集古今佛道論衡 2.6

2.6

Second, regarding false claims of the true Dao: The Shu ji says: 'Zhang Ling entered Mount Heming and styled himself the Heavenly Master. At the end of the Jiaping era of the Han, he was devoured by a python. His son Heng fled, and devised an expedient method to display a numinous transformation: he crushed a swan's foot while alive and placed it on the top of a stone cliff. When the first year of the Guanghe era arrived, he sent an emissary to announce: "On the seventh day of the first month, the Heavenly Master ascended to the Mystery Capital." The rice-folk and mountain barbarians consequently spread this falsehood, trading on death to profit life; no transgression exceeds the extremity of this! Third, regarding combining qi to expiate sins: They falsely fabricate Yellow Texts and chant spells against leprosy without basis, saying they open the gate of life, escort true persons, through the three, five, seven, and nine, and the celestial nets and terrestrial snares. Men and women intermingle promiscuously, no different from beasts, using this to dispel disasters and misfortunes—how could this be acceptable?'