"Chou Rite" On Witchcraft

Witchcraft is an important component of Chinese Ancient Culture. Necromantic activity and Wicca keep on an extremely hot trend of development, and exert a deepgoing influence on Ancient Political, Military, Law, Culture, Folk customs, and also Thinking Patterns and sense of Values. This paper attempts to make an intensive study of"Chou Rite"on Witchcraft, so as to clarify the exceedingly rich and fantastic culture, restore the early social environment of Chinese nation, and explore the important role of witchcraft in forming Culture and Customs.The first part of this thesis investigates the origination of wizard, and tries to analysis the Wizard Official System of"Chou Rite", which included the appellation, position, duty, subordinate relationship, combined mechanism and so on. The Wizard Official System was an important part of Official System in the Zhou Dynasty and it not only inherited the previous but also provided a reference for the futures.The second part of the thesis tries to arrange the main form of witchcraft, including the Sacrifice, Benedictory and the Course, Augury, Music and Dance and Praying, these were all tried to communicate with Gods, in order to become more capable of conquering the nature.The third part of the thesis analyses the Necromantic Activity of"Chou Rite", such as Spiritualism, Pretend the Ancestors, Pray for Rain, Worship of Blood, Exorcise Culture, Gu Poison and Saving the Sun and the Moon, so as to distinguish the morphology, attribute and the Origin and Development of witchcraft, all these are helpful to investigate the Social Economic and Political System of pre-Qin and do research on Chinese traditional culture.The forth part of the thesis tries to do some textual research on artifacts which were used by wizard while practicing witchcraft. These artifacts including many kinds of plants and animals which were known as magic things, they are thought to be full of supernatural powers.