So, how does one ‘catch’ taksu? Were you a balian, you would go to a place where the taksu spirit is reputed to be, and present an offering in front of its shrine or dwelling place. This would ideally be done with the help of the local pemangku (temple priest), but if no pemangku was available, you would present your offering alone, preparing the holy water yourself. Then you would pray, or rather, meditate. If the place where you sought yourtaksu happened to be in the middle of a forest and near a remote death temple, and if the time was midnight when Rangda the spirit-widow and her witch-disciples usually show up, your meditations might be slightly disrupted. But with some determination and a little luck, you may well soon feel the first signs that the taksu has arrived: hallucinations, shivers and the like. At this point, you would quickly take quick leave from the shrine of the taksu-spirit, pick up whatever you find near the shrine - preferably a stone - and run back home. The chances are you will end up a better balian than before, as the taksu will guide the practise of your craft.

Having obtained their taksu through contact with the niskala world, it is the on the same niskala world that the balian tetakson rely to locate the cause of a disorder or illness, or to contact with the soul of a deceased. They do it through trance, which they induce by inhaling incense. Then they become the intermediaries of spirits, lost ancestors souls or other bad influences which are the real cause of a person’s problems, physical or psychological. An illness may originate from an improperly-prepared offering during a cremation, which causes the soul to lose its way and disturb the living, or it may be due to the magical endeavors of an evil neighbor. All this and more, you may learn from a balian tetakson. He may tell you, for example that the person responsible for your illness is tall and often goes bare-chested, that his hair is greyish and often let loose. All this is duly recorded, of course, and with this information, if you trust your balian, you will stop suspecting your neighbors and relatives.

Balians advise a variety of cures, from holding a wayang (shadow puppet) performance to appease a demanding soul, to looking for a new ancestral temple. Or you may simply be given medical advice, as some balian tetakson are also balian usada . More often than not, it will work. Once a balian has healed a patient, a strong bond is established between the two parties. The patient, or his family, will make regular visits to the healer’s house, especially on Saraswati Day, the day of the goddess of knowledge, which closes the Balinese 210-day year. If the balian has built a special shrine addressed to his taksu, his patients often come to place offerings there.