Also called fu, fulu, taofu peach-wood charm, bujeok, ofuda
Written charms on red or yellow paper, or on peach wood, pasted at the door or carried, to keep harmful spirits out of a home in Chinese tradition.
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Take care: Do not grind or handle real cinnabar; it is mercury sulphide and toxic. Use ordinary red ink. Treat temple-issued talismans with respect and follow the temple's own instructions for disposal.
Han households hung boards of peach wood by their gates painted with Shentu and Yulü, two spirit guardians said to seize harmful ghosts. These taofu are counted as the ancestors of both door gods and the red spring couplets still pasted around Chinese doors at New Year.
Espesset traces fu from portable protective charms to tools of formal Daoist ritual, using five talismans preserved in the fifteenth-century Daoist Canon. In this priestly setting the talisman is a kind of contract with heavenly powers, written in a stylised script ordinary readers cannot read.
Korean bujeok are written in red ink, traditionally cinnabar, on yellow paper and hung over doors or carried. The Penn Museum holds a Joseon-era book of sixty such designs, built from distorted characters and stylised constellations.
The written charm is one of the oldest threads in Chinese religion. Excavated texts and Han dynasty records show people pasting signs and painted figures at gates to keep illness-bringing spirits out, and the peach tree was believed to frighten ghosts. Late Han religious movements, including the Way of the Celestial Masters, used talismans burned and dissolved in water for healing. Over the following centuries fu became central to Daoist ritual and were copied into the Daoist Canon.
Talismans remain part of daily life across the Chinese-speaking world, Korea and Japan, where shrine-issued ofuda play a similar role. In temples they are written by ordained priests with prescribed strokes, incantations and seals, and that priestly practice is a living tradition rather than a craft for outsiders. The good-fortune character and spring couplets hung by ordinary families each New Year are the open, household side of the same old idea.
A five-by-five Latin word square that reads the same in every direction, written on walls, plates and paper for nearly two thousand years against fire, illness and bewitchment.
The first visitor to cross the threshold after midnight on New Year sets the household's luck for the year, so they arrive with gifts of coal, bread, salt and drink.
Tell us what you need and we will craft a custom spell, charm or reading for it. Or call to book a reading or a road blessing in person.
