The End Of Old Ghost King (鬼王的结局)

A few weeks later, the news of the ghost king Lim fell into the sea spread like wildfire in the area and old Mr. Ho heard the news. He contacted my Mao Shan master, Lee and both of them went to ghost king Lim’s shop but found the shop was closed. A neighbour told Mr. Ho that the ghost king was in hospital recuperating. So he visited the ghost king in the hospital.

The neighbour was kind enough to bring both of the gentlemen to visit the ghost king in the general hospital.

In the sickbay, they found the ghost king laid in his sickbed. Since my old master Lee was an acquaintance of this ghost king; they started to chat. The ghost king begun his story on how he ended up in the sea almost drowned:

“It was my usual night that after my business hours, I would walk to a coffee shop near the seaside to drink a cup of coffee and to chat with my pals…

On that particular night, it was my pal’s birthday. So he brought some bottle of beers and we celebrated until way past midnight.

I was quite drunk then before we all dispersed. As usual, I walk on a path near the Tanjung Bungah beach…. A very pretty young lady came from the opposite direction. As both of us approached each other and suddenly, the lady suddenly stopped and asked a question:

“Are you the famous Penang ghost king?”

“Yes…” Before I could say anything, suddenly the young lady grabbed me by my arms and then jumped into the sea. It was a full moon night and the sea level was pretty high.

At this point, I knew that the lady wasn’t anything humane but I was too drunk to perform any protective ritual or was I sober enough to recite any mantra…

As I was half floating and half sinking in the water, I shouted for help and luckily… there were a fishing boat nearby. People on the boat heard my yelling and they immediately came to my rescue.

I told them about the lady who were also in the water, but after searching for a while; they could not find anyone in the sea together with me…

And this is my story…”

After hearing the ghost king’s ordeal, old Mr. Ho apologized to him and said:

“I am awfully sorry for not keeping the 3 year’s promise and this lady ghost has sought revenge on you. I will pay you a sum of money so that you do not need to deal with ghosts again.”

Strangely speaking, after the ghost king returned from the hospital; his business was not as good as before and finally he was found dead in his house perhaps due to alcohol intoxication a few years later.

My Master Lee told me this story and he said that the lady ghost was seeking revenge at that late ghost king because his client has broken the 3 year’s vow. So this vengeful ghost not only attempted to kill the ghost king; she also chased away all of the ghost king’s personal spirits. With any spirits to serve the ghost king, whatever ritual and predictions he did became ineffective. So, gradually the old ghost king lost his reputation though he has kept his life.

Hence, Master Lee’s advice is not to help people especially those involving vengeful ghosts. It would only cause more unnecessary karma links than doing good to the master himself. For whatever decision the master makes would not be in a win-win situation.

The Revenge Of A Vengeful Ghost (女鬼报仇)

Many years ago when Penang was still a tax free port, a youth by the name of Ho Kun who was a scuba diving fan suddenly fell sick after diving off the coast of Tanjung Bungah. At that time, Ho Kun already had a steady girlfriend and Ho Kun’s parents thought of getting the couple married to ‘boost luck’ (冲喜) for the hope Ho Kun’s can recover soon. This act of ‘boosting luck’ was prevalent amongst the old Chinese of that time.

However, after the marriage; not only Ho Kun did not recover but his sickness aggravated; moreover, strange hand print surfaced on he and his wife, Mei Lin every time when the couple got intimated. Both of them look as if being slapped by someone or something.

Ho Kun’s father consulted many mediums and fortune tellers on those strange happenings until he caught hold of the late Penang ghost king, Lim of that time.

When Ho Kun’s father was at Lim’s place, he closed his eyes and chanted some mantra. After some chanting, the ghost king opened his eyes and said:

“Your son has kissed a drowned lady ghost and this ghost now wants to marry Ho Kun!”

Of course, the old Mr. Ho kept denying his son had anything to do with a drowned ghost since he knew that their son already had a steady girlfriend then… but the ghost king Lim asked the old man to return home and ask Ho Kun himself.

Under the scrutiny of his father, Ho Kun finally remembered something… he remembered to have saved a drowned girl who fell into the sea for some reason. Since only Ho Kun was trained on CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation techniques; he tried to revive the girl but the girl failed to be saved unfortunately. It was to his father’s relieve since his son was trying to help and not actually kissing the drowned lady as claimed.

So Ho Kun’s father returned to the ghost king and updated the ghost king Lim about his latest findings.

As before, the ghost king closed his eyes and chanted more mantras…

After a while, Mr. Lim opened his eyes and started to speak:

“Apparently now this lady ghost has fallen in love with Ho Kun and since Ho Kun was the first one who have kissed her, now it wanted Ho Kun to marry her! Otherwise this vengeful lady ghost would not leave Ho Kun alone… this lady meant what she said as this is a hard lady we are dealing with…”

On hearing the words, old Mr. Ho kneeled down before the ghost king and beg him to help. After pondering for a while, the ghost king finally said:

“Alright. But first Ho Kun must first divorce his wife and then you must perform a Taoist deliverance ritual for this drowned ghost to appease her… It is very important that the couple must be separated for a whole 3 years…”

Ho Kun’s father had to agree with the ghost king’s terms and a deliverance ritual was subsequently performed.

