Author: Apu Adman Aghama

I am the Chief Priest and Founder of Luntiang Aghama Natural Divine Arts Shrine of Healing Inc. which is a Formal Correllian Wiccan Shrine in the Philippines. I am a First Degree Clergy of the Correllian Nativist Tradition of Wicca; a dedicated member of the Correllian Order of Peace Weavers; and A Correllian Shaman Guide who leads the Orange Feather Camp. My Priesthood in Luntiang Aghama have created several ministries under the Shrine which consist of the Sacerdotal Order of Luntiang Aghama, National Community of Filipino Pagans, Philippine Correllian Aghamic Circle, Templong Anituhan ng Luntiang Aghama (TALA), Peace Prayer Interfaith Ministry, Hilot Academy of Binabaylan and Kaduwa Movement Equality through Compassion.

Our Reaction towards PITAHC best practices of HILOT

Last October 28-29, 2021- Philippine Institute of Traditional Alternative Health Care conducted their first regional Hilot Congress held at Malay, Aklan which was aired live through their Facebook Page.

On this video we will see different Politicians and Government Officials that supports the amendment of Republic Act 8423 or Philippine Traditional and Alternative Medicine Act of 1997 that will empower PITAHC as a regulatory body in the practice of Traditional Medicine in our Country. This power should be exercised 24 years ago as the national government are allocating funds for this Government Owned Corporation but for those wasted years, it is only now that they are focusing on Hilot to be regulated.

Since it’s creation, as we see that they focused on promoting foreign traditional medicine such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Chiropractic, Naturopathy and Homeopathy and have neglected to develop methodologies in order to advance the practice of Hilot that could be integrated into the Country’s Health Care Delivery System.

In one of their presentation as the Department Head of the Standards and Accreditation Division have presented the number of Manghihilot that registered in their agency, they have asked Why only 24 manghihilot are in their list. Probably their campaign is not effective enough and the manghihilot see that their new policy is an additional burden for them as Manghihilot.

Since 2008, I have been a Trainer and Assessor of Hilot Wellness Massage NC2 as promulgated by Technical Education Skills Development Authority and from that time we have produced numerous Manghihilot coming from Quezon City, Marikina, Cavite, Ilocos Sur which we teach personally face-to-face and assessed and certify. And the coming of this new policy implemented by PITAHC will only give confusion to our Hilot Provider.

As Training Provider, I think that the institute should coordinate with TESDA and other Training provider of Hilot so that their list will grow. And as we see their best practice of Hilot, it shows the practice of Massage which already covered by PG 856 or the Sanitation Code of the Philippines which the Licensed Masssage Therapist Organization claimed that created them and was strengthened through Department of Health Administrative Order in terms of the practice of Massage in the Philippines.

On the video below is my personal reaction towards the best practice of Hilot and a suggested program that the institution should implement in the integration towards the National Health Care Delivery System.

From Rejection to Recognition

Have you felt that you are worthless? It happened to me one time in my life. It was way back 2008 when i have a live in partner who is working. I feel ashamed of my self because both of us are living in my parents house while my partner is employed and working. I really feel bad to my self that one night at the height of the full moon, i go out and pray. I went to a vacant lot in front of our house where the tiger grass stand tall. I went inside the bushes, lie down on the ground and cry. As i look up to the moon, I pray to God and the stars and the moon are my witness: “What is my worth?” Then a voice comes up in my mind asking: “what do you know to do?”; “I am not a degree holder, but i only knew Hilot and Tawas.” then the voice said: “Use that to live.”

When i go back home i tell this vision to my partner and she encourage me to find job. So i decided to apply for a Job in a well known Spa in Quezon City but I have no success. That i think of applying work abroad. I search for an agency that offers Massage Therapy Job and I found one that sent people to Oman, but when i applied, i was rejected because they are looking for a licensed one specifically who have a National Certification. I went out of that agency very down. In my sadness, I just walk my way home. While walking, i am talking to the spirit ranting all the bad feelings that i had. And on the way, i saw a poster saying:

” Free TESDA Certification and Assessment.”

