#395: True Case Behind “Incantation” Horror Movie - Family Of 6 Possessed By Demons Till 1 Is Dead
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Halloween is right around the corner, which means sweater weather is in full swing. Recently I've been cleaning out my closet and making room for all of my winter stuff, just generally getting rid of things I've outworn and donating them. Naturally, I like to push things like this off, but I've been so proactive this year and I think it's all because of Audible. My favorite recent title that got me through the sweater weather cleaning is this kind of...

short story titled The Grown-Up by Gillian Flynn. Her name may sound familiar. She's the same author of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects, which were fantastic, also on Audible. And I mean, her writing just translates so well over audio. And guys, her short story that I was listening to while I was getting ready for spooky season was the perfect way to set that tone

Autumn, Audible, ambience. If you like the treats part more than the tricks though, I know that not everybody can do the horror or the scary spooky stories on Audible. That's fine. Audible has so many other genres and titles of audiobooks. I couldn't even name them all even if I wanted to. And that's not a figure of speech. I'm talking audiobooks.

Literally, they have thousands of titles to choose from. Audible also offers podcasts like ours, guided wellness programs, theatrical performances, which one of our RMT members is obsessed with on Audible, comedy, and Audible originals. So if you want to switch up the cadence of a narrator or switch to a different type of storytelling than normal audio book,

Audible has you covered there too. My favorite Audible feature just in general is the customizable playback speed. It is a game changer for those commutes, getting ready, nighttime routines, and honestly cleaning out your closet. Audible members can keep one title a month to keep from the entire catalog. New members can try Audible now free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash rotten or text rotten to 500-500. That's audible.com slash rotten or text rotten to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days.

Ever since Ronan, a mom in Taiwan, she's invited her daughter back to come live with her. Ever since the two have been reunited, very strange things have been happening.

Six years ago, something happened where the mom, Ronan, could no longer take care of her daughter anymore. Her daughter's name is Dodo. And she could hardly take care of herself, let alone make sure that Dodo is being safe and well fed. But that's six years ago. Ronan today, she's different now. She's ready to be a mom again. She can take care of her daughter, Dodo. After six years of being apart, obviously the initial meeting is definitely a little awkward. But there is this connection there because that's her kid.

So for a little while, it seems like the two of them, they're going to go home. They're going to slip into a very natural, familiar family life where they just enjoy doing all these mundane things that they missed out on together. But then...

all these strange little things start happening. And they're not little. On the very first night that daughter Dodo returns home, they hear this huge bang in the other room. And there's this sound of shattering glass. Ronan runs into the next room to investigate because it sounds like a home intruder or something. But when she gets in there, all she finds, the floor covered with shattered glass, and there's a tiny little cockroach.

It seems like the cockroach crashed in through the window, breaking the glass. Is that even physically possible? It's so strange. Later that night, Ronan notices what looks like a burst eye vessel inside of her daughter's eye. But it's very eerily shaped, like the shape of a cockroach. How old is the daughter? Six.

And I think if that were all, maybe Ronan would try to look past it and start fresh because, you know, there could be explanations for all of these things. Maybe the glass was already shattered. Maybe the cockroach is just a coincidence. There can be a thousand and one explanations. But things start becoming unavoidable. It's not even just the small things anymore. Like, how do you explain when Dodo wakes up one day and her entire mouth is filled with teeth? She has double the amount of teeth. They're practically growing on her tongue. They're everywhere.

Or the fact that Dodo, her daughter, is able to magically shut doors. She could be on the other side of the room and the door swings shut. The window's not even open. It's not a breeze. How is she doing that? And who does she keep talking to? She keeps talking to someone that doesn't exist. Like she's playing with invisible friends that aren't actually there. Yes, it's her daughter, but it's not normal. And she's confident that the real reason, the real problem here is that Ronan is cursed. She's haunted and this curse is being transferred to her daughter.

Six years ago, Ronan, for the sake of a YouTube video, entered this forbidden tunnel, a sacred space. And ever since then, her life has been cursed. And now her daughter is going to die unless she can find a way to help her.

And this sounds very much like the plot of a movie, does it not? And that's because it is. That is the plot of the Taiwanese horror film, Incantation. The reviews for that movie read, it's terrifying, exceptionally dark. If you can't watch anything terrible happening to young children, don't watch this. It's a type of movie to break your brain. I watched it and the movie stayed with me for years. I still think about it to this day. Not in a good way.

But the truth is, the movie Incantation is actually based on a true story of a family in Taiwan and what happened to them when they get cursed by a demon, how they are tortured for two months straight until one of them ends up dead.

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As always, full show notes are available at RottenMangoPodcast.com. This is another international case with very little resources available. We did our best to translate with professional native speakers. But of course, if there's anything mistranslated, miscommunicated, or any additional information, please let us know down in the comments. Today's case also mentioned some mental health conditions, the compulsive eating of non-food items, physical assault, and a brief mention of SA. So with that being said, let's get into it.

Oh, I do actually have another disclaimer. Listen, I have a very strong appreciation for religion and cultural traditions. I think it's one of the more beautiful aspects of life and just the human experience in general. But I'm personally not a firm believer of anything when it pertains to religion or spiritual journeys. So anything said in this episode is not to push some sort of narrative or belief onto anybody. I truly have no skin in the game. I just...

I'm very intrigued by a lot of different cultures and religions. There is information included that I find to be enlightening and pertinent to the case itself. And also just fascinating that I wanted to share with you, but I am not trying to get anyone to believe one thing or another or anything at all.

Also, another side note, many of the gods mentioned in today's episodes, the deities, they have very complicated backgrounds on how they came to be. And obviously there's different interpretations and beliefs for each one. But I do want to mention that it does seem that at least a few of them are based off of Hindu gods. So this is, again, not me trying to erase that link or not give credit where credit is due. But I think to deep dive into

into the origins of each god would take a lot of care and expertise and I'm mainly trying to include the parts that would be relevant to the actual case. So if you guys actually know more about each deity, please let me know in the comments. I would love to learn more from you guys because the internet is a tricky place where everybody disagrees a lot. So with that being said, let's go.

Let's get into it. April 11th, 2005. It's a very normal Monday afternoon and Mr. A, well, let's call him Mr. A, is at home watching TV and he hears this knock at his door. Mr. A is one of the few neighbors that are still around. All the other neighbors had interestingly packed a little bag and moved out into hotels, leaving most of their stuff behind, still paying rent. It's very odd.

