOS and @BIMBOSATTVA_ It operates on Twitter and their website tianmu.org. Functionally speaking, it is also a constantly growing non-aligned secular archival project of world sacred & religious texts, history and ethnic folklore. The Church has around ~30 members who consider themselves 'apart of the Church' and roughly ~200 non-aligned cultural observers.
What does 'Tianmu' mean?
Tianmu (天火) is Mandarin for 'Heavenly Mother', our personified figure of the One.
Why 天火 instead of 天母？
While in Modern Chinese 火 means fire and 母 means mother, our Church observes the Daoist Chinese folk belief that the original meaning of 火 is 'Mother', and we find this to be quite symbolically significant.
Why the use of Chinese Characters?
We believe in the beauty and power of Chinese characters and believe they help convey deeply abstract ideas much better than alphabets often can. Those looking for a deeply esoteric answer will be disappointed. In Tianmu we refer to Chinese Characters as 'Church Runes' and preference use of Oracle Bones.
What does Tianmu believe?
Broadly speaking, Tianmu is a New Age Perennialist religious organization. This means that Tianmu finds itself situated in the genealogy of New Age/Theosophy and observes that "Truth is One, though the wise speak of it variously". It is a reconstructionist and revivalist project foremost and seeks to, to the best of human ability, put the pieces together of humanity's ancient ur-faith.
Modern & Postmodern Intellectual influence on Tianmu's beliefs?
In no particular order: Blavatsky, Steiner, Camus, Eckhart, Goddard, Fox, Bacon, Murray, Milton, Guenon, Evola, Yeats, Blake, Jung, Suzuki, Hall, Zizek, Darren Allen, Feng Youlan, Wendell Berry, Alexander Pope, Tolkien, Le Guin, Christopher Lasch, Schopenhauer, Fukuoka, Frank Herbert
What is our Creed?
We've called ourselves the religion of freedom before. We have no specific demands or dogma, rather we teach people to be the most honest and best version of themselves, to return to their root and practice and cultivate their free will. Complete honesty of being. Like Buddhism we focus on extinguishing ignorance and on meditation and personal experience. The benefits from believing—being free of suffering, cultivating free will, being more adept at life in general—are dependent on you. But of course we seek to help and uplift every person who joins as much as possible, materially and spiritually. We strongly believe that the key to a good life is the cultivation of meta-awareness also known as mindfulness.
Do you believe in God?
We believe in a self-initiated causal mover of Creation that from Oneness became the infinite multitudes of Creation. We hail this 'One' as the Heavenly Mother. This is God with a capital G. Any faith that posits an original primary causal monadic mover observers the same God as us. We refer to God as God, the Mother, the Heavenly Mother, and the Oneness.
Do you have a Trinity?
Yes! In Tianmu this is called the 'Threeness'. At the beginning of Creation the Heavenly Mother splits into three aspects, the Waxer, the Waner, and finally the Maker. Roughly speaking these are equivalent to the Daoist concepts of, respectively, Yang, Yin, and Wuji. They also map well onto the concept of, respectively, Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma in the trimurti. In pragmatic terms, Waxer is energy and Waner is matter. The Maker is the mind that interfaces between them.
Do you have a Pantheon?
Yes! Tianmu has 12 primary deities, which we call 'Ghosts', referred to as the Twelveness. They correspond to celestial bodies including Earth and the Moon as well as the Supermassive Blackhole that acts as the 'Sun' of the Solar System, Sagittarius A, whom we hail as 'Doom' and in Tianmu comparative interpretation identified with the Demiurge. Additionally, we also host an infinite number of 'Lowghosts' from the entire mosaic of world religions, if people believe in them then they're real, Tianmu recognizes this. This understanding is akin to the Shinto concept of 'kami'. Some notable Lowghosts include Weepseer, our name for Avalkiteshvara, and Quickmare, our name for Manjusri.
How can God, the Trinity, and the Twelve Ghosts and low Ghosts all exist?
In Tianmu we call this "Manifold," the fractal layered nature of reality. God, the Mother, the One, encompasses all things, she is everything and nothing and the Way of all things. The trinity split from her, representing the three fundamental forces that move within the One and create all things. The Twelve ghosts are another layer down, formed from the trinity interacting, and they represent the twelve fundamental energies which make up our conscious experience. Finally, the lowghosts are the most local, being archetypal "kami," that are formed from the twelve. Think of it like a Matryoshka doll, with one big one, then three, then twelve, then infinity. The low ghosts are, like us, formed from the higher principles of the twelve, which are formed from the higher principles of the three, which are formed from the highest principle of the One.
Do you have any Canonical Books?
