A 5 thunder palm manuscript of Raft Religion Sect. (排教).
Strikes of god may mean different things to different Taoist
traditions. Basically strikes of gods may mean a sort of invulnerability
practised by Mao Shan (茅山) sect. In
this practice, spirits are invited to possess a practitioner and the person
shall be able to play certain type of martial arts and he/she may also possess
certain degree of invulnerability to sharp objects. A parallel comparison is with the Indonesian
Tenaga Dalam practice and their variants.
Another
form of strikes of gods are talismans drawn onto one’s palm and after some
mantra recitations, this talismans become sort of very destructive energy and
when this energy is released from one’s palm towards a target, it can kill
within a period of days. Well, that’s what proponent believes.
Although
these types of strikes of gods are mainly forgotten, traces of them can be seen
in some folk cults such as Liu Ren (六壬), Jin Yin（金英）, Mao Shan（茅山）, Lu Shan (闾山) etc.
There are
many types of strikes of gods:
·
The
five thunders palm (五雷掌)
·
The
plum flower palm (梅花掌)
·
The
flying sand palm (飞沙掌)
·
The
5 elemental swords (五行剑)
·
The
yin palm (阴掌)
·
Etc.
Those
people practising Taoist magic would have heard of the five thunders palm as
this is the all famous Taoist combat magic that can cause severe pain in the
body that may cause fatality if untreated in long run.
Foreigner
would be confused with the ‘strikes of gods’ with actual Shao Lin (少林) kung fu using the same name such
as plum flower palm (梅花掌). The plum flower in magic uses the energy of spirits to cause damage,
but the plum flower in martial art uses physical strength to cause damage to an
opponent. Both of spiritual and physical plum flowers will cause the skin of an
opponent to show red mark of a palm.
I am not
sure if anyone has mastered these form of ‘deadly’ arts these days, but this
would be an interesting topic to talk about if you are interested in Taoist
magic of the minorities though.
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