Of hungry ghosts & lazy Mercury

Business friends have been adamantly rushing certain business directions before Ghost Month kicked in. I have always heard of this but never really believed in it. Others swear by it. So I went around asking why people believed in Ghost Month (this year from Aug. 14 to Sept. 12) and answers came as varied as: “Because the Chinese say so, and I am Chinese, so I believe”; “I am not sure if I should believe? But I guess better to believe?”; “Better to be safe than sorry!”; “I so believe it, especially the Chinese believe it, have you seen any mall open during Ghost Month?” and “Ghost Month — what’s that?”

And exactly what do you believe in what I asked them all? No one could give me a clear answer so I went searching. First, I found that the period falls in the seventh Lunar month of the year following the Chinese Lunar calendar. Second, that this is predominantly a Chinese tradition and belief system under the Buddhist and Taoist traditions. And third, I surmised: everyone else who is not Chinese has embraced it as superstition.

The Chinese believe that during this period, ghosts and spirits of their deceased ancestors come out of the lower realm and visit the living. Buddhists and Taoists believe that the realms of heaven and hell are opened and rituals are performed to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. This practice of the veneration of the ancestors gives an eternal expression to the filial piety value system. This is important especially if deceased relatives passed on through accidents or violent means, were carrying unfinished business at their point of death, or died unhappy. Or they never wanted to spiritually grow and remain naughty and mischievous. And this is where the belief of the “hungry ghost” comes from. They come a-haunting!

So you will see all our Chinese family friends perform practices to appease the hungry ghosts: preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense or joss paper (a papier-mâché form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods); serving elaborate vegetarian meals with empty seats for each of the deceased in the family treating the deceased as if they were still living. No marriages, no business openings, nothing major will be done during this period.

According to the tradition, evil deeds that lead to becoming a hungry ghost include killing, stealing and sexual misconduct. Desire, greed, anger and ignorance are all factors in causing a soul to be reborn as a hungry ghost because these are motives for people to perform evil deeds and bother the peace of mind of the living.

In other traditions, folk beliefs and even paranormal studies, we see nuances of the hungry ghost in the poltergeist (German for “noisy ghost”) — a type of ghost supposedly responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises or actually making physical objects move around. Others even report pinching, biting and hitting and tripping people. There is also the incubus or the phenomena of spectrophilia and paranormal sexual encounters where the ghosts carry on their recent lives’ sexual addictions. Cases have been documented on this phenomena but no, they are not one’s ancestors as the Chinese’s “hungry ghosts” personal experience.

I also think hungry ghosts are similar to the Christian belief of souls lost in purgatory, or the Tibetan understanding of souls in the “bardo” state, still surrounded by the energy of unfinished (and often lower consciousness) business of their most recent lifetime. Used loosely, the term “bardo” refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. In this in-between state, souls experience a variety of terrifying hallucinations or phenomenon that arise from the impulses of one’s previous life actions. For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals the “bardo” can be a state of opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality. For the unprepared, they can “karmically” get caught up in the cycle of rebirth through their own hallucinations.

For the Catholic Christian, this purgatory space becomes a chance for atonement, and those meant for heaven undergo purification so holiness can be obtained as the official passport. At least we believe that through our prayers, wandering souls in purgatory have a chance. But sometimes, too, the wandering souls wander back into our lives and world!

Interestingly, the Ghost Month is smack into the astrological cycle of Mercury retrograde (Sept. 17 to Oct. 9), when the planet of communication Mercury goes slower and seemingly moves back in space. What makes this worth a study is that this is also a period where one should not start anything, not business, not marriage, not relationship; not buy any major thing and all communications somehow get messed up. It is a period to stop, reflect, rethink, re-assess, review all that has happened in the last three months. Mercury retrograde happens three times a year, for three weeks, after every three months.

Another pattern is the month of Virgo, where we are now. This sign in astrology is the most barren of months. So again, do not plant, start, move forward in anything major. For the Kabbalists, the cycle is about cleansing for this whole month, looking within and doing spiritual cleansing.

Whether we believe in all these, perhaps due to personal experiences, or in the conditioning of traditions and belief systems or treat these as mere superstitions, the period tells us one thing: stop pushing forward with activities of the world, go within, pray for others in the lost state so they may awaken to the higher light, meditate, reflect and inhale.