by Pu Songling
From Pu’s subjective perspective, predisposed to accept such phenomena, this kind of connection to one’s experiences through a succession of lives shouldn’t seem unsettling; one needs only to acknowledge that it is another facet of one’s humanity, common to all people, through all time. Joseph H. Rush characterizes resistance to accepting consciously what one normally experiences without cognition of it by suggesting that “a fish might think water strange if he saw it in a test tube” (72). When Pu’s characters cease to see the cycle of life and rebirth as solely paranormal, and instead subjectify it as a chance to reorient their current lives, they are often able to reconcile errors or tensions that have persisted through multiple lifetimes. Hence the title character of “Shao Shimei” comes to accept that he is the reincarnation of Gao Donghai, who was wrongly convicted and died in prison on the day of Shao’s birth, and in “Court Historian Jiang” (jiang taishi), Jiang Chao recalls his former life as a monk on sacred Mt. Emei, eventually reverts to that Buddhist lifestyle, and returns to live on Emei.
A central implication of this linking of the soul or spirit with one’s self through past incarnations shares significance with paranormal phenomena related to extrasensory perception, in that it “answers the question of whether the mind or soul, even if it could somehow exist apart from its human body, could perceive anything” (Griffin 112). Pu’s “Scholar Gu” (gu sheng) experiences two phenomena associated with parapsychological research: when his eyes become swollen, he begins remote viewing—that is, clairvoyantly visualizing a distant site—an “enormous residential estate,” then one day he experiences an astral projection of his body and is able to visit the mysterious palace, which belongs to “the Ninth King’s royal heir,” the “little prince.”4 Paranormal researchers explain that such phenomena can take place over distances in time as well as well as in space, noting that the majority of contemporary philosophers of science “deny that the expressions past, present, future have anything more than a subjective or, at least, mind-dependent basis, indicating the relationship between the observer and the event in question” (Beloff 38). Pu is sympathetic to this perspective, as Wang Ruiting gains his precognitive insights by channeling the title spirit of “Hexian,” while a “practitioner of occult arts who read the future” successfully predicts that the shrewish wife of “Shao from Linzi” (shao linzi) will be punished by officials, and, indeed, in the course of the story she’s eventually flogged.
Among the “spirits of the green woods and the dark spaces,” whose company Pu Songling finds preferable to the “circumspect individuals” who laugh (1:3) at his enjoyment of paranormal phenomena, are the multitudes of shapeshifters and non-human spirits who populate his tales. There’s the title character of “Traveler Tong” (tong ke), who proves to be a supernatural being when he suddenly disappears, leaving behind nothing but “piles of ash from grass torches.” Yu Chen, who’s taken to be a scholar in “Suqiu,” turns out to be a silverfish, while the sister of the title character turns out to be a giant python, “transformed with a bit of magic.” But as always in Pu Songling’s strange narratives, his empathy with the extraordinary and the paranormal is not without its moral, didactic component. He advises restraint when dealing with anomalous and inexplicable beings, for fear of bringing harm to fellow creatures simply because they are different. Thus he laments the actions of a traveler in “The Cheng People’s Ability” (cheng su), who ignores reports concerning the local people’s talent for shapeshifting, and in drowning some rats that he encounters, manages to exterminate most of his host’s family. Court Historian Li, on the other hand, sharing some of Pu’s aesthetics, humanely imprisons a trouble-making fox (“Li realized that the fox possessed supernatural powers, so he couldn’t bring himself to have it killed”), and once the title character of “The Lingxian Fox” (lingxian hu) subsequently acknowledges its guilt, Li has it released, ensuring that there are no more disturbances. Pu Songling never attempts to explain away any of the phenomena appearing in his stories, or to defend them; his empathy with the magical world of potentialities that they inhabit is so complete that he simply accepts them. And even though his authorial efforts feel to him like “the failing light of an autumn firefly,” the simple truth is that his readers, like Pu himself, love the pursuit of the supernatural and the paranormal: “I, too, delight in hearing ghost stories” (1:2).
