Wabsōbiouye, Shikaiya : Japanese author. He wrote a book considered to be the Japanese version of Gulliver’s Travels.
Waku, Shunzo :
Japanese mystery writer (b. 1930). He
is noted for Daiikkyu satsujin no onna
(First Degree Murdering Woman, 1989)
Wakatake, Nanami : Japanese mystery novels who augments her writing with supernatural horror. He recently wrote Ihin (Articles of the Deceased), a strange story of a dead actress’s grudge, with yet another hotel and murder sequence.
Wang, Chung : (27-c. 97) Chinese philosopher. Early advocate of the scientific thinking, his clear writing and skeptical attitude was centuries ahead of its time. Author of Lunheng, a collection of philosophical essay, including the skeptical “Do Ghosts Exist?”. Other skeptical essays he wrote are “Dragons Unreal”, “On the Falseness of Being After Death” and “Apparitions”. In the fifth century, Fan Chen made similar arguments against the supernatural in his Shen mieh lun (Discourse on the Extinction of the Spirit after Death) (Kao: 17).
While skeptical of ghosts, Wang fervently believed in dragons. He also promoted the concept of a vital fluid that permeates the universe that is the primary cause of all action. This energy can take a yin or yang form in accordance to Chinese mystical theory.
Chan cites at least one skeptic who preceded Wang Chung by centuries. The earliest was skeptic Xunzi (c. 313-238 BC) who advocated a “no-ghost” theory, saying that ghost are merely tricks of the senses.
Watanabe, Masako : Japanese horror manga creator (b. 1929). She is the author of number of titles dealing with Japanese occult phenomena including Aoi Kitsune-bi (Blue Fox Fire) and Akumu (Nightmare).
Water Margin : See Shui-hu chuan.
Well : In Chinese and Japanese literature and
films, the well is a symbolic link to the underworld and by extension, the
unconscious. In folklore and in films
and books such as The Ring, the well
is a place of death and return. Many
commit suicide by jumping in a well and consequently the well is haunted. This parallels Western literature.
One example comes from the Liaozhai, “The Man Who Was Thrown Down a Well.” Mr. Tai gets a “Christmas Carol” warning
from the shade of his dead cousin. A
neighbor, suspicious of a his attentions to his wife, knocks him down a well
where he meets with spirits who beseech him to rebury their neglected
bones. This he promise to do and he is
released back to the mundane world, a better man.
Were-tiger: Nearly
as prominent as the were-wolf in Chinese occult lore, is the were-tiger. In an
ironic twist, humans killed by tigers become tigers companions and need to be
released by occult means. In Chinese
astrology, the tiger controls one fourth of the sky and is second only to the
dragon in power.
Were-wolf : Examples
of lychanthropy are common enough in Asia.
Willoughby-Meade devotes the better of a chapter to them in Chinese Ghouls and Goblins.
Wilhelm, Richard : Translator and author. Noted for his translation of the I-Ching.
He retold a weird tale about the sorcerer in the White Lotus Lodge,
reprinted in Borges’ The Book of Fantasy.
Wraiths : Spirit, ghost or projection of a living person, such that the person appears to be in two places at the same time. Sometimes, this occurs before the person’s death to perform unfinished business, but in Asian occult literature, the wraith has great longevity and can live an independent existence for years.
Lewis Spence wrote that “something analogous to wraith-seeing comes with the scope of modern psychic science, and the apparition is explained in various ways, as a projection of the “astral body,” an emanation from the person from its living prototype, or, more scientifically perhaps, on a telepathic basis.” See doppelganger.
Wu : Chinese for shaman, witch-doctor or medicine man, a high priest of animism.
Wu Cheng-en Chinese fantasy writer. He wrote “The Sentence” anthologized in
Borges’ The Book of Fantasy. In the story, an Imperial executioner has
the power to slay in his dreams and the only way to stop him is to keep him
awake.
Wu Chun : (569-519 BC) Chinese historian and compiler of strange or anomalous stories.
Wu Wei :
Chinese poet (1609-1672). He is notable
here for his poem “I Believe” quoted by
Leo Chan. In an age of enormous numbers
of war dead, Wu sensed ghosts all around him.
Chan suggests it was a way escape the harsh realities of civil strife.