evil spirits, which can only move in straight lines.

Mention of the ancestral graveyard brings to mind the universal worship
of ancestors, which has been from time immemorial such a marked feature
of Chinese religious life. At death, the spirit of a man or woman is
believed to remain watching over the material interests of the family to
which the deceased had belonged. Offerings of various kinds, including
meat and drink, are from time to time made to such a spirit, supposed to
be particularly resident in an ancestral hall--or cupboard, as the case
may be. These offerings are made for the special purpose of conciliating
the spirit, and of obtaining in return a liberal share of the blessings
and good things of this life. This is the essential feature of the rite,
and this it is which makes the rite an act of worship pure and simple;
so that only superficial observers could make the mistake of classifying
ancestral worship, as practised in China, with such acts as laying
wreaths upon the tombs of deceased friends and relatives.

With reference to the spirit or soul, the Chinese have held for
centuries past that the soul of every man is twofold; in a popular
acceptation it is sometimes regarded as threefold. One portion is that
which expresses the visible personality, and is permanently attached to
the body; the other has the power of leaving the body, carrying with it
an appearance of physical form, which accounts for a person being
seen in two different places at once. Cases of catalepsy or trance are
explained by the Chinese as the absence from the body of this portion
of the soul, which is also believed to be expelled from the body by any
violent shock or fright. There is a story of a man who was so terrified
at the prospect of immediate execution that his separable soul left his
body, and he found himself sitting on the eaves of a house, from which
point he could see a man bound, and waiting for the executioner's sword.