Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts.
祥 is amplified by Ts‘ao Kung into 妖祥之言, and 疑 into 疑惑之計.
Cf. the _Ssŭ-ma Fa_, ch. 3: 滅厲祥.
Then, until death itself comes, no calamity need be feared.
The superstitious, “bound in to saucy doubts and fears,”
degenerate into cowards and “die many times before their deaths.”
Tu Mu quotes Huang-shih Kung: 禁巫祝不得爲吏士卜問軍之吉凶恐亂軍士之心
“‘Spells and incantations should be strictly forbidden, and no
officer allowed to inquire by divination into the fortunes of an
army, for fear the soldier’s minds should be seriously perturbed.’
The meaning is,” he continues, “that if all doubts and scruples
are discarded, your men will never falter in their resolution
until they die.” The reading of the standard text is 無所之 “there
will be no refuge,” which does not fit in well here. I therefore
prefer to adopt the variant 災, which evidently stood in Li
Ch‘üan’s text.