Genius Die Young

We all hope that we will be a little cleaver, earn more money so that we live better. But, alas! Hope against hope those things never come true. There is a saying that goes:

 

“命里有时终需有，命里无时莫强求！”

“What is destined will be ours; what is not, then never ask!”

 

According to astrology, once we are born, our fate is sealed and no one can change this fact.

 

Well, people always say ‘The God envies the genius ones’. This term is normally used to show our sympathy towards those brilliant folks who die of young age. Does this have a foundation? This can be traced from Mr. Chan’s astrology chart:

 

丁乙甲丙

亥丑午午

 

This type of reading falls under the ‘three high rank officials’ (三奇贵人格) added to that there are two ‘scholars’ (文昌) hidden within. So, Mr. Chan is a super cleaver yet super lucky person.

 

In real situation, Mr. Chan is indeed a super clever. He was awarded government scholarships to further his studies in Singapore when he was young. Later, he again awarded scholarships by Singaporean government to do research in Japan and subsequently stayed in Japan for a few years before returning to work in Singapore.

 

His monthly salary is at least SGD20k and owns some prime properties.

 

It is a norm that brilliant folks used up their brain and life force pretty fast; hence they are not long live ones.

 

Having said so, Mr. Chan will not be able to enjoy his retirement. Now, let’s look into Mr. Chan’s luck:

 

庚己戊丁丙乙

子亥戌酉申未

 

He started his luck pretty early, but he burnt his life force a little too much; and that from the age of 30 to 50; his fate went into 20 years of void and it looks like Mr. Chan’s life will end at the end of 50.

 

I supposed what the ancient said is true:

 

“天忌英才，红颜薄命。“

“The God envies the genius while a beauty is short lived.”

 

 

Gambling Attracts Ghosts

If you ask, what attracts ghosts most? I can tell you with 100% confident that it is gambling. It is also certainly true that where people gamble, tobacco, liquor and sex entails. While it is also true that the graveyards and hospitals have many spooks, but both of the places are where people meet their ends. These ghosts only linger there for a while before moving on.

 

The place where ghosts like to congregate is a casino. I am not sure why these ghostly brothers and sisters like to gamble? Perhaps many of them were once upon a time gamblers too; or the tensions and excitements during gambling generate large quantity of heat. Obviously, ghosts feed on energy and hence they like to be at places where food is plentiful.

 

If you don’t believe me, do the below experiment please：

 

First, choose a known haunted location.

 

You need to invite at least 4 friends to start a gambling session. Please don't use money but use joss papers instead. Before you start to gamble, light 4 white candles at 4 corners of a table.

 

Pause occasionally to look at the shape and form of the candle flames. If any of the candle flames veered towards the centre of the table accompanied by any of the participants felt his/her spine is chilled and numb; then that would be the indications that spirits are presence. If the feeling is not severe, there are only a handful spirits; however if anyone felt severely cold accompanied with migraine; then there are many spirits around. Now, quickly stop gambling and burn all of the joss papers as offerings to the spirits. Otherwise, one of the participants will faint or possessed by spirits.

 

Anyway, I still advise everyone only gamble for fun but never over do it. It is of course, best not to gamble at all.

 

Beware Of Unscrupulous Plant Nurseries (小心受骗)

I am lovers of exotic plants and have many good and bad experiences with dealing with various plant suppliers around the world. Oddly to say, the ones that gave me most doubts are some of the local Singaporean and Malaysian plant nurseries. This is a very sad thing as some of the Sing-Ma folks are getting a little dishonest these days.

 

You know, Malaysia is a tropical country with many rare and expensive collectors’ orchid species and other precious plants. These plants are very much sought after in the western world but as the supply is limited, any offerings of these plants will receive plenty of attentions within the plant lovers.

 

There is only one catch: there are many advertisements in the intranet, but which is authentic and which is not remains as the biggest question. Perhaps we will need to actually visit these nurseries and buy on site to be on the safe side.

 

I have an exotic plant lover friend who was looking for some Malaysian orchid species. As he couldn’t come to Malaysia just for two plants, he asked my help. Well, after looking at the nursery location which is in Perak, I figured that would be okay to visit. So, I call up the person in charge. Below is the conversation:

 

Me: “I am from Perak and want to buy some plants, can I visit you?”

He: “Oh. I am in Penang right now.”

Me: “Can I come to Penang to visit you then?”

He: “Oh I am on holiday and pretty busy. You can just purchase online.”

Me: “I know your mailing address which is only 10 minutes from my parent’s house…”

He: “Oh, there won’t be anyone. It is only used for correspondence.”

Me: “Can I visit your nursery then?”

He: “Oh, the nursery is located deep inside jungle; you must have a 4 wheel drive.”

