The Semangat and the Mantra in Java, Indonesia

Abstract

The Javanese mantra is a communicative act, and a spiritual dialogue. During the mantra ritual, the shaman Orang Pinter and supplicant receiving the intervention select become equal agents, as they intervene for change in the cultural and spiritual disposition of the supplicant. But in this paper. The presentation discusses ethnographic work over 10 years during which over 1500 mantras were documented throughout central to east Java, Indonesia, To effect the documentation process, I engaged with a range of communities and individuals throughout Java, that is, Yogyakarta, Solo, Surabaya, Alas Purwo, Salatiga, Bali, and other localities, Spiritual interventions were witnessed, and we suggest religious affiliation tells only part of the story. Drawing on frameworks of symbolic interactionism, and phenomenological nominalism, the synopsis discusses how a poetic discourse analysis of mantras can describe a system employed by these shamans and the supplicants to discursively facilitate the spiritual process, by altering the dissociative state of the supplicant. The talk concludes by presenting a model for the mantra in Java, and possibly in other global regions. Within this model, several overlapping processes mediate the drawing on cultural symbolisms, and overlap in strategic designs, to to effect change in the supplicant. The paper draws on work by Rebecca Seligman, who has conducted similar ethnographic and theoretical work in the South American context.