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    The Spirit Quest Chronicles
    The Spirit Quest Chronicles
    The Spirit Quest Chronicles
    Ebook141 pages2 hours

    The Spirit Quest Chronicles

    By Ruel De Vera

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    About this ebook

    From the pages of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, here is Ruel S. De Vera’s fascinating series on the Spirit Questors, a band of young psychic volunteers who encounter and communicate with spirits and elementals. Inside are accounts of the Questors’ visits to houses and offices, and even to the Manila Film Center. These are true-to-life journeys into the supernatural — all of them reminders of the redemptive power of love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnvil Publishing, Inc.
    Release dateNov 21, 2017
    ISBN9786214200542
    The Spirit Quest Chronicles

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      Book preview

      The Spirit Quest Chronicles - Ruel De Vera

      While the names of the persons and places sponsoring the Quests have been changed to protect their privacy, all other details presented are accurate.

      ANVILLOGOBLACK2

      The essays in this collection were all previously published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

      The Spirit Quest Chronicles

      Ruel S. De Vera

      Copyright to this digital edition © 1997 by  RUEL S. DE VERA

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

      Published and exclusively distributed by

      ANVIL PUBLISHING, INC.

      7th Floor, Quad Alpha Centrum

      125 Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City

      1550 Philippines

      Sales & Marketing: (632) 4774752, 4774755 to 57

      Fax: (632) 7471622

      marketing@anvilpublishing.com

      www.anvilpublishing.com

      First printing, 1997

      Second printing, 2001

      ISBN 9786214200542 (e-book)

      Soft pencil illustrations by TONY PEREZ

      Cover art and design by ALBERT BORRERO

      Interior design by ANI V. HABÚLAN

      E-book formatting by ARVYN CEREZO

      Version 1.0.1

      For all the Spirit Questors

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I would like to thank Thelma Sioson San Juan, the Inquirer’s Lifestyle editor, who saw what was special in the Quests from the very beginning and gave me a way of telling others about them; Karla Delgado-Yulo, Alya Honasan, and Pennie Dela Cruz of the Sunday Inquirer-Magazine; Dr. Doreen Fernandez, for editing the manuscript; the Department of Communications for giving us a home; Noel McRae for waiting up with us every week; Dr. Susan Evangelista and the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies; Karina Bolasco and Gwenn Galvez of Anvil, who believed in the project; Ani V. Habúlan and Albert Borrero, who gave this book its face; Jessica Zafra; 103.5 K-L1TE; Reuters; Associated Press; Assignment; all the individuals and families who sponsored the Quests, for letting me tell their stories; all the Questors, for their selfless contribution of presence; all their families, for understanding; Charmaine Cruz, Kat Luna, Ritchie Ramos, and Josie Buenafe, for their stories; Keech Hidalgo, for the tireless organization; Mikah Tabios, for the chance to discover together; and Tony Perez, for the illustrations and for opening a new way of healing for all of us.

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      The Portrait

      The Ghost and the Machine

      Full Moon Over Pangasinan

      Mirror, Mirror

      Father’s Day

      Elemental Love

      Disguises

      Behold Thy Son

      Doppelganger

      The Film Center 1

      The Film Center 2

      The Film Center 3

      INTRODUCTION

      We celebrate this day, to the very hour, to the very minute and to the very second, the first anniversary of the Spirit Questors, a group of young, psychic volunteers that evolved from the final project of the class Psychic Powers and Shamanism, an elective course under the Interdisciplinary Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University in the second semester of school year 1995-1996.

      Today, the Questors are a force of approximately 100 university students and graduates of the Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, the University of the Philippines and Mapua Institute of Technology, performing a weekly public service on a zero budget and free of charge, assisting earth-bound spirits to resolve issues involving unfinished business and attachments, and assisting the living through psychological counseling and alternative healing. They are available to persons unable to receive further consolation from the clergy, from doctors, from lawyers, and from the police. They are the straws that the desperate cling to. As such they almost always unfailingly respond to every sincere call for help.

