Black magic still plays a role in the lives of many Chinese, despite a ban on “feudal superstitions” by the ruling Communist Party, according to the National Post.
A particularly gruesome black magic ritual was carried out in a remote village near Guangyuan, deep in the mountains of south-western China recently, leading to the death of Yan Yingmao’s ailing wife. It is not known whether modern medical care was available, but we do know the wife had been under the care of witch doctors for some time.
The Telegraph reports that when all the ancient remedies tried by the shamans failed to make Mr. Yan’s wife well, he was told “she would be steamed alive until the ghosts were dispelled from her body.”
She was steamed alive
Mrs. Yan was placed in a wooden barrel suspended over a large vat of boiling water. As the scalding hot vapors began passing through the barrel, Mr. Yan was sent off to fetch a sewing needle to be used in the exorcism. “When I returned the screaming had begun,” Mr. Yan told the Sunday Telegraph.
As the hot steam inside the barrel increased in intensity, Yan’s wife began to cry out but despite Yan’s begging the witch doctors to stop the ritual, Mr. Yan said, “They said the ritual must be concluded, and that the screams from my wife were the sound of demons leaving her body.”
Yan continued to remonstrate against the two witch doctors even as his wife’s screams became unbearable. Yan finally stepped in and pulled his wife’s blackened body from the barrel, but he already knew it was too late. “I looked at her face, and it was purple. She told me she wouldn’t make it,” said the 45-year-old man.
The two shamans ran off into the mountains surrounding the village, but they were later arrested. This incident, one of many in rural areas in China, shows that beliefs in the supernatural and the powers of ancient healing rituals are still adhered to by many people.
Communist ban against superstitions
Since the days of Mao Zedong, The Communist Party has been trying to bring the populous into the enlightened world of Marxism’s ideological teachings, which are said to be based on science. Beijing has been waging a war on poverty while attempting to improve educational opportunities for the nation’s rural people. This includes getting rid of superstitions.
To that end, in January of this year, the ruling party revised the 2003 version of rules banning feudal superstitions in China. President Xi Jinping has declared that superstitious practices, including fortune telling, goes against the party’s core belief in Marxism, which claims to be founded on the scientific method. “Feudal superstitions” now has its own category, making it a distinct violation of party discipline.
The new directive states the government will, “firmly crack down on those who used superstition to damage national interests, social stability and people’s life and property.” That being said, it has proven difficult for the ruling party that does not believe in the practice of religion to make the masses adhere to their atheistic discipline.
Religious beliefs do play a role in people’s lives in China. “There are so-called shamans claiming they can cure,” said Shi Wenji, a shaman from Jilin province, in north-eastern China. “A shaman should deal with the relationship between human beings and God, but fake shamans deal with the relationship between human beings and ghosts.”