Mr. A gets up and he walks to the door, looks through the tiny little peephole, and he sees his neighbor, a middle-aged man, Mr. Wu, just standing there looking very anxious. Mr. Wu, what's wrong? How can I help you? Mr. Wu leans in closer to the door. Call an ambulance.

Mr. A fumbles with his locks and by the time he opens the door Mr. Wu is gone he looks to the right he looks to the left no Mr. Wu he didn't even know middle-aged men could move that fast that's wild so he grabs his phone puts on his jacket and his shoes and he starts making his way over to Mr. Wu's house which is at the top of a neighboring building it's a three-story building and Mr. Wu is at the top

That's his residence, third floor. So he's running up the stairs. He approaches the door. He doesn't see Mr. Wu anywhere. He's nowhere to be seen. He presses on the handle of Mr. Wu's front door. The door creaks open and a fly comes flying out at him. So strange. He walks inside and once he sees why an ambulance needs to be called, Mr. A runs back out of the house. He's dry heaving on the pavement and immediately calls the police.

When the police arrive at the scene, they want to know what the problem is with the Wu family. I mean, arguably, they seem very incredibly normal, if not very mundane. The Wu parents have four children. The eldest daughter works in Taipei. The second daughter is a nurse. The third daughter goes to college. The son, the baby of the family, works at a local printing house. They're all adults. The kids are in their 20s at this point. It's a very normal family. Until the police talk to the neighbors. They are not normal.

What do you mean by that? Neighbors have been reporting hearing very strange noises coming from inside the house all night long. This loud, sometimes it's like a banging noise. Sometimes you don't know what the source of the sound is. Sometimes you do know. And then sometimes it's just the most obnoxious gong going off all night long, which is definitely frustrating for neighbors to deal with the constant ruckus from the upstairs residents. But the neighbors aren't even annoyed. They're not even pissed off. In fact, they're just scared.

Something about the noises is different, okay? Sometimes the family of six would sit there just splashing water on each other in silence, splashing cold water all over each other, shivering, but they say they're hot. It's weird. Sometimes the neighbors would wake up in the middle of the night to hearing someone screaming. Other times to chanting.

They look up at the house and yeah, the police are like, that's not a normal place. They look at the signs posted on the windows into the house. There's a red eight trigram symbol posted onto the window. The eight trigrams are ancient symbols used in Taoist philosophy that represent the eight principles of feng shui. Feng shui being harmony of individuals and their environment.

At its core, feng shui is about creating balance and flow in your living area, right? So the eight principles of having good feng shui balance oversimplified are heaven, earth, thunder, water, mountain, wind, fire, lake, which symbolizes joy and pleasure. So they all mean something. And when you put that symbol of the eight trigrams on the window, it typically means that whoever lives in this home is seeking protection. They likely want to ward off negative energy and spirits, which is not

too crazy of a thing to want. I feel like we all want that. They see that red A trigrams taped to the window, which itself is very normal, standard even, but it's everything else that makes the house feel so strange. On the balcony of the house, there are these black clothes that are sticking out of the windows like flags. It does not appear that the clothes are being hanging too

to dry they're hanging on sticks just floating in the air like flags or like ghosts wearing black clothes and hanging out of the window whichever one you want to envision when you step foot into the house you hear this crunching noise and you look down and the entire floor is covered like a beach but instead of sand it's covered with salt and rice grains the whole floor

They can hear flies buzzing around the house. They walk further in and on the dining table, they find a whole table setting laid out. Plates, bowls. The bowls are filled with fulu, a talismanic paper soaked in water. And the plates are smeared with the main dish, the main course. Feces. Poop.

The flies are just circulating over the table, but that's not the only source of the smell. Feces has been thrown at the walls, covering the walls, sliding off the walls. Not a single window was left open to let in some fresh air. Not only that, but the windows are covered in these yellowish papers taped to the windows, resulting in this severe lack of sunlight coming in, which means feces are hanging off the walls. The air is thick from the smell. Not a single hint of a breeze, just still air, still air,

sitting, marinating in the poop stench and no sunlight to try and balance things out. It's dark, dingy, grimy, and the smell of feces is overwhelming. In one of the bedrooms, there's a 28-year-old woman lying motionless on the floor. Her limbs are stiff and she does not appear to be breathing. She has no pulse. They rush her to the hospital, but it is no luck. She has been dead for two days before the police found her body.

The hospital starts an autopsy on the woman and her whole body looks incredibly pale. There's these massive wounds all over her body, giant bruises, fist-sized up and down her body. But more puzzling than that are these tiny circular uniform burn marks, similar to cigarette butt burns, but not really. It's much smaller. It's about the size of like an ink dot. So if you were to take the tip of a Sharpie and just hold it onto your skin, it's kind of that size, right?

What could even cause burns that size that are that consistent and uniform all over her body? Believe it or not, there's another medical mystery that the doctors cannot even wrap their minds around. Shoved into the woman's nostrils, mouth, in her esophagus, and smeared all over her skin is a mixture of urine and feces.

Furthermore, her entire stomach, the only thing in there is no food, nothing but just semi-digested feces. The sheer volume of feces would indicate it was most likely human feces. So why? How? I mean, who? Who did this to her?

The police are able to confirm that the deceased woman is the eldest daughter of the Wu family, the residence that she was found in, which means the people most likely to have answers to what happened to her are her family members. But there is no trace of the rest of the Wu family. After Mr. Wu knocked on his neighbor's door, he vanished along with his wife and his two daughters and his one son. All five of them are gone.

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And there are just some places that you just do not go. In the movie "Incantation", the place that you're not supposed to go is inside this tunnel in this remote village temple. But because the main character, Ronan, the mom, and her boyfriend at the time, they run a YouTube channel where they go ghost hunting, they weighed out the options and they thought, go into the tunnel to get great views or not go into the tunnel. They go into the tunnel.

