ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the intertwined relationship between herbs and occult arts in Late Imperial China (c. sixteenth to early twentieth centuries). Before the formal creation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the 1950s, astrology, divination, talismans, spells and incantations, often combined with herbs, constituted the core of healthcare cultures in China. Invoked through herbal incense, gods and spirits stood as active agents in the processes of healing, while demons, beasts and insects could be repelled using such everyday herbs as artemisia, peach flowers and ginger. Past studies have persistently dismissed this ritual knowledge of herbs as ‘magical’ or ‘superstitious’, and the worldview wherein this knowledge is rooted as ‘ludicrous’. Drawing on manuscripts and printed books – alongside fieldwork with folk healers in Shanghai and Hong Kong (2014–2020) – the longstanding relationship between herbs, rituals and occult arts in traditional China is instead approached from historical and anthropological perspectives. What is the place of occult herbal knowledge in Chinese medical literature? To what extent does this knowledge relate to scholarly medicine, its theories and practices? What was its significance for everyday life? And who were the actors mostly involved with the ritual use of herbs?
