Communicating with the Gods

Matthias Schumann is postdoctoral research fellow at Heidelberg University. His research deals with the interconnections between religion, society and politics in modern Chinese history. He is author of several articles and co-editor of Protecting the Weak in East Asia: Framing, Mobilisation and Institutionalisation (Routledge, 2018). Elena Valussi is a senior Lecturer at Loyola University Chicago. She has published extensively on the intersection between religion, gender and the body in China, on Daoist intellectual history and on spirit writing in China. She is the Vice- President of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions.

Acknowledgments

List of Figures and Tables

Note on Formal Conventions

Dynastic Table



1 Introduction to the Volume

 Matthias Schumann and Elena Valussi



Part 1 Overview Papers



2 Making the Gods Write: A Short History of Spirit-Written Revelations in China, 1000–1400

 Vincent Goossaert



3 Spirit-Writing Practices from the Song to Ming Periods and Their Relation to Politics and Religion

 Wang Chien-chuan 王 見川



4 Women, Goddesses, and Gender Affinity in Spirit-Writing

 Elena Valussi



Part 2 Changing Techniques and Practices



5 Terminology and Typology of Spirit-Writing in Early Modern China: A Preliminary Study

 Hu Jiechen



6 The Transcendent of the Plate

The Lingji zhimi 靈乩指迷 (Instructions on the numinous stylus) and the Reform of Spirit-Writing Techniques during the First Half of the Twentieth Century

 Fan Chun-wu 范 純武



Part 3 Spirit-Writing and the Literati Elites in Late Imperial China



7 Instantiating the Genealogy of the Way: Spirit-Writing in the Construction of Peng Dingqiu’s Confucian Pantheon

 Daniel Burton-Rose



8 A Credulous Skeptic: Ji Yun on the Mantic Arts and Spirit-Writing

 Michael Lackner



9 The Liu-Han Altar: Between a Literati Spirit-Writing Altar and Popular Religion

 Zhu Mingchuan 朱 明川



Part 4 Spirit-Writing and Redemptive Societies



10 “Protecting the Dao and Transmitting the Classics”

The New Religion to Save the World and the Confucian Dimension of Spirit-Writing in Republican China

 Matthias Schumann



11 Spirit-Writing and the Daoyuan’s Gendered Teachings

 Xia Shi



12 The Phoenix Perches in the Land of the Kami: Spirit-Writing from Yiguandao to Tendō

 Nikolas Broy



Part 5 Local Communities and Transregional Networks



13 The Nineteenth Century Spirit-Writing Movement and the Transformation of Local Religion in Western Guangdong

 Ichiko Shiga



14 The Rise of Spirit-Writing Cults in Chaozhou: Reassessing the Role of Charitable Halls

 Li Guoping 李 國平



15 Spirit-Writing Altars in Contemporary Hong Kong: A Case Study of Fei Ngan Tung Buddhism and Daoism Society

 Luo Dan 羅 丹



16 A Motley Phoenix? On the Diversity of Spirit-Writing Temples and Their Practices in Puli, Taiwan

 Paul R. Katz



Index