Two years lapsed and Ho Kun’s body has recovered. Though the couple was ‘divorced’ they kept in contact and Mei Lin was later found pregnant. At this point, Ho Kun and Mei Lin decided to get married again and since none of their parents opposed; the couple remarried just short of one year according to the terms set up by the late ghost king.

All was happy for both Ho Kun and Mei Lin’s families… but not so good news for the poor ghost king.

The poor ghost king was found falling into sea near Tanjung Bungah but he was somehow saved by someone…

I will continue this long story in due time as it is pretty long… 

A Ritual For Learning Death Touch (点穴仪式)

While the Chinese calls it ‘dian xue’ (点穴), the western friends calls it ‘dim mak’ (点脉); I would just call it ‘death touch’. “Dim mak’ is actually Cantonese term refers to the touching of energy channels in our human body. Whatever you choose to call this type of deadly and mysterious technique, do you know that there is an accompanied ritual before one begins to learn about this lethal art?

I learnt this method from Master Yang many years ago who was from Guangxi (广西), China.

This is a Taoist ritual, so before one begins to learn about the art of death touch, an inspired student should first draw an image of the Jade Emperor. Then this person should sit on a chair with his/her feet dangling down without touching the ground… of course, the person must find a tall chair for this purpose or he/she needs to prop up the chair.

After sit in the chair, the person should stare at this Jade Emperor (玉皇大帝) and recites the below mantra 49x:

“起眼望清天，师傅在身边，某某头戴铁帽，身穿八角衣，铁肝，铁肺，铁骨心。不请不降，不请不灵，吾奉太上老君急急如律令!”

(I raise my eyes towards the clear sky and my master is beside me. So-and-so is wearing iron head and octagonal shirt. My iron lever, my iron lungs, my iron bone and heart. Do not come if uninvited, it is not effective if uninvited. I carry out the order of grand old Taoist master hastily!)

The above mantra should be recited for 49 consecutive days. After that, the student is ready to learn about various pressure points and energy channels of our body while learning techniques to enhance his/her fingers strength.

After 49 days, the master will bring the disciple to the top of a mountain or jungle with a cock. At a suitable place, the cock is slaughtered and its blood is used as an offering to the mountain spirit. After that, the master shall start to part his most secret knowledge of ‘dim mak’. For example, on the use of herbs and killer techniques.

Of course, such barbarous teaching technique is no longer in practice. Then and again, how many people would want to learn about ‘dim mak’ now days?

Return My Head To Me! (还我头来！)

These two ghost stories are from Hong Kong, both with tragic endings; one victim whose head is yet to be found.

The first story begins in a high density housing estate. A few years ago, a lady was murdered and her body was chopped into pieces in her apartment. The murderer had disposed her severed body in a few places around the area.

A few days later, some cleaner found parts of her body and a police report was lodged. A team was formed and a carpet search was performed and the authority found every body parts except the lady’s head. Later a suspect was arrested and he was subsequently convicted and now serving his jail sentence.

All is not over for this unfortunate lady however… her restless headless soul continued to be seen by night watchmen of that flat at night. Most of the time people claimed that they saw a headless figure waiting for the lift at the basement. This headless one also appears in her apartment and along the corridor; that has incidentally scared the living daylight out of her neighbours.

Due to the haunting, many tenants of that particular flat have moved out for good.

The second story is quite a famous case that has been concluded fairly recently. If you have followed the international news… then you probably heard of a case where a youth was convicted of murdering his parents in their apartment. In this case, both of the parents’ bodies were also severed and the heads were kept in the fridge; while the bodies were being hid in the kitchen.

After murdered his parents, this youth continued to stay in the apartment. At the same time, he told his neighbours that his parents were missing; and he asked neighbours to help searching for both of the missing couple.

At this point, some foreign tenants who lived directly above the youth’s apartment felt strange because according to them, on one hand, they continued to hear noises of people cooking and chopping meat downstairs. On the other, the youth downstairs kept saying that his parents were missing. So someone finally lodge a police report and the police investigated the youth’s place and found the remains of his parents…

Perhaps it was the foul smell of rotten flesh, or it was indeed the act of supernatural that had led the police to solve the case relatively fast. People living in that flats started to move out because they believed that both of the restless spirits still haunt the flat. As I was told, the block is practically empty now.

Releasing Mouth & Flying Mouth (放口飞口)

In old Fujian (福建), China; releasing mouth is a type of black curse that was once prevailed amongst the local folks.

The word ‘release’ means to ‘attack’ while the word ‘mouth’ means ‘curse’. So it is pretty obvious that ‘releasing mouth’ is a type of verbal curse that is meant to cause harm to an opponent. This type of oral curse is normally cast by a weaker person as he/she has no way to retaliate injustice done on him/her. Having said so, ‘releasing mouth’ should not be cast simply because if the opponent is failed to be killed, then the spell caster will die instead. In another words, either one of the two persons must die.

When there are people who can cast ‘release mouth’ spell; there are people who can ‘solve mouth’ (解口) as well.

My late grandmother was from Fujian and she told me this story:

In her old village in Fujian when she was very young…  her neighbour and the neighbour’s sister-in-law was having disputes for a very long time.