Me: “…”

 

Well, after push and pull for a while, I gave up on the nursery as I am in doubt of its authenticity…

 

Now I switched my attention to a nursery in Singapore, but this one is more interesting… There is no contact number and the email directed me to another email; and this email never gets answered!

 

So, I had to reply to my US friend that it is better to buy in eBay or other more established suppliers. Perhaps it is safer to do the dealings there as I don’t really see any other alternatives.

 

For obvious reasons, I cannot disclose those doubtful nurseries, but if there is a nursery that can offer you many varieties of rare plants with seemingly low prices; please be very careful. The reason is that, these plants are not easily available; even the most established ones will only have a handful in their collections.

 

It is my hope that no one gets cheated by these unscrupulous nurseries; in Singapore, Malaysia or the rest of the world!

 

Interesting Hollow Talk (空洞的谈话)

I dreaded to chat online as many of the people tend to ‘hollow talk’. You will definitely recognize this type of conversations as it can lasts for hours and just right after the conversations; you feel extremely tired and can’t really recall the gist of such a long conversation.

 

The pattern of this conversation is always monotonous that goes like:

 

A-B-A-B-A-B…..A-B…Ccccc….

Where,

‘A’ means ‘No I am not.’

‘B’ means ‘Yes I am.’

‘C’ means ‘I am dead…’

 

Let me show you an example:

 

He: “How are you doing?”

Me: “Couldn’t be better.”

He: “Are you bored with magic?”

Me: “No. I’m not.”

He: “Yes, I can feel it.”

Me: “Not at the moment.”

He: “Yes, you're definitely..."

…. (after 1 hour)…

He: “Would you do something else?”

Me: “…”

 

I supposed ‘hollow talk’ reflects the actual ‘mental state’ of these persons. Hollow talk has no relation to education level; many folks in senior management will also exhibit this trend. I personally had many dialogue sessions with these senior managers and only to find that the persons who are talking to me suddenly turned into ‘little boys and little girls’ figuratively speak of course. It was later when I proved into their conversations that these folks are not satisfied with their working conditions and this is an interesting find to me. Perhaps these senior managers just want a place to express their frustrations?

 

Another group of people who ‘hollow talk’ a lot is those folks who are too engrossed in magical issues. We can find these hollow talk patterns in the archives of many magic forums and I need not elaborate more. Perhaps you too are experiencing these hollow talks in your daily lives that you may not be aware of.

 

If the hollow talk lasts for a few minutes, that’s common. But if the talk that lasts for hours, that will be something that calls for attention! More so if these group of people belongs to age group of 20-30 years. These folks are burning their precious times that could probably put into better uses.

 

Sorry to say that I like to akin this ‘hollow talk syndrome’ with ‘masturbation’; the persons these folks talk to are eventually overloaded with emotional junks or whatever is left over after these mental masturbations! Hollow minds can also lead to other mental illnesses too such as hallucination and hearing things amongst others. So, smile and don’t be too serious folks!

 

SEA Magic In Academic Perspectives (学术界对巫术的看法)

Lately I had some opportunities to have some length of discussions about SEA magical practices with some of my academic friends. There are some interests to document what is left of today’s SEA magic and of no lesser interests are of the mentality of the folks engrossed in magical works.

 

Not that I want to throw wet blankets on these academic enthusiasts. After about 30 years of mingling in magical world of SEA, my only conclusion is that SEA magic as a whole is pretty unreliable. Not only the effectiveness of magic practices is questionable; the magicians are generally a problem for actual ritual narrations.

 

Anyone who deals with magicians will aware that the character of a magician tends to flip-flop and this unique character makes the recording of a ritual extremely difficult. Perhaps it is a secret ritual that this magician wanted to keep a secret; or perhaps he/she is not sure of what the actual ritual is.

 

For example: I spent plenty of time in getting a Snake Ngai right. I was intrigued by the claim that the Snake Ngai can cure snake bite and revive a dead snake bite victim even after 18 hours or so.

 

The first time I received this snake ritual the magician asked me to get a snake and plant a white turmeric rhizome. But the ginger rotted with the decaying of the dead snake. So, this doesn’t work.

 

The second time I return to the magician, he asked me to put a copper plate talisman under my turmeric plant; but the ginger also died with the oxidation of copper plate. That too didn’t work out.

 

The third time I put a paper instead and this time the turmeric plant grows pretty well.

 

Now I search the intranet and found out that in Thailand, folks use white turmeric to cure snake bite victim. Perhaps this is the origin of Snake Ngai or perhaps it is not. There is no way to find out.

 

It is indeed very difficult for a researcher to coax any secrets from a magician by a single review; more so that there is no written records archived anywhere. The best way for an academician to experiment with actual magic and record down whatever records there may be before drawing conclusions.

