Spooked - Tattoo Exorcism

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Traditional-Filipino-tattoo practitioner, Lane Wilcken, is never scared when ancestral spirits visit during tattoo sessions. He knows that those spirits, the ones that are just stopping by, aren’t the ones you have to worry about. Thank you, Lane Wilcken, for sharing your story with us! Lane wrote the book on traditional Filipino tattooing — Filipino Tattoos: Ancient to Modern. Today, Lane is one of only twenty people in the world who practice Filipino tattooing in its traditional form. Original score by Lauryn Newson, produced by Zoë Ferrigno, artwork by Teo Ducot Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary. What is your Terrell show? The future dark. The shadows mark. And paths. You shouldn't go. Listen to spooked. Stay.

Okay, so, I'm kind of nervous. My friend, one of my oldest friends, invites me to meet him at this dingy community center. You got to come. I don't really know what for. It's not the best part of town. And walking in, I feel like maybe I should have asked more questions. I don't know any of these people, but they seem to know each other. And the social cues are off.

Like, is this a party, a speech, performance? I can't tell. Some speak to each other. and what I think is French and some other language I don't know there are chairs loosely arranged around in a circle

and in the middle I see my friend instead of his jeans and T-shirt he's decked with splendid a beautiful white robe like it's his wedding or something he flashes me

his biggest smile the nods And as I'm trying to take a seat near the back, an older man motions me to the front, a position of respect. I start to protest, see the man's eyes, and then decide not to argue. A woman with beautiful, oiled dreads, perfect skin, lights several white candles. Then I hear the drums, softly, three, maybe four people testing out rhythms. clashing, bumping against each other than joining together.

Feeling their way toward a single beat. My friend sits, eyes closed like he's getting ready for something. Whatever this is, he's the center of it. So instead of asking him questions, I lean over to the OG. Hey man, what's going on here? Ask for your assistance. My assistance. For what?

Your friend. He will call the spirits to inhabit him, to use his body as their vessel. They. What you're talking about? I don't know about calling those spirits, man. Do not worry. You are not here to call forth the spirits. That is what I will do.

That is what we will do. Well, good then. Okay. You are the grounding. But what? As his oldest friend, you are here to help him, to remind him of himself. Remind him of himself. For what?

In case the spirits inhabiting his body do not wish spook stars. It's not necessarily a bad thing. As with everything else, it depends. Lane. Lane is a practitioner of traditional Philippines. tattooing. Over the course of his career, Lane has encountered the spirits of ancestors while he's tattooing. But every once in a while, Lane discovers the person he is tattooing is inhabited by something

that is definitely not the ancestors. I spent 20 years doing research on Filipino tattooing. After I got the book published, I thought, okay, well, Got Filipino tattoos ancient to modern out there. I've done my job. And then my mentor at the time, he said you collected all this information, you published it, but now you need to put it into practice. And that was pretty resistant to that.

For me, being half white, being raised in the diaspora and not in the homeland, I'm like, who am I to do any of this cultural restoration other than scholarly stuff, you know? but in 2012, my dad was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer called mesothelioma, and it's pretty much a death sentence once you're diagnosed. The oncologist wanted to do radiation treatment for him in the hopes of extending his life. They made all these marks on his body with a Sharpie, and they said, Mr. Wilkin, we'd really like to tattoo. these radiation targets on you so that we don't have to do the measurements every time.

And my father said, well, let me go home and think about it. And he called me up, and he said, Lane, they want to tattoo these radiation targets on me. But I don't want a man I don't know with a machine I don't know touching my body. You've been studying tattooing all these years. You tattoo me. There was a little bit of a moment of terror. I had never tattooed anyone before,

but who was I to deny my dying father? I went out to the backyard. My mom has some orange trees growing back there. I picked the orange thorn off of the tree. Took a wooden dowel drilled a hole in it, pushed that thorn through. It's a very simple tattooing implement from the Philippines. The best lighting in the house was actually the kitchen.