It was said that this sister-in-law subsequently cast the release mouth spell to this neighbour.

At that time, the neighbour was pregnant. My grandma said that her neighbour’s body hair stood up, bluish colour developed on her skins and she suffered severe body pain of unknown reasons. Blood were seen oozed from the neighbour’s eyes, nose, mouth and ears…  A wise woman knew that this neighbour was the victim of ‘release mouth’, so she hesitantly invited a lady who was renowned to be able to ‘solve mouth’.

The wise woman asked the neighbour’s family to vacate a room and in the centre of the room, a bathtub was put in the centre of the room. The bathtub was half filled with herbal water and grandma’s neighbour was asked to strip naked and sat inside the bathtub. The wise woman too sat inside the bathtub back to back with the neighbour for one whole night.

The next morning, this neighbour has recovered… but her sister-in-law was found dead in her room with blood oozed out from her body.

There is another saying that if the release mouth spell failed to hit the target or it was being rebounded back for some reason, this spell may strike any innocent bystanders and this is known as ‘flying mouth’ (飞口).

I have one version of the mantra with me:

First the spell caster should write a ‘sick talisman’ with his/her tongue and recites below mantra once:

Om昏沉那迷乱，那追魂，那摄魄，那舌尖，那婆罗急摄！

(Om in sleepiness, in confusion, in chasing after one’s soul with one’s soul, napara quickly catch hold of it!)

After that, one should take a mouthful of air and blows it onto the body of the target.

The victim will suddenly feel drowsy and slowly he/she shall become sick. If the person is untreated, then he/she may die fairly quickly.

This spell can be cured by the spell caster by simply shout ‘retreat’ and blew another mouthful of air towards the victim.

There are many other methods that can be employed to release this spell of course.  

Black Curses Of Taiwan Hill Tribes (台湾高山族的咒术)

Taiwanese hill tribes have their own forms of black curses which are lesser known by people outside of that region.

There are basically four forms of black magic used by these hill tribes.

The first one is using birds of white colours to carry the curse. The shaman will recite below mantra to one or a group of birds and then he/she will release the birds. And these birds will fly to the target’s house or they would perch onto the person’s shoulder. If this happens, then the shaman’s curse would have taken effect.

The mantra I have with me sounds like this:

Kalu walu ni hum, luwa sani sa hum, phei anluwani hum, kalu caosa wa hum… (49x)

The second form is using bamboo to curse the enemy, in this case a piece of green bamboo is used by shaman. The shaman would hold the bamboo and recites the abve mantra for 49x. After that, he/she shall insert the bamboo into a human manikin made of rice stalks. This rice stalk manikin is then buried in front of the person’s house and the victim will suffer from stomach ache.

The third form of black curse uses fire and ginger as mediums. The shaman will first make a manikin out of soil and then he will insert a piece of ginger into the stomach of the manikin. After that the said shaman will hold the manikin with his/her left hand and holds a burning white candle in his/her right hand. The shaman then moves the candle flame across the soil manikin while reciting the above mantra.

The purpose of the candle flame is to send heat into the victim’s body while the ginger is to inflict pain.

The fourth form of curse is using cemetery soils:

A shaman first goes to a grave of a person who have died from untimely death at night, he/she then recites below mantra 3 times:

Om peiwalalu, saniwalu lawani nie.

After that, some soils on the grave is collected into a container and the shaman will return to his/her altar to perform further ritual.

At the shaman’s altar, he/she would recite mantra sounds like:

Rupa walalu saniwaka wani hum (3x)

After the empowerment ritual, the soil is kept under the shaman’s altar until it is to be used.

When the shaman wishes to curse someone, then he/she shall retrieve some soil and recites the below mantra:

Ru om wani peiwani samiru nipeila hum (3x)

The soil is to be thrown on the road where the target will pass through or in front of the person’s house. If the curse is effective, the victim will fall sick or having very bad luck.

It does not matter if you like to scorn at these curses as merely superstitions now days… In old times people would just blame on someone of throwing black curses if anyone in a village fell sick; in many cases, people were killed by foundationless allegations.

From Cooked To Raw Mantra (熟肉复生咒)

From Cooked To Raw Mantra (熟肉复生咒)

This is a sort of black magic prevailed amongst minority ethnics in China since Tsung Dynasty in Leizhou (雷州) and it was still in practiced by some Miao tribe magicians during Qing Dynasty some a few hundred years ago. Perhaps someone in Indochina has preserved and master this type of curse until today. We will never know as the Indochina is still full of mystery until these days.

The mode of operation is very simple:

First a magician would let a person consume some cooked meat, be it pork, beef or mutton. After that the magician would start chanting the below mantra:

东方王母桃，西方王母桃。

(The peach of eastern mother king, the peach of western mother king.)

If a person has consumed some served cooked beef, then this chewed beef inside the person’s stomach would become raw again. And if the magician continues to chant the mantra further, this raw beef will then grow and turned into a cow. As this cow continues to grow, it will cause the victim’s stomach to become stuffy and if the victim refuses to settle with the magician, then this cow will grow until it bursts the victim’s stomach. If the magician continues to chant further, the cow will again return back to cooked beef again.

The above mantra originated from Leizhou.