Ronan's boyfriend and his cousin decide, we're just going to get the good footage, despite being warned by the locals multiple times never to step foot in here. We're just going to go and get the footage. And that's how they get cursed. And Ronan's boyfriend and cousin ultimately die. Ronan ends up giving birth to a daughter that she didn't even know she was pregnant with at the time. She has to give up custody to her daughter for six years because of how mentally messed up she is from everything that has happened inside that tunnel. Because

Again, there are just some places that you just should not go. In the real life case of incantation, the Wu family, they travel to the Five Finger Mountain. It's called the Five Finger Mountain because the peak of the mountain has five prominent peaks. It looks like the ridges of the fingers of a hand. It's a natural landmark, but some people don't think it's the safest. Not just in terms of physical safety, but spiritually as well.

I mean, in many folklore, mountains are considered sacred places that are inhabited by supernatural entities, which means, yeah, you can go there to get guidance from the good supernatural entities. But when there are entities, one might believe there must be good and bad. You can't just cherry pick.

According to many folklore, those who died unjustly or have unfinished business, they typically dwell in the mountains waiting for their chance to get revenge. They may want to trap the living just due to how angry they are. And it's said that the path on the middle finger of the five finger mountain has the most negative energy. Many people experience and have reported feeling stuck physically. Like they feel like they can move, but their legs won't move.

They feel exhausted all of a sudden, drained, but not just, oh, I'm a hiker. I'm tired. It's weird. It's unexplainable. They hear voices. They have all these unexplainable supernatural encounters on the third finger. But like I said, when there is good, there is also bad. So it works in the opposite way. Meaning some people believe, no, if you go to the five finger mountain and you meditate, you're going to get amazing guidance to spiritual problems that you may be having.

So the three Wu sisters are sent to the mountain for a month to meditate. This is the real life family. Three of the sisters, so they have three daughters and one son. The three daughters are sent to the Five Finger Mountain for an entire month to meditate at a local temple. So this is before the sister was dead. Yes. They need to use the power of meditation to drive out the demon inside of the eldest sister, the one that ends up dead.

It's going to take at least a month. They're going to stay at the temple and they are not to come back home until they are cleansed. I mean, it's not like the sisters really wanted to do this, but they don't really have a choice. Their lives were incredibly normal until it wasn't normal. And it all starts February 2005.

It starts with the Wu family's eldest daughter. So she's the oldest. She's the one that passes away. And she's the only child that no longer fully lives with the entire family. So the youngest daughter, she's in college. She lives in the dorms, but she comes home every single break. The eldest daughter, she's actually moved out completely to Taipei. She's managing this convenience store with her boyfriend. So let's just call them sister A, B, C, and son. Okay. She gets a call from her mom.

What's going on? Hello? And the mom tells her, I'm very worried. I'm very concerned. I know that things have been happening over there with you. What do you mean? Sister A is confused. She's trying to figure out why her mom is freaking out. Why she's saying, I know something's happened. Nothing has happened. I mean, absolutely nothing has happened. If something had happened, she would have called her right away. But her mom is just frantic. She's dead set that something weird is going to happen or it's already happening and you just don't feel it. You just don't realize it.

Sister A calms her mom down and she hangs up the phone thinking, okay, that was a little bit strange, but I think she's okay now. A few hours later, the door to the convenience store opens and it's her mom.

The car ride to get from where her parents live on the south side of Taiwan to Taipei is a four hour long drive. If you fly, it takes one and a half hours with a high speed rail. You just don't drop in and say hello. Her mom never does this. This is the type of visit that requires a lot of planning. You take the weekend off, you come to visit, you have an itinerary. So what the hell is mom doing here? Mrs. Wu tells her daughter, you need to come back to the family home immediately or else very bad things are going to happen to you.

Listen, she must have a lot of faith in her mom because she grabs her things and just instantly leaves Taipei. She drops everything. She leaves work mid shift to go with her mom. Interestingly enough, when she gets home, the energy and the family residence is quite happy.

Everybody's happy. I mean, it's been a minute since all of them were gathered, since everybody's busy with work and school. Mr. Woo even cooked up this massive, delicious food table for the kids. And then during dinner, they start discussing what's been going on. And the Woo family, like I said, consists of three daughters and one son. The whole situation started when Sister C comes home from college for winter break.

Because it's February of 2005. She's normally someone who sleeps well every single night. But ever since she got back to the family home for winter break, she's been having nightmares every single night. And it's always about the third prince. The third prince? Ninja?

Yes, the third prince, according to mythology, he was born after spending three years and six months in his mother's womb. His mom was so sick of him in her stomach that she would get frustrated and quote, pound her stomach in anger for such an extraordinary long pregnancy. And to make matters worse, when she finally gives birth to him, instead of a baby, a giant ball of flesh rolls out of her body and her husband, the third prince's cousin,

dad witnesses all of this and is convinced that his wife just gave birth to a demon that needs to be extinguished. He grabs his sword, attacks the ball of flesh. It opens up and out comes a fully formed boy, the third prince that can talk immediately out of the womb. Now you may be thinking that's a pretty tough dad and son relationship to mend after your dad is adamant that you're a demon the second that you come into this world. But

Despite that, the third prince has a strong dedication to his family. The prince and his dad are known to fight all the time, but ultimately it seems like the third prince has a strong sense of filial piety. I mean, he is, at the end of the day, one to protect his family, which is why he is typically worshipped for protection of children and families and sometimes ensuring safe travels. The third prince deity is typically known as the patron god of children.

In terms of worshiping deities, the third prince is not an intense one to worship, if that makes sense. It's just some deities are more fickle. Some are more secretive than others. But the third prince...

He sounds kind of chill. I mean, generally he prefers offerings, fruits, meats, nice. Duck meat, he doesn't like because it's considered sacred to him. So you have to be very careful. He's also a teenage deity. So he really likes candies. And if you really want protection from the third prince, to just have a small statue of him is usually a good way to get it. He's a guardian deity though. Keep this in mind. He's very protective. He's a protection god.

Now, Sister C comes home from winter break and every single night she's back in the family home. She's plagued with these nightmares and she can't sleep now because she's terrified of her own dreams. The third prince is somehow popping up in her dreams, which makes it feel like somebody needs protection around here. She has these migraines throughout the day that make her drop to the floor with how intense it is. She's never had these before. She's supposed to be resting before school starts. So what is happening?

Her parents suggest her to go to the temple. That's going to help get her soul back.

