According to the feedback, I have adjusted it to the Chinese version only, and the Chinese version will be modified later. The English version will only write outlines until I have the ability to explain the whole article in English. Thank you.

中文版本(Chinese version

那就先从“巫”开始。

中国古代的“巫“一直和“胡巫”(北方草原地区的巫)有很大关系,经常听到的“萨满”实际上只是“胡巫”的一种。

先说萨满,萨满是由俄语saman转音译过来的,来源是西伯利亚。据说是通古斯语族的基,本意是激动不安和疯狂的人,传统萨满形象也多是身体残疾,精神错乱或者大病不死许愿当巫的人,其中以女性尤其多;其降神手段是舞,也就是俗话说的跳大神。他们往往集医ト星相各种术为一身,用以满足民间的各种需要。汉语地区熟知这个词是宋代以来,年代较晚。不过西方熟知这个词也是在俄国占领西伯利亚之后,年代更晚。

而中国古文献中的巫是与“祝宗卜史”类似的神媒,合称都叫巫,细分的话女性叫巫,男性就叫残,这些在很多著名或者不著名的古书中都有提到。例如《左传》中的信公二十一年“焚巫尪“就是其一,商代时《山海经》也有所谓“六巫“和”十巫”。

这些人以舞降神,多为女性,多为残疾人,多有较为癫狂的精神状态,多被视为无所不知智能超常,这些点和萨十分相似,其类似特征也多见于其他地区的巫。

常听说“巫即萨满”,实际上并不尽然,这个说法还没有被证实。

萨满也本来只是个比较狭窄的概念(通古斯民族的概念),现在被泛化(用指亚美地区或更大范围的宗教传统),几乎等同早期宗教的代名词,所以说它和巫在周秦汉时期的实际地位是有一定出入的。

在西方的汉学研究中,巫之所以引人注目,原因是它同中国宗教/科学背景有关,这样的背景对理解中国文化以及在世界历史上的地位很重要。

西方汉学家习惯的看法是,对任何文化来说宗教统治都必不可少,要么“王”之上祭司僧侣之流,要么“王”本身就是祭司僧侣,早期文化更是如此。而甲骨文作为中国最早的文字材料又正好支持了这个想法,虽然事实上并不是这样。但很恰巧的,甲骨文的发现正好是在中国学术“现代化”的关口,很多学者都把这类材料直截了当的看作商代的史料,而且是唯一的史料。

于是就出现了“商代历史的内容主要是占卜,而且商王本人都参与占卜,商代是个由巫统治的时代。过去某甲骨文专家曾提出“商王为群巫之长”一说在西方学术界很受欢迎,原因就在 这里。

对于判断巫在中国早期历史上的地位,“祝宗卜史”的出现很关键,这四个字分别有各自的意义,祝管祭祀,宗管世系,卜管占卜,史管记事,分工的很明确。虽然按理来讲(中国词汇中常把巫和这几个字联系起来,例如巫祝)祝宗卜史可能来源于巫,但巫的其中一个特点是服务范围较狭小,职能技巧缺乏分化(祭祀占卜不分就算了,数术方技也不分),更倾向于民间;而祝宗卜史则是偏向于王宫,分工细而覆盖广,因此能猜想祝宗卜史一旦出现,巫的作用就完全不同,地位必然下降。

巫自商代以来地位比较低,这从几点可以看出。一是他们常常被用作牺牲,或者被人用水火(焚烧或者淹死),二是他们地位不仅在王之下,在祝宗卜史之下,还被中国官僚知识界(士大夫)所贱视,地位每工匠,商置一类相近,是禁止做官的,重是古代法律也参以巫术(尤其想黑巫术)为旁门左道,往住因为其对民众有息响塘事力而深感恐惧,必想要加以禁止或者限定。与印度代表神权统治的第一种姓婆罗门的地位有很大区别。

由此可以说中国历史上一直有巫和品的影响存在,但这种影响从很早就被限制,不再具有支配地位。

此外关于甲骨文,可能是因为初中历史只需要了解大概,并没有着重提到古代文字多种多样,甲骨文也只是其中一种,只是当时王室占卜的流水帐。 古时礼仪中也包含有这类东西,中国人对天地君亲师的崇拜是来源于早期对天地祖的崇拜,天地祖崇拜当然涉及天人关系。这里就简单讲,从总的趋势来看,中国人不但离“天”越来越远(敬而远之),而且“祖”的概念也日益分化,逐渐让位于君(国家)亲(伦常)师(知识),有点日益政治化的味道。

既然要对神灵进行祭拜,祠嗣一类也是必不可少。但中国早期的祭祀遗址、史籍缺略,很难详考,只有《史记》封禅书和《汉书》郊祀志有专门讲过一些可以作为线索,以王莽为分界线,可以把祠的规制历史分为前半期和后半期,因为各个人物时代立的祠太多而且对这个主題没什么太大关系所以就不详述了。(?)