I have another version of similar curse obtained from an old Miao magician but his version would cause the animal to devour the internal organs of the victim also. The mantra is almost similar to the above:

东池王母瑶，西池王母瑶。

(The king mother’s jade of eastern pool, the king mother’s jade of western pool.)

Another very similar ritual in Indochinese magic is the use of ‘cow hide wind’ (牛皮蛊).

In cow hide wind, a magician would sit on a piece of cow hide and chanted mantra until this cow hide shrinks to a small piece that can be hid under the magician’s finger nail. This small cow hide is then mixed into a victim’s food and let the person consume. When the cow hide has entered the victim’s stomach, it will gradually expand and until the person is stuffed to death.

Luckily, I have not witness or hear of the success cases and stories of such curses these days.

Zhong Kui Caught By Ghosts (鬼捉钟馗)

It is a common Chinese practice across the globe to employ someone to disguise as a Taoist deity either to boost up the atmosphere of a festival or for blessing of a place.

For example, in Malaysia we can see actors disguised as god of fortune (财神爷) to give away red packets in front of a shopping complex.

However, this practice is more prevalent in Taiwan as not only the god of fortune, people would ask an actor to disguise himself as the ‘third prince’ (三太子). Or people would hire a group of actors and actress to disguise themselves as the ‘eight immortals’ (八仙). Whatever deities those actors and actresses disguised; there is a taboo amongst people who disguised to be a Taoist deity in whatever occasions. This is especially true for those ones who are asked to impersonate as ‘ghost buster’ deities. A very famous deity amongst the Taiwanese is the Zhong Kui (钟馗) who is well known of his ability to catch and punish ghosts. You may call Zhong Kui as the ancient Chinese ‘ghost buster’.

Before I forget, the said taboo is that you should not call the actor by his real name in fear of retaliation from the local spirits or whatever evil entities out there the ‘deity’ was supposed to get rid of symbolically. So, if the person is disguised as Zhong Kui, then he should just be called ‘Zhong Kui’ until this ‘Zhong Kui’ takes off his costume at the end of the day.

As I was told by a Taiwanese friend, some folks at his place like to employ actors especially those actors from Chinese opera groups to disguise as Zhong Kui to bless a place or house when they suspect the place to be haunted. The job is normally pretty simple, the actor who is to be the formidable Zhong Kui only needs to be empowered by a Taoist and then he would follow whatever the Taoist asks the Zhong Kui to do… it is normally dancing and using a sword to chop at all directions indicating that all ghosts of that area are already being killed by this Zhong Kui; hence whoever lives there can continue to live in peace so to speak.

Of course, no one would believe that such an act would bring any effect on whatever dwellers were there before and after the ritual. It is just a folk custom carried out to appease people’s unsettled minds… Or is it so?

A few years ago, an actor known as Ah Kow was employed to disguise himself as Zhong Kui to bless a newly opened shop. Since this shop was just located beside main road; many people gathered around to see the opening ceremony. After the master Taoist performed all the necessary ritual, the Zhong Kui followed the Taoist to walk around the shop while making gestures of grabbing ghosts and evil entities into a bag…

Just as when the ritual was almost over, Ah Kow’s wife who was happened to have passed by the shop, saw the Zhong Kui and she knew that was her hubby. So she called out:

“Hey Kow! Don’t forget to buy me some eggs before you return home!”

Ah Kow habitually turned his head and shouted: “Okay!”

The rest of the day went pretty smooth for Ah Kow and he knocked off at around 12 noon and remembered to purchase those eggs his wife wanted.

After the dinner, as Ah Kow had opened his main door to go out of his house, he suddenly shouted: “They want to get me…” And he fell onto the ground unconscious.

He was rushed to the local hospital but Ah Kow was pronounced dead on arrival…

Although the autopsy report said Ah Kow died of heart attack, but neighbours blamed the incident on his wife by calling his real name during inappropriate occasion.

Perhaps this is just a coincident, I would not want to make any conclusion at this juncture.

Ghost Story From UNITEN (UNITEN的鬼故事)

UNITEN is the abbreviation of Universiti Tenaga Nasional located in Selangor. And this ghost story I heard came from my friend’s son, Ali.

Ali was an undergraduate in UNITEN majoring in electrical engineering. Like any other first year students, he must stay in the university hostel during the first year. The hostel Ali stayed was a ten story building and Ali stayed on the 4^th floor. Same as with other university hostel rooms, most of the study tables are located in front of a window.

One night, Ali was preparing his dissertation, suddenly a motorcyclist suddenly stopped by his window. The motorcyclist asked:

“Bang, macam mana pergi Kajang?”

(Brother, how to go to Kajang?”

Perhaps Ali was indeed too tired, without giving a second thought; he explained the direction to Kajang. After that the motorcyclist went off.

After a while, the voice of some hawker selling satay was heard:

“Satay Kajang! Satay Kajang!”

At this point, Ali suddenly felt very hungry and the urge of wanting to eat satay surmounted up to such an uncontrollable state that, he climbed on to his desk with the intention of jumping out from his window to get to the one who was selling satay at night…

As Ali was about to climb out of the window, a sudden force yanked him back into the room. He subsequently felt pain on his cheeks and suddenly Ali saw that he was being pressed onto the floor by his other roommates. It was them that slapped Ali’s face.