 

Of course, it is still my personal interests to study the psychology of a magician in detail when my hit rate goes 1,000,000 times!

 

About Taiwanese Talisman Kids (符仔仙)

Many Taiwanese will keep a distance with these talisman kids. It is the fear of offending these types of problematic folks or one may not see the next living daylight. It is more so that no one knows who is good or who is bad as there is no indicator printed on the face of everyone.

 

My grave digger friend told me, when he found someone’s bones are black in colour; and that it is not due to the dampness of the soil; then the deceased is believed to be an evil talisman kid.

 

Taiwan has her fair share of black magic. Amongst of all, the infamous ‘Five Ghost Armies’ (五鬼阴兵) is used to deploy dead souls to seek revenge, to kill or even for debt collection.  Well, it is safer to use ghosts to influence the defaulters than the debt collection gangsters. One may end up in jail if dealing with gangsters; well no one can bring ghosts to the court of law!

 

Another horrible black magic is known as the ‘Midnight Soul Catcher’ (子午追魂法). In order to cast this spell, one must first get hold of the person’s particular and this information must be written on a piece of talisman. When this is done, the paper is inserted inside a grass manikin.

 

Upon midnight, this grass manikin is brought to an open place such as a cemetery. Further mantra recitations are performed under the dark sky and then the manikin is buried as if burying a dead body.

 

It is said that, starting from that night onwards, this person’s soul will travel out of his/her body and wandering aimlessly. If this wandering soul is not called back; this person will become crazy and die in long run.

 

Besides that, these talisman kids’ love magic rituals are not of lesser power than the Thai magic counterpart. I laughed on those ignorant folks that only know that the grass on the other side of the bank is greener, but unaware that the local love magic such as the ‘Old Male Boar’ (猪哥爱情符) or the ‘Enchantment Of Fox Spirits’ (狐狸精迷魂) are more effective comparatively! Well, in olden days, folks would use any methods to get their hands on their love ones…

 

Person who is under this love spell would feel not himself/herself; he/she would not be able to be in control of his/her wills. Both of his/her eyes and cheeks would show pink reddish colour and would go easy with sex. Having said so… As far as I know, an aphrodisiac or ecstasy pills work better now days! Hahaha!

 

But, no worries folks; black magic seldom works these days!

 

Related link in Chinese:

 

http://searojaktalk.blogspot.com/2014/09/blog-post_90.html

 

The One That Conjures Water Ghosts

It is a norm that Maoshan sorcerers don't want anything to do with water ghosts. With the exception for the famous Javanese magical practices such as names of powers (asma). Having said so, these practices only require the practitioner to dip in a river on Friday nights and chant names of powers to gain magical powers; not to deal directly with those water ghosts.

 

As a matter of fact, Maoshan sorcerers would use any types of ghosts with a single exception; that is the water ghost. I supposed there are just too many restrictions to this type of ghosts. For one thing, water ghosts are bounded to a specific water body just as an earthbound spirit. They are not free to move about like other forms of ghosts. In addition to that, when water ghosts present themselves, the place is always wet and messy.

 

Regardless of what I have just said, I know a person known by the name Mr. Lim who tried to congregate some poor drowned souls just after the infamous South Asia Tsunami. I guessed Mr. Lim is plasticising another kind of Five Ghost Fortunes and by gathering thousands of dead souls would increase his ability to accumulate wealth considerably.

 

It was after the fact that Mr. Lim boasted to me what he just did. I did advise him to forget about those types of ghosts or he will find himself in plenty of troubles pretty soon. After our brief meeting, I seldom come across Mr. Lim until last month.

 

When I met Mr. Lim, his face doesn’t look right. I later learnt from him that his luck was very poor and that he has eczema over many places of his body. His business wasn’t that good either. Mr. Lim did ask me on how to improve his luck but when I sort of scanned him for a while and told him: “Your body looks swelling a little and that both of his cheeks and forehead looked dull. Perhaps this has something to do with the water ghosts you have conjured?”

 

Mr. Lim brushed my opinions aside, I thought it is difficult to convince him and hence is best to leave him alone. Perhaps I should just mind my own business instead of worry about Mr. Lim’s funeral? As the matter of fact, it is extremely difficult to help Mr. Lim even if he asked for help. What I can do is only to perform some rounds of chanting and hopefully these poor spirits will move on to the other side.

 

What a Maoshan sorcerer will do to these water ghosts is to burn some joss papers for them and persuade them to be reborn again. Mr. Lim has my respect because no other sensible person would venture to deal with water ghosts one way or another.

 

Related link in Chinese:

 

http://searojaktalk.blogspot.com/2014/09/blog-post_5.html