The Unwashed Dukun of Pertak

ORANG ASLI FOLK MEDICINE - generically known as jampi - is feared and respected by most “modern” Malays - even regular mosque-goers who drive Proton Wiras and subscribe to the high-tech pseudo-mysticism of full-tilt industrialization. The Chinese have their own sinseh (traditional healers) or access to Thai witch-doctors. Working-class Indians continue to patronize roadside kuil (temples or shrines) for divine intercession, while the middle-class or westernized ones prefer to take their medical problems to private clinics and hospitals.  

Sibin Aus is the resident dukun (medicine man) of Kampung Orang Asli Pertak. He once told me that he studied the craft for three years in Pahang before establishing his own practice. Three years doesn't sound like a very long apprenticeship, especially for something as complicated as sorcery - but I felt it wasn't my place to probe further. The fact remains that Sibin is often sought out from afar for a bit of good, old-fashioned Orang Asli jampi. 

Recently, I was approached by a corporate-type Malay seeking a magical remedy for his wife's “feminist rebellion” against the patriarchal family order. He didn’t want “counseling” - he wanted the “real stuff” - so I pointed him in Sibin’s direction. After the man left, I was curious to know what the crafty old shaman had prescribed, and how much the bill was. Sibin told me many months later, when he began to accept me as a “colleague” of sorts, that he had given the afflicted husband some Pengasih Rindu (Lover's Yearning), a love potion concocted from tree roots. The bill came to exactly RM88. 

SIBIN HAS an excellent singing voice and usually serves as the chief spirit-caller whenever a sawai (ritual healing) is convened. Nobody in the village seems to take Sibin too seriously, since he is invariably either completely inebriated or recovering from a monstrous hangover. The kids all call him Berk'ot - Smelly or Unwashed - and to Sibin's credit, he never seems to mind.

Awa Anak Lahai, Sibin's long-suffering-but-always-jolly wife, is also a much called-upon traditional healer and sawai singer. Awa likes operating as a trio, along with her inscrutable, feline-faced elder sister, Mak Inai and the celebrated Mak Minah (perhaps the first Orang Asli vocalist to appear on a nationwide live telecast). When they first asked me for a ride to the bus station, I asked them if they were off on a jaunt, and they said they were “on call.” Some poor soul in Rasa (a village about five miles south of Kuala Kubu Baru) had been cursed with an incurable disease, and in desperation a relative had come seeking help from the “Three Witches” of Pertak. I was amazed at the reach of their reputation, and thus was somewhat taken aback when Awa and Minah began coming to me for medical advice!

I realized it was Utat who had recommended my healing prowess to his kinfolk after I had successfully treated his leg sores. (I used a combination of pranic healing and antiseptic cream.) I have since been called upon to perform a few minor “miracles.” Mostly, I have fulfilled the role of resident psychologist, since the Orang Asli have yet to acquire the habit - or perhaps the technical vocabulary - of articulating their emotional tensions, which then manifest as pening (dizziness or headaches), demam (fever), or perut sakit (abdominal pains).

The first time I actually witnessed jampi was when Daharom, the Indonesian caretaker of my former Magick River residence, appeared in the village, complaining of acute pains in his kidneys or liver. He asked if I knew of any dukun (shaman) in the area, and as we were directly in front of Sibin's house, I led him straight to it. Sibin, as usual, had a hangover - but was ready to be of service. I asked if I could stay and watch him in action, and the medicine man immediately agreed. 

Sibin's wife collected some embers from the kitchen fire for the kemenyan (incense), while he shuffled into the next room (I suspect, to revive himself with another shot of Old Man Brand Tonic Wine, the Orang Asli favorite when it comes to plonk). When he emerged, Awa had got the kemenyan going nicely, and the small, dark room was filled with the evocative fragrance of burning wood-resin. Sibin began muttering incantations - very rapidly and softly - before smudging himself and his patient with the incense. After a while, Sibin began feeling around Daharom's abdomen with his grubby, stubby fingers before bending down and licking, then sucking at a specific spot. This went on for several minutes. 

Finally, the witch-doctor let out a triumphant grunt and spat something into his hand, which he proceeded to show to Daharom and me. I saw several chipped pebbles in Sibin's open palm. He said he had removed the stones from Daharom's kidneys. As Sibin wasn't even wearing a shirt, he couldn't have had the pebbles up his sleeves. Of course, he could easily have hidden them under his tongue after he had taken a swig from his bottle of tonic wine. Then, again, he could just as easily have sucked the stony bits right out of Daharom's innards. Who am I to question the ways of jungle magic?   

For his stone-removal service, Sibin demanded only RM22 from Daharom, who complained that the fee was too high. After some haggling, Sibin accepted RM12 in payment. I never found out if Daharom's medical problem was satisfactorily resolved in the long term. If it was, then Sibin's RM22 fee was perhaps a great deal lower than what a western-style doctor might have charged. And if it wasn't... well, Daharom was certainly not the first person on Earth to lose a few bucks to a snake-oil salesman. At least, for his money, he had the dubious pleasure of getting his belly licked and sucked by a drunken and only slightly unwashed dukun. 

Telur and Tepung Therapy

AFTER MAK WAN DIED, Seri Pagi's health suffered rapid deterioration. Twice, he was given jampi by Awa; once with telur ayam (hens' eggs) and the second time with tepung beras (rice flour) and water mixed into a putty-like dough. I witnessed both healing events, which took place at night.

For the first ritual, Mak Minah bought eight raw eggs from the local provision shop. Awa had the kemenyan fuming in a coconut bowl filled with glowing coals. I don't recall hearing her recite any incantations, and if she did, she must have done it sotto voce. An enamel dish was placed on the split-bamboo floor beside Seri Pagi. Awa grabbed an egg and proceeded to rub it on Seri Pagi's upper back, at the point where he had complained of severe aches. After a minute of this, she cracked open the egg into the dish and began to scrutinize the yolk for tell-tale signs - discoloration, specks, or small deformities. 

“Hah!” she exclaimed, pointing to what looked to me like a day-old chicken embryo. “Hmmm...” 

Minah seemed to know what to look for. Taking a look at the yolk, she reacted with the usual, all-purpose, no-meaning, Temuan interjection: “'Tah, 'tah!”  Sort of like, “There, there!”

Awa picked up another egg and massaged Seri Pagi's bent back with it. Again she broke the egg into the dish and studied the yolk. She pointed at some blemish with excitement and Minah shone a flashlight on it, just to make sure Awa was right. I asked Awa what she was looking for, and she told me: “Sickness leaves its mark. We can see it in the egg yolk. I'm drawing out the sickness with the eggs.”

The last few eggs seemed to indicate that the bulk of Seri Pagi's sickness had been drawn out. Awa and Minah were pleased with the pristine state of the yolks, at any rate. The eight eggs in the enamel dish were now carefully transferred into a plastic bag. Awa was careful not to spill a single drop of egg. Tying the bag securely, she handed it solemnly to Mak Minah with firm instructions that the bag be disposed of far away from human habitations. 

