SEA Magic And Scandinavian Lore (南北信仰比较)

From Bjerstdedt’s work, we see that some Scandinavian lore and SEA magical practices are quite closely matched; at least it is of my view. It is not my intention to make a full fledge comparison at this moment, but I would just skim through the given topics and add some comments of my own:

Saliva

In Scandinavian lore:

Saliva is potent for magic, especially the saliva in the mouth when one wakes up.

In Taoism:

Saliva is known as “the fluid of jade” (玉液). A Taoist would try to collect some saliva in the morning by moving his/her tongue in the mouth and when he/she has a mouthful of saliva, it is swallowed to Dantian and this is good for health and can harness magic power. Taoists call this practice “shape enhancement with jade juice” (玉液练形).

In Thai magic:

Saliva is collected in the “golden tongue” ritual during the meditation practice to “make words come true”.

In Malay magic:

Saliva of a person contain his/her soul essence, it can be collected to perform soul catching ritual.

The Northern Direction

In Scandinavian lore:

Water that flows to the North is considered to be beneficial to your health.

In Taoism:

The north as a whole is very significant in Taoist magic. In I-Ching, the north belongs to water element. Many Taoist idols such as: The Northern Plough (北斗), Marichi ( 斗母), Purple Emperor (紫微大帝) and Xuanwu Emperor (玄武帝君) resides in the Northern heaven.

The Northern Plough is said to be in charge of the realm of death. So any rituals done to prolong one’s life would first worship the Northern Plough for forgiveness. Since the north belongs to water element, the Northern Plough is also believed to be able to purify all defilements.

The calculation of flying star starts at the north indicating the softer approach of Ying energy is much revered in Chinese culture.

Runestones

This is perhaps unique to Scandinavia.

Galdor

This is perhaps unique to Scandinavia.

Rowan wood

This is perhaps unique to Scandinavia alone. But holy woods are used across various magical traditions.

Iron

In Scandinavian lore:

Iron is considered protective against evil spirits and trolls.

In Indian ritual and all SEA magic:

Iron is the only metal used to subjugate all kind of spirits. It is thus not appropriate to serve food on an iron plate.

Ranglestav

In Scandinavian lore:

Ranglestav are rattles meant for warding off unwanted entities.

In Yao Taoism:

Metallic rattles such as that attached at ritual sword handle is used to scare away unwanted spirits. (see picture)

Thursday

In Scandinavian lore:

In the Scandinavian magic, the gods and spirits are thought to hold their things (assemblies) during Thursdays.

In Malay and Thai magic:

Rituals are mostly done on Thursday night for the same reason.

Vårdträd

In Scandinavian lore:

These were usually the biggest tree on the farm.

In Indian ritual and all SEA magic:

A single tree on a piece of plane such as a grass field is where spirits of that area congregates.

Tomte

In Scandinavian lore:

A spirit, usually depicted as looking pretty much like a garden gnome and they are often considered to be the man who first cleared out the wilderness and established the farm.

In Indian ritual and all SEA magic:

This type of spirit is normally known as ‘earth spirit’ and it is revered by giving it a small shrine. In Malaysia, it is called a ‘datuk’ or grandfather spirit.

Halmkrona/Oro/Himmeli

In Scandinavian lore:

The halmkrona, oro, or himmeli, is a form of hanging sculpture made from straw.

It's considered to both protect, and it's also believed by some that they can house the ancestor spirits.

In Indian ritual and all SEA magic:

Looks like a ‘dream catcher’. The closest one is the Indian Yantra and Taoist Bagua but needs further research.

Kronstång/Stackarebjälke

In Scandinavian lore:

In the Nordic countries, hospitality is (or at least was) a great virtue. But when you let hobos in, they weren't allowed to pass the kronstång/stackarebjälke, which was a symbolic barrier that parted a room.

In SEA as a whole:

Curtains are normally used. I am sure some sort of similar structures such as the above are used as separation between private and public place.

There are certainly many detailed studies that need to be done but the above comparisons are just a fast tag along to Bjerstdedt’s contribution at: 

http://liewsp1-magicsea.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-tour-on-scandinavian-lore.html

A Tour On Scandinavian Lore (游览北欧信仰)

Forward:

Some Scandinavian folk lores have surprising familiarities in Asian cultures such as Taoist rituals and believes. Bjerstedt has generously devoted some time to compile some Scandinavian folklores that people in SEA would otherwise difficult to come across. Please help me to thank Bjerstedt for this contribution.

