What was "witchcraft" in ancient times? Why was it forbidden in ancient times?

Witchcraft is a curse handed down from ancient times, is one of the traditional culture of the ethnic minorities in the southern region of China's longest history of mysterious cultural matters, rooted in national beliefs, far-reaching and extensive impact. At that time, people believe that the sorcerer ancestral sacrifice or buried in the ground with tung wood puppets, cursed by the grudge, the cursed that there is a disaster, the Qin-Han-Sui-Tang period, the court is particularly disgusted with this sorcery, well now has been lost. Now people seem, witchcraft is - tie the little man.

All dynasties in the ancient times believed in witchcraft, often used to pray and predict misfortune; civilization developed to a certain extent, they began to prohibit witchcraft, because the later rulers began to realize that witchcraft is mostly used to harm people. Especially during the period of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, the scourge of witchcraft was so far-reaching that the art of witchcraft was completely regarded as an evil art from then on.

Liu Che's reign was characterized by harsh punishments and the appointment of coolies. At the same time, Liu Che was very superstitious and believed in witchcraft. But the prince Liu according to the people generous, always advocating the mitigation of punishment. In order to prevent the crown prince from changing his policy, the cool officials were all in danger of losing their jobs.

After Wei Qing's death, ministers whose political views favored harsh law enforcement denigrated the crown prince. It so happened that Emperor Wu had a dream in which thousands of wooden figures attacked him. He thought that there must be a curse being practiced by someone, so he ordered Jiang Chong to look into the matter.

Jiang Chong used this opportunity to search the palace and put the witchcraft into the palace of Crown Prince Liu. The crown prince was horrified and had Jiang Chong beheaded. Later, he was slandered for plotting a rebellion and fled to a commoner's home, where he was later found and hanged himself.

What is compulsion?

"Compulsion" is one of the sorceries that use poisonous insects to harm people. It is a kind of ancient mysterious and horrible witchcraft, mainly popular in the southern region of China in some ethnic minorities. Initially born in a vessel of small insects, later evolved into a mysterious sorcery in ancient China, is attached to the women's body of the poisonous insects, compulsion will be released, harming human beings, animals and plants, a certain region since ancient times, there is "no compulsion is not Zhai," the saying, so the western Hunan Miao village, Zhai Zhai have compulsion. Compulsions in western Hunan became "grass ghosts", and the women who put the compulsion called "grass ghost women". There is also "nothing is not a compulsion", compulsion of many kinds, there are more than a hundred kinds of animals and plants.

The production and types of parasites: most of the parasites are stored by women, and they are women's specialty.

However, this kind of trick, which cannot wait for the hall of elegance, has been passed down in the hands of people with bad intentions, and has developed into different kinds of witchcraft in various regions. For example, the infamous insect parasites and head-scalpers, whose names alone make people afraid to listen to them, and whose methods of harming people are even more varied.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was a new kind of sorcery in the Jiangnan region, commonly known as "pulling floss" or "playing floss ba". This sorcery is to coax people to eat something, after eating people immediately become delirious, can not help but follow the practitioner, which sounds a bit like the legendary "shoot flowers".

But "pulling floss" and "shoot flowers" is still a fundamental difference, "shoot flowers" after a few hours, the person will be awake, the caster cheated to the money will be The "Ripcord" is fundamentally different from the "Ripcord". And "pulling floss" approach to be more ruthless, often will turn people into animals, often in the face of the family was led away by the cheated will not be noticed, often women and children suffer from this sorcery its victims.

"Liaozhai Zhiyi" has recorded, in Yangzhou Province, there is an inn, a guest with five donkeys to stay, the shopkeeper will pull the donkeys to the yard tethered, the guests ran in a panic to account for, never feed their own donkeys, the shopkeeper promised to leave after the peace of mind.

After the man left, several of the donkeys suddenly became agitated and helped each other try to escape from the rope. The shopkeeper thought the donkeys were starving, but the customer had told him not to feed them, so he just took some water and fed the donkeys.

The donkeys obediently settled down to drink the water, and then a miracle happened. The donkeys slowly turned into living women in front of the shopkeeper! The shopkeeper was shocked but did not dare to say anything, so he asked the women what was going on. The women were slow to recover their senses, their mouths and tongues were stiff and they were unable to communicate, so the shopkeeper had to hide them in a compartment.

Back in the store, the donkey owner was not in the guest room, and after a while led five sheep back, also let the shopkeeper to the backyard, again told that not to feed.

