Morbid Magic by Tomás Prower

Author:Tomás Prower
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: morbid magick;tomas prower;thomas prower;tomas power;thomas power;death;death and spirituality;death culture;la santa muerte;santa muerte;pagan;paganism;paganism around the world;death around the world
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2019-08-07T13:17:32+00:00

15

CHINA

Cultural

taoism

Taoism is a religious and philosophical tradition based on observances of the natural world. As an ultra-simplified explanation, one could say that Taoism witnesses how nature seems to live in perfect balance with itself and flowingly achieves its goals with ease, and so Taoists try to mimic the balanced flow of nature so as to obtain the same benefits of harmony and ease.

The catch is, however, that the flow of nature and the universe at large doesn’t necessarily lead to the fulfillment of your personal desires and wants. It always tends to lead to fulfillment of your needs and for the greater good, but if your wants don’t align with your needs or the greater good, then the flow of nature won’t take you to them. Going against the flow for personal gain causes unnatural pressure, stress, and difficulties for yourself that should be avoided. Finding the path of least resistance, like nature does, will lead you to a happier life overall, albeit sometimes without the things you think you want.

Taoist philosophy has existed in China as long as there have been humans interacting with nature and trying to survive in it. Taoist teachings, though, weren’t really organized or written down until around the sixth or fourth century BCE when the legendary figure of Lao Tzu (from the Chinese “Lǎozǐ,” which is an honorific title literally translating to “old man”) compiled his musings on the observable universal truths of the natural world into what is now the Tao Te Ching. A slim handbook, it makes no mention of gods, deities, the afterlife, karmic punishments, or any other supernatural magic. It simply outlines how nature achieves its goals, how you can achieve your goals by following nature’s example, and how not following nature’s example will result in a tough life of self-imposed hardships.

Full-Taoist Alchemists

Being China’s first and oldest unified philosophy, Taoist teachings have greatly influenced Chinese (and consequently East Asian) society, but their omission of answers on death and the great beyond have often caused people to fill in the blanks. Religious Taoism (established some 200 to 400 years after organized Taoist philosophy itself) is essentially Chinese folk beliefs and superstitions loosely held together by Taoist philosophy, and when it comes to death, Chinese folklore is filled with demons, ghosts, and realms of afterlife magic.

Taoist observance of the natural world dictates that death is inevitable, but ancient superstitions argue that there’s a way around this. The search for an elixir of immortality is historically an important aspect of religious Taoism, and for at least the past two millennia, this obsession to defy death by Taoist alchemists has led to revolutionary discoveries such as gunpowder, rocketry, acupuncture, and a host of varying medicines.155 Aside from alchemic experimentation, there were other everyday things that every Taoist could do that were believed to keep death at bay and prolong life, including sexual techniques (like “edging”), breathing techniques, exercise, tai chi, vegetarian diets, and living a moral life.156

Funerary Spiritual Defense

Once death inevitably does happen,

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