Matthias Schumann is postdoctoral research fellow at Heidelberg University. His research deals with the interconnections between religion, society and politics in modern Chinese history. He is author of several articles and co-editor of Protecting the Weak in East Asia: Framing, Mobilisation and Institutionalisation (Routledge, 2018). Elena Valussi is a senior Lecturer at Loyola University Chicago. She has published extensively on the intersection between religion, gender and the body in China, on Daoist intellectual history and on spirit writing in China. She is the Vice- President of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions.

• AcknowledgmentsList of Figures and TablesNote on Formal ConventionsDynastic Table1 Introduction to the VolumeMatthias Schumann and Elena ValussiPart 1 Overview Papers2 Making the Gods Write: A Short History of Spirit-Written Revelations in China, 1000–1400Vincent Goossaert3 Spirit-Writing Practices from the Song to Ming Periods and Their Relation to Politics and ReligionWang Chien-chuan 王 見川4 Women, Goddesses, and Gender Affinity in Spirit-WritingElena ValussiPart 2 Changing Techniques and Practices5 Terminology and Typology of Spirit-Writing in Early Modern China: A Preliminary StudyHu Jiechen6 The Transcendent of the PlateThe Lingji zhimi 靈乩指迷 (Instructions on the numinous stylus) and the Reform of Spirit-Writing Techniques during the First Half of the Twentieth CenturyFan Chun-wu 范 純武Part 3 Spirit-Writing and the Literati Elites in Late Imperial China7 Instantiating the Genealogy of the Way: Spirit-Writing in the Construction of Peng Dingqiu’s Confucian PantheonDaniel Burton-Rose8 A Credulous Skeptic: Ji Yun on the Mantic Arts and Spirit-WritingMichael Lackner9 The Liu-Han Altar: Between a Literati Spirit-Writing Altar and Popular ReligionZhu Mingchuan 朱 明川Part 4 Spirit-Writing and Redemptive Societies10 “Protecting the Dao and Transmitting the Classics”The New Religion to Save the World and the Confucian Dimension of Spirit-Writing in Republican ChinaMatthias Schumann11 Spirit-Writing and the Daoyuan’s Gendered TeachingsXia Shi12 The Phoenix Perches in the Land of the Kami: Spirit-Writing from Yiguandao to TendōNikolas BroyPart 5 Local Communities and Transregional Networks13 The Nineteenth Century Spirit-Writing Movement and the Transformation of Local Religion in Western GuangdongIchiko Shiga14 The Rise of Spirit-Writing Cults in Chaozhou: Reassessing the Role of Charitable HallsLi Guoping 李 國平15 Spirit-Writing Altars in Contemporary Hong Kong: A Case Study of Fei Ngan Tung Buddhism and Daoism SocietyLuo Dan 羅 丹16 A Motley Phoenix? On the Diversity of Spirit-Writing Temples and Their Practices in Puli, TaiwanPaul R. KatzIndex