And so we just spread a little blanket on the floor. My dad laid down. And my brother John, he started to stretch the skin so that the tool can enter and exit the skin cleanly without getting snagged. We were both very, very nervous. I was doing my best not to tremble. And then I asked my dad if he was ready. He said, yes.

I had a little container of ink and dip the thorn into it. I just set a quiet little prayer in my head asking whoever was listening to please guide my hands and my tools. And I began tapping. My first initial taps were ginger. And then I realized I was hitting too softly. I had to hit a little bit harder to break the skin and get the ink in. There's a little layer of the skin that kind of pops a little bit when the thorn or the needle punches. through. I felt that the mark was there. My dad looked at peace as he laid there. It felt like a sacred

moment. He tattooed only three little targets on his body, two dots and an X. When we were finished, my dad just got up and very nonchalantly said, thank you, son. I don't know why he was so casual about it. Maybe it was his way of keeping things light because of the impending finality of all of this. That was the first tattoos I had ever done. It was on my dying father. Some months after my father had passed, I shared my experience with some of my friends up in Northern California, and people began asking if I would be willing to do ritual tattooing for them, what we call Batok in the Philippines. There was a definite change in me after that experience with my father. I realized I could do it. I could do the work. My confidence grew and it just kind

of snowballed from there. I have a lot of people both from the Philippines and the diaspora in the states primarily that come to me for traditional tattoos. There are many reasons for for getting tattooed. One is for lack of a better term, tribal affiliation, community affiliation. But also there are blessings that can be bestowed through tattooing. There's actually medicinal tattoos that happen as well. This is a spiritual practice. It's not body art in the way that we see tattooing in Western culture. If you're coming to me to look like the wrong, or Jason Mamoa, you know, you went to the gym, you got yoked a little bit,

and now it's time for a tribal tattoo? No, no, go somewhere else. I'm not going to do that. I remember the first person, aside from my father, that I tattooed. I was at a retreat at one of our elders' houses in Northern California, and during that retreat is when I was supposed to tattoo a couple of women in the living room. Before we tattoo, we did these prayers to summon the ancestors.

Part of the chant that I do, it asks for the spirits of the mothers and the fathers, all the relations to participate in the tattooing. We face West, which is the direction of the afterlife in our belief system. There are food offerings to the ancestors. I tell them, this is the food that we have set aside for you, that we're going to share with you. you're welcome here. The first woman that I worked on, she was a mistisa,

she was half white, like me, and really did not know much about the ancient Philippines. Didn't know much about our history, didn't know much about our attire. She's laying face down on the ground on a blanket. As I began marking her, she became very relaxed. She says, I'm seeing something.

I'm seeing myself in a cave. There's this old man, and he's wearing like a red loincloth, and he's got this red turban on his head. He's kind of watching and inspecting the tattooing. I had goosebumps. I felt a little chill go up the back of my spine. Her lineage was from the Visayas, which are the central islands of the Philippines.

And from her description, I recognized that this was a tire of an ancient Visayan chieftain. There was no way for her to know that, but I knew it because of my research. To have an elder looking over your shoulder is a little bit intimidating. But I have this thought, well, Lane, you've asked for them to come in your prayers, and they came. Why are you surprised, you know? I think this is just my own personal weirdness, but I wasn't necessarily afraid of ancestors coming and joining me. It was more of a confirmation that what I was doing was right.

But sometimes we also have to deal with those that are not necessarily invited. They're usually the ones that are hiding within a person. It doesn't happen very often. It's very rare, but it does happen. A few years ago, I was... I was contacted by a woman who happens to be a Christian minister that I had previously met on one of my book tours. She called me up. She said, my daughter wants to celebrate her second year of sobriety, and I was wondering if it would be okay to receive a book for that.

I said, sure, that's certainly a worthwhile reason to adorn somebody, and I made sure that her daughter was of age. I don't tattoo minors. She said, yeah, she's 24 years old. And so we set up the appointment. I was to meet with her at a friend's house in Los Angeles. So I'm waiting outside for them to arrive. And the car pulls up. I see the woman that I know get out of the car.