We currently only consider two works fully Canonical, the Daodejing, which we've named Wayfarer's Progress, and has been personally translated by @MYTHOTROPOS. We also have canon the Prajnaparamita, which we've named Wisdom's End, has been personally translated by @BIMBOSATTVA_ and edited by @MYTHOTROPOS. You may find a completed translation of both of these our website.
Do you have any Prophets?
Yes! We call them Doomsayers and we currently have 9 of them. Shaman, Man, Akhenaten, Siddhartha, Laozi, Odin, Jesus, Mani, and Temujin. Originally within the Church there were only 3 Doomsayers, Siddhartha, Laozi, and Jesus, but overtime internal debates within the Church led to the canonization of others. There is currently an ongoing debate within the Church to canonize Joan of Arc as a Doomsayer.
Why the frequent use of what appears to be Anglish?
Cuz its cool.
What does Tianmu Practice look like?
Tianmu has essentially 'forked' the entire canon of Buddhist practice, and as such generally recommends Buddhism, specifically Mahayana and Tantrayana Buddhist practices. Tianmu is not prescriptive or ritualistic, the point of practice is to cultivate free-will, freedom, and happiness. This is the only true purpose of practice. We have also made several innovations on Buddhist practice such as the practice of 'Swag Tantra' and the state of 'Alpha Mode'. We focus less on static cultivation and more into bringing practice into your everyday life to make you better in every part of your lived experience.
Does Tianmu believe in reincarnation?
Yes, Tianmu inherits most of its assumptions about reincarnation from Mahayana Buddhism, with the most important added nuance that rebirths occur through family lines.
Is Tianmu pacifist?
Yes, the Anglican Church of Tianmu observes the principle of pacifism, and as such its members are ineligible for all drafts. No cause is worth dying for.
What does ❤️🔥🌲 represent?
It is our 'Gamer Clan Tag' we use on X the Everything Platform and symbolically represents the Upper Realm, Middle Realm, and Lower Realm. The Heart is the Upper Realm, the Tree is the Lower Realm, and the Fire is the Middle Realm. Feel free to add it to your name or your bio. There is however some discourse over the true meaning of the symbol, do NOT bring this up around members.
What is the Good Works Project?
The Good Works Project is a secular unaligned project maintained by the Church. The primary objective of the project is the archival of religious and sacred texts, folklore, and history. It also seeks to format and transmit these texts to be easily accessible and freely available in simple plain text. The ultimate goal of the project is to essentially be the Open Commons Vatican Archive. Currently we host a selection of Absurdist, English, Daoist, Gnostic, and Vedic works but the selection is ever growing. If you would like a historical text archived onto our site from a pdf or physical book, please reach out to @BIMBOSATTVA_. As a way to avoid copyright, Good Works also provides AI assisted translations from primary source language materials. Many translations in the Buddhist canon for instance are locked behind copyright, but in 2025 machine translation is as good as a professional academic in these languages. By utilizing AI to translate from the original text into English, we create an open source version of these ancient texts that is freely available to distribute online.
Anglican? Are you guys Christians?
Anglican is the Latin word for English, first recorded in the Magna Carta to make reference to the collective religion of the English people, if we were speaking Swedish we would be the Swedish Church of Tianmu. We are an American, Canadian, English, Scottish, Irish, Kiwi and Australian, as a consequence thus we are Anglican. We are not Christian, however we consider Jesus as one of our Doomsayers (prophets).
How is Tianmu governed and structured?
The Church is entirely governed fully in dual part by @MYTHOTROPOS and @BIMBOSATTVA_. We encourage congregationalism though, and believe that the work of Tianmu is "To the benefit of all Pagans". Thus, we encourage anyone to be inspired by what we have done and use it as a blueprint for your own group, go ahead and steal everything at your own desire. Culture is free.
Does Tianmu have political affiliations?
Tianmu prides itself as being non-aligned in the Cold Civil War between Woke and Chud in the United States and the broader Anglosphere. We seek to reconcile the impulses of both sides and find and cultivate common ground. Tianmu is strongly in favor of the First Amendment and thus we do not advocate for restrictions on speech nor "political correctness." We believe politics are contextual, and make sure not to associate ourselves with any contemporary movement or ideology, which can be easily subverted for any ends, and instead seek to preserve freedom and the common weal through our church's actions.
Do you have any Good News?
Although at times history may feel like a millstone threatening to grind us into dust, it is this very forward motion which eventually rusts all chains and breaks all cages. And even locked in the abyss of suffering, the beauty of this world still finds a way to shine through the cracks and betrays the nature of the world; like sunlight pouring between leaves. In darkness, there is only ever the promise of a brighter day. And whether in the light of freedom or in our struggle for it, to live and to love to finally to die is worth it, the greatest gift of all, if only you allow yourself to embrace it.
❤️🔥🌲