Zhongyongdaoist

I love Chinese Ghost story, it is one of my favorite films, and that particular sequence one of my favorites in the movie. I saw it in a theater back in the late 80s, and actually have the DVDs for its two sequels also. I don't want to go on and on about it though, even if there are some interesting points in it and the sequels. ZYD

Of course Chinese magicians have methods for testing out spirits, but how many real Chinese magicians are on the Dao Bums? The Dao Bums is hardly a hotbed of Chinese magic, most of our members have no interest whatsoever in magic of any type, so you can hardly judge anything about Chinese magic by what appears here. Even among Western Magicians, how many of them actually do the necessary testing? I don't have time to say more about this now, but I am working on longer responses to some of the issues raised in this thread, and a dozen other things more important to me personally as well. ZYD

Minus the actual help part, this reminds me of a funny anecdote I read in Terry Kleeman's introduction to A God's Own Tale, about some students trying to summon Lu Dongbin: A group of students had gathered at a phoenix [spirit writing] altar to ask their fortunes. The phoenix wrote, "Drunkard Zhao has arrived." They all cursed him, saying, "We invited Transcendent Lu. HOw dare a savage ghost interfere! We are going to request that the great transcendent's sword behead you!" The phoenix halted, then began again, writing, "The Daoist Dongbin happened to be passing by. What do you want to ask?" The students solemnly bowed twice, then asked about their fates in the examination. The phoenix wrote, "Rub more ink." Thereupon each person prepared ink on his inkstone and in a moment they had filled a bowl. Kneeling, they asked how they should use it. The phoenix said, "You students divide it up and drink it, then hear my pronouncement." They all divided the ink and drank it. When they had finished, the phoenix wrote in large characters, "Normally you do not study; now you drink ink at the last moment. I am not Patriarch Lu; I am still Drunkard Zhao!" The students were mortified and destroyed the altar. Thanks SirPalomides, a good illustration, I'm afraid I saw the punchline coming, but still the message is clear. If you are dealing with a particularly powerful being it is easy for it to be able to manifest a deceptive appearance, and even people who have advanced training can be deceived. The matter is complex, even here we recently had two people claiming to be magicians weigh in on opposite sides of the Jeff issue. Finally, in bringing these issues up, I am not saying that they apply to the OP personally, but that there are certainly some aspects of his story which are suspicious. It might be useful to post on these ideas in a thread of their own, but I don't have the time now to give it the attention it deserves. ZYD

To take the 'Devil's Advocate' position for a moment : Such phenomena ( a 'spreading of contact' with ' numerous people reporting same ) have been going on before the internet . Occasionally I have documented such phenomena here when I have written about ' Daimonic Reality ' and its propensity to exponentially spread , at times , ' unusual phenomena' . Of course the internet age offers an ' exponential 2 ' . Just to clarify, my question was why were these people contacting him, not about why they were having their experiences. The internet is the answer to why they contacted him, as to why he or they were having their experiences, that is why I posted this: develops a symbiotic relationship: the usual "victim" of these situations would be lucky if the relationship was actually "symbiotic", the relationship is almost always parasitic. I like to make a financial analogy, the difference between a Mutual Fund and a Ponzi Scheme. A mutual fund is a symbiotic relationship it benefits both parties, on the other had a ponzi scheme is something that benefits one party to the detriment of the other or others. A "spiritual" ponzi scheme is an energy scam, it is set up to get people to put "energy" into the system which is used by spiritual beings for their own purposes, usually bad purposes and which leave the victims of the scheme severely compromised and maybe dead. While flourishing such a spiritual ponzi scheme may be indistinguishable from a well run mutual fund, there are certain things that make it look suspicious, like apparently high returns on investment, but it is hard to prove that it is bad and a fraud, and those caught up in it believe in it and will defend it, until its collapse and until its collapse it is useless to try to talk them out of it. The recent Madoff scheme and its collapse if paradigmatic and is recent enough to be something memorable to almost everyone, and also easy to research. powerful ghost or demon may have the ability to masquerade as a seemingly-benevolent figure and may be able to grant quite a bit of power, knowledge, and special abilities to the recipient of its help: Financial ponzi schemes keep people in by giving returns, and spiritual energy scams will too, this is why claims like this need to be taken with a grain of salt: Such powers could be a genuine return from a good symbiotic relationship, or they might just be part of the con, you really don't know until its too late, and the victim or victims are the last to realize it. The above example was chosen because it was convenient to quote, not because of any intended judgement about Flowing Hands sources. Choosing to study with a teacher as part of an established lineage is like investing in a mutual fund, it is usually a safe investment of time and money. There can be cases where a teacher without lineage is OK, but that is rare, and more of a gamble than good investment. Studying these types of group energy systems is part of learning magic and I could write more, much more, but I don't have the time to do so now, but I hope these ideas are useful. I hope this clarifies the matter. ZYD

