By Pennie Azarcon-dela Cruz
Photos by Manny Fernandez

“There was this painted portrait of a woman hanging on the wall. As I looked at it, I saw the portrait change into different faces—right before my eyes! And everybody else saw it.”
          Ruel de Vera, 28, didn’t actually think he’d have a psychic experience on his first outing with the Spirit Questors. After all, he admits, he has no developed psychic powers and was there only for the story (De Vera writes for a popular daily). But, he confides, “On the quests I’ve been on, whether on crime scenes or in homes, I heard some very strange sounds and felt very odd sensations.”

ost people, however, are drawn to the Questors by their common psychic experience. Take Michael Duque, 28, and a registered nurse who confessed to having “unnatural experiences since early childhood” and thought they were normal.  It wasn’t until he accidentally saw Tony Perez’s book, The Calling, that he realized he had the  gift. Soon enough, he joined the Questors. “I want to share what I have learned so far and to guide [other psychics] in their progress,” says this guy who describes himself as “born Catholic and will die as one.”
          Like Duque, most members of the Questors are young, between 15 to 25, although the youngest member is six years old. The younger members are required to have their parents’ permission to join the group. Membership is open to all but, cautions Perez, “We discourage people who sign up because they desire power, fame, popularity, or opportunities to make money.” 

here are no extraordinary risks involved in a quest, says Perez.  “It’s a question of common sense. I train students to discern spirits who mean harm from those who do not, and we go through that every day. We don't have to be psychic to take precautions when meeting a stranger in any big city, do we?”
          Perez is equally pragmatic in the face of the danger of possession by malevolent spirits. “I believe that an [supernatural] entity cannot possess you unless you give it permission to. And, typically, the invitation is [your] being in a state of loneliness. Note that people who are not lonely do not get possessed.” 
          Duque recalls his own preparation for his first quest: “I prayed intently to my concept of God and asked for his protection and guidance. I also did the psychic protective meditation that Tony Perez advised us to use. It is a modification of Denning and Osborne’s Psychic Self-Defense, which we call the Tower of Light.”

lthough “there is no such thing as a typical session,” says Perez, the Questors follow a protocol when they receive a call. “We first determine if the physiological and psychological factors of a case have already been considered. Only then do we accept the invitation to initiate a psychic or astral exploration.”
          The group then meets with the agent, or the person who contacted them, to get briefed on the case. “It is possible that we read Tarot cards during this time or psychometrize objects related to the case, like the personal belongings of a missing person, a murder weapon, and so on,” explains Perez. “Then we perform an initial scanning.  In an actual quest, we visit the site and do a spirit quest there. Essentially, the Questors channel information from astral memory or from actual spirits in the vicinity, whether they be spirit guides, human spirits, or elementals.

t can be quite scary. “An actual quest is always both fascinating and terrifying,” says De Vera. “In the back of your mind, you’re constantly trying not to believe it and casting about for some rational explanation. But at some point, you get really scared because a lot of what you're experiencing is new and frightening.”
          Duque confesses to as much. “It was scary at first, but as we progressed, my fears were transformed into compassion and understanding. Circumstances about the event that were initially perceived as unnatural by some people became perfectly clear and rational to me.”
          Recalling the quests he’s been on since joining the group in 1997, Duque reveals that “seeing with the psychic eye is entirely different from seeing with the physical eye. One can see [spirits] even with the eyes closed.  Communication with a spirit will be through a vision, a picture, a scene or simply the spirit making gestures.”
         Perez reveals that his scariest experience so far has been his first encounter with the tikbalang, the half-man, half-horse creature of Philippine folklore.  His latest book on the Questors, Stories of the Moon, recounts the encounter in full.

he fear that similar dark forces would be encouraged by psychic contacts has, however, engendered criticisms from fundamentalist Christians. But Perez shrugs them off.  “Christians like them are Pharisees. They interpret the Scriptures literally.  Jesus was against all Pharisees and He was a revolutionary.”
          The encouraging response from the academic community where Perez moves in, however, far outweighs the criticisms. “Students usually want to attend my workshops and enroll in my classes, and I have yet to receive notice of censure from my colleagues at the Ateneo and La Salle where I teach part-time.”
          More important to Perez is the Spirit Questors’ own gauge of success. “Sometimes, by just sitting there and listening to an agent talk about his loved ones, we are able to provide comfort. At the very least, we provide spiritual counseling to the living.”

ut while the Questors is in the business of helping agents and spirits, it has also managed to touch the lives of its members. Perez himself confesses to changing his goals “from wanting to become a National Artist to wanting to be a theologian. As a theologian, I would like to focus on life after death.”
          Adds this Cultural Affairs Specialist for American Studies at the US Embassy: “I have also learned that Christianity and Christians are so diverse that they cannot be contained in any discrete cultural shape or form, as, I think, it should be. I believe that no single religion contains all the truth.”
          Duque, meanwhile, believes that being with the Questors has bolstered his belief in ghosts and spirits. “Just as we believe in God despite the inability of science to prove His existence, I believe ghosts and spirits are real unless proven otherwise.”
          De Vera is more cautious. “I've always been a trained skeptic. And while I remain one to this day, what I've experienced with the Questors leads me to say that not everything in this world can be explained away by science. I've learned that there's so much out there we don't know about, at least for now.”