This work is an examination of spirit possession and exorcism in the 12th and 13th centuries and a social history of the full panoply of China's religious practices and practitioners at the moment when she was poised to dominate the world economy.

Society and the Supernatural in Song China is at once a meticulous examination of spirit-possession and exorcism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a social history of the full panoply of China's religious practices and practitioners at the moment when she was poised to dominate the world economy. Although the Song dynasty (960-1276) is often identified with the establishment of Confucian orthodoxy, Edward Davis demonstrates the renewed vitality of the dynasty's Taoist, Buddhist, and local religious traditions.