“Can't the dogs have the eggs?” I asked.

Awa and Minah looked at me with disbelief, as if wondering how I could possibly suggest such a cruel act. “They'll die!” Mak Minah said, and Awa thought it was the funniest thing she had heard all week.

“So where are you going to throw the plastic bag with the eggs?” I asked Mak Minah. “Can't you just bury it?”

Minah said, “The dogs will smell it and dig it up. Tomorrow I'm going to fling it as far as I can down the ravine by the main road.”

If you ever come across a plastic bag in the jungle, full of broken eggs, just pretend you didn't see it and walk on.

    

THE TEPUNG RITUAL was performed several months later, when Seri Pagi again complained of sharp pains down his back. This time, I arrived as Awa was already kneading bits of dough into little balls. Nearby was a terra-cotta incense-holder with the sacred kemenyan. I watched as Awa deftly rubbed the doughball over Seri Pagi's bony back. After a couple of minutes, she stopped and broke the doughball in half, studying the flour texture with great concentration. She broke each half into two and examined the flour; and then again, until the dough bits were too small to break. She shook her head and remarked that whoever was responsible for this attack must be a right sneaky bastard - or words to that effect.

The third or fourth attempt produced dramatic results. When Awa broke the doughball into eighths, a small bit of metal was found. “Look!” she shouted. “Look at this... IRON! Too much!” 

She kneaded another doughball and repeated the procedure. This time a flattened bottle-cap was disclosed. I just couldn't believe anyone would deliberately conceal a bottle-cap, of all things, in a ball of dough. Utat, who had been observing quietly, made a wry comment: “You'll be surprised what comes out in the tepung.  Pins, rusty nails, razor blades, even machine parts like washers and screws!”

“You mean that bottle-cap was inside Pak Diap?” I asked Awa. She looked fatigued by her efforts and barely managed a smile. Utat made a valiant attempt to explain how evil intentions and illness often disguised themselves as common-place objects. The fact that most items fished out by the tepung ritual happen to be metallic merely indicates that the majority of psychic attacks or invasions originate from the mineral kingdom - the 2D realm of the Subconscious. 

The next day I looked in to see if Seri Pagi was feeling better after his tepung therapy. He was in good cheer and assured me that he felt “a lot better.” He certainly looked like someone who'd just had a few bits of “heavy metal” removed from his internal reality. I wondered if the flattened bottle cap could be traced to that extra bottle of Guinness he shouldn't have had the week before. 

Upon later reflection, the use of eggs and flour to draw out disease by an intentional act of sympathetic magic began to make perfect sense to me. 

The egg is a basic symbol of new life, a primary metaphor for the life process: a single cell charged with infinite potential to subdivide and grow into a complex organism like a bird or duck or snake or lizard or platypus or elephant or human. 

Flour is the universal staple of life - and more so when made from beras (rice), a grain sacred to all rice-eating peoples. The rice flour represents daily sustenance: the transmutation of vegetable life into animal vitality. Turned into dough, flour is as malleable as clay - another substance neutral enough for it to serve as a template for more complex ideas. In alchemical terms, dough is akin to the newborn consciousness - the tabula rasa upon which fresh imprints can be registered with minimal interference. As a poison-detector, flour is unbeatable - because of its easy availability, its transmutability into almost any form imaginable, its ability to retain a humble, prosaic, wholesome familiarity. It is indeed the Flour of Life!  

Seri Pagi didn’t have to pay Awa for her telur and tepung therapy. Indah and Rasid explained that the traditional payment for jampi is RM44. The figure 44 is symbolic: it could be measured in bucks or dongs or kyats or bahts or euros or rands or roubles or yuan (in rupiahs, I guess, the amount would be something like 440,000!). We learn in the esoteric science of numbers that 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99 are Master Numbers. Solara (a starpriestess and visionary I know) calls them “our entry point into the Greater Reality.” In effect, Master Numbers help us access the next level or octave of vibratory resonance.  

When Anoora and I were engaged, I was required to pay her the sum of RM44 to validate the transaction. Later I found out RM44 was the bride-price of a virgin. A divorcee costs only RM22. If the woman was married twice, the price is further halved to RM11. Beyond that I suppose she gets labelled “cheap.”     

Since Mak Minah had asked Awa to treat her brother, it was Minah's debt and not Seri Pagi's. She could settle immediately in cash, offer to pay in painless instalments, or repay Awa in kind. For a full-scale jampi session - which can last three or four nights - the customary payment is usually RM88, RM110, RM220, or RM330  - depending on the financial status of the client and the degree of cure achieved. Indah assured me that the dukun was bound by tribal adat (tradition) to offer follow-up treatment for at least six months.

Western-style medical practitioners have much to learn from the shamanic profession! 

Tunnel of Terror

Many-lined Sun Skink (Eutropis multifasciata) Photo courtesy of Ecology Asia

I MET RAMU and his adventure-seeking friends in 1992. They were picnicking down by “The G-Spot” (a natural jacuzzi at Magick River, marked by a huge elephantine rock I had dubbed Ganesha - hence the 'G' in the 'G-Spot'). We exchanged some remarks on life in general and on power spots in particular. Soon, Ramu & Co. were making regular camp-outs along the river. They even made a tree shrine on one slope of the Mother Fall. Two years later I moved to the “High Hut,” just beyond Kampung Orang Asli Pertak.

About six months after I'd settled in at my new Ceremonial Guardian's Official Residence, Ramu showed up with a couple of Mohans and their cousin-brother, Elangor. They had two birds to kill with one stone: first, they were keen to visit me in my new jungle habitat; and second, they were interested in checking out the collapsed tunnel behind my hut.

No one seems to know exactly when the tunnel collapsed - or the precise number of miners that got trapped. It could have been in 1907 or 1908. Or perhaps even 1909. And I've heard 200-300 human casualties. Bidar Chik, the new batin (headman), told me his grandfather had been caretaker and gardener for the Chinese towkay (Big Boss) who owned and managed the mine. “He was the second man in Selangor to possess a motorcar,” was Bida's description of the towkay. I've been told tungsten was being mined. But it could have been silver or gold. The area lies between Perak (which means “silver”) and Pahang (where they say the Mother Lode of Gold begins). Whatever it was he was digging for, the towkay had ordered a tunnel blasted right through the foot of Bukit Suir. I was told the tunnel originallly emerged at the top of Lata Chehek (the Mother Fall) where the remains of rusty steel pipes and mooring pins can still be found.

Ramu & Co. had come prepared. They produced powerful flashlights and asked if I could show them the tunnel entrance. I had been meaning to explore the dank shaft myself - but the only flashlight I had at hand seemed a mite frail for such a spooky expedition. So I put on my wellies and led Ramu & Co. into the dark, dripping maw of Bukit Suir, which once housed a whole colony of the dreaded jungle sirens known as Lang Suir. 

