These foreigners, Sabaeans, Syrians and Hindus introduced new notions, such as astrology and superstitions, and by their sailors' yarns awakened a curiosity for the wonderful. The social and political condition of the country was favourable to a movement of this sort. The Chinese princes were anxious of novelty to show their independence from the once respected and now disregarded suzerainty of the Kings of Chou. It was really an age of wonderism.〔Albert Terrien de Lacouperie (1892), (The Oldest Book of the Chinese, the Yh-king, and its Authors ), D. Nutt, pp. 114-115.〕

The school of Wonderism, which had grown out of the influence of the trader-colonists of the Indian Ocean settled at Lang-ya and Tsih-Moh who had taught Astrology and an overrated conception of the transforming powers of nature, amalgamated with the pure Taoism of Lao-tze, and formed henceforth what may be called the Neo-Taoism or Tao-szeism, while Confucianism remained in opposition to it, such as his founder had conceived it against the encroachments of Wonderism, Taoism, and Shamanism. It was indeed the rising of Confucianism which led to the fusion of these various elements. 〔Albert Étienne Terrien de Lacouperie (1894), (Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilisation from 2300 B.C. to 200 A.D.: or, Chapters on the Elements Derived from the old Civilisations of West Asia in the Formation of the Ancient Chinese Culture ), Asher & Co., p. 147.〕