Faith, Rituals, and the Local Society (Historical Anthropological Exploration of Feng Shui - Volume 1 and 2)

Author: Chen Jinguo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: This book inherits the tradition of the social history school founded by Fu Yiling and attempts to employ the method of "anthropological history" to view Feng Shui customs as a cultural system and a way of life in Chinese rural society. It systematically explores the relationship between Feng Shui cultural phenomena and the identity, classification consciousness, and social-cultural order integration of rural society in modern times, and "reconstructs" the cultural images and life scenes created by Feng Shui knowledge and concepts over long-term rural transformations. The author also places the narrative of Feng Shui knowledge, concepts, and beliefs within the broader context of Chinese intellectual history, reflecting on the intrinsic connection between the mysterious Feng Shui culture and China's "continuous civilization," thereby presenting the actual state of the cosmological concepts, beliefs, and intellectual world of rural society since modern times. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the chapter summaries are as follows:
Chapter 1: Examines the close relationship between Feng Shui beliefs and the historical development of rural society since modern times from the social backdrop of the migration and development process in Fujian. In southeastern China, Feng Shui concepts and beliefs carry distinct regional characteristics, being closely related to the habits of Han Chinese settlers and their tradition of worshipping deities. During the process of "indigenization," the Han migrants effectively transformed the original "sorcery and ghost worship" culture of the indigenous people through Feng Shui concepts and beliefs, achieving a meaningful shift from "adapting to the land" to "local consciousness" or "wilderness consciousness." As settlement patterns developed and human-land conflicts intensified, clan consciousness also flourished in rural society, further intensifying the competition for limited Feng Shui symbolic capital and profoundly influencing regional folk belief forms.
Chapter 2: Describes the overall dynamic of mutual competition and compatibility between the two major Feng Shui schools in the regional expansion of rural society since modern times, thereby revealing the cultural significance of Feng Shui in regional belief systems. This section combines social history and numerological history to phenomenologically describe the conceptual genealogy and humanistic significance of the two schools, reflecting on how they achieved "localized cultural expressions" through "faith-based practices," thereby forming the general meaning of Feng Shui knowledge and cognition. This chapter also attempts "role-reversal research," facilitating dialogues between folk Feng Shui experts and researchers to grasp the overall cultural attitudes and value judgments of Feng Shui experts in social transformations. The trend of blurred Feng Shui school awareness in folk society also indicates the resilient penetration of China's deity and sacrifice traditions.
Chapters 3 and 4: Explore in detail how the widespread rural memory of Feng Shui knowledge and concepts is possible, focusing on elements such as almanacs, spiritual divination slips, pacifying talismans, construction rituals, funeral ceremonies, and spirit-writing texts. These analyses examine how Feng Shui knowledge and concepts gradually "deepen" into folk beliefs through related sorcery-religious rituals, becoming part of people's "lifeworld." Various rituals related to Feng Shui reflect the agglomeration of cultural transformations in rural society. The process by which Feng Shui knowledge and concepts are recognized, accepted, and transformed into folk beliefs is one of value conversion and meaning regeneration. In the process of "extending from family to village" under traditional rituals or sacrificial concepts, Feng Shui masters, date selectors, and ritual officiants fully play the role of "cultural mediators," even "mediators."
Chapter 5: Analyzes the relationship between Feng Shui beliefs and the cultural space construction of the gentry class in rural society since modern times, particularly examining the conscious Feng Shui practices and expressions of the gentry. This reflects on how Feng Shui knowledge and concepts became a cultural bridge connecting elites and commoners, the state (nation) and society, and how they influenced local social and economic transformations. The gentry class is an actively pursuing "benefit maximization" cultural group. In internalizing Feng Shui knowledge and concepts as their own beliefs, they also ideologize them, filling regional public or private spaces with the meanings and values they assign. The character "yi" (reason) is merely a performative collective representation, while the character "li" (desire) truly writes the soul of the gentry.
Chapter 6: Uses contractual documents and typical family cases to meticulously analyze the relationship between Feng Shui concepts and beliefs and the order integration and family development in rural society since modern times. The construction model of rural social order since modern times has been partly constrained and arranged by Feng Shui conceptual schemas, thereby maintaining a dynamic balance within the forces of "destruction/integration." Feng Shui concepts and beliefs provide a culturally self-sufficient explanatory mechanism for the development space of families, lineages, and clan forces. The symbolic construction of ancestral tombs and clan halls' Feng Shui is intrinsically linked to the genealogical patterns and functional forms of "lineage/family." The differentiation theory of Feng Shui practices within lineages, along with the natural "cohesion/splitting" tension between families and lineages, participates in shaping the "arrowhead effect" of Feng Shui worship in ancestral tombs or clan halls.