While I have argued that Chinese political authorities could use religion and ritual to enhance their power over citizens, I have also argued that citizens could use religion and ritual to oppose political authorities. Further insight into how religion and ritual could have served the ends of ordinary citizens will come from consideration of the third question set out at the beginning of Part III.

(3) How might the religious and ritual system have been perceived to serve or have served the ends of citizens outside officialdom? In focusing on features of ritual communications with spirits that make them amenable to the ends of those outside positions of official authority, I am taking a stand opposed to that of Bloch, Feuerwerker, Feuchtwang, Godelier, and Rappaport as described at the beginning of Chapter 6. They argue that ritual conceals the true nature of authority from the ruled, thus enhancing the position of rulers. In contrast, I will argue below that the Chinese religious and ritual system may have served a teaching function for peasants, illustrating vividly, frequently, and in a variety of contexts how one got power, how one got access to those with power, and how one limited those with power. I will suggest that one important thing Chinese peasants were learning in manipulating the rules and practices of their religious system, was how to analyze (and so manipulate) the political system that governed them.

Before moving to this argument, it is necessary to ask whether the ritual and religious system could be seen as a kind of social theory in which the workings of the political order were skillfully analyzed from the people's point of view.