Teaching the Ghosts: The Thai Supernatural
This is part of our Window on Southeast Asia series.
One Father's Day, my girlfriend (now my wife) offered to take me on a family outing with her father to the cremation grounds, where a monk who lived there would take a break from teaching the ghosts to meet with us. The monk, she told me, often meditated in the cremation grounds to teach the ghosts. Was he insane? No, he was a Thai Buddhist monk. It was a perfect introduction to the Thai supernatural world, a world surprisingly close to everyday life in Thailand.
When you live in another country you quickly learn how easy it is to offend people in ways you would never have thought of. You can read all the guides to a country's etiquette before you go there (and you certainly should), but some things you just can't anticipate. For example, walking through a doorway.
One weekend my girlfriend and some of her coworkers took me to Wat Pratat Lampang Luang, the holiest temple in Lampang, the northern town that was my home for three years. Before entering, she told me to step over the threshold. She explained that the guardian spirit of any house or building resides at the doorway and to step on the threshold would offend the spirit. Most Thais believe that their homes and other buildings have a guardian spirit who resides at the doorway (though it can move to other parts of the house if it so chooses). It guards the house much like the guardian angel of Christianity. After a few years of honoring and praying to this spirit, it can become just another member of the family. It must be respected and can be prayed to for good luck in a journey or any other endeavor. Many northern Thai homes have small altars by the doorway (usually outside) where offerings of water, incense, flowers and sticky rice are often left for the spirit. Stepping on the threshold is a grave insult to it.
Wat Pratat Lampang Luang
Having taken probably over a hundred thousand steps through doorways without giving any thought to the threshold, it's hard to get used to walking through them in a different fashion. Thus, when we entered another building on the temple grounds I forgot the threshold and stepped on it with my right foot. Someone noticed and started to say something when I quickly backed off and stepped over it. Still, she seemed a bit concerned. Not sure what to do I turned to the doorway, waied (the Thai hand-signal of respect) and said, "Kao Tawt," or "Excuse me" in Thai. I never dreamed that I would find myself waiing an empty doorway or saying "Excuse me" to a spirit. However silly I might have felt, it probably made everyone feel better.
Household spirits are not the only spirits. Spirits in Thailand tend to have a rigid division of labor. Rice spirits must be honored before planting rice to assure a good harvest. But don't bother asking them to guard the house; rice spirits only protect the rice crop. Animals and even trees have spirits, which is why I often saw jasmine garlands nailed to trees, especially near a house or business. Not that they can help with the business or affairs of the household, but they can always make trouble if someone insults them. In the north household spirits are the type that receive the most honor. In other parts of Thailand land spirits (such as the rice spirit) are seen as the most important type so receive the most attention.
Family Altar
The greatest fear of an average Thai is of a break down of the social order and the resulting chaos. This explains why the system of hierarchy is so entrenched there and why an average Thai is so ready to unquestioningly follow a superior. This can be very annoying to westerners who often complain that Thais are too submissive. But it accounts for another important fact as well—in 700 years Thailand has never had a civil war. The Thai fear of chaos is personified in their spirits. Thais pay respects even to spirits that are dangerous, not because they have any love for them but because they leave people alone if they are respected. These can be the spirits of women who died in childbirth, malevolent nature spirits, ghosts or, most dangerous of all, the ghosts of people who have just been let out of hell but who have not been reborn in the human world yet. They have something of a chip on their shoulders. One thing that all these spirits have in common, besides their malevolent nature, is that they are part of no social hierarchy. Their world is everything that Thais fear—a world of chaos with no social order. If not respected they can unleash their violent natures and their social chaos on humans.
That's why the monk meditates on the cremation ground to teach the ghosts. Most Thais are terrified of ghosts. Ghosts, unlike higher spirits, live in a realm where there is anarchy and no social hierarchy, and are thus the personification of everything the Thai fear. Monks, however, are immune to them. This monk had a reputation as being a powerful one, so he can meditate on the cremation grounds without fear. His hope is that the ghosts who congregate around cremation grounds at night will observe his meditation and practice it themselves. If they do they may rise to a higher level of spirit and will no longer be a threat unless someone angers them. Teaching the ghosts to meditate is a sort of community service.
