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Psychic Surgery must be understood within the context of its culture
To completely understand the phenomenon of psychic surgery we have to understand the context. The Philippines to this day is a very large and diverse country made up of thousands of different islands with many different tribes, languages, and cultures. Local people did not travel extensively and only the large centers had electricity. The traditional healers of the area were witchdoctors and herbalists who exercised an illigitimate authority in the sociological sense over their followers.
In 1976 the Philippines was under martial law and American currency was controlled by the state and exit visas were required. There was a block to block residential policing system where every block or two one individual was responsible for reporting on the movements of everyone in that area. There was a 1 am curfew in Manila and an 11 PM curfew everywhere else.
Also it must be taken into consideration that the Philippines had been overrun with missionaries to the point that some people would not talk to you until they were confident that you were not one. Another interesting fact is that in the USA a stage magician by the name of Harlan Tarbell in the early 1900's published a home study course on sleight of hand and other illusions and received requests for it from all over the world including witchdoctors from the deepest and most isolated villages in Africa. So Mr. Terte simply combined fundamental Christianity with old traditional practices and started a religion with a different twist from the past. He had his disciples, he turned water red, he healed people, and he followed traditional practices that local people understood and would accept. He had an enemy to organize against and in his sermons he would enthusiastically and dramatically denounce the black magicians.
