Chinese folk religion may be understood as a living tapestry of beliefs and practices rather than a single, unified system. At its heart lies a vision of a layered cosmos in which Heaven, Earth, and the underworld are interwoven realms populated by gods, spirits, ghosts, immortals, and ancestors. This spiritual world is often imagined as a vast bureaucracy, mirroring traditional imperial administration, with high deities such as Heaven or the Lord on High and more personal figures like the Jade Emperor presiding over ranks of officials and local gods. Deities associated with cities, villages, land, and the sea, as well as household and threshold spirits, are approached as concrete powers who can be petitioned, thanked, or negotiated with through ritual.

A central thread running through these practices is ancestor veneration, grounded in the ethic of filial piety. The dead are regarded as continuing members of the family whose well-being is closely tied to that of their descendants. Through offerings, memorial rites, and care for graves and ancestral tablets, families seek to maintain right relationship with their forebears, trusting that properly honored ancestors will protect and bless the lineage. This same sensibility extends to a broader spirit world in which ghosts and other beings are believed to interact with the living and must be acknowledged with appropriate respect and ritual attention.

Underlying these relationships is a cosmology of balance and moral causality. The world is animated by vital energy and shaped by the interplay of yin and yang and the Five Phases, so that harmony in body, home, and community is seen as both a spiritual and practical achievement. Fate and fortune are not fixed; they are influenced by moral conduct, ritual observance, and alignment with cosmic rhythms. Good deeds and upright behavior are believed to attract blessings, while wrongdoing invites misfortune or retribution, sometimes extending into the afterlife, where judgment and various realms of purification are envisioned, often in forms shaped by Buddhist influence.

Ritual in this context is deeply pragmatic and is judged by its efficacy. Offerings, incense, divination, and festivals are undertaken to secure tangible benefits such as health, protection, prosperity, fertility, and success. Specialists—whether spirit mediums, temple priests, or ritual masters—serve as intermediaries between human and spirit realms, but lay participation in household and communal rites is equally important. These practices are characteristically flexible and syncretic, drawing freely on Confucian ethics, Daoist cosmology and ritual, Buddhist ideas of karma and rebirth, and local cults to historical heroes or nature spirits. Through this fluid yet enduring pattern of worship, communities seek to sustain harmony between humans, ancestors, deities, and the wider cosmos.