以及提到神就不得不提到中国古代对“太一”的崇拜。太一崇拜在古代神衹崇拜和宗教仪式中地位很突出,它与古代的天文学以及占星,式法等,还有中国古代哲学中的本体概念“道”,“太极”密切相关。汉代的史料容易使人造成错觉,以为祭祀太一只是从汉武帝以来才有,但古人明确提到太一最早似乎是在战国晚期的文献。

在汉代的祭祀制度中,封禅和郊祀都包含祭天,但对于太一的祭祀主要还是属于郊祀制度,以前为了祭祀太一还建了两座太一坛。与太一相关的还有一个天一,似乎还和古代星图有联系,在先秦时代已经是一种兼有星,神和终极物三重意义的概念。

除了这些,还有一些在华北地区尤其风行的民俗信仰,即所谓“四大门”,四大门指的就是狐狸(胡门),黄鼠狼(黄门),刺猬(白门)和蛇(常门),除了四大门还有五大门的说法,以及坛仙家仙财神爷之类,因为太繁多了不多赘述,大概就是比较属于农村宗教的类别。

由此可见不同“神灵”的存在对于生活在中国古代社会的各个阶级的人有着不同的重要意义。

在这之后常见的关于这类事物的分支之一就是《周易》。

《周易》这类所处的分支就是占星,卜筮,历日,占梦,炼丹,养生等等看似与神灵没有联系又有联系的东西。

与周易相近的就是阴阳五行说,阴阳五行说可以从占卜的数字化来看,过去梁启超讨论阴阳五行说的起源就曾注意到这一点,这就要提到《数术路》,这部分中分天文,历谱,五行, 蕾龟,杂占,形法六类,这六类全部都和阴阳五行有关,甚至可以说,阴阳五行就是这类学问的通用语言。

因为这与主题有些关系又没什么关系所以照样稍微写写就过!(你

哦,卜辞中也常见巫字。

关于早期数术从大量材料来看主要从三类东西构成,一类是占术(式法选择,下筮占梦等), 一类是相术(相地形,相面,相六畜等),一类是巫术。仔细分析数术类的各种占卜,不难发现年代越早形式越简单的占卜,在方法的直观性和随机性越强;相反,年代越晚形式越复杂则抽象性越强,推算的色彩越浓,例如龟卜。

还有的就是房中术。额……这个还有流派可考,例如东汉出自《容成经》《彭祖经》《墨子五行记》之类的流派,在这里就不多说。

顺嘴提一句,在我看到的资料来说,中国实际上是赌卜同源,药毒一家的。()

最后,说到神灵这类的东西就多会说到与之关联的宗教,这里就把西方宗教启蒙和中国的比对来看。

西方的启蒙,和中世纪是拧着来,反传统的初衷是人文主义。

先是文艺复兴后是宗教改革,人文与宗教达到平衡,就还挺顺理成章的。

但中国的启蒙与西方不大一样,中国没有教会统治这一观念,世俗政治是现成的,加上儒家原本就融入中国文化中,没有明确的组织,因此也就没有政教分离。

这样延伸出来的其中一个就是宗教感淡薄,中国的知识精英(读书人和官僚)本来就很人文(?),因为儒家推行人文教育,对于宗教这一观念几乎淡的没有,后来科学知识普及之后不但大力接受,还用科学反宗教。

(大草

而且中国的宗教市场主要在民间,除去把儒教立为国教之外,其他拉拉杂杂名字都叫不出来的宗教也有一大堆,况且儒教也只是国家为了统一思想的一个工具(?),真正在后头的是国家,不是宗教。因此就出现这个宗教只要不反国家就允许,反国家就不允许的情况,宗教和宗教之间还不能自相残杀(?)

还有的就是中国属于只取经不传教类型,没有异教观念,国外的和尚只要会念经也很受待见,即使排斥外国文化(例如近代受外国攻打后的过激反应),也不是出自于宗教目的。举个现在还挺普遍能在中国看到的例子,某红十字教会分会旁边可能有佛教聚集地还有可能有天主教人,我见到很多老一代人信的宗教也是五花八门。

但从现在来说,古时候立的纯儒教已经不大适合现在的中国了,因为依托的东西没有了,封建制度没有了,打个比喻,就像现在把皇上请回来,或者自己当皇上,那是不可能了。但话说回来,我并不认为中国文化是弘扬民族的道具,虽然看起来确实很好用。(....…

另外,正常的叙述顺序应该先是宗教后是神灵,然后再由宗教延伸出各类的东西,各类东西虽说乍一看似乎与宗教没什么关系,实际上又密不可分莫名其妙就讲到了,不过因为你当时说的是神灵我就先写神灵一类的了........

我觉得我越写越像科普(?),还是那种写了几千多字还讲不清楚的,笑一下算了。

写累了……先这样吧,我后面在这个基础上再修改。

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7 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 11:04 PM

Thanks for writing this. I'm worried that it's going to be ignored or downvoted because (1) the English is hard to read, as you predicted, and (2) you didn't make it obvious why it's relevant to LW.

