i've been wanting to talk to my friend, marie, for a few days now about the demons in my house. she's married to an indonesian, so she understands a lot of the culture behind what happens, and i know that she's also had to rid her house of the powers of darkness before. i finally got a chance to talk to her last night.
while i was over there, a couple of their javanese neighbors happened to be there, and marie asked them if there's a dukun (witch doctor) locally who hates orang orang asing (foreigners), since so many of us whiteys have had this problem in our homes. they said that this kampung (part of town) doesn't have a dukun.
BUT, from the parts of the conversation i understood, i caught this.... there is a river that runs during rainy season down in a gorge just down the hill behind my house. before the school was here, a man killed himself down there, and his spirit is still there. this fits with stories i've heard before. often at night, our guards say they see ghosts and spirits on campus
before i go any further into this, i need to stop right now and say that yes, i realize that this sounds unbelievable. in the western world, we are taught that there is no such thing as ghosts. places can't be haunted. things don't make noise or move around on their own. there are no monsters under our beds. and i am here to tell you that all the things we like to believe to make us feel safe at night are a load of crap. i just got an email from my friend, em, and i like the way her dad puts it - in america, satan wears a three piece suit, but in the rest of the world, he shows his face. satan knows us. and i would wager that he knows us intimately.
when demons enter a house, in every case i've heard of, they were called there by someone or something. in some cases, someone goes and pays the dukun 50 cents to have him send demons to a certain person's house. in other cases, there is something already in the house that summons them. often, if a new family is having trouble with demons in their house, upon searching their house, they will find black magic things hidden in the corners, in the rafters, etc. and as soon as they are rid of those, the demons are no more.
since there is no dukun, it means that one didn't send the demons to me. since my house is brand new and on campus, there's no chance that someone planted black magic stuff inside it somewhere. so the javanese men last night started questioning me. do i have any tribal art in my house? no. do i have anything from bali in my house? yes, but it's been there for months without incident. do i have any indonesian knives in my house? no. have i bought anything at mirota batik (a hindu store in jogja) lately? yes, i was there 2 weeks ago. what did i buy? incense.
they freaked out. they told me to get rid of it all and never to burn incense in my house again. apparently, burning incense here is strongly linked with satanic practices. and as i thought back over the events of the past couple weeks, i realized - the first two times they were there, i had burnt the incense as i was going to bed.
the first night, when i heard the tapping on my window, it was the window right next to where the incense was burning on my desk. i had a fan on, so most of the smoke was blowing out of that window. the second night, the incense had burned all the way down before i turned the lights out, but when i heard the scratching on the wall, it was coming from behind the shelf that i keep the incense on.
but i'm conflicted now. i haven't had this problem when i've burnt incense from other places, and i do burn incense fairly often. and i see the wisdom in removing all the incense from mirota from my house. i mean, obviously, it is calling demons to my house. but a part of me feels like that is like giving in. like saying, "alright, i'm scared to burn my incense now. you win." and i refuse to give satan the victory of the power of fear over me.
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