When did ghosts and spirits arise?

Zhou Dynasty. The theory of ghosts and gods flourished.

Ghosts and Gods: Chinese Religious Ideas and Philosophical Terms. "Zhou Li, Chunguan, Dazongbo" records that the ancient sacrificial rites were divided into gods, human ghosts, and earthly gods.

Humans and ghosts are also known as "human gods", that is, ghosts and gods, referring to dead ancestors. For example, "Zhou Shu Jinteng" records Zhou Gongdan's words: "Versatile, can do ghosts and gods."

After mortals die, they think that their souls are immortal, and they are called ghosts and gods. For example, "Zuo Chuan: The Seventh Year of Zhao Gong" records Zheng Zi's saying, after a person dies, his "soul" can still be a monster and become a ghost. Mozi also said:

Some people die and become ghosts" ("Mozi Ming Ghosts"). The Book of Rites and Rituals says: "When a person dies, he is called a ghost."

All of them regard ghosts and gods as personal gods, believing that after death, the soul of a person can bring good and bad fortune to people.

During the Warring States period, some philosophers used "essence" to explain the soul, and ghosts and gods took on a new meaning. "Guanzi Neiye" says: The essence "flows between heaven and earth, and is called ghosts and gods".

The essence of the human body leaves the body and flows between heaven and earth as ghosts and gods. "Zhou Yi Zhi Ci I" said: "The essence is the object, and the wandering soul is the change, which is the state of knowing the ghosts and gods."

Zheng Xuanzhu said: "The essence is called the god, and the wandering soul is called the ghost." In this view, ghosts and gods are the form of essence changes, and the meaning of their personality gods is relatively weak, but it still has a certain mysterious nature.

Rites and Rituals

After absorbing the essence of qi, it is said that when a person dies, his body is returned to the earth as a ghost, and his qi is carried forward to the top as a god, and it is believed that this qi is still conscious and can enjoy the sacrifices of the world. "The Book of Rites: Suburban Special Sacrifice" says: "Ghosts and gods, yin and yang."

and return the soul to heaven as a god and as a yang; The body is returned to the ground as a ghost and a yin, and the nature of yin and yang and its changes are used to explain ghosts and gods. But it is also believed that the sacrifice of ghosts and gods can be blessed. The Book of Rites

The ghost god theory still recognizes that the ghost god has a will, and retains the meaning of a personal god.

In the Han Dynasty, the atheist Wang Chong critically absorbed the ghosts and gods in the Book of Rites, and proposed that "Yin Qi returns against things, so it is called ghosts; Yang Qi is born from things, so it is called God" ("On Balance and Death"). It is believed that people are dead and ignorant, and that ghosts and gods are only the properties of yin and yang to biochemical all things, and denies the nature of personal gods. Zheng Xuan's note "The Book of Rites and Music" also takes this meaning to the fact that things die and are classified as ghosts, and things are believed to be gods.

Jin Han Kangbo's annotation of "Zhou Yi Zhi Ci" draws on the above-mentioned qi and returns, and uses the essence to gather into things as gods, and the poles are scattered as ghosts, and explains the "feelings of ghosts and gods" with the "principle of gathering and dispersing". Song Zhang is contained in "Yi Shuo".

, and critically absorbed Han Kangbo's saying, calling the qi gathering and manifesting into a god, and the qi dispersing and hiding into a ghost. He also said in "Zhengmeng Taihe": "Ghosts and gods are also good at the two qis."

He believed that the yin qi was succumbed to the ghosts, and the yang qi was the gods, and the ghosts and gods were regarded as two forms of qi movement and change, and said: "The reality of ghosts and gods is only two ends." "Two ends" refers to the two qi of yin and yang.

Zhang Zai's statement not only denied the personality of ghosts and gods, but also discarded the meaning of their souls, and ghosts and gods became a philosophical term to express the bending and stretching of qi. Subsequently, Zhu Xi.

It is also said that "ghosts and gods are just qi, and those who bend and stretch are also qi" ("Zhu Zi's Language").

Volume III). This kind of ghost and god theory was written by most Yi scholars and philosophers in the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Maybe it's from the time when humans knew that money was a good thing.

Some! There are ghosts and gods everywhere in the heavens and on the earth. In the twentieth volume of the Buddhist scripture "Chang Ahan Sutra", there is a Buddha himself who speaks:

In all the streets and alleys, in the Tu'er market and among the mounds, there are ghosts and gods who are empty. That is to say, all the houses and houses where people live, there are ghosts and gods, and there is no free place, but the energy of ghosts and gods is different from ours, the time and space, energy, and state are different, and we human beings cannot see them because of the heavy obstacles and heavy karmic obstacles. You think you're with the goldfish in the glass tank, you may be able to see it, but you certainly won't be together, unless you break the glass tank.

So, gods and ghosts are real, but they are not unusual! Nor superstition, you can understand as: "The so-called."'Ghosts and gods', is the general name of the same level of life form for life forms that are more advanced than their own form and do not know much about it. ”

Your question is like asking: Is there only life on Earth in the universe? The answer must be "impossible", right?

There must be life on other planets, and according to scientists' exploration and reasoning, there are at least 1 billion planets in the Milky Way that have life. Therefore, ghosts and gods are just beings of lower (ghosts) or higher (gods) than us, and there is nothing unusual. For ants, for example, man is their god, isn't it?

Ants can't see what God looks like, but they know that God's voice is like thunder, and a soak of urine can destroy the entire ant world, and I heard my grandfather say that God's lifespan is infinite (ants live for 5 years, and you are at least 75 years, that is, the 25th generation of ants has not seen the end of your lifespan, for ants, isn't that "eternal life"?) So the ants unanimously agree that you are their "god"; On the other hand, bacteria and viruses are wreathing, and ants know their existence, but they can't see or touch them but can feel them, so ants unanimously believe that they are "ghosts", and ants live in this world where gods and ghosts coexist, so they are always in awe, and therefore have faith. How similar is this to the human world, don't you think?

If you believe in ghosts and gods in your heart, then ghosts and gods must exist, and if you don't believe in ghosts and gods, then there are no ghosts and gods in this world.

No, if you tell him to turn off the lights, why don't he turn them off.

Ghosts and gods first began with totem worship.

In primitive societies, productivity was extremely low, and people could not explain nature and life. Hence the totem worship. The burials of primitive people illustrate the idea of having a soul.

In the slave age, due to the need for productivity and domination, the concept of ghosts and gods began to form. After the supplement of successive feudal rulers, the people's hardships also needed the ghost and god religion as sustenance. At the same time, it is also an expression of people's simple thinking.

The earliest system of ghosts and gods was formed in the Jin Dynasty.

The Book of Songs, the Book of Songs, the Book of Changes, and all kinds of strange chronicles in the later period can illustrate this point.

The theory of ghosts and gods originated in the matrilineal commune period (starting from the time of the Yellow Emperor) and first appeared in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.