Coping with the Future

Michael Lackner, Dr. phil. (1983), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, is Professor of Sinology at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. He has published monographs and many articles on China and co-edited Mapping meanings. The Field of New Learning in Late Qing China (Brill, 2004).

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsList of Figures and TablesNotes on ContributorsIntroductionMichael LacknerPart 1: Divination and Literature: Excavated and Extant1 A Recently Published Shanghai Museum Bamboo Manuscript on DivinationMarco Caboara2 Hexagrams and Prognostication in the Weishu Literature: The Thirty-Two-Year Cycle of the Qian zuo duBent Nielsen3 The Representation of Mantic Arts in the High Culture of Medieval ChinaPaul W. Kroll4 Divination, Fate Manipulation, and Protective Knowledge in and around The Wedding of the Duke of Zhou and Peach Blossom Girl, a Popular Myth of Late Imperial ChinaVincent Durand-DastèsPart 2: Divination and Religions5 A List of Magic and Mantic Practices in the Buddhist CanonEsther-Maria Guggenmos6 The Allegorical Cosmos: The Shi 式 Board in Medieval Taoist and Buddhist SourcesDominic Steavu*7 Divining Hail: Deities, Energies, and Tantra on the Tibetan PlateauAnne C. KleinPart 3: Divination and Politics8 Early Chinese Divination and Its RhetoricMartin Kern9 Choosing Auspicious Dates and Sites for Royal Ceremonies in Eighteenth-century KoreaPark Kwon SooPart 4: Divination and Individual 10 Exploring the Mandates of Heaven: Wen Tianxiang’s Concepts of Fate and Mantic KnowledgeLiao Hsien-huei11 Chŏng Yak-yong on Yijing DivinationKim Yung Sik12 From Jianghu to Liumang: Working Conditions and Cultural Identity of Wandering Fortune-Tellers in Contemporary ChinaStéphanie Homola13 Women and Divination in Contemporary KoreaJennifer Jung-KimPart 5: Mantic Arts: When East Meets West14 Translation and Adaption: The Continuous Interplay between Chinese Astrology and Foreign CultureChe-chia Chang15 Against Prognostication: Ferdinand Verbiest’s Criticisms of Chinese Mantic ArtsChu Pingyi16 Contradictory Forms of Knowledge? Divination and Western Knowledge in Late Qing and Early Republican ChinaLi Fan and Michael Lackner17 Western Horoscopic Astrology in KoreaJun Yong HoonPart 6: Reflections on Mantic Arts18 How to quantify the Value of Domino Combinations? Divination and Shifting Rationalities in Late Imperial ChinaAndrea Bréard19 Correlating Time Within One’s Hand: The Use of Temporal Variables in Early Modern Japanese “Chronomancy” TechniquesMatthias Hayek20 The Physical Shape Theory of Fengshui in China and KoreaOh SanghakIndex

"Coping with the Future is a landmark study of divination in East Asia, mainly for its depth and breadth of scholarship, but also for the impact it will have in elucidating an esoteric subject for a wider audience. The Käte Hamburger Center, under the auspices of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is to be commended for funding the studies published herein and we applaud Michael Lackner for the years of effort he has dedicated to this project. With this groundbreaking work, if not before, he has distinguished himself as a leader in the field."–Stephen L. Field, Trinity University, Journal of the American Oriental Society 140.2 (2020)"Written mainly by historians and cultural researchers, these papers address subjects that are scattered throughout various historical and geographic areas, offering short but detailed insights into aspects of divinatory practices. […] This volume will be of great interest to every scholar studying East Asian practices of “fate exploration.”– Grzegorz Frąszczak, Religious Studies 47.2 (June 2021)