Real Charms? Or Real Charmers? Traditional Amulets Go Commercial

Last September, the FSTA held a ceremony in the Union Building at National Taiwan Normal University to set the tone for its upcoming classes. Several fashi (masters of the esoteric arts, often called "Taoist priests" in English), wearing Taoist attire, set up an altar with "soul pennants," incense candles, and paper spirit money in front, and 21 "amulets to ward off evil and restore peace of mind" and 12 "memorial tablets for wandering souls" behind, thus creating an otherworldly atmosphere in which to begin the students' close encounter of the third kind with amulets.With the completion of the ceremony, students could begin a series of small weekly classes in which they followed the instructions of a teacher and learned, brush stroke by brush stroke, how to make calligraphic amulets.

What comes around goes around

Originally the class was designed to last for a year of weekly meetings. But you know how people these days are: They want everything fast and easy. So the course has been squeezed down to eight weeks. The curriculum includes the origins of, development of, and various schools of thought about amulets; the basic theories of the twelve heavenly stems, the twelve earthly branches, and the five primary elements; and, most importantly, the actual making of amulets, including the calligraphy, gestures, and incantations. After studying to a certain point, "practical training" is arranged. Students perform what the Chinese call "restoration after a disturbance" (shou jing), which means "ghost-busting" for persons who have had disturbing encounters with supernatural beings.

Amulets look profoundly mysterious. But, hearing the teacher's explanation, the idea is not hard to grasp. Take your basic peace and tranquility charm, for example. The teacher (a fashi) first warns that one must avoid making up the charm during any times or days that are especially inauspicious. Then he goes into the ritual, focusing all his mental energy and using hand gestures and incantations to concentrate all the energy of the "seven stars" (the universe) in the tip of the brush. Then, without deliberately thinking about what will emerge, he puts brush to paper and creates the charm. This is the only way to get an amulet that is effective.

Basic level students only learn simple things like these "seven star well-being" charms. But what about the higher level stuff, which can really do harm or control the way other people think? Lai Shun-chang, the first person in Taiwan to openly recruit students to study amulet-making, says that these can only be taught to those who take an oath not to misuse their powers, so that unscrupulous persons cannot use them to harm others. He says that he once had a student who swore that he would fall off a cliff if he violated his oath; the student later fell to his death from a tall building. That's what you get when you break your word.

The FSTA gave one course beginning last September and another which began this February. Each time nearly 200 persons signed up. But what most startled FSTA director Lai Shun-chang is the number of students who have higher education.

Lai, who has been a fashi for 27 years, recalls that amulet-making was once ridiculed as small time. Lai, who comes from a family of fashi, felt as a child that others did not respect his family, and even he himself was embarrassed. Little did he expect that not only would people come from as far away as Taichung and Kaohsiung to attend his new class, but most of his students have university degrees, with more than a few masters and doctorates as well. His class includes government officials, teachers, legislative assistants, PhD candidates, psychologists. . . . One of his students is Lin Shu-hsien, who is currently in his second year in the Graduate Institute of Information Engineering at National Taiwan University.

Amulets for success

Lin, who is immersed all day in science, has a profound interest in traditional Chinese thought, and has studied the I Ching, physiognomy, the art of selecting auspicious names, qigong, and bajiquan. He says that amulets have been around for thousands of years, so there must be some logic to them. According to the qigong he studied, magnetic fields in nature can be transformed through qigong into strength, so "maybe amulets are a kind of symbolic qigong," he opines. And indeed, many masters who make amulets do spend considerable time meditating or practicing qigong in order to strengthen their ability to focus their thoughts.

In the past, it was mostly older people who went to temples or fatan (Taoist altars, perhaps set up in a temple or in the home of a fashi) to have calligraphic amulets drawn up for them. But these accessories to ancient superstitions have now become a sort of fad for younger people. Among young intellectuals, there is no shortage of "hard-headed" people who, precisely because they have had so little contact with esoteric ideas, are all the more easily attracted by "mystical experiences." Others are trying to understand amulets in the language of science.

Hsiao Po, who would rather not reveal his actual name, has an MA in political science and works in the government. He says that he has always been especially sensitive to magnetic fields. In college, an experience he had while playing ouija with friends really spooked him, and left him convinced of the reality of ghosts and spirits. When he went to language school in the US, he was struck by fits of depression with no apparent cause. It got so bad he had to take Prozac to get by, and, when walking by the lake, even had thoughts of jumping in and ending it all. Later his parents sent him a calligraphic amulet, which he attached to his door, and the inexplicable blue mood finally lifted. The sunny and good-looking Hsiao Po says that now he and his classmates often go to a fatan to ask for talismans, and recently he has been thinking about getting a love charm. Laughing, he admits: "I'm more superstitious than even my Mom!"

