Page 266 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

O

Occultism

midao

From the days of Lao-zi and Confucius onwards, the educated upper classes in
China have been on the whole enlightened, rational and concerned with life here and now
rather than with a shadowy beyond. Pari passu with this rationalist approach, however,
there persisted a cult of ancestor worship, laced with all sorts of astrological
practices, geomancy, medicine, augury and oracles, and number
mysticism. The task that both Confucians and Taoists set themselves was to arrive at a
complete understanding of the self, as part of an all-embracing ontological ethics.
‘Union in the spirit’ guided both schools even when such mythological and alchemistic
factions as that of the Taoist Huai-nan-zi (179–122 BC) arose, when Taoist secret
societies sprang up all over China and when Confucianism for its part hardened into an
increasingly doctrinaire system.

Members of an occult sect performing their rites