So i checked that post if there is an address and i see that this offer can be found at Tesda Office in Quezon City. So I went straight to Tesda Office and said that I want to Claim the Free Tesda Certification and Assessment. And the Officer who assist direct me to go to Human Care Training and Assessment Center and from there I received my Assessment and been rewarded my first National Certification for Massage Therapy. When the Assessment Center Manager saw my credentials, she recommend also that i should take the Certification to become an Assessor and Trainer and when i had completed that my Journey in Hilot Wellness have began. From there my path have changed, from being a Tambay (Jobless/ Home Body) i had a busy life of teaching Hilot and have established Philippine Certified Wellness Therapist Association which the members are all Nationally Certified and Assessed that almost reached to 100,000 members in Quezon City and Manila alone.

I never thought that my knowledge and skills in Hilot is valuable enough that could help other people not only in maintaining their life force but also to be employed locally and internationally. We have shared our knowledge not only to our fellow Filipino but also to foreign nationality who are curious about our Natural Healing Tradition, that we also have established the Philippine Japan Hilot Association which is also recognized by the Philippine Department of Tourism.

Now, we who are fully living in the 21st Century and currently struggling over the Pandemic of CoronaVirus 19, we are taking a very important role as Manghihilot in our Society in uplifting their mind and spirit that all of us will pass through this challenge of time like Hilot who was endangered to be eradicated due to the evolution of Health Care and Modern Medicine.

Let us not take Rejection to be a turning point in changing what we know, but let us use that as a challenge to embrace harder to the gifts that has been given to us by the Divine and use it that we may see life.

The Gift of God is not a trash to be ignored,like what we are making a stand now on the practice of tawas that some advocates make as a laughing stock. Traditional Chinese Medicine was one a Spiritual Methodology as they value the concept of Chi which is also applied in Fung Sui. In Hilot we value the Soul of Man which manifest the life force within us. People may laugh at us but when our Soul left our body then people will cry.

When a Hilot Binabaylan meets Death

Every moment death happen among us and we see healers struggle with death every now and then. We may know someone who can prolong life of an individual but until when can life stay within the body.

This 7th of November 2021, students of Hilot Academy of Binabaylan will gather to an online conference as we will discuss the different forms of Death and the condition of the person on which we give in to Death.

If you are an alumni of the academy, and want to participate to our discussion, kindly email me at apuadman@hilotacademy.com

And also consider to become our monthly supporting member at Filipino Magick

Status of Hilot in the Philippines

Last October 20, 2021- I attended the Public Consultation with Philippines Institute of Traditional Alternative Health Care (PITAHC) regarding the passing of the Proposed Bills in the Senate which are Senate Bill 1308 authored by Senator Emmanuel D. Pacquiao and Senate Bill 2127 authored by Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr. which aims to strengthen the Role of Pitahc to have a regulatory power regarding the Practice of Traditional Medicine in the Philippines.

Though the said meeting focus on the practice of Hilot in our Country, and the video below will explain our position regarding this proposed bill.

Why do we consult with Magtatawas?

Tawas is a Filipino divinatory method employed by a Babaylan to foretell an Omen. It is also used as a Diagnostic tool during the precolonial times to detect the cause of illnesses. In ancient times, our ancestors believed that Humans may suffer 2 kinds of illnesses; the first one is of Physical cause and the other one is of spiritual origins. The video below is a discussion that we took at Hilot Online Training under the Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Working Class.

Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Working Class is a certification training program offered by Hilot Academy of Binabaylan that will make our students to become a Certified Magtatawas/Magaanito/Pangutanahan/ Pangatauhan which will serve the role of a Babaylan as a Mystic. A new class cycle will start on October 24, 2021. If you want to join the class, kindly fill up on our registration form by clicking on the link below.

Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Working Class

Updated lessons at Hilot Online Training

Greetings Ka Manghahabi!

We have an update to our Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Work which is our Certification program on becoming a Certified Magtatawas/ Magaanito/ Pangatauhan or Pangutanahan. As of October 15, 2021, we have added an information regarding Unit 2 Lesson 2 which discuss about Orasyon. In this Topic, we have explained here what Orasyon is and have elaborated the different types of doing the orasyon and how it works. We may offer this specific topic and provide a Certificate of Attendance to the public who will request have the information about this.

