Stop, Look, and Listen. . .Closer

Have you ever once experienced that hair-raising sensation at your nape? How about that spine-tingling feeling that you are being watched? Scary, isn’t it?

Come to think of it, perhaps I was conditioned to believe that spirits can communicate with the living. Why wouldn’t I be when our bedtime stories as children were horrifying ones? My mom bequeathed to us what “Nanay”, our house helper for 38 years now, had narrated to her back then. These were certified terrifying folktales from Initao Municipality coined as “Init na Tawo”. In addition, our parents oftentimes frighten us to impose discipline around the house. It was certainly an effective way of saying “NO!”

"If there is smoke, there is fire." Is the paranormal just a figment of the imagination? The Exorcist, The Omen, Poltergeist, and Ghost are blockbuster horror movies about the Anti-Christ, demons, and spirits. CSI, a popular modern day TV series, deals on the paranormal as well. I wonder where the brilliant award-winning directors and scriptwriters of these films got their inspiration from. They must be extremely creative and imaginative if all those were baseless. Do they have secret ghost writers, literally speaking? Are they the reincarnations of some dead and famous scriptwriters? 

Have you heard of the “third eye” or the “sixth sense”? Some people say that you can only see “them” if your third eye is open. Others say everyone has a third eye but we either are unconscious of it or have failed to develop it. There are also instances when desperate clients hire a medium who can invoke a spirit to possess his body temporarily. The more adventurous even perform the Spirit of the Glass ritual. It is done by putting an inverted glass on a board marked with Yes or No and some other letters. After which, some secret incantation is chanted while two fingers are touching the bottom side of the glass. Then the glass would slowly move by itself over the writings to form answers to intriguing questions. It is believed to be moved by spirits. Even our eerie dreams at night are interpreted as messages from the other side. Indeed, the living tries to find ways to communicate with the spirits.

Personally, I haven’t experienced a close-encounter with the unseen. Still I believe that spirits communicate with the living. Alas, with the clanking and jangling of the hi-tech world, it’s quite impossible for us to hear their faint voices. If only we could take a break from our hectic schedule to stop, look, and listen closely. I mean really LISTEN to the blurry voices from the dark recesses of our room. Scared?