About Gamblers’ Magic Oil

This is a gamblers’ magic perhaps specific to the Traditional Chinese and Vietnamese communities.

 

According to Chinese funeral custom, after a person dies, his or her relatives will light an oil lamp to guide the deceased to continue his/her underworld journey. This lamp must be kept burning until the completion of funeral proper. Otherwise the dead soul cannot find his/her correct direction.

 

In the event that you are a gambler and keen in trying out your luck, first you must choose a young cleaver deceased and get some of the oils from this oil lamp. After that, you must store the collected oil into an empty egg shell until the coming full moon night.

 

Now prepare a whole chicken, a black fish, some fruits and some rice wine.

 

Get yourself a piece of paper and write “The Five Gambler Ghosts” on it and paste it to a bamboo stick. Go to a quiet corner, plug the stick into the ground under full moon light and then arrange all the food offerings on the floor. After that, burn some incense and candles. Pour some oil onto your palms and rub your hands. Call the name of the deceased and say, “so-and-so, you are the five gambler ghosts, help me to get the cards etc. I want in casino.” You must repeat the exercise for 49 times continuously.

 

Once you have completed the ritual, go into your house and get a deck of poker cards. Think of the card you want, call the spirit’s name. If what you done is correct and the spirit is with you, you will get the card that you want.

 

The next step is of course; try your luck in a casino!
 

 
Oh, oh... Before I forget, if you unfortunately got yourself a stupid spirit and lose money, don't blame me.. Hahaha.


 

Taoist Round Light Ritual (圓光術)

 

An example of altar setup for round light ritual

 

 

Literally this is known as “round light ritual”, it is somewhat similar to the western crystal ball. However it has an edge that not only you can see the past and future events; you can also punish a robber or a culprit.

 

It is not difficult to perform this ritual but first you will need to set up an altar properly for this ritual shown as above.

 

First writhe the below talisman on a piece of yellow paper and burn it in front of your main door:

 

“勒令雷中”

 

Now you should burn some incense and recite the below mantra three times:

 

“奉請太上律令，猛烈銀牙漢帝封神土地精華, 開天門，開地戶，留人門，塞鬼路，穿鬼心，破鬼肚，吾奉太上老君急急如律令勒。”

 

(I invite the supreme order, the fierce silver teeth, and the essence of earth god as bestowed by the Han emperor. I open the sky and earth gate, keeping the human gate but shutting the ghost gate. I penetrate the ghost heart and break the ghost stomach. I carry out the order of Tai Shang Lao Jun. As my will, so mote it be!)

 

After the mantra recitation, meditate and stare at the paper. You should gradually see a glow and in time a scene would appear on the paper.

 

Once you have learnt what you want to know, dismiss the spirits by saying the below:

 

“是神歸廟，是仙歸逢萊。”

 

(Gods return to shrines, the immortals return to Feng Lai.)

 

If you do try this ritual, please don’t be too serious about what you may see. Many massages are from the lower spiritual realms such as foxes, ghosts and earthbound spirits. The messages from spirits are most of the time half true and half lie. So be very careful about them.

 

Flip-flop New Age Mustika Pearls

I took a sudden craze to look into some of the online auction mustika pearls and found very interesting changes of the same thing over time. Just thought I would share that with you. Smile if you just treat this as a joke; cry if you have forked out your money to purchase some of them (these are not cheap items):

 

·         The last of the last mustika pearls

o   While the label is the last pearl on sale; once one is sold, you will find a second last one appears in the auction. For instance “last fox mustika”, “last fox blood mustika”, “last jelly fish mustika”, “last of the last personal collection jelly fish mustika” etc. etc.

·         The switch identity mustika pearls

o   Another very interesting phenomenon, a white elephant pearl can turn into a fox pearl, a wild boar pearl can transformed into a albino peacock pearl just to name a few.

·         The modern manufactured pearls

o   Many of the pearls are manmade. You can see similar shape and sizes of these mustikas be it the lightning or peacock or even wild boar.

o   The size and shape of most of the mustikas are exactly identical.

