Download or read book Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic written by Florian C. Reiter and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 2007 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic presents most basic concepts and practices of Thunder Magic (Wu-lei fa). In the Song period (12th ct.) Wu-lei fa was a label given to a vast section of specialised ritual practices in religious Taoism. These rituals incorporated and continued older exorcist ways and means that were part of the practical range of religious Taoisms, meeting the demands of an agrarian society that suffered from natural disasters (for example droughts and inundations). Thunder specialist were asked to pray for rain or clear skies, disperse demoniac molestations and ensure a harmonious life. The book is largely based on materials attributed to the school of Wang Wen-ch'ing who was a famous promoter of Wu-lei fa at the court of emperor Sung Hui-tsung. Wang Wen-ch' ing and his followers succeeded in combining the southern traditions of internal alchemy (nei-tan) with exorcist practices. These Taoists also attempted to work out and describe the scientific foundation of Thunder Magic rituals (Wu-lei fa) in terms of astronomy and other emblematic expressions. The theoretical and actual sublimation of exorcist practices was in tune with scholarly tendencies and standards of the time. It was also an attempt to gain or bolster official acceptance.
Download or read book The Tao of Craft written by Benebell Wen and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in English, Benebell Wen reveals the rich history and theoretical principles underlying the ancient practice of crafting Fu talismans, or magical sigils, in the Chinese Taoist tradition and gives detailed instructions for modern practitioners who would like to craft their own Fu. Fu talismans are ideograms and writings typically rendered on paper and empowered by means of invocations, ritual, and transferences of energy, or Qi. Talismans can be used for many purposes, such as strengthening or weakening personality characteristics, finding love, earning more money, or easing emotional tensions in the home. The Tao of Craft shows how metaphysical energy can be harnessed to amplify, strengthen, weaken, dispel, or block other metaphysical energy and to rectify perceived imbalances in the material plane. Supported by an abundance of detailed charts and images, this book serves as a step-by-step handbook that gives readers the knowledge and confidence to craft their own Fu talismans for personal empowerment. Wen, author of Holistic Tarot, delves into historic and cultural contexts of the Fu, from the neolithic period of Chinese history to contemporary practices of esoteric Taoism. Providing a solid foundation in the principles of Eastern spellcrafting, she highlights the blending of Taoist metaphysical practices with Western approaches to magic by pointing out eclectic, integrating, and harmonizing facets from other cultures and religions. Historically, Fu talismans were used by medieval Chinese for alleviating illness; averting misfortune, magical attacks, and curses; defending against assaults; and avoiding poverty. This book shows Western practitioners that the skill and knowledge to develop an interactive relationship with spirit realms are still available to them today, and serves as a practical handbook for accumulating Qi energy from sources in the environment and channeling it in concentrated form into their own Fu talismans.
Download or read book A Tract for the Buryats written by Charles R. Bawden and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 2009 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: F. Babinger, biographer of Isaak Jakob Schmidt (1779-1847), the founder of Mongolian Studies, lists "Two Little Christian Tracts" among his early publications in Mongolian; no later Mongolist apparently ever saw or described this booklet published in 1818. A probably unique copy came to light in the Library of the German Oriental Society and was transcribed and translated by Charles Bawden who is known for his careful studies of Christian missions among the Mongols. The printed text is given in facsimile. A detailed commentary analyzes the text and traces the inconsistent Christian terminology which was apparently still in an experimental stage. Schmidt's Mongolian assistants, Badma and Nomtu, were probably mainly responsible for the translation. A preface informs about the versatile printer N. Grec while an appendix gives mission reports and a related Mongolian correspondence in contemporary German paraphrase.
