An Overview of Taoist Talismans, Incantations, and Magic Arts

Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism

In Chinese classical novels such as Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) and Journey to the West, as well as in modern martial arts fiction, Taoist priests, shamans, and knights-errant often, when performing ritual services and rites, driving off evil, subduing demons, or doing battle, “mutter words under their breath” or “murmur softly,” or “burn a few slips of paper,” or trace “a few circles in the air” with a sword or a finger—and at once they can rise to heaven or enter the earth, become invisible and transform, move mountains and overturn seas, summon wind and call down rain. The “words” these Taoist priests, shamans, and knights-errant recite, the “murmurs” they utter, the “paper” they burn, and the “circles” they draw are precisely the talismans, registers, and incantations that this book sets out to explore.

1. On Incantations

Incantations are also called spell words, divine incantations, bright spells, spell formulas, oral formulas, formulas, prohibitive spells, true words (mantras), secret words, and so on. In both magic and religion it is widely believed that certain kinds of language possess divine, magical, and ritual power, and language possessing such divine, magical, and ritual power is called an incantation.

Incantations and the art of spells are two different concepts. The art of spells refers to the skill, technique, and method of casting spells. It comprises three main elements: the incantation, the ritual, and the ritual implements (the tools relied upon in casting spells, such as knives, swords, hair, and animal bones). The incantation is thus one of the elements of the art of spells.

The emergence of incantations is related to primitive peoples' worship of the magical power of language.

In primitive society, when productive forces were extremely low, language was the most powerful tool for uniting the members of a clan and advancing social development. Language was itself one of the means of production, and even ranked first among all the means of production of the time.

A band of primitive people, empty-handed or holding unworked branches with very little killing power, could only coordinate their actions by means of gestures or language when chasing wild animals together; only so could they cooperate closely and bring down their prey. Moreover, primitive people did not understand the causes of drought, floods, or good and bad yields in gathering and hunting, and believed that gods, sprites, goblins, ghosts, and spirits controlled these things. They thought that good gods granted favorable wind and rain, rich harvests, and safety, while evil gods brought natural disasters and human calamities. And so they expressed their feelings by praying to the good gods and cursing the evil ones. After praying or cursing, they might well happen to obtain a rich harvest or a good outcome.

When primitive people saw that language could direct human action, enabling them to capture animals that were hard to hunt, and that praying or cursing brought benefits, they drew an association from this: they believed these good results were all the work of language, all obtained through prayer and cursing. They thus came to believe that language possessed magical power and energy, that it could bring happiness or disaster to humankind, and that it could command ghosts, spirits, and nature. In the course of later development, this belief in and worship of the magical power of language found its concentrated expression in incantations. The incantation became a form of speech directed at a specific purpose and possessing an irresistible power, able to endow ordinary things with the supernatural abilities of magic and sorcery.

Most incantations have the following features:

First, repetitiveness: they are chanted over and over.

Second, their words are obscure and difficult, with an inexplicable, uncanny, and mysterious quality.

Third, their syllables are rhythmic; that is, they mostly follow certain patterns in number of characters, syllables, length, and tempo.

Fourth, as the incantation is recited, the shamans' rhythmic dance movements, the intensification of tone that comes with teeth-gnashing, hate-filled passion or boundless devotion, and the heightening of atmosphere all strengthen the effect of the incantation.

The structure of incantations, and especially of Taoist incantations, generally is this: the first line calls upon the name of a ghost or god, the middle sets out the requests and commands addressed to that ghost or god, and the last line concludes with “as the law commands,” clearly bearing the character of a petition and an edict.

By manner of expression and length, incantations can be divided into three main forms: incantations, spell songs (shamanic songs, divine songs), and scriptural incantations. For example, the divine song “Lady of the Snow Mountain,” sung by Bai women shamans in the northern outskirts of Heqing county town and in Xintun and other places in Yunnan, China, before the ritual of climbing the knife pole, is a kind of incantation: “Devoutly we beseech the Lady of the Snow Mountain to manifest her awesome divinity. When heat comes, it is hot as fire; when cold comes, it is cold as frost. In the first watch of the night, cold rain falls; in the second watch, cold frost falls; in the third watch, heavy snow falls; in the fourth watch, frost is added upon the snow; in the fifth watch, the golden cock comes to herald the dawn; in the sixth watch, the trees of the mountain hang with bells…” As soon as the song ends, the woman shaman, hair loose and feet bare, steps one by one on red-hot plowshares and climbs the knife pole (with folded yellow paper padding the knife pole).

In terms of length, the difference between spell words and scriptural incantations is that spell words are shorter and scriptural incantations longer. Spell songs (shamanic songs) may be long or short.

From the standpoint of function, many Taoist and Buddhist scriptures can be regarded as incantations, because by upholding and reciting these scriptures one can likewise communicate with the gods and obtain their protection, warding off evil and gaining blessings. Hence many scriptures in the Taoist Canon (Daozang) contain statements such as “Reciting this scriptural incantation and sacred proclamation, one will receive the protection of the Divine Lords and divine generals of the ten directions, dispel calamity and receive blessings, have one's sins removed, and ascend to heaven.”

