The Flying Keris

[David]

Well put Montino. Haven't seen you around much lately. Nice to hear from you again.

[A. G. Maisey]

The "Flying Keris" is only one of many stories that I know about the realities of "magic".

However, I also know of really inexplicable things, such as the ability of a member of my family to know of things happening in distant places before being told. For instance, the death of somebody a long way away, and how it happened.

There are things that cannot be explained logically, and there are also things that can be made to appear to be inexplicable.

As for the voice, well, as today's calendar page tells me:- "The power of life and death lay within the voice."

[josh stout]

The relationship between real power and tricks is more blurred in Indonesia than it is in America where we acknowledge one or the other. I watched a pendekar show a crowd of tourists how a magical stone could protect him from being cut. He showed us his arm shaking as the power entered him, then he chopped his arm with a golok. As he chopped, he kicked the sofa he was sitting on so it made a loud thump. The golok did not cut him, but left a line where it had hit. We would dismiss this as a trick. The shaking arm was showmanship, and kicking the sofa hid the fact that the chop was without power. However, I watched carefully, and while there was a trick, what he showed was quite real. It was a good solid strike to his arm. He new he was putting on a show, but he also believed in his own power. That power was not superhuman, but still took some skill. Later when the tourists left, he used the stone magic to fill his students with their movements. While this could be seen as more trickery, the effect on the students was real. Their movements were good, and unselfconscious bordering on trancelike. Where is the trick? Is it the show that builds the belief, the true belief that filled his students, or the real ability that the students demonstrated? Like many Americans, I tend to think that if I spot a trick, then the whole activity is suspect. In Indonesia, the trick is often beside the point, and expected. People with magical power often combine slight of hand, showmanship, carefully honed skills in reading body language, hypnotism, and faith healing using the placebo effect to accomplish amazing things. We should not forget that what appears to be trickery can involve great skill, and have real effects.
Josh

[Kiai Carita]

Originally Posted by josh stout

I watched a pendekar show a crowd of tourists how a magical stone could protect him from being cut. He showed us his arm shaking as the power entered him, then he chopped his arm with a golok. Josh

Hello Josh. I presume that you must be the Josh from PGB ... so "Salam Perguruan!" _()_ (this is meant to be hands soja before chest). ... Gentlemen, I think we have a White Crane pendekar here.

In Indonesia you often come across what appears to be magic. I have experienced it to especially with keris and othe tosan aji. First I found a keris in my grand mother's empty house - had been empty for years. I was practising some movement meditation and my hand felt like it was pulled very hard to the top of a cupboard and there was a keris, completely clean lying on a thick bed of dust. A few minutes after I picked it up, a neighbour came with a torch looking for what he saw as a bright light falling on to the roof. I wear this keris when I play dalang in London and always people fall in love with me. It is just a simple tilam upih in a gayaman timoho pelet wrangka, nothing special, the ganja has come loose and the pamor is only wos wutah but it seems to have a strong magic in it, stronger than an other keris I inherited which looks and is physically a much better keris. The better one never brings me the same type of luck when I wear it.

An other time, I lost a tombak from my room. I loved this tombak very much because my grand mother gave it to me as a child and used to tell me to use it to move rain clouds when she was drying rice. I lost it about 10 years ago... then last year my wife smelled a very sweet smell in the room and her hand felt as if was being pulled, and there, on top of our wardrobe was the tombak. Only the blade, the shaft was lost, the blade was a little uncared for but I recognized it as mine immediately.

Yesterday I was riding my motorbike to look at all the deforestation around Ngawi (where I live - massive deforestation the year Suharto stepped aside) and saw some interseting stone sculptures in a garden at the edge of a remote village. A strange place to see such expressive carvings I thought so I stopped and asked who made them. The man in the verandah said they were his. Then I noticed some older stones which looked like bonangs and kenongs from a gamelan set, and also some small linggas. I asked him whose they were and he said that they were ancient ones he found in his kebun. I asked if I could buy them of him and he said he did not dare sell. Why? I asked... he said that several of them have returned by themselves to the place he found them... and I believe him.

Maybe I am just a fool but in the silat world there are many things that seem to be magic. My trainer could make people not find his house - walk right past it. An other teacher could speak as if he was whispering in your heart. When ever one trainer moved the long movement of Crane Moves in Nine Shadows someone would fall in to trance. Why? I don't know. One thing I think is sure is that if someone has a magic keris they are not going to ever sell it.

Warm salaams to all,
Bram.