Notes
1 For the purposes of this essay, I’m using the term “paranormal” to signify any mysterious or anomalous phenomenon that cannot be explained through conventional scientific principles. In Chinese, one might use the phrases 超自然的 (chao ziran de, “supernatural”), 神奇的 (shenqide, “miraculous”; “mystical”), or 不可思议的 (buke siyi de, “inconceivable”) to communicate something comparable.
2 Yet the converse is just as likely, for many of Pu’s stories involve mediatory interventions from bodhisattvas, from deities, and even from Yama, the Hell King, as in “Niu Tongren”: the title scholar calls upon none other than the god of war, Guandi/Guangong, the deified Guan Yu (see Sondergard and Collins 50-73), who appears to Niu and subsequently solves his pesky fox problem. These dream visitations, however, often require some substantial commitment on the part of the dreamer. It’s not unusual for a mortal, for example, to be asked to serve temporarily as the Hell King, which involves the individual’s spirit leaving his body apparently dead in the mortal world while performing the duty requested of him. In other cases, a spirit that temporarily returns to the mortal world may engage in an “ostensible possession,” which is what happens, for example, when a medium’s body is, for a short time, “‘taken over’ by the spirit of a deceased individual” (Penelhum 124), or when that spirit animates some non-human object, in effect using that object “as its body” (125).
3 On Daoist views regarding the lawsuits in underworld courts, see Hansen (190-2).
4 Astral projection occurs in two other stories contained in this volume: In “The Cloth Merchant” (bushang), a mysterious woman in red appears to alert a naval commander of the attempted murder of the title’s merchant by an evil monk, and Pu suggests that “perhaps the Buddha was responsible for her appearance and disappearance.” The astral projection in “Some Customs in Yuanjiang” (yuan su) is also caused by some external power, rather than by the individual being projected. The story describes a man’s arm being sent off to rob another man’s bedroom of possessions; but once the intended victim becomes aware of the objective, he holds onto the man’s arm, preventing its further use via projection.
II. Natural Wisdom and Daoist Magic in PuPu Songling’s Tales
A Daoist is someone who works methodically first to dissociate the self from the world of social entanglements, and then to separate the subjective part of the mind, the intellect’s ego, from all other conscious thought. All distractions that impede one’s existing in perfect harmony with nature must be eschewed: the colors that by distracting, blind the eye; the sounds that by enchanting, deafen the ear; and the flavors that by overwhelming the mouth, desensitize it, as the twelfth chapter of Laozi’s daodejing (The Classic of the Virtue of the Dao) teaches. Thus, according to Daoist thinker Zhang Boduan (b. 983, d. 1082),
Shedding all defiling things which bind and envelop,
You attain the state of completeness before birth,
Cultivating immortality, becoming enlightened, all depends on this;
Anything else is vain, running to extremes.
(1986: 118)
Like Pu Songling, Zhang Boduan turned to other pursuits following repeated failures to pass the imperial civil service examination, but while Pu turned to tutoring and to the solace of the strange tales he compiled over a period of forty years, Zhang chose to pursue more esoteric studies, including the most vaunted outcome of successful Daoist contemplation and cultivation: immortality.1
There’s a curious dual perspective displayed by the individuals appearing in Pu’s tales of encounters with immortals. On one hand, characters yearn for in
tercession or support from individuals so vastly superior in their knowledge and understanding of nature that they can manipulate it to miraculous effect (to achieve healings, advice based on clairvoyance and precognition, and other direct interventions) in the mundane world. At the same time, there’s a kind of fearful respect and awe reflected by such characters, in recognition that the immortals are genuinely no longer human in their responses; thus, for example, they “have no dreams, because they have no desires or wishes” (Eberhard 86). The locals near “The Zhaya Mountain Cave” (zhaya shan dong) have the cave sealed up, afraid of repercussions they can’t even imagine, following the death of a Daoist there from an apparent spelunking accident. A devout Daoist will not actively attempt to do harm, but conversely will also make no particular effort to offer assistance; this accounts for the pleas to solicit empathy that are typically displayed in Pu’s narratives when characters attempt to persuade Daoists to intervene in their lives and aid them.