Among some ethnic minorities, “scripture” is even more fully equated with incantation. For example, the word “scripture-poem” in the Zhuang people's Scripture-Poems of Buluotuo carries the sense of reciting an incantation. The Wa people go further, regarding their epic Sigangli as their people's “most powerful incantation.” Whenever they hold the religious activity of “performing the oxtail-cutting ghost rite,” “at night the villagers sit around in the house of the host who is performing the oxtail-cutting ghost rite and listen to the great moba recite the longest incantation—the ‘Sigangli.’ The content of the ‘Sigangli’ concerns the origin of humankind; it runs to more than a hundred thousand words, and is recited from midnight until about nine the next morning, taking more than nine hours in all to complete. As they recite, the moba perform different movements, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes leaping, accompanied by someone playing the lusheng reed pipes; the other moba and the elders drink wine from ox-horn cups, and the whole gathering follows the changes of the incantation, sometimes stirred, sometimes saddened, yet not one of them dozes off.

In addition, from the standpoint of function, reciting the names of ghosts and gods, the names of heavenly palaces, the names of constellations, and the names of deities; praying, swearing oaths, and making petitions with utmost sincerity; and reciting certain poems, books, the judgments of the sixty-four hexagrams, children's rhymes, and so on can all be regarded as different forms of reciting incantations. Therefore many scriptures in the Taoist Canon also contain the idea that by upholding and reciting the names of gods and ghosts one can “command ghosts and spirits and subdue evil and demons.” In Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West there is also the notion of “calling a name to knock someone off his horse.”

Some scholars hold that prayer produces a psychological effect of great significance, acting as inducement and suggestion, and that it is in fact a kind of incantation. The most typical example of reciting children's rhymes as incantations is a news item and three similar children's rhymes from the April 6, 1928, issue of the Shen Bao, quoted by the Chinese writer Lu Xun in his essay “Ballad Charms for Great Peace.” According to this news item, as Sun Yat-sen's mausoleum was nearing completion, a rumor spread that the stonemasons would capture the souls of young children to seal the joining of the structure. So in every household the young children each wore a square of red cloth on the left shoulder, on which were written four lines of five-character children's verse, as a means of warding off evil. These four-line, five-character rhymes came in roughly three similar versions: “If someone comes to call my soul, let the caller bear it himself; calling others but failing to catch them, he himself will carry the stone tomb.” “Stone calls to the stone monk; call again and bear it yourself; hurry, call yourself back home, and escape carrying the stone tomb.” “You build the Zhongshan tomb—what has that to do with me? Call my soul, but it will not go; call again and bear it yourself.”

Judging from this news item and these rhymes, many people at the time firmly believed that simply by having young children recite these rhymes, or wear a square of red cloth inscribed with them, they could escape the misfortune of having their souls captured. Here the idea that reciting children's rhymes is the same as reciting incantations is fully demonstrated.

2. On Talismans and Registers

In the Cihai dictionary, talismans and registers (fulu) are explained as “the writing of the heavenly deities,” which Taoism holds can be used to “command ghosts and spirits, make sacrifices and prayers, and cure illness.”

In fact, strictly speaking, talismans and registers are different.

The Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi discuss this difference: “When Taoist priests always carry the Heavenly Water Talisman and the Bamboo Envoy Talisman of the Supreme Sovereign, Laozi's Left Tally, and the generals of Guarding the Perfected, Contemplating the One, and the Three Divisions, ghosts dare not approach them. Next comes the discussion of the Register of the Hundred Ghosts: knowing the names of all the hundred ghosts under heaven, together with the Chart of Baize and Record of the Nine Cauldrons, all the ghosts will withdraw of themselves.”

Judging from this passage of the Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi, the difference between talismans and registers is that the content of a talisman is mainly words of prayer and exorcism, while the content of a register is mainly the names and appearances of ghosts and spirits.

Talismans and registers also differ in function.

To use an analogy, in function a talisman is like the “verbal message” by which a person communicates with ghosts and spirits, and a register is like the “invitation card” a person sends to ghosts and spirits. With both a verbal message and an invitation, when a person makes a request, the ghosts and spirits naturally know of it and come to carry out the “way” on that person's behalf.

Another functional difference between talismans and registers is that talismans are used mainly by Taoist priests, shamans, and others as secret documents for “driving out ghosts and summoning spirits” or “curing illness and prolonging life,” whereas registers are mainly a Taoist priest's register of ascent to perfection—that is, a Taoist priest's roster of names, the certificate of qualification for an individual Taoist's self-cultivation, establishment in the calling, and promotion in Taoist rank.

As the Middle Method of the Dongxuan Lingbao Curriculum puts it: “The register restrains one's temperament through the precepts and registers, stops up transgressions and wrongdoing, cuts off the roots of evil, and gives rise to the work of the Tao, leading from the ordinary into the sacred. From beginning to end, one first proceeds from the precepts and registers, and only then ascends to perfection.”

Although registers also have functions like those of talismans in averting disaster and removing illness, these functions serve only oneself and not others.

Regarding the origin and evolution of talismans, there are at present two main views in the academic world.

One view holds that talismans arose from the wondrous imagination produced by primitive thought. The earliest talismans were the door gods “Shentu” and “Yulü” carved from peach wood, called peach talismans.