[David]

Josh, you are revealling some of the key secrets to true magick. Magick works on many levels and from many different directions sometimes. We should never underestimate the power of the brain either. When someone is healed by a plecebo for instance, those who chose not to acknowledge magick will say it's only in their heads. But the man has been healed! That power of the mind to heal is as much magick as anything else. And as Josh has stated, a certain amount of showmanship gets thrown into the mix with any good act of magick to elevate the level of consciousness to the point that allows the magick to take hold. I find it funny when folks denounce magick as being only in your head as if that somehow invalidates it or makes it unreal. We are the sum of our experiences and these experience help determine out realities. Even so, this doesn't mean that trickery and showmanship are not often used to bilk unsuspecting people out of large sums of money as was the case in Mr. Maisey's story of the flying keris. Again i encourage all to keep an open mind, but also a modicum of skepticism in your tool kit when attempting to determine an "authentic" magickal or mystical experience.

Originally Posted by Kiai Carita

One thing I think is sure is that if someone has a magic keris they are not going to ever sell it.

Bram, it is nice to hear from you again. I have had similar experiences with "magickal" objects, but not, as yet, with any of my keris. Your statement here is of the utmost importance to us in the collecting community when trying to understand keris and the magickal experience. The sad truth is that just about any time you are told a story about the magickal powers of a keris that someone is trying to sell you it will most likely be a lie. This does not negate that there is a true magickal "reality" to keris. It is just that these stories are most often used by unscupulous dealers to get your money. Certainly it is true of internet sales like on eBay, where the buyer never has the opportunity to come in contact with the keris to sense if there is any active energies working there. So the old axiom still holds guys. Buy the keris, not the story.

[A. G. Maisey]

Let's pass on the question of buying and selling magic, just for the moment.

Let us consider this:-

in the Javanese world view, how much of the physical things of the world are reality, and how much of an idea is reality?

if the physical and the idea or belief can come together in the micro cosmos of man, is not the reality of the idea as one with the reality of existence of the physical object?

thus, if an idea is real for a person, or for a group of people, is not the value of that idea equivalent to the value of actuality?

If we look at Javanese society, and the way in which it is organised , we can find multitudes of examples that could be used to illustrate the proposition I am putting forward here. The keris and the position it occupies within Javanese society complies with the parameters set by the society for the relationship between all physical things and all non physical things. It is not a special case. It falls within the general framework of the way in which Javanese people tend to see the world.

The anthropologist, Niels Mulder, who carried out considerable research in Jawa, has written fairly extensively on this uniquely Javanese way of relating to the world.

Of course, there is a downside to this way of acting and reacting, and it comes when people with these attitudes are forced to act and react with the world outside their own. The Asian monetary crisis hit in 1997. Ten years later, Indonesia is still suffering the effects of this.

Why?

[josh stout]

Thank you Bram for the nice introduction._()_

Relating to the idea of a keris working as a connection between the inner and outer worlds-

"...thus, if an idea is real for a person, or for a group of people, is not the value of that idea equivalent to the value of actuality?

If we look at Javanese society, and the way in which it is organized, we can find multitudes of examples that could be used to illustrate the proposition I am putting forward here. The keris and the position it occupies within Javanese society comply with the parameters set by the society for the relationship between all physical things and all non-physical things. It is not a special case. It falls within the general framework of the way in which Javanese people tend to see the world..."

This is very well put, and also reveals one of the problems with intangibles. Our mind builds bridges between the inner and outer worlds. These bridges come in the form of movements or physical things like the keris that when done in the right way, form bridges into the inner realm of others. We often think that if something has its origin in mental states or beliefs, then it its validity rests purely in the mind and is thus open to any interpretation. Some people believe things as fast as they can make them up. However, what the keris teaches us is that a true bridge is not casually constructed by unskilled labor. There is physical skill that forms the substance for the beliefs. This is true for art in general, but when the art carries the spiritual and metaphysical as part of its creation the skill and physical techniques require that much more dedication. In addition, it takes a certain amount of skill to simply be able to recognize the level of mastery that it takes to produce a keris or other thing with inner power. This is why as collectors become more knowledgeable they often seek out the older keris. The old and the new may look similar, but often they are not the same. Some people think only the old keris have power. I don't know about that, but it would be typical of modern things to be made without the level of skill necessary. Still as a physical skill, no matter how difficult, it is still possible that some may still have it. Modern life is just not conducive to the dedication necessary to reach that level.
Josh