Paper short abstract:

Based on conversations with the Chinese Underworld deity Tua Ya Pek tranced through his medium, to a backdrop of a healing ritual and the collection and preparation of graveyard medicines to cure leukaemia, this paper presents the perspectives of the deity on possession, the soul and the afterlife.

Paper long abstract:

Adopting a paranthropological approach to the study of Chinese Underworld deities as tranced through their mediums, this paper follows the ordeal of a girl dying from leukaemia who, afraid of death, approached the Underworld deity Tua Ya Pek, a discarnate entity half deity - half ghost for help. She first consulted him in his temple located on the eighth floor of an industrial building. The immediate result was a spectacular healing ritual that emotionally and physically exhausted the girl, simultaneously giving her a new lease of hope for the future. This was followed by the collecting of graveyard 'medicines' borrowed from graves after the permission of the dead had been ascertained through divination. The medicines were then ritually prepared and consumed before being returned to the cemetery. Being involved in every part of the process, this paper is written in the first person, the descriptions of events punctuated with conversations between Tua Ya Pek and myself on subjects relating to a discarnate entity possessing a human body, the nature of the soul, the Underworld and afterlife. The paranthropological approach adopts an emic perspective and highlights the beliefs and practices from the perspective of the possessing deity. The aim of this approach is to link the growing body of paranthropological discourse with ethnographic research on folk Taoism and Chinese spirit medium culture. The paper should therefore be read on two levels; as an ethnographic contribution to the study of spirit mediumship and to the growing body of contemporary paranthropological discourse.