Fr.
Jaime Bulatao & Filipino Psychology
• Most theories are Western - learn Filipino
• Possession and poltergeist readings
◦ Freud would say it’s the id and neurotic
anxiety
• Who was Fr. Bu?
◦ Finished degree in clinical psychology at
Fordham, New York
◦ Known for paranormal psychology but trained
in experimental psychology
◦ Time when behaviorism was at its peak
◦ Head the central guidance office of ADMU
◦ Established the psychology department
◦ One of the founders of the psychological
association of the Philippines
◦ Known for his work regarding paranormal/folk
phenomena
• Nature of reality
◦ Objective reality - observable, verifiable,
measurable (like a behavioral perspective)
▪ Ex - friend seenzoned you
◦ Subjective reality - as experienced by the
subject
▪ Ex - how you react to friend
seenzoning you
▪ Different from common experience;
personal experience
• 2 worlds of consciousness
◦ Objective mind - connected to objective reality
▪ Concerned w/ problem solving,
information, surviving in the world of
objects
▪ Objects/things around me
▪ For freud and jung, would be the ego
◦ Subjective mind - connected to subjective
reality
▪ This part of us doesn’t operate on
objective conceptualization (what my
senses tell me/whats told & literal);
operates on empathy & feel/intuition
▪ Not physical senses and info we
gather from them; about underlying
experience
▪ Experiences, empathizes, knows
▪ Nothing out of this world; is
something we all feel
▪ Mirror neurons - help us feel what
others are feeling
▪ Ex - sit beside someone and know
they feel bad then you start to feel
bad too
▪ Ex - looking at friend crying and your
chest hurts too
▪ Ex - looking at a plain painting and
you get feelings from it
▪ Not literal; is subliminally perceived
▪ Like Jung’s personal, or even
collective unconscious
• Day consciousness - objective mind
◦ Usually dominates, easy to understand
◦ "Waking consciousness” - the ego
• Night consciousness - subjective mind
◦ Not usually apparent; speaks its own
language
◦ Doesn’t speak in any language everyone
commonly understand
◦ That language is difficult to understand and
access with conscious minds
◦ Like bad google translate; if try to understand
w normal consciousness, seems weird
◦ may come out absurd, distorted, and symbolic
◦ May be what happens when we experience
supernatural phenomena
◦ Borrow images/objects from the objective
world to express
• The subjective mind
◦ Understanding “possession”
◦ Ako = conductor
◦ Sub-selves = orchestra members
◦ Sub-self = closely associated images,
thoughts, feelings, and
◦ Understanding poltergeist
• Collective unconscious
◦ Memories of everyone alive once humans had
consciousness
◦ Nature = zoom in shapes and arteries;
detailed na part of the patterns
 Fr. Jaime Bulatao & Filipino Psychology

◦ Archetypes - Made of specific memories of

people
◦ Zoom out = look at nature - oceans/roots look
like arteries
◦ Collective unconscious bigger
◦ More encompassing patterns/aspects

• Oliver Sacks
◦ Children may feel/experience and
see more cause when they’re
younger, they’re more connected to
collective unconscious; less ego
◦ Children more biologically prone to
feel these things
◦ Ghosts - connected to all the things
that make the patterns; even the
little memories
◦ Not sensitive to paranormal; can
zoom in and access parts of collective
unconscious - tap into memories
related to it via the collective
unconscious
◦ Someone else’s
◦ People suddenly find God after going
thru major accidents
◦ Eclectic foci (?)
◦ Found across several cases - all had it
in the brain
◦ Visual hallucinations - see little
animals and little people
◦ Sometimes all hallucinations look
the same BUT don’t lose touch of
reality - see them anyway
◦ Some experience “supernatural” for
younger kids - imaginary friend