The Porosity of Things: Daoist Spirit “Possession” in the Thirteenth Century

In the religious fervor of the twelfth and thirteen centuries, a little-studied lineage of Daoist practitioners developed a ritual tradition designed to deal with the ghostly forces of the Fengdu 酆都 underworld—the realm of the unhappy dead. Restless souls dwelling in that realm could and would infiltrate bodies and spaces to bring disease and discord. Daoist Fengdu ritual specialists—whose liturgical descendants still practice today—would then invite spirits to enter bodies and even liturgical instruments to remedy the situation. This research examines how Fengdu masters negotiated the realm of the dead and the realm of the living as intimately connected. Thinking with material feminist ideas recognizing that the human body is always intimately intermeshed with the more-than-human environment, this research shows that Fengdu ritual programs have been liturgical technologies obsessed with the ways in which the human body is intermeshed with the realm of Fengdu. The realm of the dead is not out there somewhere but instead always right here right now. Its ghostly denizens are not simply to be kept at bay but instead appropriately dealt with as they naturally infiltrate porous human bodies and things. Human bodies act as interfaces between living and chthonic realms that interpenetrate and so constitute a complex rather than simple, hierarchical cosmos.

ArgO-EMR Seminar Series Michaelmas Term 2026

Theme: Rethinking Spirit Possession in Anthropological and Historical Contexts

Wednesdays, 5.15pm, Pauling Centre, 58a Banbury Road, Weeks 1, 3, 5 and 7. Also On Teams.

Convened by David Mozina and Elisabeth Hsu.