And then this other person gets out of the car with her. At first, I was wondering, how old is this person? She's small, petite. And as she's walking towards me, the way that she's carrying herself, it seems like a teenager. Maybe somebody in middle school. And I used to teach middle school. So I'm really familiar with how kids carry themselves. Introductions are may.

I'm like, hi, I'm Lane. And she just said, hi. Very quietly, mouse-like. We got in the house. I asked her mom again. I'm like, how old is she? Oh, she's 24. Oh, okay, okay, you know.

I trusted the mother. She'd been to several of my talks and we'd seen each other at community events. But there was just something off about it. We start talking. The conversation was mostly on my end with the young woman either nodding or very short, curt answers.

a lot of giggling. She had a hard time looking at me. But we went ahead and we drew up the design, which went down her spine. She gives me the thumbs up, approvals, to go ahead. We do all the prayers, and we begin tattooing. My friend, who's hosting me, she's stretching, holding the skin along with the mother.

I was going along, everything was going fine, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And I get about halfway down the spine, and the ink will not go into the skin. At first I thought, did I lose a point off of my tool? Inpected the tool, it's still sharp, put some more ink on it, tap, tap, tap, nothing would go in. I took my hand and hovered it over this spot. In a lot of our indigenous ways of doing medicine, the sensitive, you know, someone who has the ability, can feel disturbances in the electromagnetic field through your hand. I had learned over the years how to do that. And so I placed my hand near her body and I feel something there.

It feels like a tingling sensation at first in my hand. I was actually expecting to maybe pick up trauma or an emotion that she had shunted to that part of her body. People tend to put their stress in a particular part of their body. That's what I was originally expecting. But then this image was very forcefully placed into my head. A little girl, face, ashen, gray. dirty, angry. It's so quickly that I literally reel back a little bit, like, whoa, what is going on?

And that's when I knew, okay, there's somebody else here. My friend who was stretching, she looks at me. I could tell that she picked up on it too. She and I just looked at each other and like, oh crap, we got to do some work. So I put my hand over that spot that the ink wasn't going into. I feel something enter in through my hand. The sensation is analogous to when I get a shot. And you feel them push the fluid into you?

I feel something foreign go into my body and go all the way to my heart. And then I burp. My friend and I, we started extract. acting it and we're burping. Burp. Oh, excuse me. We don't want to alarm the mother, so we're trying to do this on the slide, right? Just keep burping, burping, and my friend kind of gives me this look like, let me take the

bulk of the work. You still have to, you still have to tattoo. So she starts burping a lot. Burp, burp, burp. Wow, I don't know what I ate. Burp, burp, burp. And finally, she says, well, you can. guys excuse me and she goes out of the room. She walks up the stairs. She goes into her own bedroom.

I hear the door to her bathroom open. She goes in there and lets out two gigantic farts. She comes back down, of course, all of us. We pretend like we didn't hear nothing. And I dip the tool in the ink and the ink goes right in. The young woman's demeanor changes immediately. She stood up a little more erect. Her voice sounds deeper. She didn't sound like a little girl. I did not bring it up with the young woman or her mother

because I knew their belief system. I would be telling her mother that she has a devil or a demon, and I didn't want to frighten her. I just kind of got back into business mode of getting the work done. tap, tap, tap, and finish the design up. But we hung out a little bit afterwards.

You know, we usually debrief a little bit to this kind of come down from the ceremony. It wasn't the giggly little girl that I had earlier. It was a woman. It seemed very mature. She changed. In 2022, a woman came to me for fertility markings. She had no prior tattoos. This was to be her first experience.

I normally in Las Vegas just tattoo out of my home. I converted my garage into a little studio. So she and her husband came through. We're sitting in our little studio. We're sharing a meal together. And then we get ready to start checking all the spots. She changes into a malong, which is kind of like a sorong or lava-lava or whatever you want to call it.

