Tony Perez

In the late 90s there was a group in the Philippines known as the Spirit Questors, a collection of people with special abilities that would help earthbound spirits "cross over". Stories of the Questors' adventures quickly spread and they were often seen on TV or print media investigating and helping people with problems relating to the paranormal. The group was started by Tony Perez, an author, artist and adjunct lecturer who taught a Shamanism class in Ateneo de Manila and De La Salle University. My husband was able to take that class in college and was always astonished about the things he had learned and experienced in it. We got in touch with Tony and asked him all the creepy questions my husband wishes he had asked when he was in his class 10 years ago. Take a deep breath and open your mind as we chat with Tony about haunted places, invisible beings, and his scariest experiences of all time.

Photo by Hedwig de Leon/ Courtesy of Tanghalang Philipino

You used to teach a Shamanism Class. What was that class all about?

Shamanism as I taught it in two universities was an American Studies course that sought to explore the ancient practices of the Native North Americans. It instilled in students an appreciation of heritage conservation. I was a Cultural Affairs Specialist for the Embassy of the U.S.A. at the time. I was also Program Officer for the Study of the U.S. Program and the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation.

Can you explain your abilities?

On top of the five physical senses every person has six other senses: clairvoyance, or psychic vision, popularly known as "the third eye"; clairaudience, or the ability to hear sounds and voices beyond one's "normal" range; empathy, or psychic feeling; clairsentience, or intuition; clairaroma, or psychic smell; and clairgustus, or psychic taste. Everyone has these other senses, but almost always in different degrees. I believe that, long before language came into being, so-called primitive men and women communicated with one another, and with animals, using these senses.

I wrote a cyberspace book containing exercises that can be done alone to develop these abilities, Tony Perez's Psychic Exercises for the Spirit Questors. It costs nothing. It can be Google-searched and read on-line.