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Chapter 26 - The Story Of The Dew Doll
How do fortune tellers obtain readings for others? Some use palmistry, some use physiognomy, and some use a body stroking method known as Mo Ku which involves an analysis of bone structure. There are some who rely on tools such as hexagrams, playing cards, astrology, etc. In Western countries there are fortune tellers who gaze into crystal balls and use tarot cards. There are even fortune tellers who use philosophical theories as a cover to obtain their readings. Among all these various methods, I think the Dew Doll divination is one of the most mysterious and efficacious methods. How many people today know how to use the Dew Doll method? I have not done any counting, but I have come across fortune tellers of the following kind: they do not read palms or study facial features. With their eyes tightly shut, they mutter to themselves some unknown prayers. On their altar, next to a lit incense, there is a red or yellow sack containing unknown objects. After one announces one's name, address, and birth date, the fortune teller can immediately tell how many siblings one has, one's seniority among brothers and sisters, one's job, location of one's job, the things one has done the previous day, and the problems one has in one's mind. He is able to describe the major events in one's life from the moment of birth to the present time. The clients are often completely stupefied by such abilities. Next, the fortune teller will launch into a discussion of one's future, the kind of business one will be successful in, the prospect of social and financial advancement, and the crises in one's life. How much luck does one have? How is one's family life? Some more formidable Dew Doll fortune tellers can even, before one discloses one's name and address, hand one a slip of paper on which is listed one's name, age, and job. Such information can cause complete stupefaction. Then the fortune teller starts to speak, "I charge different fees for my services I charge more for people whose lives are highly valued and less for those who are insignificant. I can tell your life is worth more than a million dollars; therefore the service fee for a detailed reading will be three thousand dollars. Are you willing to pay that?" Ordinarily when people meet fortune tellers of such calibre and foresight, they are sincerely convinced and willing to take the money out of their wallets. To obtain readings of past events, the Dew Doll methodology is one hundred percent accurate. However, in predicting the future, it is not so effective, and an accuracy of eighty percent is considered quite good. It is not the purpose of my writing this to pull the rug out from under the feet of the Dew Doll fortune tellers. However, as the Dew Doll divination method falls under the umbrella of Spiritual Divination, I must divulge its secrets. The following revelation is an unprecedented disclosure of a secret that has been kept for thousands of years. To use the Dew Doll method to make divinations, one first needs to have a Dew Doll on an altar. Why is it called a Dew Doll? This is because every dawn one has to bring the doll out into the open air to have it wet by morning dew. This is done before sunrise. The doll also has to be brought back indoors before the sun rises. The name is derived from the moisture of the morning dew. Many people have heard of such a thing, but they do not know how the Dew Doll is made. Let me explain in detail the procedure for making such a doll. People who want to prepare the Dew Doll have to find an auspicious day [according to the Chinese Almanac] and take from the east side a piece of a willow tree grown by the side of a flowing river. One may hire an artisan to sculpt a doll, that must be 2.6 inches tall, from the willow wood. The eyes, eye brows, and other facial features have to be distinct. The yang and yin symbols are sculpted on the left and right hands respectively. The hair of the doll should be worn in two coils and it should wear a wraparound dress, as in the olden style of children's clothes. At the center of the sculpture, one should drill a hole and place inside a piece of yellow paper on which the names of the inner organs (heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys) are written. This must be done using a mixture of cinnabar and mother's milk. Next one paints the mouth of the doll with blood from a tortoise or the cockscomb of a rooster. After preparing the doll, one must wait until one knows that a child in the neighborhood has died, then one writes the date and hour of death on a piece of yellow paper and tapes it to the back of the doll. On any of the days denoted in the almanac by the characters Chia, Tzu, Keng, Shen, or Wu, one places the doll on an altar inside a quiet room and offers to it cold cut chicken, fish fillets, and fruit. From then on, every morning, one has to chant the San Ch'i Mantra once and the Chui Hun Hsian Hsing Incantation three times. This is followed by the burning of a special paper charm and bowing to the doll. This ritual is repeated at noon and in the evening. After twenty-one days, if the two banners which one has hung on the altar suddenly flap together and separate again, it means that the soul of the deceased child has attached to the willow doll, and the job is almost