The husband takes out his phone. and he begins recording. This is a wonderful experience that they're supposed to be having, you know, getting her markings done. And I began checking the different fertility points on her body energetically. Normally I don't physically touch.

I just need to go near that spot. I run one finger, usually my index finger. I just scan that little area. I feel if there's a disturbance there, if it's hot, cold, extra tingly, not so tingly. Down from the nipple, there's a little divot in between the ribs that you can feel for,

and that is a fertility point. So I hovered my finger over that spot. All of a sudden, she starts burping. I asked permission, of course. May I actually touch this spot? She says, go ahead. And so I touched it, and she starts burping a lot. And she's like, I'm so sorry, Manam.

I don't know what's wrong. I just keep burping and oh my gosh mano I think I need to fart and she farts and I look over at Shane my apprentice and I just kind of give him this look like oh boy here we go because I realize at this point I'm dealing with an entity I don't tell her what I suspect is going on I just start accessing different spots besides that one and sure enough it just gets worse and worse She's burping, I'm burping. She farts multiple times. I get to her, I'm right underneath her right shoulder blade. She starts sweating, and she's kind of riding in discomfort. I don't know what it is, but get it out, get it out. Husband's videoing all this time, and his eyes are really big.

I could see the disbelief on his face and shock. I could tell that this spirit was exceptionally strong compared to some of the others I had extracted in the past. Much more entrenched in her. I call Shane, I'm going to need your help. I request the Bolo, which is the type of machete that we use in the Philippines. I have one in the studio in a scabbard up on the wall. Shane looked wide-eyed like, is this really happening?

But he went right to work. I have Shane burn a bunch of Bayabas, or glala leaves, and we smudged the bolo. And then I was going to take the bolo and scrape the skin with the blunt side to kind of force it into the arm and then out her hand, a place where I can really physically

force this thing out. But the moment that I touch her skin with it, she erupts out in hives. And I said, Sister, you've got a metal allergy? No, no, get it out. She's got hives all over her upper back and shoulder. And so I put the bolo away and I tell the skin, calm down. Copy me, calm down.

And the hives go down. And I'm like, I got to find out what happened to you. I've got to find out what happened to you. She had mentioned before that she had visited when she was four years old, Mananambal, which is kind of like a medicine person in the Southern Philippines. I said, why did you need to go to the Mananambal? And she says, well, because up until I went to the Mananambal, I couldn't be touched by anyone but my parents.

I would scream if other people touched me. I get a visual in my own head of this place. It's like remembering a memory. It was in the forest. There was a grass hut where the Mala Nambal. I can see her as a child. I can see her parents. I can see the Mada Nambal, who he was male.

He had covered her with a Lambon. It's a large black cloth. That keeps her isolated from any other spirits and closed her off spiritually. But in that intermediary point before he closed her off, something jumped in and hid. I tell her, I have to undo what the mana nambal did to get rid of this thing. She says, yes, just get it out. Just do whatever you need to get it out.

I had Shane grab a large blanket, and we cover. covered her with the blanket. She got quiet for a moment. And then all of a sudden, she started speaking in a masculine voice. And speaks in old Bessayan to me. Kept on saying things like, Blakto. From what I gather, what this spirit is saying is my house.

I was admonishing the spirit to leave. You need to go. you need to return to where you belong. And tell me, no, this is my house. You get out. You leave. Sometimes, sister would become lucid again. Tell him to get away from me.

Get out. You know, I don't want him here. And I said, sister, I need you to get angry. I need you to get angry. When you're angry, you can force yourself to have a stronger sense of self. She says, get out, get out. I'm like, no, I want you to get angry. you to get fucking angry.

Get the fuck out! And then he would come back and speak in the mail voice. This is my house. You get out. And I realized I couldn't get into a pissing match with this spirit. It's too strong. It's too willful. And so my tactic had to change.

I couldn't force him to leave. And so I began addressing him as grandfather. Apu. you need to go home. It's okay. Look, the offering is there for you. The offerings have been made. Your family is waiting on the other side for you.