      Last year, the Spirit Questors did an average of one or two quests a week. This year they are on an average of six or seven, or a minimum of two quests per subgroup per night. Congregating on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., being dispatched in three subgroups at 8:30 p.m. and going home at 5:30 a.m. has become their normal weekend. On Saturday, February 15, along with the students of the class Magic, also an elective under the Interdisciplinary Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University this school year, they are celebrating their first anniversary by holding an oracle festival and magic fair outside the Department of Communications building. On the evening of that same day they will be on their 100th quest. The farthest they have reached within the previous year are Bacolod City, Pampanga, Malolos and Antipolo, yet as of this writing a quest is being scheduled in San Francisco, U.S.A.

      Alongside the unsolicited television, radio and print interviews — including those conducted by Reuters, the Associated Press, Asia International and Deutsche Welle — Ruel S. De Vera documented several quests for his series The Spirit Quest Chronicles, in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. All of them are anthologized in this book titled The Spirit Quest Chronicles, a copy of which you are holding in your hands. It is the third volume in the new Filipino Transpersonal Psychology series of Anvil Publishing, Inc. I honestly believe that the contents of this book made De Vera the most widely-read journalist of 1996. While he does not wish to be labelled a psychic journalist — since he is also a poet, a literary reviewer and a feature writer, among other things — he has unintentionally pioneered both the field and the craft of psychic journalism in the Philippines.

      De Vera’s documentation centers on three major quests held at the Film Center of the Philippines in 1996, which perhaps created the most controversy and ill will, particularly in Metro Manila. Every time the Spirit Questors visited the Film Center, they were caught between two opposing political camps: one that claims that there are no bodies trapped in cement inside the Film Center, and the other that claims that there are — and that they can be properly identified because they are still wearing their plastic I.D. cards.

      The frenzy resulted in my being invited to lunch with former First Lady Mrs. Imelda Romualdez Marcos in her suites at the Pacific Plaza, during which she presented to me her knowledge of and views on the 1986 incident. I believed her sincerity, and I still do. We agreed to schedule a special quest, which she was enthusiastic to attend, but which was aborted at the last minute by her security advisers. That quest was intended to be a forum for Mrs. Marcos to extend her feeling for the earthbound spirits in the Film Center (which were not necessarily of the persons who died there), not a forum for the denial and hurling of accusations. Still, Mrs. Marcos graciously sponsored the dawn Mass and breakfast that followed, which to me were touching gestures.

      The frenzy also resulted in a monthly radio and print campaign generated by the first camp to discredit and question the credibility of the Spirit Questors. What the masterminds of the campaign did not consider, however, was that their endeavors were leading to the very backlash they feared would happen: that in order to settle the controversy once and for all, there would be no recourse but to do an actual search for bodies.

      Last but not least, the frenzy offended quite a few of my dearest friends, among them angel workshop leader and resource person Penny Zosa and her coterie of New Age aficionados, who were active supporters of Mrs. Marcos in the 1970s. I am fortunate that they remain my dearest friends.

      Before you proceed to De Vera’s coverage of the three quests, let me take this opportunity to clarify the stand of the Spirit Questors on this matter:

      1. The Questors are a politically neutral group. They have to be, in order to engender love, which takes no sides.

      2. The Questors schedule quests only upon the invitation of agents, or contact persons. They neither solicit nor initiate quests.

      3. The number of spirits that the Questors encountered at the Film Center includes elementals, transient spirits and spirits of persons who died on the grounds and their immediate vicinity even long before the Film Center was constructed.

      4. While I recognize that the findings of both amateur and professional psychics are not admissible as evidence in any court, I still would like to state that the Questors cannot and will not testify to the defense of either political camp at any time. We are merely spirit questors; we are not a group of social scientists or criminal investigators.

      This is by no means the last volume of documented spirit quests that De Vera intends to produce. We have a wealth of material, and the Philippines abounds with psychic phenomena. On top of everything, more and more young people seem to be awakening their psychic powers. They are the successor generation who will eventually replace, in the 2000s, the accepted few of today.

      Of course there will always be the skeptical, the cynical and the dense. We have already met them, and we continue to expect to meet their kind. Yet

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