Taoist magic is famous for its FU Talismans, which we call FU 符. You can see FUs done on yellow paper all the time, but they could also be done in other colours. The purpose of a FU is like a ticket that requests help from the gods and allows the gods to give you magical power and help you with things such as exorcism, protection, luck improvements, etc. FU doesn’t work or have any power until it goes through a ceremony called Chick FU 勅符, which roughly translates to Sanctification. This ceremony is done to present the FU(s) to the gods and get the approval and magical power deployed into the FU(s), making the FU effective and powerful.
FU(s) are symbols and writings which doesn’t always have to be done on paper. Sometimes it can be done midair, into water, cloth, or other surfaces. You might ask, “Why can’t we write whatever we want god to do on paper like a letter or a note? Wouldn’t that be much easier and faster?”
That is a good point, but that is why FU(s) were needed. FU(s) represent a lengthy message like a shortcut method. It’s like a symbol you see on the road sign; they are made simple so we can use one symbol or icon to relate to many different scenarios and understand what to do quickly. Every FU(s) are meant to contain a lot of information inside, which could be elaborated into many pages of text. For example, a protection FU would look like a normal FU with some symbols, but think about the details of how you want the protections to be done, it could vary for different people and scenarios, and there are many ways to protect you, protect you against what? With one FU, it can fit all the situations that fall into the same group. Every disciple can do the same FU and relay the same message to the gods quickly instead of thinking about how to elaborate and express the message every time.
These FU(s) symbols and default designs or codes are all recorded in the lineage’s system in the celestial court. When you submit the FU(s) during the sanctification ceremony, it’s like you have sent in the coded tickets into the system, then the system will know how to read it and give you what you have requested. The words are for the gods at the court to understand, not for human beings. Sometimes codes could be in shapes or scribbles too. The gods understand them because they were once recorded into the system.
The System of FU Codes
The codebook of the FU(s) symbols and codes is called FU LUK 符籙, kept in the celestial court as the main power source. Every sect or lineage would have its own FU coding and language systems. That is also why you cannot just copy FU(s) from random books you bought outside and use them because you do not belong to that sect or lineage, so you are not connected to their power source. The FU(s), spells, and all magical methods are exclusive to the sects and cannot be mixed because they can only be understood by the gods of the exclusive sect.
A common misunderstanding is that the FU(s) symbol has magical powers that give you the results. That is not true. The symbols and writings are just words to relay the message; they have no power alone. It’s the gods that give you the power and help! Think about the tickets that the waiter writes when he takes your order at the restaurant, it goes into the kitchen, and the chef cooks the food. You can imitate the server and write the same thing at home; it doesn’t becomes food magically because there is no chef to cook for you. Even if your mother is a chef, she might not understand the restaurant coding system, so she doesn’t know what that symbol means either. Let’s say your mom knows what the symbol means, yet can she produce the same food quality as the restaurant?
The symbols are just a communication tool! You need the gods to give you help and not the paper or symbol itself.
FU(s) You Can Make
Ordinary people can also make their FU(s) if they know what they are and how it works. The difference is that yours won’t have the power as the professional ones because the power source is different. If you recall from the article “What is God,” we have talked about how ordinary people create gods too, and how they differ from the cultivated ones from the professional paths. However, they will work, too; you can witness it by following the instructions below.
FU(s) are symbols that allow you to communicate with the gods and request help.
Your god now, as an ordinary person, is your Yuen Sun (spiritual planetary body). You can create little gods, described in the article “Spiritual Embryo,” which serve as little connection points that channel down the power from the Yuen Sun to the min-gods.
First, set an intention; let’s say you want to create a symbol for good luck in your career. Create that symbol and record it in a book. Only you would know what it means and what it is for. Then, on a piece of paper, you would write this symbol and keep this paper with you. As long as you have faith in this FU, it will work! It seems too simple to be true?
The requirement is that you would need to have faith in it, which means you have to believe it will do the job without the need for evidence. Then you would need to have the desire, which means you must want the help to be there. At last, you need to have a vision of what to happen as a result. Just keeping this paper now doesn’t do the job yet. You might already have faith, or you won’t even try to make it. Your desire and vision are there too because you knew it would help your career – but HOW can god help?
When you are at work, you can add more information to the FU and talk to it to increase the other elements. For example, you are going into a meeting to do a presentation; then you hold the paper, talk to the god in your heart, and tell it to help make people believe you and feel you are good, etc. After you talk, put the paper back into your pocket. If you are handing out papers or anything to the people in the room, you can scribble the symbol over them mid-air, drawing an invisible FU. Every symbol you draw allows the god to be deployed into these places to do whatever you need them to do. For example, into the water and coffee, s that people who drink them will feel you are the best guy in the room. When you are presenting, your boss is also looking at you and waiting to give you a review. You could draw the symbol over his face by using your eyes (invisible method) to make him like you and give you a good mark. You might be going to shake hands with some VIP, touch the paper FU in your pocket and then shake hands; it’s like dipping your hands into the magic ink and letting the ink goes onto everyone’s palm to make them feel good about you and such. After a day, you might have used the symbol more than you think. Since the presentation is over, you can burn the paper and send the god back to the Yuen Sun. Next time you have similar things, do the same thing again and keep using the FU for similar things daily.
