What about fortune tellers who can tell ur future by seeing ur birth dates. Are they any how related to sin tua? They are releasing secrets of the sky aren't they?

This post has been edited by estcin: Apr 30 2015, 05:44 PM

Hi estcin, I'm glad you've enjoyed what has been posted here so far. Do stick around; I intend to keep the fun and educational times rolling indefinitely.

Here are the answers to your questions:

1. Everyone goes to the same Hell, which people of different races, religions and cultures perceive differently. The same way people of different races, religions and cultures perceive the same gods differently and know them by different names, although their core characteristics are retained.

The Hell beings don't care if you're an atheist or if you don't believe them; they'll come to pick you up all the same. As long as you become a dead soul, you fall under their jurisdiction.

The Chinese Hell is not a Taoist concept, by the way. Taoism has no concept of Hell. It is a folk concept for the most part, with some Buddhist influences.



2. The Nine Emperors have several different origin stories. One of these states that they are personifications of nine stars that form the Northern Dipper constellation - the cardinal direction of North is associated with the element of Water. Another states that they were nine great admirals of the Ming Dynasty, who waged war against the invading Manchus.

Whichever the origin story you subscribe to, the association of the Nine Emperors with the Watery element is fixed and constant. The Nine Emperor Gods festival is celebrated near the sea, as it is believed that they arrive via the waterways, with rain heralding their arrival and departure.



3. The Heavenly Dog/天狗 is a baleful stellar creature that is often blamed for various misfortunes, including miscarriages and the premature death of children, and is thus placated to avoid calamity. It is also said to be the pet of Lord Er Lang, the Jade Emperor's nephew and one of the Five Camp Commanders, whom I have spoken about earlier (Er Lang is the patron saint and protector of all canine animals). Some sources state that he actually has an entire pack of these monstrous Doberman-like beasts, which makes more sense, given that his earliest origins are as a god of hunting.





4. I would like to highlight the fact that one's fate is NOT set in stone. You are not a puppet dancing to a pre-written script; you write the script as you go along.

To draw a lot that warns of calamity, or to be told by a fortune teller that bad luck is around the corner, does not mean that you will definitely meet with misfortune. Take whatever precautions can be taken, and you may very well avoid it.

Fortune telling/divination is merely based on whatever factors have been influencing your predicament right up until that point in time - punch in a different set of factors and a totally different set of equations emerges. It's all about probabilities; no 'Heavenly secrets' are involved or being disclosed.

The bottom line is that the future is completely malleable. The only thing that cannot be altered is past events.

Thanks for the info with the furnished photos for better understanding.
Further question. Some ppl are "adopted" by some of the gods, mainly Guan Yin. How does this adoption works? My friend when he was very young was adopted by Er Lang Shen. He was too young to remember and then his parents divorced. He followed the father and later became Christian. Then he grew up and said he had dreams about this "3-eyed" guy. He later found out about the adoption from his mum

The deities select as their godchildren people whom they see as being in need of extra TLC. Perhaps the person might be sickly, or prone to being disturbed by evil spirits. Godchild status is rarely lifelong, if ever. When the person improves to the point where they can fend for themselves, their godchild status comes to an end. But this does not imply total abandonment.

Godchildren are traditionally expected to be in regular contact with their godparents throughout the adoption period, and closely adhere to whatever taboos are associated with their godparents.

Thanks again Nacht. Really learned a lot from this thread. Before this I was told a temple nearby is praying to "ghosts" which are actually the Hell deities as their faces look scary. Previously misunderstood and I thought the temple is doing some black magic or evil sorcery. Now this clears up after I understand thei Hell deities job and role.

More questions, if you don't mind:
1. Is gambling allowed in temple? they seem to do that often.
2. The temple provides service for 打小人 on certain dates. How does this works?

Just curious to know, did he de-convert himself back to Chinese Religion?

Nope. Just that now he knows who is this 3-eyed guy in his dreams and he is not so afraid anymore. He is not a devoted Christian and doesn't go to church anyway

Most of the ppl I heard are adopted by Guan Yin. Seldom heard adopted by Er Lang Shen or other deities. Those adopted by Guan Yin, some of them can't eat beef completely, some can eat outside but cannot bring home. Some had diarrhea after eating beef

I'm adopted by Guanyin too and I abstain from beef.

