A Study of Mystical Thinking in Ancient Chinese Expressions: Focusing on “Chen Wei”

Abstract

Ancient Chinese have expressed culture that communicated with gods and spirits through sound and language. This culture has contained mystical thinking that expressed orally, through spoken words, presenting a form of sound. This paper comprehensively examined and summarized the materials of mystical thinking in ancient Chinese from the texts of “Chen Wei”, analyzing the forms of mystical consciousness and the linguistic cultural features that favor cautious speech and silence over verbosity. The study explores the origins of mystical thinking in Chinese culture, tracing it back to the ancient people's blessings and declarations to spirits through shamans and historians, as well as court and folk poetry and proverbs. It then discussed how this was inherited by the texts of “Chen Wei” in Han dynasty, and how the mode of linguistic expression gradually shifted from sound to writing, examining the evolution of the mystical thinking content in ancient Chinese culture.