Jean Couteau explores the spiritual basis of Balinese witch-doctoring, and explains why Balinese often favour this knowledge over western medicine.

Ever since Hippocrates attributed illness to the circulation of various humours - or fluids - running through the human body, Westerners have considered medicine as a field of rational knowledge, a science with causes and effects, and a corpus of well-defined diseases and remedies. But death is ever present, and its fear ever pervasive. Whatever the progress of drugs and surgery, quack doctors and gurus of nouveau sects are there to remind us that rationality is subject to varying interpretations.

So is the case in Bali. According to Balinese tradition, illness is attributed to certain invisible (niskala) causes, so that to be afflicted by pain or illness is to be subjected to imbalances of a cosmic nature. To grasp this it is important to know that the Balinese understand the human body as a ‘little world’ or microcosm (bhwana alit). As such it is the exact structural replica of the ‘larger world’ or macrocosm (bhwana agung), complete with the same constituant gods - those of the compass rose (pangider-ider) - and the five elements (panca maha buta). Any imbalance on this cosmic chain is echoed throughout the whole system. Illnesses are examples of such imbalances at the microcosmic level, and wars, volcanic eruptions and epidemics at the larger macro-cosmic level. Hence the need for rituals to maintain the cosmic balance, and the need for intermediaries who can detect imbalances balances (the trance priests), or who can communicate with the niskala world in order to heal (the balian or witch-doctors).

There are several kinds of balian. Some, known as balian usada, specialize in medicinal herbs and their knowledge rests on their mastering of sacred lontar books. These are usually, but not exclusively, passed on from father to son or near relative. Although the potency of the medicine delivered by balian usada is ultimately linked to the magical power of his family shrine (sanggah/merajan ), such balians are, ultimately, believers in ‘medical rationality’ in the Western sense of the word. They ‘know’ their herbs and the way they work. They are the heirs of centuries of trial and error. Quinine, which prevents malaria, was widely used by balians before modern pharmacists made it into respectable medicine.

There is also the the balian tetakson , the witch-doctor whose powers rest totally on privileged communication with the outer world. The key to the balian tetakson’s power is taksu, roughly translated as inspiration. Taksu is a kind of magical force. Originating from the niskala world, taksu comes down - or is called down - to dwell on a shrine, a person or an object, and it endows the person or thing on which it dwells with magical powers.