Making the Gods Speak

The Ritual Production of Revelation in Chinese Religious History
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-0-674-27094-7
Verlag: Harvard University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 131, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 618 g

Reihe: Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series

For two millennia, Chinese society has been producing divine revelations on an unparalleled scale, in multifarious genres and formats. This book is the first comprehensive attempt at accounting for the processes of such production. It builds a typology of the various ritual techniques used to make gods present and allow them to speak or write, and it follows the historical development of these types and the revealed teachings they made possible. Within the large array of visionary, mediumistic, and mystical techniques, Vincent Goossaert devotes the bulk of his analysis to spirit-writing, a family of rites that appeared around the eleventh century and gradually came to account for the largest numbers of books and tracts ascribed to the gods. In doing so, he shows that the practice of spirit-writing must be placed within the framework of techniques used by ritual specialists to control human communications with gods and spirits for healing, divining, and self-divinization, among other purposes. Making the Gods Speak thus offers a ritual-centered framework to study revelation in Chinese cultural history and comparatively with the revelatory practices of other religious traditions.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Goossaert, Vincent

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Östliche Religionen Taoismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Goossaert, Vincent
Vincent Goossaert is Research Professor in the Religious Studies Department at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.