Honor Heaven,Serve Spirits:Mozi’s Spirit Realm From The Perspective Of Chinese Shamanistic Tradition

The once-lost Warring States masterpiece The Mozi has been regarded as one of the earliest Chinese Classics to explore the study of formal logic and epistemology,and for this reason modern scholarship has mainly studied the work from the perspective of etymology and philosophy of language.Scholars in China and the West have regarded the work’s view of ghosts and deities as an outlier in the mainstream of Chinese thought,frequently ignoring or misunderstanding its premise,yet the present research attempts to amend these shortcomings.This work borrows Li Zehou’s “shamanistic tradition” or “rationalized shamanism” theory to rediscuss the meaning of ghosts and deities in The Mozi,explaining the relationship between“shamans” and “ghosts”,how this conception guided The Mozi’s views on ghosts,and what are the particularities of such notion.This paper discusses the conclusions of nearly twenty years of international research on Mohism,particularly regarding the composition process of The Mozi’s original manuscript.According to this research,in recent years the opinion of the work as being written by a single author has been refuted.Thus,today the text is regarded as being a composite work,which has led researchers’ emphasis on the clues about its doctrines as shown in the works structure and narrative style.Regarding The Mozi’s view of ghosts,the original text reveals that statements such as “honor Heaven”,“serve ghosts” and “care for others” became the main thread of Mohist rhetoric relatively early.The present paper points out that rather than view The Mozi’s concepts of “Divine Will” and “ghosts and deities” as a type of innovation,it would be better to acknowledge that its conceptual foundations arise from the worldview and psychological beliefs of ancient shamanism.After describing the types of ghosts that inhabit The Mozi’s spiritual realm in the chapter“Explaining Ghosts”,the present texts proposes to conclude that The Mozi in reality expounds upon a conception of ghosts and deities that was common in the history of ancient Chinese thought,with its characteristics being as follows: 1)The human and spiritual realms exist together,mutually influence each other,and do not belong to two different natures;2)What are“ghosts” and what are “deities” was indistinguishable in the beginning and only later became slowly differentiated.For this reason,early on “Heaven” and “The Lord Above” denote highranking spirits,not supreme deities;3)Ghosts do not inhabit an amoral conception of the universe,and are often understood as metaphors to the outcomes of good and evil human actions.For this reason,their main function towards mankind is ethical;4)Thus,in the collective imagination of China,the conception of ghosts and deities simulates everyday human affairs,with the most important being politics and administration.Trying to correct the status of The Mozi’s view of ghosts in the history of philosophy and literature is the value and significance of this paper’s research on Mohism.Re-reading the conception of ghosts in Mozi from the perspective of the traditional worldview of ancient Chinese witchcraft helps to cast aside prejudices that arise from the framework of Western theology and metaphysics.The substantive and dominant views of a supreme,personal deity in the history of Western thought is rare in the mainstream of Chinese thought.This paper proposes to take the vestiges of the Chinese witchcraft worldview as the starting point for the imagination and conception of ancient ghosts and deities,and this research direction can encourage researchers to re-read this relatively unknown classic of the Warring States Period.