and "the ghosts in this category of internal disease are not associated with conditions caused by the presence of spirits in a person's mind."
In other words, it's not all in their heads, "but refer to actual <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls and other spectral beings," <i>gui</i>
"that exist," literally exist, really exist, "outside the person's body."
So here we're at the exact antipode of Wang Chong who says it's all in the person's imagination,
fiction of his imagination.
Here these are real spirits, these <i>ligui</i> precisely who come into the person,
so they're "external evils," <i>waixie</i> 外邪, not internal evils, that are then "transformed into internal causes," <i>neiyinhua</i> 內因化.
So they're interiorized external spirits and "are therefore classified as different from external disease causes such as wind evil."
So they come from the outside, but they effect on the inside, we can say in a psychological way, but they are really existing spirits, okay?
In the mind of this great literatus Tao Hongjing.
He's very much involved with the <i>Bencao</i> 本草, that is to say a materia medica,
that is to say a list of all of the herbal solutions to disease,
and there's a text which includes not only the <i>Bencao jing</i> 本草經 itself but also a whole series of commentaries.
And this is what it says: "Now the reasons for disease are many,
but they're all related to evil," always the same term <i>xie</i>.
Right down to the present day when the government wants to say a certain teaching or religion is evil,
they call it <i>xiejiao</i> 邪教, okay?
So: <i>xieqi</i>, <i>xiejiao</i>. "What is evil is so because it is not right," <i>buzheng</i> 不正.
So, <i>zheng</i> versus <i>xie</i>, orthodox versus heterodox.
Here what does it refer to?
"It refers to that which is not normal," abnormal, "in the human body.
Wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, hunger, overeating, taxation (too hard work) and leisure—
all these are evil, and it is not just ghost Qi that causes terrible diseases."
So here we have all of the external causes related to the seasons and so on.
"Humans live in Qi as fish live in water," so that cosmology of Qi is still very much there.
"When the water is muddy, the fish become thin; when Qi is clouded, humans become sick."
"Nothing is more serious than when evil Qi harms a person," <i>xieqi</i>.
So here there's no reference to the <i>gui</i> as in the Tao Hongjing text.
It's much more like the medical classics that it's all in terms of Qi,
but let's watch what happens to this term <i>xieqi</i>, or evil Qi.
"Once the channels and network vessels" of the body as it is conceived in Chinese medicine "have received this outer Qi,"
the <i>xieqi</i> from outside, "they pass it on into the viscera," the five organs and into the "bowels which,
depending on their state of vacuity or repletion, cold or heat, knot it into disease."
So again that same idea of combination of outer and inner, okay?
But we're talking about <i>xieqi</i> coming from outside.
"Disease then gives rise to disease until it spreads and mutates on a wide scale."
Now listen carefully to the next sentence:
"The spirit"—still that term <i>jingshen</i>—"the spirit uses the body for its residence,"
so the spirit and the body, and the one is physical and the other is spiritual,
and the one lives in the other. "When the body receives evil"—so the <i>xieqi</i>—"the spirit inside is also in disarray.
When the spirit is in disarray, then ghost spirits," <i>guiling</i> 鬼靈, "enter.
Their demonic power gradually strengthens, while the hold of the spirit of the person gradually weakens.
How could this not lead to death?" So there you have it, illness as spirit possession.
So from Han Feizi to Tao Hongjing, in fact, there's a very similar understanding of the human person.
Tao Hongjing: "the spirit," <i>jingshen</i>, "uses the body for its residence."
Wang Shuhe from the <i>Maijing</i>: "the five viscera are at once the abode of the <i>hun</i> and <i>po</i> souls and the support of the essence spirit," the <i>jingshen</i>.
Han Feizi: "the state of the <i>jingshen</i> not being in disarray is called ‘having virtue'."
We're simply recalling here now key phrases from the whole longer passages that we've already looked at.
So, spirit disarray or soul loss, that is the loss of the soul,
in turn allows evil spirits to take possession of the body.
So still to this day one of the standard rituals of exorcism done is called <i>shouhun</i> 收魂, that is to say to bring the souls back,
especially done for children—children who have what?
Been surprised by something and so their spirit flies out of them and they become listless, and they become ill, they don't want to eat.
And so you call in the Daoist priest and he does a <i>shoujing</i> 收驚 or to bring to an end that impact of the surprise, but also a <i>shouhun</i> 收魂.