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.
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