The shopkeeper was very clever, he knew that hard to report to the police would alarm the guests, so he brought "spiced" meals, and so the guests ate and drank enough to fall asleep, and then ran to the backyard to feed the five goats to drink water, who knew that the five goats immediately turned into five children.

The shopkeeper hurriedly sent people to report to the police, the guests woke up and saw themselves surrounded by magistrates, knowing that things have been exposed, and had to admit that he had learned the "pulling floss" sorcery, turning people into animals to facilitate the abduction and sale of these women and children. After he confessed, the angry officers immediately beat him to death with a stick.

In 1768, the thirty-third year of the Qianlong reign, an unusual witchcraft in the southern region of the Yangtze River led to unrest in the countryside and the wrath of the emperor, which ended with the beheading of more than 10,000 people. So what was this all about?

In the thirty-third year of Qianlong, that is, the first month of 1768 AD. Deqing County, Zhejiang Province, needs to repair a stone bridge, a local mason Wu was elected as the project leader because of his skill. Just as Wu prepared the materials to start work, his fellow townsman Shen Shiliang came to his door.

Shen Shiliang is a wealthy businessman, his family has a lot of assets, according to common sense that he and Wu mason has no friendship, this time he rushed to come is why? In the Wu mason doubt, Shen Shiliang from his pocket took out a silver ingot, mysteriously said his purpose of this trip.

It turns out that this Shen Shiliang family property is rich but no children can inherit, only to give the family property to the two nephews, so that the nephews asked for his old age. Now the nephews seem to have backtracked, Shen Shiliang decided to punish them, so he handed the note with his nephews' names to Wu Shishi.

There was a terrible story circulating in Jiangnan at that time: the mason would press the note with the name under a stone and beat it, and the person whose name was on the note would either be killed or maimed.

Shen Shiliang was so convinced of this curse that he asked Wu to build the bridge by inserting the note under the water along with the bottomed stake and then pounding it with a sledgehammer to curse his two nephews. Wu Stonemason, a simple craftsman, never gave a second thought to such evil arts.

In his view, this Shen Shiliang is also a person of conscience, nephews do not serve their own theory of the government is how to come up with this kind of underhanded tricks? So he flatly refused. But that Shen Shiliang still pestered.

In order to avoid inviting the wrong, Wu mason will send him to the county court, a trial down the county officials think it is just a neighborhood dispute, will Shen Shiliang hit twenty boards to end. However, trouble ensued. As the case spreads, more and more people are convinced that the rumor of witchcraft, which takes away people's souls, is real.

Two months later, another case in Deqing County worsened the situation. A beggar who had begged his way from Deqing County to Hangzhou was sent to the government by the locals because of his suspicious behavior. After being tortured, the beggar falsely claimed that he could take away a child's soul with a talisman.

This kind of rhetoric, in the official view is tantamount to a fantasy, directly ignored. So there were no notices posted to dispel the rumors. But the crowds of spectators at the scene panicked and rushed to tell the others.

Seeing that things were getting too big, the government remembered to mend its ways: all over the states and counties, they began posting notices. Perhaps because they have been in the same place for so long, the announcements not only failed to curb the rumors, but also added fuel to the fire. In order to keep up with the situation, the officials have been trying to hide the rumors for the sake of their performance, so they have missed the last chance to dispel the rumors.

Under the planning of some people with ulterior motives, this ordinary case soon disturbed half of the Qing Empire.

In June, Han Peixian, a scholar from Shandong, confessed to having cut people's hair braids one after another;

In July, a beggar surnamed Cai from Shandong confessed to having been taught to bewitch passers-by with ecstasy and to cut people's hair braids;

In August, a 72-year-old woman named Zhang in Jingzhou confessed to having cut off the corners of a maid's coat twice.

And the purpose of all these people is nothing more than to plot mischief...

The funniest thing is that even a schoolchild named Guo Xingli in Shaanxi, who had missed his studies because of his desire to watch street theater, lied to his mother that he had been cut off from the braids of his hair and had lost his soul...

The paper can't hold the fire, and the furor quickly In anger, Qianlong couldn't help but rebuke the courtiers: "The Qing Empire through the Kangxi, Yongqian three inspirational governance, the world peace sea peace and river clear, how can be such ridiculous words stirred up no peace?"

Because of the mystery of witchcraft, in the outside world has been evolved into a mysterious means of harming people and the mysterious means to get through to the gods. In the history of the West, witchcraft was a divine art that allowed for psychic powers, while in the East witchcraft was understood more as a harmful art. For this reason, most people have a strong dislike for witchcraft. It is forbidden.