Zhang Boduan distinguishes between three types of immortals, and characters from Pu’s stories exhibit qualities of all three, though not all of those immortals are specifically identified as Daoists.2 Ghost immortals are those who understand jing (精), or the life essence, conferred on each human being at conception, and who can project the po (魄), or yin aspect of the soul. Earthly immortals understand the importance of fostering the qi (气), and “keep their bodies in the world” (1987:29), like scholar Jin, who’s eventually made an immortal thanks to his relationship with Xia, daughter of the Golden Dragon King, in “Another Wutong Spirit” (you [wutong]). Those who manage to learn the arcane Daoist arts, who follow the Dao and achieve the requisite dissociation of self and integration with nature, become what Zhang calls celestial immortals. These are like the inhabitants of “Anqi’s Island” (anqi dao), who only allow contact with mortals through their disciple, young Zhang; indeed, when Grand Secretary Liu Hongxun is granted permission to visit the island, he’s conducted by young Zhang to three old men who are suspiciously reminiscent of the Three Pure Ones, venerated in Daoism.3
The canny characters in Pu’s stories know to associate a variety of specific behaviors and powers with Daoist immortals: frequent and spontaneous dancing (helping to prevent blockage in the body’s meridians which would otherwise impede the flow of qi in the body), the ability to fly, mastery of the elements (particularly of fire and water), and an affinity with birds (Kohn 91). A visiting Daoist warns a county magistrate about conflict between his wife and concubines in “The Language of Birds” (niao yu), after hearing about the problem from a flock of ducks flying overhead. When the ducks return later, they convey considerably more disturbing news which the Daoist then delivers, and for which he is driven away—only to have his comments subsequently verified. This rapport between human and bird is undoubtedly a product of the association of the Daoist with nature broadly, but more specifically with bird flight in migration reflecting the cyclical shift between yin and yang influences, by which “birds and the flight of birds symbolized transcendence into another realm, such as the transition from life to death or the flight to immortality” (Sterckx 179).
This metaphorical interpretation of natural occurrences helps us to see why alchemical transmutation of elements has been part of Daoist magical practice for centuries: alchemy uses “chemical change to symbolize the processes by which perfection is attained” (Sivin 253). Zhang Boduan’s classic on alchemical philosophy, Understanding Reality (wuzhen pian 悟真篇), figuratively describes the quest to transcend mundane reality that underlies all Daoist alchemy and esoteric practice (see, e.g., 1987:36), where the individual comes to understand the workings of nature in such a fundamental way that the physical world becomes the raw material of magical applications. Whenever scholar Jia Zilong finds himself short of money, the title character of “Scholar Zhen” (zhen sheng) takes out “a chunk of black stone,” speaks an incantation, and rubs it over a bit of worthless rubble, turning it instantly into silver. Due to “the importance of the master-disciple relationship and the need to pursue a path of intensive self-cultivation through interior alchemy in order to gain enlightenment” (Katz 77), Zhen forces Jia to prove his worthiness and self-discipline once he entrusts him with the transmuting stone. When Jia eventually asks his mentor explicitly about his place “in the celestial sphere,” Zhen reveals that he is both shape-shifter and alchemist: “I’m a Daoist fox.”
