The Censorship of My Work

"Carl, don't be too weird that you alienate others..."

I’ve learned, through trial and error, that a lot of people are not yet ready to talk about the things that I love. As a child, I already had an intense fascination with magic and mythology. These weren’t popular topics, and I was often described as having my own little world (may sariling mundo). This description is not always a good thing—it can mean that a child is creative, but more often it means that a child is a little too strange that they alienate other children. In college, people described me as having bulong (whisper). Nobody could ever actually define this term properly for me, but by context I can tell that it was a kind of “inspired eccentricity.” As you can probably tell, I never outgrew my childhood interests, and when the 2020 lockdown gave me space to re-explore them, I dove right back into it. And here we are now.

My Interests

I’d like to consider myself as part of the Sikolohiyang Pilipino (SP) movement. Within this space, there are many areas of focus, including pagka-Pilipino (cultural identity and national consciousness), social issues (e.g. human rights, poverty alleviation, peace, etc.), kasarian/pagkalalaki/pagkababae (gender), sikolohiyang pang-relihiyon (religious psychology), etc. I acknowledge that, for a lot of people, I may be their first contact with SP, and I’m very, very excited for them to find the cultural treasures that await them! Although I will always touch on decolonization and cultural identity, my actual area of focus is the psychology of kaluluwa (soul) and kamalayan (consciousness). I see myself in the intersection of indigenous psychology, which is culture described by those who live it, and transpersonal psychology, which looks into mystical and shamanic states, psychospiritual development, and supernatural phenomena (kababalaghan). In fact, all of the papers I’ve written so far which have been published in academic journals are about transpersonal psychology from an indigenous perspective.¹

Dangerous Work

I recognize that my work, like any creative endeavor, can be messy and inconsistent, but I absolutely believe that it is essential. I can’t explain it, but if I’m still pursuing these niche, bizarre interests despite the risk of social isolation that comes with it, then there must be a reason. Many people have misconceptions about the work I do and insist on their own perspectives. If I can’t define myself, others will, and I will no longer know myself. So, I must finally admit that I’ve been letting others censor my work and dictate what I must and mustn’t do.

Here are some of the criticisms that I’ve received:

1. Some Christians think I’m too “woo woo,” but those who do practice magic tend to think that I’m too Christian. There are those who tell me not to talk about Christianity at all, because of its painful colonial history.²

2. Some spiritual folks think I’m too limited by the scientific perspective, trying to find logical explanations for subjective mystical experiences. (For the longest time, they kept calling me “grounded,” which I think is a nice way to say “skeptical.”) Some scientifically-minded folks think I dabble too much into spirituality that I ignore potential scientific interpretations for mystical experiences. In fact, there have been fellow academics who have called me “brave” for delving into these esoteric topics, which for the longest time have been on the fringes of mainstream psychology. And whenever they do this, I always remember this quote from R. Osgood Mason in 1897, during those early days of serious paranormal research:

   The outlying fields of psychology, which are now the subject of psychical research, are comparatively a new and unexplored region, and until within a few years it has been considered a barren and unproductive one, into which it was silly, disreputable, and even dangerous to enter; the region was infested with dream-mongers, spiritualists, clairvoyants, mesmerists, and cranks, and the more vigorously it was shunned the safer would he be who had a reputation of any kind to lose.³

3. With regard to my cultural work, some Tagalogs question why I speak in English when talking about indigenous concepts, and folks from other parts of the country might question my tendency to generalize the Tagalog experience. There are also Filipino purists who insist that I use certain words, and anti-intellectuals who tell me I’m thinking too much. (Someone once commented, “Ang dami ko nang iniisip, dumagdag ka pa!”) I will have to clarify again and again that the reason we draw concepts from language is to show that we’ve always had this concept in our culture. Indigenous psychology allows us to define it ourselves. But when we participate in the global discourse, we use language that people understand—for the most part, this is English. A person can be adept at speaking in Filipino, but if their mindset is decidedly western, then there’s nothing transformative there. Symbols should allow us to easily access inner and shared realities, and it’s those realities that are more important than the labels used to evoke them.⁴

Admittedly, I’ve taken things too seriously (and more often than not, a little too personally). It’s only recently that I realized that those who have tried to censor me are usually projecting an insecurity: whether they admit it or not, they carry a lack of certainty about themselves and the reality of their beliefs. In other words, the sharp questions they have for me are most likely questions they also have for themselves, yet can’t actually answer. They tend to be really good at taking things apart, but they seem unwilling to comprehend intuitive, contextual reality. We call these people pilosopo, which is not a compliment on their critical thinking but a critique on their inability to see things holistically.

I’ve never had any doubts about myself and the things I love, and it will be really hard for me to forgive those who have ever made me doubt myself. But I would love for us to work on these questions together. And by the end, even if we don’t agree on each other’s perspectives, we can at least recognize the ecology of unique ideas, all of which have the potential to liberate us from impositions of the dominant worldview.

This is why I am very, very grateful for the affirmation and support I receive from those who understand the work I do and why it is important. I’m also appreciative of those who may be confused now, yet are willing to understand this work—they have a genuine and playful curiosity. Where we go from here, only Poong Maykapal knows. But what an exciting adventure!

1. Click here to view a list of my publications. An exception to my point is one article published in the journal Diliman Review in 2021, titled The Limitations and Potentials of Tarot Readings in Times of Uncertainty. Unfortunately, I could no longer find any link to the journal issue where it was published, but I’ve uploaded the article in its entirety in my ResearchGate.

2. I want to make it clear that my intention is not to criticize millions of Filipinos for their Catholic faith. My task is to assess why we resonate so deeply with it, despite it being a foreign import. How does this colonial religion continue to oppress us today? How do we actually use its symbolism to express our mystical experiences? How do we apply Catholic prayers, rituals, and imagery in our modern animist practices? How is it used politically, as a way to control people? How is it used to liberate?

3. R. Osgood Mason, Telepathy and the Subliminal Self, 1897

4. The philosopher Alan Watts used to say that when we talk about philosophical things, we tend to “eat the menu.” In other words, we focus too much on the description of things rather than the experience of things, and then we complain that it all tastes like paper.