Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic

by Florian C. Reiter

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.

Genres: Taoism

135 pages

First published August 30, 2007

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is mainly a translation of two quite different texts on Taoist thunder magic from the 14th century. They are attributed to the Taoist Wang Wen-Ch'ing (1093-1153)a court Taoist. This book is pretty much a straight translation, all the analysis of the text are found in a seperate article (Which i don't have access to via City). But thankfully SOAS does have 3 other books by him (ok SOAS has 10 other books but the rest are in German) so I'm looking forward to reading those. But this book was really great. It was very interesting as the rituals in the first half of the book were a completely different style, and belonged to a completely different "school" than the rituals in the second half. The first half focused almost entirely on inner alchemy and it's uses for calling rain and performing Thunder rituals. It was much more esoteric and much more digusting, the physical components including peeing and shoving things up your nostrils. The secound half of the book looked at much more traditional Taoist approaches involving writing registers, amulets and other magical proscriptions. Interestingly enough they also included blood sacrifices (quite rare in Taoism) though it was said to do these rituals sparingly. I am interested to see how what is normally considered to be two quite different parts of Taoism can come from the same practitioner. For me the secound half was the most interesting. Some of the rituals and the descriptions sounded more like stories, summoning generals, using them to fight dragons or demons, and then sending your spirit helpers home. You could easily picture it in a Hurak film. There were interesting discussions on different hells and positions of different generals that could be summoned. I have only a few minor complaints about this book. It wasn't clearly defined where the texts ended and Reiter's commentary began and this made it confussing in several places. It was also a little difficult to figure out where the original sources of the translations were taken from in the first part of the text. In the secound half several amulets were discussed, unfortunately pictures of these were not included which was a shame. Apart from that this was a very interesting book, a nice translation of 12th century magical texts that are not likely to be found easily elsewhere.

[Daniel Burton-Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Usually I like translation heavy works, but with this one I could have used more historical context and analysis.