-Liew

-By Bjerstedt

Saliva

Saliva is considered powerful for magic, especially the saliva you have in your mouth when you wake up. This may be related to the idea that writing and speech has power in itself, but it wouldn't really explain why the saliva you wake up with would be more powerful.

The Northern Direction

Water that flows to the North is considered to be beneficial to your health. A lot of the holy wells of Scandinavia are considered holy solely because they flow to the North.

Runestones

Though runestones are usually considered to be just monuments, they may have been used for some kind of ancestor veneration. Some runestones announce that someone has died abroad, maybe to lead the diseased home. For example, the Gripsholm Runestone (Sö 179) says “Tóla had this stone raised in memory of her son Haraldr, Ingvarr's brother. They travelled valiantly far for gold, and in the east gave food to the eagle. They died in the south in Serkland.” The Nørre Nærå runestone (DR 211) contains the inscription “þurmutR niout kubls” which means “Tormund, enjoy/make good use of the grave mount/monument.”. This is likely connected to the belief that one of the souls of the dead stays in the grave, either to tell him to enjoy the afterlife, or to prevent him from “going again” and becoming a draug.

The Draug are corpses that have come back to life, they are pretty much like zombies. Since the dead are belived to go to an afterlife, this requires a polycentric soul. Sometimes, they wake up from the dead by themselves, but other times, they are woken up by magic. In the Icelandic wizard legends, there are stories about dead wizards being woken up to acquire the magical books they were said to be buried with. There's two talismans (galdrastafir) from this time with accompanying incantations that are meant for waking up the dead, one of which I can't find at the moment.

Galdrastafir are magical signs that are used to make talismans. They are often supposed to be carved into a specific type of wood, and often painted with blood from a specific animal, or blood from a specific human body part. In modern times however, there's reports of talismans meant to be carved on specific materials and painted with animal blood working regardless, so those specifications are either meant for making the talisman more effective by sympathetic magic, or are meant to discourage insincere magicians. Most galdrastafir are meant for pretty mundane purposes such as fishing luck, love and protection from thieves, magic, draug and ghosts. Some stafir are however of a more paranormal nature, such as the aforementioned staves for waking up the dead, or the Hólastafur, which is a talisman meant for opening hills where the elves live. Staves meant for affecting a certain human are normally carved on fish, bread or cheese. Most love spells, healing spells, and the fart curse and vomit curse are meant for carving on food. (Those last ones

are exactly what the sound like. The fart curse is meant to be carved on white calfskin, painted with your own blood and then have an incantation recited over it. I've read a testimony of a guy who carved it on a piece of cheese, recited the incantation over it, put it on a piece of bread and ate it. He was never going to do that again, he said.)

Galdor

Galdor are a form of magic songs/incantation, but in modern Icelandic, I'm pretty sure galdra means to use magic in general. These were likely sung in a very high pitched voice, since the word is related to the modern Swedish “gala”, which means the noise a rooster makes. I theorize that the practice of galdor is related to kulning, which you can hear on this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqJUx0iGu_U

Rowan wood

Rowan wood is in Scandinavian magic considered a good protective wood, it's also

used for other magical purposes, such as for carving the aforementioned Hólastafur. In Skáldskaparmál the rowan is called “the salvation of Thor” because Thor once saved himself by clinging to it.

Iron

Iron is considered protective against evil spirits and trolls.

Trollkors

There's a form of amulet called the trollkors that is supposed to be made of bent iron. Though it's commonly believed to be an old type of amulet, it was created by the blacksmith Kari Erlands in 1993 after a symbol she had allegedly found carved inside her family's old barn.

However, about a decade or so ago, two rattles, meant for warding off unwanted

prescenses during blots, ceremonies and assemblies, were found in Gällivare. They have items hanging from them that resemble the trollkors.

"Ranglestav" or iron rattler may be used in warding off evil spirits.

Thursday

In the Scandinavian magic, the gods and spirits are thought to hold their things (assemblies) during Thursdays.

