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article

pp.

1.

Origins of Daoist Exorcism

John Lagerwey

1-10

2.

Killing-Spirits from the Dead

Chang Chaojan

11-30

3.

Northern Fen Mountain

Lu:Pengzhi

31-49

5.

Exorcism Transsubstantiated

Stephen Bokenkamp

69-88

6.

Exorcising the Six Heavens

Terry Kleeman

89-104

7.

Ritual Canon Fa-yan & Tradition

Volker Olles

105-35

8.

Pu-an Ritual Specialists

Tam Wai-Lun

137-49

9.

Boiling Oil to Purify Houses

Lin Wei-Ping

151-69

11.

Marshal of the Central Altar

Lee Fongmao

195-212

13.

Heart-Sigils in Thundre-Ritual

David Mozina

231-56

14.

Luminous Agent Marshal Ma

Hsieh Shuwei

257-75

15.

Exorcist Rituals in Northern Taiwan

Florian C. Reiter

277-96

p. 1

["ThSDhED", pp. 1108-9] "The primary cause of disease in the Shuihudi daybooks is ... "being haunted by ghosts like ‘external ghosts’ or ‘external ghosts that have died prematurely’ "".

p. 2

["ThSDhED", p. 1144, quoting the Z^u-bin Yuan-hou Lun of the Sui] "When a person with vacuity in the body comes close to a corpse at a funeral, he will receive the corpse’s qi, and it will lodge in his channels ... . If he later touches or sees a coffin, this will make it move. ... That ... is called "funerary infixation ... ."

["ThSDhED", p. 1145, quoting Xu Si-bo of the 5^th century Chr.E.] "Corpse infixiation means that ghost qi is latent and has not yet risen. ... Throw a dead person’s pillow at it and the qi of the hun soul will fly off and be unable again to attach itself to the body ... . Thus, the corpse infixation will be cured."

p. 3

["ThSDhED", p. 1127, quoting from the Tai-pin Jin] "Heaven does ... know. Reports on good and evil deeds are noted in registers, which are thoroughly collated on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis, and years are subtracted from [each human’s] count (suan ..., i.e. life span allotment). [Those] whose evil deeds never stop then see the Gate of demons ... . Earth gods summon and question them ... . ... Their names are transmitted to the bureau of fate (mingcao ...) for a final comparison [of their records and, if their] count (suan) is exhausted,

p. 4

they enter earth (i.e. the realm of the dead), and their transgressions are passed on to their descendants."

"summon [the wrongdoer’s] ancestors, ... and order them to return to their household to tell [the wrongdoer] ... that his conviction is underway and cannot be stopped, which is why disease is sent to him. A household stricken with disease must ... have the indictment repealed".

["ThSDhED", pp. 1139, quoting the commentary of Z^en Xuan on the Zhou-li] "From the late Eastern Han on, the director of destiny and the corpse worms formed a single system ... . The Baopuzi explains that on every gengshen day and the three corpses inside the human body ascend to heaven to report to the director of destiny any wrongdoings committed by their host".

p. 5

"We find titles like ... "capturing the inauspicious and investigating demonic entities" ..., that is, books that are related in content to the excavated daybook manuscripts."

p. 6

Experiencing the pain of disease, they see demons’ beating."

The next day, having converted three of the five generals into the generals of the Three Primes (and having hid their souls), the Taoists and generals set out to music and percussion to the house of the "chief of the incense". The main Taoist ... as he walks, ... transforms :"

the __

into __

road

"snakes that lead to the Great Office" of Yan-pin

stones in the fields

daimon-swallowers

trees in the forests

"troops which will help hail [hale] all perverse gods off" to the Yan-pin gaol

That afternoon, ... one group of Taoists ..., having first asked Luban to make a boat, forces epidemic gods into the mouth of a cock and then on to the straw boat. After going to each local water exit temple in order to fetch the tablet of its Lord of Fortune and, with the boat, to each incense head’s house to gather disease, they proceed to the site of the confluence of two rivers to throw the burning boat into the water and send it to Yangzhou."

At the day’s end, ... the Wushang wulang ... burst in on the banqueting Three Generals and chase them and their troops to the river. There the generals drop their command flags, ... and head back by another route; the master and the Wulang burn the flags, put the oblong stone(s) back together".

There were "the lead and pine persons placed in 3^rd-4^th century tombs to serve as substitutes for the dead, to pay their taxes, perform their corve’e labor, and suffer in their place (p. 1142)".

