Tag Archives: spirits

Scissor Lock

Nationality: Korean
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English

“I’ve personally, firsthand experienced scissor lock. You know, sleep paralysis. I’ve experienced scissor lock multiple times, but this one is the most frightening and eerie. The whole day was just super eerie. It was one day when I was feeling sick and tired after school. My parents were at work and my sister was off at soccer practice. I decided to lay in my bed to try in sleep. Well, I was starting to drift off to sleep when I heard somebody downstairs, walking back and forth and opening drawers and cupboards. I thought my mom had come back from work early, so I just went laid back down. I got thirsty though, so I went out of my room and yelled downstairs, asking my mom for a cup of water. There was no response. So I went downstairs, but no one was there. Feeling weird, I called my parents and my sister. They all said they had not come home today, and told me I was probably dreaming. But I swear, I wasn’t dreaming, I heard someone. Feeling extremely weird, I decided to just shake it off and go back to bed. That’s when I experienced scissor lock. I experienced it three times in a row, it was the scariest thing ever. What happened was, I went to sleep. Then, I’m not sure if my eyes were even open, or if this was happening in my brain, but I was awake, but I couldn’t move at all. Inside, I was screaming out to my body to move, but I was just stuck, like I was under some binding spell. As this was happening, I saw the dark figure of a lady standing by my bedroom door and staring at me. I freaked out and somehow broke from the paralysis. I was thoroughly scared, but so tired that I just went back to sleep. It happened another time. This time, I could almost feel myself sleeping into scissor lock, even when I felt like I was screaming out to stop. Once again, I was frozen, even though I wanted to yell and flail my arms around. This time I saw the lady again, and she was closer to me, like right next to my bed. She was staring down at me. The worst thing is that I couldn’t even move to escape from her. Eventually after struggling I slightly woke up, groggily. Once again though, I fell back asleep again, almost immediately. This is the last time I had the scissor lock. This time the lady was sitting on me and staring down at me. I was so freaked out after waking up that I turned on all the lights and blasted Christian music.”

As my informant told me this account of his sleep paralysis, he became so scared again that he refused to go home. He said his sister and his other friends had also experienced this scissor lock before, which is the Korean version of sleep paralysis. This experience made him believe in the supernatural. He believes there is some kind of evil out there, whether it is ghosts or spirits or demons he does not know, but there is something. I have heard that sleep paralysis is called something different in each culture, and is scissor lock for Korean. I am not sure why exactly it is called this, although if translated directly from the Korean word for it, it has something to do with being pushed down. This goes along with the idea that sleep paralysis occurs when a ghost or spirit is lying on top of the victim, causing paralysis, which is what my informant saw the third time he experienced the paralysis. I have heard of different accounts of this phenomenon and different explanations for it, including religious ones that it is a demon trying to make scare or lure someone who is spiritually well. I just hope I never have to experience this, as it seems quite frightening.

Esfand and Sage Burning: Persian Cleansing

Nationality: Iranian-American
Age: 22
Occupation: College Student
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: 3.23.12
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

Esfand and sage burning practices in Persian culture cleanse houses, bodies, and objects that may be occupied by evil spirits, spirits of the dead, or may be afflicted by the evil eye.

Described verbatim by informant:

“Esfand is basically these dried herbs that, every Persian household has them. And say um a lot of bad things have been happening like your car broke down, you got a bad grade, your boyfriend broke up with you, someone died, you know, so people feel like it’s obviously like it’s evil spirits literally are around your house and around your car and they’re around you so when you burn the esfand you walk around and its smells horrible and you walk around and you just you do it over everyone’s head you do it over even like around your pets head you do it around your car um everything you um walk through the room cuz you’re killing things by burning the esfand cuz it smells so bad and that like gives it’s like a cleansing to get rid of the bad spirits that are causing the bad things. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be evil spirits it can just be like people evil eyeing you and wanting bad things to happen to you. Negative Vibes.

Sage is kind of a similar process it’s just to clean whatever was in the house previously to be gone, it’s a fresh start, cuz you don’t know what happened someone could’ve died in that house, you know? Crazy things. So if you want a fresh start in a new home you can do that.”