Thank you post facto for your clear answer, both to my question and to Walker's similar one, which was possibly inspired by my own. Apparently then people are contacting you because of your own promotion of Kongming, that makes sense in an internet age. ZYD

You said something back here that interested me: This leads me to ask, how do you recognize these people when you met them, how do they recognize you, and how do you confirm about the voice? They may be from many creeds and backgrounds, but it must be a very small percentage of the population, as even one percent of the world population would give as seventy-seven or so million people and then I think we would have all heard of this type of connection. Thank you in advance for your clarification on this matter, ZYD

One reason I was thankful that Walker posted as he did, was that it saved me the trouble and gives me an easy source of quotes with which I agree, such as these: develops a symbiotic relationship: the usual "victim" of these situations would be lucky if the relationship was actually "symbiotic", the relationship is almost always parasitic. I like to make a financial analogy, the difference between a Mutual Fund and a Ponzi Scheme. A mutual fund is a symbiotic relationship it benefits both parties, on the other had a ponzi scheme is something that benefits one party to the detriment of the other or others. A "spiritual" ponzi scheme is an energy scam, it is set up to get people to put "energy" into the system which is used by spiritual beings for their own purposes, usually bad purposes and which leave the victims of the scheme severely compromised and maybe dead. While flourishing such a spiritual ponzi scheme may be indistinguishable from a well run mutual fund, there are certain things that make it look suspicious, like apparently high returns on investment, but it is hard to prove that it is bad and a fraud, and those caught up in it believe in it and will defend it, until its collapse and until its collapse it is useless to try to talk them out of it. The recent Madoff scheme and its collapse if paradigmatic and is recent enough to be something memorable to almost everyone, and also easy to research. powerful ghost or demon may have the ability to masquerade as a seemingly-benevolent figure and may be able to grant quite a bit of power, knowledge, and special abilities to the recipient of its help: Financial ponzi schemes keep people in by giving returns, and spiritual energy scams will too, this is why claims like this need to be taken with a grain of salt: Such powers could be a genuine return from a good symbiotic relationship, or they might just be part of the con, you really don't know until its too late, and the victim or victims are the last to realize it. The above example was chosen because it was convenient to quote, not because of any intended judgement about Flowing Hands sources. Choosing to study with a teacher as part of an established lineage is like investing in a mutual fund, it is usually a safe investment of time and money. There can be cases where a teacher without lineage is OK, but that is rare, and more of a gamble than good investment. Studying these types of group energy systems is part of learning magic and I could write more, much more, but I don't have the time to do so now, but I hope these ideas are useful. ZYD

Walker, Thanks for writing such a clear and intelligent discussion of the issues. ZYD

