Intellectuals discuss experience primarily in cognitive terms.
Yet the popular mind is frequently moved by feelings of the presence or action of a mystical power, or the feeling of usually unforeseen contact with a reality other than that of ordinary perceptions. Chinese legends attest to this power of the mystical sphere. First of all, to the Chinese, the mystical sphere often makes itself felt through poetry. A second element in Chinese culture that carries a heavy symbolic weight is the tiger. Finally, as do celestial phenomena in other cultures, thunderbolts have a sacred nature in Chinese popular thinking.