Bats fluttered around our ears as we trudged through six-inch-deep water and slime, watching out for watersnakes. It was soon apparent that we were in a four-foot-wide shallow trench cut for the railcarts that once ferried ore out of the mine shaft. On both sides of the trench, indentations marked the spots where wooden sleepers had been laid to support the rails (long ago looted by scrap merchants). A spring now flowed through the tunnel, keeping the walls perpetually damp. After twenty minutes or so (it was impossible to keep track of time), the tunnel abruptly ended in a heap of rubble.

“Let's see if we can locate the tunnel again further up the hill. Maybe we can find an opening beyond the rockfall,” Ramu suggested. 

Ramu & Co. had brought extra long parangs too. There was going to be a lot of undergrowth to slash through. It was a good adventure in the best Indiana Jones tradition, I mused. We found a spot that looked like it could be where the old tunnel continued, but upon closer approach - after another half-hour of sweaty slashing, mainly by Ramu (who impressed me with his phenomenal stamina) - it turned out to be impassable. Ramu's perfect teeth flashed in a broad, disarming grin: “Don’t worry, I shall return!”

ANOTHER INDIAN FRIEND, Jeyaraman, had told me some fantastic stories about the hill behind my hut where the tunnel began. He knew someone who had gone up Bukit Suir with a small party of treasure-hunters, led by a Malay bomoh (magician). A ritual sacrifice was made and incantations offered to the Penunggu (guardian spirit). Kemenyan was burned and prayers recited. The group was convinced there was gold in “them thar hills.” Specifically, they believed there were railcarts laden with gold-rich ore, buried during the cave-in. After a lengthy meditation, everyone in the group began to doze off. They suddenly awoke to a flesh-crawling sensation and a very low tremor, rumbling through the hill itself. What they beheld was a sixty-foot specter, a black shadowy shape against the midnight sky, looming over them in a somewhat menacing stance. The bomoh blurted out Allah's name and something from the Koran, whereupon the entire party jumped up and scurried away, never to return.

About a month after I had moved into the High Hut with my canine corps, I began noticing the clammy effects of the tunnel's geomantic exudations. Whenever I returned to the hut after two or three days away, I found the dogs' dishes full of maggots, wriggling in the putrefaction of uneaten food. Something was spooking the mutts, normally a bunch of hearty diners. 

An involuntary sense of melancholy sometimes enveloped me like a graveyard mist - but I attributed that to a recent romantic disappointment. Jeyaraman's stories about the tunnel brought to my conscious attention the heavy psychic imprint of this particular power spot. I knew I had to soothe its troubled magnetic field and transmute the etheric pain to pleasure. Yet I felt the weight of its wounded heart as my own, and was unable to act. 

The return of Ramu was perfectly timed.

“HELLO, I’M BACK!” Ramu said. And he was on a very special mission. He explained that he had been studying the mystic arts from various magicians in the area, and that he had recently dreamt of the tunnel. He needed my permission as Ceremonial Guardian - and my logistical support as the local resident - to undergo a 15-night meditation inside the tunnel.  

At 27, Ramu seemed in a big hurry to become a great Swami - but, then, why not? He certainly had the necessary will power, the willingness, the fearlessness (or recklessness) to go for broke.  

“When were you hoping to start?” I asked Ramu.  

“If it's okay with you, I shall return tomorrow with my friends and set up a wooden platform inside the tunnel where I can meditate. I shall bring my own rice and other supplies, but I may need your help getting fresh vegetables and fruits.”

“Sounds pretty crazy to me,” I smiled, “but go right ahead!” 

I warned him about the unhappy spirits of the hill, and asked if he knew how to release imprisoned souls.

Ramu grinned enthusiastically: “That's my job. My guru told me I could learn a lot and develop my siddhis (psychic powers) very fast by helping to free the tunnel ghosts.”

Within an hour, Ramu and his friends had put together a sleeping platform for him, raised inches above the spring. They laid on a carpet of newspapers and set up a little shrine of ritual tools: small dishes of copper, silver, precious stones, incense, talismanic roots, framed images of Hindu deities and saints. It looked, in fact, almost cosy. Ramu ate a simple meal of rice cooked with milk and some green leaves, peeled a banana for dessert, and washed it down with water.

Then, about a half-hour before the sun disappeared behind the hills, he waved to me cheerily and began his 15-night tunnel meditation.

Each morning Ramu would emerge, grinning, and cook himself some rice. He was delighted to find daun pegaga (a round-leaved creeper rich in nutrients) growing all around my hut, and made it a big part of his diet. The first day Ramu reported that he had sensed the miners' shades almost immediately. In his mind's eye, he saw some of them still moving about half-bent from years of tunnel work. Some of them looked Japanese, Ramu said. He had recited a prayer for them.

The second day, Ramu announced that he had succeeded in releasing a good percentage of the tunnel ghosts. “But some don't wish to leave,” he remarked. In the afternoons after doing his laundry, Ramu would sit for hours reading a thick, clothbound book - which I later learnt was a Tamil translation of ancient spiritual lore. It struck me that Ramu's youthful arrogance was well balanced by his easygoing charm and magnetic good looks. 

By the end of the first week, Ramu's routine had been smoothly established. Out of the tunnel at first light. Bath in the freezing stream. Breakfast of fruit or daun pegaga. Laundry, lunch of rice and milk, or rice and soy-sauce. Brief report to the Ceremonial Guardian on the previous night's dreams and visions. Then, after another meal of rice and veggies, back into the tunnel just before twilight. Sometimes he would hand me a shopping list and some cash, seeing I was about to ride into town for supplies. 

As the second week began, Ramu grew progressively silent and I began to feel twinges of irritation at his ghostlike presence. His aura was almost visibly glowing, and his demeanor had grown so gentle and peaceful that I felt at times a little annoyed by his apparent saintliness. It did seem a little smug to me. But it was even more annoying that I should find myself feeling such an infantile need to gauge my own “spiritual status” against Ramu's. I began to ignore him and go about my business. He, in turn, stopped giving me detailed reports of his nocturnal vigil inside the tunnel, though he did express surprise at how soundly he slept in there - except once or twice when startled by giant frogs or low-flying bats.

A couple of times, I left Ramu to his own devices when I had to visit Kuala Lumpur on some errand or another. I was pleased to find that Ramu had been clearing the yard of weeds and fixing the drainage along the drive - just to keep himself physically active. 

At some point Ramu began to boast that he had cleared more than 60% of the residual ectoplasm from the mining disaster. Indeed, I could sense a pleasant change in the psychic atmosphere of the little valley where the High Hut stood. Once or twice, Ramu's friends turned up with fresh supplies and funds for the troglodytic young magician-in-training. 

From earlier chats with Ramu, I had gathered that there was quite a remarkable assortment of sorcerers and saints in the vicinity, and that Ramu was acquainted with most of them.

On the fifteenth day, I awoke to find no sign of Ramu. His boots and parang and a few supplies were visible - but he didn't show up even when it was time for me to ride into town. I called for him at the mouth of the tunnel - but his sleeping platform wasn't that far in, and was actually discernible from just outside the entrance. No Ramu. 

