THE SPIRITUAL SELF

In addition, Durkheim (1912) defined

RELIGIO religion as a unified system of beliefs and
practices relative to sacred things,

N
A ccording to Giddens
(2006), religion is a cultural
things set-apart and
forbidden beliefs and
system of commonly shared practices which unite into
beliefs and rituals that one single moral community
provide a sense of ultimate called a Church, all those
meaning by creating an idea who adhere to them.
of reality that is sacred,
all-encompassing and
supernatural.
 KEY
ELEMENTS OF
RELIGION 1
religion is a form of culture-shares all
characteristics of culture such as shared
beliefs, values that create an identity,

religion involves beliefs that take the form

2 of ritualized practices - all members engage

in behaviors that identify them as members
of the community,

3 religion provides a sense of purposefeeling

that life is ultimately meaningful.
Before the Spanish colonization, Filipinos
believed in animism, a belief that all objects
have spirits. They also believed in supernatural
being. According to McClenon (1991), the
concept of supernatural has been shaped by
the Western notion of nature and causality
and it is culturally specific.
Filipinos praised the trees, plants,
sun, moon, stars and other living
and non-living things. They also
praised the spirit of their
ancestors, which is called “cult of
the dead.” They believed on the
immortality of the soul.

The memories of the dead are
remained through carving their
image using gold and stone.
This is called “larawan” or “likha”
in Tagalog, “diwata” in Bisaya and
“bul-ol” in Ifugao. They also
offered sacrifices and prayers for
guidance, sympathy and beseech.
Not all “anitos” are good, there are
few who are evil.
The priestess which is also
called as “baylan,”
“babaylan,” or “katalona”
does the ritual or offering.
Early Filipinos practiced
polytheism, a belief in many
gods, which was brought by
the early Chinese and Indian
merchants.
Some of their gods are
Bathala, the Almighty God,
Agni, God of Fire,
Mandarangan, God o War,
Sidapa, God of Death,
Lalahon, God of Harvest, and
Siginarugan, God of Hell.
These beliefs are passed
orally to the next generation.
However, there were some changes on the beliefs of the early Filipinos when the
Spaniards brought Christianity in the archipelago. The changes were not immediate
because early beliefs are already practiced in the country. What the Spaniards did was,
they adopted the Christianity in the belief of Filipinos on animism. Monotheism was
introduced by Spaniards, a belief in only God, which has three personas, God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
According to Daskeo (2012), many Filipinos still spice
their life with superstitious beliefs that they strongly
believe could help them cope with day to day activities
especially most important events in life such as marriage,
finding a job, and moving to a new house.
COMMON SUPERSTITIOUS
BELIEFS

If a person bites their tongue, it means somebody is thinking of them;

