The things we cannot see

[Green]

some years back when I was working in an American MNC I got to travel often to Thailand and Indonesia. One time I asked one of my Thai friends and work colleague "As a buddhist, don't you feel offended that Buddha statues are sold in art galleries ,weekend markets or worse and non Buddhists buy then and use these merely as room decoration ?" His answer was that it is OK with him as all these statues were either already de-consecrated or were never consecrated by priests. So they are just plain statues like any other statues.

And so with keris. A big majority of keris were made purely using just technical know how by keris smiths without the added rituals , prayers and special rites that were more commonly done in 'the old days' particularly for keris commissioned by important people. I would guess virtually all keris that are made in this century in Malaysia at least are made without any rituals hence there is nothing imbued in these keris. And so, these keris are as plain as kitchen knives in term of whether they contain secret khodam or possessing any special magics.

Despite all that, you can not sit with keris collectors for five minutes before being regaled with unexplained things that happened to them or people that they know which were caused by this or that particular keris. And many still believe that certain 'ketandaan' (symbols/marks) on keris give particular benefits or other wise . In short, majority of keris lovers and collectors have deep awe and respectful of (old/antique) keris because despite being pious muslims and Islam strictly prohibiting belief of power other than Allah the old superstition still persist and the way most people get aroud this is by saying "all these power (of the keris) is by the leave of Allah"

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Green, you have identified a major area of misunderstanding --- actually two major areas of misunderstanding.

Firstly there is the fact that not all keris were created equal.

Then there is the fact that not all creators of keris were equal.

The keris that was created with the intention that it would have some quality that might be able to accessed by its custodian was created by fire and physical force, but with the addition of ritual, and that ritual was not known to every person who could use the forge and its tools.

The man who knew the correct mantras and offerings and days and hours and methods of production that were necessary for the creation of a keris with power was the Empu (Mpu).

This then raises the question of how it might be possible to identify the work of an Mpu.

Hopefully this question will be addressed later.

The word Empu/Mpu should be looked at to understand exactly what this word means. The word exists in Old Javanese, the language that was in general use in Jawa prior to approximately 1600. At that time this word was simply an honorific used to show respect.

However, as the Javanese language developed over time into Modern Javanese, it came to be used as a title for an outstanding craftsman, a literary person, a poet, an artist, or a maker of keris. Since these people were, in Jawa, usually attached to a court, it then became a title that was accompanied by one of the other formal titles bestowed by the court.

In Bahasa Indonesia the word can be understood in several different ways:- master craftsman, armourer, master.

So, if we are looking for a keris that a person who is knowledgeable in keris belief will accept as having the possibility of possessing some sort of power or force or essence that is out of the ordinary, than that keris needs, first & foremost to be able to be identified as the work of a master.

Just because a keris is old, that does not mean that the possibility of an extraordinary nature does exist.

[jagabuwana]

I'm from a Sundanese, Muslim family whose culture has experience and knowledge around matters of the unseen or esoteric. It is largely informed by:

• Pre-Islamic Sundanese folk beliefs like ancestor or nature worship
• Esoteric, syncretic Islam or "tasawwuf". I often avoid the words Sufic or Sufism as I find that this often connotes it being a separate sect outside orthodox Sunni Islam - which it is not.

From my observations and studies, an enduring keris culture with links to past traditions and beliefs doesn't seem to exist in Sundanese culture today. If it ever did, I am not confident that it can be found intact today. Nevertheless we can still find beliefs regarding the keris' unseen qualities which we have explored in this forum previously. For example:

• The keris can act as a bridge between the seen and the unseen worlds
• It can be used to call upon the custodian's ancestors
• It can be a vessel for both good and bad entities

Interestingly, how the unseen is described will depend on who is asking. In public life, everyday speech or something published for lay audiences, it leans more Islamic. That is to say that the unseen world that humans often encounter or meddle with is made up of jinn. Jinn are a type of non-human entity that are distinct from humans and angels and we co-habit earth with them. They can be good or bad, but in this context is usually brought up with negative connotations. They are said to make their homes in nature - rocks, trees, mountains etc, but can be "called" into empty vessels like keris to harness whatever power they might have. Inasmuch as this is acknowledged to be possible, it is a deeply shunned practice if it is sought after or practiced deliberately.

