But fate is a fickle comrade.

Fired in 2011, Mr. Liu was charged last month with corruption and abuse of power. In addition to the charges of taking $157 million in bribes and maintaining a harem of 18 mistresses, he is accused of an especially profane crime: “belief in feudal superstitions.”

Last November, the state-run Xinhua news service reported on the fall of Yang Hong, a county chief in Shanxi Province. According to feng shui beliefs, changing the name of a person or place can ameliorate one’s destiny, so Mr. Yang, eager for a promotion, rechristened the scenic local Plaster Mountain as High Official Mountain. He was ousted a month later for corruption.

In 2009, county officials in the western province of Gansu spent $732,000 transporting a 369-ton boulder six miles to the county seat, a move feng shui masters said would ward off bad luck. As part of the consecration ceremony, the county magistrate walked 325 feet toward the “spirit rock,” kowtowing every three steps, according to the Guangzhou Daily newspaper.

Citizens furious over officials dabbling in publicly financed mysticism have found an unlikely ally in the Communist Party, which commands its 82 million members to worship only the hammer and sickle. Though the government has taken a more laissez-faire approach to spirituality since the bloody persecutions of the Cultural Revolution 40 years ago, the authorities remain suspicious of competing dogma.

Last month, Wang Zuoan, the head of the State Administration of Religious Affairs, condemned superstition in a newspaper published by the Central Party School, the premier ideological training ground for government officials.

“For a ruling party which follows Marxism, we need to help people establish a correct world view and to scientifically deal with birth, aging, sickness and death, as well as fortune and misfortune,” he said.

How many of his fellow bureaucrats agree is unclear. According to a 2007 report by the Chinese Academy of Governance, 52 percent of the nation’s county-level civil servants admitted to believing in divination, face reading, astrology or dream interpretation.