Vårdträd

These were usually the biggest tree on the farm. Just breaking leaves on it was considered bad luck. It was commonly believed that the tomte of the farm lived

under it, and libations of beer and milk was poured on the roots of the tree, usually on a Thursday. My family has a vårdträd on the family farm, but judging from photos from the early 20th century, it's likely planted in the late 19th century, making it likely that it was just planted for decoration, and that it has never been given offerings. You never know though. It has been dying from an infestation from years, but it has survived longer than expected.

Tomte

A spirit, usually depicted as looking pretty much like a garden gnome, that are sometimes said to live under the vårdträd, and sometimes to live under the house. They are often considered to be the man who first cleared out the wilderness and established the farm. There are stories about them helping the inhabitants.

My sister claims to have seen a tomte once, and that happened at the house my family normally lives in that isn't a farm, but a house built in the 70s, and no one has even died in there, but I guess those houses can get a tomte too under certain circumstances.

Halmkrona/Oro/Himmeli

The halmkrona, oro, or himmeli, is a form of hanging sculpture made from straw.

It's considered to both protect, and it's also believed by some that they can house the ancestor spirits.

Kronstång/Stackarebjälke

In the Nordic countries, hospitality is (or at least was) a great virtue. But when you let hobos in, they weren't allowed to pass the kronstång/stackarebjälke, which was a symbolic barrier that parted a room.

Crimes that were committed within it was also punished harsher than those that had been committed outside it. There's no evidence of the kronstång having any magical uses, but I've found the idea of using it as a barrier to ghosts and spirits a very interesting idea.

From 3 Kingdoms To ASEAN (从三国看东南亚）

The beginning of Chinese epic “Romance Of The Three Kingdoms” (三国演义) said these words:

“话说天下大势，合久必分，分久必合。”

(It is said that all major powers in this world, those in union for a long time would be separated; and those separated for a long time, would unite.)

I was in Changi Airport waiting for my flight, unfortunately due to technical reasons; the flight is delayed for an hour or so. There weren’t too many things to do, so I struck a conversation with an old Singaporean who was destined to Penang to see his grandchildren.

After chatting for a while, our topic somehow switched to how long ASEAN would hold up as a united body. This question is not unfounded because even though ASEAN is a pact and in peace for now, the ASEAN history was not. So without being too serious about this issue, won’t we want to explore the past relationships amongst ASEAN countries?

Historically:

1.      Philippine and Malaysia had some past dispute concerning the status of Sabah.

2.      Indonesia and Malaysia had some past territorial conflicts.

3.      Thailand and Malaysia had some past northern territorial conflicts.

4.      Singapore and Malaysia had some past territorial issues.

5.      Thailand and Myanmar were rivals historically.

6.      Thailand and Cambodia have on and off conflicts with border issues.

7.      Vietnam and Cambodia were at war for sometime…

Now the question put forward is:

For how long can ASEAN hold up as a united nations?

From Feng Shui perspective, ASEAN can hold up for another 150 years or so…

Let me explain:

The center of ASEAN country is the South China Sea. In perspective of Feng Shui, the center place represents central government; so the center place should be solid and quiet. However if the center is an ocean, the relationships of ASEAN would also be volatile such as that of a choppy sea.

We are currently in the 8^th Period and it takes 160 years to get to the 5^th Period. In the 5^th Period, the most influential star in the center of an area and ideally be quiet and at a high spot.

If the central place is a piece of lowland or a wetland, then this place would be in unrest situations. So, in ASEAN perspective; the union would also be volatile during future 5^th period.

In that matter, any countries with their center place is lake or sea would also suffer more than others too: Philippine, Malaysia and Indonesia would have some problems too. Of course, we don’t have to worry about it as it is still more than a century away from now! As long as our leaders are still smiling and shaking hands; then we should not too worry at this time :D!

  

Opening 3rd Eye Exercises (开眼)

In my opinion, there is only one standard method to open a person’s 3^rd eye properly and safely. This method is through meditation; although there are many supplementary exercises to enhance the opening of 3^rd eye.

 

A faster way to see spiritual world is through a spirit that possess the person. That is to say that the person sees through the eyes of another spirit that resides in his/her body. This is a faster way of seeing spiritual world but the spirit may deceive its host by only letting what it wanted the person to see. Seeing through a spirit helper or ‘khodam’ if you like to call it is not recommended as it will give us a false impression of what we see. This spirit may hamper the host to achieve higher spiritual level.