However I have found that depending on the nature and depth of the conversation, and who is present in the conversation, discussion about the unseen turns into one that involves ancestors and spirits - both referred to as hyang/eyang. This can mean ancestors in your lineage or kinship group, but it also extends to any personage that has passed into the unseen world several generations ago and are treated with the same respect as the former. As for spirits, these are those that the Muslim stream of thought would call jinn, but are spoken about in a way that is much more neutral and less negative or taboo. The nature of these spirits varies - sometimes they are from nature; sometimes they are animals; ghosts, monsters or demons. Basically any non-human entity that is not adequately explained by Islam. It is within this intimate, private conversation and context that the "true" understanding of the unseen is approached.

[jagabuwana]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Yes Green, you have identified a major area of misunderstanding --- actually two major areas of misunderstanding.

Firstly there is the fact that not all keris were created equal.

Then there is the fact that not all creators of keris were equal.

The keris that was created with the intention that it would have some quality that might be able to accessed by its custodian was created by fire and physical force, but with the addition of ritual, and that ritual was not known to every person who could use the forge and its tools.

To add to my previous post, I will elaborate my understanding of this based on what I have gathered and come to learn from my culture.

As previously mentioned, there is no intact Sundanese keris or keraton culture today, so there is no Empu role to draw on here.

However there is the belief that a person can be born with spiritual sensitivity to the unseen world. This is usually confirmed by a sensitive elder, who might be able to act as a medium for ancestors who come into them to share wisdom and warnings to those present, as well as for those ancestors to confer their blessings or confirmation of sensitivity to this person. It is not uncommon for these to be further supported by the elder/ancestor referring to some happening in the person's life that perhaps they had not told to others, such as a significant dream or inexplicable event.

This event is what marks the legitimacy of this person's sensitivity to their family or community. It is a very private and spontaneous affair.

This person can then choose to hone their sensitivities under an older, sensitive mentor through meditation, fasting, forced isolation in austere conditions and so on. But it is also believed that a non-sensitive person could obtain these aptitudes through rigorous practice and study under a teacher, albeit it with great difficulty and with great cost to their psyche.

In the context of this culture, I think this person could fit the bill as someone who could create a keris that is able to call on ancestors or to act as a conduit for the unseen. But I do not know precisely "how".

[blackforest1959]

As a new member i didn't want to get active so quickly, but this is a topic i can't resist. I am coming from the black forest area of Germany where the mystical is still a kind of reality and now living in Indonesia where the mystical experience happens all around, ghost busses, people who fell asleep and awake dozens or hundreds Km away only to name a few. And things that happened to me/my family and only stopped after i bought a protective Keris ( chinese witch and muslim Ustad failed). Or the pusaka Keris of my wifes family, buried because to scared of them, yes one of it flies too. All this is real, in Indonesia. I doubt one could replicate these things lets say in Germany or England. Probably my Keris would there only be some iron and wood in a funny shape with some interesting patterns on it, without doing its magic. I think everyone who has lived here in Indonesia for a longer has similar experiences in one way or another. And there is more than only one reality.

[A. G. Maisey]

Jaga, I used the word "Sufic" because this is an English word.

The root, "Sufi" was first used in 1653 and was used to refer to a member of a Muslim mystic ascetic sect.

From Sufi we have Sufic, ie pertaining to the Sufis or their mystic system.

In the first half of the 19th century the word "Sufism" was first used as an English language word, and the meaning attached to this word is "Islamic Mysticism".

"Islamic Mysticism" in Arabic is "Tasawwuf".

I am writing in English, I could have used "Islamic Mysticism", or "Sufism", I chose "Sufism", principally because that word is commonly used in publications written in English that deal with Islamic Mysticism.

It would have been incorrect of me to use "Tasawwuf", even if I had a very clear idea of the implications of the use of this word, which I do not have. Moreover, "Tasawwuf" is not found in Old Javanese, Modern Javanese or Bahasa Indonesia. "Sufi" does occur in Bahasa Indonesia where its meaning is "mystical", & especially in reference to Islamic mysticism.

The importance of the Sufic path in Javanese culture is that with the early spread of Islam, there was quite a lot in Islamic Mysticism that was in harmony with the existing ideas of the Javanese people. Islamic Mysticism merged with Javanese Mysticism that had developed from indigenous beliefs overlaid with Hindu-Buddhist beliefs, and Kejawen was the result.

Pretty much the same story that you have told for Sunda.

Much of the present mystical belief that surrounds the Javanese keris is the product of the Islamic campaign for domination of Jawa. The ideas and the words used to refer to these ideas are often not from the pre-Islamic Javanese lexicon, and this is the point at which it can become quite difficult to separate the real from the unreal.