Esfand to my knowledge is unique to Persian culture and this cleansing ritual. Ritual burning of herbs is common to many cultures, especially burning with sage. The idea of smoking out spaces and people for purification is something I know to be relevant to a lot of Native American tribes, Mesoamerican cultures, Aboriginal tribes, and countless others around the world. Though smoke is considered polluting and dangerous to many people, burning and beginning anew is a process found in nature, ie wildfires. This has since been observed by humans and emulated in swidden or slash-and-burn agriculture across the globe. Perhaps there is some root to the notion of burning and cleansing there, though that connection seems unlikely in the context of the Middle East, unless the practice of burning herbs was learned or brought in by some other influence (perhaps by trade ie along the Silk Road). This theory is purely speculative, though, as ritual burning could have begun in the Middle East or spontaneously come about for all I know.

I later got an email from my informant saying she wasn’t sure if she explained esfand and it’s relation to the evil eye well enough so she sent me a link to a website that she felt explained it well:

Esfand & The Evil Eye

Chinese Religious Folk Legend – Unjust Deaths and Vengeful Spirit Women

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 54
Occupation: Retired Banker
Residence: DeXing E. Rd. Lane 331 #28 7FL, Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 3/18/2011
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

This folk legend was collected from my Father. My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Much of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan. During one of our telephone sessions, he mentioned the following superstition that he learned in his childhood from his parents. I’m paraphrasing and translating it here to the best of my memory:

“When a young unmarried virgin dies an unjust death because of a man…like if they were attacked or if they commited suicide because a man rejected them or cheated on them… the women needing a soul to reincarnate, they…as spirits… sit at the riverside as ghosts and transform into seductive women who are brushing their hair to punish and entrap lusty men. The vengeful spirits wait at the riverside, of course, late night, for lusty men to come and flirt with them. When the lusty men do come, the spirits take the men to their spirit homes, drink wine, talk, and have sex. However, the men, waking up the next morning, find themselves next to a pile of bones, leaves or decaying forest matter…and because of this…the men usually get so frightened they fall into a great illness and die.”

When I inquired my father on the truth of this superstition and his own beliefs in it, he said that he wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but he definitely believed in the riverside spirits. Furthermore, he said that when he heard this story in his childhood, his mother cited several relatives of neighbors in her village who drowned to death because of these vengeful spirits and one neighbor in particular who passed away because he fell to a great sickness after meeting one such vengeful female spirit. But, ultimately, my father thinks that parents tell their children this story to warn them against being too lusty or perverted; however, he reiterates that he doesn’t doubt the existence of these vengeful female spirits. While the belief in the supernatural and the implicit moral lesson (control one’s lust) taught to children is important in this item, I think the values the item attributes to men and women are more important. The superstition portrays women as weak individuals who are unable to fend off sexual attackers or “evil” men and because of this, fall to their demise. However, they come back as strong, powerful and vengeful beings to prey on their previous attackers. This suggests a belief in some sort of latent evil or vengeance in women. On another note, the item portrays men as lusty sexual predators who are unable to control their instincts and who lose their lives because of an uncontrollable lust. That is to say, the item also suggests and attributes an animalistic or predatory quality to men. Yet, this predatory quality seems to be frowned upon based on how this story is put to use–it’s a cautionary tale that tells its audience to restrain their lust. So we can infer that perhaps, in Chinese culture, a more idealized version of man is one who is in control of their sexual tendencies.

Interestingly, the vengeful spirit women in this item seem alike to the Banshee of Irish folklore and even the La Ilorona of Chicano folklore.

Chinese Religious Folk Belief on Life after Death and Spirits

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 54
Occupation: Retired Banker
Residence: DeXing E. Rd. Lane 331 #28 7FL, Taipei, Taiwan
Performance Date: 3/18/2011
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

This folk belief was collected from my Father. My father was born as a farmer’s son into a veteran’s family in Taipei, Taiwan. His father and mother ran away from China to Taipei during the Chinese Civil War. Many of his cultural practices and beliefs are taken from mainland Chinese culture. Because of his background, he is considered a “mainlander” in Taiwan (Chinese in Taiwan are divided into Mainland Chinese, Taiwanese or indigenous). My father graduated from Iowa University with an MBA. His B.A was obtained in Taiwan.

