Yahoo – AFP,
Tran Thi Minh Ha, 13 June 2014
 |
A "Len
Dong" dancer performs with candles at a local temple in Hanoi
on March 25,
2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)
|
Hanoi (AFP)
- The Vietnamese spirit medium dances in a trance, attacking invisible enemies
with a sword as drums beat, musicians chant, and dozens of curious onlookers
watch in amazement.
Civil
servant by day and practitioner of traditional spiritual possession rituals
when the mood takes her, Nguyen Thi Hoa is clad in a richly embroidered red
robe as she performs a Len Dong ceremony at a private Hanoi temple.
"I
have no idea what I've been doing," Hoa told AFP after the five-hour
performance, which involved at least 15 costume changes.
 |
A "Len
Dong" dancer performs as attendees
watch at a local temple in Hanoi on
March
25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)
|
"I
could not believe I had smoked like a chimney and drunk like a fish," the
normally teetotal 52-year-old said.
"Could
you tell me what I told you to do?" Hoa, who is not a professional Len
Dong shaman and only undertakes the rituals when the spirits move her, asked
friends who had watched the entire performance.
Len Dong,
which uses musical invocations to lure spirits to possess mediums and
communicate with others, has been performed in Vietnam for centuries.
Practitioners
and attendees -- people can donate to help cover the costs of a Len Dong
performance without having to directly participate -- usually turn to the
ancient ritual to ease stress or hoping for help from the spirits with romantic
or professional problems.
For
decades, Len Dong was restricted by French colonial and Vietnamese communist
leaders, but the tradition is enjoying a flurry of popularity since
restrictions were relaxed a decade or so ago -- and some say it is a useful
vent for stressed citizens.
Old cure
for new ills?
Six years
ago, Hoa began suffering from insomnia, lack of appetite and tiredness.
Conventional doctors could not rid her of her ills.
 |
A "Len
Dong" dancer performs as
attendees watch at a local temple in
Hanoi on
March 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/
Hoang Dinh Nam)
|
On the
advice of a friend, she visited a Len Dong practitioner, who told her to try
performing the spirit possession ritual herself.
"To my
surprise, my health started improving at once," she said, adding that she
started seeing positive changes at work as well.
Len Dong is
an ancient Vietnamese custom which involves "calling the spirits of the
dead into the bodies of the living to connect past and present," one of
the main research books on the topic says.
Musicians
play traditional songs to help the shaman enter a trance. Multiple assistants
help the shaman to change costumes or prepare offerings -- from chickens to
"ChocoPie" snack cakes -- for the altar.
During the
ceremony -- an auspicious date for the event is carefully picked in advance by
the shaman -- the practitioner will seemingly drift in and out of a trance,
singing, chanting and dancing to the minimalist, rhythmic music.
"It's
not just the insane dancing of people who have lost their dignity," said
cultural researcher Ngo Duc Thinh.
The
practise of Len Dong can help people under intense stress or suffering from
low-level psychological disorders, Thinh, a renowned professor of Vietnamese
culture at a top state research institute, said.
"They
practice Len Dong to rid themselves of their problems and return to their
normal life," the professor, who has spent more than three decades
studying Len Dong, told AFP.
 |
A "Len
Dong" dancer performs with
incense sticks at a local temple in
Hanoi on
March 25, 2014 (AFP
Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)
|
"As
society develops, spiritual pressures multiply. Stress becomes more serious --
and this creates more chances for Len Dong," according to Thinh.
Social
stigma
Hoa
practices Len Dong at least twice a year.
"I
don't dare tell my mother as she would say I was crazy," said the
bureaucrat, who spends around 40 million dong (nearly $2,000) to put on each
performance.
Her work
colleagues, mostly communist party members, are also not aware of her Len Dong
practice -- the ritual has at times been considered heresy, and was totally
banned until the 1980s by the communists, although rituals continued in secret.
"I
received several warnings from police, asking me to stop my practice,"
said a professional Len Dong practitioner, speaking on condition of anonymity
about that period of time.
Even now,
practicing Len Dong can carry a government fine of around $250 which aims to
prevent private for-profit practitioners rather than genuine Len Dong devotees
like Hoa.
"The
government tried to ban it, but they in fact have failed. It's impossible to
ban Len Dong," researcher Thinh said.
 |
Votive
paper horses, used as offerings,
are placed outside a Hanoi temple while a
"Len Dong" dancer performs on March 25,
2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh
Nam)
|
But it
might be necessary to regulate it, some experts say.
Len Dong
practitioners usually offer their services at temples between Vietnam's lunar
new year -- usually around late January -- to the end of the third lunar month
in April.
Since
restrictions on the practice were lifted, business is booming and some newly
wealthy Vietnamese are willing to pay up to $50,000 for a Len Dong service.
The trouble
is, it is hard for people to tell the difference between genuine Len Dong
practitioners and con artists.
"Several
practitioners, who have only some ability, have used that to cheat people for
money," one practitioner told AFP.
"That
makes people confused -- they can't differentiate between real and fake Len
Dong."
 |
Tai chi practitioners in Yunyang, Chongqing. (File
photo/Xinhua) |
“… Spiritual Survival
Let me take
you back a bit. How many lifetimes have you slogged through old energy? Slogged
through it? You picked yourself up and the old energy of the planet knocked you
back. This is a metaphor of the old soul awakening to the realization of divine
purpose for itself and the planet, only to be ignored, or worse, to be
"found out" and then feared.
Old soul,
it seemed that you just get started on a spiritual path and it kills you. You
come back again and then you're enlisted in a war and it kills you again. You
come back, you awaken; you become even shamanic, and it kills you for being
enlightened. How many lifetimes has it been where all you can do is hold your
own and try to survive in a world of very old, dark thinking? Survival becomes
a word that means something completely different to the old soul. High
consciousness in an old energy is like a square peg in a round hole, and this
is what the old soul is used to.
Dear ones,
this is ending - all of it - and this was the prophecy of the indigenous of the
planet for this time. Here you are, ready for it. But the planet is not going
to suddenly become higher in consciousness, dear ones. Instead, the systems
around you and the energy around you are going to start getting easier, making
it far easier to survive for those like you. There will be far less resistance
and more openness of many people than ever before. This is the beginning
of a very slow shift.
This also
means that it's going to be easier for you to balance. We've used this
"balance" word over and over. Many times, those in esoteric belief
systems go into certain Human life categories because it's pure survival. It's
easy for you to be a hermit, speaking even to my partner. If you don't have to
show your light, it's easier. In the past if you showed your light, you were
hunted! You understand what I'm saying, don't you? For when you open the door
and the light spills out, everybody looks at you because you are different.
What's wrong with this picture? In the past, it has meant your demise. This is
what is changing. But it's hard to forget it. …”
