This book offers the first comprehensive overview of the history of one of the most fascinating forms of communication between gods and humans in Chinese culture: spirit-writing. It showcases the many ways in which this practice shaped Chinese religion, literature and society during the last millennium.

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