BLACK
AND WHITE MAGIC
Every
Balinese believes that his body, like an electric battery,
accumulates a magic energy called sakti that enables
him to withstand the attacks of evil powers, human or
supernatural, that seek constantly to undermine his
magic health. This sakti is not o than others; they
become the priests, witch-doctors, and so forth, endowed
with supernatural powers. The sakti can be trained to
serve them at will by the systematic study of the arts
of magic and meditation, but people whose hearts are
contaminated by evil use the magic science to harm,
their enemies, or simply to satisfy their lowest instincts.
The
Balinese use the term sakti like our " holy "
or " sacred," but meaning, rather, charged
with a magic (positive or negative) power that emanates
from people as well as from objects like Rangda and
Barong masks, or from places regarded as magically dangerous
(tenget or angker), like caves, rivers, and ancient
remains. One often hears of the sakti' of living people
who could hardly be regarded as holy, like our coffee-dealer
Makatjung; I was told of an old prince who was-so sakti
he could floor anyone by simply staring at him.
The
normal way to bring out the dormant sakti is to undergo
mawinten the initiation ceremony of priests, magicians
' dancers, and actors, to give them the luck, beauty,
cleverness, and personal charm that enable them to be
successful. Story-tellers and singers of epic poems
(kekawin) have magic syllables inscribed on their tongues
with honey to make their voices sweet. The ceremony
is performed by a priest who, after cleansing and purifying
the person through a maweda, writes invisible signs
over his forehead, eyes, teeth, shoulders, arms, and
so forth, with the 'stem of a flower dipped in holy
water.
An
explanation of the Balinese attitude in regard to personal
magic can be found in the principle that constantly
obsesses them -strong and weak, clean and unclean. Thus,
the individual is magically strengthened when be is
in the state of psychic purity (ening, sutji, nirmala)
acquired through the performance of the cleansing ritual.
The antithesis of this is the often mentioned sebel
condition, uncleanliness, when a run-down soul renders
one vulnerable to the attacks of evil. A person becomes
sebel automatically at the death of relatives, during
illness or menstruation, after having children, and
so forth. In cases of bestiality, temple vandalism,
incest, the birth of twins of each sex; the entire community
becomes polluted and has to be purified by complicated
and expensive sacrifices. Not even the deities are free
from becoming sebel, and, like any other woman, Rangda
and the death goddess Durga are sebel once every month.
The
ancient Indian idea that a positive force, when temporarily
distorted and reversed, is turned into an evil, negative
power is the backbone of the magic science of Bali.
Even the gods have phases of wickedness, their krodha
or rodra manifestations, when a creative spirit becomes
a fearful deity of death and destruction. Siwa in his
angry form is, Kala, and Uma, Siwa's wife, becomes Durga;
Wisnumurti or Brabmamurti are the krodha manifestations
of the gods Wisnu or Brahma, and the average Balinese
has come to regard them as many-armed, ten-beaded demons
of mythology, because their freakish appearance is incompatible
with his idea of divinity. The notion remains, however,
that a formula of magic intended to give the spiritual
health for which they strive, if turned backwards (as
in the case of Rangda's book on magic), becomes a powerful
source of evil magic. Thus magic is sharply divided
into good magic of the " right," penengen,
and magic of the ". left," pengiwa, black
and evil; both based on the same principles and almost
identical in procedure.
If you are interested in seeing the Bali ritual Performances
such as the Barong and the Rangda, or seeing other ritual
ceremonies, or you have other ideas on what you want
to see we can design the package just for you.
please send us an email to
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INDONESIA