Now, to give you some context, and again, a quick disclaimer, not everybody in Taiwan believes one thing or the other. Like same with America. Everybody has their own beliefs. And then you have people who are very extreme in their beliefs. And then some people who are a little bit more casual with it. I will say the Wu family is as extreme as it gets. They're very extreme with their beliefs. So they tell her, you need to go to the temple and get your soul back. You're not going to see the extremity of their beliefs right now, but you'll see it escalate. So keep that in mind.

They're like, you need to go to the temple and get your soul back.

Some people believe that the soul can leave the body because of many different circumstances. We've kind of talked about this before with the microwave case. Remember? Okay, yes. Yes. The soul leaves the body when there is some sort of trauma or shock, near-death experience, intense fear or pain, spiritual attack, sleep or dreaming. Sometimes souls will wander out of your body during sleep and then when you wake up, your soul can't get in and your soul is lost. Right.

They say that you can typically tell when someone's soul has left their body. They suddenly have a very hard time recalling specific events. They might have memory loss or they suddenly have weakened immune systems and they just feel this emotional numbness.

They look like they're zoning out all the time. It looks like they're missing a part of themselves because their soul is missing. That is what the Wu parents believe is happening to Sister C. They encourage her, go to the local temple. They can perform this soul calling ritual to bring your soul back home, back into your body. You got to go.

Sister C goes to the temple to get her soul back, which it does seem to work, but she ends up getting a lot more than what she asks for. She states to her family that suddenly out of nowhere, the third prince showed up again. And this time he had a divine message for her. He tells her that Sister A, the eldest sibling, has to come home immediately or else her life is in grave danger. She's the one working alone in Taipei.

The family take this information incredibly seriously. If the third prince is saying that, that means he would only be saying that to protect the children of the family. He's a guardian deity after all, which means something might happen to the children.

Even if the third prince didn't say anything to Sister C in the dream, the third prince even showing up in one's visions or dreams or sights typically symbolizes that the dreamer or someone close to the dreamer is in need of protection. Because the third prince, like I said, is almost synonymous with protection. This means something. The next day, after the third prince shows up in Sister C's dreams, the mom goes all the way to Taipei and gets her eldest daughter, brings her back home.

That night, Sister A, she's being told all of this over dinner. She thinks it's strange, but she tries not to think too much into it.

She goes to rest and she comes all the way from Taipei, lays down in bed. She doesn't feel like the energy is that strange. I mean, she's home. She's so familiar with this place. This is where she grew up with everybody that she trusts more than anything. And she drifts into sleep. And hours later, she's awake, drenched in sweat, gasping for air. Her mom slams open the door. She's been screaming all night. She runs in. What's wrong? What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong.

Sister A tells her mom that everything little sister said is coming true. There's this nightmare that she just had where she was essayed by a strange man and then ended up killing him and there was so much blood and everything bad is happening.

Her mom drags her out of bed and both of them kneel at the family's at-home altar to start praying. But the next night, it happens again. Another nightmare. Now the eldest sister can't even go to sleep without feeling this intense fear. She won't even sleep during the night. She dozes off here and there during the day. But that's about it. Like think of it as naps. She hasn't gotten a good night's rest since she got home. Whenever there's a loud noise, she starts freaking out.

If someone is talking in a pitch higher than an inside standard voice, she freaks out. Eventually, the eldest daughter, likely out of serious sleep deprivation and feeling mental torment, she starts slapping herself. She starts like slapping her own legs, slapping her arms. And the Wu's are really alarmed by this. They drag her to the temple where the youngest had gotten her soul back. And the parents tell the ones that run the temple, they think they know why this is happening right now. We understand why.

Okay, so the family thinks the reasoning of all of this is because they moved the third prince statue in their house. So way before he showed up in Sister C's dreams, the third prince had his own altar at the Wu family house. They worshiped the third prince. But a while back, they had gone to a different temple and with some guidance, one of the mediums there told the Wu family that their family situation seems unclean.

He was very ominous about it. He didn't give them much more information. So the Wu parents being firm believers, they start getting paranoid. They ask him to come to their house to exercise the evil spirits that's making the residents unclean. And while they're exercising the place, they move the statue. They move the altar of the third prince to a new location inside the house, but maybe

Maybe, maybe they shouldn't have done that. Maybe that messed with the protection of the house somehow and made it so that another entity could enter, like a non-protective entity could enter their home. At the temple, the eldest sister was able to be cleansed by the spiritual mediums. And when she comes back home, things are normal again.

In fact, after a few days, she's had zero nightmares, zero like slapping herself on the legs. She's like, maybe I should go back home to Taipei. I mean, we avoided this looming tragedy. Likely it was nothing. We just needed to move the statue back. I should just go home and resume life as normal. That's the best case scenario. Yes. As the eldest daughter is spending the last few days with her family, she gets this phone call.

It's like a rather brief phone call. Nobody can really even make out who she's talking to or what she's saying. But by the time she hangs up the phone, she is no longer their daughter. She is no longer Sister A. She turns around and states to the entire Wu family that she is the goddess of mercy. Wait, she hung up the phone and she says she's a goddess? Yeah.

Now, to give you some context, this is good and bad news depending on your own beliefs. If you do not believe in deities being able to possess humans, this is very bad news. If you do believe it, like the Wu family does, then this might be the best deity to be possessed by. The goddess of mercy is often described as the kindest of all deities.

She is the mother of compassion and mercy. She's believed to have unconditional love and compassion for all beings, even humans. She's not fickle where, you know, fickle deities might want more in return or set you up in some aspect. She's not like that. She's known to work tirelessly to save all beings from suffering. So if the goddess of mercy has taken their daughter's body, that means there is a divine message there for them.

The Wu parents think, wait, maybe all of this going on is because our daughter is a spiritual medium. And this is the way we find out. A vessel is the spiritual medium between the deities and the humans, the so-called translators between the gods and the mortals. So when mortals like humans have questions, they have nowhere to seek answers. They may approach a spiritual medium and request that they ask the deities for the answer. Being a spiritual medium is typically, from my understanding, a job that calls you.

