Highlights

This acrylic painting on canvas captures the mystical presence of Cô Đôi Thượng Ngàn, a revered spirit in the Mother Goddess belief system of Vietnam. Depicted in the midst of the múa mồi ritual dance during a hầu đồng ceremony, the figure radiates b...

Introduction The ritual practice of lên đồng—also known as hầu bóng or đồng bóng—is a prominent feature of the Vietnamese Đạo Mẫu (Mother Goddess worship) and Tứ phủ (Four Palaces) belief system. It represents a distinctive form of folk spirituality,...

Purpose & Concept Hầu đồng offers participants, especially mediums (thanh đồng), a way to explain suffering, seek healing, and re-create identity. This zone invites visitors to engage with these dimensions through guided reflection, interviews, a...

In his research, Freud introduced the concepts of the conscious and the unconscious. The conscious reflects phenomena that humans pay attention to, phenomena about which they have relatively full awareness of existence, meaning, and value. The uncons...

Hát văn (ritual chanting) is a highly sophisticated art form that requires exceptional skill and versatility from the cung văn (ritual musicians). Beyond technical mastery, they must be agile and responsive, able to adapt lyrics, vocal timbre, and mu...

Hầu đồng is one of the central rituals in the Vietnamese Mother Goddess Belief. In many studies, this ritual has usually been approached from two main dimensions: the spiritual and the cultural. However, the psychological perspective—though full of p...

  Different Interpretations of the “Len Dong” Phenomenon According to the 10th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), “len dong” (spirit mediumship or trance possession) is a state in which an individual temporarily l...

Attending a hầu đồng session is like exploring a living museum, where layers of colors and symbols emerge through the incarnations of deities descending into the bodies of mediums—expressed via ritual songs (hát văn), music, dance movements, and espe...

During a recent workshop on preparing ritual costumes for hầu đồng, we had the chance to witness and practice the intricate art of folding and arranging khăn chầu—the ritual headdresses worn by mediums. What began as a hands-on experience soon unfold...

Hầu đồng is an important ritual in the worship of the Mother Goddesses of the Four Palaces (Tín ngưỡng thờ Mẫu Tam Tứ phủ). In essence, it is considered a ritual of communication with deities and spirits from the other world through spirit mediums (c...