One day a friend phoned up. He asked me to go to his house to pray because within the previous month.
- His children had started having nightmares
- His Quiet Times were dead
- Worship never took off
I sensed he had brought something into his apartment. I asked him and he left the room returning with an object wrapped up in a kha(b)tag(s) (silk scarf). The friend had just returned from a trip and had been given the object by the school where he had been teaching. To my horror he unwrapped a copper kang-gling (or trumpet) used by monks to exorcise demons.
A kangling or ritual trumpet
Clearly the trumpet had been dedicated to some divinity and had become spatially occupied by a spirit. It was no wonder that when my friend brought it into his apartment it impacted negatively his Christian life.
We not only dealt with the spirit occupying the trumpet but we destroyed the trumpet with a hammer (unlike some kanglings it was made of soft copper)
During my life in High Asia I have accepted a number of gifts with ritual associations, which I have subsequently destroyed.