Fabian Graham

Voices from the Underworld (eBook, ePUB)

Chinese Hell deity worship in contemporary Singapore and Malaysia

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

In Singapore and Malaysia, the inversion of Chinese Underworld traditions has meant that Underworld demons are now amongst the most commonly venerated deities in statue form, channelled through their spirit mediums, tang-ki. The Chinese Underworld and its sub-hells are populated by a bureaucracy drawn from the Buddhist, Taoist and vernacular pantheons. Under the watchful eye of Hell's 'enforcers', the lower echelons of demon soldiers impose post-mortal punishments on the souls of the recently deceased for moral transgressions committed during their prior incarnations. Voices from the Underworld offers an ethnography of contemporary Chinese Underworld traditions, where night-time cemetery rituals assist the souls of the dead, exorcised spirits are imprisoned in Guinness bottles, and malicious foetus ghosts are enlisted to strengthen a temple's spirit army. Understanding the religious divergences between Singapore and Malaysia through an analysis of socio-political and historical events, Fabian Graham challenges common assumptions on the nature and scope of Chinese vernacular religious beliefs and practices. Graham's innovative approach to alterity allows the reader to listen to first-person dialogues between the author and channelled Underworld deities. Through its alternative methodological and narrative stance, the book intervenes in debates on the interrelation between sociocultural and spiritual worlds, and promotes the de-stigmatisation of spirit possession and discarnate phenomena in the future study of mystical and religious traditions.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
• Seitenzahl: 280
• Erscheinungstermin: 11. Februar 2020
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781526140593
• Artikelnr.: 58645959

Autorenporträt

Dr Fabian Charles Graham is an alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He joined the Religion and Globalization research cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore in December 2018 and left in December 2022. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and two master's degrees, one in 'Taiwan Studies' from National Chengchi University in Taipei and the second in 'Social Anthropological Analysis' from the University of Cambridge.Previously a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Germany, based on research in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan, his first monograph 'Voices from the Underworld: Hell deity worship in contemporary Singapore and Malaysia' was published by Manchester University Press in 2020, an updated and revised paperback edition retitled 'Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan' was released in 2022.See: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B09F2J8N7N/aboutOutside of academia, Fabian Graham has also been a traveler since the age of fourteen when he went on his first solo trip cycling from Wales to London in the summer holidays. After interrailing and backpacking around Europe for almost a year, his adventures took him on an overland trip from London to Nairobi, Kenya. Unable to stop, he visited Sri Lanka at the height of the civil war, and then India and Nepal before finally making it to Southeast Asia which he loves. He paid for his travels busking, teaching English and then by designing, making and selling his own style of jewelry. He also holds a BA in Jewelry Design from Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design, London (1997)Apart from travel, spirituality, photography and art, all of which he loves, his academic research interests have included the anthropology of Chinese religion; spirit possession / mediumship; temple ritual, material culture and museum archaeology; Southeast Asian 19th and 20th century history; the invention, inversion and reinterpretation of tradition; visual anthropology; and new ethnographic, narrational and analytical approaches to the study of religious phenomenon and experiences.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction Part I: Setting the scene 1 The modern Underworld tradition 2
Analysis: a baseline of comparison 3 The historical development of
Underworld cosmology Part II: The Underworld tradition in Singapore 4 Yu
Feng Nan Fu Xuanshan Miao: setting a baseline of comparison 5 A new
Underworld God of Wealth, and, foetus assistance rituals in Singapore 6
Lunar Seventh Month: the centrality of graveyards in the Underworld
tradition Part III: The Underworld tradition in Malaysia 7 Malaysia and the
party spirit: guanxi and the creation of 'intentional' communities 8
Seventh Month rituals in southern Malaysia: salvation rituals and 'Ah Pek'
parties 9 Seventh Month rituals in central Malaysia: coffin rituals and the
releasing of exorcised spirits Part IV: Tracing the origins of the modern
Underworld tradition 10 Anxi Chenghuangmiao and cultural flows of local
mythology 11 Penang: the earliest recollections of Tua Di Ya Pek embodied
12 Conclusions and analysis Index