From spells to win back an errant lover to help communing with the spirits, Myanmar’s mediums, soothsayers and wizards dabbling in the occult, are in high demand.
Most people there believe in a brand of Buddhism laced with animism and magic, but since the end of military rule such practices have burst into the open.
Win Win Aye is a part-time medium, who claims she has cured dozens of people of illnesses and curses — with the assistance of benevolent Buddhist spirits.
“I know when they have possessed me,” the 42-year-old told reporters at her house in Thalyin, near Yangon, shortly after a session, which she conducts for free as a hobby.
“When I want to say something my mouth can’t form the words, the person who possesses me says what he or she wants,” she said.
During the British colonial era and the half-century of military rule that followed many people used weikza — semi-divine Buddhist wizard-saints — to fight their oppressors.
Most of these sects were disbanded or pushed underground by the generals who seized power in 1962, deeply superstitious themselves they lived in fear of a supernatural strike back.
General Ne Win, who was the prime minister of then-Burma in the 1950s and 1960s, was said to be particularly obsessed with the occult: He reportedly bathed in dolphins’ blood believing it would help him regain his youth. In the 1980s he almost ruined the nation’s economy by changing banknotes to denominations of his lucky number — nine.
However, since the 2011 handover of power by the junta, magic is back in the open for ordinary people.
Sorcery courses are popping up across the country, and many so-called experts are sharing their knowledge of witchcraft in journals and online.
“Ever since the Burmese censor board was dissolved [in 2012] there has been an explosion in these kinds of magical manuals,” said Thomas Patterson, an expert on Southeast Asian magical practices at Hong Kong’s City University.
“I would argue they are one of, if not the most, widely-read genres in Myanmar,” he said.
In an unassuming apartment in northwest Yangon, Linn Nhyo Taryar wraps a straw figurine with black tape and places it in the center of a circle adorned with magical symbols. The skinny 21-year-old closes his eyes and mutters incantations to “activate” the doll in readiness for his first class as a magic teacher.
The soft-spoken sorcerer started studying magic at the age of five, beginning by reading tarot cards then gradually building up an online following on Facebook.
“Magic is the art of receiving the power of nature. Without the power of nature, we can’t do anything,” he said. “In magic, it depends if you want to do good things or bad things: If you do a bad thing, it will be black magic. If you do a good thing, then it will be white magic.”
Minutes later more than a dozen students start crowding into the room, eager to learn arts they hope will safeguard their loved ones — and their wallets.
Linn Nhyo Taryar shows them how to create voodoo dolls, draw magical charts and cast spells using rituals involving bananas and incense.
“I want to be able to help and protect my family with magic if something [bad] happens to us,” 25-year-old student Paing Soe Naung said.
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