Download or read book Demonic Warfare written by Mark R. E. Meulenbeld and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-01-31 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revealing the fundamental continuities that exist between vernacular fiction and exorcist, martial rituals in the vernacular language, Mark Meulenbeld argues that a specific type of Daoist exorcism helped shape vernacular novels in the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Focusing on the once famous novel Fengshen yanyi ("Canonization of the Gods"), the author maps out the general ritual structure and divine protagonists that it borrows from much older systems of Daoist exorcism. By exploring how the novel reflects the specific concerns of communities associated with Fengshen yanyi and its ideology, Meulenbeld is able to reconstruct the cultural sphere in which Daoist exorcist rituals informed late imperial "novels." He first looks at temple networks and their religious festivals. Organized by local communities for territorial protection, these networks featured martial narratives about the powerful and heroic deeds of the gods. He then shows that it is by means of dramatic practices like ritual, theatre, and temple processions that divine acts were embodied and brought to life. Much attention is given to local militias who embodied "demon soldiers" as part of their defensive strategies. Various Ming emperors actively sought the support of these local religious networks and even continued to invite Daoist ritualists so as to efficiently marshal the forces of local gods with their local demon soldiers into the official, imperial reserves of military power. This unusual book establishes once and for all the importance of understanding the idealized realities of literary texts within a larger context of cultural practice and socio-political history. Of particular importance is the ongoing dialog with religious ideology that informs these different discourses. Meulenbeld's book makes a convincing case for the need to debunk the retrospective reading of China through the modern, secular Western categories of "literature," "society," and "politics." He shows that this disregard of religious dynamics has distorted our understanding of China and that "religion" cannot be conveniently isolated from scholarly analysis.
Download or read book Daoist Ritual State Religion and Popular Practices written by Shin-Yi Chao and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zhenwu, or the Perfected Warrior, is one of the few Chinese Deities that can rightfully claim a countrywide devotion. Religious specialists, lay devotees, the state machine, and the cultural industry all participated, both collaboratively and competitively, in the evolution of this devotional movement. This book centres on the development and transformation of the godhead of Zhenwu, as well as the devotional movement focused on him. Organised chronologically on the development of the Zhenwu worship in Daoist rituals, state religion, and popular practices, it looks at the changes in the way Zhenwu was perceived, and the historical context in which those changes took place. The author investigates the complicated means by which various social and political groups contested with each other in appropriating cultural-religious symbols. The question at the core of the book is how, in a given historical context, human agents and social institutions shape the religious world to which they profess devotion. The work offers a holistic approach to religion in a period of Chinese history when central, local, official, clerical and popular power are constantly negotiating and reshaping established values.
Download or read book The Heavenly Court written by Lennert Gesterkamp and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-03-21 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most magnificent and enduring themes in Chinese painting history can be found depicted in Daoist temples from the local village up to the very capital, viz., the paintings of the Heavenly Court (chaoyuan tu). Surprisingly, its images have remained largely unstudied in Western scholarship. Drawing on a comparative study of four complete sets of wall paintings dating back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (the oldest examples), and their related images, painting criticism, stele inscriptions, and Daoist ritual manuals, the author offers the first comprehensive study of the historical development, iconography, ritual context, methods of mural design, and the personalisations made by patrons of the four Heavenly Court paintings.
Download or read book Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia written by Charles Orzech and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011 with total page 1223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, the result of an international collaboration of forty scholars, provides a comprehensive resource on Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in their Chinese, Korean, and Japanese contexts from the first few centuries of the common era to the present.
Download or read book Lineages Embedded in Temple Networks written by Richard G. Wang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lineages Embedded in Temple Networks explores the key role played by elite Daoists in social and cultural life in Ming China, notably by mediating between local networks—biological lineages, territorial communities, temples, and festivals—and the state. They did this through their organization in clerical lineages—their own empire-wide networks for channeling knowledge, patronage, and resources—and by controlling central temples that were nodes of local social structures. In this book, the only comprehensive social history of local Daoism during the Ming largely based on literary sources and fieldwork, Richard G. Wang delineates the interface between local organizations (such as lineages and temple networks) and central state institutions. The first part provides the framework for viewing Daoism as a social institution in regard to both its religious lineages and its service to the state in the bureaucratic apparatus to implement state orthodoxy. The second part follows four cases to reveal the connections between clerical lineages and local networks. Wang illustrates how Daoism claimed a universal ideology and civilizing force that mediated between local organizations and central state institutions, which in turn brought meaning and legitimacy to both local society and the state.