·         The fable mustika pearls

o   Fire dragon pearls, water dragon pearls and sky dragon pearls etc. cannot exist as there are no such real creatures as physical dragons.

 

Then and again, cross your fingers; perhaps what you have got is a real thing. It is a magical world out there J!

 

Magical Uses Of Cat’s Mask

 

A cat’s mask is fun to be worn during a party or Halloween.

 

On the other hand, a cat’s mask can be a powerful tool in Mao Shan Taoist magic. There are many uses for a cat’s mask:

 

·         If a cat’s mask is empowered with any of the empowerment rituals, it can be hung at the entrance of your altar or house to break any spells that are cast on you.

·         If a cat’s mask is empowered with a dead cat’s blood, then by simply burying this mask in front of your enemy’s house or where he/she will pass through daily; it can be used as a tool to curse your enemy. Before burying the cat’s mask, say something like, “spirit of a cat, spirit of a cat, this charge I charge you today. Go and haunt so-and-so until his/her last breath etc”.

·         A cat’s mask when blessed with a black cat’s blood as above; can also be used to ‘lock’ your opponent’s altar where no spirits can or are willing to come to the magician’s aid.

 

Whatever case is, I still prefer to wear a cat’s mask to during Halloween.

 

Revenge Of A Conceived Black Bitch

This is a story of a Hong Kong businessman, Eric who has a garment factory in Vietnam.

 

Eric has set up a garment business in Vietnam about 10 years ago and to guard his premise, he has kept a few dogs to prevent theft and robbers. Amongst many of his dogs, there is a black bitch that is the main character of this story.

 

Life was just as normal with Eric and his wife, Jane. The bitch started to show aggression when Jane was pregnant for about 6 months. With due consideration of the safety of Jane and their baby; Eric decided to give the black bitch away to his Vietnamese workers for good.

 

About two weeks later, Jane started to have bad dreams about the black bitch biting her stomach and bloods oozing from her lower body. Jane felt very uncomfortable and told Eric about the repetitive bad dreams she had. Due to curiosity, Eric went to the workers’ quarter to investigate.

 

The workers’ quarter is a three story building with the ground and the first floor being the workers’ rooms and the top floor the kitchen. To Eric’s astonishment, the third was filled with talismans.  On enquiry, apparently that Eric’s workers have slaughtered the black bitch as their dinner. The workers only found out that the bitch was conceived with 6 puppies yet to be delivered!

 

Strange sightings of a shadowy doggie started on the top floor a few days after the slaughter of the bitch. Eric’s workers were too scared to go to the kitchen so they decided to ‘seal’ the floor themselves. No one dares to inform Eric of this incident for the fear of losing his jobs.

 

After learning the incident, there was nothing Eric could do: dogs are just one of the local delicacies. Soon everyone forgot about the black bitch until it was time for Jane to deliver. Jane again started to dream about the black bitch staring at her angrily and many times she woke up soaked with cold sweat. One day as Jane was walking down the stairs for her routine medical checkup; she slipped a step and fell down from the stairs. Eric hurriedly sent Jane to hospital but Jane had a miscarriage. As recalled by Jane later, she recalled that a doggie shadow was pulling her gown caused her to lose balance and fell down from the stairs.

 

With Eric’s permission I was lucky enough to visit the workers’ quarter before Eric ended his garment business. I thought I saw a black shadow moved very quickly at the corner of my eyes. I tried to communicate but got no response from the figure.

 

I guess it is fortunate that we only eat ‘hot dogs’ now-a-days and spare the dogs alone; for the good of the dogs, and the human too J!

SEA Operas: Rites & Ghost Stories

As I heard, the first night of Chinese opera is meant for the 'good brothers'. There is a scene called "Liu Guo Ta Feng Xiang" (六國大封相) that must be performed on the first night to pacify the spirits or very bad things will happen. The 'buka gelanggang' is also an important ritual... I have learnt that from my Thai masters where elaborate offerings must be done to the 'puppet gods' a night before and the food offerings should be buried under a big tree or a designated place the next morning.

