Confessions Of A Semi-Sort Of Warlock

She will always be a special part of me, a special memory. I remember so well the day that she came into my life. We are there, she and I, we belong – to different worlds.

I remember the ghost and I still remember the feeling of horror. She was a child, oh ’bout three or four. At first I was afraid, like, who u? Hello, I don’t know even know your name! She didn’t tell me ’bout the life she had though I’ll listen very fearfully; but deep inside I’ll never see the feeling of emptiness that made her feel sad.

But then again, she’s dead.

Unhallowed Ground

I see dead people when I was a kid. Wow, what a killer sound byte! Pardon the pun. Ah, the age of innocence, the prequel to Eve’s – or for that matter, Adam’s – apple or guyabano or singkamas or whatever that is. I grew up in an old mansion in Antipolo. That’s why when I’m in Overlooking or Tikling, I sing “Country roads, take me home…”

Our laundry woman, Aling Yolly, an immortal if she’s still alive today, told me that the former owner of the house, because of his hatred for the church, buried her daughter in his garden rather than have her blessed. Unhallowed ground, and I know exactly where that is.

Hex marks the spot, I say.

Traumatic Scene

Part of my happy childhood memories with my grandmother – my parents died when I was a baby and I was the only child – are the nightmares from her bedtime stories.

My grandmother, who speaks Latin and Spanish, once lived in Siquijor, that fabled land of witches. She told me a secret years before Rhonda Byrne: Like attracts like. Never curse anyone, she forcefully admonished me.

But hey, I was eight, what do you expect? When I was in my 20s in the 90s, I saw an extremely vicious woman berating a friend of mine. My friend was told by his mother to get payment from the debt owed by the woman but she transformed into a dragon. I pulled my friend away, telling it’s not worth it, assuring him that the dragon lady will lose more than what she owed because of her greed. I was joking of course, trying to lighten the traumatic scene.

The next day, I remembered my grandmother – because the woman’s house burned to the ground when twilight fell.

Deep Purple

Bad things happen to people who do bad things to me, and I don’t know why. Coincidence probably. The good news is, it doesn’t affect decent people to whom I spontaneously bond. Conversely, back biters get uncomfortable around me. I won’t say I can read minds, but I can sense if somebody is sincere or not, most people are not, but I don’t have gaydar.

There was a guy who got really nasty in a birthday party I went to in Sampaloc at the start of the new millennium. He was drunk, exceedingly obnoxious, calling me names because I won’t go to bed with him. Looking back, I marvel at how I was able to control myself. But I did, and walked away.

Next I heard, days later, he was mugged on that scandalous night. He was beaten deep purple, all his valuables taken away and he’s left for dead in the jagged darkness that possesses Manila by night.

Summer Heat

The last such incidence was just recently. A friend and I took a cab to bring his dog to the vet. The taxi driver said we should just pay a certain amount because his meter’s broken. It’s hard to catch a ride and the summer heat is demonic, so we were forced to agree.

In the next block, the driver was flagged by a traffic cop who appeared out of nowhere like a malignant jack-in-the-box. There was no traffic violation but the encounter left the driver scratching his head and making whining sounds.

Powers of Man

I am sharing these true stories as I try to put my occult background in the proper context. What I want to talk about next is the invaluable contribution of Jaime Licauco in spreading enlightenment on supernatural phenomena for the world in general and me in particular.

His classic treatise Understanding The Psychic Powers of Man, whose original publisher was no less than Ben Ramos himself, the co-founder of National Bookstore, bequeathed me a semblance of normalcy, that, though I dare to be different and am admittedly unconventional like Johnny Depp, I’m not freak because I believe in clairvoyance, reincarnation, astral projection, witchcraft, karma and my latest obsession, the human aura.

Jaime Licauco gave me the answers and pointed me to the right directions.

“Each time we have published his controversial articles in Sunburst Magazine the response has been electric from all over the world,” writes the late great Philippine Star co-founder Maximo V. Soliven. His equally famous Foreword was retained in the 2008 revised version from Anvil. “Read this book and perhaps you’ll understand why.”

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