REPORTER: Bronwyn Adcock
Looking at the devastation here in Jogjakarta, it's little surprise that many are asking how and why such a tragedy could occur. Nearly 6,000 are dead and thousands more homeless. Science says this happened because Indonesia lies near unstable tectonic plates, but for many Javanese, mystical explanations abound.
REPORTER: This is the kitchen?
HARRY SURATAL: Kitchen, yeah.
Harry Suratal lost four relatives in the earthquake, and his home is no longer habitable. He sees this earthquake as part of a disturbing pattern.
HARRY SURATAL (Translation): An earthquake of this magnitude has never happened before. In the past, indeed, we've had many disasters, but never on this scale. Well, it seems that it started in 2003. Or maybe 2004/2005. That was when many disasters started to happen.
Harry is Muslim, but also a believer in Javanese mysticism. He thinks the string of recent natural disasters, including the Boxing Day tsunami, could be because the current Indonesian president doesn't have something called wahyu.
HARRY SURATAL (Translation): Wahyu is a kind of approval that we Javanese believe to be an anointment from the gods. Possessing wahyu means that if a region or a nation is led by someone who doesn't have it, then no matter how smart they may be, nature and the nation will not be at peace.
Like many in Jogjakarta, Harry and his family now live and sleep outside because they're worried about another earthquake. And they're not the only ones in Java connecting natural disasters to mystical beliefs.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): A week before the disaster, there were many witnesses who heard me say "In a week's time it will rain tears and blood in Yogya."
Gembong Danuningrat is a well-known mystic - or paranormal in Jogjakarta - who says he predicted the earthquake.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Mystically, this disaster happened because my people in Java have forgotten their tradition, their old way of life. They have forgotten their Javanese spiritual tradition. For example, certain rituals have been abandoned.
Gembong says that rituals are needed to prevent further disaster in Jogjakarta, in particular, to stop the danger posed by Mount Merapi, an active volcano to the north of the city. Choosing a day when the official danger level has been dropped from extreme to moderate, I head up the volcano with Gembong, the paranormal.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT: This is Merapi! Look - Merapi.
Cloud and smoke stop a clear view of Merapi's peak - a volcano that is feared, but also revered.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): The soul of the Javanese is just like the Mount Merapi who has this endless enthusiasm - he is active and has enthusiasms and spirit but it is buried deep down.
At his retreat on the side of the volcano, Gempong and his students are preparing to conduct an important ceremony. He believes he can placate the volcano through prayer and ritual as he's done in the past.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): We could not stop the eruption, but I did mitigate the impact. So my prediction about Mt Merapi - a week ago it erupted violently, yes? As I had foretold to many "Merapi will erupt in two days". It did, violently, but there were no casualties, because we prayed for the wind to change direction.
Javanese mysticism is based on traditions that predate Islam and Hinduism when people worshipped the spirits of the natural world. While Islam is now the dominant religion in Java, many have never given up the traditions of animism. Javanese mysticism sits comfortably alongside many people's Islamic beliefs.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): We ask for safety so that any natural disasters - earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - do not befall our community.
After praying to Allah, Gempong puts energy into food that will be offered up to Mount Merapi. After the ritual, Gempong demonstrates the powerful energy he says he and his followers can create. Suddenly, Gembong hears some worrying news via a safety radio.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Mount Merapi erupted once again - a great eruption.
REPORTER: What's happening? Let's go. Let's go. Yeah?
Any plans to deliver the blessed food up to Merapi are abandoned, as we all race down the mountain.
REPORTER: Yeah, it's getting hot. Let's hope the car doesn't break down. What's happening? What's happening?
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Evacuation, they are all fleeing. It is a great eruption and there is an evacuation, people are fleeing.
REPORTER: Even though we're heading down the hill now the air temperature is still rising pretty rapidly and there is a fine dust that's starting to come down. Hundreds of villagers are fleeing into evacuation centres. The biggest danger comes from the clouds of poisonous gas belching from the volcano. Out of the danger zone we stop for a closer look at Merapi. This is one of the biggest eruptions this year. We later learn that two people were killed. Gempong the paranormal says this won't be the last of Merapi's eruptions.
Back in Jogjakarta, I meet Rustanto. Despite living in the middle of the earthquake zone, his home was virtually untouched by the disaster.
RUSTANTO (Translation): It was a special blessing from God that we were saved.
