Deserving Divine Protection: Religious Life in Contemporary Rural Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces Ekaterina A. Zavidovskaya Abstract The paper addresses important issue of religiosity as seen and articulated by worshippers of popular pantheon deities in present day China. The data is based on author`s field research conducted in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces. The paper analyses “exterior” and “interior” as- pects of peasants` religious life, groups of believers and their practices. It discusses important notion of “magic efficacy” and tries to clarify how mechanism of divine energy manifestation xian ling 显灵 works. The central issue of the paper is interaction of believers with their deities and through what channels they strive to obtain divine protection. Key words: religious life, divine protection, contemporary rural China. Introduction Individual and Gods: “Interior” Aspect of Peasant Religious Life The development of the title and core ideas of my research on present day popu- lar religion of China’s Northern provinces Shanxi and Shaanxi has occurred in several stages. I became fascinated by Shanxi`s culture during my first visit to the southeastern part of the Shangdang 上党 province in 2006 to attend a conference on a rural festival called “competing communities” saishe 赛社. This collective celebration was wide-spread in many parts of China (also known as shehuo 社火, or saishe 赛社) and used to be held on the occasion of the spring festival. I de- cided to return to Shanxi in order to learn more about local theatrical traditions and their relation to popular religion. While completing further field research, I concentrated my attention on communal temples called she 社 in Shanxi 山西and hui 会 in Shaanxi 陕西 (hereafter also referred to as Shaanbei 陕北) and became interested in discovering how these communities are organized and how they op- erate 1 . Field data collected from a number of localities proved that almost all vil- lages participate in managing and sponsoring temples owned in common. In the 1 Field work was conducted primarily in western counties of Shanxi province (Linxian 临县, Fangshan xian 方山县) and counties belonging to Yulin 榆林city prefecture (Jiaxian佳县, Hengshan, 横山Mizhi 米脂).