finished. The job is successful at the end of thirty five days, when the child is able to appear in its previous form. During the memorial ceremony, cats, dogs, pregnant women, and people who are mourning are not allowed to get close to the doll. This is the Chui Hun Hsian Hsing Incantation, "Child spirit willow spirit, with distinct nine orifices, four outer limbs, five inner organs, I am of human and you are of wood spirit. By decree of the Emperor, we communicate with each other. Quickly get your form back, listen to my signal, and lend me support. Guide me to good places, fight off wicked attackers, and obtain good food, money, and jewels for me. Travel quickly and do not loiter elsewhere. At home or outside, day or night, stay close to me. Others will not see you, others will not find you. Wherever I am, stay by my side, report any fortunes or misfortunes to me, and help me divine readings for others. Gather up your actions swiftly. By order of the Lord Emperor Tung Yu, I make this command." If a fortune teller succeeds in this method, it is tantamount to securing a child's spirit as a follower. A soul in the spirit realm has the power to find out about past events. Thus, before a client even walks through the door, the child's spirit can make investigations, and in an hour's time, swiftly learn one's past. That is why the readings are accurate. The daily offering only needs include incense, tea, fruit, and a vegetarian dish. One also needs to bring the doll out every morning to be moistened and nourished by the energy from the dew. With the help of the child's spirit, money will begin rolling in. However, the fortune teller himself must possess a "live" soul; otherwise, how would he able to understand the messages from the child's spirit? In the preparation of the Dew Doll, one may also place the yellow paper (with the date and hour of the deceased child already written on it) on the area between the nose and mouth of a clever child who has just passed away. Then the paper is rolled up and stuffed inside a wooden Willow Doll which has been made as above. The memorial ceremony also lasts from twenty-one to thirty-five days. This method of divination has extraordinary powers. Any fortune teller who succeeds in this Dew Doll method will be sensationally successful, and it will not be at all difficult for him to make an accurate reading! In Taiwan there is a very famous fortune teller who was so successful that he amassed a great deal of money, rode in a chauffeured sedan, and kept three wives. His business was so lucrative that the tax bureau had to send a special agent to keep track of his daily income. According to my research, when this fortune teller was an elementary school student, he was let out of school early one day due to an air alert (this was during the days of the American air force attacks on Japanese-occupied Taiwan). That day he went home via a roundabout route through the countryside. On the way, he came upon the corpse of a little girl who had died next to a ditch. It was such a sad scene that his heart was moved. He looked around and found a torn straw mat which he placed over the little girl's body. Afterwards he ran home. That same night, the fortune teller came down with a sudden fever. He remained severely ill for a long time. The illness caused him to slowly lose his eyesight, and in the end, he became totally blind. A slight tremor in his hands also developed. It was at that time that he began to make predictions and do past readings for his neighbors. Strangely, his readings were one hundred percent accurate. As a result, his fame gradually spread. When he reached adulthood, it was perfectly justifiable for him to make a career out of doing readings for others. When he gave readings, he spoke rapidly without any hesitation in his somewhat tremulous voice. At the same time, his hands quivered slightly from side to side. Multitudes of clients came from all over Taiwan to make appointments to see him. During the peak of his career, people had to find temporary lodgings while waiting their turns-which were often three days away. From his childhood days to his elderly years, his readings into people's pasts were always of such accuracy that the people could not help but sigh and shake their heads. Whether or not his forecast of the future was just as accurate did not seem to matter that much at the time, because people were completely mesmerized by him. One time I happened to be passing by his place, so I went in to take a look. He was then at the peak of his career, and the office was jammed with waiting people. Some were sitting down, and some were standing up. When I walked in, I immediately sensed the presence of disembodied spirits, as they send out a kind of energy that can be easily picked up by people with awakened souls. I wondered to myself if the fortune teller was using spirits to help him, so I made an inspection of the furniture in the of rice. In the inner office, there was an altar with a yellow sack on top of it. What was inside the sack? The incense at the altar was kept lit throughout the day. On the right was an ancestral memorial tablet, otherwise there were no signs of any offerings for any deities. When I brought my psychic vision into focus, I saw a hazy scene in which many small children were busily running back and forth. In a flash they ran away, and in a