Rustanto is Christian, and also a deep believer in mysticism. He and his family strictly observe ancient Javanese traditions, such as religious days and rituals.
RUSTANTO (Translation): For a while, we forgot your teachings so that we were drowned in darkness struck by this devastating earthquake.
Like Gempong and many others, he believes this tragedy occurred because too many Javanese have forgotten these traditions.
RUSTANTO (Translation): A lesson that people today have abandoned their traditional culture, the culture introduced by our ancestors, which had sublime objectives. People today have abandoned it.
But like many in Java, Rustanto also places blame at the feet of their leaders. The Royal Palace here in Jogjakarta is seen as the heart of Javanese culture, and also the centre of spiritual power. The current Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, is meant to be the guardian of these powers, but word on the street is that he's neglecting Javanese culture, and focusing too much on modernity. He recently built a department store over an ancestral site. Rustanto believes the highly revered Goddess of the South Seas is angry with the Sultan.
RUSTANTO (Translation): Yes, its certain the Goddess of the South Sea is furious. Because the latest one, the current one, I'm not saying the 10th Sultan but the current one has been neglectful. Neglectful as I said yesterday of his lowly subjects, his long-suffering subjects. In short, when people no longer care, it means they are negligent.
The Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, rejects the charge that he's been negligent.
SULTAN HAMENGKUBUWONO X (Translation): Although I am the Patron of Culture, this so called culture is not static. Culture keeps developing with the changing times and with the coming of each new generation. I refuse to think the way they did 100 years ago because I live in the present. I am also looking towards the future and modernisation.
The Sultan is well aware that some hold him responsible for the earthquake.
SULTAN HAMENGKUBUWONO X (Translation): But for me there is no correlation and is tendentious if there are claims that this earthquake happened due to cultural neglect linked to the construction of Ambarrukmo plaza. For me, that is impossible.
While the Sultan bristles at suggestions that he's somehow to blame for all of this, it's par for the course in Indonesia where mysticism is frequently used to attack political figures.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Well in Java, whenever something happens, such as political change, or transfer of leadership, they are all instigated by natural phenomena. Destruction, earthquakes, floods, plagues and diseases.
Even in the nation's capital, Jakarta, such arguments have currency. The string of natural disasters is being used against Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, or 'SBY'. Permadi is a member of parliament, and the one-time spiritual adviser to former president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
PERMADI (Translation): since SBY has become president there has been disaster after disaster, sickness after sickness. They have all occurred in fact, were SBY has the desire to see, he will notice all natural elements are reacting. First, the element of WindÂ…In Indonesia the wind has been whirling. There are storms, typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones and so on. Next Fire - there have been fires throughout Indonesia - factories, forests, homes, markets, malls. Fires are burning everywhere. Earth - earthquakes, landslides are occurring everywhere. And then Water - floods, tsunamis are also occurring everywhere. But SBY isn't aware of these things. Maybe his heart knows.
Permadi is a political rival of the President, so it's perhaps not surprising that he's attacking him. Purwadi Hum is an expert in Javanese mysticism. He's written dozens of books on the subject. A believer himself, he says superficial mysticism is used to score political points.
PURWADI HUM (Translation): Exploiting suffering, disasters, tragediesÂ…All has been exploited as a tool to assign blame, but actually this is beyond manageability of the government.
These days Purwadi is spending time away from his books, helping villagers rebuild from the earthquake. He says that ancient forecasts did predict that these years would be dark and turbulent ones for Indonesia.
PURWADI HUM (Translation): So a fateful prophecy or prediction about something can be remedied. Disasters can be anticipated, destruction can be prevented even if it has been prophesied. So the Javanese summarise this philosophy. And all these Javanese predictions can be summed up with, so people must remember, and be reminded, to be alert.
While the Javanese are being asked to be alert, the same could also be asked of their government. Last week a tsunami killed another 500 in Java, sweeping past safety buoys that failed to alert people to what was coming. In the absence of sound official advice, many anxious Javanese will no doubt continue to look towards their mystics.
Reporter / Camera: BRONWYN ADCOCK
Editor: DAVID POTTS
Subtitling: STEPHEN DHARMANTO
Local Fixer: MOCHAMMAD FARIED CAHYONO
Researcher: MELANIE MORRISON
Producer: AMOS COHEN
Looking at the devastation here in Jogjakarta, it's little surprise that many are asking how and why such a tragedy could occur. Nearly 6,000 are dead and thousands more homeless. Science says this happened because Indonesia lies near unstable tectonic plates, but for many Javanese, mystical explanations abound.