Aside from Hilot Orasyon, we are going to add extra units on our curriculum in preparation for the Diploma Training Program of the Academy. So the former Hilot Binabaylan Certification which is an 8 day live-in training will migrate now into a Diploma Course which the potential students will be required to complete the Certification program in the following Areas:

  • Magtatawas Certification
  • Manggagamot Certification
  • Albularyo Certification

Currently our Magtatawas Certification or the Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Work Class is a 34 Weeks training program. And at this moment, we are still completing the lessons for the Manggagamot Training. Probably, i will make an announcement by the end of January 2022 if we can formally open the Manggagamot and Albularyo Training to the public in order to complete the Hilot Binabaylan Diploma Course.

For now, I encourage all of our Alumni of the Hilot Binabaylan Certification to get in touch. You will have a special role in the changes that is about to come. By the way, as i said we are updating our lessons, so if you think that the lessons that you have are outdated, I encourage you to become a Monthly Supporter to our Subscription page which is at BuyMeaCoffee.com.

Carromancy: Divination using melted candle wax

I learn this method of Tawas Diagnostic/Divination as I grew Up. I see Magtatawas perform this to determine the cause of illness of an Individual and uses the water to rub on the skin of the client as a remedy and the melted wax is kept on a paper and was used as an Amulet.

It is said that this form of Divination is not of Filipino Origin as it is believed that it is rooted in Celtic Tradition with the Druids. When I searched on the Internet the oldest candle factory in the Philippines, I found the Sevilla Candle Factory of Malabon that started its operation of manufacturing candles on 1964. Now I wonder if the Katipunero’s use Candles or Just an Oil Lamp? Is the use of candle been introduced to us by Spain? Uhm… there are many works to do in discovering our roots even with just little information.

Questions about Hilot Online Training

I am so glad that Having our class available, we are also able to reach out people to get interested in our culture. Every time I’ve been ask How Hilot Online Training works, since most of our potential students are living outside the Philippines and their concerns are the time difference. Well, to relieve all your worries let me assure you of this, Our Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Working class is conducted online on a self paced and modular basis. All of our lessons can be accessed online through our Google Classroom platform. You may get into the class either using desktop, laptop, tablet or your mobile devices just by downloading the Google Classroom App. Joining code will be sent to your email once you have completed our enrollment procedures.

Enrollment procedure

  1. You need to fill up our registration form. Just answer the necessary questions being asked. All the information collected in the form will be secured and confidential. We do not ask you to upload previous certification as requirement.
  2. Upon Registration, you have to pay the reservation fee amounting USD 156.00 or Php 7,800.00 to our paypal account using this email: luntiangaghama@gmail.com. Remember whole class worth is USD 520.00 or Php26,000.00
  3. Once the initial payment has made, expect to receive our invitation to join our Google Classroom Platform.

Learning Activities

Our Hilot Online Training on Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Working Class has 3 Learning units which are also divided into lessons. Each lessons has learning activities which you will do and they are: Reading, Watching Recorded Video Presentation, Answering Test Question for Evaluation, Video Recording of your self in performing the given task and attending weekly live video conferencing.

Duration

Unit 1 has 8 lessons which most likely are theoretical in nature. Below are estimated time frame given to complete the lessons:

1st week: Lessons 1-3

2nd Week: Lessons 4-6

3rd Week: Lessons 7-8

4th to 5th Week: Unit Test Exam ( we are giving two weeks time for you to complete your unit test before advancing to the new Unit lessons)

Unit 2 has 6 lessons and 3 Performance test and 1 Unit test and the time frame for that is:

6th & 7th Week: Lesson 1

8th & 9th Week: Lesson 2

10 & 11th Week: Lesson 3

12th and 13th Week: Performance Test 1

14th & 15th Week: Lesson 4

16th & 17th Week: Lesson 5

18th & 19th Week: Performance Test 2

20th & 21st Week: Lesson 6

22nd & 23rd Week: Performance Test 3

24th & 25th: Unit Test 2

On Unit 3, we don’t give any evaluation exam or performance test, but we want our student to focus on their lessons to formulate personal techniques as prescribed in each lessons. So the time frame for learning of each lessons are:

26th and 27th Week: Lesson 1

28th &29th Week: Lesson 2

30th &31st Week: Lesson 3

32nd & 33rd Week: Lesson 4

34th Week: Final Performance Demonstration and Graduation Rites

Live Video Conferencing Call

Most of our Students in our Hilot Online Training comes from different part of the world specially in the United States of America. So our Academy have adopted 3 schedules of Video Call Meeting depending on the current location of our students. Using Philippine Time, we conduct our Video Conferencing using Google Meet App on these times:

Sunday from 9:30 PM to 10: 30 PM Philippine Time

Monday from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM

Monday from 12:00 NN to 1:00 PM

So if you are from United Kingdom, you can join our Google Meet every Sunday 2:30 PM on your time.