According to legend, beneath a peach tree on Mount Dushuo in the Eastern Sea lived two gods named Shentu and Yulü, who could devour all the hundred ghosts. The ancients believed that peach wood could suppress ghosts and drive away evil, and so there arose the custom, at the new year of the traditional calendar, of painting images of the two gods on peach-wood boards and hanging them on doors.

Peach talismans were also the forerunners of the couplets of later ages, and the fountainhead of talismans and registers. If the beliefs of primitive people led to the emergence of talismans, then Taoism's permeation of early folk custom powerfully advanced the development of talismans and registers and broadened their forms and the scope of their use.

The other view on the origin and evolution of talismans is that the talisman was a kind of token in ancient China, beginning at the end of the Spring and Autumn period and the start of the Warring States period, and flourishing most in the Qin and Han. The Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters (Shuowen Jiezi) says: “Fu (talisman) means a token of trust. Under the Han system, it was made of bamboo six cun long, split in two and then matched together.”

Before paper was invented in the Eastern Han, the fu was a token made of bamboo: a piece of bamboo was split in two, and when the halves were put together they matched, serving as a kind of proof or credential. Modern expressions such as fuhe and xiangfu, meaning “to accord with” or “to match,” preserve the ancient meaning of the character fu.

Bamboo tallies were generally used among the common people as proof for exchanges and leases. The tallies used by the court for the comings and goings of envoys from friendly states and for mobilizing troops, however, were cast or made of bronze, gold, silver, jade, and the like, in shapes such as tigers, dragons, human figures, tortoises, snakes, and fish—the tiger shape being the most common—with writing engraved on the surface explaining their use. On the faces where the two halves met, one side had a protruding half-cylinder and the other a recessed socket; when the two sides were joined, they fit without the slightest gap and formed a single whole. This is what is called “matching the tally.”

Only later, with the arrival of seals, was the practice of using tallies as proof of trust gradually abolished. Later still, shamans, fangshi (masters of esoteric arts), and Taoist priests borrowed the name fu, claiming that divine power could be attached in the form of symbols to prescribed “characters” or “figures,” which they wrote on prescribed paper, silk, wood, stone, and other materials as credentials for conveying and exercising divine commands. These are the “divine diagrams and shamanic talismans” we can still see today.

The two views above explore the origin and evolution of talismans from different angles and aspects, and each has a certain scientific validity. However, in exploring the origin and evolution of talismans, one should also consider the worship of language and the worship of writing, and the fact that writing has more prominent practical advantages than speech in certain respects; only then will the inquiry be more scientific and comprehensive.

From the standpoint of the worship of language, the emergence of talismans is also a reflection of the worship of language: the talisman is the incantation put into writing. One scholar holds: “Very likely the earliest talismans were simply incantations put into writing. Later, to distinguish them from ordinary words and sentences and to reflect the mystery and boundless power of talismans, distorted characters were used and lines were added to the face of the talisman, making it into a figure that resembles writing yet is not writing, resembles a sentence yet is not a sentence.”

From the standpoint of the worship of writing, China's earliest pictographic script already had artistic value and a certain mystery; and the later appearance of the River Chart, the Nine Divisions of the “Great Plan,” the Luo Writing, and the eight trigrams of the I Ching (Book of Changes) further strengthened the ancients' worship of writing.

The talismanic diagrams and seals that circulated among the immortal-seeking fangshi originated in this ancient worship of writing. Because talismans show a clear advantage over incantations in their persistence in time and their fixedness in space—whether worn on the body or pasted on objects, a talisman gives a sense that its power is ever present—the use of talismans in later times, like that of incantations, became more and more widespread.

By the medium that carries them, talismans can be divided into wooden talismans (including seal talismans), paper talismans, cloth talismans, silk talismans, object talismans, and so on. By the structure and features of their strokes, they can be divided into character talismans, picture talismans, pattern talismans that are neither characters nor pictures, and talismans that combine characters with pictures, characters with characters, or pictures with patterns.

Apart from those created by Taoist priests and shamans, character talismans also include door couplets, the names of gods such as “Jiang Taigong” and “Shi Gandang” written out, and certain written characters—those for “soul,” for a fourfold cluster of mouths meaning “clamor,” for “great,” and for “king”—which also serve as talismans. For example, at the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month, it is popular in many places to write the character wang (king) on children's foreheads with realgar, to ward off evil and remove impurity.

Object talismans—such as the peach-wood sticks and peach-wood implements commonly used in Taoism and among the Han Chinese folk; the “Magic Jade of Spiritual Understanding” that Jia Baoyu wears in Dream of the Red Chamber, with which he was born; and the animal bone fragments, pebbles, and the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits of certain plants worn by some ethnic minorities as protective amulets—are all typical object talismans. Taoist objects such as mirrors, swords, and books likewise have the function of talismans. Mirrors have the functions of absorbing, counteracting, reflecting, dispersing, inverting, projecting, strengthening, and transforming, and so in Taoist and folk rituals they are often used to ward off evil and expel demons.

Li Shizhen also recorded the power of mirrors to ward off ghosts and drive away demons in his Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu): “The mirror is the essence of metal and water, bright within and dark without. Ancient mirrors, like ancient swords, seem to possess spiritual intelligence, and so can ward off evil sprites and malign influences. Every household should hang a large mirror to ward off evil sprites.” Ge Hong's Baopuzi says: “When the myriad things grow old, their spirits can all take on human form to delude people; only they cannot change their true form in a mirror. Therefore, when Taoist priests enter the mountains, they carry on their backs a bright mirror more than nine cun across; then evil sprites dare not approach, and, seeing their own form, they will surely turn back and flee. Look at them in the mirror: those with heels are mountain gods; those without heels are old sprites.”