Before Ali could open his mouth, his roommates said:

“It so happened that we returned from outside and we saw you attempted to jump out of the window… we called your name but you didn’t respond to our yelling. So we had to yank you down and slapped you to make you to your senses…”

It is only at this juncture that Ali suddenly realized that there was absolutely impossible to see a motorcyclist and satay seller while he was sitting in front of the window because his room was located on the 4^th floor! 

Ghost Stories From Universiti Utara Malaysia (北大的鬼故事)

UUM is an academic institution of higher learning that is situated at the northern end of Kedah. If you have ever visited UUM, then you shall understand that this university is built inside a forest.

One of my friends, Ms Chang encountered something pretty spooky while she was staying inside the university hostel during the first year of her information system course.

It was during one of her end of semester examination. Ms Chang had to study until very late at night to prepare for her exam while her two roommates were already in their deep slumber. It was Ms Chang alone with her study notes and table light. Her study desk was facing the window and she could practically see tree tops in front of her when she sat on her chair since her room was situated on the 4^th floor.

After Ms Chang studied for a while, she felt boring and started to yawn and her eyes started to wander about… suddenly two little green big headed boys playing on a big tree branch about 10 feet away from her attracted her attention.

The green boys then climbed to the top of the tree in front of Ms Chang’s window and they jumped into the room and sat on top of a wall cabinet beside her and watching Ms Chang doing her revisions… Although Ms Chang was a scientific minded lady, she was pretty scared somehow. So she quietly closed her book and switched off the table lamp; and jumped into her bed pretending she did not see the two green creatures.

As Ms Chang was covering her head with her blanket, she suddenly head someone in the room said:

“Satu orang sudah tidur, satu lagi sudah tidur juga; yang satu lagi pura-pura tidur pula…”

(One person already slept, another one also already slept; and the other one pretends to sleep…)

Luckily there were no more conversations heard after that. Perhaps the two little green boys want to let Ms Chang alone or they were just curious as what someone was doing in the dead of the night. I suspected those two little green boys were spirits known as ‘toyol’. Locals believe a toyol is normally kept by black magicians to steal money. But I have no way to say for sure from Ms Chang’s story.

According to Ms Chang, there is also a ghost bus in UUM that only operates after midnight. This ghost bus will stop at each of the bus stop and then the driver would open and shut the door… but people from outside would find that the bus is practically empty. I was told that this bus operates every day. If you know anyone who is from UUM; then please do so and ask them. They must know about this ghost bus! 

Feng Shui And Nakshatras (风水与廿八宿)

Now days when people talk about Feng Shui, they only refer to the terrestrial elements and they have ignored the celestial portions which is of equal importance.

Many people still are ignorant about the use of these heavenly bodies and they thought all of the stars referred in traditional Chinese Feng Shui are real stars in the sky. So there were some efforts to make sure modern computers are used to calculate positions of stars to seconds of an arc precision. There were also some efforts to combine the Western astrology with traditional Chinese astrology in the hope to get more precise predictions.

Although some of those efforts might be fruitful, such as with the use of modern computational methods; time can be calculated to greatest precisions; which honestly speaking indeed added to more accurate predictions. However, the more precision one seeks; somehow Feng Shui and astrology became more inaccurate too.

Why is it so?

It of my humble opinion that most of the ancient Chinese scholars have understood the fact that it is futile to keep changing accuracy by constant updating of ever changing planetary and star moments in the sky. Instead, they opted to use many symbolic stars in lieu with the real stars in the sky. As the saying goes:

“动者恒动，静者恒静·”

“All things are in their constant state of motion or stationary.”

So most of the stars that we understand in Chinese Feng Shui and astrology are in fact half real and half true. Perhaps let me just draw your attention to the use of 28 Houses or Nakshatras in Indian astrology. The difference between the two is that the Indian system uses only 27 constellation houses instead of 28.  

Basically there are three major uses of Nakshatras in Feng Shui:

• 28 House System is used to determine if a location and timing is auspicious for certain matters. For example, stars that belonged to fire element should ideally be used in summer and not winter.
• 28 House System is used in conjunction with flying star chart to determine the severity of an incident and when an incident would most probable to occur.
• 28 houses are used in conjunction with planetary positions to determine the peak and low energy of a planet and hence the effect of these heavenly bodies on the house of tomb.

In order to illustrate what I have meant so far, let me draw your attention to a real Feng Shui case happened during 2008 where a household had committed suicide because the master failed to settle his debt.

Referring to the below diagram:

The position of 28 Houses and flying star of a suicidal house.

The direction of the ill house faces the ‘Ji’ and backed by the ‘Jing’ (井) which belongs to wood element.

In 2008, the ruling house is `Ji’ (箕) which belongs to water element. The equivalent of Indian house is perhaps the ‘Purvashadha’ in Dhanus (Sagittarius).

As shown in the diagram, the flying star for the said house is nowhere near good because it falls into ‘up hill and down water’ (上山下水) group. In this group of houses, the dwellers would be poor and seriously sick. Since number 2 is found from front to back, the negative energy is pretty straight forward.

The question now is: why does the unfortunate incident happened in 2008?

