Reviews 507 differences—or parallels—to more fertile ground and give greater depth to their noble attempt to let them and us "see ourselves." Linda Young Honolulu, Hawai'i Linda Young is a UC Berkeley-trained anthropologist, specializing in EastAsian and SoutheastAsian peoples and cultures. Jordan Paper. The Spirits Are Drunk: ComparativeApproaches to Chinese Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 1995. xx, 315 pp. Hardcover $59.50, isbn 07914 -2315-8. Paperback $17.95, isbn 0-7914-2316-6. In the preface to his book, Jordan Paper alerts readers to the fact that they will not be encountering a comprehensive study of Chinese religion, nor will they discover an underlying methodological consistency; rather "the chapters consist ofa series ofinterconnected explorations into selected major aspects ofChinese religion that have hitherto received relativelylittle analysis, suggesting new approaches and methods" (p. xvi). Furthermore, Buddhism, Daoism, and "Confucianism" will be "deliberately excluded." These are warnings that should be taken to heart as one works through the loosely related essays, many previously published elsewhere , that make up this wide-ranging, fascinating, and uneven volume. Paper begins with a critique of traditional Western scholarship on Chinese religion. Though the overview ofpast scholarship is a bit sketchy, Paper scores solid points when discussing Western academic preoccupations and the ways that they have distorted our understanding of Chinese religion, setting the tone for the rest ofthe book. It quickly becomes clear that Paper's strengths lie in the identification and reinterpretation ofcommonly held, largely unquestioned sinological misperceptions. Therefore readers should not expect to encounter a great deal of new information, but most will find at least a few of their basic assumptions challenged , upended, or reexamined from a surprising angle. In the second chapter, Paper asserts that the sacrificial meal offered to ancestors forms the ritual core of Chinese religion. Over the millennia, Paper argues, y iversi y ^ J301-JfJ0J3I mea] graduaUy expanded in significance until food offerings were eventually found in nearly all rituals, regardless of their original purpose or symbolic meaning. (For example, the Qingmingfestival presumably began as a springtime fertility ritual but now serves as a primary occasion for making food offerofHawai 'i Press 5o8 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 ings to the ancestral spirits.) Paper discusses the links between the Chinese rituals of food sacrifice and social eating, suggesting that with the growth ofan urban elite in the big cities ofmedieval China, inns arose to provide an appropriate locus for celebrating and cementing ties of friendship with ritual meals (p. 42). The modern Chinese obsession with food—not to mention the entire Chinese restaurant industry—might, then, be an outgrowth of the rituals of friendship enshrined in the Confucian tradition. The third, fourth, and fifth chapters are speculative essays on the roles played by altered states of consciousness in the historical development of Chinese religious beliefs and practices. Paper places a commendable emphasis on definition, pointing out that most modern scholars in the social sciences distinguish between medium, shaman, and mystic, using the terms to refer to distinctly different phenomena , while sinologists tend to use the terms interchangeably, dating themselves in the process and reducing the value that their work might have for generalists seeking to compare similar phenomena across cultures. Clear, state-of-theart definitions are provided here for medium, shaman, and mystic, and Paper labors mightily, using materials from art history, cross-cultural anthropology, and textual studies, to demonstrate the occurrence of all three categories ofexperience in the Chinese context. Curiously, Paper's conclusions are more compelling than his supporting evidence . For instance, Paper asserts that the ancient Chinese practice ofusing a young descendant to "impersonate" the ancestor receiving sacrificial food offerings was originally based on trance states similar, perhaps, to the possession seen in modern Afro-Caribbean religions. The adolescent shi was actually believed to be possessed by the spirit of the deceased ancestor; hence it would be more accurate to call her or him the "incorporator of the dead," rather than the impersonator . This seems reasonable, even likely, but at least two of Paper's supporting arguments —that fasting for four days will produce "altered states of consciousness similar to those produced by hallucinogenic substances" (p. 112) and...
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Dec 15, 2003
Josep Solé Puig 
