My crucifixion in the Philippines
on Good Friday 2018
Content by Kenneth Fahy:

During the flight from Manchester to Manila on 19th March, changing at Brussels and Abu Dhabi, I alternated between terror and ecstatic anticipation , eroticism and religious fervour, but when we touched down, I was quite happy that I was to be offered up on the cross. Brian, who came with me in order to act as witness and pray for me during my suffering, said that was doing the right thing, presenting myself "naked before the Almighty, ready to be taken as a beautiful and holy sacrifice." Airport staff did query the fact that I had no baggage, but I explained that all my things were in Brian's suitcase.

The crucifixions in the Philippines are, as Brian had explained to me, an amalgam of the commemoration of Christ's death, and pre-Christian local rituals of human sacrifice. This was my second journey to Pampanga to be crucified by the Gumaraes Pagtaltal; many Filipinos who offer themselves for crucifixion, flagellation and suffering do so regularly every Easter, and death does inevitably happen - after all, that is what crucifixion is supposed to be all about! There are restrictions on foreigners offering themselves for crucifixion, but Calibaryo got around that by using his contacts to get me a Filipino passport. Government and church turn a blind eye to the deaths which regularly occur - but then, in the Philippines, death is accepted as an everyday occurrence. The crucifixions bring in the more morbid tourist, and therefore money. And the government specifies that the nails used in the crucifixions must be antiseptic. Calibaryo was quite honest in saying how disappointed he was that God did not claim me when I was crucified last year, and he hoped that the offering up of my body would be accepted this year.

It was a long and tiring flight from Manchester to Manila. When we emerged from the Airport buildings in Manila in the early afternoon, I was exhausted: the heat was overpowering, it was humid, and I couldn't wait to be naked. We were met by Calibaryo and two of his novices, who escorted us to his Winnebago mobile caravan parked outside the airport. I recognised it from my last visit to be crucified in Pampanga. The inside was dominated by shiny stainless steel table 6 ft long, with hooks and restraints fixed to mirrored walls and ceiling and a sink - in fact, a mobile torture chamber. After pouring me a welcome San Miguel, he did what I was expecting him to do and stripped me naked. I was glad he did this because the interior of the vehicle was baking hot, as well as starting the process of (a) "panata", or mortification of the flesh and (b) mentally and physically separating me from the things of this world and getting me ready for entry into paradise.

All my clothing was put into a holdall; our first stop on our way to Pampanga was at a convent, where Calibaryo handed my clothes to the sister in charge. She said the nuns would pray for me, and that I was doing something really beautiful in emulating Christ's crucifixion Brian took care of my passport and a few other effects. Very dramatic - so there I was, nothing but a naked body, sans clothing or possessions, completely vulnerable, half a world away from home and ready to die.

It's about an hour on the expressway to Pampanga - I was absolutely exhausted during the journey, and I knew what was coming next, when the two novices produced lengths of cord, laid me on the table and trussed me up like the proverbial turkey: hands, feet, and began to roam their hands all over my limbs and torso. Aroused, they lubricated my bottom and took turns to mount my body. I squealed and wriggled, but just let myself go limp when Calibaryo whispered in my ear " Dismas, no point in struggling- just take it like a man." When they withdrew, both Calibaryo and Brian kissed me when I said "Lord, forgive them for what they have done to me". Thus began the suffering and humiliation I knew would precede my final ordeal on the cross. Subsequently, they told me that early Christian martyrs were routinely subject to sexual abuse, and they believed that even Christ himself was abused before his crucifixion on Calvary. This made me feel better about what had been done to me.

This episode was, I knew, to be a foretaste of my coming ordeal when we arrived at Calibaryo's ranch at Pampanga, a former abattoir which seemed to me highly appropriate. 10 days to go, I thought, and I knew very well what was going to happen to me, having been there last year. Already there were the two other guys from abroad who had volunteered to be crucified alongside me - one Korean, and the other from Nigeria- and also naked. During the ten day preparation, we were joined by about half a dozen locals offering themselves for crucifixion. A couple of them had been crucified a number of times before but had survived; the crucifixions are of two types - devotional crucifixion, where the victim undergoes the torment but survives, and sacrificial crucifixion, where the victim dies on the cross. Motives were varied: thanksgiving for good fortune, such as the curing of an ailment, a successful operation, or a desire to gain some material benefit. Or to join those who had passed on to the afterlife. Some, including me and the overseas victims, were destined for sacrificial crucifixion and were happy that our bodies would be utilised for anatomical study rather than be wasted by being buried in the ground.

Inside, Calibaryo placed me on a slab; both he and Brian washed the whole of my body vigorously and comprehensively - physical cleansing, to be followed by spiritual cleansing achieved by meditation, prayer but principally, mortification. And that included replicating the kind of dreadful things that early Christian martyrs had to endure before being slaughtered, such as being hung upside down and flagellated, asphyxiated, part-strangled.....making "50 shades of grey" look timid in comparison. The overhead hooks and rails of the premises came in especially useful for this. But before all this started, we were visited by a couple of professors of anatomical science from medical schools in Manila and Quangdong ( mainland China), accompanied by a retinue of medical students. They were all highly interested in my medical modelling for their equivalents in the UK - they already knew about my use as an artefact in an experimental crucifixion as described in one of my earlier essays. They examined me thoroughly and invasively, and I had no problem in Calibaryo arranging to sell them my crucified cadaver. The professor from Quangdong said that there was an existential demand for heads in particular, and he put in a bid for my head to be cut off for phrenelogical study; grisly indeed, but there is no room for sentiment or queasiness in medical research. Brian added that he would bless all the body parts I would be donating following crucifixion. I am extremely proud for my body parts to be used because I see it as a wonderful way of helping to alleviate the suffering of my fellow man.

