Made Surya...

Today I was fortunate enough to meet Made Surya: Topeng performer, historian, and general awesome guy. This is his website here. His wife, Judy Slattum, has written a wonderful book (with great pictures) “Balinese Mask: Spirits of an Ancient Drama”.



He spent hours talking about the socio/historic background of Bali (religion, culture, ethnicity, domestic practice). He then went into explaining the process of sacred mask, trance, and possession. The later interested me immensely.

Possession is “giving your service to the spirit”. Essentially, if you are prepared or “pure” (not pure - a recent family grievance; expecting a child; your wife expecting a child; menstruating; bleeding [anywhere]), you may be chosen to be inhabited by the spirits. I’m also assuming you would have to be a practicing Balinese Hindu and fall into a particular class in the caste system i.e. I don’t have to worry about becoming possessed, and one cannot merely learn possession. You can’t go to Bali for two weeks and expect to know how to do it. It simply doesn’t work that way. Surya speaks of leaving temple often when it has occurred . When asked why he said, with hesitation, that he didn’t want the “responsibility”. Convincingly, he emphasized “I’m a logical guy”, but went on to tell extraordinary stories of witnessing possession that he couldn’t humanly justify. This made me all shivery/goosebumpy. It happened frequently to his late-father, uncles and aunts (all of whom are priests/priestesses). Once possessed, your spiritual path is chosen, and you have a function you must carry for life.

Surya splits his time between here and California. He represents a progressive, knowledgeable (one might call ‘academic’), and generous Balinese artist. I will be seeing him again on Sunday, to hear and see more.