 

As a matter of fact, people who think they see spirits mean that these folks already possessed by those spirits and it is these spirits that allow the hosts to perceive them.

 

There is no shortcut to open one’s 3^rd eye as it boils down to hard work and a pure heart. Contrary to common belief, anyone can perform the opening up of his/her 3^rd eye if he/she is persistent enough. For the inspired, I list down the below preconditions according to my experience:

 

·         One must be persistent as it may take somewhere between 3 months to 6 months to see the light.

·         One must be honest to him/herself as what one sees is what one gets.

·         Please do not add in any subconscious suggestions such as “I think I see white light…”

·         Please do not add any mental visualizations, if there is none, then there is none and continue with the meditation until one really sees something.

·         There is no need to recite mantra during the meditation but the person should stay vigilant of his/her surroundings.

·         Always perform the meditation in a safe place: safety first.

 

I have to reiterate that the traditional method of opening up one’s 3^rd eye is pretty mechanical and it does not involve spirits or is there a need to recite mantras. The only requirement is perseverance.

 

The main practice: Meditation

 

The meditation method to open up one’s 3^rd eye is simple: the person only needs to concentrate on a point between his/her brows or at a point about 3 inches above his/her head.

 

The trick to this meditation is just to look at the point with mind’s eye and relax, after a while one should see a dot of white light and the light may become as big as a ping pong ball. It takes somewhere from 2 weeks to 6 months to reach this stage but one should not create the image of the light. If there is none, then there is none; just let it be.

 

The supplemental practices

 

1.      Kundalini arising

a.       Visualize white Kundalini arises from the base chakra and then moves towards the crown chakra. At the crown chakra, white light fills the head and then this light is channelled to the 3^rd eye area and then making a clockwise movement. At the same time, one should intone the sound: “Innnn….” Until the air is exhausted.

b.      For a beginner, this exercise should not exceed 10 minutes.

c.       After the exercise, continue to meditate at the 3^rd eye area.

2.      Cupping of eyes

a.       After each of the Tenaga Dalam, Chi Gong or Reiki exercises and while one’s palms are still warm, then quickly go to a dark spot and cups one’s eyes with palms. At this point one would see lights of different colours. Now, move these lights to one’s 3^rd eye area and gradually the lights would form a spot.

3.      Rain water method

a.       Collect some rain water and anoint the 3^rd eye area 49 times before meditaion.

4.      The candle method

a.       First one should light one candle and then blindfolds him/herself.

b.      Now, try to see the candle light through the blind.

c.       When one can ‘see’ the candle light, the thickness of the blind should be increased until no light can be seen.

d.      This exercise should be repeated until the light is again seen.

 

Testing of 3^rd Eye

 

·         After one month or so, one can test the 3^rd eye by first reading a deck of poker, and gradually see through obstacles.

·         These exercises should be repeated diligently, honestly and faithfully until correct result is achieved.

 

Limitations of 3^rd Eye

 

·         The accuracy of one’s reading depends on the person’s mental and physical health.

·         One should not use the 3^rd eye for reading 3 consecutive matters at the beginning or the accuracy would drop.

·         For some reasons, if the 3^rd eye is used for gambling reasons, the 3^rd eye would lose its accuracy.

 

Final words

 

Finally, let me iterate that there is no need to receive empowerment to open one’s 3^rd eye. If one is afraid, then he/she can recite certain prayers according to his/her religions to setup protective boundaries. Otherwise, there is no need to perform any kind of rituals. Please remember, the 3^rd eye is our natural gift, one doesn’t need any spirit to unblock it. Good luck.

 

Faces Of Death (死相)

For those people who have studied face reading for quite a while would understand what is meant by “faces of death”. Otherwise those folks who work in morgues would have seen this type of face too. For others, a face of death looks grayish and waxy. But I am not talking of those death faces on corpses. I am interested in the study of death faces over a mass of people. Luckily, one doesn’t come across this type of face too often; or it means ‘disaster’ that leads to massive casualty!

 

Below is an old story happened during WWII in Chongqing (重庆), Sichuan. The story is told by late Mr. Tao who was a famous face reading expert.