You don't call the job. The job chooses you. People will naturally find themselves being able to connect with spirits and with further guidance or training of sorts, they can be full-fledged spiritual mediums. It's not an easy job. One medium describes it as the first time your body feels very warm, really hot. The energy is starting to come to your body, starting to surround you. So you feel very, very warm. Within the first five, 10 minutes, the energy starts slowly coming. And within that time,

You'll know the energy belongs to which deity and what they are here for and what purpose. During the possession, you won't know what's happening until you wake up. Then you'll feel very tired afterwards. It's a lifetime commitment being a medium. It's very exhausting. Which side note, there's actually a lot of harm when it comes to being a spiritual medium. One of the key components is for I'm sure many reasons, spiritual mediums will feel the need to harm themselves.

So while they're being the vessel for the deity, a lot of the times they'll write these talismanic papers. So these charms on a piece of paper that you take for protection and they will use the blood from their tongue. So a lot of the times they'll cut their tongue and use the blood to write, but they don't feel pain when they're in this state, they say.

They'll even pin flags to their skin. So you know those wooden skewers that you grill things on? I don't know if it's those that are used precisely, but that's about how thick they are. Some of the spiritual mediums will pin flags onto their back. They will pinch a piece of their lower back skin, stab the skewer into their flesh, and have it standing upright so that the flag is near their necks.

And they'll pin like five of them. So they have five flags pinned into their backs. See, I've seen that visual, but I didn't know they stab into themselves. Yes. And then they will stab skewers through their mouth, like metal bars through their mouth. It said that that's kind of proving to the mortals that they are a vessel because it's very difficult to do that.

It's said that spiritual mediums don't feel any pain when they're possessed by gods or spirits. And for that same reason, they tend to heal quickly and without infection. So it's a lot. Some spiritual mediums will stab their stomachs with sewing needles when they're in a trance. They'll even pierce a full metal needle through one cheek to the other, like I said. I mean, some of them have whips with needles and in their trances, they will begin whipping themselves.

One spiritual medium says, "I believe it's a way the deities protect the medium by helping them not feel pain during the rituals. It's also a way that the deities show their powers to us humans." The Wu family thought for a moment, maybe this is what's happening to Sister A, their eldest.

Because she's banging her head up against the walls, the tables. She's using her nails to dig into her face, scratching her skin off. Her whole body looks like it's being covered in bruises now. It's like she has this crazy superhuman strength. And in order to even get her to stop, they have to tie her down with ropes.

just running a rope around her until she can't even move an inch. Wait, so she's saying that she has been possessed? By the goddess of mercy. And she is keep harming herself. Yes. The parents look at each other because at first they thought maybe our daughter is a spiritual medium, but this is not the goddess of mercy inside their little girl. This feels like something else. This feels like a demon.

Sister A's eyes look different. I mean, they say that she starts laughing, but having these eerie bursts of laughter that sound very maniacal. And she starts dancing around her siblings, almost like she's taunting them. I am the goddess of mercy here to quell the chaos and eliminate adversity for you.

That night, the six of them are back on their knees in front of their ancestral tablets, their altars, praying another sleepless night, trying to figure out what is going on. This is when they decide this is no ordinary possession, which means they cannot have an ordinary solution. They must go to the Five Finger Mountain and get rid of the evil spirits for a singular month. So while the three sisters are gone, the Wu parents and the youngest son are left at home alone. They decide we need to cleanse this place before the sisters come back, because if they come

back and the demons are still in this house what is the point of them being gone for a month

According to Masters of Spirits, they say someone's front door can tell you a lot about what's going on inside that home. The front door is a very important boundary between the outside world and the safety of the home. It's the critical line between the two realms, the outside world and the inner sanctuary. It's a physical entrance, but it also has an energy border, if you will. Now, this is not an attempt to be dramatic about a literal front door. Historically, there are households that would perform sacrificial rituals to door spirits.

That's what they're called. To make sure that their doors are properly managed and well protected. There's door deities that are supposed to help guard against evil influences, but they can't be so stubborn and not letting anything into your front door because then you're not going to get wealth and good fortune either. So it's a very tricky balance. You don't want to piss off the door deities. In China, you will see like they put like two, almost like a painting stick, one on each door. So there are two of them.

To help you guard the doors. Yes. So people will do rituals for them. And like rituals, I'm not talking weird rituals. Like they'll just offer fruits and stuff. Now, right upon entering the Wu family house, the master that they've invited to cleanse the entire residence sees a fox spirit standing guard at the door. That's what he says. Now, seeing any sort of spirit at anybody's front door is a very worrisome sign, let alone a fox spirit.

He said, "A fox spirit typically is a symbol of chaos. Foxes are sly. They're mischievous little creatures. They like to get into all the little naughty things. There are some that believe foxes can predict disasters. They can tell when there's impending doom coming. So to see one at the front door, that's not a good look.

But that's not even the main problem with foxes. Foxes are known to feed off of human vitality. In Taiwanese folklore, there's a tale of a village where young men kept falling mysteriously ill. Nobody knew what the problem was. They all ate different things. They're all drinking water from different streams. There's no reason for all of them to be sick. Is it the air? And the women were surprisingly fine.

It was later discovered that a family of female fox spirits had taken residence nearby and the female foxes were seducing and draining the men's vitality. Foxes may be here to cause chaos or to symbolize impending doom or to slowly suck the life out of the residents of the house. Not always, but that's how the master interprets this fox. Now, if it was just the fox standing at the front door, maybe the family would have been fine.

But the master tells them, this is a house filled full of fierce demons. If you live here for too long, you will definitely be eaten up. You will be possessed. There is no way around it.

As he's told to go further into the house, he keeps shaking his head no and starts walking out of the house. The master just tries to leave like he U-turns after a few steps into the Wu residence and Mrs. Wu, the mom, is not having it. She paid a pretty penny for this man to come into her home. He's going to tell her what's wrong and he's going to fix it.

Feng Shui, at its core, like I said, is making sure your home feels harmonious. It really depends on how deeply someone wants to take it. Some just take it purely as usage and design purposes. Yes, using a too large coffee table with sharp corners that you bang your leg against could be bad Feng Shui, but it's also just like a really bad design element.

Or others take it a bit more seriously. Certain plants, certain placement of furniture beyond design elements either bring positive or negative energy into the home. You don't want too much pieces of furniture with sharp corners, sharp edges, because it's a different type of energy that you're welcoming in. For example, some common feng shui tips. Don't keep broken items around in your home. Either fix it or get rid of it. Broken items carry broken, disrupted, chaotic energy.