I had other missing entities to worry about: Mowgli, a three-month-old pup, had disappeared three days ago. When I returned from shopping in the late afternoon, neither Mowgli nor Ramu was to be seen. He couldn't have gone back in there so early, I thought, and was about to check out the tunnel once more when Mowgli came limping home with one paw puffed up to balloon-like proportions. The poor pup had run into a wild pig snare set up by Bidar or his brother Sem and had spent the last couple of days chewing through the heavy-duty nylon fishing-line. He had managed to break free with a tight loop knotted around one paw. I found a pair of surgical scissors and was struggling to cut Mowgli's paw free with the traumatized pup balanced on my lap when Ramu turned up with his Company in tow. He immediately came to my help and, with a single snip, severed the fishing-line constricting Mowgli's paw.

Meanwhile, Ramu's friends had begun packing his worldly belongings and taking them to a waiting car. Ramu tried to explain briefly what had happened on his fourteenth night, but there was too much confusion to make sense of his story. Apparently, Ramu had been communicating with the Penunggu of Bukit Suir - asking it to reveal itself or some major magical secret. Perhaps Ramu was attempting to capture a spirit ally for himself - and the Penunggu of Bukit Suir was certainly no run-of-the-mill jin.

Whatever the reason, the Penunggu had obliged Ramu on the fourteenth night. In Ramu's words, “The Penunggu was demonstrating his power, challenging me. Suddenly I saw blue sparks coming out of my body. It felt like hundreds of electric shocks. I couldn't stand it anymore. The Penunggu was too strong. I ran out of the tunnel, shaking. Then I decided to walk out to the main road and catch a bus home.”

Ramu thanked me profusely for my hospitality and quickly left with his friends. I didn't see him again for a full three years. Not long ago he suddenly materialized with another Company, this time consisting entirely of Malays and Indonesians. I knew right away Ramu was taking a big-time bomoh and his band of acolytes for a magical mystery tunnel tour.

When they emerged, I asked if there was a “doctor” in the party who could help relieve my friend Larry's throbbing toothache. The man I had identified as Mr Big-Time Bomoh immediately asked for a piece of white cloth (in this instance a section of Ahau's old nappy) and a dash of kerosene. He mumbled something that sounded vaguely Arabic and slapped a few drops of kerosene on Larry's swollen cheek; then he gently whipped the painful spot with the cloth and threw it in the fire. “Does that feel better?” the bomoh demanded in a tone that brooked no defiance.

“I guess so,” Larry muttered politely. 

“Don't be so vague! If it's better, say it's better. If not, say it's not!” 

“It's better,” Larry said, perhaps to forestall further magical ministrations.

Mr Big-Time Bomoh turned to me and asked if I could catch him a two-headed bengkarung (skink, a cousin of the newt). I told him, if ever I came upon such a marvelous creature, I'd be happy just to capture it on film. He laughed and led Ramu and the rest of his Company trooping off into the sunset. 

Toad tears, skink poo, newt sweat, virgin pee, bottled spirits, Arabic oaths... Magicians of the Old School, obviously. All a bit passé, as far as I was concerned. I turned to Larry an hour later: “Is your toothache gone?”

Larry stroked his cheek thoughtfully and said, “Actually, it feels a bit numb. No pain, but I'd better see the dentist tomorrow.”

AT NOON on the Solstice of December 1994, I performed a simple earth-healing ritual on Bukit Suir with Soluntra King, my starsister and a consultant geomancer from Queensland. She had brought with her a bag of aboriginal ochre from the Northern Territory of Australia, and a whole array of crystals. Earlier she had recited a prayer of blessing and release at the mouth of the tunnel. What actually happened cannot easily be described in words: I distinctly felt a strong vortex of Goddess force merging with the ancient Pan energies and anchoring itself right at the top of the waterfall above my hut. At the same time a magnetic link was reactivated between ancient sacred sites in Australia and Malaysia - a connection that had been inactive since the destruction of Lemuria (or Mu). After Soluntra, there were many other energy workers and psychics from various parts of Australia (and later America) who serendipitously showed up at Magick River to perform sacred rituals and stabilize the new magnetic grid.   

Since then, the troubled spirit of the hill seems to have lifted, and I no longer sense the anguish of lost souls in the Valley of the Lang Suir. No doubt, Ramu deserves credit for helping clear most of the blocked energies during his fourteen-night sojourn in the “Tunnel of Terror.” For that alone, I believe he deserves full-fledged Swamijihood! Swami Shree Ram. Sounds okay to me. 

THERE IS A POSTSCRIPT of sorts to all this and also an epilogue. My Temuan friends had always seemed a little wary of the old tunnel. That's why no one had wanted to live near this idyllic little spot. But soon after Ramu's revisit to the tunnel, a bunch of young Temuan males turned up and sealed the tunnel mouth with tree branches and leaves. I asked them why they had covered the tunnel, and one of them said they didn't want the kids nosing around in there. They thought it might cave in again during the heavy rains. I was touched to know they were capable of such concern, Normally, macho young “warriors” their age would be hanging out at the local bar or snooker parlor, living up to the Orang Asli stereotype of Perennial No-Hopers. Perhaps there was hope for this lot yet.

Just as I was preparing this material for publication, who should turn up again but our friend Swami Shree Ram. This time he announced that he wanted to spend only five nights in the tunnel. Perhaps I ought to rent out the facility as a Ritual Chamber for Aspiring Magicians, I thought. “You’re entirely welcome,” I told Ramu, “but bear in mind it’s the wet season, so watch out for falling roofs!” Ramu just laughed, displaying his incredibly healthy teeth.

Well, it rained on the first night, and again on the second, and after the third damp, drippy, sleepless night, Ramu decided the tunnel was unsafe and canceled his ordeal. This time around, I noticed Ramu had acquired a sense of humor, and was not the least bothered by the fact that his plans had to be shelved. He was also very much more attuned to what was happening in the 3rd Dimensional World of Economics and Politics - and we spent quite a while discussing the imminent collapse of the illusory power structure. In all respects, Ramu had really matured and was much better company than on his first tunnel attempt. 

I decided it was time to rename the Tunnel of Terror. From now on I would call it the Tunnel of Transformation!

The Path to Pulau Buah

PULAU BUAH, the Isle of Fruits, is the Temuan paradise, the Garden of Eden we knew as Home before the... what? The Fall? The Great Flood? Even Seri Pagi wasn't too sure what terrible crime we had committed as a species to have warranted banishment from Pulau Buah. Surely the gods would not introduce sexual reproduction to the human race only to punish us for it? (No one seemed to have given this any thought. Indah merely told me the tale she probably heard when her first period arrived: the one about Tuhan finding menstrual stains on the Stairway to Heaven and deciding to seal it forever to humanity.)

