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VULPINE ALCHEMY

VULPINE ALCHEMY BY Southern Illinois University Introduction The Chinese have often attributed uncanny powers to fox spirits ( huli jing ~J.IHlU~) engaged in Daoist Inner Alchemy ( nei dan J?gft ) practices. From medieval times, the Chinese have dreaded fox spirits, 1 and even by the twentieth century, many Chinese still believe in their existence (the modern vernacular continues to utilize the fox spirit as a metaphor for the seductress) .2 Although many Qing narratives depict the fox spirits appearing as beautiful women in order to bewitch men and suck away their energy, they also often record the fox spirits as using their magical Daoist powers to cure the illness the encounter has supposedly caused. Although the fox spirit is more than just a symbol of womanhood, the contradictory attitude expressed towards the fox suggests Chinese men have held similarly ambivalent feelings about women. Chinese sources record an enormous amount of legends on various supernatural topics; here I have selected only a few of those that refer to foxes, mostly from the Qing dynasty, but I also refer to earlier sources. Such legends are stories involving a tradition of recent history that include anecdotes of the supernatural, which the narrator http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png T’oung Pao Brill

VULPINE ALCHEMY

Hammond, Charles E.
T’oung Pao , Volume 82 (4-5): 364 – Oct 3, 1996
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Copyright 1996 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0082-5433
eISSN
1568-5322
DOI
10.1163/15685322-90000005
Publisher site
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Abstract

BY Southern Illinois University Introduction The Chinese have often attributed uncanny powers to fox spirits ( huli jing ~J.IHlU~) engaged in Daoist Inner Alchemy ( nei dan J?gft ) practices. From medieval times, the Chinese have dreaded fox spirits, 1 and even by the twentieth century, many Chinese still believe in their existence (the modern vernacular continues to utilize the fox spirit as a metaphor for the seductress) .2 Although many Qing narratives depict the fox spirits appearing as beautiful women in order to bewitch men and suck away their energy, they also often record the fox spirits as using their magical Daoist powers to cure the illness the encounter has supposedly caused. Although the fox spirit is more than just a symbol of womanhood, the contradictory attitude expressed towards the fox suggests Chinese men have held similarly ambivalent feelings about women. Chinese sources record an enormous amount of legends on various supernatural topics; here I have selected only a few of those that refer to foxes, mostly from the Qing dynasty, but I also refer to earlier sources. Such legends are stories involving a tradition of recent history that include anecdotes of the supernatural, which the narrator

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T’oung Pao – Brill

Published: Oct 3, 1996

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