In addition to alchemical recipes for transmuting basic elements, both literally and as a metaphor for transmogrifying the mortal into the immortal, Daoist magic also includes the inscribing, or stamping, and empowerment of (usually paper) talismans. These were generally employed for specific purposes, such as to cure disease, to promote “ease in childbirth, love magic” (Dean 26, 82), and to treat a range of personal concerns and maladies, but have traditionally been sought out most fervently by laypeople as prophylactic or apotropaic safeguards. Pu’s character Shi Taipu, who “was fascinated with the practice of magic to ward off evil,” studies with the priest Wang Chicheng until he proves “proficient in Daoist talismanic writing” in “Changting.” His knowledge unfortunately leads him to intervene in a conflict between ghosts and foxes, with painful consequences. Yet when Shi marries the story’s title character, a fox, and Daoist Wang ends up capturing a fox that happens to be Shi’s mean-spirited father-in-law, Shi is able to use his arcane wisdom to rescue him. Scholar Mi, favored by the title character of “The God’s Daughter” (shennu), is asked to do a favor for her father—the patron deity of the sacred mountain, Mt. Heng, in Hunan province. She asks Mi to “obtain a Daoist paper talisman and accompany it with prayers on our behalf,” to support the Hengshan god’s dispute with another celestial immortal. Talismans are thus another means by which Pu’s characters are able to transcend briefly the limitations of their mortal state, and to participate in the magic otherwise reserved for enlightened beings.
Yet for every example of mortals allowed to share in the miraculous powers of the immortals, like the title character of “Scholar Li” (li sheng), who visits a monastery frequented by Daoist priests, and witnesses an old holy man fly away on a donkey, there is evidence of mortals trying to exploit the widespread veneration of Daoists. Thus in “A Man Named Diao” (diao xing), a con artist of sorts, who possesses “a bit of Daoist knowledge,” dresses in a Daoist’s scarf and offers for a price to foretell the future by reading people’s physiognomy. Pu’s personal respect for Daoists seems to combine his typical enthusiasm for the supernatural, for the ability to supersede human limitations, with admiration for the kind of common sense that results from Daoist meditation. When the title scholar in “Yang Dahong” falls ill with a kind of choking pain, he dreams that he’ll find help from a man with a bamboo flute. He meets such a man the next day—a Daoist, naturally—and offers him money which the Daoist flings into a nearby river, then miraculously retrieves. While Yang is distracted, the Daoist whacks him with his bamboo flute, effectively performing a kind of Heimlich Maneuver that dislodges “a chunk of food that’d gotten stuck.” Claiming not to be an immortal, the Daoist nevertheless proceeds to disappear.
Though Zhang Boduan died in 1082, at the impressive age of ninety-nine, he passed into Daoist lore as a perfected individual (zhenren 真人). He later became one of the five patriarchs of the Southern Lineage Daoist sect, which advocated both an alchemically-oriented philosophy of development, and a model of pursuing one’s self-cultivation while retaining social contact and remaining with one’s family. This ability to see the compatibility of pursuing immortality while leading a meaningful domestic life is reminiscent of Pu Songling’s story of scholar Liu Chishui becoming successful through the efforts of the immortal title character in “Fengxian,” who helps him regain his direction in a life that might otherwise have been wasted. “I wish,” writes Pu in the postscript to the tale, “that there were as many immortals as the grains of sand along the Ganges River, all sending lovely girls to the mortal world to be married—for that would cer
tainly lessen the suffering of the individuals in this sea of poverty and deprivation.” Perhaps it is precisely for generous, wistful sentiments such as this that Pu achieved his own unique immortality through the strange tales you now hold in your hands.
Notes
1 The attainment of immortality is a byproduct of the Daoist’s meditative, egoless, “ascetic pursuit of the otherworld and altered states of consciousness” (Kohn 85). Indeed, Charles Tart’s studies of altered states of consciousness accord with the Daoist sense of time as an “eternal present,” which Tart calls “archetypal time,” a kind of permanent living-in-the-moment that respects the Daoist aim of achieving complete unity with the timelessness of nature and the simultaneous “feeling that the activity or experience of the moment is exactly the right thing that belongs in this moment of time” (Tart 127). This occasionally results in a Rip Van Winkle-like loss of time, such as when what seems to scholar Guo like a few days of pleasure spent with a female immortal in “The Heavenly Palace” (tian gong) turns out to have been three months in the mortal world.
2 In part, this may simply be a matter of Pu Songling’s cultural association of Daoists with immortality being so implicit that the author doesn’t necessarily use the term for Daoist priests (daoshi 道士) when speaking of immortals (xianren 仙人).