The Spiritualism Debate and the Reconstruction of Epistemic Order: Revisiting Spirit-Writing Practices and Scientific Discourse During the New Culture Movement

Established in 1917, the Spiritual Society (Lingxuehui 灵学会) centered its activities on spirit-writing (fuji 扶乩), constructing a sacred discourse through the Spiritual Chronicles (Lingxue Congzhi 灵学丛志) that blended Confucian ethics, Buddhist–Daoist notions of reincarnation and karmic causality, and the terminologies of modern science. This synthesis aimed to restore moral order and epistemic legitimacy amid intense social upheaval. Beginning in 1918, however, New Youth—the flagship journal of the New Culture Movement—launched sustained critiques against Spiritualism (Lingxue 灵学). Moving beyond a historical narrative, this article draws on Weber, Foucault, and Abbott to analyze this confrontation as a contest for exclusive jurisdiction over “explaining the world” and “healing society.” New Culture intellectuals labeled fuji as “superstition” through the lenses of scientism and psychology, linking it to imperial residues and anti-modern ideologies. Scientific discourse, by deploying the label of “superstition”, secured epistemological orthodoxy and systematically marginalized indigenous spiritual traditions. The confrontation between the “divinity–medium–text” structure and the modern logic of “science–rationality–nation” reveals a deeper struggle over knowledge boundaries and legitimacy, while also illuminating the tensions and negotiations that shaped China’s trajectory toward modernity.