{Similar sorts of work-functions were performed by ws^3bty stone figurines placed in antient Kemetic tombs.}

fn. 12 "see Bai Bin, "Religious beliefs as reflected in the funerary record," Early Chinese religion, Part Two ... (Brill, 2010), pp. 989-1074, esp. 1031-35."

"by means of shouyi ..., "holding on to unity", the adept kept the good vital spirits inside his body and, thereby, prevented evil spirits from entering it. Thus Ge Hong mentions a "Classic on calling the body’s spirits to treat the hundred diseases" ... (p. 1125). ... it ... like the Laozi zhongjing, ... teaches how to visualize and thereby retain within his body a complex multiplicity of gods. ... . ... in response to inspections conducted by the heavenly bureaucracy, the adept ..., for three days and nights, holds in his mind’s eye the multiple vital spirits in his body, ... preventing them from deserting him ... . According to ... the Wushang biyao, once the 18,000 internal spirits had been thoroughly integrated into the adept’s person, another 18,000 external spirits would come "attach themselves to his body – ... Daoist "self-possession", like the Confucianist form studied by Csikszentmiha`lyi, is a form of "controlled possession"."

[Z^ZWL, p. 203, quoting Z^ou Zuo-ren : "The Fancy Killer"] "A killing spirit is the deceased himself. Originally it was just his whitesoul, later it was considered his cloudsoul. Its form is like a domestic chicken. ... Later it came to be called a killing spirit, as if it were something like a transport guard, and there were two, male and female."

p. 12

"In texts from the Six Dynasties or later we find many account of the deceased transforming into killer spirits (yangsha ...) and harming the living, usually appearing in the form of a bird ... . This even developed into the persistent custom of the grieving family, under the instruction of an occult specialist, temporarily leaving the home in order to avoid the harm of the killer spirit and the danger of more deaths in the family."

p. 13

"The belief that a killer spirit is produced after death and will return to the home of the deceased at a specific date and time (called "returning killer," guisha ...) and the custom of avoiding this (called "avoiding the killer," bisha ...) were popular in North China around the sixth century. Yan Zhitui ... (531-603)

p. 14

recorded this belief and custom ... :"

[quoted from "C&C", p. 201, translating from YJJ, 98] "a few days after a man’s death, his soul returns to his home. On such a day, his sons and grandsons stay outside the house, no one daring to remain within : they draw charms on tiles, and make use of all kinds of magic spells to fend off the inauspicious. On the day of the burial, a fire is lit in the doorway".

[according to the Ji-wen by Niu Su (his record of events of the Kaiyuan and Tianbao reign periods (713-755)), cited in the Tai-pin Guan-ji, vol. 7, 2624-5] "the following custom : At that time, when a person died, family members would visit a spirit medium, who would tell them the date on which the killer spirit would appear ..., and family members would usually go out on that day to avoid it."

p.

reference

14

[according to the Xuan-z^i-z^i by Z^an Du (fl. 853)] "Zheng ... in Xichuan ... (modern Linfen, Shanxi) ... caught a huge, grey bird; ... it suddenly disappeared. Inquiring ..., Zheng discovered that what he had caught was in fact the killer spirit of a recently deceased local person. Because the

Tao Zon-xi : S^uo-fu, vol. 4, 2698-9

15

Zhang Du ... remarks : "It is commonly said that a few days after someone dies, there will be a bird that emerges from the coffin, called a ‘killer.’ ""

[according to the Yuan-hua-ji by master Huan-fu] "the killer spirit ... is a fleshy ball with eyes on four sides {cf. the eyes on 4 sides of a box jellyfish?} that emit when open, and although it has no wings, it can fly."

Tai-pin Guan-ji, vol. 8, 363/2882

[according to Wan C^on of the Han dynasty] "ill-fated people often see moving, flickering lights gather in one of their rooms or see a creature that resembles a bird fly into their main hall or bedroom, both being different manifestations of ghosts."

Huang Hui : Lun-hen Jiao-s^i, 936-7

[according to the Ji-s^en-lu by Xu Xuan (916-991)] "When the ... family experienced the death of their mother, they had turned to a spirit-

Tai-pin Guan-ji, vol. 7, 318/2521

16

medium, who helped them calculate the day the killer spirit would return ... . However, ... the killer spirit ... is ... an otherworldly emissary sent to escort the deceased back and to look for someone to attack. The deceased mother ..., when the killer spirit wants to attack, ... strives to protect her son."

