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In historical surveys of witches and witchcraft, the Chinese case is surprisingly absent. This book intends to fill that gap.
Traditional China had at least two different strands of fear, directed at women and sometimes also men. The fear of witches harming people through figurines remained limited to individual social and personal conflicts, for instance between women competing for the attention of their partner or a carpenter and his customers. There was usually a clear winning party. The fear of witches using animal or demon familiars to harm members of their own community indiscriminately led to social exclusion or worse.
Traditional China had at least two different strands of fear, directed at women and sometimes also men. The fear of witches harming people through figurines remained limited to individual social and personal conflicts, for instance between women competing for the attention of their partner or a carpenter and his customers. There was usually a clear winning party. The fear of witches using animal or demon familiars to harm members of their own community indiscriminately led to social exclusion or worse.
Price: $148.00
Pages: 474
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Sinica Leidensia
Publication Date:
30 January 2025
ISBN: 9789004713680
Format: Hardcover
"...The Fear of Witchcraft and Witches in Imperial China not only offers the most comprehensive and intellectually rigorous account of
witchcraft fear in Chinese history to date, but also opens productive avenues for future research on figurines and familiars as enduring cultural tropes that traverse ritual practice, literary imagination, and moral pedagogy. A masterpiece of exceptional erudition and ambition, ter Haar’s book is, in every respect, an indispensable and monumental achievement." - Xu Ma, Chinese Studies International, Vol. 30, 2026.
Barend J. ter Haar (Doctorate, Leiden, 1990), taught at the Universities of Leiden, Heidelberg, Oxford and Hamburg. Among his publications are Guan Yu: The Religious Afterlife of a Failed Hero (2017) and Religious Culture and Violence in Traditional China (2019).