The Ming-Dynasty Spirit-Writing Tradition and the Lüzu Cult

Record summary

Spirit writing, commonly called fuji or扶乩, used a suspended stylus or planchette to produce characters attributed to deities, immortals, or deceased persons. Ming religious communities associated such practices with Lü Dongbin and other cult figures, generating moral instructions, revelations, and locally authoritative texts. The tradition is a strong comparison case for ideomotor action, group expectation, automatic writing, and religious textual production. Practices varied by altar and period, and surviving texts often record edited or retrospective transmissions rather than raw séance transcripts.