Little Luna had the “gift of sight”. She could glimpse what others in the material world were oblivious to: a parallel dimension filled with spirits, deities, angels, djinns, and nebulous energies. To her, this ability to glance between realms felt less a blessing than a curse—a split screen of horrors that haunted her childhood. Luna was so disturbed by these encounters that at 26 years old she still recalls them vividly.
Like the first time she came face-to-face with an otherworldly entity. A sinister-looking silhouette outside her bedroom, its frightful features framed by the moonlight. All pointy ears, glowing white eyes, and sharp teeth. She was just four.
“What the hell do you want? ” it snapped in Malay.
“A glass of water,” she said.
“Take it yourself.”
“No, I’m scared.”
“What of? ”
“…you.”
“Come here,” it coaxed, beckoning her to follow it to the kitchen.
Who knows what might have happened if she had. Instead, she woke her mother. The lights revealed nothing. A rustling in the storeroom proved equally empty.
Later, from her parents’ bed, she watched a ball of fire float outside the window, a lupine face at its centre. A fiery spectacle that only she could see.
The disturbances persisted: items disappeared, food spoiled, voices whispered in the night. Desperate to escape their chilly new “guests”, her parents moved the family across the island from Pasir Ris to Bukit Batok. But the sightings followed. Even abroad, Luna would point to invisible figures hanging in the closet or sitting on the bed. “No one understands the fear of [an entity] coming to you, trying to talk to you, and you have to act like it doesn’t exist,” she said, with a nervous laugh.
“Imagine they’re like ‘hey, hey, you can see me right,’ in whatever language…It traumatised me really badly to the point I had to be sent to the school counsellor.” Her father took her to bomohs to close her “third eye”. It stayed open. The only thing to do was hope that she outgrew her “insight”. Some elders say that sensitivity to the spirit world dims with age. But, while Luna’s ability to “see” dulled with adolescence, her curiosity in occultism intensified—the trauma a formative catalyst.
Raised Muslim, Luna felt abandoned by her religion from an early age. Despite her pleas, Luna’s God seemed unable to shield her from the paranormal. Faced with a crisis of faith, she sought spiritual support and guidance online, where a playground for Western esotericism and its practitioners was spreading. Western esotericism traces back to Hermetic, pagan, and mystical philosophies. Today, it spans everything from alchemy and astrology to ceremonial magic and the New Age movement. This brew of hocus pocus and genuine insight was streaming onto screens, feeding young minds starved for meaning. Here, a 10-year-old Luna searching for protection spells stumbled onto a Wiccan blog that contained incantations for every whim and fancy. Soon, she was scouring the National Library and Bras Basah’s bargain-bin bookstores for literature on Wicca—a modern pagan, Earth-centred religion—drawn to the writings of Gerald Gardner, considered the “father of witchcraft”, and Scott Cunningham, a prominent figure in modern Paganism believed to have made Wicca accessible and practicable.