It's okay. He began to sob. I recognized that he was afraid. He was afraid to leave. I just kept on encouraging him. We've made offerings for him. for you. Your family is waiting for you. It's okay for you to leave. And I told Shane, open the door to the studio. He opened the door. I could feel the spirit get up,

leave her body, and go out the door. The attention is not on me anymore. I said, he's gone. And then I told Shane, shut the door, Shane. And covered. Sister, she was drenched in sweat. Just drenched in sweat. Lots of exhausted sighs. Thank you, Mano. She just kept on doing that. We did no tattooing that night.

She was exhausted. I was exhausted. There was no way we were going to tattoo that night. But a week later, she and her husband came back for a debrief with me. We're talking. And I asked her husband, so how has she been at since? You know, dude, she's so much more confident. She's such a powerful woman.

She's so strong. But would always self-sabotage. She's always been plagued with self-doubt. And I said, well, some of that self-doubt was not her voice. It was the voice of this other being. These entities, they ride the ups and downs in a person. They feed off of it. And so it kind of behooves them to create in a person's life a lot of turmoil.

She said a lot of those thoughts have gone away. I don't notice them anymore. This was definitely one of the stronger entities I've encountered. But ultimately, could be reasoned with it wasn't me extracting him. It was his choice to leave. I just helped him make that choice. I've encountered stronger spirits, and I can't get rid of them.

They won't let me get rid of them. I'm not trying to scare anybody or anything like that, but we have to know our limitations. Some people I can help, some people I can't. Thank you, Lane Wilkin. Who's sharing your story with spout. Lane wrote the book on traditional Filipino tattooing. For real, Lane wrote the book.

It's called Filipino tattoos, Ancient to Modern. And today, Lane is one of only 20 people in the world who practice Filipino tattooing in its traditional form. The original score for this story was by Lauren Newsom. It was produced by Zoe Frigno. Now then. I recently took a train down the coast of California. It's this beautiful trip.

And on this train, this guy, I hear him a few rows back, hear him talking this conversation, and I go back there because this guy says that he knows of a cave. He says he's not the only person that knows of this cave, but it's a very closely held secret. He says, once you enter this cave, you know with utter and complete certainty

that the rock and the stone around you are a single living organism, a single intelligence, and that for lack of a better word, you're in the presence of magic. So, of course, I'm like, where is this cave? I need to get there quick.

At least give me a hint. He's like, ah, you know what, sorry. This is my stop. It gets off the train, waves, he's off. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, spooksters. No. I feel like someone promised me some delicious ice cream on a hot summer day, and as soon as I got my spoon, they snatched the bowl clean away.

So, if you know what? this guy is talking about. Or if you know another place that emanates a life force so powerful, it brings you to your knees. That's how he described it. If you have knowledge of such a spot, please tell me about it. I promise not to ruin it. Keep the location secret just between you and I. Holla at me.

That's at judgment.org. Because nothing is better than a space. story from a spooked listener. Spooked at stepjudgment.org. Brought to you by the team that refuses to let any entity take control of their actions except for Mark Ristich. He is willing. But so far, there have been no takers. There's Davy Kim, Zoe Frigno, Ann Ford, Eric Yannes, Teo de Kott, Rissadage, Miles Lassie,

Doug Stewart, Paulina Creeky, Elizabeth Z. Pardue, Adityamatu, and Lulu Tumima. The spook theme song is by Pat Massidi Miller. My name is from Washington. We tend to think in the binary that the shadow knows all, sees all, and we are but insects to their greater understanding. But the more you study, the rituals, the total. the dances, that becomes apparent, that we are not

the only beings that can be lost. And that help can come from this side as well, because our journey is a dance. We're not puppets on the end of someone else's string. They

are not genies in a bottle bent on granting us our wishes. This has always been a relationship. And just like any other relationship, this relationship needs boundaries. And I set my boundaries. The only way I know how,

which is to never, ever, never, ever.