However, he still claimed to communicate with God and reaffirmed that he would appear to save us from nuclear destruction in 1999. God has communicated to me that if I want to take the responsibility of preaching his gospel, I have to have the courage to face the scoffing and laughter of people. Some followers believed that God had in fact appeared on TV, in a spiritual guise, in the form of the news coverage the group received. The media, in Daschke's words, had become a faction of the sect, and Chen awarded them even a bigger role in future events. Another article by Perkins and Jackson describes some of the group's more peripheral beliefs.
Spiritual vampires fall into the middle range.
They deceive humans and consume their energy. Their victims may be reborn as animals, while more resistant souls may attain nirvana and escape karma's wheel. These separate at death. Others, and even those ghosts who find redemption, have an opportunity to escape the cycle of rebirth. Chen attacks competing sects for their leadership by just such ghosts.