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The Taoist Body written by Kristofer Schipper was pretty unique when it came out in 1982. It was one of the first serious attempts by western scholarship to look at "religious Taoism" and treat it with respect and as the true descendant of the works of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi that had held the elevated position of "philosophical Taoism" considered to be worthwhile by the west. This dichotomy was largely the fault of the first western translators of Chinese texts, James Legge, a Christian missionary, saw the philosophical value of the classical texts but wanted to divorce them from any religious context and so the divide became known to western readers and stayed in most people's minds for almost a hundred years. It is now commonly accepted among scholars that there is no separate division between so called philosophical and religious Taoism but that they are the same thing. This is fairly recent and in large part due to the work of Kristofer Schipper.
What makes Kristofer Schipper even more interesting an author was that he was the first westerner who ever became an ordained Taoist priest. He originally went to Taiwan to study but disgusted with the attitudes he met there towards "superstitious" practices he left the university and went and lived in a small village in the south of Taiwan and experienced everything for himself. As he had been a trained singologist before he was amazed to see the texts he'd been studying being used as part of regular ritual. This makes for a very interesting perspective in his writing.
A lot of the book outlines specific Taoist rituals as they were practiced at the time in Taiwan. While the outline of rituals is familiar to anyone who has read any anthropological accounts of religious rituals in Taiwan, the fact that he understands the rituals from the standpoint of a participant makes for a greater understanding and a less stand offish perspective. It also means much less jargon and theory than a typical anthropological account.
Because what Schipper is describing is a living religion he doesn't follow the typical progress of an introductory book on Taoism, starting with the classical texts and how these influenced later thoughts. Rather he starts with the everyday religion as it's practiced, looking at who practices it, how they become Taoists, what the rituals and the festivals are. He then progresses to the ideas behind the rituals, looking at the concepts of gods and spiritual power and how these are represented in rituals. I found his look at medium-ship and spirit possession particularly interesting.
After the look of communal Taoism he looks at the individual cultivation of the Tao. His book focuses on the idea that Taoism is something that one needs to feel in your body rather than understand intellectually in your mind. He looks at the imagery of the body being the inner landscape and the principles of Lao Zi and Keeping the one.
The chapter on the immortals was particularly interesting, while not as detailed or as analytical as later works such as Robert Ford Campany's it was a good overview and introduction and held together his ideas and themes well.
Schipper writes with an ease of explanation, though at times his frustration with people who have persecuted Taoism over the years comes through a bit too strongly. What he describes seems to just be the work of his own personal study until you start looking through the extensive footnotes in the back and the pages of Chinese texts that he has translated his ideas and stories from. His study goes far beyond just the standard works of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi. When he finally does address those works in the last chapter. They are analyzed with the same ideas that have progressed through the rest of the book. Now the reader has the ideas of Taoism it is easy to see these ideas in the older texts, a much better progression I think than trying to initially explain the texts and then say how these fit in with the religious ideas.
The only problem with this book was that it was an English translation of a French book. There is always something a little disconcerting about reading someone else's translation of an author's translation of a religious text. A translation 2 times removed seems extra difficult for understanding the true meaning. Nonetheless this book was an interesting and refreshing look at Taoism and I'm sure is partly responsible for many of the later works in the field.
What makes Kristofer Schipper even more interesting an author was that he was the first westerner who ever became an ordained Taoist priest. He originally went to Taiwan to study but disgusted with the attitudes he met there towards "superstitious" practices he left the university and went and lived in a small village in the south of Taiwan and experienced everything for himself. As he had been a trained singologist before he was amazed to see the texts he'd been studying being used as part of regular ritual. This makes for a very interesting perspective in his writing.
A lot of the book outlines specific Taoist rituals as they were practiced at the time in Taiwan. While the outline of rituals is familiar to anyone who has read any anthropological accounts of religious rituals in Taiwan, the fact that he understands the rituals from the standpoint of a participant makes for a greater understanding and a less stand offish perspective. It also means much less jargon and theory than a typical anthropological account.
Because what Schipper is describing is a living religion he doesn't follow the typical progress of an introductory book on Taoism, starting with the classical texts and how these influenced later thoughts. Rather he starts with the everyday religion as it's practiced, looking at who practices it, how they become Taoists, what the rituals and the festivals are. He then progresses to the ideas behind the rituals, looking at the concepts of gods and spiritual power and how these are represented in rituals. I found his look at medium-ship and spirit possession particularly interesting.
After the look of communal Taoism he looks at the individual cultivation of the Tao. His book focuses on the idea that Taoism is something that one needs to feel in your body rather than understand intellectually in your mind. He looks at the imagery of the body being the inner landscape and the principles of Lao Zi and Keeping the one.
The chapter on the immortals was particularly interesting, while not as detailed or as analytical as later works such as Robert Ford Campany's it was a good overview and introduction and held together his ideas and themes well.
Schipper writes with an ease of explanation, though at times his frustration with people who have persecuted Taoism over the years comes through a bit too strongly. What he describes seems to just be the work of his own personal study until you start looking through the extensive footnotes in the back and the pages of Chinese texts that he has translated his ideas and stories from. His study goes far beyond just the standard works of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi. When he finally does address those works in the last chapter. They are analyzed with the same ideas that have progressed through the rest of the book. Now the reader has the ideas of Taoism it is easy to see these ideas in the older texts, a much better progression I think than trying to initially explain the texts and then say how these fit in with the religious ideas.
The only problem with this book was that it was an English translation of a French book. There is always something a little disconcerting about reading someone else's translation of an author's translation of a religious text. A translation 2 times removed seems extra difficult for understanding the true meaning. Nonetheless this book was an interesting and refreshing look at Taoism and I'm sure is partly responsible for many of the later works in the field.