 

Similarly, wayang kulit shows begin with a religious prayer and offerings; it is called “Buka panggung” ritual. We have similar “opening ritual” in Makyong, Chinese opera or puppet shows. Old folks always advise small kids for not to attend the initial show as there will be many spirits around.

 

Below is a ghost story prevalent amongst the Chinese opera old timers in Hong Kong:

 

The incident happened just around the 50’s. It was (still is) a custom to setup Chinese opera performances to please the ‘good brothers’ during the 7^th lunar month. So this opera crew got an invitation to perform in an isolated location in Guangtong (廣東), China with very strange request: there was only to be one performance after dark. The opera lead was reluctant at first, but due to good reward promised; he obliged.

 

So they set forth to the location. The opera crew arrived at the place at noon time and they were served lunch by the villagers. It was a small village with not much activity. Since the time was still early, the opera crews were allowed to walk around the village. There were some villagers gambling in a corner so many of the opera crews also participated until it was time for them to prepare for the night performance.

 

The first performance started after dinner time, as the gongs were struck indicating the commencement of the opera show; the audience starting to be seated in the audience seats.

 

When the seats are almost filled, the show started with a scene known as “Guan Gong sending siste-in-law” (關公送嫂) . Once the character Guan Gong entered the opera stage, all of the audience retreated to outside of the opera and only returned when Guan Gong exited the stage.

 

Now the opera lead knew that the audiences were all spirits and they were already deep inside the ghostly realm. There was nothing the leader can do but to continue the show while asking the actor who played Guan Gong to be seated in the back stage as a protection.

 

Time soon passed and all of the audiences retreated before daybreak.

 

When the time is right, the opera leader hastened his crews to pack and leave. While everyone was wondering why the rush; some of the crews started to vomit out mud and dirty water. They checked their wallets and found the money they won turned into ‘hell money”.

 

To their surprised, the outside village had turned into a vast piece of cemetery land without any traces of living souls!

 

Another story happened in Taiwan:

 

A puppet crew was paid to perform in a remote area, where show times were only at mid-nights. On second night, the puppet performer noticed all his audience had no legs. He almost scared to death that he had to quit the show immediately. He blamed the director of the local temple who booked his shows, for not telling him that shows were actually for “spiritual good brothers”.   

 

Animal Instinct, Human Instinct Or Coincidence?

Mr. Ong dropped me a mail about animal instincts:

 

Once, I had a chance to visit our local turtle sanctuary with my Korean manager. We were told by an American researcher that some turtles were actually from distant overseas countries, including Philippine. We can tell by looking at a plate tagged on the turtle. They travel to Malaysia during a certain session yearly. My pet dog made noise right on 10 am, when it was time to bring it out for a walk. One day, I thought it was still early when sky looked dim. A look at the clock proofed my dog was an accurate time keeper.

 

When I first dropped the cat I told you last week, it ran to a certain direction that aimed back to my house. I was amazed to see it returned home with lots of noises around 4 am this morning, after wondering and struggling in a housing area for nearly 3 weeks.

 

May be they can tune in the magnetic field and time flow of our mother earth, they seem know the right direction and time. May be just their inborn instinct? May be you have some ideas how these things work out?

 

While I firmly believe that animals have amazing instincts; we human too have the same kind of abilities. Perhaps we have indulged in our modern electronic gadgets that have blunt our born capabilities, but let me assure you that with proper training, it is possible to regain our super instincts.

 

 Just to tell you a true story happened just a few nights before:

 

I was in Taiping on Monday, Perak and my 4 year old nephew wanted an ultraman doll so he gave me a call. I went to local night market to purchase one for him. After the purchase, all of a sudden and without any reason I got this urge to give my brother a call. It happened that my brother was also in a night market in Relau, Penang looking at the exactly same ultraman doll!!

 

Was it instinct or pure coincidence?