“Sometimes we can still visit Pulau Buah,” Seri Pagi said, “but only in dreams, or if we're very ill and in a sort of coma. In the old days, we had dukun (shamans) who were powerful enough, and pure enough, to travel there without losing their physical connection to the Earth. Nowadays, we only tell stories about Pulau Buah.”

Mak Minah said her great-grandmother used to travel to Pulau Buah in her dreams. “She told us there was a great tree in a beautiful clearing by a crystalline stream. The tree was laden with ripe rambutans (a hairy-skinned, succulent, juicy fruit) - only these were no ordinary rambutans, they were enormous! And best of all, she could reach up and pluck a fruit from the lowest branch without any effort. The spirit of the tree told her not to throw away the peel after she had eaten the fruit. Instead, she had to carefully place the peel on the ground below the branch where the fruit had been growing. One fruit was enough to satisfy her, it was so large and so delicious. The next time she returned to the spot, the same fruit was back on the branch, ready to be plucked and eaten!”

Penengah admitted that he had tried to visit Pulau Buah in his youth, and failed. “Before you can proceed, you must go to the foot of Gunung Rajah and wait for an invitation. If the guardian favors you, you will somehow find yourself going up the mountain. I've heard the old folks telling of signs and special spirit guides that can show you the path to Pulau Buah, which is not in this world. I didn't even get beyond the foot of Gunung Rajah. If the guardian doesn't want you to enter the sacred realm, the mountain itself will move away, so that you find yourself somewhere else. Well, that's what happened. I was there with a few friends. We were certain it was Gunung Rajah. Then there was heavy rain and strong winds and strange sounds that really frightened us. Of course, it could have been a tiger or leopard, but even if it was, you can bet it was no ordinary tiger or leopard. When the weather cleared, we realised we were nowhere near Gunung Rajah. We turned around and somehow found our way back to the village. We were glad to be alive.”

Nadi Pak Empok may have been on that expedition. Or he may have made a separate attempt to scale Gunung Rajah. He spoke reverently about the very special atmosphere that pervades the Royal Mountain, even around its base. The beautiful birds and plants he saw along the way, the mysterious cries of unknown creatures. “We heard the musical voices of maidens calling to us. It was hard not to obey their call, it was so seductive. But one of the group suddenly told us to flee for our lives, and we did. I don't know what would have become of us if we had tried to find the source of those haunting cries.”

Soon after the Selangor Dam project was announced, I found Utat lying feverish on a mat in Indah’s house. “I dreamt about Pulau Buah,” he whispered. “I was there, at the peak of Gunung Rajah, and I saw Mamak and Inak Bongsu.” I was all ears. Anoora’s uncle Utat rarely discussed his dreams, being an exceptionally private and shy man, but he revealed that he had twice been summoned to the Sacred Mountain by the Temuan’s tutelary gods - a signal honor for any Temuan.

“How did they appear to you, what did they look like?” I prompted Utat.

“They were absolutely splendid, more beautiful and much, much grander than kings and queens. They looked human, but in a more luminous, far nobler form.” (Lothlorien and the High Elves immediately came to my mind.) 

“What did Mamak and Inak Bongsu have to say to you?”

Utat was silent for a moment. “They said they were very concerned about the destruction that is about to take place. The dam. It makes them angry and they want me to warn people that this desecration is loathsome to them. They have the capacity to destroy the dam, but they do not wish to harm anybody.”

“Well, are you going to tell the rest of the tribe?” 

Utat shrugged and was silent. “People won’t believe me,” he finally said. 

“WHEN SOMEONE DIES,” Penengah said, “their soul wanders around familiar places for a while before a longing to go home takes them towards Gunung Rajah. After a while, they will find themselves at a fork in the trail. One path leads to Pulau Buah; the other... well, the other leads nowhere.”

How does one identify the correct path?

Penengah seemed reluctant to reveal the signs that would indicate the correct path. Then a gleam appeared in his eye and he whispered: “We don't usually talk about this, but I think you will understand why. For years people have tried to sway us from our beliefs. They wanted us to convert to Islam or Christianity or whatever. But our ancestors warned us about this. They told us there is a black dog guarding the path to Pulau Buah. If the soul is destined for Pulau Buah, the dog wags its tail and shows the way. But if the dog growls, it means the soul has accumulated too much sin (dosa).     

What happens if someone takes the wrong path?  

“They find the path easy going at first, very well maintained and attractive to behold. But at the end of the trail, they find themselves on an illusory bridge that goes nowhere.”

Can you describe what happens to someone who tries to cross the bridge?

“Well, they drop into a pit when the bridge collapses. A pit full of rats and cockroaches, creatures of the dark that devour anything that falls in.” 

Sounds like hell to me. Is this the influence of Muslim and Christian eschatology on the Temuan belief system? Or is the Heaven-Earth-Hell configuration a common denominator of all human cosmogony? 

Penunggu The Watcher

AT CERTAIN SPOTS one must be mindful of the guardian spirit, called Penunggu. It can take many forms. On the physical plane it might appear as a toad, a lizard, a cobra, a crocodile, or a python. Sometimes the Watcher manifests through its agents, which to the eye or ear may be an owl, a skink, a centipede, or a cicada. 

The rivers are guarded by naga - dragons. The naga is a shapeshifter: it may look like an agamid, a chameleon-like lizard, so as not to frighten you. Or it can take the form of a giant python. (Rasid has seen two golden-headed pythons in the deep pool above Lata Chehek on Sungai Chiling.) Its true form is that of the dragon, similar to how the Chinese depict it.  

The naga of one river can mate with the naga of another, producing a whole family of water dragons. Logging and mining disturb the naga's home in the headwaters. Small flash floods mean that one of the anak naga (baby dragons) is throwing a temper tantrum. When the ibu (mother) comes downstream thrashing her tail, massive damage is bound to follow. 

Once, alone at Lata Chehek (which I call the Mother Fall because its goddess energy is so tangible and awesome), I encountered a very old agamid lizard clinging to a rock. It didn't move when I came up close. Then I saw why: its eyes were caked with sand and it looked like it was dying. I spoke softly to it, and poured a little water over its eyes, which slowly began to open. It certainly looked alive now! The agamid moved majestically to a drier spot on the rock and then stopped. I somehow knew it was the Penunggu of Lata Chehek. When I mentioned this to Seri Pagi, he nodded and said: “That's how the guardian chose to appear to you. Others see his snake form. Very few encounter his dragon form, which can suck you into a different world.”

Well, I knew one person in Pertak Village who claimed he had met the dragon face-to-face. 

Nadi Pak Empok & his wife
Lumoh Anak Taya in 1995 (Antares)

Nadi Pak Empok told me he dreamt of the Naga once, back in 1990. The Naga asked him to visit a particular spot along the river three times in three weeks - but Nadi was too afraid to obey. One evening, he happened to be passing near the spot on his way home, when he was startled by a roaring noise - ”like a helicopter landing on top of you.” Nadi hid behind a rock and nervously looked around. Suddenly the river exploded into shiny golden scales as a gigantic Naga raised its mighty antlered head from the water. It seemed to hang in the air for an eternity before diving back into the river and disappearing. Nadi's legs went limp and he had to recuperate for an hour before he could get up and walk home with a troubled heart. The headman of his village in Pertak had allowed loggers into the area, and the Penunggu was issuing the Temuan a warning through Nadi.

