Although Guia insists that they are avoiding organization “like the plague,” preferring instead to remain “informal, freewheeling, experimental, spontaneous,” Sid discovers that the group had already set up a headquarters in Intramuros, referring to it as the “Salem House.” She recognizes that despite their resistance to be labeled as such, they are bound to be recognized as one. For one, they are considering naming themselves as “people of Salem,” which means peace. People in the barrios have begun to call them “salamatistas” or “salmatistas” because they end their every show with a psalm where they say “salamat” (226-227).  Sid remarks that “Salem” was the kingdom of the biblical high priest, Melchizedek.2  

          Mrs. Banaag, an influential woman whom Sid met in a party, echoes Guia’s words when she reveals what she knows of the group: “It’s supposed to be a returning” (240). She also tells them about the charismatic leader Father Melchor. Sid suspects him to be Melkizedek, a “defrocked priest passing himself off as a new prophet.” He has collected devoted followers and “employs thugs and theological mumbo-jumbo to cajole a rich, aimless heiress into his cult.” (Rafael xxvii)  

          Guia happens to be an heiress and Sid, fearing for his sister’s well-being, searches for a certain Ciriaco Lagman, an old man who has information on Melkizedek. When Lagman was young, he witnessed a peasant religious uprising in 1900. He tells Sid that he remembers the Prophet Melkizedek appearing during the Revolution. He called himself Baltazar then, a charismatic man in his forties. He had urged peasants to follow him in an exodus to a “New Jerusalem,” a form of Christian communism in Pangasinan.  In 1901, an infantry battalion sent by General Otis ended the utopian settlement: the people masquerading as Jesus and the Holy Ghost were hanged; the 12 Apostles and Virgin Mary were jailed, but Baltazar had disappeared. Lagman says Father Melchor visited him before and he recognized him to be the Baltazar he knew when he was a young boy. 

          Sid also went to Fray Calezon, a young Spanish priest from an unnamed religious order. The priest presented evidence that this “Father Melchor” was one of the first indigenes to be admitted into his religious group. This was during the 18th century. Like the man who had been recruiting people in the Milky Seed and the leader who disappeared in New Jerusalem, this figure was a limping, big man with flowing hair, shining eyes, and a red mark on his brow. If the testimonies of Lagman and Calezon were to be believed, then the cult leader has not aged at all! 

          Now he has returned and amassing people just like before. Those who want to join his cult make an appointment at the Sign of the Milky Seed in Quiapo. Those who are not thought worthy are attended to by an assistant – with palm reading and crystal balls, “the usual hocus-pocus” says Sonya Borja. But there is a select few he personally attends to. With him, there are no gimmicks – people find themselves mesmerized. Soon, they are revealing their secrets. Rich women are targeted, and they soon find themselves drawn to the cult. Guia is now one of them and she wants to give them her inheritance. 

          Quiapo’s reputation/notoriety for fortune-telling sessions is evident in the story. It is the venue for the initial phase of recruitment and when deemed ready, the recruits move up to the second process of initiation which happens in Intramuros: A bacchanalia of sorts which celebrates "the carnal Christ" and affirms the "felt wisdom in the blood, in the flesh." 

          When Sid decided to put an end to Guia’s association with the cult, she tells him that their group does not resort to gimmickry but is merely perpetuating the longest tradition in Christianity, which is the presentation of new images of Jesus. She enumerates images of Christ which were found shocking in their time: “The babe in the manger. The suffering servant. The risen victor.” She describes how the “mangled dying body on the cross” was scandalous to the classic world. When Sid interjected with a sarcastic remark on the group’s choice of the phallic image, Guia defends her group by questioning what her brother deems “carnal.” She says that there’s also a physical organ, the image of the “Sacred Heart” which represents God’s love, but is “rather corny now,” because it’s a “later, later age,” and people have “colder, colder heart[s],” and so we need a “new Christ [that] we can relate to.” (252) 

          The cult’s appeal is explained by Mrs. Banaag. She had made an appointment at the Quiapo office and was able to meet Father Melchor. He said,