Don't keep the toilet lid open when you're not using it. Open toilets are thought to drain wealth and positive energy. Avoid mirrors directly facing the bed. It's said that not only does it disturb sleep, it potentially invites a third party into your marriage.

Or place your desk in a position where it faces the office door, but it's not directly in line with it. If you're directly in line with it, any and all energy coming into the office, you will impact your work with. But you want to be able to see the door without being directly in line with the door because you want to see the opportunities that are coming your way. You need a clear line of sight, but you could take it even a step further. And the belief is that feng shui can impact the kind of spirits that come into your home.

The house they live in is positioned in a way where the sun does not come in. It's very dark. It's lightless. It has an irregular shape, which gives it extremely poor feng shui right off the bat. It's a house that basically invites the ghosts in. But worse than that, there is a road that goes up to the front of their home. They are at what's called a T-junction. They sit on a road, but there is also another road pointing directly towards them.

A home that sits on a T-junction, the master states, is very, very bad because the energy is all directed to the house and the rushing energy can be very harmful. It can bring in quite unstable spirits into the home and create a poison arrow, if you will, where the fast moving energy is almost attacking the home nonstop. It's relentless, right?

The master tells the family, over time, living in a house with bad feng shui will drain your spirit. And once you're in this vulnerable, weakened state, you can easily be possessed by bad spirits. Every day that the demons have been growing, it's even more dangerous to get rid of them. You have to be very, very proactive. Do you understand?

Now, side note, anybody living in a house in a T-junction, don't freak out. I think this has as much power over you as you believe it does. I would say most people that I know believe in feng shui in a rather casual, like they don't really believe spirits will come, but just the flow, the flow of your furniture. They honestly treat it more like a design suggestion. So don't freak out. Nothing's going to happen to you. But like I said, this is just an extreme case with people who have very strong, extreme beliefs. Yeah.

But conveniently, the master can fix it. For a price. He holds a multi-day exorcism. He states, "Now, the house is cleansed." There will still be upkeep maintenance, of course. But overall, it's good now. The Wu's thought,

Well, now that you say that, I do feel more relaxed. Even our bodies, I feel like the tension is loosened that we've been holding on to. But just to make sure that the house is ready for the sisters to come home, the Wu family, they purchased a lot of the talismanic papers, the charms from the master, as well as Josh Sticks.

Joss sticks are basically incense sticks and are often burned before a shrine. It's believed that if you have a perfumed joss stick to a certain deity, they will be pleased and give you their blessings. And even the number of joss sticks offered is meaningful. One stick is for worshipping the deceased. Two, for guardian spirits or for food offerings. Three is the most common. It represents the core elements.

Five is for worshiping the deities and the elements. Seven sticks is for the sun deity. And the nine sticks is the most auspicious, they say. It's used for worshiping Buddha's graces or guardian angels.

So you burn them at the altar or near the front doors or the windows. And technically, you're supposed to use the jaw sticks in a well-ventilated area. But the family decide, why don't we plug up every possible ventilation outlet and burn the jaw sticks? Because that would be the ultimate deepest cleansing. That would be the most condensed scent. And I think the deities would be the happiest.

They even hung fabrics outside their house. They're described as exorcism cloths, meaning that they've been blessed and prayed upon and it's supposed to give the person in need as well as the property of spiritual cleansing. It's thought that even touching the cloth can help drive the evil spirits out of you. They fill the entire apartment with the talismanic paper, the Fulu, if you will, and they fill it with the jaw sticks. They keep burning them. They hang the black clothes outside the window. They have the eight trigrams posted on their window by their front door.

This is when the three sisters are at the mountain. Yes. So the father and the parents and the son is doing this at home. Yes. To get them ready to come back. Because there's no point of them being in the mountain if they're just going to get tainted in the house all over again. And it works. A month later, the Wu sisters come back home from the Five Finger Mountain. And the family of six are reunited. Everyone seems to have their lives restored. The disaster is over.

Until one night, all three sisters lose their minds and they start chanting incantations saying they want to return home. This is not home. They need to go to their real home. And this is how everything spirals out of control until one ends up dead and five end up missing.

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you don't need to use warm water. Additionally, Tide Pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new cold-zyme technology. Just remember, if it's gotta be clean, it's gotta be Tide. The movie Incantation is a found footage horror film that people genuinely thought was cursed. Even if you watch this horror movie, you will be cursed. That was the consensus. One online forum post reads, Is Incantation movie actually safe for me to watch?

Can the movie invite actual demonic influence into my home? Viewers have reported feeling cursed after watching the movie. They say, I just watched Incantation last night. I said the chant like 20 times. Power went out a couple minutes later. I've never been so scared in my whole adult life. Another comment reads, just watch Incantation. I'm so freaking cursed now. I think this movie just literally cursed me.

The movie "Incantation" explores the idea of a shared curse, meaning just by watching the movie, by seeing the footage and repeating the incantation in the movie,

You now share the curse. The movie tricks you into staring at this symbol. The main character tells the audience because it's found footage. It's like she's vlogging. She tells the audience that the symbol is for blessings. She asks the audience to help save her daughter from the curse by chanting the incantation together. And she thanks everyone by wishing her daughter blessings so that she can be cured. But the truth of the movie is the symbol, the incantation, all of it is a curse.

The mother has asked the audience to repeat these things because she knows they are a curse so that they can take the burden of the curse away from her daughter. They can share the curse with the audience. In the real life case, there is also a shared curse.

It is that of shared delusion, collective psychosis of the entire family. So after getting back from the mountain, the three sisters start losing their minds. The family's gathered in the living room. The parents and the son are trying to figure out what to do, how to help the sisters. And also why are all three of them losing their minds? Why are they all possessed? All of a sudden they're burning more jaw sticks, chanting more incantations to get rid of the spirits inside their family members. And it's in the middle of

all of this that the dad turns to the rest of the family and he announces i am the jade emperor the jade emperor is a celestial ruler of heaven he has supreme sovereignty over all the deities immortals and humans he's the one if you remember from our baby garden episode the chinese zodiac animals were all in a race he's the one that organized the race

He represents the ultimate authority over the universe. He's a deity, and he's known to be quite compassionate and fair and merciful. And now Mr. Wu claims he is the Jade Emperor, which makes Mrs. Wu stand up. I mean, her husband just lost his mind, and so did her three daughters. And so has she. She states, I am Queen Mother of the West, one of the most ancient and powerful goddesses, the Jade Emperor's wife.