The first thing to understand is what is called the Macrocosm/Microcosm analogy, the notion of a fundamental link be similarity between the world at large, the Macrocosm, and its reflection on a human level, us Microcosms. I have posted about it in many places I will copy one of them that brings in both Greek Classicism and Confucianism here: In the West it became fundamental to Metaphysics and Ontology, but originated as an Epistimological theory: Like is only known by like in Empedocles because it solves a lot of problems created both by Parmenides on the one hand and the early Greek Atomists on the other. This doctrine was worked out by Plato in a very profound way and continued to influence Western Philosophy up to Hegel. It existed in China as can be seen in this quote from the Confucian, Mencius: and was also used in Daoism. The next important concept is that of Li, in its sense of principle, meaning in this case, fundamental pattern, and its use in cosmology, both Chinese and Western. While I will post about this here, I have posted about it in A Science of Wu Wei? beginning here: In subsequent posts I examine the relationship between Aristotle's matter/form cosmology and Chinese Li/Qi cosmology, quoting from the Neiye, Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi, and I will develop these ideas in the light of passages from the Neiye, Zhongyong, and Zhuangzi, and will expand on ideas that I posted in Confucian Qi gong, which SirPalomides has recently bumped for the edification of those who may be interested. I will post more shortly. ZYD

Reading Tu Weiming's Humanity and self-cultivation: Essays in Confucian thought was how I first learned the true depth and meaning of the Confucian tradition, and I recommend it as an excellent introduction. ZYD

I don't think that I mentioned the teaching of the Daxue much in this thread because most of the material most relevant to the "Confucian Qigong" is in Mencius and the Zhongyong, but as long as SirPalomides has brought up DDJ 54, this section of the Daxue is relevant: I wish I could say that I found this comparison myself, but I owe it to Master Ni who mentions it in his translation of the Yi Jing. Indeed Master Ni not only mentions it, he translates both the Daxue and the Zhongyong without mentioning their Confucian connections as if they were purely Daoist texts rather than having this crossover connection. The historical reasons for this are interesting, but too complex to examine now. I have emphasized "意誠而後心正", "they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts", above because of the importance of Cheng, 誠, rendered in the text as "sincere", to Confucian thinking and while "sincere" is a satisfactory meaning in a sense of mundane attitude and behavior, Cheng is such an important concept that the Zhongyong has a relatively long discussion of it which is basically the conclusion of the text. I don't have time now to enter into the wider meaning of Cheng, but may expand upon it here or elsewhere shortly. ZYD

I don't have a specific reference, but there are passages in both the Neiyi and Zhongyong that point to the theoretical basis of this and its root in ancient Chinese physiologica/spiritual cultivation and cosmology, which you might find interesting and some suggestions as to how to proceed to develop the ability which you describe. There are also magical procedures which go back a long time such as the invocation of the Eight Archivists, which is described in the Daozang, as well as an interesting procedure which Professor Jerry Alan Johnson gives in his books involving "mudras". I don't have much time now, but I will try to post some of this in the next few days. ZYD

Here are some of the details: ChiDragon suspended in late September, with details of the reasons: In January ChiDragon posted his "farewell": However, this was just before he could be officially banned as dawei notes in his reply: Upon review of his return from the past three suspensions and most recent response from the last several warnings and PM to reflect on his posting style... the response was to mimic the last warning as his topic title ("enough is enough") and blame the admin for the conflicts. As is the case for anyone banned, He is welcomed to request a return in a year. CD: Be well. I hope this information is helpful. ZYD

It's easy enough to call it Wen Chang's home and invite him to move in. After all it has his name on it.

