As a collective action in concept or public opinion, rumors are easy to lead to large-scale
action results.This paper takes the “soul stealing” event in 1768 described in Philip Alden Kuhn's book
“soul stealing” as the research object, and combs the spread process of rumors in the “soul stealing”
event and analyzes the spreading mechanism of ancient rumors under the framework of value-added
theory.This study holds that the emergence and large-scale spread of “soul stealing” rumors are the
result of the continuous accumulation of the “value” of six factors, such as the structural conduciveness
of the social background, the structural strain of the people, the generalized belief in witchcraft, the
trigger of dramatic events, the mobilization for action of emperor and officials, and the failure of social
control.Therefore, combined with the characteristics of rumor spreading in modern society, this paper
puts forward some suggestions on rumor prevention and control, such as improving public media
literacy, eliminating the information asymmetry between official and folk, and grasping effectively the
opportunity of rumor refutation.