Note: The very same article is available at 'Kumantong 4D Master' Blog: Can I place Thai Gods and Taoist Gods all together on the altar?
Hello Master (Kumantong 4D Master a.k.a Taoist Sorcery Master),
I would like to seek your advice if it is ok to place Thai Gods (Buddha, Nang Kwak, Lersi, Phra Sivali, Phra Sangkachai, Phra Opakut) and Taoist Gods (Guan Yu, Guan Yin) on the same praying altar?
What would be the recommended arrangements? Can you please advice on the placing level?
Would it be as written below?
Buddha
Guan Yin
Phra Sangkachai, Phra Sivali, Phra Opakut, Guan Yu
Nang Kwak, Lersi
----------------- J Tan, Singapore
1st of all, we need to know what is the purpose of the altar or altars and who is praying to / or using the altar / altars. Is the person and ordinary folk wanting to do normal prayer? Or a spiritual master using it for ritual / sorcery?
For example, if a Taoist Master / Sorcerer or someone with spiritual knowledge and is using the altar/ altars for ritual / sorcery:
In this case, 2 types of altars will be set up.
One altar will be using Taoist Ritual / Prayer and this altar will put Guan Yu and Guan Yin image /statue . The ritual usually will be using Chinese Language such as Mandarin or Dialect - Hokkien / Teochew / or the dialect group of the Taoist / Chinese Spiritual Master. But Chinese Deities Statues shall be placed in odd numbers, therefore will bring in another Chinese Deity Statue onto the altar.
Another Altar will be based on Theravada Buddhism or Thai / Cambodian Style Occult Practice:
The highest level of the altar will place the Buddha. 2nd level will be Phra Sangkachai, Phra Sivali, Phra Opakut, who were Arhats. 3rd level (lowest) will be Nang Kwak and Lersi.
Lersi can be placed in a corner or altar by itself, as usually Lersi is for occult magic / sorcery work. On this altar (Thai / Cambodian Style Buddhism / Occult Style), the spiritual master can focus on the rituals base on Thai / Cambodian Style.
For a layman, or someone who just want to pray to all deities / spirts all at once:
Buddha Image / Statue should be placed at the highest level. On the 2nd level, will be on one side place with all Thai Style "Buddhism" Images / Statues.. and then on the other side, will place all Taoist / Chinese deities.
If You just want to pray to all deities and spirits all at once, the layman "altar" is the way to go. You can simply light up incense sticks / aroma cones to pray and whisper to all of them about Your hopes and dreams. They will feel You from Your heart, so any language You use for prayer, they will still understand You.
Related Article: The very basic understanding of "Thai Buddhism",Yant Designs & Sak-Yant
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I'm confuse about Taoist Religion and Chinese Folk Religion.. Guide Me
I’m from Myanmar and also Chinese descender but I'm a little bit confuse with Chinese New Year festival. Before Chinese New Year, Kitchen god and all the gods go to heaven to report heaven god about good and bad of human beings.
Q.1) Some said when all the gods go to heaven, other gods from heaven comes down, so my question is which gods come from heaven?
Q.2) But some said there is no god left on the earth so lion and dragons come and protect human beings when the gods are in heaven? My question is "it is true"?
Q.3) Even we said there is no god on the earth why everyone goes to chinese temple on the new year’s day ( the day after new year’s eve)
Q.4) We said there is no god on the earth why the god is possess to spirit medium ( ki tong )? In myanmar a temple’s spirit medium possess the god 清水祖師 (祖師公) and go around the town with his bodyguard tiger and together with dragon dance members.( people believe 清水祖師 have tiger bodyguard i don’t know it is true or not).
Q.5) If you have time please explain more about difference between pure Taoist religion and Min-Nan Culture folk practice. (I thought it was the same).
Q.6) The southern Min-nan folks worship deities and pure Taoist worship Three Pure One. Am I right?
----------------- Aung Thu, Myanmar
Reply from Taoist Sorcery Master (super.kumantong@gmail.com):
From ancient records, Pure Taoist Religion will only do major ritual to send off the Kitchen God during end of the Year, before Chinese New Year. In Min-Nan Culture Folks Practice, all heavenly gods were sent off to heaven to do their yearly reporting of their own duties. The spiritual soldiers will be guarding the temples. The earth bound deities are staying back on earth.
Reply to Q.1) There are deities that are originally from heaven, humans who became deities that went to heaven and there are earth bound spirits (ghosts that are deitified out of good deeds) that stay on earth.
Reply to Q.2) The spiritual soldiers of the deities are staying back on earth to guard the temples.
Reply to Q.3) The spiritual soldiers of the deities are staying back on earth to guard the temples. Example, when the human bosses are taking leaves to enjoy life, there are acting-boss / managers and other workers helping the boss to manage.
Reply to Q.4) The truth is, during the spiritual possessions of spirit mediums, the "deity" is the representive of the original deity. There are many spiritual beings, who are also caltivating good deeds (by helping man kind), given the "licence" to represent the particular deity to help people on earth. Therefore, there will be Tang Kis trancing deities, even the deities are sent off to heaven.
Another way of using modern science of explaining is when there is one souce of wireless access, many computers can hook up to it, not just one. Different people can access to different internet websites from the same source of wireless internet wifi connection. One radio station can broadcast to millions of radios. It is the same as spirit world or energy.
Therefore, during spirit posssession ritual , You can see a group of spirit mediums "jumping" the same god at the same time.
Reply to Q.5) For pure Taoism Religion, You may look into Quan Zhen School (全真派), Zheng Yi School (正一派) and Mao Shang Shang Qing Lineage(茅山上清宗).