For (1), maybe this is too costly, but possibly you could find an English-speaking friend who'd be willing to co-write the post with you.

For (2), well, generally I think LW should be more exploratory. Not in the sense of trying to import practices from ancient Chinese witchcraft, but in the sense of trying to know what is going on with religion, witchcraft, politics, the state, etc. etc., which you touch on. I think your post actually makes a fair number of interesting points, e.g. of the form "you might think politics and religion work like X; but actually Chinese history gives a large counterexample to X". But it's hard to parse, and you don't say enough, IMO. It might help to explain, in the title and at the beginning of the post, why a rationalist might be interested in concepts about wu. It might also help to just explain where you're coming from; what connects all these facts, why are you giving all these particular facts.

The English translation is extremely bad if you are talking about the authenticity of the content being translated. The Chinese version contain terms that most Chinese wouldn't even know and have to look up, let alone written in pinyin form that has no corresponding English translations. The English version was too disjointed for me to understand anything.

The Chinese version contain terms that most Chinese wouldn't even know and have to look up,

It seems like the author is using terms that specialized anthropologists might use; is that impression wrong, e.g. it's just unnecessarily obscure words?

The English version was too disjointed for me to understand anything.

I get this; I got a small amount of value from it, but had the sense that there's more value to be gotten.

My impression is that this person has actually done a fair amount of research, and I think LW should be open to people who have surprising new information. I agree the net quality of the post is low, but there's potential there; whereas a well-written but boring, trite post IMO is worthless and has no potential to be worthful, and often gets like 10 or 20 upvotes, and that's really really stupid.

I agree that the author seems to be quite knowledgeable in the subject he has written. He might have a history background. I'm not very familiar with Chinese history myself other than popular stories that most people have heard. He basically gave an overall view of the Chinese belief system and how it has evolved in different periods of Chinese history and their roles in those societies, mostly regarding how people of different status use them differently. He didn't really mention the schools of thought other than Confucianism in passing. He's clearly focused on mysticism rather than things like Buddhism, Taoism, Mohism, etc.

I wanted to talk about how old literature give a different type of perspective on that subject looking back at older history (i.e. historical historian perspective) than how modern scholars might view it now, but that comment got marked as spam for some reason.

Some of the stuff don't really make much sense semantically. I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually AI generated content. At first I suspected it might be a copy and paste from baidu. Most of it makes sense but there are a few phrases and words scattered throughout that just doesn't make any sense why they are there, like 大草. Maybe it's one of those GPT-3 stuff and someone is just having fun on here. The text sounds too scholarly, not something you'd see a normal person write, but then you see phrases like 写累了……先这样吧,我后面在这个基础上再修改, which sounds like someone wrote the English version first and passed it through Google translate and tack onto the end of the wall of text just to make it sound like a human wrote it. 非常谢谢 is just hilariously bad. There are also very conversational phrases that sound normal and seems like someone wrote that in the form of an actual human conversation. Who knows, people like to play games on here. I don't know why they didn't bother removing the weird parentheses or other weird punctuation you usually get from GPT-3. It's not actually hard to simulate this type of linguistic incompetence by hand, but given how hard the author tries, I think he just doesn't really understand Chinese very much. He didn't remove the weird punctuation because he had no idea wtf was going on. I'm not doubting the competence of the original author that GPT-3 extracted the text from as I was mostly talking about the original author above regarding the actual content.

About the English translation, I am sorry that this is limited to my English level can not express the meaning I want to express in Chinese. And for Chinese people also to look up the meaning of these words ......... writing the article is my way of categorizing the flow of information, so it probably seems very confusing. But since I posted it here, I will change or explain the terms, thank you. In fact, I am not very good at mysticism and I am not a scholar specializing in this area, but I can write about church culture related knowledge ...... This article is just the tip of my information flow, I am more good at aerospace science or philosophical discussions, but I can't write about it in easy to understand English for now. I'm Chinese, but researching Chinese history related is just one of my interests when I'm bored. If you get a chance, you might see me writing about convolutional neural networks, military ships, pure mathematical science, or the different problems brought by language sorting and language families and history later. I will revise the article based on feedback, but due to my English language skills, I will choose to remove the English version or just write down the general version of this article.

For the problem of some meaningless words, I can only repeat the above explanation for this is my information flow categorization, which is one of my habits, I will remove these meaningless texts afterwards, thank you for your feedback.

Thanks for your comments! For (1), I have a friend who is a native English speaker, but she is busy with work. So I chose to use translation software plus myself to write the English version, and I will try to write the article in English later. For (2), I actually have not explored most of the things in LW yet, so I will choose an article that is not very well formed to post here to test the water, this article is my own categorization of the information flow in my head, so maybe it does not look very logical, thank you for the information, I will change this article effectively afterwards. Of course the English version will be much worse than the Chinese version ...... I choose to remove the English version for now until I can express the meaning of this article in a more understandable way.