A girl with shite spots on her fingernails is inconstant in love;
It is bad to sweep the floor at six o’clock in the evening for it means driving
away good fortune and graces
One should not open an umbrella while inside a house; a centipede is likely
to fall from the ceiling;
If a pregnant woman sews her dress while wearing it, her baby will born
without hole in the rectum;
Appearance of a comet foretells war
THE CONCEPT OF
“DUNGAN”
(SPIRIT OR SOUL)
 The soul according to the indigenous
Animism is the belief that
Filipinos is known as Kaluluwa, Ikararuwa
everything in nature – living
or kararuwa. It is taken from the root
things like trees, plants, and even
word duwa which means two. The soul
non-living rocks or streams – have
has two parts – one is the physical part,
their own spirit or divinity.
where it is connected to the body and
Animism beliefs are still present,
its life, and other spiritual, where it
accepted and never entirely
exists on its own.
disappeared.
The Dungan may leave the
body voluntarily while the
person is asleep according to
BIsayans. Among the ancient
Filipinos, when the person is
asleep they should not be
awakened quickly in order to
give ample time for the
Dungan to return to the
body.
It is for this reason that the
Dungan needs protection and
nurture. Soul-nature, the folks
believe, means the performance
of age-old spirit rituals many of
which are still followed in the
local provinces today. Examples
of these are birth, illness and
death rituals consisting of
trances, prayers, and animal
sacrifices.
RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY,
MAGIC, WITCHCRAFT AND
IDENTITY
THE FUNCTION OF RITUALS
Ritual traditions of Filipinos are
best understood in terms of
their intentions. At the core of
any ritual, balance between
man and nature, and the spirit
world is very important. Rituals
is an attempt to enhance and
maintain this balance.
This is evident in some villages
which perform rituals to restore
the state of affairs when the
balance is lost. Human nature are
innumerable reasons for causing a
shift in this balance. There are
equally innumerable rituals that
can be done to correct the
imbalance.
Dance and chants are a very
essential part of their ritual.
Rituals are usually accompanied
by dances. It is the higher
symbolic form for the Filipino. It
represents the distillation of
collective memory, affect,
religious piety, humility, and
purity of intention. Even a
complex message can be
articulated or maybe understood
through dance (Obusan 2015).
Magos (1997), discussed the
mara-it or dangerous zone of
Panay Island. According to her,
Panaynon believes in spirit They also believe that the earth
beings in the sea like siokoy and the universe has a layered
(half-man, half fish sea monster) structure with spirit beings live
and the mangingilaw (half man, in each layer.
half monkey man eating
monster) forest which are very
harmful.
Lupan-on are spirits beings who live
on land, the idalmunon are spirit
beings who live underneath the
surface of the earth and the tubignon
are spirit beings who live in water.
These folks remind them that the
earth is sacred, inhabited by the spirit
and thus dangerous.
If Panaynon uses the earth's resources
with discourtesy or greed, they will
make the spirits angry. There are
necessary fishing and farming rites to
be performed regularly to gain the
favor from spirits such as daga
(bloodletting) and the samba
(communal fishing rite).
RELIGION
Religion came from the Latin word religio
means to respect or care for. It is
generally defined as; “belief in, worship
of, or obedience to a supernatural power
or powers considered to be divine or to
have control of human destiny."
According to Santrock
(2014), religion is an
organized set of beliefs,
practices, rituals and
symbols that increases an
individual’s connection to
a sacred or transcendent
other (God, higher power,
ultimate truth).
Religion is functional especially in the unification
of a certain place or country. It binds the people
through its teachings, practices and the end goal
that everyone wants to attain.

If there is no religion, what would be

the content and priority of the law
making body in creating and
proposing a bill in the congress?
Probably, that would be the earthly
things in the world.
SPIRITUALIT
Y
S pirituality, on the other hand,
involves experiencing something
beyond oneself in a transcendent
manner and living in a way that
benefits others and society. It
could be related to a search for
the sacred.
The term “sacred” may signify a
person, an object, a principle, or a
concept that transcends the self.
The sacred can include a divine
being or a divine object that is
“set apart” and considered as
holy or beyond ordinary.
The reference to what religion is,
also refers to the dynamics of the
meaning attached to spirituality.
It emerges as people relate to the
developmental and existential
challenges of the search for the
meaning of existence amidst the
ambiguity of life.
SPIRITUAL
IDENTITY
Spiritual identity is the persistent sense of
self that addresses ultimate questions
about the nature, purpose and meaning of
life. It results in behavior that are consonant
with the individual’s core values. The
definition of a sense of spiritual identity
focuses on the individual construction of a
relationship to the sacred and ultimate
meaning.
MAGIC
Magic is the power apparently influencing the
course of events by using mysterious or
supernatural forces. It is the ability to use
supernatural forces to make impossible things
happen, such as making people disappear or
controlling events in nature.
A magician is usually a worker in the kind of
magic that is on the whole public and good,
whereas a sorcerer is generally considered an
evil figure, one who deals in matters that his or
her clients would rather keep secret and one
whose work may be downright antisocial
(Frankle and Stein, 2005).
SORCERE A wizard is one who is
thought to be acquired

R
A sorcerer is translated
from the Greek word
with the secrets of the
nonmaterial or unseen
pharmakos, and carries world while a
with it the idea of necromancer is one
medicine, magic potion, who is “seeking unto
drugs, and poison. the dead”.
In the Philippines, it swarms small
invisible insects residing in bamboos
that enter the body through open
space causing the intestine, stomach,
lungs, and liver to swell during high
tides and shrink during low tides.

Mambabarang is a person
who practices this specific
type of sorcery or witchcraft.
Binarang is the target (usually
a person) of sorcery or
witchcraft.
BALANG
Balang is the Filipino term
for a sorcerer. It is used to
describe malignant sorcery
or familiar spirits (usually a
swarm of destructive
insects, specially
carnivorous beetles).
In the Philippines, it
swarms small invisible
insects residing in
bamboos that enter the
body through open
space causing the
intestine, stomach,
lungs, and liver to swell
during high tides and
shrink during low tides.
In the Philippines, it swarms small
invisible insects residing in bamboos
that enter the body through open
space causing the intestine, stomach,
lungs, and liver to swell during high
tides and shrink during low tides.