Because precious swords are difficult to cast and the blade flies like an arrow, they came to be regarded as marvelous. According to the Dongxuan Lingbao Rules and Rituals for Taoist Study, when one inscribes a name on a sword and calls it with a secret incantation held in the mouth, then “the divine metal glows with numinous power, commands the hundred spirits, grants me long life; the ten thousand evils cannot harm me, though heaven and earth should overturn.”

Compared with character talismans, other object talismans, apart from mirrors, swords, books, and the like, originated much earlier. Character talismans obviously could only have arisen at least after the worship of writing appeared, whereas object talismans already existed before that.

Pattern talismans include certain patterns on clothing, tattoo patterns, mask patterns, and patterns on other objects, such as auspicious designs on eave tiles, auspicious designs on furniture and wooden walls, designs on charm coins, jiao-shaped patterns, and bagua diagrams. All these patterns have a very prominent magical function of warding off evil and attracting good fortune, and they too must have arisen earlier than character talismans.

Besides these, small statues and painted images of gods (such as door gods and Zhong Kui) also serve very prominently as pattern talismans.

The origin of door gods is said to date from the Tang dynasty. For a time Emperor Taizong of Tang was tormented by nightmares when he slept, with ghosts and spirits running rampant in his dreams and perils arising on all sides. To change this situation, Taizong ordered two of his valiant generals, Qin Qiong and Yuchi Gong, to stand guard before his door to keep the hundred ghosts at bay. This proved very effective, and he no longer saw evil ghosts in his dreams. Seeing how hard the two generals worked standing guard night after night, Taizong ordered painters to make portraits of the two valiant generals and paste them on the doors, and the nightmares likewise did not return. From then on the common people vied to imitate this, pasting portraits of the two generals on their doors to drive away evil ghosts, and calling them door gods.

In the Zhenhai area of the Ningbo region, at the Dragon Boat Festival, people also hang a picture of Zhong Kui in the main hall of the house and write a talismanic incantation: “On the fifth day of the fifth month, the Festival of Heaven's Center, all insects, snakes, and filth are wiped out.” They also write the character for “snake” upside down in realgar and paste it on the wall, which is called “driving away the Five Poisons.”

The earliest character talismans were mostly composed of compound characters, and their form was very simple and crude. The several hundred talismans recorded in the Scripture of Great Peace (Taiping Jing), for example, are basically composed of combined clerical-script characters, and their symbolic meaning is concise and clear. But over time they became more and more elaborate and complex: the figures grew cryptic and unfathomable, the characters obscure and hard to recognize, developing more and more toward patterns that are neither writing nor pictures, with ever more intricate symbolic meaning and ever greater mystification. To show that the talismanic writing was formed from cloudy vapors, the lines in later talismans curve and coil, and the characters are hard to make out; this is the so-called cloud seal script.

In some talismans there are also images of ghosts and gods, star charts, and the figures of Shentu and Yulü as imagined in ancient folklore, along with reed ropes, bows and arrows, and other objects used to bind ghosts. With both writing and pictures, a talisman can only be sensed intuitively and is hard to read.

In the preceding sections we have given separate overviews of the individual aspects of talismans, registers, and incantations—their meaning, alternative names, origins, forms, and so on. Because folk talismans, registers, and incantations were absorbed and developed by Taoism, which further promoted their secularization, and because talismans, registers, and incantations share many common features in transmission, function, status, and influence.

The absorption and development of folk talismans and incantations by Taoism, and the further promotion of their secularization, are mainly manifested as follows:

The Taoist art of talismans and incantations derives from ancient magic. It developed on the basis of shamanic spell beliefs that had existed in China since ancient times, and by absorbing certain talismanic and spell practices and rituals from the primitive religions of the Ba, Di, and other ethnic minorities. As one scholar holds: “The practice of talismans and registers began with Zhang Daoling, and talismans and registers are not Chinese characters. Therefore I suspect they belong to a religion of the southwestern ethnic minorities, and were never a religion of the Han people.”

Conversely, the development and perfection of the Taoist art of talismans and incantations in turn further promoted its secularization and popularization. Because the art of talismans and incantations originally came from the common people, these developed and perfected Taoist arts could easily spread widely among the people. Especially when the art found “theoretical” support in Taoism and was transmitted back to the people, it was held in particularly high esteem. For example, when someone catches a cold, people often paste up a slip saying: “For sale: one bad head cold; read it once and the deal is done.” When a small child cries at night, the family often pastes up: “Heaven is yellow, earth is green, a little child cries at night; when a gentleman reads this, the child will sleep till sunrise.” These practices are the secularization and popularization of the Taoist art of talismans and incantations. For instance, chapter 25 of the Secret Formulas of Total Perfection of the Most High for Aiding the State and Saving the People contains a “Method for Stopping a Child's Crying at Night”: one must first draw in a breath and blow on a fire poker, then write a slip, whose text reads: “I have a fire poker, and bring it here as a door general; pointing at the night-crying ghost, I will not let it go till dawn.” In this we can see traces of the secularization and popularization of the Taoist art of talismans and incantations.

