Poking Into Baby Spirits (嬰靈)

 

 

We pray that all baby spirits will have good rebirths.

 

 

It is believed that the belief of the existence of baby spirit is originated from Japanese culture. But this belief was quick to spread to Taiwan and hence SEA regions and the rest of the world.

 

Advocates say that a baby spirit exists after 80~100 days of pregnancy. So if abortion takes place after this period, the action is deemed taking a life away. Indeed some of the baby spirits are very fierce because they are being deprived of their chances to live as human being. So the hatred and revenge will be fallen onto the mother. That explains why some of the ladies become less focus, and green purple bruise mark appeared on their body without physically hurting themselves some times after the abortions. The serious ones may suffer from hallucination or mantel disorder.

 

So it there a foundation on these claims?

 

It is only during the past 20 years or so that in Taiwan and Hong Kong specifically and so forth extended to the rest of the Chinese communities in every corners of this world concerning the belief of baby spirits. The definition of baby spirit is the spirit of baby died in abortion, died of natural causes or stillborn. It is believed that if these baby spirits are not delivered through proper ritual, then they will harm their parents or family members alike. There are certainly not less ghost stories about baby spirits told all over the mass media.

 

What stem from the belief of baby spirit, are various advertisements of “memorial service for the baby spirits” (嬰靈供養); claiming they have the ability to deliver baby spirits and solve problems caused by them. Some even use Buddhist “Long Life Sutra (長壽經) as a proof. To some extreme, some people also claimed that they can empower the baby spirits into formidable spirit army to listen to enemy’s secret or even killing the enemy at a distance.

 

It is not surprising that since the advent of the belief of baby spirit, many parents who have had their baby aborted may attribute whatever issues they suffered to the working of the baby spirits; as if there are baby spirits everywhere waiting for their chances to seek revenge. So is it the truth?  

 

As a matter of fact, the Buddha taught us to treat all leaving equal and all souls will be reborn after 49 days period to whatever forms they deserve and would not stay in the form of baby. Even though there are really spiritual interferences, we still cannot attribute them all to the working of baby spirits without going through a proper investigation.

 

For the few people who advocates the terrible power of baby spirits and charging a high price for memorial services; whatever the motives behind these people are, they are not really spiritual related. And this fact is already quite clear.