When we were having our regular telephone session, he told me the the following recollection on the phone (in Chinese):

(This is not a direct transcription or translation. It’s based off what I remember him saying)

“I was at your grandmother’s house the other day and during the course of our conversations she remarked how Grandpa’s spirit hadn’t visited the family at all after his death. Because of this, she began wondering if Grandpa was doing okay in the spirit world. I chatted with her a bit more and she then told this story:

‘Your great grandmother used lived in a province called Fujien in China. She was married into the Lian family at around 8 or 9 and stayed at the Lian household to be raised into an ideal wife. At the Lian’s household, your great grandmother was one your great great grandmother’s favorites (your great grandmother’s mother-in-law). They were so close, they even slept in the same bed together–like mother and daughter. So in your great great grandmother’s old age, when she felt death looming, she told your great grandmother that after her death, she would come back as a spirit and protect your great grandmother. Thus, she told your great grandmother not to be afraid if she heard or saw things at night when her spirit came to visit. Now, when the time came and your great great grandmother passed away, supernatural occurrences actually began to happen in the Lian household. Late at night the drawers would rattle, floorboards would creak and places your great great grandmother frequented would shake–your great great grandmother’s spirit had, as she promised, come back as a spirit to visit the house she was so used to and to say her final goodbyes before moving on. Naturally, all this supernatural activity scared the wits out of your great grandmother’s aunt. She would be so scared she wouldn’t go to the bathroom at night and resort to peeing on the bed! But, knowing that it was only your great great grandmother’s spirit coming to visit, your great grandmother continued her late night activities with indifference and she was happy to know that her great great grandmother was doing well in the afterlife.’

Later, I asked her why Grandpa’s spirit hasn’t visited, to which she replied that it was probably because a) in a modern cityscape, it’s not dark enough. There are too many lights, which scare the ghosts away. And b) they had moved too much and Grandpa couldn’t find their new homes.”

When I asked my father what the significance of this family legend was, my father said that he said the pre-dominant belief (even to this day) in Chinese culture was that the spirit or the soul of a person stays on earth for a week before it moves on to heaven. And during this week, the spirit often visits loved ones and goes to places he or she was used to going when they were living.

While my father said the significance of this legend was the folk belief that “a spirit stays on earth for a week after death”, I want to point out a few other folk beliefs and practices revealed in his story. First of all, we can see a sexist or patriarchal society structure in China about four generations ago. My great great grandmother was married around the age of 8 to be raised as an ideal wife. From this tidbit, it would seem that the only role a woman had in life was to be a wife. Second, we see a firm belief in the supernatural. My great grandmother and my grandmother never questioned the supernatural occurrences in this family legend–to them it was normal and commonly accepted that there were spirits living around them. Adding to that, the recollection implies that this belief in the supernatural is passed from generation to generation through word of mouth. Because of this, my father believes in the supernatural and even I, being an atheist, believe in these folk beliefs about the supernatural as well. Also, similar to other folk beliefs, this family legend reinforces the idea that ghosts only come out at night (in this case, the reason provided is that ghosts fear the light).

Most importantly, in this legend, a great significance is given to the family. Where in the folklore of other cultures, ghosts and spirits may come out to scare or devour humans, in this legend, the spirit returns to give condolences to its family–giving spirits a much more homely feeling than other folk legends and superstitions do. This emphasis on family reinforces the importance placed on the values of family and community that so many of our contemporary scholars have found in Chinese culture.

Festival – Chinese

Nationality: Chinese-Australian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Australia
Performance Date: March 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

My informant is actually a Chinese-Australian. She was born in China and lived there until she was in junior high. She then moved to Australia, where she lived until college. Although she had moved a couple of times, she still remains true to her heritage. Thus, she told me about a festival called the Ghost Festival that many Chinese people celebrate. This is actually a festival and a holiday in Asia that is quite like what Halloween was in the beginning. The Ghost Festival is held the fourteenth night in the seventh lunar month.

This festival started as a day when ghosts and spirits would leave their underworld to come visit those that they have left behind. However, this is not a day to be afraid of the dead. Rather, it is a day where the living and the dead can coexist for a few hours. It is a day for ancestors to visit their loved ones. My informant tells me that she and her family will often visit her family tomb and leave offerings for her ancestors. They also burn money so that the spirits of their ancestors can still live a fruitful life. Another tradition that is not as common anymore that her family used to take part in is the releasing of paper boats. Her family would hand make miniature boats and set them on fire. The glowing boats would be “lanterns” for the ghosts to find their way back home at the end of the night.

My informant told me that in her family and especially in Chinese culture, the idea of a family is very important. Her family believes that her ancestors are very much in control of their future. If they respect their ancestors, their ancestors will bless them in return. This is why during festivals such as these, her family makes sure to work extra hard to please her ancestors.

Annotation: Yih, Jung-tzung. “Ghost Festival.” Calendar of Holidays and Festivals. Government             Information Office, Republic of China. 26 Apr 2007             <http://www.gio.gov.tw/info/festival_c/ghost_e/ghost.htm>.