The secularization and popularization of the Taoist art of talismans and incantations is also shown in this: both the making of Taoist talismans and registers and the use of their incantations require a whole set of elaborate rituals and taboos, whereas the making and use of folk talismans and incantations are extremely plain and simple.

For shamans and ordinary people, there is little difference between making crude, ugly divine diagrams and shamanic talismans and making exquisite ones, or between performing mysterious, elaborate rituals and performing plain, simple ones; so long as they have passed through a certain religious ritual (such as sacrifice, burning, or consecration…), they all have the same power. For example, folk drawn talismans that substitute images for real objects are easy to make, easy to use, and easy to carry. The “armored horses” and “paper horses” commonly used among the people are a kind of drawn talisman that can be produced in batches; through them one can communicate with deities who cannot be contacted in the real world.

Some talismans and incantations are public, and anyone may use them. But because talismans and incantations are regarded as sacred language and writing with irresistible magical and ritual power, they are more often secret, mastered only by certain specific people and transmitted secretly only to carefully chosen successors. The main mode of this secret transmission is from master to disciple, and it requires that one “not pass it upward to one's parents, nor downward to one's wife and children.”

The claims of some Taoist priests, shamans, and leaders of popular secret religions that they met extraordinary persons or divine beings, or received the art of talismans and incantations from divine beings in dreams, also fall within master-to-disciple transmission. For once these Taoist priests, shamans, and secret-religion leaders have received the art from so-called extraordinary persons or divine beings, they have also established a master-disciple relationship with them.

Because the art of talismans and incantations has a long history, and because belief in ghosts and spirits was so strong in ancient China, the art not only deeply permeated the daily life of the people but also deeply penetrated the upper spheres. China's ancient religion and folk customs, as well as production, economy, military affairs, and political scheming, were all closely connected with it. In religion, its relationship with Taoism goes without saying; and even the popular secret religions of ancient times, whether to attract followers or to rise in revolt and wage war, all raised the banner of the art of talismans and incantations. The White Lotus Sect, the Eight Trigrams Sect, the Clear Water Sect, the Big Swords Society, the Red Spears Society, and the Boxers were all like this. In revolt and battle, for example, when facing government troops, they often carried vermilion talismans, recited incantations, and charged straight ahead without dodging swords or guns—their actions extremely heroic, yet their end exceedingly tragic.

The art of talismans and incantations is even more inseparable from shamanic culture. It was originally the exclusive province of shamans, their core skill and ultimate trick; no one unversed in the art of talismans and incantations could ever become a shaman. For this very reason, among many peoples the shaman's successor must spend a good deal of time learning to use talismans and incantations before formally becoming a shaman. The art, and especially the incantation, is the core of magical ritual, and reciting incantations became the most important component of every kind of magical ritual. There is no ritual without an incantation, but there are incantations that need no ritual.

The art of talismans and incantations also had a certain influence and role in dynastic politics, becoming a tool used by the feudal ruling class to struggle for power and gain and to consolidate its rule. For example, Emperor Wu of Han, out of superstitious belief in the arts of yansheng (magical suppression, one kind of spell craft), put important ministers of the court and even his own flesh and blood to death on a large scale. Chen Shujian, the fourth son of Emperor Gaozong of Chen in the Southern Dynasties, was discontented with the Last Ruler, Chen Shubao, and “so practiced heterodox arts of magical suppression and bewitchment to seek blessings and help. He carved a wooden figure of a man… and day and night held offering rituals to it under the sun and moon, cursing the sovereign.” Zhu Yuanzhang, Emperor Taizu of Ming, also made use of the art for his own purposes. Before Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself emperor, Zhang Zhengchang, the forty-second Celestial Master, passed to him a numinous talisman inscribed “The heavenly mandate lies with Taizu,” providing propaganda for Zhu Yuanzhang's change of dynasty. Emperor Shizong of Ming was likewise infatuated with the art; during his reign the Taoist priests Shao Yuanjie and Tao Zhongwen won his favor through their skill in magic and incantations. They not only commanded the Taoist temples and managed the affairs of the Taoist order, but rose to the highest ranks among the emperor's subjects, almost to the point of manipulating the emperor and the court.

Of course, the influence and role of the art in politics was much smaller than its influence on folk customs and habits. As the main body of shamanic culture, the art of talismans and incantations has had an extremely great influence on Chinese folk customs and habits. This great influence can be seen in the following respects:

First, folk rituals of inviting the gods and making sacrifices mostly cannot do without the art of talismans and incantations; it is people's most important magic treasure for communicating with and commanding deities.

Second, all other kinds of folk activities, and even daily life, cannot do without it. Among the people, for example, whether curing illness and saving lives, warding off evil and protecting the body, praying for abundant production and harvests, making and accumulating wealth, praying for safety, praying for harmony between husband and wife and between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, securing a pregnancy and protecting the body, or driving plague from the six domestic animals—incantations are used for everything. Even when a child at play cuts his skin on something sharp and bleeds, there is a corresponding incantation to stop the bleeding. The Jade Casket Records (Yuxia Ji) records: “Young children, not yet steady on their feet and fond of play, fall very easily, sometimes breaking the skin so that the blood flows and cannot be stopped. So I sought out one who had a talismanic incantation for stopping bleeding—extremely and miraculously effective—and earnestly begged him to transmit it to benefit the world…” The incantation says: “The sun comes out, a drop of oil; whip of gold in hand, I ride the ox backward; three shouted commands to the long-flowing water; one finger to the red gate, and the blood flows no more.”