That Confucius was a Sage is part of the Confucian tradition. I have summoned and deposed a hostile witness and obtained the following account: Hostile Witness name: Zhuangzi Deposition summary: Would you please state your name for the record? Zhuangzi. And I understand that you have written a great deal on the subject of Chinese Philosophy, and in particular, what has come to be know as "Taoism", is that correct? Well, that was a long time ago and it was mostly about "Dao", I don't know much about these Taoists, though apparently they do like to refer to me as an authority. Is it or is it not true that in writings published under your name you have given a very positive account of Confucius? Yes Bearing in mind that negative accounts of Confucius also appear in your published writings, do you have an explanation for this seeming contradiction? Well, I may have been dreaming I was a Confucian when wrote it, you know, sometimes a man sometimes a butterfly, sometimes a Confucian. Can you repeat the account that you have given about the Sage qualities of Confucius? Yes. For the sake of the Jury, consisting largely of "Taoist", who who never read anything outside of your works and those of Laozi, can you clarify the names of these two interlocutors? Yes, they are Confucius under his courtesy name Zhongni and his favorite disciple Yan hui. Let the jury note substantiating evidence A and B. A: Zhongni was Confucius courtesy name, under names, on Wikipedia B: Yan hui was Confucius favorite disciple on Wikipedia Alright then, can you tell the court and the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what you have written about Zhongni, AKA Confucius, and Yan Hui. Yes, this is what I wrote: If it may please the Court your Honor, I submit to the Court and the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, As the testimony and supporting evidence shows Zhuangzi has written very positive things about Confucius as well as the better known criticism of Confucius person and teachings and I submit that a person who sometimes dreams himself a butterfly and sometimes a Confucian is hardly a reliable source for quotes to criticize either the person of Confucius or his teachings or the Confucian tradition. The jury is still out on this one. Edit: Corrected in Zhuangzi in final paragraph and added emphasis in the second section of the quoted material, to make it easier to find the important passages.

I have found your post interesting, but since I was not familiar with Brook Ziporyn or Shi Daosheng AKA Juelang Daosheng, I could not reply immediately. So I had to do some research before even forming any preliminary judgement, a very unusual step on the internet, though offhand I do find the notion of Zhuanzi as a dyed in the wool Confucian to be a little farfetched. Based on what I have found so far, I assume you are referring to this fellow: 覺浪道盛 Juelang Daosheng (1592-1659) and I found some references, first was a book: Enlightenment in Dispute, The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China by Jiang Wu Which has several references to Juelang Daosheng. The site on which I found it has a PDF with the usual blank pages, possibly from Google Books, as well as an OCR of the PDF, which I copied for analysis, but I am pretty sure that Dao Bums policy on respecting copyright would prohibit me from post a link to it, but not that the information is out there. Then there was this paper: The Unity of the Three Traditions in the Caodong School during the Late Ming: A Study of Juelang Daosheng's Thought by Tsai Chen-feng Which appeared in the December 2013 issue of Hanxue Yanjiu (Chinese Studies);2013, Vol. 31 Issue 4, p. 19. The English abstract is interesting and suggestive: But I haven't found an English translation, and so I cannot comment beyond noting "Juelang Daosheng's view of Zhuangzi as an esoteric Confucian and Confucius as the great systematizer of the three traditions stands in sharp contrast to the views of other Buddhists", and that at least for now I agree with the other Buddhists. The one thing that I will note is that, when I researched Warring States intellectual history to look at the development of Confucianism in context I saw ideas that appear in the Neiye, in both Mengzi and Zhuangzi with the implication that someone might argue some sort of connection, but with everything else I am working on I have not had time to develop those similarities in greater detail. These are just my preliminary findings. I have not finished with the references to Juelang Daosheng in the above mentioned book and may have more to say after that. As for this "excellent Zhongyongdaoist" fellow that you mention, I hope this doesn't go to his head and he starts insisting people address him as "your excellency", but that may be too much to hope for. ZYD

