The Double Apostasy of Salvador Pons: Spiritism and Catholicism in Early-Twentieth-Century Philippines

• In Event: 358. The Philippines in the World: Ties and Tensions in Philippine History and Cultures

Abstract

When is apostasy more than just the abandonment of one’s faith, but also a form of political dissent? This question was particularly pertinent at the turn of the twentieth-century Philippines, when the transfer of colonial power meant the formal end of the Spanish Catholic regime, and new possibilities for denominational affiliation and practices of faith opened up. This paper takes up this question through the quixotic figure of Salvador Pons, a Spanish Augustinian who for a decade rebelled against his erstwhile order, aligning himself with the secular clergy, the newly formed Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and Kardec-inspired Spiritism. The paper looks specifically at Pons’s manuscript, El espiritismo en las islas Filipinas, probably the most comprehensive source for the history of Spiritism’s early spread in the islands, that Pons wrote after he returned to the Augustinian order. How do we read a text that has been written from a perspective formed by two successive detractions? What does this tell us about the temporal, textual, and ideological limits of dissent?

Author

• Deirdre de la Cruz, University of Michigan