2005 Kaohisung Incident

In 2005, a family of six went mad and committed acts of violence under the delusional belief that they were possessed by gods from ancient Chinese folk religions while accusing each other of being demon possessed. While little records remain today regarding what transpired, what is known about what transpired was enough to convince religious people everywhere that demonic possession and, by extension, supernatural events in general, are possible, while others instead took it as evidence that Karl Marx's claim that "religion is an opiate of the masses" is indeed a fact.

## Background

The Wu family were a family of six that were strong believers in ancient Chinese paganism. The father was a fifty-six-year-old painter who had a son and two daughters. The eldest daughter was a nurse. They lived in the Gushang District, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. According to various Asian news sources, they worshipped Ne Zha, the Third Lotus Prince and they also worshipped at a residential altar in Nanzi District, Kaohsiung City.

## Course of events

At the end of February of 2005, the youngest of the Wu children suddenly claimed she’d been possessed by Ne Zha and claimed that the eldest daughter was possessed by an evil spirit and needed to return home. Convinced by their daughter’s words, the family phoned the eldest daughter, Wu Fengjuan, and she returned home. However, upon returning home she claimed to have had dreams about being r\*ped. A month later, after answering a phone call, Wu Fengjuan suddenly claimed she’d been possessed by Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, known in Chinese as Guanyin, and that she wanted to rid the world of disasters and solve problems for others. She also began to self-harm frequently. According to various blogs and Chinese news sources, the family responded by bringing her to the Five Finger Mountain in Hsinchu, Taiwan for meditation. After spending three months there, the family returned home.

It was at that point that the rest of the family suddenly claimed to have been possessed by different entities as well. The father claimed to be the Jade Emperor, and the mother the Queen Mother, a demonic entity that repented and achieved enlightenment, the son claimed to be the Living Buddha of Jigong, and the middle daughter claimed to be the Seven Fairies. In a confusing and dark twist, each of the family members believed that they were the only ones possessed by a deity and that every other family member was demon possessed.

Under this manic delusion, the family began beating each other, burned each other with incense, sprinkled salt and rice all over the house, and, most disturbingly, force fed each other their own feces and drank their own urine, believing that doing so would exorcise the demons inhabiting the other family members. This episode of madness lasted an entire month. The sounds of fighting, shouting, and howling day in and day out even frightened their neighbors, who refused to return home out of fright. According to some reports, in addition to howling and shouting all day, the mad family would do strange dances throughout the house.

At some point during the madness, the family somehow convinced themselves that Wu Fengjuan had become the source of their current situation and proceeded to imprison, beat, burn and starve her.

Eventually, Wu Fengjuan died, the cause of death having been speculated to have been a result of the beatings she’d endured and forced starvation. However, her family believed that it was the demon inside Wu Fengjuan who died, not Wu Fengjuan herself. To make things even more perplexing, the mother of the family began to believe she’d been possessed by her dead daughter’s soul.

The next day, the family finally snapped out of their stupor and realized she had really died. Instead of going to the police, the family dumped Wu Fengjuan’s corpse in front of a hospital in the middle of the night and it was not found until the next morning.

Police soon took the family in for questioning, but they were not charged with murder. They were instead charged with “abandoning of a helpless person resulting in their death”. The records do not mention exactly how long of a prison sentence the family got for what transpired but it is implied they got at most five years of prison time.

Upon investigation of the Wu family’s residence, the reports indicate that police and forensic experts discovered the Wu residence in shambles, with fecal matter, strange incantations and symbols covering the walls. Following a psychiatric evaluation, it was determined the family had experienced an episode of shared delusional disorder, or mass hysteria. The cause of this madness remains a mystery to this day.

## Aftermath and analysis

Although the incident was sustained, the details are hazy and inconsistent. There are some, like American Rodney Batt, who believe the Taiwanese government covered up the incident to avoid causing a massive panic amongst the Taiwanese populace. However, some, like conspiracy theorist and theologian Derek Westbrook, believe the incident to have been artificially engineered by sinister religious fanatics for an unknown purpose. Still, others are convinced that the incident is proof that demonic possession and, by extension, supernatural events in general, are fact and not just the ramblings of religious madmen.

## Sources

* In 2005, a family of 6 in Taiwan Province collectively "became immortals" and fed each other feces to drive away evil spirits.
* A family of six started feeding each other poop.
* The Horrific True Story Behind Netflix's Incantation • Explaining Horrors