ABSTRACT
The Book comes from an esoteric circle in China. For a long time it was transmitted orally, and then in writing; the first printing is from the Ch’ien-lung period (eighteenth century). Finally a thousand copies of it were reprinted in Peking in 1920, together with the Hut Ming Ching, and were distributed among a small group of people who, in the opinion of the editor, understood the questions discussed. That is how I was able to get a copy. The new printing and circulation of the little book was due to a religious reawakening growing out of the exigencies of the political and economic conditions in China. There have been formed a series of secret sects whose effort is to achieve, by the practice of secret traditions from ancient times, a state of the psyche lifting them above all the misery of life. The methods used are magical writing, prayer, sacrifice, etc., and, in addition to these, mediumistic séances, widely prevalent in China, by means of which direct connection with the gods and the dead is sought. Experiments are also made with the planchette,1 the flying spirit pencil as the Chinese call it.
