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On
top of everything, the Department of Communication had the peculiar
reputation of being haunted. Faculty and staff members, technicians,
utility persons and students would testify. There were cold spots
inside the building. Disembodied voices echoed in the hallways.
Invisible feet trod the corridor floors. Invisible fists pounded
angrily on walls. Doors opened and shut, air-conditioning units,
typewriters and computers burst into life without human aid. A Sonolux
office worker packing up equipment in the studio once heard two voices
conversing a few feet away from him, as though the conversants were not
even aware of his presence. A security guard patrolling the vicinity of
the building after dark once encountered a headless priest in white
sutane running towards him. The Communications majors fondly nicknamed
one of the spirits Badong. And that tired old joke never stopped making
sense to everyone: If spirits wanted to communicate on campus, the most
logical venue was the Department of Communication.
Twenty-two
students trooped wearily into Room C of the Department of Communication
Building for their Psychic Powers and Shamanism Class. The teacher ran
through a list of subtopics and requirements for the semester. The
component on psychic powers would include exercises in the development
of four psychic senses - feeling, clairvoyance, clairaudience and
intuition - and exercises in psychometry, candle burning, mirror
gazing, pendulum work, the chakras, auras, and color therapy. The
components on Shamanism would cover the powers of the four directions,
the medicine wheel, medicine and medicine bundles, power objects and
power bundles, power animals, prayer bundles, shamanic journeying,
shamanic healing, the creation of Zuni fetishes, a Dakota sweat lodge
ceremony, and the construction of Hopi masks to call back the dead and
prayer feather sticks for the elders. Both components would merge in a
final activity: an overnight session and spirit quest in the Department
of Communication building.
The
first Spirit Quest was held at the Department of Communication at the
Ateneo de Manila University on February 13 and 24, 1996. The second at
a private residence in Horseshoe village on March 09 and 16, 1996.
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