Dear kind reader,
I received a few emails about personal experiences with "kulam" (voodoo) after this entry about June, but this one takes the cake as it happened to a friend of mine, a visual artist who now lives abroad.
Unlike June, however, this one had a tragic end.
Read this fantastic story, so creepy it reads like a Tagalog horror movie.
Keep safe everyone.
* * *
Dear Cecile,
Our Mom supposedly was a victim, although this was never confirmed.
It was a series of tragic events, and in light of this, makes it easy to dismiss as not so.
Started out one evening when the maid called me to our Mom's room, where I was shocked to see her seated naked, pale-white, and sweating so much that she looked like she just stepped out of the pool.
She was freaking out, and could not put to words what it was she was feeling, except that she kept on throwing up, and could not move her legs.
I asked to go to my room to get my cell phone to call my brother, and there was so much TERROR in her voice asking me to PLEASE not leave her for even a second.
At the end of it around 2:30 or 3 AM I was able to get her to relax and try to sleep, although she was terrified to shut her eyes, so I watched over her beside, which relieved her.
We also had about five bath towels all soaked, I kid you not. She tried to sleep but couldn't, and she would open her eyes every so often to check if I was still there. Side note though: this was atypical of her, kasi she was the "pa-martir" type of mom.
She [was hospitalized and] never got out of the ICU na, where she had three strokes, and finally a heart attack that she passed away from even if she never had a heart condition. She also had her eyes open, and up to now I do not understand that expression on her lifeless face, looking up at the ceiling.
The healer that I knew could not be reached during all that, and it was all over when I finally had him picked up from Quezon (province). He said that it was a woman from Iloilo that did it, who sent something for our mother to eat, and it was by questioning the household help that I found out a cake was sent from there, brought by our
uncle. (We lost all our properties from his deception, and his kabit/mistress is from Iloilo).
Anyway I was the supposed next target, and I had to go get "treated", which culminated in a final ritual done at 12 midnight.
For secrecy it was done at our then-driver's house, and I was "bathed" on three evenings with water from boiled bark, etc. with incantations uttered together with the "buhos" (bathing).
What was strange was on the final night, at the stroke of midnight their dog kept on barking my way while the ritual was being performed non-stop—even if the dog had been quiet all that time and the two evenings prior.
Our Lola on our father's side was a victim of "Barang", which was documented by a priest when the ritual was perfomed at our aunt's house in Bacolod.
What started as a small wound on her scalp progressed into a HOLE, which towards her last days permitted one to see into her brain.
The doctors diagnosed it as cancer, although they were perplexed as to the "cancer" boring a hole into her skull.
During the ritual, small pieces of cloth were prepared with potato shavings and incense.
It wasn't hocus-pocus because our grandma would feel pain, and alert the people around her of feeling internal movement, and of something making its way out—for a few days fat worms, and the last one was an insect with wings.
The "kulam" supposedly came from Negros Oriental.
Memories flooded back after I read your post, and I spoke about it to a lady friend who said that one should have the Bible open to Psalm 91 for protection, or a print out of which I will do.
So there's my "kulam" kwento. Am so glad the boy is safe.
![Psalm 91]()
I received a few emails about personal experiences with "kulam" (voodoo) after this entry about June, but this one takes the cake as it happened to a friend of mine, a visual artist who now lives abroad.
Unlike June, however, this one had a tragic end.
Read this fantastic story, so creepy it reads like a Tagalog horror movie.
Keep safe everyone.
Dear Cecile,
Our Mom supposedly was a victim, although this was never confirmed.
It was a series of tragic events, and in light of this, makes it easy to dismiss as not so.
Started out one evening when the maid called me to our Mom's room, where I was shocked to see her seated naked, pale-white, and sweating so much that she looked like she just stepped out of the pool.
She was freaking out, and could not put to words what it was she was feeling, except that she kept on throwing up, and could not move her legs.
I asked to go to my room to get my cell phone to call my brother, and there was so much TERROR in her voice asking me to PLEASE not leave her for even a second.
At the end of it around 2:30 or 3 AM I was able to get her to relax and try to sleep, although she was terrified to shut her eyes, so I watched over her beside, which relieved her.
We also had about five bath towels all soaked, I kid you not. She tried to sleep but couldn't, and she would open her eyes every so often to check if I was still there. Side note though: this was atypical of her, kasi she was the "pa-martir" type of mom.
She [was hospitalized and] never got out of the ICU na, where she had three strokes, and finally a heart attack that she passed away from even if she never had a heart condition. She also had her eyes open, and up to now I do not understand that expression on her lifeless face, looking up at the ceiling.
The healer that I knew could not be reached during all that, and it was all over when I finally had him picked up from Quezon (province). He said that it was a woman from Iloilo that did it, who sent something for our mother to eat, and it was by questioning the household help that I found out a cake was sent from there, brought by our
uncle. (We lost all our properties from his deception, and his kabit/mistress is from Iloilo).
Anyway I was the supposed next target, and I had to go get "treated", which culminated in a final ritual done at 12 midnight.
For secrecy it was done at our then-driver's house, and I was "bathed" on three evenings with water from boiled bark, etc. with incantations uttered together with the "buhos" (bathing).
What was strange was on the final night, at the stroke of midnight their dog kept on barking my way while the ritual was being performed non-stop—even if the dog had been quiet all that time and the two evenings prior.
Our Lola on our father's side was a victim of "Barang", which was documented by a priest when the ritual was perfomed at our aunt's house in Bacolod.
What started as a small wound on her scalp progressed into a HOLE, which towards her last days permitted one to see into her brain.
The doctors diagnosed it as cancer, although they were perplexed as to the "cancer" boring a hole into her skull.
During the ritual, small pieces of cloth were prepared with potato shavings and incense.
It wasn't hocus-pocus because our grandma would feel pain, and alert the people around her of feeling internal movement, and of something making its way out—for a few days fat worms, and the last one was an insect with wings.
The "kulam" supposedly came from Negros Oriental.
Memories flooded back after I read your post, and I spoke about it to a lady friend who said that one should have the Bible open to Psalm 91 for protection, or a print out of which I will do.
So there's my "kulam" kwento. Am so glad the boy is safe.