REPORTER: This is the kitchen?
HARRY SURATAL: Kitchen, yeah.
Harry Suratal lost four relatives in the earthquake, and his home is no longer habitable. He sees this earthquake as part of a disturbing pattern.
HARRY SURATAL (Translation): An earthquake of this magnitude has never happened before. In the past, indeed, we've had many disasters, but never on this scale. Well, it seems that it started in 2003. Or maybe 2004/2005. That was when many disasters started to happen.
Harry is Muslim, but also a believer in Javanese mysticism. He thinks the string of recent natural disasters, including the Boxing Day tsunami, could be because the current Indonesian president doesn't have something called wahyu.
HARRY SURATAL (Translation): Wahyu is a kind of approval that we Javanese believe to be an anointment from the gods. Possessing wahyu means that if a region or a nation is led by someone who doesn't have it, then no matter how smart they may be, nature and the nation will not be at peace.
Like many in Jogjakarta, Harry and his family now live and sleep outside because they're worried about another earthquake. And they're not the only ones in Java connecting natural disasters to mystical beliefs.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): A week before the disaster, there were many witnesses who heard me say "In a week's time it will rain tears and blood in Yogya."
Gembong Danuningrat is a well-known mystic - or paranormal in Jogjakarta - who says he predicted the earthquake.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Mystically, this disaster happened because my people in Java have forgotten their tradition, their old way of life. They have forgotten their Javanese spiritual tradition. For example, certain rituals have been abandoned.
Gembong says that rituals are needed to prevent further disaster in Jogjakarta, in particular, to stop the danger posed by Mount Merapi, an active volcano to the north of the city. Choosing a day when the official danger level has been dropped from extreme to moderate, I head up the volcano with Gembong, the paranormal.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT: This is Merapi! Look - Merapi.
Cloud and smoke stop a clear view of Merapi's peak - a volcano that is feared, but also revered.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): The soul of the Javanese is just like the Mount Merapi who has this endless enthusiasm - he is active and has enthusiasms and spirit but it is buried deep down.
At his retreat on the side of the volcano, Gempong and his students are preparing to conduct an important ceremony. He believes he can placate the volcano through prayer and ritual as he's done in the past.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): We could not stop the eruption, but I did mitigate the impact. So my prediction about Mt Merapi - a week ago it erupted violently, yes? As I had foretold to many "Merapi will erupt in two days". It did, violently, but there were no casualties, because we prayed for the wind to change direction.
Javanese mysticism is based on traditions that predate Islam and Hinduism when people worshipped the spirits of the natural world. While Islam is now the dominant religion in Java, many have never given up the traditions of animism. Javanese mysticism sits comfortably alongside many people's Islamic beliefs.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): We ask for safety so that any natural disasters - earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - do not befall our community.
After praying to Allah, Gempong puts energy into food that will be offered up to Mount Merapi. After the ritual, Gempong demonstrates the powerful energy he says he and his followers can create. Suddenly, Gembong hears some worrying news via a safety radio.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Mount Merapi erupted once again - a great eruption.
REPORTER: What's happening? Let's go. Let's go. Yeah?
Any plans to deliver the blessed food up to Merapi are abandoned, as we all race down the mountain.
REPORTER: Yeah, it's getting hot. Let's hope the car doesn't break down. What's happening? What's happening?
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Evacuation, they are all fleeing. It is a great eruption and there is an evacuation, people are fleeing.
REPORTER: Even though we're heading down the hill now the air temperature is still rising pretty rapidly and there is a fine dust that's starting to come down. Hundreds of villagers are fleeing into evacuation centres. The biggest danger comes from the clouds of poisonous gas belching from the volcano. Out of the danger zone we stop for a closer look at Merapi. This is one of the biggest eruptions this year. We later learn that two people were killed. Gempong the paranormal says this won't be the last of Merapi's eruptions.
Back in Jogjakarta, I meet Rustanto. Despite living in the middle of the earthquake zone, his home was virtually untouched by the disaster.
RUSTANTO (Translation): It was a special blessing from God that we were saved.