 

Mr. Tao was in Chongqing, China in 1939 working as a face reader. As we all know, face reading is a pretty convenient arts to know the luck of a person; which is much simpler than performing astrological calculations. There is no need to know the person, or the need to talk to the person. One only needs to sit in a garden, in an office or even walking on the roads; and pay much attention to a passerby. That’s all to it.

 

According to Mr. Tao, he has spent nearly 3 to 4 months in observing the faces of approximately 100 households and concluded that nearly 80% of the faces he saw would die violently within few months’ period. So he has concluded that there were only two possibilities that Chongqing would experience during warring time: besieged by Imperial Army or destroy in airstrike. It wasn’t very likely that Chongqing would fall under enemy hand, so the possibility of being bombed by air would be great.

 

This conclusion was further made after Mr. Tao found out that government officials of Chongqing didn’t posses signs of moving or travelling.

 

At that time, Mr. Tao was staying near a big underpass that could function as bomb shelter. Then and again, he found that people who stayed around this underpass possessed faces of death and that puzzled Mr. Tao a lot. He has kept his finding for quite some time as Mr. Tao didn’t want to stir up a commotion: well, face reading is just an approximate science and there is no solid proof to his claim.

 

Anyway, Mr. Tao did manage to persuade his relative whom he stayed with to move away from the underpass…

 

Indeed, as expected; tragedy that has caused the life of around 10,000 lives occurred in the bomb shelter 28 days after Mr. Tao moved house. No one believed the news at first as the bomb shelter was a tough one and it may not be destroyed by common bombing; added to that the shelter was equipped with mechanical ventilation system. Anyone who hides in the shelter though not as comfortable as one’s home, it is much safer than private dwelling. To say the least, there was no possibility to kill 10,000 people overnight.

 

After some investigation, the problem was due to ventilator failure that has caused the suffocation of people who sought shelter inside! Worse still, it was said that some folks was buried alive in a mass grave as there were no emergency rescue team setup then.

 

I supposed it is worthwhile to learn up face reading at least that would give anyone an indication to avert mass transport accidents which is so prevalent now days. Of course, one has to trust face reading first so to speak.

 

Japanese Dog Watcher (日本犬神)

It is very interesting to compare the Japanese occult practices with the Chinese ones as both of the systems utilize the use of animal spirits. Unlike the Chinese, some Japanese clans make use of dog spirits as their tribe protectors. It is believed that only a female family member is entitled to inherent this dog watcher.

 

According to Miko, this dog watcher can eliminate all competitors and redirecting enemies’ fortune to the owner. Proponents believe that when a person passing through the front door of this particular household, he/she should carry some sewing needles to ward off the attack of this dog watcher. In old days, if a family is believed to be in possession of a dog watcher; the whole household would be expelled from a village. So this practice is normally kept in secrecy.

 

There are many ways to get the service of this dog watcher, one of them is to purchase a dog bone from local witches; the other is to raise the dog watcher spirit through the below method:

 

First one should get a dog and dig a hole in the ground. It is best to choose an evil area such as a haunted place or an abandoned cemetery. The best timing is during the dark moon and during midnight.

 

After the hole is dug, the dog is buried in the hole with its head protruding out from the ground. Now some foods are then placed around this dog’s head; the dog must only be able to see the foods but it cannot touch the food.

 

When the dog has gathered sufficient desire on the foods, the spell caster will now concentrate on his/her enemy and think of what harm the enemy should be suffering. Then, with a full force, this spell caster should take up a samurai sword and chop down the head of this dog in a single blow. It is believed that by doing so, the dog spirit shall go to the enemy and kill him/her.

 

Other than seeking for revenge, this dog watcher can also be used to watch over one’s properties or to make troubles to the one he/she doesn’t like. In order to keep the dog watcher in a household, a piece of the dog bone will be collected from the dog’s burial ground after 100 days, or after the dog carcass has fully decomposed.

 

This dog bone should be worshipped in the master’s personal altar with incense and food offerings every day until he/she sees the shadow of the dog approaching him/her. For best effort, a conceived bitch would be the best choice but the master must be able to control its spirit and the doggie’s spirits too or these restless dog spirits will devour their masters.

 

Not many people would practise this type of ritual now days, but we will never know; perhaps someone will come face to face with this awful dog watcher one day. However, if you are staying somewhere around Kyushu, then you are likely to come into contact with one in rural areas.

