June 19, 2025
MANILA – On May 15, at age 84, the paranormal expert Jaime T. Licauco passed on to the realm beyond. He has authored many essays and books on the strange, which I keep copies of in my personal library. I met him once, in 2018, during a book fair. Licauco was a fantastic storyteller, and even though I found some of his stories a little too fantastical, they nevertheless remind us that there is more to the world than what we see with our eyes.
I have always been fascinated with what we call “kababalaghan.” When I was a little boy, I spent my afternoons browsing through my lolo’s bookshelves. His collection included many books on mysticism and psychic experiments. (Yes, he also had Licauco’s books!)
Growing up, I also watched how my grandaunt healed people through prayer, and how some of her patients entered hypnotic states and started speaking in tongues. They were “slain by the Holy Spirit,” or, in other words, sinapian.
I personally know so many people who can “see” entities, who have been healed by albularyos, who have been “courted” (niligawan) by engkantos, and who have had prophetic dreams. This may be a cultural thing, too—maybe our Indigenous worldview is just so open and affirming to the supernatural.
Aside from Licauco, there has always been sincere paranormal investigation in popular media. You may also know about Ed Caluag, and, in the ’90s, there was Tony Perez’s Spirit Questors. I know some people today who continue to investigate cases. Five days after Licauco’s passing, Perez followed. He has been a guiding light for many spiritual seekers.
There are many local TV episodes dedicated to folk beliefs and supposed cases of kulam—you can just search for them online. If you can recall, a few years ago, there was a woman who got possessed live on air while talking to a priest. People laughed at her on social media, but the fact that it happened shows how common sapi actually is in the Philippines—to the point that the first center for exorcism in Asia will be built here!
Among the academics, the person who first comes to mind is the priest psychologist Jaime Bulatao, founder of Ateneo de Manila University’s psychology department. He dealt with many cases of sapi and household disturbances supposedly caused by duwendes. His students may also remember his classes on astral projection. I met him a few weeks before his death in 2015.
In the ’60s and ’70s, scientific researchers from around the world would visit the Philippines to study the practice of psychic surgery, where healers would remove tumors from a person’s body using prayers and their bare hands. Some came to debunk them, while others came to be healed—even some Hollywood celebrities!
Now, how can we explain these things? We do not have to prove or disprove anything. We already know that weird things are happening. But, as Father Bulatao said, we can separate our “experience” of something with our “interpretation” of it. In other words, something happened, but how we understand it can differ depending on culture and upbringing. For example, are we being haunted by a “ghost,” or are we being “haunted” by memory and trauma? Our folklore provides the colorful metaphors for very real psychological experiences. It is the task of the psychologist—or paranormal investigator—to interpret it appropriately.
I was once told a story about a young woman who would be “possessed” by an engkanto every time a young man showed interest in her. This young woman never had a boyfriend, and often kept to herself. The people around her believed that an engkanto had fallen in love with her and claimed her for himself. So, he would assert himself every time someone new came along. Now that is the cultural interpretation of the paranormal experience.
Let us attempt an alternative psychological interpretation. Maybe she was just not ready for a relationship. Maybe, to avoid having to deal with the awkwardness of romance, her mind created a familiar character (the folkloric engkanto) in order to escape the situation. It is like a child’s selective listening when an authority figure is lecturing them—“Pasok sa isang tenga, labas sa kabila.” In that way, she does not have to be stressed about it. The treatment for this case will depend on what this young woman needs—counseling for her romantic issues, or even an exorcism, can be helpful in different ways.
I hope that more people get interested in this field and join me in exploring it in a psychological and culturally appropriate way, especially since kababalaghan is so common in our everyday lives. If you are interested, I have written an academic article entitled “Philippine Parapsychology,” which was published in an international journal last year. If you are affiliated with a university as a student or teacher, you can ask your library for help to access it.
For my fellow kababalaghan enthusiasts, whether you are following the footsteps of Jaime Licauco or Jaime Bulatao, our task is not to judge people and their experiences. Our role is to understand them. Why is it so common among Filipinos? What is it about our folk psychology that is so open to the strange, spiritual, and supernatural?