Wow. Wow.

Then we have the third sister, the one that came home from college and started having the nightmares. She claims she is now the third prince, the protector of children, the guardian prince. Leaving just the youngest Wu family son, he looks up at his family members standing there and he says, everyone stop. I am the drunken monk.

What? This is another character from mythology, a monk that was unconventional in the fact that he was always drunk, but his heart was always in the right place. Oh, I know. Yes. Okay. Okay. Ji Gong is the name. So they're all good deities from what I can tell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The whole family at this point believe that they're all possessed. But what are the odds that all six of them are possessed by good deities?

Slim to none, that's what they think. They think there must be at least one person in this family that has been possessed by a devil, and that is why everybody else is possessed by a good deity to get rid of that demon. And it's up to them to figure out the fake one.

When the police are called to the Wu residence, the family are not found until three days later. So they find the eldest sister A's body and then the family is found three days later in a temple about an hour away from their home. The five remaining Wu family members are covered in bruises as well as the same scars that sister A had, those circular burn marks.

The police have so many questions. Sister A is dead. The whole house is smeared in poop. The rest of the family have similar burns to Sister A. What happened in the past two months in that house? At this point, the dad refuses to talk to the police. He states he will be haunted by demons by disclosing secrets. He's not taking that risk ever again. The police try to talk to the mom. The mom is sitting curled up in the interrogation room and the interrogator is trying to ask her where the family has been for the past few days. We had to leave to avoid disaster.

Avoid disaster? What disaster? The mother looks up and starts shouting. She seems paranoid. She keeps looking around. If you don't leave, you might be possessed. When confronted with her daughter's death, the mother just kept repeating, it's not my daughter who died, but the demon who was attached to her.

The police are getting frustrated, so they try to think of something different. They bring in the emperor's ruler, which is this square wooden stick. It has sacred titles of deities and scriptures carved into the wooden stick. It's supposed to cleanse evil spirits and block them from entering. Do they believe in the emperor's ruler? No, the police do not. But it's only when they bring this in that everyone starts opening up and starts sharing what happened in the past two months. What? What?

The past two months has been an utter living hell in the Wu residence. Each one of them becomes possessed by a deity. They all come to the same conclusion that there's just no way that every single one of them is possessed by a good deity. So there must be a demon amongst the group because why else would they be possessed

suddenly possessed by powerful gods they just need to figure out who is the demon so first they start by sprinkling the floors of the entire apartment with rice grains and salt because demons don't like that they believe the salt will purify the evil spirits and neutralize their bad intentions they start setting up ceremonial arrangements where they place ritual objects talismans offering in a specific layout to expel the evil spirits and each time they pick a new victim

They just go in circles being like, that one is the one with the demon. Neighbors said they would force, they would see this through the windows and they would hear it. They would force one of the family members to kneel down and they would just use their hands like automatic slappers, just slapping their face left and right to beat the demon out of them.

They do that to everyone. Yes. Including parents. Yes. And it's not working. So they start taking rice, turning it into sticky rice, mixing it with salt and smearing it all over each other to get rid of the spirits. Still nothing. Because the indicator is the demon is gone. The rest of the possessions will be gone. But if they're still possessed by these deities, that means the demon is still here in this very living room. Right?

They start smearing each other with sticky rice, salt, but nothing. And that's when they start beating each other. They take turns. Every day it's someone else with a broomstick, with mops, walking sticks. They're using the jaw sticks to burn holes into each other.

Like you would burn cigarette marks, but with the jaw sticks. It's said that deities prefer cleanliness, even demons. I guess the logic the family comes up with is that if the spirits, all spirits, even the bad ones, hate dirtiness, that means they like cleanliness. Then if you make yourself so dirty, why would a spirit want to be in you or be around you? Why would they possess you if they hate dirtiness that much? That's how they start smearing human excrement all over the walls, as well as on the dinner plates.

They splash each other with urine and feces. And when that still does not work, they resort to cleansing the spirits from within, which I guess in that moment in their minds, it makes sense to a degree that they would need to consume the feces and urine. They start fasting. They don't eat any other food. And this is actually showcased in the movie as well, Incantation. They start starving and only feeding themselves feces.

The entire family showed the authorities all their scars to show the eldest daughter was not the only one injured in this mass exorcism they were trying to hold. But still, it doesn't matter. Clearly, her injuries were the worst that caused her to die, to which the mother has a theory. She explains to the detectives that the demon that possessed her daughter was successfully exorcised. Because of the exorcism, because she was the first to get possessed and had been possessed for so long, her real soul could not return to her body, which led to her death.

After two months of torture, Sister A, the eldest, had passed. And now talking about it, the family seemed relieved. They finally got the demon that was plaguing the family. I mean, even if it results in the loss of their own daughter, they seem relieved.

The police obviously bring in a psychiatrist to evaluate the family one by one. The psychiatrist states that none of them have any sort of mental condition that would set off psychosis. None of them are schizophrenic with hallucinations. Individually, they all seem like completely normal people. Completely normal people is how the psychiatrist phrases it, not me. But it's when they're together for those past few months,

What they all partake in, it seems like a shared delusion, collective psychosis. That's the only thing that the psychiatrist could come up with. It is the psychiatrist's belief that they genuinely believe that they were the demon inside of one of them. That is a belief that they shared.

Legally speaking, the burns and beating scars were not fatal enough to cause the eldest daughter's death. Her cause of death was multiple organ failure, which was her willingly eating feces paired with her willingly starving herself, which led to her organ shutting down. The prosecutors state that it does not appear that she was forced, trapped, or bound to any of those things. She was beat, but they don't believe that she had no way out. It seems like she was as deep in the delusion as everybody else.