You don’t always need to use the FU on paper; that is only one of the many ways. Every symbol you deploy will have a spiritual embryo that attaches to it, and the embryo will mature to become a god when you have deployed the magic. That means you are using many gods daily with this magic. The gods will return to the Yuen Sun when you sleep and group together because they are all used for the same purpose. This “group of gods” becomes one big god in the Yuen Sun for a specific purpose or category of purpose, which you can now name it something like God of Wealth or whatever you feel like naming it.
The Yuen Sun will have more and more gods of different categories as you grow your magic system. For example, you might have a symbol for love-related things, one for protection, one for health, etc. These specific category gods gather up at the Yuen Sun and stay there, which makes the Yuen Sun your personal “Celestial Court” with all the gods inside. You can always have a main god which you use the most and set that as the “boss” of all gods. Name the gods, and record the gods (category based) in your magic book. There goes your magic system. Whenever you do the magic and draw out a spiritual embryo with the symbols (FU) again, they will get the power channelled down from the Yuen Sun, and inside the Yuen Sun, these category gods will give them the proper type of power. Now you have understood the purpose of having the gods in the “sky” and why some gods the local. Those in the celestial court are called Tin Juen 天尊 and stay in the Yuen Sun forever. The more you use that type of magic or that category of god, the more powerful it gets. You are now cultivating the god’s power by using them more and more daily. By using these magic often, you are already worshiping your own gods.
You can see how easy it is to create your gods but how hard it is to cultivate them because you need to use them here and there daily to allow them to “work” and grow in power. Creating gods is easy, but cultivating them is hard. Now you understand why you should get ordained to learn the magic that calls the cultivated gods instead of creating your own. First, the gods in the lineage’s system are way stronger and more cultivated than those you can create. Secondly, the lineage system is already developed; you must learn how to use it. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel! Last and most important is that people are working to cultivate the same bunch of gods together in a lineage, and that is like having a team doing the farming together versus one person “farming” at home in the backyard. We all know that teamwork beats everything.
If you have read the article on our nine main gods, you should also know that many people cultivate our gods before us in another world, which we call Daai Law Tin. We are not starting from scratch and creating something new. We are learning to cultivate something that already developed and matured long ago.
Our 9 main gods: Dei Law, Tin Law, Daai Law, Saam Law, and Sun Lung Jo Si. Then Gum Lung, Jee Lung, Ng Lui and Baak Hork Sin Si.
When to Need a FU
Some disciples are still determining when to request a FU from the headquarters. They can make their FU at home after they have been ordained; why do you need the headquarters to make you one?
That is true; you can create FU and sanctify them at home too. However, your god at the altar or in your body is not as cultivated as mine. When you sanctify the FU, you can only connect the FU to the gods that belong to you, which is the god at the altar or the god inside your body. If you want help from the gods, you can make a FU yourself first and see if it is enough. If you need more help, you can request one from the HQ for more power.
The fact is, FUs are mostly for providing a way to help the outsiders and not the disciples or ourselves. If the gods want to help us, they can do it anytime, even if we never wrote a FU because we are ordained, and they can track us down through the lineage’s network system. However, they cannot track down outsiders because they have no relationship. For example, you are ordained, but your mother is not. Your mother got sick and went into the hospital; you would need a FU to help her recover or protect her.
My teacher from Daai Law Tin always tells me that if a disciple or myself is behaving well and being a good Taoist, it is a promise from the gods that they would guide us and help when needed. You might not even need to draw any FU to request the help because they had already helped before you realized the problem was there. Remember that this can only happen for those disciples who are GOOD and BEHAVING WELL! This has motivated me to be a good Taoist!
However, for anyone or anything not part of the lineage, FU is needed to deliver the powers to them. Your car, house, belongings, pets, friends, and relatives are not part of the lineage’s system!
To recap, you can use FU(s) for yourself anytime, but getting the FU(s) from HQ is always more powerful. Especially if you have used your own FU(s) already and the problem still needs to be dealt with, then you must use the FU(s) from HQ to escalate the powers.
FU(s) are very powerful tools, and you can have a FU for any matter needing help. There would be one in the book already, but if there isn’t one, you can also create one. The programming system of the FU(s) codes and grammar is fascinating once you reach the advanced level. A FU is like the chemistry of magic; it has a lot of knowledge and wisdom behind it.
Ordain today to learn how to write FU(s) and make FU(s) for other people around you; it is a great way to spread the Tao and earn your credit in the celestial court of the lineage, which benefits you for your after-death trip to ascend to the Taoist heaven, Daai Law Tin!