Not long after Nadi’s death, I met his elder brother in Gerachi Village and asked if he was aware of Nadi’s adventures. “It wasn’t Nadi who encountered the dragon,” he laughed, “it was ME!” 

Song of the Dragon

 

"Dragon Warrior" by Fernando Cisneros (2011)

TWO DAYS AFTER the monstrous calamity at Pos Dipang on 29 August 1996, when almost an entire Orang Asli village was demolished by a tidal wave of mud and dead trees, a dramatic black-and-white photograph appeared in the Sunday Star.

It showed the “dragon's trail of destruction” down one slope of the Kinjang Range - like a huge rip in the fabric of reality exposing the raw elemental underside of nature. An awesome sight, not exactly beautiful, but inspiring speechless awe, and reminding us of the two faces of cosmic forces - the malefic as well as the benign.

The Orang Asli village of Pos Dipang was wiped out by a gigantic mudslide on 29 August 1996

Those who survived the murderous mudslide later murmured that the naga (dragon) must have been very angry. But what exactly do the Orang Asli mean when they speak of the dragon's wrath?

“YOU ought to know,” said the editor of a monthly magazine to which I had been contributing, when I dropped in on their office soon after the Pos Dipang disaster, “you've lived with Orang Asli for quite a few years.”

I thought it over for a moment. “It isn't so easy to explain these ideas in rational terms,” I began. “One has to have a fundamental connection with the pre-industrial mythologizing mind; you need to intuit your way around these “dreamtime” spaces. I happen to be very sympathetic to mythic awareness myself - but nowadays you don't find too many people with the necessary experience or exposure to thinking-feeling through free association. Our modern education system trains minds to analyze rather than synthesize, to criticize rather than empathize. It would probably come across as ancient superstition or new age nonsense.”

“I still think you're the right person to make an attempt,” the editor said with persuasive earnesty. I had to grin. Was this just her way of nudging me away from my metaphysical musings and coming back down to earth? I told her I'd give the question of dragons some thought, and left it at that. (It didn't strike me at the time that, by some strange coincidence, the company that published the magazine was called Nagamedia - and the managing editor happened to be called Ty Fong, which sounds remarkably like Typhon, another name for the Great World Snake!)

Typhon, the largest monster in Greek mythology, was perhaps inspired by
a planetary cataclysm that destroyed entire civilizations

Spontaneous painting by Alex Grey
at the 2011 Rainbow Serpent Festival
in Australia

The problem is: most of us were raised in an intellectual environment defined by linear semantic conventions and encouraged by “career” demands to specialize further and further - until all our knowledge has become fragmentary and compartmentalized. To be able to see beyond the veil of the visible, one needs to temporarily renounce intellectual materialism and embrace the mystical-poetical-spiritual essence of gnostic re-cognition.

You won't come anywhere near an understanding of the invisible cosmic forces underlying geophysical upheavals simply by analyzing mud samples in the laboratory. Even if only as an exercise, you still need to look at phenomena through the metaphoric monitor-screen of myth - just as you can only experience the full effect of 3D movies by wearing 3D spectacles.

The more thought I gave it, the more complex the subject became. There were so many overlapping dimensions around the subject of dragons, serpents, snakes - and rainbows. Yes, rainbows somehow belong in this extended family of archetypal symbols. Take for instance this highly evocative quote:

The rainbow as a snake is a recurrent image among many ethnic groups and nations. The Pomo and Kato tribes of California consider it to be an aquatic, horned snake that provokes floods and earthquakes. The rainbow is also identified as a water snake among the people of South America. The natives of the Amazon believe it represents a bridge between the Earth and the temples of the royal kingdom of heaven. (Alberto Ruz Buenfil, Rainbow Nation Without Borders)

I was pleased to find a compact but erudite “dragon” entry in the Britannica's Micropaedia which opened with this intriguing comment:

The belief in these creatures [dragons] apparently arose without the slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of the gigantic, prehistoric, dragon-like reptiles [dinosaurs]. In Greece the word drakon, from which the English word was derived, was used originally for any large serpent, and the dragon of mythology, whatever shape it later assumed, remained essentially a snake.

Dragons. No matter where you travel on the surface of this planet, you will encounter a dragon or serpent or rainbow myth in some form. In China and Japan the emperors were said to have descended from the Dragon gods who came from the sky.

Kukulcan, Mayan version of the
Plumed Serpent

In Central America the most revered deific figure is called Kukulcan by the Maya and Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs; he is represented as a Plumed Serpent, and has been linked to the Peruvian legends of Viracocha. (Thoth, a major Egyptian god, is also associated with the Serpent - as was his father, the Sumerian progenitor god Enki.) It's worth noting that the national emblem of Mexico is an eagle with a snake in its claws.

In India the Nagas are described as a race of demigods who emerged from the bottom of the sea and brought civilization to the aboriginal tribes. Yogis depict the Life Force, kundalini, as a serpent uncoiling up the spine when aroused. At the crown, the serpent reveals itself as the seven-headed cobra, symbol of mastery over the illusory realms of matter.

The Celts and Picts of pre-Norman Britain called their kings Dragons - Pendragon (meaning the Great Dragon) being the symbol of the Supreme Ruler of the British Isles. Uther Pendragon and his famous son Arthur were the last known historical personages to bear this exalted rank. And to this very day in Britain there are numerous Pendragon Societies dedicated to the resurgence of the Pendragon lineage, which they hope to see regain the throne of “New Jerusalem” from the usurpers, the secular House of Windsor. This momentous event will be heralded by the reappearance of the bardic archdruid Merlin (note the combination of Dragon/serpent and Merlin/hawk: Earth and Sky!)

Vindicta Pendragon 

However, the dragon/serpent motif acquired a totally negative connotation when the Hebrews invaded Canaan and enforced exclusive worship of their fiercely patriarchal god Yahweh. From this violent overthrow of the goddess-worshiping cultures associated with the Earth-loving serpent, grew the image of the dragon as an emblem of Evil, of the torrid temptations of carnal Nature.

In Europe, owing to the Judeo-Christian prejudice against the Earth-Mother-Goddess-Serpent aboriginal archetype, the dragon has been portrayed as the enemy: Nemesis, agent of Satan, Lucifer's earthly form, the Worm of Hades. Statues and paintings abound that show the Archangel Michael, and later St. George, slaying the dragon of pagan beliefs.

Unfortunately the same arid, patriarchal bias infected Islamic ideology, forcing goddess-worshipers to go underground, so to speak, and seek initiation into the ancient mysteries through dervish dancing and the private study of sacred geometry (wherein the feminine principle could be secretly revered in the form of arches, domes and spheres).