The use of talismans and registers, like that of incantations, is likewise extremely widespread; they are used everywhere. When one meets an evil ghost, there are talismans for suppressing, expelling, and warding off evil; for fire there are talismans to stop fire; for floods, talismans to stop water; for illness, talismans to dispel illness; for building a house, divine talismans to protect the dwelling; for nightmares, talismans to suppress nightmares; for a fishbone stuck in the throat, talismans to dissolve the bone; for lawsuits, the Six Geng and Six Xin talismans; and even for the imperial examinations, for traveling far from home, for eating, drinking, and daily living, and even for a wild dog climbing onto the roof or a hen crowing at night—there is a talisman for everything. For instance, scholars dreamed constantly of passing the imperial examinations with high honors, so there was also a talisman for the examinations. This talisman had to be combined with a magical procedure to be effective. The method was to take seven sheng of earth from a bridge and five sheng of red dates, put them in a large porcelain jar, and bury it three chi deep in the ground in front of an image of Confucius. After covering the jar with earth, one also had to place five large stones, each weighing 120 jin, according to the five directions and the five colors, then bury the stones with earth, and after that bury the talisman as well. In addition, one had to make offerings to Confucius and Wenchang on the birthday of Confucius or of Wenchang. It is said that this method could protect the examination candidates of a whole locality and make Confucian learning flourish there.

Third, the people superstitiously believed that the art of talismans and incantations had omnipotent divine power. People believed that talismans and incantations could not only prevent and cure disease, bring the dead back to life, command ghosts and spirits, subdue demons and summon souls, make one invisible and transform, turn misfortune into good fortune, and curse enemies to death, but could also make sand fly and stones roll, stop the wind and the rain, summon rats and drive away mosquitoes, move objects…

3. The Wide Application of the Arts of Talismans and Incantations

The following myths, legends, and epic tales about the marvels of the art of talismans and incantations, widely circulated among the people, reflect precisely the people's superstitious worship of its omnipotent divine power. It is said that in the Han dynasty there was an Immortal Elder named Ge Xiaoxian, a native of Jurong in Danyang. He lost both parents at the age of eight, yet was studious and self-reliant; by 13 he had mastered the Five Classics, the philosophers, the histories, and the commentaries, and was especially fond of reading the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi; by 16 his fame had spread throughout the region east of the Yangtze.

Once, while leafing through the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi, he happened upon a sheet in his father's handwriting. It stirred his longing for his parents, and he felt deeply melancholy. He looked up to heaven and sighed: “The mountains and rivers have not changed their color, yet my stern father has returned to emptiness. There is a way of long life without aging in the world—why not cultivate it?” From then on he went again and again into famous mountains, seeking out extraordinary persons. Later he resolutely put on the robes of a Taoist and entered Mount Tiantai, cultivating the Tao there. On Mount Tiantai he met the Perfected Zuo Ci, who taught him the art of refining qi and preserving the body, the immortal scripture of the Nine Elixirs and the Golden Liquid, and the treatise on response. By the age of 19 his immortal Tao was gradually accomplished, and he roamed mountains and seas, coming and going in an instant. He could divide his form and transform himself, and could also abstain from grain, going more than a year without hunger.

At that time the ruler of Wu, learning that Master Ge was a man who possessed the Tao, held him in great respect and treated him with the courtesies due a guest. One year there was a great drought: the blazing sun hung constantly in the sky, scorching the earth like a ball of fire, and the crops withered. The people burned incense everywhere to pray for rain, yet there was still not a wisp of cloud in the sky. The ruler of Wu asked him: “The people long for rain—can it be brought?”

Master Ge replied: “Easily done.” He at once wrote a talisman and burned it. In a moment the brilliant, scorching sky suddenly grew dark as night; a fierce wind drove raindrops against the rooftops, and then torrential rain poured down from the clouds. The rainwater streamed from the eaves and the treetops and gathered in the central courtyard, where it stood more than a chi deep.

Seeing this, the ruler of Wu exclaimed again and again: “Wonderful! Wonderful! This rain is enough to end the drought.” Then, in high spirits, he asked Master Ge: “Can you make fish appear in the water?” Master Ge smiled and answered: “Naturally.” With that, he drew another talisman and threw it into the water, and at once dozens of large fish appeared, each one or two chi long, swimming back and forth in the water, a delightful sight. The ruler of Wu, half believing and half doubting, ordered them taken out and cooked, and they were indeed real fish.

It is told in the region of the Yuan and Xiang rivers that there is a kind of mountain ghost called the “rampant ghost,” most lustful by nature, which likes to cling to beautiful women. A woman it has attached itself to will often no longer recognize her husband or her parents, laughing and weeping unpredictably and stripping naked at the slightest provocation. The shaman's method for dealing with the rampant ghost is to recite an incantation that transforms him into a woman of peerless beauty, strike all kinds of seductive poses, and form with the hands a mudra symbolizing sexual union. By this act the shaman uses lust to cure lust: the rampant ghost, from craving beauty, comes to be sick of beauty, cannot withstand it, and flees in disarray, and so the illness is cured.