I heard that for ppl praying to Guan Yin at home, she won't be at the altar all the time. She will going around. But for some ppl who can see something, they will see some pink smoke that means she is in the house

This post has been edited by estcin: May 1 2015, 12:57 AM

Ya, I read about that too. Some people said the altar is like an office in a big corporation as the bigwig won't be around all the time.

It is not wrong to refer to the Hell deities as ghosts, because that is what a lot of them are - undead/ghostly beings.

A visiting boy once referred to the resident Hell deity at my teacher's temple using the term 无常鬼 or Unpredictable Phantom, which prompted his mother to loudly chastise him, stating that using the term '鬼' was impolite.

The Hell deity told the woman to be quiet and stop giving her son a hard time. "The boy is not incorrect. I am what I am; I know what I am. And I appreciate people who call a spade a spade."

Lots of people still wrongly regard the Hell beings as creatures of ill-omen given their association with death, however, and undeservedly give them a wide berth - I have people give me wary or fearful looks when I tell them I worship them in the home or when I buy Hell-related items or supplies at my local prayer material shop, and there are temples where they are enshrined that are virtually empty most of the time, due to people not daring to enter.

1. Yes, you can gamble in a temple, provided the gambling is 'friendly' or casual, as in if no bets are placed or if the bets are very trivial.

Here are some Hell deities, being channelled by their mediums, playing a game of cards on temple premises (the bets were stacks of incense paper).



2. The '打小人' or 'hitting small ('small' in this case this really means 'petty' or 'small-minded') people' ritual is a ritual geared towards ridding one's life of petty or malicious people. It is performed in conjunction with the Tiger Gods or Tiger Generals/虎爷公, the feline guardians of temples.

Us humans have guard dogs to guard our houses; temples have 'guard tigers' - every temple or sintua will have at least one Tiger God on retainer, usually placed in the same alcove where the Earth God is enshrined, as only a very few individuals, including that sweet old man, are able to tame its savage nature. The Tiger God is regarded as a ferocious beast that can drive away malign influences.



The ritual involves beating paper cut-out figures, which represent people who have been giving you a hard time, with a slipper or other item of footwear, whilst certain incantations are being chanted and certain offerings are made (this can differ slightly from temple to temple), following which the paper figures are pasted up in the Tiger God's alcove for him to 'devour'.





It is important to realise that the ritual is NOT geared towards harming your tormentors - it is geared at purging them from your life, stopping them from bothering you. Wishing harm towards them during the ritual is, in actual fact, a surefire way of making it either fail or backfire upon yourself.

Examples of petty people being purged from the lives of those who conducted this ritual are the rude and arrogant supervisor who ended up being transferred to another company branch far, far away, the quarrelsome neighbour who emigrated, the abusive teacher who lost his job when his abuse was reported to the authorities by another of his victimised students, and so on. Done correctly, this thing can be pretty darned effective.

Happy Wesak Day in advance!


This post has been edited by leetan33: May 2 2015, 02:34 PM

Nacht, regarding your story when u were chased by ghosts when u were young. U believed u could have died. How does a ghost technically kill a human?

I heard before my friend's uncle was hospitalised with unknown sickness. Even doctor can't find out the cause of sickness and said he has only 1 week left to live. So they brought a sifu to visit the uncle. Apparently, the uncle was disturbed by some spirit and the sifu chased it away. The surprised doctor then said it's a miracle he survived.

Ghosts can exert influence upon the physical realm (e.g. making themselves visible to humans, speaking to/communicating with humans, moving objects, etc), although doing so requires energy expenditure on their part, which is why most ghostly encounters are quite mild - even the very act of making themselves visible to humans necessitates a ghost to expend energy, which each ghost only has a limited pool of.

Certain ghosts have larger energy pools than others; a ghost can derive strength from its emotions (e.g. from its sadness or its rage, if it died a wrongful death), from feeding off living creatures (which is why people sometimes feel weak or fatigued after encountering ghosts - they have had their vitality sapped), or from anchor objects (objects that hold significance to them in some way, which they can draw power from or use to help themselves manifest - an anchor object can even take the form of another person, a loved one).

A ghost with a large enough energy pool can use it to exert harmful influence upon a human, including interfering with said human's physical, mental and spiritual faculties - this can present as physical illness (your uncle's case), or even mental illness/behavioural problems.

If the ghost keeps up this onslaught for long enough, it can definitely kill its victim - either directly, via physical illness, or indirectly (e.g. driving the victim to suicide).