["sepulchre plaint case of Xu Mi’s family"] "the deceased is escorted back to the family home in order to harm the living".

Z^en-gao 7/10b

"Qian Daxin ... (1728-1804) ... notes [YHL, vol. 5, 121], "A few days after someone has died, the soul return to the former home accompanied by a killer spirit".

[according to the YJZ^ (vol. 1, 352)] "they ... would scatter ashes on the ground so that they could see the footprints of the returning killer,

{"The Philippine islanders expected the dead to return on the third day to his dwelling, wherefore they ... strewed ashes to see his footprints. ... . ... the Hos of North-East India ... call the spirit home; and look for spirit-footprints in the ashes.

using this information to determine whether the deceased could be reborn as a human or some other animal."

In Yucatan ... alone at night in a place strewn with ashes; if the footprint of an animal were found next morning, this animal was the guardian deity of the child." (PC, vol. 2, p. 197)}

p. 17

"The Baijili [fn. 23 : "Today the only surviving edition is ... in the National Diet Library of Japan."] ... of the Tang Erudite of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices Lu: Cai ... (605-665) includes a "Method of Calculating the Harm of the Mortuary Killer", which is a manual for this sort of calculation ... which day the killer will return. ... This method ... is similar to that of the Liulunjing ..., as well as modern Taiwanese practice".

p. 18

"Dai Guan ... (1442-1512) ... recorded [Z^uo-yin-tin Bi-ji, cap. 7, quoted in HXZ^S^J, 119] that in his day geomancers still used the date of death to predict when the killer would return, and applied the theory of the five agents to determine ... whether to demand that the mourning family leave the household to "avoid the killer.""

"Quelling objects to be placed in the coffin : one dough figurine, one piece of charcoal, five pieces of Five Essences stones, one length of Five-colored Thread. At the zi hour (11 P.M. – 1 A.M.) of the seventh day, the killer spirit will arise, fifteen feet tall, and facing southeast, it will transform into a yellow pneuma and leave. ...""

fn.

reference

25

"Dunhuang manuscript P. 3028 says, "Those who die on a wu or wei day will harm people born in a shen or you year.""

Huan Z^en-jian : Dun-huan Z^an-bu Wen-s^u ..., 151

26

"Those who die an a zi day will kill or harm males in the North aged between thirty and forty; those who die on a jiazi day will during the encoffinment period kill or harm males born in xin or chou years."

"C&C", 220, citing fascicle 59 of the Z^en Bian Wan by Li Du-xun

27

"If there is someone whose birth zodiac conflicts with the date and time of encoffining, they must ... avoid encountering a killer and having their person ensnared with misfortune."

S^Z^Z^Y, 57

p. 19

"Even before Daoism emerged, ... exorcisms had been performed by the Fangxiangshi ... or Qitou ... during the course preparing the corpse and burying it. The primary object of such exorcisms was the Fangliang ..., i.e. sprites or wood or stone or evil spirits from the underworld or watery realms that might be summoned in the course of constructing the mortuary chamber, in order to prevent them from harming the deceased."

p. 19, fn. 36

"In the Rites of Zhou under "Summer Offices, Subordinates of the Marshal" ... we read : "The Fangxiangshi, covered in a bearskin with four golden eyes over a black robe and

p. 20, fn. 36

vermilion skirt, grasps an arrow and brandishes a shield, leading the hundred clerks to perform the seasonal Nuo dance in order to search through the room and expel ... demons. In the Great Funerals, he precedes the coffin. Reaching the tomb, he enters the pit and, taking an arrow, strikes the four corners, expelling the Fangxiang"". ("TD&B", 105-8)

"in the body there are three corpses. These three corpses ... want to cause a person to die early, so that the corpse can become a ghost and will be free to travel about enjoying the sacrificial offerings of others. ...

If you have only the intention of believing in the Dao, but do not have the works that improve yourself, your fate is controlled by the "orphan void", and your body is in danger of being harmed;

{"faith, if it hath not works, is dead" (Epistle of Iakobos 2:17); "faith without works is dead" (Ibid. 2:20, 26)}

then the three corpses use the ... perilous days, enter during the hours ... that can cut off the lifeforce, ... recklessly welcome demons, who come to create disaster and harm." (Wan Min : Bao-pu-zi Nei-pian Jiao-s^i 114, 247)

When it flaps its wings, it spews poison, which infuses and harms the living."