Myanmar soothsayers cast their magic under junta rule
Thanlyin, March 9: From spells to win back an errant lover to help communing with the spirits, Myanmar’s mediums, soothsayers and wizards dabbling in the occult, are in high demand.
Most people here believe in a brand of Buddhism laced with animism and magic, but since the end of military rule such practices have burst into the open.
Win Win Aye is a parttime medium, who claims she has cured dozens of people of illnesses and curses — with the assistance of benevolent Buddhist spirits.
“I know when they have possessed me,” the 42-yearold says at her house in Thalyin, near Yangon, shortly after a session, which she conducts for free as a hobby.
“When I want to say something my mouth can't form the words, the person who possesses me says what he or she wants,” she says.
During the British colonial era and the half-century of military rule that followed many people used “weikza”, semi-divine Buddhist wizard-saints, to fight their oppressors.
Most of these sects were disbanded or pushed underground by the generals who seized power in 1962, deeply superstitious themselves they lived in fear of a supernatural strike back.
General Ne Win, who was prime minister in the 1950s and 1960s, was said to be particularly obsessed with the occult: he reportedly bathed in dolphins' blood believing it would help him regain his youth.
In the 1980s he almost ruined Myanmar’s economy by changing bank notes to denominations of his lucky number — nine.
But since the 2011 handover of power by the junta, magic is back in the open for ordinary people.