Characteristics of the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth

The Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth has both Feng Shui and magical aspects. In fact, the difference between the two is not significant; they are simply applied in different situations. Here, we discuss the purely magical aspect.

The original name of the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth was the 'Five Ghosts Yin Debt Technique.' Essentially, the Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth method is actually a technique for borrowing Yin debt. Later, some practitioners, in an attempt to conceal the harm it causes to people, renamed it 'Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth.' Because this more appealing name was easily accepted by the common people, it spread widely among the folk.

For a long time, although the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth has been widely circulated among the folk, it has mostly been fragmented and disjointed, lacking a systematic structure. Some versions have been improved to reduce the harm to the recipient, but correspondingly, their efficacy has nearly disappeared, or they only occasionally produce some results.

According to the classics collected in the Shanmen of the Yin Fu Sect, the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth is one of the 'Five Tongue Ghost Manifestation' methods. Others include the Great Law of Five Ghosts幽光 (Youguang) and the Great Law of Five Ghosts Confusing Souls, etc. Currently, the lineage of the Five Ghosts Great Law can be clearly traced back to the Suzhou and Hangzhou areas. It has clear written records dating back to the Tang and Song dynasties. According to silk book records, it existed even before the pre-Qin period. The 'Five Ghosts' they worshipped were not the ghosts as understood in the present world, nor did they achieve the goal of源源不断 (continuous) wealth transport by simply finding any five ghosts or ghosts from the five directions, as some schools claim. Such claims are mostly erroneous.

The 'Five Ghosts' are actually a title for the 'Five Tongue Ghost Manifestation.' What they worship are the Five Tongue Gods. The Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth is essentially borrowing Yin debt from the Five Tongue Gods. A common confusion among the folk is mixing up the titles of the Five Manifestation Great Emperor (Wuxian Dadi) and the Five Tongue God. Later, to explain this situation, it was forced to be interpreted as the 'Five Tongue abandoning evil and embracing good' narrative.

The Five Manifestation Great Emperor left behind the Huaguang Dharma lineage, which is one of the major Daoist lineages. The magic in this lineage is firm, upright, and radiates brilliance in all directions, with extremely strong effects of destroying evil and breaking邪气 (evil energy). Correspondingly, the Five Tongue is surrounded by ghostly energy and involves various Yin and evil arts that hook human desires. Thus, the two are completely different deities.

The magical power of the Five Tongue lineage is quite strong. Its evil arts can reach a level where the spell and the result respond to each other instantly; effects can be seen within moments of casting. It is a very powerful lineage, but it is overly Yin and damaging. The current Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth in the Five Tongue method undoubtedly originated from the Fangshan area in Suzhou.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth method was popular for a while. Many people went to borrow Yin debt and indeed became wealthy. However, borrowed Yin debt must be repaid. If one cannot repay it themselves, their descendants must pay. If accumulated to a certain extent, the family will generally suffer unexpected disasters, and the descendants will be cut off. No matter how many good deeds are done, it is useless. The most troublesome aspect is that this impact not only affects this family but also extends to their relatives and friends. Some people may wonder why those around them are affected, thinking they are innocent. But where in the world is there so much justice? If one worships the Five Tongue God and performs the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth to borrow Yin debt, the impact is not limited to one household but affects a large group of people, using their collective fortune to exchange for the ability to borrow Yin debt.

If you see someone suddenly becoming wealthy without reason, while those around them rapidly decline, you must be careful. This person has likely performed the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth.

Although there are various harms, the desire for money makes people disregard everything, just like opium in the past. The only difference is the object of consumption. Performing the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth is a method of drinking poison to quench thirst. Fortunately, the methods currently seen on the market are not complete. Most so-called Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth talismans are ridiculous and completely miss the true essence of the method.

To perform the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth with strong efficacy, the candidate magician needs to choose a cemetery for cultivation and needs to sacrifice and refine five human corpses. Just this one requirement already harms the harmony of nature. Then, one needs to take blood, hair, and nails from thirty-six new graves, and take a tendon from the altar of a woman who died violently for protection. Then, sacrifice to the Five Tongue, requesting the descent of the Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth, and write in blood the amount of debt borrowed, who is borrowing it, etc. After completing these steps, the magician will mark several points on the recipient's face to complete the ritual.

Simply borrowing Yin debt is just directly asking the Five Tongue God, but it will not be as effective. Moreover, the Five Tongue God is capricious; what is suddenly gained may also be suddenly taken away. The Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth avoids this problem, but correspondingly, repaying the Yin debt is like rolling up high-interest loans; the more it rolls, the more it increases. The more income, the more one's fortune decreases. Once it decreases to the point where it cannot be reduced further, the person will die suddenly, and the disaster will extend to their descendants and relatives and friends.

Therefore, although it was prosperous for a while, with countless wealthy people in the Jiangnan area, the famous salt merchants who smuggled salt specifically worshipped this god and were immeasurably rich. However, not long after, the court sent people to thoroughly suppress it, destroying many folk temples. Some places even directly changed to worship the Five Manifestation Great Emperor, completely replacing the deity. Plus, the Five Manifestation Great Emperor hates evil as his enemy, and his Gangqi (righteous energy) to break evil is extremely strong, which can also be used to suppress Five Tongue temples.

Although seeking blessings and fortune does not guarantee immediate results like the Five Tongue (not because the orthodox deity is ineffective, but because the human world is too complex; the orthodox deity can only guide towards the good, so naturally, some people's interests cannot be satisfied), there are no adverse consequences. Naturally, later the Five Manifestation replaced the Five Tongue. The folk legend of 'abandoning evil and embracing good' is purely a misinterpretation. Since the Qing Dynasty's Jiang Bin destroyed the Five Tongue temples during the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns, the worship of Five Tongue was initially banned. However, private borrowing of Yin debt among the folk continued endlessly. On August 18th of each year, a large number of people would go to repay Yin debt. Until the Daoguang reign, the Five Manifestation Great Emperor had almost completely replaced the Five Tongue God, allowing the Qing government to implement the ticket salt system, which single-handedly changed the salt merchants' monopoly.

Many of the Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth methods or talismans currently done under the banner of Daoism either have no effect at all or are merely repackaged ordinary wealth-attracting talismans to achieve slight effects. The true Great Law of Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth is something that harms others and oneself, yielding more loss than gain, which orthodox Daoist practitioners generally would not do.