Spirit House
Along with the spirit world, the realm of the sacred is also very close to Thai people in everyday life. One day just as school was letting out, I ran across my friend Gkai. She was looking for her friend Meo, whose name (nickname actually) means "Cat" in Thai. So I looked around and said, "Here kitty kitty kitty" When we found her I patted her on the head and said, "Good kitty" (you know, the way you'd start any adult conversation). Those of you familiar with Thai culture are probably cringing already. In Thai culture, the head is sacred and the feet are profane. It is a serious insult to touch someone on the head. Thankfully, Meo is well aware that farangs (Causasians) sometimes make this mistake. To Thai people the head is a personal temple and the seat of one's spirit. Only a person of enormous status may touch someone else's head. The king, for example, does this as a blessing. Not only is it impolite to touch someone's head, it is also impolite to stand over someone's head. If someone has to, for example, take their bags down from the rack on a bus, they will probably say "Excuse me." Not doing so implies superiority in a way that would be inappropriate even for someone who is a superior in the Thai social hierarchy. The same is true when someone accidentally touches another person's head. The sanctity of the head is so strong in Thai culture that in the old days executioners would say "Excuse me" before lopping off the offender’s head.
Needless to say, anything having to do with the head is sacred and holds great symbolism as well. Umbrellas can be used to keep the rain and the sun off, but if they have more than one layer they mean much more. In the old days a noble's social position was reflected in the number of tiers his umbrella had, ranging from one to five. Royalty was entitled to a seven-tiered umbrella and Buddha images have nine. The multi-tiered umbrella is often seen on royal emblems, government seals, and religious symbols. The presence of a seven or nine-tiered umbrella, even a miniature one only a few inches high, is a clear sign that whatever is under it is regarded as sacred or represents something sacred. White elephants, sacred to the King, are often given giant nine-tiered umbrellas. Hair is seen as being every bit as sacred as the head. Touching someone's hair is every bit as much an offense as touching the head. Before getting a haircut, the Thai must choose the right day. Wednesday is absolutely out; it is terrible luck. A haircut on Sunday will bring long life; on Thursday, protection by angels; Saturday, luck in business and so on.
The feet are the lowest part of the body. They are spiritually dirty, much the same way that pork is unclean to Muslims and Jews and saliva to Hindus. It is an insult to point at ANYTHING with the feet, but especially Buddha images or someone else's head. When a French tourist got into an argument with a waitress some years ago, he threw the banknotes she offered on the ground and put his foot on them. That's about the single worst insult you can commit in Thailand, given that the King's head is on the banknotes! The Thais sitting next to him beat him up on the spot. Thais try never to elevate their feet over any part of another person's body. Thus, a Thai may never step over someone; they must ask people sitting close together to make room. If a Thai trips over someone's shoes, he or she will not use their foot to put the shoes back where they were. Even that would be an insult. As for Buddha images, a few dim-witted tourists have been imprisoned and deported for climbing onto Buddha statues for a picture.
The border between the sacred and the mundane often gets a bit blurred in Thailand. Some items, such as hats, are semi-sacred. Hats are never placed anywhere low, certainly not on the floor or on the seat of the couch. No one considers the hat itself sacred, but given that it spends much of its time on a head it must be treated with more respect than, say, a pair of gloves. Books transmit knowledge and some are used to pass down the words of the Buddha. Thus any book is treated with a certain degree of respect and stepping on one with your foot will do more than raise eyebrows. Even backpacks are treated with respect because they are used to hold books. Students always put their backpacks on a desk or another chair.
The sacred is the best defense against evil. One evening after I got married I was alone in the house one hot day making some chocolate milk. As I was making it I heard someone yelling like a drunk. That happens sometimes. But this guy sounded really, really messed up, and he sounded close. I looked out the front door to see three men next to a motorcycle. One was trying to restrain the other who was screaming incoherently, staggering around and trying to punch the other two men. A little while later my brother-in-law and his father came home. By this time the man was going from crouching on the ground and whimpering to leaping up and punching wildly while screaming.
My brother-in-law went to his room and then went outside, by which time the men were out of sight from our house. So I went back to my now warm chocolate milk and noticed that the screaming had stopped rather suddenly. I guessed that a police car had come to get them. Well, no. That evening my wife told me that two of the men had been driving past a bridge where someone had jumped years before. That person's ghost possessed the man as he rode past. She then explained that my brother-in-law had taken a Buddhist amulet and put it around the man's neck and when he did, the man suddenly "woke up." He claimed that he didn't remember anything after passing the bridge.
A few weeks later I was teaching a class about English words for emotions. When we came to "Fear" I asked a male student what he was afraid of. "Nothing," he insisted. Suddenly, he donned that "Aha!" look and said, "except ghosts." So I asked him what he did to protect himself from them and showed me his Buddhist amulet. But why an image of the Buddha, I wondered? The Buddha didn't teach about ghosts or supernatural power. I tried to ask the other students but they couldn't explain. As time went on I found that Buddhist amulets were used for all kinds of un-Buddhist things such as power, money, and sexual virility. Even thieves wear them to protect them from the police! But how did that make sense? The answer would be awhile in coming.