The yearly flying star of 2008 in front of the said house is 4 and it belongs to wood element. The water element was very strong in 2008 because element group of both the house direction and ruling house is the same. The wood is empowered by strong water hence the ill effects of 5 and 2 were stirred up in spring of that year.

So, we have strong woods in front and at the back of the house; and the yearly star 7 (earth) at the back sealed the family’s fate. It is obvious from the flying star and astrology stand point that whoever lived in the house was besieged and trapped in their house. They really had nowhere to go…

Since the star arrangements of a few hundred years old can still be used to explain an incident, perhaps we shouldn’t just concentrate on the accuracy of calculations alone. After all, there are still many things we, the human need to learn.

Dreaming Of Puteri Nasuha (梦见娜苏哈公主)

The old Javanese keris

The khodam of the keris, Puteri Nasuha. I draw the image according to my memory...

Puteri Nasuha or Princess Nasuha is the kodam of my old Javanese keris. This keris is very old which is said to be of at least 300 to 400 years old.

The first time I dreamed of Princess Nasuha was one week before the arrival of keris many years ago. There were some hiccups that nearly made this old keris couldn’t come to me… but the problem was resolved and I finally received my keris.

The kodam of this keris stayed dormant for many years.

And this morning, I dreamed of driving my car going up a hill top, it was very foggy all around me. Scenery from a far was beautiful, there were tall trees along the road and I actually ‘saw’ my apartment from the hill. For once I thought I was in Genting Highlands.

My car finally went through an open gate and entered a palace like building. There was no one there. I walked around the building compound and then I decided to go home. So I approached my car and tried to start my engine but I car could not be started.

At this moment, a beautiful lady approached towards the left side of my car. When the lady came near, I could tell that it was Princess Nasuha. She stood by the side of my car and this was when I woke up.

I have not had any sort of similar dreams, perhaps the princess want to pass me a message? I could only guess… What is your take then?

The Blunders Of Kumanthong Belief (错误的古曼童信仰)

Many people would jump and storm their feet if I say that they are making a very big mistake when worshipping kid spirits. Be it the Kumanthong or the Luk Kok (dried baby corpse)…

The beginning of Kumanthong sounds something like this:

“General Kunpengl’s wife planned a plot to kill Kunpeng, but her plot was discovered by Kunpeng and Kunpeng eventually killed his wife. Kunpeng found out that his wife was pregnant, so he decided to cut his dead wife’s corpse to retrieve his baby.

Later this baby was dried and General Kunpeng brought this dead baby around during all his battles and he was victorious. Later folks followed Kunpeng’s method and started to worship Kumanthong…”

In this case, I have not really seen a Siamese bomoh kept any Kumanthong or Luk Kok. So I did eventually asked my master about this and this was what he had to say:

“Unfortunately, common folks only look at the surface of the story... They had failed to understand the messages hidden in the Kunpeng story. You see, it is not the dead kid or Kumanthong that we need to worship; but its mother. The bomoh would take the baby as a ransom to the mother’s spirit and ask it to serve the bomoh.

It is because the kid is in the hands of a bomoh, the mother ghost had to comply with all the bomoh’s requests… So you see, the kid is just an ‘insurance’ to force the mother ghost to work.”

Now days, people collect aborted fetuses from hospital and produced dried Lok Kok. This effort is useless as their mothers are still well and alive… so who will serve the modern day magicians now? Kid spirits are just as mischievous as real kids, and having a bunch of kid spirits around only cause havoc in the master’s altar…

At least Lok Kok are real enough, the Kumanthong statues made from cemetery soils are real joke because they have no human links. No one knows what entity had the maker summoned into those Kumanthong statues. So worshipping of a Kumanthong means inviting whatever spirits into your house; it is neither merit creating nor safe in any senses.

So my question is: “Are you feeling disappointed with your Kumanthongs lately?” 

Drowned Ghost (溺死鬼)

My friend, Mark who stayed in Aulong New Village told me his personal experience with drowned ghost. If you have ever visited Aulong, you will notice several large abandoned mining ponds in that area. I used to fish for tilapia from the ponds with Mark too during our school days.

Mark mentioned of an incident that had happened to him when he was 12; and that he shall not forget it for the rest of his life. It was during a hot afternoon in April, Mark’s neighbor cum his best friend who was known as Hao was found drowned in the mining pool at the back of their housed in  Aulong New Village.

This unfortunate incident has stirred up the whole village and a sense of sadness permeated the local community. On the afternoon of incident, Mark’s mother told him that Hao did pay him a visit but Hao subsequently left after found out Mark was taking the afternoon nap. It was really a shock to hear the news of Hao drowning.

Another neighbor said Hao went to the mining pool to catch tilapia fish but due to some reasons, he suddenly sank into the water and after struggling for a while, Hao sank into the water. When help arrived, the rescuers finally managed to find Hao’s body but they found that Hao was already dead.

The most sorrowful person was certainly Hao’s poor mother. Mark heard that she has fainted many times… However, Mark dared not pay Hao the final respect because of two reasons: first, Mark’s mother forbade him to do so and secondly, Mark was quite afraid to look at Hao's corpse. He heard those who have attended the funeral said that they saw blood flew out from Hao’s ears and nose... this was an indication that Hao was not in peace.

