[A. G. Maisey]

I had my first keris at age 12, a gift from my grandfather.

Sixty two years later I have around 800 keris in my custody, and during my life I have handled thousands more.

I have not felt, nor believed in even the slightest malevolent presence that could be attributed to a keris.

However --- my wife had an an uncle, "had" because this gentleman had the ultimate spiritual experience many years ago. He had been a spiritual advisor to President Sukarno, and was a well known mystic. In 1982 he visited us, and during his visit he handled some of my keris. One of the keris he handled caused him such distress that he threw it to the floor and left the house as fast as he could, he literally screamed "hot -- hot -- hot ". From outside the house he asked me to take the keris away so he could come back in again. I did, and he did, and then he told me that he had felt a burning , frightening presence in that keris.

I still have this keris, a very old West Jawa keris, I enjoy handling it and feel no hot or evil presence at all.

However --- about ten years before my wife's uncle's visit I had a neighbour and his wife to dinner. I was living in a different house at the time, near Springwood in the Blue Mountains. This neighbour was a psychic who had unpredictable visions and had helped the local police in locating lost children, and at least one dead person. He was Hungarian and knew absolutely nothing about keris. He also handled the keris that uncle had handled. When he picked it up from the table where it and other keris were placed, this keris suddenly left his hands and hit the opposite wall of the room, my neighbour, who had been standing, fell to the floor. He became very unsettled and told me that he had experienced a feeling as if he was surrounded by blackness and evil pressing in on him. He went home a few minutes later.

As I said above:- I still have this keris and it has no effect on me whatsoever, except possibly a mild feeling of appreciation.

I'm absolutely with David on this matter:- any experience or feeling that might come from a keris is an intensely personal one.

I have a number of other stories about this sort of thing, but I think that the one I have just told is perhaps the best.