How to Pray to the 'Good Brothers' During 7th Month

The core principle behind this entire ritual is hierarchy, honour the higher first, then work down. You never go straight to offering for wandering spirits. The correct sequence is: deities first (specifically the Earth Official, 地官大帝, on the 15th day itself, or the more general Puduh Gong, 普渡公, on other days of the month), then your own ancestors, then the Good Brothers last. This mirrors a real social logic, you'd greet the host of a gathering before greeting other guests, and this ritual is structured the same way.

Late afternoon, roughly 3pm to 5pm, is the traditionally preferred window, when yang (active, daylight) energy is thought to be weakening and yin energy rising, making it a more receptive time for spirits to receive an offering. Many families avoid doing this after full dark. Offerings happen most commonly on the 1st, 15th, and last day of the seventh lunar month, though some families observe it weekly throughout.

Each food item traditionally has its own stick of incense placed with it, marking it as available to be received.

1. Set up outdoors. Lay out the food on a table or a clean mat, with toiletries placed below or beside it, and a metal bin or pot ready for burning paper offerings.

2. Light a pair of red candles first. This marks the start of the ritual and is understood as lighting the way for spirits to find the offering.

3. First incense, the invitation. Light three main sticks, state your intention quietly (something like "we invite the Good Brothers to receive this offering"), without giving your full name or address, then place the sticks in the burner.

4. Burn the paper clothing first. Once the first round of incense has burned down significantly, the paper garments are burned before anything else, symbolically letting the Good Brothers wash and change before the meal.

5. Second and third rounds of incense. As each round burns down, a fresh round is lit alongside it, sometimes accompanied by a small offering of tea or drink poured into cups on the table.

6. Ask before burning the money. Before burning the paper money, some families use two coins tossed together, one face up and one face down is read as "yes, finished", to check whether the offering has been received. If not, they simply wait a little longer and ask again.

7. Burn the paper money, in order. Once ready, paper money is burned starting with what's meant for the deities overseeing the event, then what's meant for the Good Brothers themselves.

8. Close and clean up. A brief closing acknowledgement, sometimes three bows, and then the site is cleared and cleaned thoroughly, leaving mess behind is considered genuinely disrespectful, not just untidy.

This ritual isn't worship in the way prayer to a deity is, it's closer to structured charity. The Good Brothers are understood as spirits with no living descendants to care for them, forgotten in the ordinary sense. Feeding and clothing them, in a respectful, orderly way, is meant to prevent them from feeling neglected, while the strict sequence, deities first, then ancestors, then strangers, keeps a kind of cosmic order intact even in an act of generosity toward the forgotten.

For the broader dos and don'ts of the month, see 7th Month Dos and Don'ts Singapore, and for what each type of paper offering actually represents, see What People Burn During 7th Month.