I haven't had time to write anything specific for this thread, but I have been reviewing my posts in general and have some further comments about some issues that I raise in my review of Benebell Wen's excellent work as mentioned above: I needed to keep a review short and so I did not reference this thread: Agrippa's Doctrine of Occult Virtues, a core concept examined and explained Which deals with the most important important, and importantly, most misunderstood, aspects of Traditional Magic, which is the notion of "Occult Virtues", which is just Latin for "Hidden Powers", and is an aspect of Traditional Magic that was left out of the Nineteenth Century revival of Western magic because its philosophical basis in Plato and Aristotle was no longer understood by the people who were researching magic and trying to understand it in terms that seemed "reasonable" circa 1800, but which had already been seriously corrupted by the Seventeenth Century revival of Epicurean materialism under the guise of "Corpuscular Philosophy", and which meshed well with nominalist version of Christianity, which are the antecedents of modern fundamentalism, as opposed to those influenced by Western Philosophy, which were suppressed even by the Roman Catholic Church during the polemical war with Protestantism, which through the Patrisitc writings had been strongly influenced by not only by Plato and Aristotle, but also by "esoteric" writings, such as the Hermetica. The result being that Occult Virtues were simply dismissed as quint superstitions that owed their influence to the suggestibility of the practitioner and not to any inherent power which they contributed to the practice of magic. The astrological aspects of magic suffered a similar fate, and the result was the creation of "Ceremonial Magic" as a standalone practice based solely on the will power and imagination of the practitioner. So, what does this have to do with Chinese Talismanic Magic? It points back to the importance of these Occult Virtues to the practice of magic in general, which should be rooted in what Agrippa calls "Natural Magic", the subject of the first book of his Three Books on Occult Philosohy, and thus the dependency of magical practice in general, and talismanic magic in particular on the nature, and thus the occult virtues, of those things used as the basis of the talisman. Now the important part of Aristotle's theory for Occult Virtues and thus for Talismans is the Formal Cause, the Form, or in the Greek, morphe, is the source of the inherent potential to become an active "Occult Virtue". Now where this ties in which traditional Chinese practice and its root in Chinese Cosmology is in the traditional Chinese Li/Qi or Principle/Substance Cosmology and its relation with the Aristotelian Hylye/Morphe or matter/form cosmology, which I examine in detail in the posts in the "A Science of Wu Wei?" thread beginning here: While I have mentioned the similarity between Li/Qi and Hylomophism many times in the past on Dao Bums, in these posts I examine it in detail with quotes from the Neiye, Dao De Ching, and the Zhuangzi, and establish the importance of Li, and thus of Li/Qi as an explanatory concept to traditional Daoism. I may also quote some from the Huainanzi, but I can't remember offhand whether I do or not, but I do reference and possibly quote from an essay by Harold Roth in which he basically argues the some point and even cites some of the same references to Zhuangzi's writings as I do, as well as quoting extremely suggestive quotes from the Huainanzi which indicate that the idea continues to influence Daoist thought into the middle Han. That these ideas are important is confirmed by Professor Jerry Alan Johnson's: Daoist Mineral, Plants & Animal – Final Edition Which is basically a text on Chinese "Natural Magic". In his discussion Professor Johnson seems to take the notion that the power or occult virtue of the mineral, plant and animal agents with which he is concerned is inherent in them and is only activated by the practitioner. This impression is confirmed when one looks at his ritual for opening and activating a mineral, i.e. page 101 and elsewhere in a ritual that occupies pgs. 89-101. While some of Professor Johnson's language "imprinting" and "programming"; could be used to give a reductionist interpretation, such as the practitioner is only creating a stone as a physical focal point for a thought form, he also uses the word activate in a way which implies that he is activating something in the "Stone of Power", and that his imprint/programming is only a direction to fulfill one of several possible powers of the stone, such as protect, heal or spiritual development. How one further interprets this is going to depend on their personal ontological commitments, but from a perspective of both Daoist and Western magical tradition, a belief in the Occult Virtues is just as "rational" a belief as any reductionist one, which would write off Occult Virtues on a priori grounds. As a person who has spent decades practicing magic in both Western and Chinese modes, and also understands both the details and implications of post 1900 physics and the history of "the Scientific Revolution", as well as the basis of the earlier worldview and it implications, I favor a belief in the efficacy of Occult Virtues, but I am not going to further debate the subject in this thread. I have addressed it to a certain extent in my posts over the years, and may create a more detailed summary of my criticisms of a reductionist framework. My criticism of reductionism are founded on the potential usefulness of a revival of the notion of formal causes in physics and difficulties with the notion of chance and chaos, and the problems presented to cognitive psychology by the notion that the brain is an "organic computer", based on implications of the mathematics of computability related to the notion that "machines can think", all of which lead me to the strong conclusion that formal causes are by far a more rational approach than reductive materialism and any approach to magic based upon it. Finally, what is the importance of the similarity between Li/Qi and Hylomorphism? These two seem to have arisen independently of each other, they occur at roughly the same time, around 300 BCE, and there is little concrete evidence for, and thus little reason to believe, that they are the result of "cultural diffusion". As independent discoveries they reinforce and tend to confirm the notion that, from both East and West there is a magic and spirituality friendly cosmology based on Formal Causes which has arisen because of the experience and reflection of two different cultures, and that as such it could be argued that these similarities arise because they are a "true" account of the fundamental nature of reality, and that reductionist materialism is a fallacious misdirection in human thought and cultural development and should be abandoned. Taken by themselves these similarities are not enough, but do add weight to the notions I mentioned before for rejecting reductionist materialism. This post has been longer than I originally intended, but I hope that these ideas are interesting and helpful. ZYD

