Revealing Secrets: Talismans, Healthcare and the Market of the Occult in Early Twentieth-century China - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2021 Jun 8;34(4):1068-1093.

doi: 10.1093/shm/hkab035. eCollection 2021 Nov.

Affiliations

Revealing Secrets: Talismans, Healthcare and the Market of the Occult in Early Twentieth-century China

Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueira. Soc Hist Med. 2021.

Abstract

This article analyses the place and value of occult arts in the healthcare market of Republican China (1912-1949). Medical historiography has long neglected the resilience of such occult arts as talismans, astrology and divination in the context of China's search for modernity. Focusing on the production, trade, and consumption of goods and services related to talismanic healing, I give voice to Chinese occultists by investigating the formation of a 'market of the occult' in the Republican era. I adopt a global perspective to clarify the changes that occult healing underwent following the popularisation of new printing technologies, mass media and transnational spiritualism in early twentieth-century China. Erstwhile embraced in secrecy, the occult was now being made public. Cheap manuals, wide-circulation newspapers and book catalogues reveal that in contrast to past studies that herald the disenchantment of the world as the hallmark of Chinese modernity, occult healing did not simply survive but thrived in the face of modern science and technology.

Keywords: Chinese medicine; modern China; occult; magic; spiritualism.

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine.

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Figures

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Example of three sets of three ‘secret characters’ for (from right to left) breast boils, snake bites and dog bites. The first set (right) must be burned to ashes and ingested with wine. The second set (middle) should be pasted onto the injured area, burned to ashes and then taken with realgar wine. The third set (left) can be pasted onto the injured area or ingested, and if the victim is a child, it is effective to carry it along with him or her for prevention. Extracted from Yu Zhefu, Compendium of Secret Talismans, 1922, II, 22

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.

Example of an ‘elaborated talisman’ for red eyes. The talisman, which should be burned to ashes, mixed with water and used to wash the eyes, is accompanied by a verbal spell for activation. Extracted from Yu Zhefu, Compendium of Secret Talismans, 1922, II, 30

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.

Eight ‘elaborated talismans’ for inducing hypnosis. Extracted from Huang Feng, Collection of Global Hypnosis, 1940, 24–25

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