THE Chinaman, though perhaps the most materialistic of Easterners, is no exception to his neighbours in the large place which the occult takes in his outlook. For him, the physical world is peopled with spirits good and evil, capable of exercising the most far-reaching influences on the fortunes of men. These spiritual beings are bound up in the forces of nature, and combine to constitute that geomantic system known by the Chinese as Feng-shui (wind and water), by reference to which, matters of human life, inasmuch as they are designed to court the good influences and avoid those which are inauspicious to the man, the time, and the place, are decided.
The Chinaman can never experience the feeling of complete solitude which the Westerner knows in wild and lonely places; for him the hillside, the ravine, and the mountain gorge are peopled with presences best described as fairies, though in nothing resembling the light-hearted beings which this description generally conveys to the Western mind. To him they present the appearance of aged, venerable beings, short of stature, with white beards. Country, town, and human habitations are alike haunted by psychic beings whose condition cannot be exactly expressed by the word spirit, neither form of Chinese belief admitting of the conception of a pure spirit without matter.
These beings may be grouped into three classes. Gwei is the term most constantly used by the common people to indicate the being whose influence is feared by all, and who receives from every family some measure of propitiatory sacrifice. We read in the li chao chuan,[6] or Divine Panorama, that "every living being, no matter whether it be a man or an animal, a bird or a quadruped, a gnat or a midge, a worm or an insect, having legs or not, few or many, all are called gwei after death."
Apart from these are the shen, which have been defined as émanations de la nature personnifiées, not, as the gwei, spirits of the dead, but an emanation of nature clothed with a personality. They possess varying degrees of intelligence and power. Their interest is not only in the affairs of men, to the knowledge of which they have access, but also in the secret springs of human action. They reside in man as well as amongst men, and witness to his good or evil works before the tribunal of heaven. The classics of Chinese literature, recognising this, urge upon readers the duty of decorum, purity, and care even when unseen by human eyes and according to the teachings of Confucius; one of the characteristics of the Princely Man is the discipline he will exercise upon himself when alone.
Other spiritual beings are those who, by their ascetic practices, have attained to a life higher than that of humanity; it will endure through many centuries, and they are free to live in the pleasant places of the earth with considerable licence to enjoy good things, yet free from the material claims which govern human life. These are known by the term hsien, and are referred to above as fairies. Each and all of these beings touch the destinies of man at various points.
It is, however, in the important events of life—birth, marriage, and death—that the interference of the spirits is strongest, and such occasions are used by the sorcerer as a means of extorting money from his unfortunate victim. In the Divine Panorama, we read that: "It is not uncommon at the time of reincarnation to see women asking to be allowed to avenge themselves in the form of gwei before being changed into men. On their case being examined, it is found as young women they have been seduced or have been betrayed in other ways, such as the husband refusing after marriage to fulfil his promise to support the girl's parents, and in consequence of her disgrace the woman has committed suicide." From that moment terror has dogged the steps of her husband, and he has gone in hourly fear of sickness, accident, or sudden death. If he be a student, the day of examination presents terrors calculated to ensure failure, for he knows that the gwei has power to hold his mind in subjection so that he cannot write his competitive essay. The only hope he has of release is the taking of a vow, whereby he undertakes to study and make known The Divine Panorama or precious record transmitted to men to move them, being a record of examples published by the mercy of Yu Di, that men and women living in this world may repent them of their faults, and make atonement for their sins. The punishments described include all the most painful tortures of which Chinese ingenuity can conceive. Truly, idols are the work of man's hands, and they that make them are like unto them!
Sculptural art also has left nothing undone to represent the god as animated by the worst passions of man, but skill and ingenuity must inevitably stop short of the final act necessary to convince man that communication is possible between him and the spirit world. In order to bridge this chasm a class of men and women called sorcerers (mo-han and sheng-po) has come into being, whose work it is to be the spokesmen of the gods. With deliberate intent and elaborate ritual they develop the mediumistic gift, and learn how to attain conditions of frenzy and of trance during which period the body is controlled by a spiritualistic force. Not only as the medium of the gods, but also as a resting-place for longer or shorter periods to the homeless, unclean spirit, do these sorcerers serve. At tremendous physical cost—for the medium is never long-lived—they accumulate great wealth, exorbitant sums being demanded in recognition of services rendered when freeing a family or village from the visitations of a tormenting gwei. When sickness enters his home, the Chinaman's instinct is to attribute it to any cause rather than a natural one; his appeal on such occasions is to the sorcerer whose time is largely occupied in giving what is called medical advice, but is in reality the practising of the rites of exorcism. Sometimes he will declare that the spirit of a sick person has strayed from the body, and means will be set on foot to secure its return. A woman I know, whose boy had apparently died from typhoid fever, was told that his spirit had been enticed away by a god whose shrine was built on the mountain side near the city where she lived. She took the child's coat and walked to the temple; here, standing before the idol, she burned incense and begged that the boy's spirit might be restored to her. Holding the child's coat open to receive it, she swayed to and fro, and with heart-rending cries besought it to return. She waited until she felt her request had been granted, and with a movement as though to enfold the little wandering ghost, she clasped the coat in her arms and swiftly returning home, laid it upon the lifeless body. The child revived, and is alive to this day.
Frequently, after supplication to the gods, the clothes of the patient are carefully weighed; a procession is then formed in which one of the sorcerers holds a mirror directed backwards, others, wearing scarlet aprons, carry brooms and with slow and mystic movements sweep widely on either side with the intent of gathering up the wandering soul. Meanwhile crackers are fired to the weird sound of a minor, falsetto lilting. After a considerable journey over the countryside they return to prove the success of their venture. For this the clothes of the sick man must be reweighed to see whether the weight of the spirit has been added to that of the patient's garments. Should the smallest discrepancy be detected all is well, and after feasting and opium the mo-han pockets his fee and departs, frequently leaving a prescription behind him, the results of which may be more or less harmful. Whatever the result, nothing will shake the faith of the people in these degraded villains, for they can, by threatening to call in the intervention of the gods on their behalf strike terror to the heart of any man, and once having sought aid of the sorcerer, the family is pitiable indeed.
In a case which came under my personal observation, the spirit of a young woman from a village at some distance from the one in which I was staying, who had recently died in childbirth, was said to have returned, having found herself in difficulties in the spirit world for lack of means to defray the necessary expenses. Illness became so prevalent that necromancers were called in and agreed that a medium must be employed. The spirit made its requirements known, and by promising the sacrifices ordained, the family passed under a bondage from which none dared to emancipate himself by omitting the prescribed rites. Night after night, at the medium's command a table was spread at the cross-roads, on which were laid the fantastic foods suitable to the requirements of the departed spirit. Gold and silver paper money was plentifully burned, crackers were fired, and following the medium, a party of men left to place earthen bowls containing grains at various corners of the roads.
Nothing but the deliverance of Christianity, or a daring known to few, can set free those who have been entangled in such practices.