Why do Our People easily Arrive with Mystical Conclusio?

There is an interesting question to discusse: why do Indonesian people so easily jump to mystical conclusion? Take a case like a murderer; there will often be random people claiming they recieved a vision through a dream. A few years ago, a report emerge about a boar appearing in a village. A respected villager elder suggested performing a ritual.

That elder claimed that if villagers wanted to catch that boar, they had to do so completely naked because—according to him—that boar was a shapeshifter or were-boar¹. In Indonesian tradition, this creature is known as Babi Ngepet (Babi meaning boar). Because of this belief, he felt the problem could not be solved through conventional or secular means. Accepted by the majority, he insisted that a mystical approach was necessary.

However, this case was not just about a ‘prejudiced were-boar phenomena’, but also how people arrive at their conlusion. One woman admitted that she suspected a wealthy neighbor simply because she rarely saw him leaving the house. Her suspicous was that man is practicing a Babi Ngepet.

There are many similar cases where people drop their conclusion through mystical framworks.

So, the question remains, why do Indonesian people—or specifically perhaps Javanese people—have such a strong inclination to link every appeared phenomena—like ilness, missing item, etc.—to the mystical?

I have a hypothesis regarding where those habitus comes from: it stems from how our historical narratives (Geschichte) have been transmited alongside trancendental-history. In my opinion, those symtomp is driven by two factors: tradition itself and religion tradition acting as its validation.

Indonesian history did not start in colonial era; we have to consider how monarchies were narated; the tales of our kingdom were not told merely as ordinary political polemic. Instead, they were filled with mystical narratives—such as a man receiving a dream vision stating that whoever drink from specific coconut would become a king. In the story, his friend ended up drinking the coconut, and they felt to compelled to fulfill that revelation.

Countless similar naratives have been shared convensionally handing dowhn through the generetion. Those story did not merely end up as a tales of kingdom, but also constructed our thinking framework. It have leaded people that ancestors had a supranatural power. This has become common knowledge accepted sceptisism or critical question. We feel that we don’t need to doubt. It is when that framework becomes doxa.

Mystical history is one aspect, but, the religion traditon, in my opinion, is the primary reason why this perception remains accepted; the narratives of the Javanese or Indonesian monarchic era share a similarity of structural framework with religion where that is mystical dimension: monarchs with supranatural power and religions with their teological constructs—God, stories of apostles, prophecy, death, escatological promises, and miracle.

Though this seems like an acrobatic-assumption, compareing these two reveals how a structural assumption is built: the transmission of historical Indonesian narrative of monarchies possesses a supernatural face, much like religion. Consequently, religion serves as an institutional framework that validate the actual existence of the supernatural.

Religion is a institution that hold immense authorithy in Imdonesian society. Naturally, it stems from the premise that religion is an inherently absolute truth, such as questioning God is taboo. If God is placed as the absolute truth, religion becomes untouchable truth. That premise subtly compels society to believ that everything interwind with religion—including supernatural—must also be A true.

Those factors: mystical narratives in tales of the kingdom and teological-construction build the mystical framwork in society; habituation of the mystical narrative is not just about tales of the kingdom but also advices. This habituation shapes it into doxic perception where it cannot to be doubt.

Why do Indonesia commonly arrive with mystical framwork? It is because of the tradition that has been constructed in alongside trancenden history and shapes our horizont—knowledge—creating our pre-understanding (vorverständnis). Shortly, habituation of mystical traditions shapes mystical perception in our every inference.

1. Shapeshifter is term to call a creatur or human that can shift into an animal shape. Meanwhile, ‘were’ is ancient word which has a similiar meaning with shapeshifter. We can find ‘were-wolf’ meaning someone who can shift or turn into wolf. So, were boar itself i means someone who can turn into boar-shaped body.