Anthony Egan doesn’t believe in ghosts. But once, one night on a remote Philippine island, something strange happened …
As the baylan (traditional healer) finished the prayers to the ancestors and started cutting the chicken’s throat, I hoped that this time the spirits would leave me alone.
Mindanao, early 2007: I was visiting villages in this turbulent southern Philippine island where local people were trying to assert their rights to their ancestral land, caught between agribusinesses, the army, Islamist separatists and a Maoist guerrilla remnant. I was in a village of Manobo tribespeople, at once both Pentecostal Christians and believers in traditional spirit religions. My colleague, Beting, and I were staying with Beting’s family in a village near Cotabato.
Beting was clearly tired and stressed. “It’s my ancestors; they are angry I left this village,” she muttered. Maybe it’s the heat, I thought, but said nothing.
But, by the end of the day, I too was feeling tired. A heaviness descended on me that did not seem to be the customary tropical lethargy. After supper, over one or two glasses of rum, we talked about spirits and ancestors. The heaviness continued, and every now and then I had to shake myself to stop drifting off to sleep.
The next day, on the way back to Davao City, Beting said to me suddenly: “The spirits were trying to possess you last night, you know.”
“Pardon?”
“I saw them. But you resisted them so well.”
I said nothing. I am not one to believe in ghosts. I am a product of 1980s South African Marxism, Anglo-American sceptical philosophy, continental post-modern thought and historical-critical theological scholarship. Yes, I am a priest; no, that does not mean that I am naive or that I believe in everything.
Later: “Welcome, Anthony, to a world we — you and I — as rational, Western-trained, believing sceptics find hard to handle,” said Albert, fellow Jesuit, friend and anthropologist.
A week later, in another village, it is agreed that we should hold a ceremony to let the village spirits know who I am, that I’m basically okay (even if a bit pale of face and unbelieving of them). The villagers and I gather into the round bamboo spirit house. The people are comfortable enough with the spirits that the smokers among us light up. The datu (chief) and baylan start the prayers … and, after the chicken is sacrificed, it is added to the communal meal we share, and the spirits seem appeased.
As I’ve said: I don’t believe in ghosts. I know there are lots of other psychological reasons for what happened. Really —