It can be helpful to trace the history of the use of a word in a society and then to consider the trends in that society at the time when the word began to be used. This exercise can be quite illuminating when applied to words that have come into use Indonesian society within, say, the last 50 years.

When we consider the recent ideas that apply to the mystic aspects of the keris and we look at the words used to refer to these aspects we might feel just a little bit confused as to whether we are dealing with truly Javanese belief systems, or whether we are looking at concepts and beliefs that have been transplanted from a totally different cultural setting.

Jaga, your comments relating to the abilities of some people to touch and be touched by an alternate reality are I believe generally more or less close to the mark, however, one thing I know as an absolute certainty is that not everybody who has this ability regards it as something positive, there are those who regard the possession of these "gifts" as a curse.

[David]

Interesting conversations so far.
At this point i would just like to interject that the concept of the seen and unseen worlds is not isolated to a relatively small area in South East Asia. It is a universal concept. The names change, and certain entities can be specific to various locations, but the concepts remain the same. It's just another example of the "Name Game". Perhaps the reason that many Westerners have difficulty grasping these concepts is because of the intense indoctrination of Abrahamic religions, specifically Christianity, in Western cultures. In the United States, where i grew up, Christianity became so dominate that many people have come to believe we were always an intentional Christian nation. Anything outside those beliefs were to be considered foreign and shunned. Though a deeper investigation of these Abrahamic religions can still find a mystical current that lies beneath. It has simply been surpassed for centuries as a means to control the population. I have spent many years investigating and studying various pagan currents such Wicca and traditional Western witchcraft as well as diving deeply into the ceremonial lodge magick that arose in Europe in the 18th-19th centuries. And through my interest in drumming i have studied quite a bit about Haitian Vodoun and the African diaspora practices where i have found some remarkable parallels there to the beliefs to be found in various Indonesian cultures. Again, these concepts are universal. We are one human species living on our one and only planet. The spirits change names, many are may be specific to the exacting environments where people have interacted with them, but ultimately it is all one and the same.
This is all to say that despite what i have heard some people say, i do not believe that one must be raised in Indonesia or spend a great deal of time there to grasp these concepts of the seen and unseen world. This "magick" exists all around the world if we open ourselves up to it and though the specifics may vary the basic operations are pretty much the same. To use a computer analogy, the software changes, but the hard drive remains the same.

[A. G. Maisey]

David, in respect of the Hidden World, I agree with everything you have written, these concepts are a part of human existence.

Australian Aboriginal culture was the oldest untouched culture in the world, up until the arrival of Europeans a couple of hundred years ago.

Some Aboriginal groups in Northern Australia had previously had intermittent contact with fishermen from the Archipelago, and family ties still exist between Australian Aboriginal people and people from Sulawesi. First contact with these Sulawesi people dates back to the 1700's.

But until that time, Australian Aboriginal people had been isolated from the rest of the world for around 60,000 years.

Still, in spite of this lengthy isolation, similarities in Australian Aboriginal spiritual beliefs can be found that are not that much different to the spiritual beliefs of other populations throughout the world.

However, although I do agree that some understanding of the Hidden World will assist in an understanding of mystic/spiritual/religious values attached to the keris, I would like to see our attention brought back to the beliefs that we find to be associated with the keris itself.

For example, just how much of present day mystic belief that is attached to the keris can be considered to be belief that is re-enforced by other long standing cultural & societal belief, and just how much of this present day belief that is associated with the keris can be identified as something comparatively recent and that echoes other changes within Indonesian, and indeed, world societal change?

[Green]

David;

Not coming from a Christian tradition my knowledge of Christianity is very little so my opinion below may be erroneos.

But I always believe that Christianity is full of fantastical stories about the other world, satan , exorcism and all that. Just as much as eastern religions.

The way I see it, the westerners are now much less concerned about mysticism and alternate realities/universe , not because they profess Christianity or live in Christian culture but the opposite. They have come away from this culture and turn primarily to secularism which eschew the unproven unknowns.

I guess the western worlds in the dark ages or even in the 19th century were as much as the eastern world in their belief of the unexplained.

Would the swords of the knights of the crusaders for example were believed to be magical as the keris in Indonesia today? My guess is, many believed they were.

[jagabuwana]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Jaga, I used the word "Sufic" because this is an English word.

