Background of “Guan Luo Yin”
Since time immemorial, the Chinese developed a systematic belief system of Heaven, Earth and the Underworld. It is noted that in the context of the Chinese, who are majority Taoists, do not use the negative term – ‘Hell’ to explain the world of the death.
Instead, the Chinese has a number of beautiful illustrative terms, to name the world of the death. The Chinese called it ‘Ying Jian’ (阴间The Realm of Yin), or ‘You Ming Shi Jie’ (幽冥世界The world of the spirits), ‘Yin Cao Di Fu’ (阴曹地府The Underworld in the Yin realm). The Chinese sees Heaven and the Underworld as two separate dimensions, but interconnected through Earth (凡间Mortal World). Yin and Yang represent the two different worlds. The Mortal lived in the realm of Yang (阳间) while the death lived in the realm of Yin. The Heavenly Realm is a place only for the gods, immortals and sages.
There are a total of Thirty Six Heavenly Realms in Heaven, the Jade Emperor (玉皇上帝) oversee the whole cosmic. For the Underworld concept, the Chinese is greatly influenced by the Taoist dogma, believed that it is also divided into different realms. The Underworld is divided into Nine Realms (九垒Nine Levels) and within they are sub divided into Thirty Six Divisions. Thus forming a symmetrical picture – Thirty Six Heavens and Thirty Six Underworlds. The underworld is dark and obscure. The netherworld cannot be entered by common people, but the soul of the dead must inevitably go there, unless it has become an Immortal. The City of Underworld (鬼城) is governed by Supreme Lord Fengdu (酆都大帝), a powerful deity in the underworld. The Whole Underworld is also believed to be governed by the deities of the Five Mountains (五岳)and the highest ranking of all – Deity of Mt Tai 东岳大帝 (东岳泰山Eastern Mountain Dong Yue) is the most powerful deity in the Underworld. All souls traveling in or out of the underworld would be under the surveillance of these deities.
Famous deities of the Underworld – Tua Ji Ah pek (大二爷伯), the Ox head and Horse faced Guards (牛头马面) are all divine guards and constables in the underworld. As we can see, indeed, the Chinese belief of the Underworld is a concept with hierarchy.
In the City of the Underworld, it is called ‘Gui Cheng’ (City of Ghost), where all souls will stay. Death, to the Chinese is not the end but simply another phase of life where it continues. Man who learnt the way of Tao will rise to heaven but the majority will live in the City of Underworld, awaiting judgments and reincarnation. Alternatively, they can receive salvation from the merciful deity – Heavenly Lord Tai Yi (太乙天尊), to bring them to the Eternal Paradise of the East (东华常乐界). Where they can learn the way of Tao and enjoy the blissfulness in the Paradise.
The judgments in the Underworld are in the hands of the 10 Courts of Hell (十殿冥王). Notice the usage of the negative term ‘Hell’ is used here, because this is the part in the whole Underworld that dedicate to the impartial judgment from the 10 Courts. Within the 10 Courts, there are various interesting places in Chinese belief, but it’s not in our context now to discuss this. Maybe, in our future research, we will discuss more about the realm of the dead。
Life and death are part and parcel of life. No one can avoid it. The Chinese sees it as part of the nature cycle. However, there are times where we do not cherish our loved ones and only realize when it was too late. In the Taoist religion, because of its embracing nature, it developed numerous forms of ritualistic arts which spread over whole of China. Mainstream ritualistic arts are more systematic and expound the way of Tao, whereby folk ritualistic arts exists simply to meet the demand of the common folks. It may not be as noble as the mainstream approach, but folk Taoist practices serve as a means of deliverance and ray of hope for many common folks too.
The history of ‘Guan Luo Yin’ (观落阴) is not clear. For it lacks proper records and documents. However, looking at its idea, its is certainly not a recent trend.
During the Tang dynasty, legend of Emperor Tang Taizong (唐太宗) managed to travel to the Underworld during one occasion and it changes his perception on life after that. Another legend tells about how Justices Bao Zheng (包拯)of Song Dynasty, traveling to the Underworld to assist in the judgment at night.
The Underworld is a place where all souls must go and no mortals are allowed t enter. But it seems to also indicate that there might be ‘exceptional cases’, like the case of Emperor Tang Taizong and Justices Bao. Nevertheless, it can be sure that in orthodox Taoism, there is no ‘loopholes’ in the spiritual realm that allow mortal to travel, beside special affinity with it, like Emperor Tang Taizong and Justices Bao.
Analysis the ritual of ‘Guan Luo Yin’, and we can find out, the soul of each individuals did not leave the body at all. Furthermore, study on the term ‘Guan Luo Yin’ tells us that it is a ‘guan’ process, which means ‘observe’ in Mandarin. The individual is required to enter into a stage of meditation through the chanting of the priest. Eyes blind folded, one need to be in a deep concentration. Before the ritual, the individuals are actually cleansed by another group of Taoist priests, in full robe, chanting and praying for the individuals.
