JOHN ANDERSON 2022

LECTURE: Oh Come You Back!: The Loss, Return, and Retention of Souls Within Daoism, with Modifications
The goal of this presentation is to provide the listeners and participants were the basis for understanding the role of embodied souls within East Asian folk practices, specifically within the Chinese Taoist milieu. To this effect, we will be examining two particular forms of spirits, both considered souls, one known as the Hun corresponds to a celestial or etheric form of soul, wo the other, the Po is correspondingly attached to the function and maintenance of the physical body. When either of these souls become separated from the body for any extended period of time there are physical and spiritual ramifications for the person. Broadly speaking, soul loss such as this can affect all aspects of life up to you and including the foreshortening of ones destiny or or allotted potential. The good news is that there are ways in which one can call back and reinstall these soul forms within the body. To this end, this presentation will provide both vocative and material means by which to call upon and receive both the hun and the Po souls. To begin, however, we will examine some of the major symptoms and outcomes of soul loss as they are laid out in Taoist texts. Next, using the oldest known materia medica available within Chinese medicine, the Shennong Bencao, we will examine specific ingredients such as ginseng (renshen), poria (fuling), raspberry (pinglei), privet seed (nuzhenzi), buplerum (chaihu), and a host of other herbal and stone ingredients which may be used to calm, reseat, reinstate, and restore the hun and po souls.