Jiří and mysticism

Jiří Winter collected objects with some historical connections and curiosities with the story from his youth. His starting collection was stolen from him in 1944 when he had to enter a Bavarian prison. After the liberation, he started to build up the collections again, this time more dedicatedly. He was known among the public for his interests and was occasionally offered some interesting subject. This is how the mask of the god Shoshimoi, the Lamaist lord of cemeteries with three eye sockets, the figure of the Japanese god of mercy Jizo, who descended into the underworld and persuaded the devils not to trouble sinners too much, got into his collections. Neprakt's "museum" preserved several Burmese masks, a number of ritual objects from Africa, a large number of curious skulls, including an Indian tsantsa, a dried human head processed by the Jivaro Indians from Ecuador. 

Just as Jiří Winter was interested in ritual objects and contexts, he also acquired knowledge about mystical objects used in religious ceremonies. He was also interested in rumors, often related to some historical events. He was a connoisseur of ghost stories and ghosts, not just those from the streets of Prague. He was fascinated by oriental ghosts, especially Japanese and Chinese ones. In the introduction to The Spy, he wrote: "At the beginning of Indian books, Ganesha, the god, was presented. With an inscrutable elephant's head and two pairs of hands. One folded deservedly on his stomach, in the other a reed pen and inkwell. Eternal to this day, he goes around on a rat to bark at people he lived, what is said and done where. He spies. The deity of spies."