WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE HUMAN? EXPLORING THE SOCIALITY OF CHINESE MEDIUMS (TANG-KIS)

Abstract

Daoism teaches one to live a life harmonious with nature and indifferent to sufferings for life’s events to take its natural course. How can one live such a life in a world filled with inequalities and suffering? This paper is an ethnographic study of two Singaporean Tang-Kis or spirit mediums, outside of their rituals and spirit possessions to understand how Daoist principles are lived in the everyday. Tang-Kis embody and materialise Daoism by exchanging Li, speaking human and performing acts of self-mortification. They routinely manifest Daoism by recreating the ideal “primitive” society, ritually healing devotees to be stoic towards life and partaking in the universe’s cosmic flows. These three aspects of their lifeways impart and actualises Daoism for their devotees too. Essentially, Tang-Kis are only gods incarnate during rituals. Outside of rituals, Tang-Kis are humans. Through mediating rituals and the everyday as well as between divinity and mortality Tang-Kis reveal what it takes to be human according to Daoism.