The full moon is overhead as we arrive in Banyuwangi, East Java, at 3 a.m. The trees cast shadows across the road in the moonlight, and within the hour, the mosques’ speakers will broadcast the call to prayer.
Banyuwangi, the most easterly town in Java, is replete with stories about both black and white magic practices. In 1998, more than 200 black magicians were killed by locals fed up with an exceptional spate of deaths. Just three years ago, the house of a black magic practitioner burnt down to the ground.
These practitioners of the black arts, known as dutak, offer supernatural services. Politicians, models, and perhaps even your own mother have used them.
“Better you go to Jakarta faster. Come to me and please don’t go to any black magic place again,” read the SMS I received from my friend Ben, who was very concerned for me.
Another 3 a.m. text, this one from a white magician who is fighting evil 24 hours a day. “I have many enemies,” he said. The magician learned his trade in the forest, like many people I have met in Asia, where he prayed and fasted in the jungle until the powers of healing came to him. He doesn’t sleep until after 3 a.m. “Before then, I’m vulnerable to magic.” We are going to see this man, this white magician, later today.
An hour’s drive north of Banyuwangi, we arrive at a cheap hotel. The next morning, Mohammed comes to get me. It’s Red Bull “pick me up” time, but I’m still feeling tired. Lethargy has come over me. I won’t shake it off until 24 hours later, when I’m safely back in Denpasar.
Through Mohammed’s uncle (who shares the same name), we arrange to meet the local faith healer, the white magician, on behalf of a good friend of Mohammed’s. Dragon fruit grows over his property, and a family mosque is situated on the front. We are to meet him in his house, which is painted pink, but he isn’t there. His wife says he has to help a customer who lost a card in an ATM.
So we come back a few hours later, and now he has a steady flow of people going through his door, hailing from Medan to West Papua. Like any good doctor, he’s on call 24 hours a day, which sometimes takes him to Borneo or Bali, where his skills are used as a last resort when modern medicine can’t find a cure. Later, he shows me a belt. It’s on a wall and made from deer skin with verses from the Koran inscribed on the other side. These penangkal bala are lucky charms to ward off evil spirits.
When we eventually meet him, Mohammed explains to the moustached practitioner of white magic: “We have big problem with [the good friend’s] wife. For weeks at a time, he disappears with his mistress.”
Mohammed is convinced his good friend doesn’t have a simple case of mid-life crisis. In fact, Mohammed believes his friend is under the influence of a potent spell, and we are about to find out if his diagnosis is true.
Mohammed writes his friend’s name on a piece of paper. The magician puts Rp 100,000 ($11) next to it, then dangles a thin leaf made from metal on a string. It’s now resting on the note. When the magician asks if the man named in the note is under a spell, the leaf moves, of its own volition. When the white magician commands it to stop, it stops.
We have the verdict. Next, a strong perfume is smeared on the leaf before it’s dangled in water. That water is now holy, and a mental barrier to boot. It will block the magic from entering the good friend’s body. The mistress will tempt him no more.
After showing off his swords and the other tools of his trade, I give the faith healer a big hug and tell him I know he’s not a black magician. He doesn’t understand a word of English, but that doesn’t stop him from giving me a sloppy kiss on both my cheeks.
Mohammed asked me if I had any cash. I said no, I had left my wallet at his house. As we were heading out, though, I found my wallet and handed the doctor Rp 100,000. He was extremely grateful and never even hinted at money.
Children were playing around the mosque as we journeyed, late into the night, back to Bali. The full moon guided us through windy roads. I get another text at 3 a.m., the safe time, when spells can’t enter the body easily.
“I dreamt ghosts were all around you, trying to kill you,” the white magician writes, saying I should be careful. As a precaution, Mohammed and I face toward Mecca and pray.
“We are safe from the evil now,” says Mohammed, who seems in a better state than when we left. We cross to Bali on the ferry, the moon reflecting off water littered with plastic bags.
Back in Denpasar. “Hello vampire,” says the lady on the other end of the phone. She’s the good friend’s mistress, a marketing manager at a restaurant. She really has got the short end of the stick in all this, but Mohammed is convinced she is concocting her own magic. “She is using her menstruation blood and mixing it into his coffee,” he insists.
I told her I went to Banyuwangi. She asks if it worked. “Yes it did,” I say.
“Impossible!” she replies.
We left the holy water in the car, and the driver took it to Ubud, in the heart of Bali. Today in Denpasar, Mohammed’s good friend is smiling. “I’ve never felt better!” That is, until he received a text message…