Download or read book Health Care in Eleventh Century China written by Nathan Sivin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-04 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By examining all the prevalent varieties of therapy from self-care to religious ritual, this book explores health care practices in China, before modern times. In ancient China most people were unable to afford a doctor, even in the unlikely case that one lived near their village and was willing to treat peasants. What did they do when their children got sick? The answer is to be found in this book, which goes far beyond the history of medicine. The author uses methods of medical anthropology to explain the curative roles of popular religion, Daoism, Buddhism and the therapeutic rites performed by imperial officials. Readers will discover the steady interaction of religious healing and classical medicine in this culture. This highly readable book builds on over forty years of study and analysis of early liturgical and medical writings and a wide variety of other sources. Its focus on the eleventh century throws new light on a period of rapid transition in many aspects of therapy and it will appeal to scholars and general readers alike.
Download or read book Th e Empress and the Heavenly Masters written by Luk Yuping and published by The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. This book was released on 2016-02-16 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over twentyseven meters long, the Ordination Scroll of Empress Zhang (1493) is an important Ming Dynasty Daoist artifact from the San Diego Museum of Art's collection that records the imperial ordination of Empress Zhang (1470–1541), consort of the Ming Dynasty Hongzhi emperor (r. 1488–1505), by Zhang Xuanqing (d. 1509), the fortyseventh Heavenly Master of the Zhengyi institution. This book uncovers the history of imperial ordinations through a detailed examination of the scroll's transcriptions and the meticulouslypainted images of celestial beings, as well as the influences of the Daoist leaders known as the Zhengyi Heavenly Masters.
Download or read book written by 程乐松著 and published by BEIJING BOOK CO. INC.. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 575 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 本书从观念史的视角入手，聚焦于神秘主义、身体、不死这三个核心概念，从中国传统思想观念及生活世界出发，诠释了道教在中国人的日常及信仰生活中的角色及其背后的理路。这种“同情理解”的研究视野有助于弥合历史与信仰之间的巨大鸿沟。
Download or read book Communicating with the Gods written by Matthias Schumann and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-10-09 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few religious innovations have shaped Chinese history like the emergence of spirit-writing during the Song dynasty. From a divinatory technique it evolved into a complex ritual practice used to transmit messages and revelations from the Gods. This resulted in the production of countless religious scriptures that now form an essential corpus, widely venerated and recited to this day, that is still largely untapped by research. Using historical and ethnographic approaches, this volume for the first time offers a comprehensive overview of the history of spirit-writing, examining its evolution over a millennium, the practices and technologies used, and the communities involved.
Download or read book Journal of Chinese Religions written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Picturing the True Form written by Shih-shan Susan Huang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Picturing the True Form investigates the long-neglected visual culture of Daoism, China’s primary indigenous religion, from the tenth through thirteenth centuries with references to both earlier and later times. In this richly illustrated book, Shih-shan Susan Huang provides a comprehensive mapping of Daoist images in various media, including Dunhuang manuscripts, funerary artifacts, and paintings, as well as other charts, illustrations, and talismans preserved in the fifteenth-century Daoist Canon. True form (zhenxing), the key concept behind Daoist visuality, is not static, but entails an active journey of seeing underlying and secret phenomena.This book’s structure mirrors the two-part Daoist journey from inner to outer. Part I focuses on inner images associated with meditation and visualization practices for self-cultivation and longevity. Part II investigates the visual and material dimensions of Daoist ritual. Interwoven through these discussions is the idea that the inner and outer mirror each other and the boundary demarcating the two is fluid. Huang also reveals three central modes of Daoist symbolism—aniconic, immaterial, and ephemeral—and shows how Daoist image-making goes beyond the traditional dichotomy of text and image to incorporate writings in image design. It is these particular features that distinguish Daoist visual culture from its Buddhist counterpart."
