Spring And Autumn Period

In the era of National clan,the belief of ancestral spirits was the people’s basic faith.The belief of ancestral spirits is an ancient system of knowledge about the nature of human life.The point is animism so people have immortality of the soul.After death,people will move toward eternal spirits’ world.The spirits of the world is divided into gods,and ancestral spirits,is an order system When people die,they would make a reunion with the ancestral spirits.But an important concept about the belief of ancestral spirits is,although ancestral spirits is eternal,but they still have hunger so that they need regular sacrifice from their offspring.The ancients believed that many things which treated as the area of the laws of nature are driven by spiritual power of spirits.Therefore,in order to seek happiness and avoid badness from gods and ancestral spirits,clan members always offer sacrifices to gods or ancestors;for his own eternal happiness after death,living clan members must maintain constant worship.The knowledge make people communicate with unseen spirits is witchcraft.Masters of witchcraft are witches and wizards.In the early clan society,witches and wizards invented a lot of knowledge systems,has important powers in clan society.But in the Spring and Autumn Period,the witches and wizards who had fallen low as just clan professional officials.Differentiated according to the helm there are witches and wizards,Zhen Bu,Zong,Zhu,Historian,Blind musician,Doctors and other categories,are important national adviser for clan monarch.They have political influence by their knowledge.Witchcraft,by the sort of different ways of the interactions between people and gods,could be classified as communicating with spirits,praying or cursing,cleanse away,forecasting,navigation of natural and other types.The practice about the beliefo f ancestral spirits at that time has shaped the political norms.First,the ancestral spirits after death gathered by the chain of consanguinity in the eternal world after death.This claim countries on the ground should arrange diplomatic relations by the relationship between the ancestral spirits;Second,the belief of ancestral spirits makes a country keep the order in the cemetery to reflect the ancestors order in the eternal world after death-in fact to show the political order,and in the ancestral temple there are many key political events such as monarch ascending the throne,ceremony before and after wars,marriage and enjoying the feast of diplomatic behavior.Third,the belief of ancestral spirits constitute the national imgination.The international exchanges is to imagine as intercourse between ancestral spirits.State’s border was treated as the range of ancestral spirits’ psychic power.Witchcraft has a great influence in the political sphere.First,it reflected in the country associated with some particular magic and basic mechanisms,such as oath of alliance make the procedure of the establishment of political relations possible.Second,it reflected in particular witchcraft widely used in more than one political scene,such as divination is used in a variety of political decision-making occasion.Third,it also reflected in a number of major national political sphere made up of many different types of magic,such as the use of a variety of witchcraft in military action.One of the most important witchcraft is offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors.It also a basic mechanism in the country.Sacrifice is thought as the prototype of state institution.It’s created by witches and wizards,the principle throughout every corner of the country from the top of the clan to tip.In the clan country monarch stood at the top of the order of worship.The name of the monarch Jun and Zhu shows its power came from the auspices of ritual affairs;monarchy is known as "Zheng",practicing in worship mechamism Monarchy finally bound by ritual affairs too.The belief of ancestral spirits have decided the political purposes and ideals of governance in clan-country era.The ancients believed that virtue is able to clean a dirty,light the darkness all around.It’s some kind of magical power.This personality helps politics.If the clan leader promotes ancestral virtue well,gods will bless the clan-country flourished.On the contrary,the gods would make evil clan decline.Therefore,clan-countries show special attention to the gods’ omen,in order to reflect on their own political gains and losses.The ancients like to rethink how they practice political virtue in politics;also pay attention to whether the misconduct of nearby country.If their own country has virtue and the near one not,it will be treated as a chance to expansion in the name of God.In order to keep the sacrificing of the clan-country,politics is for the purpose of serving ancestral spirits,and making common people rich and happy.However,the stability of sacrifice is more important than unsustainable huge sacrifice,therefore common people which produce the wealth to sacrifice are more important than sacrifice itself.Ancient people can move freely.In Spring and Autumn Period vacant lands are much more than people.So if a clan-country get people,then it get wealth.If a clan-country is mean to the people,they will migrate and spoil the foundation of sacrifice.