Notes reveal litany of sinister tricks for good fortune

The geomantic secrets of the fung shui book that brought Tony Chan Chun-chuen good fortune - including tricks for attracting ghosts, mind control, sacrifice of life and even revenge killing - were unveiled yesterday.

But the fung shui master denied he knew any of the more sinister tricks and in fact could remember only one of the 80 rituals - how to enhance a person's luck by placing jade pieces.

He admitted that in the early 1990s he had given lectures at his fung shui school, Chun Yip Hing Lung Tong, based on the book, Heavenly Plans and Layouts - Celestial Atlas Arrangement, but said he could not remember most of the lectures.

Lecture notes presented to the Court of First Instance by one of Mr Chan's former students, Leung Kim-ho, listed celestial plans devised to kill, cast spells, prolong life, bring health, control a person's mind and pursue women or ill-gotten wealth. One, a so-called 'shadowing' plan, was said to make people indecisive and have hallucinations that changed their fate.

Another plan, 'Spirit', was said to erase people's unhappy memories and change people's minds to meet the arranger's requirements. 'Living' was a plan designed to give life through seducing a ghost and making use of the ghost's mentality. It also included sacrifice of life so that reincarnation could take place after 1,000 days. But if there was no ghost available, the arranger could 'seize the aura of human beings as an alternative'.

Eccentric procedures could include burning of money, placing jade beads and digging wells or holes.