Rustanto is Christian, and also a deep believer in mysticism. He and his family strictly observe ancient Javanese traditions, such as religious days and rituals.
RUSTANTO (Translation): For a while, we forgot your teachings so that we were drowned in darkness struck by this devastating earthquake.
Like Gempong and many others, he believes this tragedy occurred because too many Javanese have forgotten these traditions.
RUSTANTO (Translation): A lesson that people today have abandoned their traditional culture, the culture introduced by our ancestors, which had sublime objectives. People today have abandoned it.
But like many in Java, Rustanto also places blame at the feet of their leaders. The Royal Palace here in Jogjakarta is seen as the heart of Javanese culture, and also the centre of spiritual power. The current Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, is meant to be the guardian of these powers, but word on the street is that he's neglecting Javanese culture, and focusing too much on modernity. He recently built a department store over an ancestral site. Rustanto believes the highly revered Goddess of the South Seas is angry with the Sultan.
RUSTANTO (Translation): Yes, its certain the Goddess of the South Sea is furious. Because the latest one, the current one, I'm not saying the 10th Sultan but the current one has been neglectful. Neglectful as I said yesterday of his lowly subjects, his long-suffering subjects. In short, when people no longer care, it means they are negligent.
The Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, rejects the charge that he's been negligent.
SULTAN HAMENGKUBUWONO X (Translation): Although I am the Patron of Culture, this so called culture is not static. Culture keeps developing with the changing times and with the coming of each new generation. I refuse to think the way they did 100 years ago because I live in the present. I am also looking towards the future and modernisation.
The Sultan is well aware that some hold him responsible for the earthquake.
SULTAN HAMENGKUBUWONO X (Translation): But for me there is no correlation and is tendentious if there are claims that this earthquake happened due to cultural neglect linked to the construction of Ambarrukmo plaza. For me, that is impossible.
While the Sultan bristles at suggestions that he's somehow to blame for all of this, it's par for the course in Indonesia where mysticism is frequently used to attack political figures.
GEMBONG DANUNINGRAT (Translation): Well in Java, whenever something happens, such as political change, or transfer of leadership, they are all instigated by natural phenomena. Destruction, earthquakes, floods, plagues and diseases.
Even in the nation's capital, Jakarta, such arguments have currency. The string of natural disasters is being used against Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, or 'SBY'. Permadi is a member of parliament, and the one-time spiritual adviser to former president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
PERMADI (Translation): since SBY has become president there has been disaster after disaster, sickness after sickness. They have all occurred in fact, were SBY has the desire to see, he will notice all natural elements are reacting. First, the element of WindÂ…In Indonesia the wind has been whirling. There are storms, typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones and so on. Next Fire - there have been fires throughout Indonesia - factories, forests, homes, markets, malls. Fires are burning everywhere. Earth - earthquakes, landslides are occurring everywhere. And then Water - floods, tsunamis are also occurring everywhere. But SBY isn't aware of these things. Maybe his heart knows.
Permadi is a political rival of the President, so it's perhaps not surprising that he's attacking him. Purwadi Hum is an expert in Javanese mysticism. He's written dozens of books on the subject. A believer himself, he says superficial mysticism is used to score political points.
PURWADI HUM (Translation): Exploiting suffering, disasters, tragediesÂ…All has been exploited as a tool to assign blame, but actually this is beyond manageability of the government.
These days Purwadi is spending time away from his books, helping villagers rebuild from the earthquake. He says that ancient forecasts did predict that these years would be dark and turbulent ones for Indonesia.
PURWADI HUM (Translation): So a fateful prophecy or prediction about something can be remedied. Disasters can be anticipated, destruction can be prevented even if it has been prophesied. So the Javanese summarise this philosophy. And all these Javanese predictions can be summed up with, so people must remember, and be reminded, to be alert.
While the Javanese are being asked to be alert, the same could also be asked of their government. Last week a tsunami killed another 500 in Java, sweeping past safety buoys that failed to alert people to what was coming. In the absence of sound official advice, many anxious Javanese will no doubt continue to look towards their mystics.
Reporter / Camera: BRONWYN ADCOCK
Editor: DAVID POTTS
Subtitling: STEPHEN DHARMANTO
Local Fixer: MOCHAMMAD FARIED CAHYONO
Researcher: MELANIE MORRISON
Producer: AMOS COHEN