After the funeral service, Hao’s family moved away hurriedly because they said Hao’s mother had attempted to committed suicide by the pool and the family members have no choice but to move away from this sorrowful place.

On the 7^th day of Hao’s death, Mark suddenly woke up at midnight due the urge to pull. At that time, toilet and main house structure is normally separated in Aulong village. Anyone who needed to answer the call of nature MUST come out from the house and walk a small distance to the toilet. And Mark’s toilet was just situated at the back of his house; which is pretty near the pond that has drowned Hao.

So Mark had to go out of the house and into the toilet in the dark with torchlight. As he was squatting in the toilet, suddenly he heard very faint crying voice on and off. So Mark tried to peep through the toilet door seams… Well, toilets of those days were simple wooden structures coarsely nailed together using a few pieces of wooden planks.

Mark said that he had indeed regretted to peep outside… because there he saw a silhouette of a person stood by the backdoor of the already vacated house of his neighbor. Although Mark couldn’t see the face of the silhouette, he could identify it was Hao!

According to Mark, his stomach almost sucked back all his droppings as he felt a sense of chill rose from the base of his spine! Although Mark very much wanted to call Hao, he couldn’t raise enough courage to do so… further Mark found that he was so scared that both of his legs held fast to the ground. He stayed in the toilet until Mark’s mother found him inside the toilet the next morning.

According to Mark’s mother, she heard the crying sound too but she didn’t see any shadows around. Both of them decided to go to the neighbor’s house to investigate… And indeed, they found a pool of water and some muddy footprints there.

 After the incident, Mark got a job in Singapore and he decided to settle in there for good leaving his mother in Aulong. A few years later, Mark returned to Aulong to visit his mother and spent a night in his old house.

The next morning, Mark found some very familiar muddy footprints in front of his house and a pool of water. He suddenly remembered Hao… Mark’s feet started to tremble and wondered: “Who has visited his house early in the morning?”

Siamese Magic Vs Northern Malay Magic (暹术漫谈)

It is quite difficult to put everything about the practice of Siamese magic in a nutshell. I am only interested in finding the bare bone structure of Siamese magic or Thai magic if you will. To understand the essential components of Siamese magic, we should first look into the ancient Malay magic of northern peninsular as the old Malays of this region had preserved those Siamese rituals pretty faithfully and in relatively complete form too.

The major components of original northern peninsular Malay magic rituals actually dealt with daily activities: protection from harm, love, agricultural, entertainment and traditional medicine. The end result of all the above mentioned activities is the accumulation of wealth and social status. The above is true for Siamese magic too.

There are many ways of generating wealth and also in achieving social status, one of course must work hard and on the other hand; it would be good to have a supernatural helper. Both in Malay and in Siamese magic that there are similar rituals to get a spirit helper. In Malay magic this spirit helper is known as ‘hantu raya’ and in Siamese magic it is called ‘pra tit wa da’.

If you were to conjure both entities with separate rituals, you would find that the creature that had answered to your summon is a green to black hairy creature with a height of about 10 feet or so. Its appearance may or may not be preceded by strong wind.

The altar of an authentic Malay Bomoh and a Siamese Bomoh look the same; except the Siamese Bomoh would worship the statue of a lersi and a Buddha at most. However, a very distinct diversion between Malay magic and Siamese magic is the making use of ‘poisons’.

The Malay ‘hantu raya’ is normally used to guard the owner’s property and for protection. But most of all, this spirit is also used in conjunction with ‘santau’ (a type of poisons) that can be fatal when consumed. In this sense, the combination of ‘hantu raya’ and ‘santau’ is actually synonym with the mountain wind (蛊) and poisons (毒) of the Indochinese hill tribes.

The surprising similarity of the santau and Indochinese poisons is that both of the system must take a life in three years or the owner shall be harmed by his/her own poisons. So the practitioners of santau/poisons are normally restaurant owners in remote areas.

Victims of santau/poisons shall die if not being treated and the dead souls shall in turn bound by the santau/poisons owners and bring them more money and business.

On the other hand, the Siamese ‘pra tit wa da’ can be used for all but poisoning. Perhaps this is the influence of Buddhism that had caused such a diversion; but the Malay bomoh has no such restrictions.

Another very interesting point to compare is the use of ‘corpse oil’. The Malay definition of ‘corpse oil’ is very definite. In Malay ‘corpse oil’ is termed as ‘minyak dagu’ or literarily the ‘chin oil’. This is in line with old Siamese practice of ‘nam man prai’ oil. Both Malay and Siamese magic would use white candles to burn the chin of a corpse to collect corpse oil.

The difference is that in Malay magic, any dead corpse of untimely dead can be used; in traditional Siamese magic however, only the corpse of a pregnant mother with still born can only be used.

The oils hence collected must be buried underground and it must not be carried over state or country boundaries. This is because both Malay and Siamese bomoh believe that the state guardians will prevent the dead soul which is attached to the corpse oil to cross the state. In addition, no one should carry this corpse oil around for the fear that the person might be hit by lighting. Practitioners also believe that this corpse oil shall replenish itself during full moon night.

In fact, I would like to point out that the quantity of corpse oil thus collected cannot be divided into smaller quantities because one bottle of corpse oil represents one individual spirit. For example: corpse oil collected from the corpse of a pregnant mother represents the mother and her baby spirit.

