Mainland Renaissance

After the reform and opening up, mainland China's attitude toward traditional culture gradually relaxed, and metaphysics quietly revived amid the wave of 'Zhouyi fever.' From the 1980s to the 1990s, large numbers of Hong Kong and Taiwan metaphysical books poured into the mainland, sparking the interest of a new generation of young people in metaphysics. Entering the twenty-first century, the popularization of the internet and social media provided entirely new channels for metaphysical dissemination, with content creators on platforms such as Weibo, WeChat, Zhihu, and Bilibili emerging in endless streams. At the same time, academic research on numerological culture was gradually unbanned, and some universities and research institutions began to examine the metaphysical tradition from the perspectives of history, sociology, and cultural anthropology. The revival of metaphysics on the mainland presents a complex landscape of popular fervor and official ambiguity.

Key Figures

Shao Weihua — one of the earliest scholars on the mainland to publicly publish metaphysical works after the reform and opening up, his Sizhu Yucexue was hugely influential in the 1990s and is regarded as an iconic figure of the mainland metaphysical revival; Wu Huaiyun — mainland metaphysical practitioner, known for modern cases and logical analysis, with extensive influence in the internet era

Important Works

Sizhu Yucexue — by Shao Weihua, a bestseller on the mainland in the 1990s, systematically introducing Bazi metaphysics in modern language, one of the enlightening works of the mainland metaphysical revival; large-scale reprinting of ancient texts — mainland publishers reprinted classics such as Sanming Tonghui, Ziping Zhenquan, and Di Tian Sui, allowing traditional metaphysical knowledge to circulate anew

Historical Significance

The significance of the mainland revival phase lies in metaphysics's return to the main stage of Chinese culture. The combination of a population base of over a billion and the dissemination power of the internet has rapidly made the mainland the world's largest market for metaphysical learning and consumption. This period of metaphysical revival is not only a return to tradition but also nurtures the potential for dialogue between metaphysics and modern technology and modern scholarship.