A journal about the grit and magic of the Filipino psyche. — In the past few months, I’ve been working on a project as a way to honor my roots and reconnect with ancestral memory. It’s called “Sikodiwa”, a portmanteau of “sikolohiya” (psychology) and “diwa” (will, psyche). The project puts a focus on the psychology of Filipino spirituality, as well as spiritual…

Where culture and spirituality intersect. — Well-documented cases of true paranormal phenomena imply that consciousness goes beyond the brain, rather than emerge from it (Beauregard et al., 2018). For example, it has been proven that mediums can indeed receive accurate information about deceased individuals (Sarraf et al., 2020). The founder of Ateneo de Manila University’s psychology…

Using Filipino sayings as incantations. — The Filipino folk magicians believe that if you know the right words, you could command all kinds of magic. They believe that in the beginning was the word, and these words were spells, and if we knew the spells of God, we could create our own reality. These salawikain, or…

We are part of a divine family. — Some time ago, someone educated me on something about spirituality that, at the time, I found to be truly ridiculous. He was a well-read Filipino occultist, acquainted with local folk Christian traditions. He said that if there is a “God the Father” and a “God the Son”, then it follows…

How do you capture an elemental spirit? — Mainstream thought seems to be biased towards a materialist perspective. In other words, many of us are used to thinking that for something to be real, it has to be measurable. But so many things can’t be measured! Functions of consciousness, especially spiritual experiences, are hard to capture. Nevertheless, they…

A reflection on “The Fool” in tarot. — The mythic journey begins with the hero in a familiar place. After going on an adventure, the innocent child returns as a wiser adult. This is what is represented by the tarot card called “The Fool”. In “The Holistic Tarot”, Benebell Wen interprets the upright Fool as someone who has…

Romanticizing home. — The Katipunan Avenue I once knew was only about a kilometers long. At one end is a fast food restaurant and at the other is a commercial building. On the north-bound side of the avenue is a university and across it are restaurants, condominiums, and shops. When I was a…

Messy, messy animals. — We have a problem, Kalas told me. I had just arrived at the place he told me to go: it was an expensive neon bar in a palace filled with pretty young faces. They all looked like rich kids — you could look at any one of them and know…

Loneliness, mental breakdowns, and getting blacked out drunk. — When I was younger, I dreamed of a fast, dizzying lifestyle filled with beauty and fizz. Soon, I was living it. Drinking enhanced my charisma, and I made many friends. Alcohol was laughter, romance and experience. I lived, for months, in perpetual night, dancing with shadows. When the morning came…