Emotional panacea

In the last couple of years, the craze for amulets has reached a high tide, and many fortune-tellers, Taoist masters, and mediums are starting up classes. The costs are completely unsystematic, and a single "marital harmony" charm can cost NT$200,000. Indeed, it is said that the price of some amulets can reach NT$1 million.

The effectiveness of amulets in solving people's problems remains a matter of debate. But there is no gainsaying that they are often very effective in getting money or sex out of gullible or vulnerable people.

Most of the advertisements in newspapers target people going through relationship problems, such as a spouse having an affair, a boyfriend or girlfriend who won't settle down, or unrequited love. In a typical situation, a woman follows the instructions in an advertisement and calls up a "master." As soon as the guy at the other end hears the caller burst out in tears and plead for help because her husband probably has a mistress in mainland China (where the husband often goes on business), he declares: "Taiwanese are so blind. If you don't do something fast, the next time your husband comes back he is going to sell your house and land and give all the money to his mistress." At the same time, the "master" tells the woman that his amulets are very cheap, only NT$500.

However, when the caller takes the next step, the "master" tells her that her husband's situation is much more serious than he thought, and that the woman in mainland China is a "seductress spirit." The caller is told she must come for a ritual every day, requiring five amulets each time. Now the cost is up to NT$5000-6000 per day. And if the affair lasts a year or two, the total costs would be astronomical.

A Master Huang, who specializes in marriages and affairs, declares: "If it works, then it's worth it no matter how expensive. Not to mention the fact that a master must expend an enormous amount of energy for a special amulet of this nature." You can't use normal standards to decide whether something like this is cheap or expensive, he says.

But Lee Fong-mao, a researcher at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy at the Academia Sinica, who is himself a qualified fashi, is not impressed by such arguments. He says that the making of an amulet is a religious function, and priests and other practitioners should accept whatever a believer might offer, no matter how little it may be. If members of the public don't ask about price or qualifications, but just ask for an amulet or take a course based on some newspaper advert, that's putting themselves in the tiger's mouth. Lee suggests that people go to public temples or private fatan in their community, so they can see firsthand the character and depth of knowledge of the priest.

Nor does Lee approve of those who exaggerate the power of amulets and make amulet-making into some kind of continuing education course. "It is said that 'the esoteric arts should not be used in isolation, nor is fate alone enough.' If you want to cut off an extramarital affair, you also have to examine fate, and know whether or not the husband and wife are fated to be together. You can't just learn how to write up a few calligraphic charms and go off casting spells."

Moreover, if these fashi could really make amulets that could change the way others think and feel, or even affect the functioning of their bodies, don't you think, says Li, that they wouldn't be allowed to teach these skills to just anyone? "Guns are restricted by law, and even a hypnotist has to have a license. It's the same for amulet masters." The secret can only be passed along after the master and acolyte know each other well, and their hearts and minds have been rigorously tested.

Written orders to the troops

Every traditional culture in the world has magic amulets (geometric shapes, bones, insects or animals) that bring good luck, ward off evil, or affect the physical or mental condition of other people, or that even, with the appropriate incantations, put you online to the supernatural world. However, says Chang Hsun, a researcher at the Institute of Ethnology at the Academia Sinica, "Ancient Chinese culture is the only one in which the written word itself is an amulet that can call forth aid from the spirit universe."

The Chinese word amulet is made up of two characters: fu [ ], meaning roughly tally or warrant, and zhou [ ], which means an incantation or magic word. According to a number of ancient texts, the character fu refers to divine prescripts from the heavenly powers-that-be. This is a mirror-image of the traditional Chinese bureaucratic system, in which the emperor ordered his ministers and generals about using written commands called fu. The fu of popular religious belief follow this model, but it is the fashi who issues the orders that mobilize the forces of the netherworld. That is why on every fu, there is written the name of the deity-recipient along with expressions like "by imperial decree," or "by compulsory order."

The term zhou refers, on the other hand, to the terms of command used by the deities-in-chief. Earthly priests use fu and zhou to order about heavenly forces, while mediums permit spirits to use their bodies to directly write out orders for the expulsion of malevolent forces.

A legend dating back at least to the Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220) has it that the Yellow Emperor (who supposedly reigned about 2600 BCE) defeated his barbarian enemies by using a sacred amulet given to him by a heavenly messenger. This indicates that there was already popular belief in the efficacy of amulets as early as the Han. One ancient text claims that use of amulets in conjunction with the right herbs can even enable one to fly to the heavens and become invisible.

Magic, or sleight of hand?

From many ancient medical works it is clear that there has been a connection between amulet use and traditional medicine for at least two millennia. Of the thirteen specialties in traditional medicine, one is that of using charms to treat patients. The famous Tang dynasty physician Sun Simao spent huge sums of money to learn spells and charms from various sources. He admitted that these occult techniques were not especially desirable or palatable, nor did they have a compelling logic behind them, but, he added, they had proved more effective than he expected, and that is why he included them in his medical text Qian Jin Yi Fang.