Download or read book Man Nature and the Infinite written by Florian C. Reiter and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Florian C. Reiter's new book offers a selection of representative source materials concerning Taoist Thunder Magic rituals, starting out with considerations about the pantheon of divine forces in such rituals. The translation of three chapters from A Corpus of Taoist Rituals (90-92) in the Taoist Canon (Cheng-t'ung tao-tsang) offers information about the character, the intent and practical structure of Taoist Thunder rituals, which are assessed to show the perceived connection between man, nature and the infinite, and finally the Taoist understanding of the unity of Thunder rituals. The unity of Thunder rituals was studied in depth by the Taoist Chang Shan-yuan whose Comprehensive Discussion of All Rituals is contained in the Canon and presented in translation in this book. Tabular surveys on the divine names in chapters 90-92, on amulets, spells and practical applications serve to illustrate the scope and workings of Thunder rituals in Heavenly Master Taoism that were documented in the 14th/15th centuries. Thus this volume continues and extends the scope of Reiter's studies in Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic (AKM 61).
Download or read book Weather Religion and Climate Change written by Sigurd Bergmann and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-13 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weather, Religion and Climate Change is the first in-depth exploration of the fascinating way in which the weather impacts on the fields of religion, art, culture, history, science, and architecture. In critical dialogue with meteorology and climate science, this book takes the reader beyond the limits of contemporary thinking about the Anthropocene and explores whether a deeper awareness of weather might impact on the relationship between nature and self. Drawing on a wide range of examples, including paintings by J.M.W. Turner, medieval sacred architecture, and Aristotle’s classical Meteorologica, Bergmann examines a geographically and historically wide range of cultural practices, religious practices, and worldviews in which weather appears as a central, sacred force of life. He also examines the history of scientific meteorology and its ambivalent commodification today, as well as medieval "weather witchery" and biblical perceptions of weather as a kind of "barometer" of God’s love. Overall, this volume explores the notion that a new awareness of weather and its atmospheres can serve as a deep cultural and spiritual driving force that can overcome the limits of the Anthropocene and open a new path to the "Ecocene", the age of nature. Drawing on methodologies from religious studies, cultural studies, art history and architecture, philosophy, environmental ethics and aesthetics, history, and theology, this book will be of great interest to all those concerned with studying the environment from a transdisciplinary perspective on weather and wisdom.
Download or read book Scriptures Schools and Forms of Practice in Daoism written by Poul Andersen and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 2005 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents I. Daoist Scripture and Practice in Comparative Perspective A. Feldtkeller, Scriptures, Forms of Practice, and Comparative Religion P. Andersen, Scriptural Traditions West and East: Foundation of Belief vs. Frameworks for the Transmission of Methods S.R. Bokenkamp, Sackcloth and Ashes: Self and Family in the Tutan zhai J. Lagerwey, Scriptures are the Dregs of the Men of Old: Scripture and Practice in Comparative Perspective E.L. Davis, Daoist Scripture in Comparative Perspective: A Commentary on J. Lagerwey and P. Andersen II. Daoist Scripture and Practice Past and Present F.C. Reiter, The Name of the Nameless and Thunder Magic P. Nickerson, Attacking the Fortress: Prolegomenon to the Study of Ritual Efficacy in Vernacular Daoism Liu Yi, Research into the Catalogue of the Daozang of the Early Tang Dynasty: Based on Nanzhu guan ji and the Daoist Scriptures of Dunhuang Wang Zongyu, Historical Materials for the Quanzhen Daoism in the Wuxing Area V. Olles, Stars and Legends: Some Observations about Sacred Space in Daoism.
