由筆記小說考述「回煞」之文化心理及意涵

On the Cultural Psychology and Meaning of the return of evil spirits from Chinese tales

死亡是令人恐懼卻又無可避免。因而，為了適應親人死去的悲傷，便產生回煞一類的喪俗。本文藉由中國歷代筆記小說中所記載之相關事例，輔以相關資料，對回煞避煞進行研究，試圖為此類喪俗的存在，提出合理的解釋。回煞表面看似迷信，因而，部分文士對之口誅筆伐。就回煞的形象與源由來看，其形象多變，和氣、變化觀以及生理心理有關。避煞心理緣於對死者的禁忌。避煞的形成，正是因為對死亡充滿未知和恐懼，所以消極地避開以免危險。藉由避煞，讓生者能意識到死生異路，避開回煞以讓死者不再留戀，生者也能回歸日常。回煞問題的爭執，主要是有鬼無鬼、儒家和民間價值觀的差異，這源於對死者認知的差異，加上鬼神幽明之事難以驗證，因此，寧可信其有的心態發揮作用，使回煞避煞仍舊保留於某些喪俗之中。

Death is a frightening but inevitable thing. Therefore, in order to adapt to the grief of the death of relatives, funeral customs such as returning to evil spirits are produced. Based on the relevant examples in Chinese literary sketches and relevant materials, this paper makes a research on returning evil spirits and avoiding evil spirits, trying to provide a reasonable explanation for the existence of such funeral customs. Returning evil spirits seemed to be superstitious, so some scholars criticize it only by looking at the surface. From the image and origin of the returning evil spirits, this paper thinks that its image is changeable, which is influenced by Qi, the view of change and physiology and psychology. The psychology of avoiding evil spirits is due to the taboo of the dead. The formation of avoiding evil spirit is that people are full of unknown and fear of death, so they avoid danger passively. By avoiding the evil spirit, the living can realize the different ways of life and death, and avoid the return evil spirit, so that the dead can no longer be nostalgic, and the living can return to their daily life. However, It is mainly the difference between ghosts and non-ghosts, Confucianism and folk values. This is due to the different views of the dead, and the fact that ghosts and gods are difficult to verify. Therefore, we prefer to believe that their mentality plays a role, and that they still remain in some funeral customs.