The entry on “Master Cheng” in Hong Mai's Record of the Listener (Yijian Zhi) from the Song dynasty records a story, widely told among the Song-dynasty populace, about the efficacy of the Nezha incantation: Master Cheng of Zhang Village practiced the orthodox method of Mount Mao, curing illness and driving out evil. By local custom, many came to his altar to beseech him, and none failed to obtain results. Zhan Cong, a man of Xinding in a neighboring village, suddenly fell ill and summoned Cheng to save him; he recovered at once. By then it was already dusk, and Cheng wanted to go home. Zhan Cong and his son pressed him hard to stay until dawn, but he would not, and set off. At the end of the first watch he reached Sun Family Ridge. The moonlight was faint, and he came upon a black thing like a bell that emerged from the woods directly in front of him, rolling round and round with a noise, as if it meant to fight him. He hurriedly recited incantations and paced the stars of the Dipper, but it showed no fear at all and gradually pressed close to him. Cheng knew it was a stone sprite, so he held the Nezha Fireball Incantation, formed a hand seal, and shouted: “Divine generals, how can you allow a goblin to dare stand before me? Beat it back at once!” Presently he saw a fireball come out from behind him and strike the black lump. After a long while, with a clanging sound, it burst and vanished, and the fireball, after circling his body several times, also disappeared. At that time Xiang Tong, who lived at the foot of the mountain, and his whole family heard a clamor of gongs and drums on the mountain like the sound of hundreds or thousands of men in battle. He and his sons and nephews looked up from afar and saw only Cheng standing stock-still, holding and reciting, in silence and without any lamp or candle. They went to call him, and only then did he come to. They took him home to stay the night; his mind and strength were then settled, and from that time on he dared not travel at night.

Volume 3 of the Sequel to What Confucius Did Not Speak Of records: A certain Wu of Changzhou, grandfather of the Director in the Ministry of Justice whose name was Yi, had always loved the Tao. On his way home from the capital, at an inn, he met a Taoist priest of extraordinary bearing who carried no luggage and stayed the night. At night Wu peeked at him: he was sitting naked, with qi hissing out of his ears, and mosquitoes dared not come near. In the morning, as he was about to leave, Wu asked where he was going. He said: “I am wandering like the clouds, with no fixed abode.” Wu brought him back south and served him with great reverence. After several years, on his deathbed, the priest gave him two talismans, saying: “I have received your kindness and not yet repaid it. If some day there is trouble, you may use these talismans to suppress it; this is my thanks to you.” Afterward Wu died, and his wife fell gravely ill and lay near death. She repeatedly saw ghosts and sprites, and at night had the maids keep watch around her. There was a servant, always robust, fond of drink and bold, who set up a mat outside the door and had already fallen into a drunken sleep. He dreamed of an old man followed by a boy, each holding a pot and a cup. The old man said to the boy: “He likes wine; let him drink a cup.” The boy placed a cup in the old servant's navel and poured. At first it felt very hot, then unbearable; he woke with a great cry, coughed once, and blood spurted from his mouth all over the ground. From then on the ghosts grew even more rampant. Not long after, as the household was clearing a place to lay the lady's coffin, someone happened to find the Taoist's talismans in a chest and nailed them up on the bed curtain. The lady, who had not spoken for a long time, suddenly exclaimed: “A bright mirror hangs on the curtain, and in it is an armored general wielding a sword and chasing the ghosts; the ghosts have all fled far away.” From then on the lady recovered, and lived more than twenty years before she died. When relatives and friends fell ill and borrowed the talismans to drive out ghosts, it never failed. Before long, however, the talismans were lost.

The Record of the Listener records that a shaman of Liyang could cure fishbones stuck in the throat. In Changcang Village a man named Wei Si choked on a goose bone and had been unable to eat for three days, so he sent his son to the shaman to ask for treatment. The shaman took some ashes from the stove, scattered them on the ground, lit incense, burned paper, and recited incantations to summon the gods; then he used a reed tube as a small plow and drew it through the ashes as if tilling a field. As he worked his magic he kept saying, “This bone is really hard.” After plowing three times, a faint sound was heard in the reed tube; he quickly picked it up and tipped it into a basin of water, and out fell a piece of goose-wing bone. Patients from forty li away heard of it and came, and all were cured just as Wei Si had been.

According to the Unofficial History (Yi Shi), a man named Registrar Li, traveling past Mount Hua with his newly wed wife, went into the temple to burn incense and kowtow to the god of the Western Peak, King Jintian. Unexpectedly, as soon as she had finished kowtowing, his wife collapsed, her breath gone, with only her chest slightly warm. The county magistrate told Registrar Li: “There is an Immortal Master Ye who is skilled in talismanic arts. You should go to him at once; anyone else will hardly be able to revive your wife.” Registrar Li, frantic with worry, went to Immortal Master Ye for help. Immortal Master Ye drew a talisman and burned incense, sprayed water on the talisman from his mouth, and when the talisman had been transformed it flew off northward with a sound like a whirlwind; but for a long time nothing happened. Immortal Master Ye drew another talisman, sprayed water on it and shouted at it, with a sound like a thunderclap. After a while breath came from Li's wife's mouth and nose, and she slowly opened her eyes. When Registrar Li asked her what had happened, she said that when she first bowed to King Jintian, King Jintian called her “a fine lady”; when she bowed again, King Jintian said he would “keep her,” and sent his attendants to take her away. On the third day, as King Jintian's family and friends were gathered in his house, suddenly someone knocked at the gate, and King Jintian ordered the visitor driven away. A little later there was a great uproar at the gate, and King Jintian again ordered the troublemakers driven away. Shortly after, a red dragon flew in through the air and seized King Jintian by the throat. King Jintian, helpless, said “Send her back,” and someone escorted her home.

