The Filipino Mind Goes Beyond the Self
The psychology of psychic abilities, spirits, and magical forces
This week (22 September), we celebrate the 101st birthday of priest-psychologist Fr. Jaime Bulatao (1922-2015), an important figure in the history of Filipino psychology. After returning from his doctorate studies abroad, he founded the Ateneo de Manila University psychology department. Affectionately called Father Bu, he was known for exploring the fringes of the psyche within the safety of the classroom—he often led his students on astral journeys within and beyond themselves. Unlike his contemporaries, who focused on unearthing the ancestral wisdom passed on through Filipino languages, Father Bu’s practice was more practical. Much of his work was done in the clinic: he addressed culture-specific (and often supernatural) cases by merging traditional healing methods with modern psychological science. He said that all reality is somehow connected and religious beliefs are just reminders of our shared humanity. A person reaches their full potential by becoming one with others.
The modern, western way of understanding the world is materialistic. This worldview implies that:
All subjective experiences emerge from evolutionary needs, and are limited to the body. Consciousness, therefore, is just a self-preserving function that tells us where to find food, how best to gather food, and how to work with others to ensure a constant supply of resources.
Humans are separate from each other. Father Bu used the metaphor of hard-boiled eggs: individual minds (the yolks) are separated from each other by hard shells. We are only alike in the sense that we exist as similar patterns of organic material. This is what we call “individualistic.”
Time is linear, consisting of a past, present, and future. This is why we talk about “wasted time” or “the past is the past.”
The Filipino worldview—which echoes the philosophies of our neighbors here in the east—is transpersonal. In other words, the self is not limited to the body, space and time. This worldview implies that:
The mind is not bound to the brain; individual consciousness is only the subjective experience of a larger shared mind.
Human beings are not like hard-boiled eggs. Rather, Father Bu said that we are more like eggs being fried together: boundaries are indistinguishable. This is echoed in the Filipino concept of kapwa, which refers to a shared identity, an “us-ness.” The inner self (loob) recognizes itself in other people and reaches out towards them. This is what we call “collectivistic.”
Time is cyclical, moving in rhythms. This is why we say with certainty, “May bukas pa” (There will still be a tomorrow).
Transpersonal Worldview
The Filipino worldview acknowledges spirits and magic—Father Bu called this the “transpersonal worldview.” Certain people, such as folk healers and priests, are able to communicate and negotiate with invisible beings. Days of the week (e.g. Fridays, especially Good Friday) are great days to look for magical objects called anting-anting. People who speak in a mystical language (which usually sounds like Latin), are able to heal the sick, bless and charge anting-anting, and conduct spiritual warfare. This belief in supernatural forces influences how a person makes meaning out of the world. For example, sudden and mysterious illnesses are believed to be the result of sorcery or sin. A person “possessed” by a spirit might believe themselves to be harassed by demons, courted by invisible entities, or chosen by angels or saints. Speaking psychologically, “possessions” might be a kind of dissociation that happens when a repressed trauma is triggered. Thus, the ego splits to protect the individual from having to face it.
As a priest and psychologist, Father Bu walked on the line of spiritual and scientific. He understood that the inner, subjective mind spoke in metaphors. When the logical, objective mind keeps ignoring the needs of the subjective mind (usually expressed through dreams or sudden recollections of traumatic moments), the latter takes the former by force. But if you approach a patient with the sterile jargon of western psychiatry, you’ll get nowhere. You use what works, he might say. Thus if the healer can negotiate with the spirit, ask it to leave, and assure that it never returns, then that is enough.
Animism and Roman Theology
Father Bu was a Catholic priest, but he acknowledged that folk beliefs were simply metaphors for the same spiritual realities. And underneath these metaphors was a universal psychic reality that applies to all human beings. As a psychologist, he didn’t seem to find any problem applying spiritual methods to address supernatural concerns. This perhaps is what made him effective in dealing with the real concerns of the common Filipino. I have heard of stories from his former students and assistants wherein people from far away provinces would travel (usually with their families and other friends from the town) just to visit him. These people, possessed by duwende, Sto. Niño, and a host of other strange spirits, or victims of kulam, would trust his authority as a healer—since he was seen an expert in the human mind as well as an ordained servant of the highest cosmic authority, God. He used his reputation to his advantage, since he knew that the image he evoked in other people’s imaginations was also a powerful way to communicate with their subjective minds.
Criticism
Father Bu used the methods of folk healing but only on a practical, superficial level; in his practice, he seemed to still be influenced by his western training. Virgilio Enriquez, the father of Filipino psychology, one of Father Bu’s contemporaries, criticized this attitude as a subtle form of cultural domination in his book Pagbabagong Dangal: Indigenous Psychology & Cultural Empowerment (1994). Though he didn’t directly call out Father Bu, Dr. Enriquez said that western-trained psychologists might still follow a western worldview while appropriating folk methods to address local concerns. It’s true that we would be more effective healers if we adjust to the patients’ culture—but what it does say is that the healer must avoid being tokenistic.
Adding to this, Father Bu talked about what he called “Split-level Christianity,” which is what happens when western logic and morality is followed only to appease authority but when the authority isn’t looking, the indigenous spirit, driven by primal impulses, breaks through. It is “the coexistence within the same person of two or more thought-and-behavior systems which are inconsistent with each other.” The ego, therefore, acts as a politician between these two levels. An example of this is when a group of friends get together and laugh at lewd jokes, but when a priest passes by, they greet him and ask for his blessing. Then, when the priest leaves, they continue where they left off. Ma. Crisanta Nelmida-Flores criticized this in The Folk in Filipino Folk Christianity (2021). Dr. Nelmida-Flores points out that this dichotomy between these two levels places the indigenous below western authority. While Father Bu was simply pointing it out, he may have also been promoting the idea that the western (Christian) mind is somehow more ordered whereas the indigenous Filipino spirit is more primitive and inconsistent. This dichotomy is similar to other frameworks in local social science research, where a distinction is made between “rural, uneducated folk” and “urban, educated elite.” Nevertheless, Father Bu recommended dialogue between the Christian and indigenous, in order to achieve a state of being that is both fully Christian and fully Filipino.
Conclusion
What strikes me as odd is that during those years that I studied in Ateneo de Manila University, I never took Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology), which is usually a standard course for psychology students in many universities. I only heard about it as an elective course, and at the time I wanted to take it, but the available slots were immediately filled. Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, a class that Father Bu had also taught, was also offered as an elective, but I was never lucky enough to find a slot, either during my undergraduate studies or my postgraduate studies.
During Father Bu’s time, there was much emphasis on Asian psychology and the unconscious mind, and I would’ve loved to attend those classes. Maybe the universal nature of Father Bu’s approach doesn’t really need any cultural specificity, and the budding psychologist today would do well to learn modern, objective, evidence-based approaches. In practice, many Filipino psychologists take an eclectic approach, sometimes utilizing spiritual methods—whatever works best for a particular patient. Understanding the underlying psychological frameworks of the shared human psyche has the potential to make cross-cultural healing much easier.
Further Study
Phenomena and their Interpretation, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992.
Knowing Fr. Bu: A Video Docuseries, Ateneo de Manila University, 2022.