"Crossing Over": Some Say He Lay Down, Fell Asleep, and His Soul Went to the Underworld First

People in the north and in the Fujian-Taiwan area both talk about "crossing over" (guò yīn), also called "walking the underworld" (zǒu yīn). It means a living person's soul goes to the underworld for a trip and then comes back.

In the old days, you'd ask someone who knew how—a yin-yang master, or sometimes just an old woman in the village. If someone fell sick with no clear cause, or a person went missing, and the family wanted to know how they were doing "on the other side," they'd send for her. She'd lie on a bed or sit on a stool, someone would stand guard, light a stick of incense, and she'd mutter under her breath. Then she'd go completely still.

What she said after waking up varied, but the pattern was always similar: she crossed a river, someone stopped her to ask questions; she entered a place that looked like a government office; she saw so-and-so standing in line. The family listened—if a detail or two matched, they believed it; if nothing matched, they figured she hadn't really made it there.

The rules were strict: while the soul was out, the body couldn't be touched, shaken, or shouted at, and no one could raise their voice nearby, or the soul wouldn't find its way back. Each trip took a toll on her, too, so true practitioners were rare, and those who could do it wouldn't do it lightly.

You barely see this anymore—just memories on the lips of the old. One explanation is that it's a kind of self-hypnosis; the practitioner believes it herself, so she tells a convincing story. Another take: when something goes wrong in a family, the whole village is waiting for an answer, and she's the one who can give it.

(Compiled from accounts that circulate online; the details cannot be checked one by one.)

#Paranormal #网络转载 #民间说法