The family members were initially charged and found not guilty of murder. Their exorcism did not directly result in her death. They were charged with then the crime of abandoning a corpse after death. But it does not appear that any of them served any jail time. So basically, they do believe this is the actual event. Like they all kind of...

felt like they were possessed and that was the truth and a lot of people who know the family for i mean as long as they've been around they said that they are especially superstitious they are probably as extreme as it gets so it's not out of nowhere it happened it seems like it's ingrained in them they had this very long-term belief in these types of things yeah yeah yeah and just like that after this the family goes back to living normally

No possessions, which has sparked a lot of people to come up with their own theories because how can they just suddenly go back to normal? Some netizens believe that they were actually possessed by spirits. And now that the demon spirit is gone, the family has naturally returned back to normal. Some neighbors believe this to be true because after the eldest daughter's death, all of them start donating money to the family to exercise the spirits of the eldest daughter from the house once and for all.

Because your daughter died in here, you need to exorcise the house all over again. So some of these people have very firm beliefs that this is genuinely what happened. Some argued one of the biggest problems here is that the family enshrined many different statues of gods at the same time, which means the gods had to compete for the incense they believe in, which then caused them to go after family members to try and gain more power in the home. One netizen comments, they were all possessed by evil spirits and demons, and that's why this happened.

Then you have most people who believe they were in a shared psychosis, a shared delusion. I would say that, yeah, the family was entranced, just not by demons. One source states that the local psychiatrist actually believes the family to have been a state of mass hysteria. They say a lot of people might find it hard to believe considering how few of the family members were in the medical field. So two of them were studying to be nurses. One of them was already a nurse, the daughter's.

But the family has always been very superstitious. So that coupled with sleep deprivation, lack of food and water, the repetition of praying at the altars. One netizen comment reads, the whole family is sick. Sometimes being too superstitious is also a disease. Another one comments, I once heard a Taoist priest say, if you feel something strange about your body, please see a doctor first. If you still don't feel well, then you come to us for treatment.

So they're saying, I mean, this is a very real belief and a lot of people honor it, but this is just so extreme. Another netizen writes, there is nothing wrong with the faith itself. It can be a spiritual substance, but excessive superstition is a huge mistake. One netizen agrees, writing, faith should lead people to the right path and bring peace of mind rather than causing trouble to others or even harming themselves or others.

Another group of people believe, yes, they were in a state of mass hysteria, but it was brought on by a bad master. They likely went to a public temple in the mountain in the woods, the Five Finger Mountain, where they think that maybe they had run into someone who does not practice these types of things well.

Someone who perhaps wants a lot of money and sees this as an opportunity, a family who is so distraught by even just a few nightmares, he starts implanting all these crazy ideas into the sisters' minds before they leave. Likely the master never thought it would spiral into something like this, but it did. Then you have another group of people that think, well, aside from superstitions, let's put aside mass hysteria. Some people are even more cynical of people and they think that the family from day one wanted to kill the eldest daughter.

Or at least the parents did. They tricked the other children into believing the superstition so that they could get the job done. There's really no proof behind this at all. I mean, there's no proof behind any of these theories or anything at all in this case. But they think, what if it's an expertly planned murder by the family to get rid of the eldest daughter for whatever reason?

Other netizens point out how it's convenient and interesting that the family comes back to their senses after the eldest daughter's death and they're never possessed again. I would say that's a little tricky, but that's a belief that is floating out there. And lastly, a good chunk of people believe, yeah, it could also just be mold poisoning.

They're saying that the apartment that they lived in was a little bit older. It was a little bit more run down. And Taiwan being near water, things get moldy. It's a very tropical climate. Yeah, it's very humid during summer. So people are saying it could have been some sort of toxic substance in the house. Has anybody looked into that? And they're not getting ventilation because they're closing up all the windows. They're getting sleep deprived. It could definitely be mold poisoning. Yeah. Yeah.

So there's a lot of discourse about all of that, but that's the case. That's it. They just went on to live the rest of their lives. Nobody has really heard from them since. To the point where people are like, this feels like an urban legend. So the movie was inspired by this case or? Inspired by the case. Really? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and there's a lot of discourse about the movie as well, incantation. I think it's very interesting. So some netizens have stated the message of the film is brilliant because they state it's a replication of religion and spiritual beliefs in a movie form.

So if you believe in a spiritual belief or a religion in real life, right? It becomes more real to you. So same with the movie. They're saying, if you say these incantations and you are a little bit more superstitious, then you're going to believe you are cursed. So it really is fascinating. That's what people say. I don't know. Okay. They state that the fact that everyone is in a theater chanting this terrifying curse, you could go one or the other way with it. You could go home thinking you've been cursed or you could realize, wow, it no longer holds power.

Because when all of us are chanting it, nothing happened. So there's also this discourse of a lot of these things feel very individual based. Like nobody wants to be individually cursed. But when they're doing it in a group, it feels like a crazy fun human experience activity. I don't know.

See, even like this whole case, I just feel like as someone who's not very spiritual, it feels like, let's say the family, everything they said was true. It just feels like they're very open to suggestions. So it started with a dream and then they believed it and they act upon it.

And then they feel like the big, the eldest daughter feel like, oh, she is possessed. And then she started having dreams and then they took action and then they feel like things are better, but then like something else happened. So everything's like suggestion. And then they all lost their mind.

Oh, and just another quick disclaimer. Religion and spiritual practices are different. I keep grouping religion into it because a lot of people in Taiwan consider it a religion. Some people consider it more so like a folk religion that they practice. Some consider it like a full-blown religion, so that's why. But I do think it's very interesting because...

I'm not a very spiritual person, but I am incredibly superstitious. And I think I forced myself not to go down that path because what you were saying of once you know something, you start spiraling. So I feel like if I were to talk to someone who could spiritually tell me my future or how I behave, it would just be living in my head. You're more...

Suggestible. Yeah, you're more suggestible. So suggestible. You will start to see things and feel things and think about these things constantly in your head. Because I know a lot of people might look at the family and think, wow, this is so dumb. But I can't even do that because I think I'm a little bit more suggestible than most people. So I feel like if I were really in that situation and I grew up in that environment with my family believing in all of this so strongly, especially parents believing it.

Those are your guidance figures. So it's very interesting. Yeah.

Yet the director of the movie once stated,

So he's not saying the religion is fake, but the movie itself is fake. He's saying all the incantations, the symbols, they made up. Someone just like whipped it out. But people are so scared, even though they're told it's fake, it's fake, it's fake. I wanted to put those elements into a film so that when the audiences watch the film, they feel like they shouldn't continue watching. It's very interesting. What are your thoughts on this case? Let me know in the comments. Please stay safe and I will see you in the next one.