The meditative state of the individuals brings a similar relation on those spiritual masters, who can experience deja vu; we can look into the spiritual realm through deep meditation. Perhaps, the chanting of the priest is in fact an attempt to bring the individuals’ mind into deep concentration and thus able to have a glance into the Underworld. We are sure the individuals are still conscious because during the ceremony, all of them are well aware of the happening around the surrounding.
In some cases, individuals are able to see houses, trees that represent their fate and by describing the scenario to the priest, instructions will be given, to either enhances your luck or avert disasters. Different scenarios also reflect the past and even future.
According to the priest, anyone from any religion belief, regardless of race is welcome to participate in this ritual However, it does not guaranteed that the individual is 100% able to ‘travel’ to the Underworld. The priest explained that whether or not the ceremony succeed, lies in the karmic factor of the individual, in which it is beyond the control of man. After the whole ceremony, the individuals are given a set of joss papers and talisman to burn as offerings. If they manage to see their loved ones in Underworld, and they had any ‘special request’, the individual can request to perform special prayers and rituals for them. Another unique belief in the Taoist religion is that each and every one of us has a certain amount of ‘debts’ owned to Heaven and Underworld. This explains our karmic factors. Taoists is able to know how much each and everyone ‘owned’, by calculating using the date of birth of different person. One can through special rituals, seek repentance and burn a kind of special joss paper called ‘Huan Zhai Jing’ (还债金) – to ‘return’ all our debts.
Despites many unexplained and unproved theories, this rite stretch over from folk belief to religion’s dogma, theology. Perhaps it is a way that people seek comfort through religion and beliefs. At the end of the day, participants who went thru the ceremony and prayed for the beloved ones who passed away, managed to find peace and tranquil in their heart and mind. To put it in modern context, it is possible to be a kind of counseling, psychological therapy, but in a traditional Chinese point of view, masked with an element of mystery and spiritual. Indeed, the participants feel a sense of relief and satisfaction. In fact, in all religious ceremonies, Man, find harmony and sense of serenity. The rite also reflects the values and traditions of the Chinese. Virtues like filial piety, righteousness and repentance are been preached. It seems, in terms of sociological psychological aspects, the rite of Guan Luo Yin stills has its value in modern society.
Investigation
On the evening of 19 April 2007, a team of investigators from SPI were invited by the said temple to conduct an investigation. A series of technological gadgets were set up to monitor and record the variables during the long process of the ritual:-
- (Wireless) Remote IR monitoring camera
- Thermohygrograph recorder for measuring temperature and humidity changes at the ritual area.
- Individual digital thermohydrograph recorder to record the immediate surrounding temperature and humidity changes around each of the 3 nominated testee.
The 3 testees are all male subjects but of different age group, Participant A being in his 60s, Participant B in his 20s and Participant C in his 30s.
The series of gadgets are also supported by handheld IR-thermometers and EMF meters.
The whole observation period lasted about 3 hours. The first 2 hours did not see any fluctuation in readings but at the beginning of the last hour, Participant A appeared to have began hallucinating. It was also around the same period of time when the digital thermohydrographs recorded unusual fluctuations which are inconsistent with the rest of the recordings.
MJChow, Investigator in-charge of the digital thermohydrographs commented, “Take reference from the recording at 9.30pm to 9.50pm (this is the timing which Participant A started to show ’signs’ of hallucination). It’s quite obvious that Participant A’s readings seem very different from B & C. In fact, Participant A had been observed by us that he experienced significantly more hallucinations as compared to the other 2 testees. His humidity reading was found to be much lower than B’s & C’s, while both B & C’s readings were quite consistent). This means that the ‘area’ around Participant A is much dryer while the other 2 were ‘wet’. However, his reading is consistently close to the thermohygrograph recorder which was placed under the ritual table (where he was seated nearest to). Uranium explained that this could be due to Jimmy’s position & the ritual table is near the the door entrance, as such the recordings were different from the other 2 guys.”
A notable pattern amongst the rest of the 9 unrecorded participants (excluding the testees) was that only the ones at the higher age groups had hallucinated after the beginning of the 3rd hour. There were however no hallucinations from anyone within the first 2 hours. The suspicion that the hallucinations were due to prolonged mental-stress was almost undoubtable.
Unfortunately, the overall results of the observation could not prove the “Guan Luo Yin” ritual being paranormal beyond a reasonable doubt.
Footage of the experiment:
Participant A hallucinating:
Led by: Yellobie, Uranium
Team: MJChow, Sunkiss, Wisely, AK47, Wei^Yi, Babyboss
Testees: Mistak3, Ren8, LTC
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