The accumulated effects of belligerent parochialism over the past five thousand years has also resulted in certain built-in behavioral traits amongst explorers, researchers, and academicians - a tendency to be invasive, divisive, possessive, and exploitative - which might explain why the proliferation of scientific and technology-using societies seems to have always been at the expense of Mother Nature.

Obviously, there is no simple straightforward way to discuss what the Dragon means to the Orang Asli - and to every tribal culture indigenous to planet Earth. The amount of available information on this mythical creature is actually quite staggering when one begins to research the subject seriously. Here's a random sample of interesting data involving the dragon/snake/rainbow motif:

• The dragon signifies royalty in a great diversity of cultures around the planet. In China and pre-Norman Britain, it was the national emblem (appearing in Wales as the griffin); while in Japan it was believed that the Emperor was descended from a race of flying dragons. Taoists regarded the dragon as one of the most important deified forces of nature.

• In Babylonian mythology the dragon Tiamat symbolized the watery goddess of Primordial Chaos, later subjugated by Marduk, a masculine deity of Law & Order & Civilization. Zecharia Sitchin, author of the controversial Earth Chronicles, has a radical interpretation of this myth. According to Sitchin, the ancients called all the planets “gods” - and “Marduk” was an invading celestial body, wandering in space after being flung off its original orbit by some stellar explosion. Marduk's satellites smashed into Tiamat, which broke in half from the impact, leaving a trail of icy debris that now forms the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The remaining portion of Tiamat was flung into a new orbit between Mars and Venus, where it became known as Ki or Ge or Gaia or Earth. Marduk, known to the Sumerians as Nibiru or the Planet of the Crossing, constitutes the twelfth planet in our solar system (including the Sun and Moon). Sitchin asserts that Nibiru is the home of the Sky Gods who created the human race. Those with access to arcane knowledge support this notion - but add that the Nibiruans couldn't have done it without a little help from the Sirians, their mentors!

• The feminine principle was revered by the Ophites whose sacred symbol was the Cosmic Snake coiled round the World Egg. This image also recurs in Egyptian and Greek mythology as the worm Ouroboros, the serpent swallowing its own tail - a powerful symbol of eternally regenerative cycles. Joseph Campbell, the pre-eminent mythical scholar, puts it succinctly in a famous televised conversation with journalist Bill Moyers: “The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That's an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life.”

• Amazonian natives revere the Anaconda - guardian spirit of their sacred river. Like the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia, they perceive the snake/dragon as a celestial as well as terrestrial phenomenon. On earth the Anaconda lives as a giant freshwater python that guards the physical flow of life-energy-water. In the fourth-dimensional or astral zones, the Anaconda is magnified in scale into mythic proportions: a wind-raising, fire-belching, earth-shaking Elemental Force that could destroy all animal and human life if angered beyond certain established limits.

• I once heard an Orang Asli mother tell her child to avert her eyes whenever there was a vivid rainbow in the sky. She believed it was created by the Orang Halus (elves) as part of their sacred rituals, and that the rainbow was actually the invisible people's processional pathway to the heavenly realms. This is an idea echoed by many Native American tribes, who view the rainbow as symbolic of a dimension where Spirit and Matter are harmoniously wed.

The Temuan have great reverence for all hills and mountains and the rivers and streams that water them. In their creation stories, the dragon or naga plays a key role in preparing the Earth for human habitation. Fire Nagas are “technical supervisors” of events like the Big Bang wherein suns and planets are created. Water Nagas work with Nagas of the Air to cool down and mould the newborn world.

Quetzalcoatl-Kukulcan
by Genzoman

There are tales of an Aeon of Celestial Fire, followed by the Aeon of Great Cold and an Aeon of Universal Flood. When the waters finally receded, the Temuan's earliest ancestors were found clinging to a gaharu or eaglewood tree resting atop Gunung Raja (the Royal Mountain). The landscape that evolved around Gunung Raja is therefore keramat - conforming to a heavenly blueprint and lovingly guarded by their ancestral spirits. Every rock and boulder, every tree and shrub, every spring and tributary is a familiar aspect of their dreamscape which is animated by spirits fine and coarse. The physical world, which is really a shadow of the higher realms, is where humanity dwells, till such time as we prove ourselves worthy of permanent residence on Pulau Buah (the Isle of Fruits) - in other words, Paradise. Guardian spirits like the ular and naga (snake and dragon) are also being tested. They too can evolve to the higher worlds (there are seven levels on Tanah Tujuh, the living cosmos that is planet Earth). If the Naga's dwelling place in the upper reaches of the river is desecrated, it will get very angry and leave in a great huff, thundering and thrashing its tail on its way to the sea where it becomes a naga laut (nautical dragon). That's why it is dangerous to infuriate the Nagas - and every high mountain has its own Naga.

The Orang Asli also believe that they were placed on Earth as Guardians of the Rainforest. “If Tuhan (God) sees that the Orang Asli are no longer serving their sacred purpose,” said Utat, “the whole world will be turned upside down and humanity will perish. Those of us who have been true to our duties will find ourselves naked on Pulau Buah (in other words, stripped of earthly flesh and restored to the spiritual realms).”

Nadi Pak Empok told me he dreamt of the Naga once, back in 1990. The Naga asked him to visit a particular spot along the river three times in three weeks - but Nadi was too afraid to obey. One evening, he happened to be passing near the spot on his way home, when he was startled by a roaring noise -”like a helicopter landing on top of you.” Nadi hid behind a rock and nervously looked around. Suddenly the river exploded into shiny golden scales as a gigantic Naga raised its mighty antlered head from the water. It seemed to hang in the air for an eternity before diving back into the river and disappearing. Nadi's legs went limp and he had to recuperate for an hour before he could get up and walk home with a troubled heart. The headman of his village in Pertak had allowed loggers into the area, and the Penunggu (guardian spirit) was issuing the Temuan a warning through Nadi.

• Hermes Trismegistos, whom the Greeks revered as the patron deity of science, philosophy and the healing arts, is usually shown carrying a caduceus - a winged staff with two snakes entwined along its length. This Hermetic wand of magickal power was chosen by the followers of Hippocrates as their guild emblem. Even today, the medical profession is symbolized by the caduceus of Hermes (an incarnation of Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and general wizardry).

• In Bali the highest aspect of divinity is known as Tintya (inspired by the dancing form of Shiva-Natarajah). Tintya is often depicted in sacred paintings as an agile, elvish figure on a chakra (wheel of cosmic energy) - flanked by two dragons (one green, the other red) representing the ida and pingala - or the positive and negative poles of all energetic systems - and, by extension, the planet's electromagnetic field.

Now, this is truly significant. The green and the red, the positive and the negative, the yang and the yin, the male and the female, electricity and magnetism.... herein lies the most important clue to the grand mystery of the Dragon's Song.

