This document discusses Filipino religious psychology based on investigations into folk Christianity, religious experiences, and religious leadership in the Philippines. Key findings include that Filipino folk Christianity incorporates magical and animistic elements valuable to understanding Filipino psychology. Religious experiences like fasting and Holy Week rituals can induce altered states of consciousness and be understood psychologically. Religious leadership is often charismatic and ascribed supernatural powers, with leaders benefiting materially from their missions. The document argues for a holistic understanding of how religion pervades many aspects of Filipino life and culture.

1. Filipino Religious Psychology
: A Commentary
Submitted to:
Prof. Agnes Montalbo
Rizal technological university

2. Filipino folk Christianity
supposedly characterized
by magical and animistic
qualities that make it
inferior to
urbanized,rational religion.

3. “better educated modern city folks who
think of these experiences as nothing
more than fraud,myths,superstitions or
imagination run wild typically of
gullible,uneducated minds.”

4. Results from investigations in
the three topic areas
1. The psychology of Filipino
medico-religious therapy and
counseling

5. The religious elements in
Samar-Leyte folk medicine
and the psychology of
various folk healers:

6. the tambalan in
Leyte,
the albularyo in
Batangas,
And the espiritistas
in Cebu

7. 2. The psychology of religious
experience in popular devotions:
to the SeÑor Santo NiÑo in Cebu

8. To the blessed Virgin Mary,
the Santacruzan
To the Lenten rites in
Palo,Leyte
And to the Black Nazarene
of Quiapo

9. The psychology of religious
leadership in locally founded
sects :
Iglesia Watawat ng Lahi,

10. The Iglesia ni Cristo,
The Philippine Benevolent
Missionaries Association
Inc.
And the Lapiang Malaya

11. It indicate that Filipino (folk) Christianity
have a valuable contribution in
understanding the psychology of Filipino

12. De-Mistifying Filipino Religious
Experience

13. Filipino Religious Psychology –
To bind himself to God and God to
him,
To enter into a union with the infinite
and the Almighty

14. Bulatao states:
Fasting- change of consciousness in
religious meaning,to prepare for mystic
prayer and union but these are seen as
direct working of the Holy Spirit.

15. The psychological dynamics of certain
religious practices – the Holy Week
flagellantes, the cursillo experience
even spirit of the glass are discussed in
the light of ASC.

16. Filipino Religious
Psychology - union
with the infinite
through
transcendence of the
finite

17. Filipino folk Christianity –
traditional Christianity’s own
practices and devotions.

18. Religious experiences as an ASC is a
new way of understanding the
experience.
(resurgence of the secular mind)

19. The Filipino and his Religion

20. Filipino religious
psychology should be a
holistic one.
And pervades the
many aspects of the
Filipino’s life.

21. The Filipino needs visible,tangible
symbol as an expression of his religion.

22. The Filipino more tends to
carry the native cultural and
psychological mechanisms.

23. The Filipino’s ascription of
human traits to a supernatural
God.

24. Quisimbing in her paper on the devotion to
the Senor Sto.Nino of Cebu explains:
Social function exercised in religious contexts
and situations enhanced social cohesiveness
and organizations.

25. The only appropriate
approach is to start with
what the people know
rather than what we know.

26. Filipina religion is replete with
instances of ASC.
(the espiritistas and flagellants
of Holy Week)

27. Leaders personality :
Charismatic -> magnetic

28. Mass hypnosis by Ecleo
(founder and head of the
PBMA.
Supernatural powers by
Valentin de los
Santos(Lapiang Malaya)

29. Leadership is holistic
Leadership described as ascribing some sort of
supernatural powers.
Leaders benefited from the material return of
their “mission”.