Thanks Nacht. No wonder they say woman suicide in red cloth is more powerful.

I always wondered why a woman who died wearing red is more powerful...could it be because "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"? LOL

Actually I do not think it just "ends" as per se after you are strong enough or reach adulthood and the deity will continue to look after you. Its the same as having a dad and when you are younger you "seek" his attention and he pay more attention to you but as you grow up into adulthood you talk less and interact less (remember to treat your dad nicely). And as i say, you are linked with that deity and that deity will continue to look after you. Just that you grew stronger and doesnt really need to rely on them. I believe the "ties" will not be broken at all.

When a child is having some difficulties or problem, as the example given by nachtsider such as sickly, prone to being disturbed by evil spirits (usually manifest with signs like nightly crying, screaming, restlessness, easily startled and so on), normally the parents will be asked to seek the temple's help. The temple will see (depends on the temple, some might use date of birth and consult a special book, some can terus "see" and tell, some consult "sifu" or totem master or consult a medium and the list goes on) and they will then tell you which deity (or deities, it could be more than one) or what you need to do to help. It could be none deity. I seen a guy whom needs a "Datuk", as in a title Datuk and after find one whom willing to accept him as his godson, the kid's body automatically become better and the illness does not really come back. Anyway, most of these cases usually involves deity or deities.

Some might ask, if there is why is there more than one? and in this case, how to know which one to find? Depending on the "problem" the child faces, some of the problems can be solved by a number of deities. For example, if due to "past" life or some sort of karma, one child is prone to be disturbed by "spirits", a lot of deities can help. The child might also face problem that only one deity can handle (that particular deity's area of specialty). Anyway, if a lot of deity can help, then the "affinity" of the child will be taken into consideration and even with the date of birth, there still might exist a few deities to choose from.

So, in that case how to know which deity to "choose"? Easy, go to the temple of the said deity and see if you got "fate". A case which i personally knew. A child has 3 deities that was recommended to the parents. The first day, the parents decided to bring to one of the temple whom host one of the deity. At the time of departure, it rains quite hard and due to the body condition of the child, the parents decided to call it off. Second day they decided to try a second temple but the condition of the child suddenly got worse and they call it off. On the third day, they decided to visit the third temple and everything went smoothly. After that i was told that it actually mean that the first two is not the one the child should seek but the third one is. This one is from experience and how I knew about these stuff but there is no hard evidence and mostly from hearsay from people in this area. But I above two cases I know them personally and that was what i was told.

so.... nachtsider. Am i right?

This post has been edited by Wolves: May 5 2015, 09:18 PM

People who commit suicide when wearing red become powerful vengeful spirits?

Spoiler: they don't, lol.

This legend was born of cases in the distant past where victims of murders and suicides were buried or cremated in their bloodstained clothing - cases from a time when last rites were performed on the day of death itself, and when people could not afford fancy garments to bury or burn their loved ones in.

When these victims returned to seek vengeance, it was assumed that the bloodstained clothing served as a reminder of the way they died, a reminder that filled them with rage and sorrow, preventing them from moving on - an anchor object of sorts.

It's somewhat possible that the bloodstained clothing could have functioned as such, yes; but what TRULY makes you become a powerful, vengeful spirit is your drive to seek revenge, plus the emotions that spur you to do so.

Over time, some smart alec distorted the facts of the matter into the whole 'red clothes' thing, a statement that does really not hold any water.

Someone who wrongfully dies when dressed in red, or even in their bloodstained clothing, may not become a vengeful ghost at all.

So it's a myth like the bullfighting, where the red cloth have nothing to do with the raging bull

Tales of the mysterious Toa Payoh God Tree

It is believed to be more than 100 years old. It was approximately six storeys tall.

The tree collapsed on Sept. 11 2013 at around 2 p.m. during a storm.

Urban legend has it that when work began to develop Toa Payoh New Town in 1965, the bulldozers sent to flatten the area allegedly malfunctioned when they approached the tree.


The history

The bulldozers could only move in reverse, but not forward towards the tree.

Religious leaders offered prayers to the tree but it “refused” to budge.

The authorities then decided to leave the tree alone.

Residents believe the government took the tree into consideration when planning Toa Payoh town’s layout.

The initial plan to build a long row of shophouses was abandoned. Instead, the government split the development in two to accommodate the ficus.


Current buildup




info cr. mothership.sg
photos by me