Rainbow tube torus: shape of
the Earth's electromagnetic field

WHOLE SYSTEMS THINKER R. Buckminster Fuller was fond of teleologizing - which means, essentially, to derive elegant general principles from observing natural phenomena. When he declared that Unity was “plural at minimum two,” he had truly put his finger on the paradox of integrity as a complementary duality: radiation and gravity, outwardness and inwardness, convexity and concavity, electricity and magnetism, maleness and femaleness. However, Fuller was at pains to point out that complementary opposites were never intended to be in static 50-50 balance.

Indeed the laws of dynamic flux require that the Golden Mean be set at what is called the “phi ratio” - which has been approximated at 1.6180339 - a number that goes on forever. (The phi ratio is a sort of “golden mean proportion” or Fibonacci spiral formula that underlies all organic structures. It can be found in the relative bone-lengths of animal skeletons; in the design of plants; in the geometry of crystal formations; even entire constellations and galaxies.) This mysterious phi ratio determines that interactions between the “feminine” force of gravity and the “masculine” force of radiation are never “perfectly” symmetrical. Indeed the built-in asymmetry between bi-polar forces ensures that “true balance” is endlessly sought, so that yang and yin can intertransform, each into the other ad infinitum, ensuring thereby that the “status quo” never stays static for too long.

It would appear that Buckminster Fuller was restating in 20th century terminology what ancient wisdom was already fully cognizant of in mythic language. The serpent lays the egg that translates into the binary code of “1” and “0”: lingam and yoni, phallus and vulva. Line and curve, electricity and magnetism. Radiation (i.e. differentiation, dissipation, and disintegration) and Gravity (i.e. cohesion, compassion, and unconditional love). All phenomena in the waveform universe can be described by this classic Fullerism: Unity is plural at minimum two. (Fuller later revised this to “unity is plural at minimum sixfold” but let’s not get into multidimensionality at this juncture!)

How does this relate to geophysical upheavals, nightmarish distortions of the electromagnetic field that can annihilate whole cities in an instant? Flashfloods, earth tremors, tsunamis, landslides, volcanic eruptions, periodic shifts of tectonic plates, axial polarities, and visionary paradigms? Petulant dragons with whiplash tails? Waveform deformities, wormholes that can suck entire star systems into the antimatter universe? Where does myth end and science fantasy begin?

WHAT HAS BEEN dismissed as “fantasy” is in truth the Unseen beyond the Seen - electromagnetic quirks occurring above and below the range of human sensory perception. Do you regard the Earth as a living Goddess, the Abode of Beauty, a sacred sanctuary, a temple, a home? Or do you dismiss her as a dead hunk of rock, covered with psychedelic lichen and acrawl with contentious lice?

Do you have serious difficulty sensing the intimate intercorrelations between dragons, snakes, rainbows - and power spots, psychic centers, interdimensional portals, planetary chakras? In acupuncture, the physical body is perceived as a dense configuration of energy patternings emanating from subtle constellations of perfect principles. It is the meeting place of Spirit and Matter, a vibrant multidimensional field of vital possibilities.

Practitioners of acupuncture familiarize themselves with detailed mappings of the human bioenergetic hologram form - which can be manipulated in terms of flow with conductive needles inserted at particular internodes - just as the planet's etheric body can be adjusted geomantically with crystals, dolmens, monoliths, stone circles, obelisks, and pyramids. Geomancy - the study of geodetic flowlines, the movement of wind and water (fengshui) - entails a thorough knowledge of major and minor “dragons' paths” or leylines.

Ancient power spots like Machu Picchu, Silbury Hill, Stonehenge, Iona, Uluru, Sacsahuaman, Teotihuacan, Tiahuanacu, Giza, Avebury, Chichén Itzá, Mount Ararat, Gunung Agung, Mount Shasta, Mount Fuji, Mount Meru, Gunung Raja and other earth-sun-moon-star temples were invariably sited at strategic intersections of dragons' paths.

Men-an-tol (Martin Gray)

Among indigenous tribes, all shamanic rituals are actually “geomantic” in function: realignments of chakras on individual and collective levels, etheric manipulations of weather conditions through the devas of wind, water and geomagnetic harmony, healing through invocation of the Earth's compassionate gravitational field, the Mother Goddess Force. (Drunvalo Melchizedek - alchemist, hermeticist and founder of the Flower of Life “portable” mystery school - informs us that there are at least 83,000 sacred sites guarded by indigenous tribes, strategically located around the Earth.)

Why have we forgotten this invaluable heritage? How did industrial societies fall so far from a wholesome, organic relationship with natural forces, with the electromagnetic Dream Body of the Earth Goddess? Any civilization that was aware of the cosmic patterns of energy flow would certainly not be committing covert genocide against its aboriginal tribes, and overt ecocide against Mother Earth, on the horrendous scale we see all around us.

The answer lies in the written records of what we call history: in the last 5,000 years or so since the sudden advent and swift adoption of alphanumeric symbols, oral traditions have been supplanted by the scriptural text, the Book. Although written language has proven to be an efficient tool for mass communication (and mind control), it has also propelled us towards more precise but narrower modes of perception and thinking. What we gained in specificity, we lost in the ability to apprehend generalities. We ended up not seeing the forest for the trees, and then seeing only the “merchantable biomass.” Business-as-usual is no way to experience and reconnect with the cosmomythological context that forms an eternal background to our frenzied preoccupation with clock time.

Which explains why the Chief Minister of Perak wasted no time in denying that logging had anything to do with the Pos Dipang catastrophe. He reasoned that since there was no sign of recent clear-felling on the hillslopes (“They stopped logging ten years ago!”), the blame must fall on the rain. It's all the weather's fault, in other words. But are we looking to blame anyone? We're on this planet to learn certain codes of ethics and aesthetics. Not to consume ourselves in puerile games of economics, politics, and ideological oneupmanship.

But let's be honest about it. A 360-year-old hardwood has a root system that could easily reach a depth of 120 feet; add the intricate root intertwinings with neighboring trees, and you can assume a subterranean spread of half-an-acre. If you chainsaw a jungle giant off at the stump, the root system remains firm for at least three or four years, then it may start withering and rotting for another five or six years before a mighty downpour washes it all down, together with a massive portion of the hillslope. Multiply this effect by 3,000 trees - and you get the Pos Dipang scenario. Don't blame it on the rain... or the terrain! Blame it, if you must, on the scarcity conditioning and competitiveness (read FEAR & GREED) that has made us blind to the beauty, the divinity, and the truth of the Seen - as well as the Unseen realms.

Postscript: Two years after this essay was published, anthropologist Jeremy Narby published his seminal work, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, in which he interprets his own ayahuasca initiations with Asháninka shamans from the Peruvian Amazon. Narby's profound insight into the connection between serpents, dragons, rainbows and the helical structure of DNA molecules constitutes a significant breakthrough in building a bridge between mystical visions and scientific investigation. Through Jeremy Narby's conscientious research, the cosmological and ontological meaning of the serpent coiled around the world egg has finally been revealed as symbolizing the genesis of Life itself.

[[Adapted from an essay by Antares, published in Journal One, October 1996]