Briton arrested with roasted human foetuses for use in black magic ritual
A British man has been arrested in Thailand after being found with six foetuses that had been roasted and covered in gold leaf as part of a black magic spirit ritual.
Wat Arun, a popular riverside temple, Bangkok Photo: ALAMY
Ian MacKinnon in Bangkok
2:45PM BST 18 May 2012
The corpses of the unborn baby boys were found packed in a suitcase in his hotel room in Bangkok’s Chinatown district.
Chow Hok Kuen, 28, who holds a British passport but is of Taiwanese origin, confessed to police that he had bought the foetuses several days earlier for almost £4,000. The source of the foetuses is unclear.
He said he intended to smuggle them to Taiwan where they would be sold for as much as six times what he paid on the internet to people who believe that their possession would bring wealth and good luck.
The man told police that that he was hired by another Taiwanese man, named Kun Yichen, who regularly travelled to Thailand to collect the ritualistic foetuses.
Worship of the foetuses — observed by some on the Chinese community — is a Buddhist-animist practice known as Kuman Thong that is described in ancient Thai manuscripts.
In Thai black magic rituals, also observed among some Chinese communities, preserved foetuses are believed to bring good fortune to the owner and are often kept in shrines within homes or businesses.
It required male foetuses surgically removed from the womb that were then dried as black magic incantations were said over the body, before it was covered in gold leaf. Kuman Thong means “golden baby boy”.
Lore has it that if the owner reveres the ritual foetus, its spirit will warn and protect its possessor of danger. In practice the foetuses have been replaced by wooden effigies.
Chow Hok Kuen faces up to a year in jail and a fine of £40 for possession of the foetuses, which police said showed development of between two and eight months.
Officers made the gruesome discovery in the hotel in the Yaowarat district of Bangkok, where they found that the foetuses had also been tattooed and were adorned with religious threads.
Col Wiwat Kamhamnan, of Bangkok police, said: “He said he planned to sell the foetuses to clients who believe they will make them lucky and rich.”
Abortion is illegal in Thailand unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or poses a threat to the mother’s health.
But women’s rights groups estimate that up to 400,000 Thai woman undergo abortions each year.
Last year two undertakers and woman who collected foetuses from illegal abortion clinics were jailed after more than 2,000 corpses were found at a temple morgue when the furnace for the crematorium broke down.
The Telegraph
http://www.bible-history.com/faussets/M/Moloch/
(Jeremiah 49:1 MOLOCH or melech, "king" of the people. Malcham, Amos 5:26, Milcom, 1 Kings 11:5; 1 Kings 11:7, though originally the same as Moloch, assumed a modified character in time.) (See MALCHAM; MILCOM.) Ammon's god, related to Moab's god Chemosh. The "fire god", worshipped with human sacrifices, purifications, and ordeals by fire, habitually, as other idols were occasionally; also with mutilation, vows of celibacy and virginity, and devotion of the firstborn. The old Canaanite "Moloch" is always written with the article the Moloch; to him children were sacrificed in Topher in the valley of the children of Hinnom. But Milcom's high place was on the Mount of Olives, and human sacrifices were not offered as they were to Moloch (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Kings 23:13.) Josiah defiled the sanctuaries of both. Milcom was related to Chemosh, which is called the god of Ammon in Judges 11:24, though elsewhere the god of Moab (Numbers 21:29).
Tophet appears again in Zedekiah's reign as the scene of child immolation to Moloch (Jeremiah 32:35.) God sternly forbade any letting their seed pass through the fire to Moloch (Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:2-5) on pain of death, which the people should execute; otherwise God Himself would. The passing through the fire may have been sometimes only a fire baptism for purification of the dross of the body; but Psalm 106:37-38, shows that often expiatory human sacrifice was perpetrated, "they sacrificed their sons and daughters to "devils" (shedim, "destroyers", as Moloch was), and shed innocent blood ... unto the idols of Canaan" (compare 2 Chronicles 28:3; Jeremiah 19:5). In this respect Moloch answered to Baal the Phoenician sun god, to whom also human burnt offerings were sacrificed; also to Chemosh, to whom Mesha sacrificed his son (2 Kings 3:27; Micah 6:7; Ezekiel 16:20; Ezekiel 23:39). Kimchi (on 2 Kings 23:10) represents Moloch as a hollow brass humanlike body, with ox's head, and hands stretched forth to receive.
When it was thoroughly heated the priests put the babe into its hands, while "drums" (tophim from whence came Tophet) were beat to drown the infant cries, lest the parent should relent. The image was set within seven chapels: the first was opened to any one offering fine flour; the second to one offering turtle doves or young pigeons; the third to one offering a lamb; the fourth to one offering a ram; the fifth to one offering a calf; the sixth to one offering an ox; the seventh to one offering his son. Compare Amos 5:26 margin, sikut of Moloch, "the covert god." Acts 7:43, "the tabernacle of Moloch" (like the sacred tent of the Carthaginians: Diodorus 20:65), the shrine in which the image was concealed; containing also possibly the bones of sacrificed children used for magic. The portable model "tabernacle" (compare Demetrius' silver shrines of Diana, Acts 19:24) was small enough to escape Moses' notice. Amos calls Moloch "your Moloch" I am not your king but he, though ye go through the form of presenting Me offerings.
God similarly complains of their mocking Him with worship, while worshipping idols, Ezekiel 20:89. Moses was aware of their clandestine unfaithfulness in general, while not knowing the particulars (Deuteronomy 31:21-27). The Latin Saturn corresponds; to the Phoenician Saturn relatives were offered in an emergency (Sanchoniathon). So the Carthaginians, when besieged by Agathoeles, sacrificed to him 200 noble children (Diod. Siculus, 20:14) by placing them one by one in his hands in such a manner that each fell into a pit of fire. Moloch's priests took precedence of the princes, "Chemarim" (Jeremiah 49:3; 2 Kings 23:5; Hosea 10:5; Zephaniah 1:4).(See CHEMARIM.) Hercules' priest, like Moloch himself, was called Melchart, "king of the city." Adrammelech, the Sepharvaite fire god, is related to Moloch. In 2 Samuel 12:31 for the Hebrew margin reading malbeen, "brick-kiln," the Hebrew text has Malkeen, "David led through Malkan," i.e. through the place where the Ammonites had burned their children to Moloch. He made their sin their mode of punishment; as they had done to the children, so he did to them.
Bibliography Information
Fausset, Andrew Robert M.A., D.D., "Definition for 'Moloch' Fausset's Bible Dictionary".
bible-history.com - Fausset's; 1878.
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