American Journal of Chinese Studies 1.1 (1992), pp. 123-144.

Incantations: Poetry, Prayer, and Possession in T'ang Verse (abstract)

Many legends demonstrate that the Chinese reader accepted the poet's role as a communicator with the spirit world. Many T'ang poets wrote pieces that their readers believed communicated with the underworld. Some verses were prophecies, others became exorcisms, while some poetry was believed to have caused the spirits to return loved ones from the world of the dead, or on the contrary, to have caused them to remove people from the world of the living.

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