Today in weird
Satan Comes to the Gates of Hell, one of William Blake’s illustrations to Milton’s Paradise Lost
Yesterday I got this text message from Maria Consolata, aka Maricon.
“My taxi driver is sharing his experiences. . .as a Satanist. Converted back to Christianity. He is now reciting the reverse Ten Commandments. Sounds like a tape recorder.”
I asked Maricon to tape the driver’s recitation on his phone, which he did. We will have lunch today so he can give me the details and I can listen to the recording. The full report later.
This is why I resist the urge to chat up the cabbie. Too much information. Inevitably the conversation veers towards politics or religion and you really don’t want to say anything that will cause the cabbie to drive into a lamppost. Any trip is more comfortable if you remain unaware of the fact that at some point in his life the driver worshipped Satan and his favorite song was “Hotel California”.
* * * * *
Listened to the recording: It’s insane! The ex-Satanist does this rapid-fire stream of consciousness monologue for ten minutes. His nickname for Satan is “Taning”—apparently many local Christians don’t want to say the full name for fear of invoking the bad one. The cabbie recounts how his mother prayed for his conversion by walking on her knees in Quiapo Church for nine Fridays in a row. On the ninth Friday he claims that he spontaneously cried, “Gusto ko nang magbago!” (I want to change!) but it was a difficult process—he’d resolve not to go to the devil worship services, and then find himself there. Freaky stuff, will need time to transcribe it.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
April 13th, 2010 at 01:26
The last cab ride I had, the driver kept telling me how hot it is in Manila, and the whole time I was asking my sweaty self, Do i look like I’m not from here? He noted the temperature like 20 times. He only stopped when I asked him if he would rather have Ondoy.
April 13th, 2010 at 13:47
Once, when we passed by along Guadalupe, the taxi driver commented on Dingdong Dantes’ dingdong (the bench ad) – that his was far bigger than the actor’s. I stifled a desire to snort. The hell I care. Good thing he didn’t offer to prove it.
April 13th, 2010 at 22:44
Cab driver aside,do we have proof of the existence of God,of Satan and angels outside the bible? Reading the Book of Job I began to suspect that the writer (whoever he was)is deceiving the readers with fairy tales. We can read that “God” and “Satan” are actually drinking buddies out on a bet over this Job,and that the entire story borders on the absurd and the ridiculous. Scholars also question its origin (and therefore the whole bible)because there is this so called “Sumerian Job” story which is much older than the bible version,but they have many similarities. The flood story starring Noah also appears to have been borrowed heavily from Mesopotamian folkore. Is the Christian faith based on borrowed mythology and folk tales from “gentiles”? There is an OT verse that declares that God “created” evil, I just can’t remember the verse. What are we to make of this?
April 14th, 2010 at 02:53
I was a neo-Satanist for a few days before. Read Anton Szandor LaVey’s The Satanic Bible. It’s pretty much just Ayn Rand with rituals. And that’s why I can’t fully relate. I don’t understand rituals. Still I would like to have a copy of the Satanic Bible, though. I just can’t find it here.
April 14th, 2010 at 08:37
On other matters, Philippine reference alert! The Filipina nanny industry in HK is in Freakonomics podcast. It’s mentioned in the current podcast about Hong Kong!