Mambabarang is a person
who practices this specific
type of sorcery or witchcraft.
Binarang is the target (usually
a person) of sorcery or
witchcraft.
 KULAM
Kulam is the Tagalog word for
“voodoo” or “witchcraft”. It is
one of the most well-known
aspects of Philippine folklore.
A mangkukulam is a person who uses black magic or spells on a victim. After the spell is
cast, the victim will experience a form of illness which cannot be cured by modern
medicine, misfortunes to himself and loved ones, inability to concentrate, lack of sleep,
loss of appetite, freak accidents, and other unexplained events.

The fear of kulam usually has an

effect on how a person conducts
himself in the community and on
how people treat each other in a
community.
A mangkukulam is a person who uses black
magic or spells on a victim. After the spell is
cast, the victim will experience a form of illness
which cannot be cured by modern medicine. Also misfortunes to himself and loved ones,
inability to concentrate, lack of sleep, loss of
appetite, freak accidents, and other
unexplained events.
 Albulario/mananambal is a Filipino practitioner of
traditional medicine; he is also a medicine man who is
also capable of performing sorcery. Albulario is a Filipino
witch doctor, folk healer or medicine man.

When the person feels that his ailments and misfortunes are caused by
kulam, he consults an albulario who performs rituals in order to defeat
the spells of the mangkukulan and bring the person back to normalcy.
Most Filipinos aside from being a superstitious
people believe in the mythical creatures of local
folklore which includes the aswang,
manananggal, kapre, dwende, sirena, syokoy,
engkanto, sigbin, tikbalang, tianak and many
others.
According to local folklore such creatures inhabit dark forest and unexplored regions of
barrios in the provinces. Each region has their own mythical creature which usually
comes out in the night looking for food in the form: fresh blood, pregnant mothers (they
target the fetus), and human organs like the liver or for victims to take them into the
other world.
Viktor Frankl an Austrian neurologist and psychologist
founded Logotherapy. Logotherapy is based on the
premise that the human person is motivated by a “will to
meaning,” an inner pull to find a meaning in life (Frankl
1988). Finding and creating meaning in life is what Viktor
Frankl would like to teach to everybody. The following list
of tenets represents basic principles of logotherapy:
1. Life has meaning under all
circumstances, even the most
miserable
Every ones.in one’s life has meaning. People tend
occurrence
to find the meaning of that occurrence especially if it is a
good incident or circumstances. However, they tend to
ask themselves or God for the occurrence of bad
happenings in their lives.
2. Our main motivation for living is
our will to find meaning in life.
People experience different sufferings in life in terms of
relationship, love, studies, money, job, etc. Finding
meaning in life despite the sufferings should be the main
motivation for living.
 3. We have freedom to find meaning in
what we do, and what we experience, or
at least in the stand we take
when faced with a situation of
unchangeable
Problems and challengessuffering.
are inevitable. These make
individuals strong and hold their faith to their God.
These also make them to be flexible in a changing and
dynamic society, to win in the battle or to accept the
defeat but with satisfactory adjustment.
According to Frankl,
everybody can discover the
meaning in their life in
three different ways:
 1. By creating a work or doing a dead
1. Life has meaning under all
Individuals will find the meaning in their lives through the
circumstances, even the most
works, accomplishments, and achievements they have.
miserable
Every
This will ones.
occurrence
give in one’s
insights andlife has meaning.
realization People tend
to individuals that
tocreating
find theormeaning of that occurrence
doing something especially
specially to fulfill notif only
it is a
good
their incident or also
needs but circumstances.
the needs ofHowever, they tend
other people, that tothey
ask
willthemselves or Godof
find the meaning fortheir
the life.
occurrence of bad
happenings in their lives.
 2. By experiencing something or
encountering someone.
Individuals will discover the meaning in their lives by opening
opportunities to experience something or to meet other
people. Confining themselves in a four corner of their room
will only limit themselves to new experiences of life. If they
tend to open themselves to new experiences or to
encounter other people, their world will be wider.
3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable
suffering and that everything can be taken from a
man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set
ofIndividuals
circumstances
will find meaning in their lives by having a
positive attitude towards circumstances. Failures in life,
for example, is unavoidable suffering that gives pain to
individuals.
 END OF
DISCUSSION
Mr. IANCE GAEVRIEL D. TUBO