flash they came back. When they came back, they ran up to the fortune teller and spoke into his ears. The voices of the children kept on going as the hands of the fortune teller kept on shaking. The fortune teller was also talking incessantly at the same time. I finally understood that this blind fortune teller was also someone who used the secret method of spirit children to work for him. This kind of secret could only be seen by experts in the field. Ordinary people only knew that the fortune teller was extremely effective; they had no idea how he was able to do it. To them, the blind fortune teller was either an immortal or a half-immortal being! From what I know, the exceptional talent of the blind fortune teller had come from the female child spirit who, out of gratitude, had helped him that night to open up his psychic energy. Then she stayed close to him and lived through borrowing his body. However, the fortune teller was not able to freely manipulate his own psychic energy, and as a result, it had led to his eventual blindness. Afterwards, on her own, the female spirit made the initiation to call upon other child spirits to come and work for the fortune teller. These are the karmic causes and consequences behind the story of the fortune teller. Among my acquaintances, there was a young man named Huang whose psychic ability was quite pronounced. He had taken a certain famous fortune teller to be his teacher. One day he mentioned to me that he was suspicious of the blind fortune teller. "A gentleman will not interfere with other people's sources of revenue, so why become jealous of him!" I remarked. He retorted, "Only heretics would use spirits to make divinations. This is just not a proper way of making money. I've got to break him." "Why? How do you plan to stop his spirit child runners?" "I will go to the Common Folks Temple at Wufung to obtain twelve incense sticks. I will chant the Disembodied Spirits Invocation Mantra and burn the incense to ashes. Next I will scatter the ashes into the censer in his office while no one is looking. Then his spirit child runners will have to battle the disembodied spirits I have secured. When my spirits win, it will throw the blind fortune teller's mind into turmoil, and he won't be able to do readings any more." He laughed. "Hold it, how do you know that your spirits will beat the spirit child runners?" I asked him. "Lu Sheng-yen, you are an expert; I will tell you. I am going to use the Five Ghosts Hun T'ien Method. I will collect five skulls before dawn on the fifth watch of the Wu Kui day [according to the Chinese Almanac] and write the names of the Five Ghosts on the skulls. Following each of the next five successive Kui days, I will burn a skull, wrap the ash with a special paper charm, and place it under a Liuchia altar. After that, with my feet in a position relative to two of the stars of the Big Dipper, I will hold a Thunder Mudra in my left hand, a Sword Gesture in my right hand, and take in a breath of subtle air from each of the five directions as I chant seven times the Hun T'ien Mantra. After that, I will burn the five paper charms with the twelve incense sticks which represent the twelve disembodied spirits from the Common Folks Temple. When I put the resulting ash mixture into the center of the blind fortune teller, how can I not win?" "That plan will work, but doesn't it trouble your conscience to be ruining his spirit child runners?" "I don't care. He has made enough money anyway. This is Heaven's will so he won't become too arrogant," the young man spoke indignantly. He felt that, with the skill he had, he could meddle into any affair that was offensive to him. I am more honest and tolerant. Although I know some people use sorcery, I try to turn a blind eye to them. As an example, in one of the Holy Emperor Temples in Taiwan, the chi tungs also used the Dew Doll method. After learning their secret, I have not divulged it. Later, the young man carried out his plan and destroyed the spirit child method used by the blind fortune teller. Ever since then, the blind fortune teller has lost his talent, and his readings are no longer accurate. He is not as famous as he used to be, his income has dropped, and the visitors to his office are few and far between. It is quite sad! Some people say, "He is going downhill. Fortune tellers have their luck too." Others say, "What has come over him? What he said was sheer nonsense. There wasn't one thing he said that was accurate." Still others say, "He has made enough money. It is about time he takes a rest." They do not know what has happened to the talent of the blind fortune teller. Only I understand. Mr. Three-Peaks-Nine-States once told me this, "Only the Liu Ting Clairaudience Method is more upright. It was passed down from the Three Kings, Fu Hsi, Shen Nung; Huang Ti, King Wen of Chou, Duke of Chou, Confucius, the Sage Wu Lueh, King Ch'eng of Chou, Kuei Ku Immortal, Huang Shih Kung, Sun Wu Tzu, Yuan T'ien Kang, Li Ch'un Feng, Chang Tzu Fang, Sun Pin, the Black Oxen Adept Tung Fang Shuo, the Burlap Adept Kuo Pu, Lin Ling Su, the Tung Hua Ti Chun, Shao K'ang Chieh, Wen Chou Lu, and Yi Ch'uan Ch'eng. Clairaudience obtained through spiritual runners is considered not as decent as the one taught by the above sages. Lian Shen, you must bear this in mind."
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