 

The Cases Of Beauties And The Beasts (美女与野兽)

Normally magic has nothing to do with legal matters. But in my process of giving out advices to visitors, at times I would need to seek advices from some lawyers too. One matter that attracts my attention very much is the matter of ‘property sharing scheme’ between lovers. By that I mean when a guy purchased a house under the name of his girl friend but he pays for all of the housing related expenses.

 

The above situation is pretty common when a lady is persuaded by a millionaire boy friend. I have come across many cases from Singapore and Malaysian ladies that were ended in court. Some of the ladies had face problems when their relationships turned sour; yet many folks still enjoying their sweet dreams still.

 

In a layer’s stand point, if a property though under the name of the lady; would not make the property hers as she would need to proof that the property is ‘lawfully’ hers such as that her millionaire boy friend ‘explicitly’ put the house as a ‘gift’.

 

If you are still not convinced, then let us go over two court cases of ‘beauty vs. beast” happened in Singapore and Malaysia. Since both of the cases are of similar nature, I would just summarize these cases as below:

 

Ms. A and Ms. B were each got acquainted with two millionaires about 10 years ago when they made a career move. Without surprises, both of the ladies climbed up very quickly in their career ladders under the blessings of their admirers until they were given expensive cars and pent houses. So far so good until their relationships turned sour and the other parties start sending legal letters demanding the refunding of what the ladies ‘owed’ them plus the interests of their investments including the rental fees too!

 

Out of ‘helplessness’ both Ms. A and B approached me in the hope so that they can keep their properties. Even in such a situation, none of them would tell me the truth. I only found out the truth after performing some divinations and testing. Since these ladies sworn to have spoken the truth; then I could only bid them good luck. If they had physically ‘paid’ for their properties; then they would have won the legal battle.

 

As expected, after the verdict; both of the ladies lost the court cases.

 

So if you may ask if magic would help in both of the cases?

 

My answer is simple:

 

If the cases are already filed in the court, then magic could only help the persons to find the ‘best’ win-win solution if and only if the persons are talking of the truth. Otherwise, perhaps crying out loud would be the best action to take.

 

Next time, if you are thinking of ‘fishing’ for a millionaire boy friend; think twice as he too has his own weapon and not likely to be enchanted by your beauty alone. Peace J!

 

Soul Is Ideology (灵魂是思想)

When I was having my Political Science lecture, my professor said:

 

“Politic is an end, ideology is the soul.”

 

This professor has elaborated with some examples of what the above sentence supposed to mean for almost one whole session, but the definition of the word ‘soul’ was still lingering in my mind.

 

So during the question and answer session at the end of the lecture, I braved myself to raise my hand and asked:

 

“Professor, what is a soul?”

 

The professor’s facial expression slightly turned grimed and cold for a second and replied:

 

“Soul is ideology, ideology is soul. The class is dismissed!”

 

I supposed the professor’s respond was a little emotional, but he was right, taken from a dictionary, a soul is defined as “the thought and action of humans etc.”

 

Of course, I was pulling my professor’s legs… I wasn’t asking about the ideology, but the ‘spirit’ of the person.

 

I got 50 marks for my Political Studies that semester, since then I started to understand; it is no benefit to ask the professor, one only needs to listen and memorize what is taught. And then blurs what was said from his/her memory and then let others to copy: this is real political studies.

 

Certainly, my prime interest of ‘soul’ is in the form of ‘spirits’ not the ‘ideology’. According to old folks, when a person lives, the ‘spirit’ is hiding inside him/her. Occasionally, this spirit will travel out of the body intentionally or unintentionally. But when one dies, this spirit would room the outside world as free as a bird.

 

Just to make this issue complex, when a person is still alive; people say that his/her ‘soul’ is with him/her. When he/she dies, his soul turns into ‘ghost’ in western world. In Chinese however, the term soul is formed by two characters ‘灵魂’. In old Chinese literature, the ‘灵魂’ and ‘魂灵’ is interchangeable, but this swap is not allowed now days.

 

Lets return to our discussion, are you interest in the ‘soul’ of living person, or a ghost of that person may I ask? Now you probably would think: Boy, even a simple soul can be complex! Am I correct in asking?