Modern Thai masters like to sell corpse oil from all sorts of sources and then diluted the oil into hundreds of portion. If this happens, then the original soul will disperse and new wandering spirits being summoned in. This is not only ineffective but also a waste of time.

As the term ‘minyak dagu’ implies, it is the ‘chin oil’ not ‘baby oil’ or ‘dog oil’ or anything like that. Hence I used the term Siamese magic to denote traditional Thai system compared to modern Thai magic as I would normally call it.

Perhaps you have already noticed the importance of a magic system comparative study and the understanding of the basic structure that comes along with it. There are more similarities between Malay magic and Siamese magic; and their similarities with the Indian folk magic as well.

Such comparisons would be another long discussion. But I am only keeping the ball rolling for the time being. And this posting may be updated in future. Of course, we must keep in mind that the number of Malay and Siamese bomohs are dwindling. Much of those information may have already lost in time.

Ghost Story From UPM (UPM的鬼故事)

I supposed universities around the world have give rise to many ghost stories which had been told by seniors to juniors. And when juniors become seniors; they will again downloaded these spooky stories to the new comers. Perhaps it is good to keep the ball rolling so as to maintain these urban legends…

UPM is the abbreviation of University Putra Malaysia which is situated in Serdang, Selangor. It is said that UPM is the most haunted university in the country but I do not have the background of such claim. However, if you have visited UPM before, you will find that there are two cemeteries near UPM entrance: one is Malay and the other Chinese.

I know there are many ghost stories about UPM but to start the ball rolling, I will just write one which is popular in the intranet. There are many stories too… but as you may be aware that most ghost stories are fragmented and difficult to compile. So the below story goes:

There are two students, let us just call them Jack and Jill. Both of them are sharing a room in university hostel. One day Jill returned home due to urgent matters leaving Jack alone in the hostel room. After sleeping soundly for hours, Jack suddenly felt a need to visit the toilet. So in a state of sleepiness, Jack habitually woke up his pal who was sleeping at the lower deck to accompany him to the toilet.

So both of them proceeded toward the hostel common toilet, Jack went in the toilet compartment while Jill waited for him outside of the compartment as usual.

While Jack was doing his business in the toilet, his mind became clearer and he suddenly realized that his pal, Jill should be in his hometown by now… the question now is that who is the ‘guy’ out there waiting?

The more Jack think about the issue, the scared he became until so much so that he dared not venture out of the toilet compartment. So he just stayed there for as long as he could…

Suddenly someone was knocking, it was Jill’s voice:

“Hey, are you done? Why did you take such a long time?”

By now, Jack was getting very scared and it would be over his dead body if he will go out… So Jack shouted:

“Oh? It is best you go home first, my stomach is still aching… it will take a long time!”

“No problem, I shall wait until you come out!” The voice outside said.

Some time has lapsed…

Jill knocked on the toilet door:

“Hey, it has been very long already, are you REALLY done yet?”

The panic stricken Jack said in a trembling voice:

“You go first, no need to wait for me! You sleep first bro!”

“No worries! I shall wait…” The voice outside replied.

Yet after a very long while, Jack heard knocking sound at his toilet door again and he heard Jill said:

“Now you finally know the truth? I know what you are thinking! I shall wait for you UNTIL you show your face!”

At this point, Jack certainly dared not open the door… so he stayed in the toilet until day breaks…

Phone Number To The Underworld (地府的电话)

It was during one New Year eve a few years ago, my pals and I met at Jason’s place for a gathering. It was the first gathering after we left our school in 10 years period. It is an overstatement to say that our meeting was a reunion; most of us just minding our own business and the gathering looked like a ‘pasar malam’ (local evening market): someone were watching TV, a few were playing mahjong, some chatting, some people eating while the rest were playing with their smart phones.

The gathering started at about 6pm and at 11pm, everyone started to feel bored and as we had promised amongst ourselves; such ‘precious’ gathering should see through the night… Someone suggested that we should tell ghost stories… suddenly Alex said:

“I heard that if we dilled number 6 for 10 times, we can connect to the underworld. Why not we give it a try? Since there are so many people around so no one should be afraid right?”

So Alex started to dial ten 6’s and after a few try; the line couldn’t be connected was only a machine recorded monotonous tone:

“The number you have dilled is not in used…”

When he was about to give up, then for the last dial, the line went through:

“Doo… doo… doo..”

After a while, an old man’s voice was heard from the other end:

“Why do you play with this number? Why do you play with this number?...”

The man kept repeating the same sentence. Alex got scared and he immediately hung up. To his surprised, the phone hung and the line remained connected. The old man kept repeating the sentence for about 10 minutes or so… until someone suggested Alex kept saying ‘sorry’ to counteracting the old man’s words.

After Alex has said a few times ‘sorry’ the voice from the other end finally said:

“Thank you for calling… please come down to visit me soon… Doo…”

Strangely speaking, when other people in the group tried the ten 6’s, they only get the operator’s voice:

“The number you are calling, is not in used…”

I dared not try the numbers, but if you do try… I don’t want to be responsible for anything that might follow… As to Alex, I heard that he immediately called his agent to increase his life and accident insurance premiums the next working day…