The root, "Sufi" was first used in 1653 and was used to refer to a member of a Muslim mystic ascetic sect.

From Sufi we have Sufic, ie pertaining to the Sufis or their mystic system.

In the first half of the 19th century the word "Sufism" was first used as an English language word, and the meaning attached to this word is "Islamic Mysticism".

"Islamic Mysticism" in Arabic is "Tasawwuf".

I am writing in English, I could have used "Islamic Mysticism", or "Sufism", I chose "Sufism", principally because that word is commonly used in publications written in English that deal with Islamic Mysticism.

It would have been incorrect of me to use "Tasawwuf", even if I had a very clear idea of the implications of the use of this word, which I do not have. Moreover, "Tasawwuf" is not found in Old Javanese, Modern Javanese or Bahasa Indonesia. "Sufi" does occur in Bahasa Indonesia where its meaning is "mystical", & especially in reference to Islamic mysticism.

I understand, Alan. Thank you precisely clarifying. Sufi(-ic, -ism) is a perfectly appropriate word to label what we are talking about, especially in English. My preference to use "Tasawwuf" instead, especially when first establishing my point, is related to my experience with the varieties of meanings, assumptions and associations around the word "Sufi" - many of which I believe are erroneous or untrue. But in hindsight I don't think that was necessary for this discussion and it might even cause some confusion. In any case, we're on the same page.

Originally Posted by Green

The way I see it, the westerners are now much less concerned about mysticism and alternate realities/universe , not because they profess Christianity or live in Christian culture but the opposite. They have come away from this culture and turn primarily to secularism which eschew the unproven unknowns.

I agree with this, Green. I think the difference is that the West's relationship with religion and spirituality is framed through having a personal religion or spirituality. Contrast this with, say, Japan - who statistically on paper are highly irreligious but commonly do Shinto-Buddhist practices as part of public life, like going to shrines to give thanks or offer prayers. It's a socio-cultural form of religion which demands very little when it comes to personal conviction and belief, which makes it much easier for the society to have a relationship with the divine. It's spirituality as something you do, not as something you have. If the West had this - whether it was through a persistence of its pagan folk beliefs or otherwise - I think we'd see even secular Westerners "doing" religion, because it doesn't entail the same seemingly irreconcilable cognitive dissonance of claiming to be secular while also having a personal belief in the Grace of Christ.

And I think the keris is so attractive to people who crave this kind of spirituality but who wish to remain secular, or for those who want to be able to neatly compartamentalise their public secularity and private spirituality. It is a tool by which you can remember or contemplate the metaphysical, without necessarily needing to adopt Javanese mysticism, Islamic mysticism or anything else. For me, it is one way that I can constantly be reminded of the divine and of my ancestors. For others, it might be the only gateway to the spiritual that they can relate to, even though it is not from their culture.

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

..we have the charlatans who buy a keris in Pasar Triwindu early on Monday morning, and by Tuesday evening that keris has become a magical pusaka that materialized from the earth during meditation on Gunung Lawu. It has probably acquired a certificate or two along the way that guarantees it is the residence of a powerful and ethical khodam who will invariably assist the custodian in achieving his earthly desires. A powerful presence, something like Aladdin's genie of the lamp, except that you usually don't get to see the khodam.

..Some of these charlatans have now become international, and they are actively besmirching the truth and reality of the keris. To be frank, this is something that offends me, I would very much like to encourage a better understanding of the real esoteric aspects of the keris, so that people might have some chance of identifying the possible from the impossible, or put another way, identifying attributed powers that might be accepted by a learned ahli keris, and powers that might be dismissed with a smile.

Perhaps a little bit of understanding of the way in which the elements of the Hidden World do function might help people with a minimal understanding of these forces to differentiate between the possible & the impossible, the real & the unreal.

Perhaps this understanding might be assisted by the opening up of opinions, beliefs and experiences of keris interested people.

What I've written above I believe partially explains why these charlatans never seem to go out of business. People want real magic, real spirituality in their life. If they don't find it in orthodox, organised religion, they will seek it elsewhere. For how popular Islam is in Indonesia, if public religiosity is anything to go by, I actually believe that it's the result of a deep unseen iceberg of being socially, culturally, spiritually untethered from its syncretic roots. And if it can't be accessed, experienced and practiced as a people without coming under scrutiny or serious accusations of idolatry, then it will be sold by the charlatan or it will be at the behest of being defined by people claiming to know things they don't.