“There are a lot of ways to communicate with the dead and how you do it depends on how your sixth sense for the afterlife develops through training. As a medium, I don’t directly contact ghosts or dead people, I actually channel Buddha and other deities more.
“Like, now it’s the seventh month of the lunar calendar” – when, according to Chinese tradition, the gates of hell open and spirits roam the human plane – “and people might want to get in touch with their loved ones who have passed away.
“There are a lot of factors as to whether we can get in touch with spirits in the afterlife. If they’ve reincarnated or are in hell, then we can’t.
“The manner in which they’ve passed makes a difference, [as does] in which ethereal planes the spirit ends up. I usually channel the deities and ask them to help locate a particular person. Sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t.”
Superstitions regarding the seventh month of the lunar calendar have a real economic impact in Hong Kong.
Major life events, such as moving to a new place or getting married, are avoided during this month. On the more extreme end, some people do not go out at night altogether.
Leung started practising Luk Yam Taoism – one of two branches of Taoism in Hong Kong that mainly deal with spirits and ghosts – and became a Buddhist disciple in 2013. Several years into his training, he had a calling to go to the Shaolin Monastery, in China’s Henan province.
“I had a vision when I was meditating and I was just compelled to go there. I had no idea how to even get there but within three days I was standing on the steps of the temple,” he says.
“When I looked up it was the exact image I saw in my head when I was meditating. It didn’t take long for me to find out that the Bodhi Dharma cave was only a few hours’ hike up the mountain. So I went, and spent half a day there meditating.
“I felt I had a divine epiphany up there. When I returned, it became clear that I was able to channel deities easily and see spirits a lot more clearly.”
Someone who is being impacted by malevolent spirits should really reflect on whether they have done any bad deeds themselves
Leung explains that how strongly he receives a message from a spirit depends on how long ago the person died.
“A lot of the time my clients want to know if their deceased loved ones are at peace, and sometimes I ask the help of the deities to find this spirit to see if they’ve already reincarnated or otherwise.”
Leung remembers receiving a call that his friend’s sister-in-law had committed suicide during a typhoon.
“As soon as [my friend] called me I already saw an image in my head that she was stuck in the loop of rebirth and torture, where she was doomed to keep dying by suicide,” he says.
“She was already suffering. I told my friend he had to hire someone to perform the rites to cleanse her spirit. It’s not my speciality, so I couldn’t help any further. In the end, a few of the family members collectively had a dream that she was at peace.”
Asked whether different cultures affect how he sees the ghosts in other countries, Leung explains that like people have different beliefs and religions, their spirits in the afterlife behave differently as well.
“It’s true that ghosts in Southeast Asia are indeed stronger,” he says.
“I was in Penang recently and the spirits over there are very clear apparitions,” Leung says. “In Hong Kong, a lot of times they are just wisps of energy and aren’t even corporeal forms at all, but in Southeast Asia I’ve seen some have the strength to move objects.
“I went to a refurbished Nyonya house [Peranakan townhouse] for dinner one night and they gave us a private room upstairs that used to be a bedroom. The wooden bed was still in the room and when I went to the door I saw an obese female ghost sitting on the bed, both her hands around the necks of two weaker ghosts,” he says.
“She knew I could see her and gave me a look that dared me to go in the room.”
Luckily, a table freed up in the main dining room and he avoided the ethereal confrontation by dining away from the malicious spirit.
Leung says there have been many instances where he has not been able to help someone who believed they were troubled by spirits.
“First of all, it’s not that easy to be possessed by a ghost. You have to be really down on your luck or you’ve done something that has brought you really bad karma,” says Leung who, as a Buddhist, believes in reincarnation and karma from previous lives.
“Before I try to contact the spirit who is haunting someone, I do consult the deities on whether it is karma from a previous life, as those are the hardest to find a solution to. If it really is someone who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, it usually is quite easy to contact the spirit and help them move on.
“However, someone who is being impacted by malevolent spirits should really reflect on whether they have done any bad deeds themselves.
“We believe that the health of a person’s aura is a result of their everyday behaviour. If you have stolen from people or hurt people with malicious intentions, this would weaken your aura and make it easier for these spirits to latch on.
“If you’re a good person who does a lot of good deeds and with good intentions, it makes it a lot harder for these ghosts and spirits to bother you.”