And if you are in New York and and same time zone you can join us Sunday Morning of your time by 9:30am to 10:30 AM.

If you want to take the evening class you may do so and it will be at 9:30PM to 10:30 PM of Sunday New York Time and same time zone. Usually our students from Texas and Virginia are also attending this schedule. So as if you are living in Ontario, Canada

If you are from California, you can attend our class by Sunday 8:00 PM or 9:00 PM if Day Light Saving Time is implemented in your time zone.

In Hawaii, our video conferencing is available also on Sunday from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM.

And if you are in British Columbia, Canada you can attend our Video conferencing on Sunday 9:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

Language of Instruction

If you are worrying that you can not understand and speak in Tagalog, there is no problem with that: All of our learning materials are written and spoken in English. Of course, we maintain the Tagalog word if it pertains to the technique but we make explanation in English.

Payment Plan

Non Contact Hilot: Mind and Spirit Working Class Training Fee is USD 520.00 or Php 26,000.00. Upon registration, we require 30% non refundable reservation fee that is worth of USD 156.00 or Php 7,800.00 to be admitted on our first day of class. The reservation fee will be deducted to the whole amount of the training fee that will make you to have an outstanding balance worth of USD 364.00 or Php 18,200.00.

The remaining balance can be paid on two installment:

First Installment is at the end of Learning Unit 1 which will be on the 5th Week of the Training Program. The amount you are going to pay is USD 182.00 or Php 9,100.00

Second and Last Installment is at the end of Learning Unit 2 which will be on the 25th Week of our Training Program which is USD 182.00 or Php 9,100.00

Supporting members of Luntiang Aghama is qualified for our 20% discount. Supporting members are the one who subscribe to our Buy Me a Coffee Subscription page.

If you are a member of Filipino Magick, upon payment of our reservation fee the 20% discount will be applied on your next payment. So instead of paying the amount of USD 364.00 or Php 18,200.00, you will only pay USD 260.00 or Php 13,260.00 which you can also pay through installment.

First Installment will be on the 5th week of our training program the amount of USD 130.00 or Php 6,630.00

Second Installment is on the 25th week which will you pay the amount of USD 130.00 or Php 6,630.00

All Payments can be made though our Paypal Account at luntiangaghama@gmail.com.

Membership to Luntiang Aghama

By the way, by completing this class you will be ordained as Magaanito/ Magtatawas/ Pangutanahan/Pangatauhan which automatically made you as member of Luntiang Aghama Natural Divine Arts Shrine of Healing Inc. Since the class is non academic and most of the topics being discussed in the lessons are pertaining to the soul of an individual and the life force; We are empowering our graduates with the ordination we provide through this course that you may freely practice what you have learned through the precepts of the Shrine that been shared to our Educational Ministry which is the Hilot Academy.

What you have acquired to learn with us will be forever be yours, and your rights to practice what you have learned will be yours to enjoy. As our commitment, We will offer soon New Training Programs that will allow you to grow in your practice. So always stay tuned and connected.

Thank You!

Tuon Mandala

This is a Tuon ( pronounced as Two On) which is similar to Mandala where we use as a Focal Point for our prayers and devotion. In the middle of Tuon is the Word #Anito which is written in #Baybayin and the words that surround it are the Baybayin Characters that would spell the prayers of Luwalhati which is the official mantra of #LuntiangAghama and of the #HilotBinabaylan.

Learn how to use Baybayin in Rituals and Prayers by attending the #SiAdTala #BaybayinMysticOracle Attunement Workshop as facilitated by our Brother @alsent.aghama on October 20, 2021.

For more details kindly check out Lakay’s post at SiadTala.Wordpress.com