Seducing My Curiosity for the Supernatural
I grew up hearing stories about witches, witchcraft, black magic, supernatural spells and more. But this one story somehow is clearly etched in my memory. It’s the story about my father’s grandfather who displayed some kind of a supernatural ability.
According to my father, his grandfather stood a little over four feet, and yet according to him, he’s capable of pulling with one arm, to the shore a boat that can only be moved by ten men. It’s really fascinating how things like that could be possible.
My father narrated how it all started. According to him his grandfather once was laying on a little hut that sat by the sea and was dozing off for an afternoon siesta when his grandfather saw these tiny people, about half a foot in height. It was a couple who lived under the sea and on that day they were mourning because they were burying their son, and when my father’s grandfather saw them, he was very sympathetic. He even helped them bury their dead son. That’s how he was bestowed the gem of strength. My father went on to say that his grandfather can easily bend even a one-inch thick metal and wrap it in a spiral fashion around his arm. It was believed that the gem that gave him strength was buried in his arm. He even knew the day that he was going to die, according to my father. This is what he did based on his accounts. He summoned all his sons, all five of them, and told them to make him a coffin made of wood. He even gave the exact dimensions. He told them to finish it by noon of that same day as well. Then he also told them to slaughter the biggest pig and have a celebration because he said, “Today is the day that I’m going to meet my creator.” Nobody dared to complain or refute what he was saying. He was already 102 years old then. And so they did as they were told but all of the sons and relatives were watching him closely because they believed that indeed if it’s true that he’s going to die on that day, he will have to impart his supernatural abilities to any of his sons or relatives so he can rest in peace. When the clock was about to strike 12 noon, my father’s grandfather bent his knees in front of the altar, uttered his prayers and spread his arms, then kissed the ground. True enough, he died exactly at noon time on that same day. As soon as he died all the sons and relatives were grappling on him, trying to find that one gem of strength. Then they found this little hole on his arm and another same hole on the wooden floor, but they never found the gem that gave him enormous strength.
When I used to listen to my father’s narrative, it just fascinates me that somehow something like that, lived to be true at a period when computers and modern technology were still unheard of. I didn’t doubt a bit of the story though. I know my father wouldn’t lie just for the sake of fabricating a fascinating tale. And even if it was just untrue, I didn’t bother to question a bit of it because the more fascinating it was, the more capable it was of seducing the listener’s imagination.
Then when I was a little older, about thirteen years old, I spent some time living with my grandparents in Bohol. My grandfather is a quack doctor and he still is today at 93 years old. Day in and day out people would flock to him to ask for healing. In all those days that I lived with them I have witnessed people from around the area come to him for treatment. What he does is, he simply utters a few prayers on every patient and with a worn-out piece of dirty rag, he would drive away the evil spells—the sickness, in a gesture that connotes “shooing” somebody away. Somehow, his healing was probably effective because people from distant places also come to him for healing.
The funny thing is if you are a healer like that, you cannot even heal your own self. You can only heal other people. It used to crack me up when my aunt would tell us how my grandfather would look for a piece of rope so he can hang himself to death whenever he gets a toothache because he’d rather die than go through the pain.
Living with my grandparents provided another avenue for me to experience a bit of the unnatural too. My grandfather, aside from being a healer is also famous for being impenetrable. My mother used to give us accounts of things that happened that proved that my grandfather was indeed impenetrable.
While living with them, I remember him coming home, after having a few drinks, and say to me, “Okay, if you really are smart can you remember this?” and he would go on uttering a Latin prayer that according to him would stave off evil. Well, I did memorize one or two prayers and as soon as he’s no longer under the influence of alcohol, that is when he’s saner, I’d recite the Latin prayers to him and he’d shake his head in disbelief. Then he’d warn me not to utter the prayers when it’s not called for—meaning it shouldn’t be uttered indiscriminately unless the situation deems it necessary because every prayer he said is meant to be uttered with a purpose.
Then after a while, my grandfather would come home drunk again. One time, he came home really drunk and he pulled me to the side where he has a throng of sharp-edged bolos, bolos that they used for slaughtering cows (that’s how they did it—very crude). Then he told me, “I’m gonna show you something. Here!”, as he attempted to serrate his arm with the sharp bolo, but I ran away as fast as I can. He then laughed and said, “You really don’t believe that I’m impenetrable?” In my head, I was thinking, “To hell with it.” True or untrue I don’t want to be a witness to it. To me it’s just horrible. He actually tried to show it to me several times but he failed miserably. Then it got the curiosity in me. I thought, “Well let’s see how impenetrable you are. The next time you’re going to say your prayers that make you impenetrable, I’m going to record it. Then I’ll master it and see for myself if it’s really true.” I waited for the right moment and I did record it on cassette tape successfully.
I was getting ready to memorize the prayer. It was a long one actually, about three to four minutes long. Then from out of nowhere a seemingly unnatural invisible force, caused the cassette tape to drop onto the concrete floor, and destroyed the tape beyond repair. That incident really baffled me.
After a while I fessed up to my grandfather about my attempt to thwart his claims, and he calmly told me that some things are meant for other people and some are meant for just the person it is bestowed upon.
Now as I think about it, I chanced upon realizing that some modern conveniences are non-transferrable as well, if somehow there is some kind of parallelism to the exclusivity of ownership of things then and now.
Anyway, I consider myself lucky, because I live to experience these modern times when technology is the underlying force that drives society and on the other hand, I’m also thankful that in some way I was able to experience something raw and illogical, that also influenced the ways of the crude old days. It afforded me a chance to cross one spectrum of civilization to another in just one lifetime.
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