Most of the books of the Tibetan epic King Gesar describe wars between the Kingdom of Ling and other kingdoms. When both sides deploy their troops, casting spells with incantations often plays a marvelous role in battle. For example, in the book Mugu Luozong, Gesar's uncle Chaotong used divine transformation magic to make a crystal airship topped with invisibility wood, and then, with Zhala leading a hundred horsemen, flew the airship over the fortress where the Mugu army was encamped to reconnoiter. The people on the airship could not make out the terrain below, so Chaotong recited an incantation that makes the eyes bright, and then they could see the rivers, cities, and villages below with perfect clarity. In the fighting, King Ting of the Ling side, Daguo E'zan, was gravely wounded by Longjun, a general of the Mu side, and his life hung by a thread; Chaotong worked his magic and recited secret incantations, and King Ting's wounds quickly improved. When other warriors of the Ling army were wounded, Chaotong treated them in the same way, always with miraculous effect. In this war between Mu and Ling, because Chaotong used magic and secret incantations to scout out the enemy's situation and healed the wounded officers and soldiers of the Ling army, the Ling army quickly won with fewer casualties; he thus earned battle merit and was rewarded. As the epic says, Chaotong was a sorcerer of formidable spell-power, one who “has magic in his body and great power of incantation; when he shouts ‘Hum,’ the enemy dies; when he shouts ‘Pei,’ the enemy falls.” He obtained his spell craft because Tonpa Shenrab, the Patriarch of the Bon religion, transmitted the secrets of the shamanic religion to him; thus he could summon wind and call down rain, bring thunder and hail, make himself invisible and transform, come and go without a trace, and curse the demons of disease and overcome wounds. In him we see the ancient Tibetans' worship of the divine power of secret incantations.

The art of talismans and incantations not only influenced every aspect of ancient Chinese society; even today, in many remote and backward areas of China, it still powerfully shapes the cultural psychology of the people. Superstitious practices such as drawing talismans, reciting incantations, and curing illness with talisman water still exist to varying degrees in the vast countryside today, and in a few areas are even intensifying.

In many villages and towns one can see households that have pasted over the gate or on the roof beam a slip reading “Jiang Taigong is here—no taboos apply,” or a picture of “Mount Tai's Stone That Dares to Resist”; these are talismans and incantations. When someone has a headache and fever or develops sores and boils, they find a person to draw circles and dots on the painful spot with a finger or recite a few lines of a formula, believing this will cure the ailment. Others believe that curses and magical suppression can make their enemies suffer disaster and hardship, so that when an enemy finds out, there is a shrewish scene of cursing in the street. Incidents of magical duels fought with talismans and incantations also keep occurring, and this superstition exists even in the cities.

According to a report in the Jiefang Daily of October 1, 1981, two families in Shanghai engaged in a so-called “ingenious superstitious magical duel” with each other; both families believed they could subdue the other with talismans and incantations. According to the book Gods and Demons: A Wide-Ranging Discussion of Qigong and Its Pitfalls, the young Hangzhou qigong master Yuan Hongxu fell out with another qigong master, A, who several times brought people to his home to intimidate him, saying that Yuan's body was full of ghostly qi and black smoke was rising from the top of his head, and that they would help his family catch the ghost. At the time Yuan's mother and wife both asked A to leave, but A and the others flatly refused to go. Yuan angrily pointed out that this was trespassing and said he would go to the police station; only then did A leave.

Afterward, A had a female disciple telephone Yuan with a challenge, insisting that Yuan had emitted qi at A so that he could not sleep all night, and saying that the two of them were as incompatible as fire and water and must fight a magical duel. Yuan replied: “I have nothing more to do with you people—why fight a duel?” The female disciple said: “No, we must fight. Tomorrow night from half past nine to half past ten, each side will fight the duel in its own home, and no one is responsible for death or injury.”

The duel began. At A's home, A and two disciples emitted qi and recited incantations beside a bagua furnace, while continually burning slips of paper bearing the three characters of Yuan Hongxu's name in the furnace. After a while, A said: “He is about to fall.”

At Yuan's home, Yuan asked his family to go into another room, then dragged a spittoon out from under the bed to “take up the challenge”; two curious people from Yuan's work unit came to watch. Suddenly Yuan made a hand gesture and said: “Whatever comes in, throw it all into the spittoon and pour it down the toilet.”

The time was up, and Yuan was safe and sound. But A, unable to bring Yuan down, became so furious that he injured himself and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance—perhaps he really believed that Yuan's magic was too powerful…”

From the above account we can see that the art of talismans and incantations has played an extremely important role, whether in every aspect of ancient Chinese society or in certain aspects of contemporary Chinese society.