Calibaryo said how much he loved the soft roundness and femininity of my nude form, and in order to make me look even more cherubic when on display on the crucifix, he shaved off any remaining body hair - "back, sack and crack." And unlike last year, he said that I had no choice but to be nailed to the cross like everybody else, using the antiseptic nails specified by the authorities. I said "both hands and feet, and as well as being pierced with a spear?" " "Yes". I must say how amazed I was that this filled me not with horror but with an ecstasy which was sexual, spiritual and religious, so achieving my goal of complete identification with what Jesus went through.

Everybody spent the eve of Good Friday in deep spiritual contemplation, and those destined for the cross were washed again as Brian recited special prayers for those about to die. The start of the crucifixions began at first light. There were a number of crucifixes already erected in an adjacent field, so we were spared having to drag them there. In fact, the three of use were placed on boards and carried at shoulder height to the crucifixion ground. Before being attached to the crosses, we were comprehensively oiled in a substance designed, so I believe, to keep off bothersome insects. The guys, all local, who carried us and put us on our crosses were dressed in Roman Centurion garb. As happened with Jesus, we were insulted, shoved and roughly handled, and I was not surprised to be raped before being hauled up on the cross. I was expecting to be nailed to it, but this did not happen because there were not enough nails to go round - so i was fastened with rope to the upright and crossbeams. We were supposed to hang there until 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the time that Jesus died.

The scene was incredible: there were about 20 people, Filipinos except us three, being crucified, all of us close together , most with loincloths but a few like us naked , bloodied from flagellation and with unbelievable groaning and screaming. Our bodies were quite high up - I would say our feet were the height of two men above the ground. There was a heavy flow of spectators, most taking pictures, and passing comments in Tagalog but some in English : a couple were placing bets on how long it would take me to die, and others "can I have his body when it's taken down?" I also saw a couple of guys drawing my body - so I'm a true nude model to the end, I thought. I knew what to expect in the way of suffering and it was as horrible as ever - but when one of the Centurions later in the day pushed a spear into my belly, he had laced the tip with a drug which was some kind of anaesthetic, and which caused me to physically shut down and to be seemingly dead. He was a medic in real life, so he knew what he was doing.

At 3 o'clock, the bodies of the crucified, in various states from self-inflicted injury (most) to dead (about five or six) were taken down and put into a large cart hauled by a tractor and taken to a large marquee where wounds could be treated, people reunited with families or supporters or, if unresponsive like me, declared dead and lined up with other bodies in a pop-up morgue, where I was registered and photographed by the local police and an identification tag tied to my foot. To make me more presentable, the wound created by the spear was cleaned up; I later learned that it did not go deep enough to do any lasting harm, but a couple of centimetres further, and it would have pierced an artery and I would have died through loss of blood. So the guy who did the piercing was an expert! Next, the bodies of the registered dead were put in a pile to be claimed or readied for disposal. That was how Brian found me - he recognised my bare bum sticking out from beneath the pile. He then laid formal claim to my body, retrieved it from the pile and took it away to be washed and laid out ready for the professor from Quangdong. My body was unceremoniously thrown over the shoulder of one of the "centurion" guys, and taken back to Calibaryo's abbatoir where a room had been set up for my dissection. My head and selected body parts were to be cut off and packaged for despatch to the Chinese mainland, each one to be individually blessed by Brian. Gruesome, but that was what was intended.

So there I was, naked on the table whilst the centurion with the medical background examined me. It was my good fortune that thanks to his training, he could distinguish apparent death (catalepsy) from real death. He cut me with one of the Quangdong character's surgical knives, and the activity of the blood flow confirmed that life still remained, however faint. Both the Quangdong man and Calibaryo wanted to stifle me and finish me off - as mentioned earlier, my cadaver was intended for sale - but Brian vetoed this. He said that he would only permit my dissection if I had died on the cross; that would have been a legitimate and holy death. Clearly that did not happen, so anything else would be an act of murder.

I was put on display for an hour or two, then resuscitated, washed and given the chance to recover. So I survived thanks to the grace of God, but this will not be the last time I find myself on a crucifix. I was impressed by the Filipino guys who have been crucified several times, and I intend to be amongst that dedicated band. No longer a participant in a passion play, but the real thing! And the next, in Easter 2019, is going to take place in Alhaurin el Grande, near Malaga.

Blessed are those who seek crucifixion, for they shall share to the full the suffering of Jesus and those who accompanied him at Calvary... XXXX

My email is kandjfahy@aol.com.
And I can be reached on 07890 661717.
I can also provide plenty of images of my work.