I'm not associated with this school at all: Shen Gong So I cannot say anything pro or con to its approach or its value, however the general information at the site will point you in the right direction, which is do searches under Shen Gong read what's there and think about it. Good luck in your research. ZYD

Thank you for mentioning it. I was going to refer to it myself at some point, but I have been busy and had not had time to come back here to do so. I hope to have time to write a little more in this thread when I can make the time. I am glad you, and apparently, judging by the number of likes it seems to have gotten, other people appreciated it. ZYD

I am afraid that you are mixing things up a bit. Proclus is a couple of centuries after Iamblichus who is a contemporary of Plotinus' disciple and editor Porphory. There is some connection between Iamblichus and the Plotininian school, though in many ways Iamblichus is a reaction against Plotinus' version of Platonism. The issues at stake are complex and I would have to do a little review of sources to say more about the exact connection between Iamblichus and the Plotinian school. Unfortunately Iamblichus is not that clear about the practical details of his Theurgy, though Gregory Shaw has written both extensively and convincingly on the matter. I have not had time to sit down with the latest translations of any of these things, though I have many of them in my library, to be able to say much more about contemporary opinion in these matters. As a final note Julian is as I recall in the Iamblichus line through Maximus the Theurgist. I just did a quick search to confirm on that, the site cited is an excellent source for this type of material. I have mentioned it before on Dao Bums. ZYD

With all due respect SirPalomides, the equivalent rite would be that described in the Hermetic Aesclepius. As I recall Iamblichus is very critical of the "makers of efficacious images", and has something else in mind with "Neoplatonic" Theurgy. Assuming that the descriptions found in Prof. Jerry Alan Johnson's books are accurate the analogy of the Aesclepius is very exact. However I am working from memory here, and while my memory is good, I can't provide exact citations right now, but should it be necessary, I could at some time in the future. ZYD

I always found it a useful feature when it was available and my most vehement gripe after the upgrade was how clumsy the quote function was and it definitely messed with my posting until I figure out how to work around how many problems its seeming simplicity hid. Being able to go back and forth between editing on a word processor on my computer in code and bring it back here to finish it up was a big help to me and also kept a better record of what I had posted. The quality and quantity of my posting has suffered over the past few years because of the change, but my understanding is that bringing in some types of source could pose a security problem. I don't know how serious a problem it could be, but that was a concern in not making it generally available. ZYD

It is my understanding that no Jesuit ever leaves the order. Whatever else they do is done in the service of the order.

Could you give some pointers for further reading on Taiyi Tianzun? I vaguely recall a paragraph or two about him in Eva Wong’s guide and I’d love to learn more. Thanks! Awhile back I posted this in my PPF: He has been a focus of my practice for a long time and I see a real need for him in general, both because he can help to achieve and maintain internal congruence, but also for furthering peace and understanding. The link in the above quote should work, but just in case here is a link to the main page of the site described above: The Taoist Culture and Information Center Bookmark the site is extremely useful. Also, you might find some of the other things I have posted in my PPF interesting. ZYD

Thanks for this dawei, I have been so busy I have not seen this until now. I have downloaded the paper which looks very interesting. The notion of Junzi is very interesting and powerful concept in Chinese thought, one which it is worthy to meditate on. ZYD