Astral Codex Ten

Ancient Chinese

3 min read

Ancient Chinese

Article

Ancient Chinese is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 22, 2023 and March 05, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “Ancient Chinese sources describe suo yang , the penis retracting into the body because of yin/yang imbalances”; “did you know that the ancient Chinese kept the laws secret”. It most often appears alongside Africa, Agin, American.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: February 22, 2023
  • Last seen: March 05, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: The Geography Of Madness
February 22, 2023 · Original source
Nobody knows when the penis-stealing witches began their malign activities. Babylonian texts include sa-zi-ga, incantations against witchcraft-induced impotence. Ancient Chinese sources describe suo yang, the penis retracting into the body because of yin/yang imbalances. But the first crystal-clear reference was the Malleus Maleficarum, the 15th-century European witch-hunters’ manual. It included several chapters on how witches cast curses that apparently (though not actually) remove men’s penises.
Inline links: sa-zi-ga, suo yang
Open Thread 371.5
March 05, 2025 · Original source
2: New round of bans. I usually try to link all bans so that people have a chance to critique / learn from them, but Substack seems to have messed this up somehow and made it impossible to link to the relevant comments, I don’t know what happened. Link stubs that should go to bans but don’t are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. You can see if you have any better luck accessing them than I did - otherwise, did you know that the ancient Chinese kept the laws secret, lest people search too hard for loopholes? You’ll learn what the rules are after you’re executed for breaking them.
Inline links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, kept the laws secret