An amulet master who goes by the name-in-religion of Li Chi-luo, a graduate of the department of electrical engineering at the Taipei Junior College of Industry, often helps people write up calligraphic charms, and designs amulets for temples. Li, who spends most of his time at the National Central Library immersed in books about talismans, says that amulets are mostly effective for psychological reasons, like the tranquilizer pills given out by a doctor.

For example, some salesmen have asked him to make "personal relationship" charms, and sure enough they have landed some big accounts. But Li says this is probably because they simply felt more confident. As the "guiding principles" for the specialty of talismanic medicine say: "This will not work for those without sincerity or purity of heart; this will not work for those who ridicule supernatural medicine; this will not work for those who have doubts." The power of amulets comes not only from the fashi who makes them, but is directly related to the faith of the person seeking help. This connection between beliefs and physical effects is something that modern medicine also recognizes.

With regard to some ancient amulets that are supposed to be able to inflict physical harm, Li takes a stab at a more scientific-sounding explanation. Take for example an amulet whose characters are written out using a combination of bodily fluids from a corpse and chicken blood. Perhaps, avers Li, the bacteria in the bodily fluids of the corpse reproduce by using the chicken blood as a nutrient. Someone drinking such a mix would probably get sick. As for amulets that spontaneously combust, or cause itching, these might have phosphorous or nettle powder on them. "These are a kind of magic, but also a kind of science," he suggests. Li adds that it is relatively easy to explain these tangible tricks, but the intangible things are still beyond the reach of modern science.

Irrational health insurance?

Looking at the current popularity of amulets, ethnologist Chang Hsun says the opening to such fads came with the lifting of martial law in the 1980s, since which previously banned superstitions have enjoyed a resurgence. Also, modern people live in an instant-noodle culture. They want results fast and easy. No matter how hard-headed people may be at work, when they suffer the blues they reach out for irrational answers. "Amulets have the veneer of authority conferred by tradition, and promise instant solutions." However, says Chang, modern people are "rat-like" when it comes to faith. If amulets don't produce instant results, they will move on to other mystical solutions, just as dZi beads, crystals, and the like have all had their day before losing popularity.

Chang, who has done a study on the practice of "restoration after a supernatural disturbance," considers the calligraphy of amulets and the placement of these talismans to be art forms, the crystallization of ancient thought, and thus worth preserving. And in the lives of ordinary people, amulets are a social resource that complements the orthodox medical system, providing solace to those in need.

Chi Chun-chien, the 43-year-old manager of a kitchen decor store, comes to Taipei from Taichung each week to participate in the amulet class. He has his own rules of thumb for when to see the doctor and when to turn to talismans. If he is genuinely sick, then of course he goes to the doctor. But if he just has trouble falling asleep, or is on edge, or he loses a customer for no apparent reason, then he will go to a familiar fatan to have an amulet made up. "Sometimes you need help from more than other people. Every time I go to the fatan and talk about my troubles, I feel much better."

From feeling that something is not right, to deciding to go for help, to taking the doctor's prescription or having an amulet made up, "each step is part of a healing process," avers Chang Hsun. Chang adds, moreover, that the mainstream medical system can't match folk medicine when it comes to giving patients a chance to have their say and be listened to.

One ancient explanation for the curative power of amulets, from Wang Bing of the Tang dynasty, seems even more to the point than those proffered by many moderns. He says that when a person tells their symptoms to heaven, they enter a state of mind in which they are without desire, without anxiety, and without evil. That is why they are able to refocus their energy on getting well, even without taking medication. Perhaps it is here, in this communal space between the supernatural and mundane worlds, that amulets-those manifestations of universal power-are to be explained!

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Red-colored "seven-star purity" charms and peach-red "five lightning" charms are both widely used for chasing away evil spirits.

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People who have sleep disorders can get a tranquilizing amulet, while the personal-relationship amulet is a favorite with salespeople.

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(left) When Ilan County opened its new theater for live drama, a ceremony was held to dispel malevolent forces. Not only was the stage decorated with calligraphic amulets, but each member of the audience was also given a "well-being" amulet, so as not to be harmed by the scattering evil influences. (photo by Huang Li-li)

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Lai Shun-chang is a third-generation master of the occult arts. He is currently director of the Foundation for the Study of Traditional Amulets, which was founded last year and began openly recruiting students.

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Students in the amulet-making class have to learn how to focus their energies and have a respectful attitude.

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There are as many different amulets as there are human concerns: the black one is for protection from fire, the green one is for safe births, and the white one is a well-being amulet routinely given out to believers at temples.

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When fires are frequent, citizens often hold rituals to chase off malevolent influences. Master Lin Chin-lien pours blood from a chicken onto an amulet to increase its mysterious powers.

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Amulets have been used for millennia, and are still part of daily life for many people. (photo by Vincent Chang)