The exorcistic and martial ritual repertoire associated with the fashi traces identifiable roots to specific historical schools, including the Song dynasty thunder rites tradition, Leifa, which systematised the summoning of spirit generals and thunder deities to combat malign forces, giving the fashi lineage of practice a documented textual history reaching back roughly a thousand years rather than being simply an undocumented folk survival.
That lineage of practice continued with particular strength in Taiwan and in overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, where fashi, sometimes called by regional titles such as ang-i-sensi, the red-headed master, in Taiwanese Hokkien usage, remained in open and continuous demand for household protection, exorcism and healing ritual throughout the twentieth century, in contrast to the severe disruption organised religious practice suffered on the mainland during the Cultural Revolution; Taiwanese and diaspora fashi traditions are consequently now an important living resource for mainland Chinese communities seeking to reconnect with ritual practices that were interrupted or lost at home during that period.
A working fashi is visually distinctive at ceremonies, typically wearing an embroidered ritual robe reserved for exorcistic work rather than the plainer vestments of high Daoist liturgy, and wielding specific tools of the trade, a buffalo horn trumpet blown to summon spirit generals, a ritual sword for symbolically striking at malign forces, and talismans brush-written in cinnabar ink on yellow paper on the spot for the person requesting help, a visible and immediate toolkit that marks the fashi's practical, on-demand style of ritual work apart from the more formal, scheduled liturgy of the ordained Daoist priest.