The folk religion of Min-nan (The Southern Min Folks) - today Fujian People , which the practice include Spirit Mediumship that You see in Taiwan, Thailand Chinese (Phuket Vegetalian Festival), Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesian Riau Islands, are uniquely the Southern Chinese Practice, not found in Pure Taoism.
Reply to Q.6) Different communities of Chinese have their own deities related to their own culture and also they include the Pure Taoist Religion. Pure taoist religion focus on Taoist Scriptures. There are many other deities in Pure Taoism, not just the 3 pure ones. For the layman level / ordinary folks, they will simply focus on praying to particular deities related to their own culture and does not bother (or not interested) to understand the Pure Taoist Scriptures. On the other hand, the Priest level (even to the Min-Nan / Hokkien / Fujian Culture) will include the usage of Pure Taoist Scriptures and do ritual to venerate the highest level deities of Pure Taoism.
During Spirit Medium Procession, the deities (or spirits representing the deities) will also respect the priests, by guiding the worshippers to pray or kneel down before the highest level deities, while the priests are doing important rituals.
Conclusion: When deities go to heaven for reporting (during CNY), the spirit soldiers stay on earth to protect and do recording of Your problems. Many Spirit Mediums can trance the same deity at the same time. Pure Taoism do not include the folk culture deities and practice but Folk Taoism / Folk Chinese Religion includes both the deities / practice of their own culture and also the Pure Taoist Deities and Scriptures.
Related Article:
Q.1) Some said when all the gods go to heaven, other gods from heaven comes down, so my question is which gods come from heaven?
Q.2) But some said there is no god left on the earth so lion and dragons come and protect human beings when the gods are in heaven? My question is "it is true"?
Q.3) Even we said there is no god on the earth why everyone goes to chinese temple on the new year’s day ( the day after new year’s eve)
Q.4) We said there is no god on the earth why the god is possess to spirit medium ( ki tong )? In myanmar a temple’s spirit medium possess the god 清水祖師 (祖師公) and go around the town with his bodyguard tiger and together with dragon dance members.( people believe 清水祖師 have tiger bodyguard i don’t know it is true or not).
Q.5) If you have time please explain more about difference between pure Taoist religion and Min-Nan Culture folk practice. (I thought it was the same).
Q.6) The southern Min-nan folks worship deities and pure Taoist worship Three Pure One. Am I right?
----------------- Aung Thu, Myanmar
Reply from Taoist Sorcery Master (super.kumantong@gmail.com):
From ancient records, Pure Taoist Religion will only do major ritual to send off the Kitchen God during end of the Year, before Chinese New Year. In Min-Nan Culture Folks Practice, all heavenly gods were sent off to heaven to do their yearly reporting of their own duties. The spiritual soldiers will be guarding the temples. The earth bound deities are staying back on earth.
Reply to Q.1) There are deities that are originally from heaven, humans who became deities that went to heaven and there are earth bound spirits (ghosts that are deitified out of good deeds) that stay on earth.
Reply to Q.2) The spiritual soldiers of the deities are staying back on earth to guard the temples.
Reply to Q.3) The spiritual soldiers of the deities are staying back on earth to guard the temples. Example, when the human bosses are taking leaves to enjoy life, there are acting-boss / managers and other workers helping the boss to manage.
Reply to Q.4) The truth is, during the spiritual possessions of spirit mediums, the "deity" is the representive of the original deity. There are many spiritual beings, who are also caltivating good deeds (by helping man kind), given the "licence" to represent the particular deity to help people on earth. Therefore, there will be Tang Kis trancing deities, even the deities are sent off to heaven.
Another way of using modern science of explaining is when there is one souce of wireless access, many computers can hook up to it, not just one. Different people can access to different internet websites from the same source of wireless internet wifi connection. One radio station can broadcast to millions of radios. It is the same as spirit world or energy.
Therefore, during spirit posssession ritual , You can see a group of spirit mediums "jumping" the same god at the same time.
Reply to Q.5) For pure Taoism Religion, You may look into Quan Zhen School (全真派), Zheng Yi School (正一派) and Mao Shang Shang Qing Lineage(茅山上清宗).
The folk religion of Min-nan (The Southern Min Folks) - today Fujian People , which the practice include Spirit Mediumship that You see in Taiwan, Thailand Chinese (Phuket Vegetalian Festival), Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesian Riau Islands, are uniquely the Southern Chinese Practice, not found in Pure Taoism.
Reply to Q.6) Different communities of Chinese have their own deities related to their own culture and also they include the Pure Taoist Religion. Pure taoist religion focus on Taoist Scriptures. There are many other deities in Pure Taoism, not just the 3 pure ones. For the layman level / ordinary folks, they will simply focus on praying to particular deities related to their own culture and does not bother (or not interested) to understand the Pure Taoist Scriptures. On the other hand, the Priest level (even to the Min-Nan / Hokkien / Fujian Culture) will include the usage of Pure Taoist Scriptures and do ritual to venerate the highest level deities of Pure Taoism.
During Spirit Medium Procession, the deities (or spirits representing the deities) will also respect the priests, by guiding the worshippers to pray or kneel down before the highest level deities, while the priests are doing important rituals.
Conclusion: When deities go to heaven for reporting (during CNY), the spirit soldiers stay on earth to protect and do recording of Your problems. Many Spirit Mediums can trance the same deity at the same time. Pure Taoism do not include the folk culture deities and practice but Folk Taoism / Folk Chinese Religion includes both the deities / practice of their own culture and also the Pure Taoist Deities and Scriptures.
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