A New Earth

I've started reading "A New Earth" and have also been downloading video clips from YouTube featuring discussion of the book's contents by Oprah Winfrey and its author, Eckhart Tolle. I'd never associated Oprah with spirituality and yet here she is, adding his book to her book club and hosting a so-called online spirituality university. It prompted me to read her biography in Wikipedia. She is certainly a remarkable success story and, by some accounts, the most influential woman on the planet at the current time. With the United States teetering on the brink of economic collapse, the message that Tolle is trying to get across is certainly timely and is reaching more ears and eyes than would have been conceivable without Oprah's support.

Let's hope that the collective transformation in consciousness that Tolle says is needed to save the planet does gather pace. Predictably, YouTube is full of videos by Christians from within the USA denouncing Oprah for turning her back on Jesus Christ and promoting somebody whom they see as a New Age guru. To them , "one way with Jesus" means there is no other way except their way. As he says in his book, "some religious institutions will be open to the new consciousness; some will harden their doctrinal positions". Realistically however, he states that "the new spirituality, the transformation of consciousness, is arising to a large extent outside the structures of the existing institualized religions".

Be that as it may, it is up to each person to bring about the change in herself or himself. So what happened today that reduced my identification with the physical form known as Sean Reeves and his accompanying thought and emotional forms? I certainly didn't face any challenges because I spent the entire day at home and didn't venture out at all. I was free to read my book, meditate in air-conditioned comfort or sit out in the garden for short periods to take in the rustle of the breeze, the sound of birdsong and the sights of colourful flowers and fruits. While in the garden, I experienced very briefly an intense immersion in the moment as I looked at some yellow flowers against the backdrop of the blue sky. That was something.

Last night, I had a dream in which I was walking through a crowded cafeteria and my way through was blocked by tables and chairs. I tried to get through one way and was blocked so I backtracked and tried another way, only to be blocked again. In frustration, I kicked over a chair and immediately felt ashamed of myself because I'd allowed myself to be taken over by a negative emotion. I rarely if ever have dreams like that and so the dream is perhaps a positive sign. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my distance from the pressures of the outside world. Those pressures will return soon enough but I don't think I can ever go back to the way I was.

As I look back and see how I was caught up in the stream of my thoughts and emotions, it seems like that stream has emptied into the ocean and now I'm bobbing about on its surface. I'm not being swept along anymore and I can try to dive down into its depths if I want to and experience whatever is down there. On that note, I'll finish with a quote from Meher Baba:

Every being is a point from which a start could be made toward the Limitless Ocean of love, bliss, knowledge and goodness already within him. No spiritual Master brings religion to the world in the form it eventually assumes. His very presence is a blessing and radiates spirituality. He imparts it to others by personal contact. The so-called religions are an effort to commemorate that association with a great spiritual Master, and to preserve his atmosphere and influence. It is like an archeological department trying to preserve things which only resuscitate the past. The living spirit being absent, religions or organizations gradually lose their glamour. The result is a mental revolt against the established order. Something more substantial and practical is required which expresses the life of the spirit.

That I guess is where we are at now. Each one of us needs to initiate "a mental revolt against the established order" which means overthrowing identification with mind and emotions, and doing something "substantial and practical which expresses the life of the spirit".

Monkey on a Bicycle

I ventured forth today to purchase Eckhart Tolle's latest book, "A New Earth", and sitting behind the wheel of my car I managed to more or less maintain my equilibrium. I say "more or less" because there were a couple of occasions when I passed close to small monkeys that were performing various tricks on the median strip under a blazing sun. These poor animals are usually prodded continously to perform and treated poorly by their owners who view them only as a source of income.

The first one I saw was riding a bicycle around and around. The second one was repeatedly fetching a small rag-doll that was being tossed away. Fortunately, I didn't pass close enough to give my usual response, a hand gesture, but I could feel my temperature rising. According to the Urban Dictionary, the phrase "monkey on a bicycle" means "an inconspicuous phrase that gets one out of dangerous situations". In fact there are a great many phrases in the Urban Dictionary that contain the word "monkey" and I was only familiar with "monkey shines" and "monkey on your back".

Apart from that, my equilibrium wasn't really challenged because there was very little traffic on the roads thanks to the Lebaran holidays. It was smooth sailing to the mall where I bought the book and settled down to a coffee at Starbucks, which was largely deserted. While I was there, I tried to remain present and not drift off into thought. Of course, I had to keep pulling myself back to the here and now. At one point, I told myself to listen to music that was playing and as I did, there was a song by The Doors playing. The lyrics that were being repeated were "learn to forget" and while I did focus for a moment, I suddenly found I was contemplating the reason for Jason Bourne's "supremacy". He had forgotten his past and was thus unencumbered by it and far more focused in the present moment than his time-traveling adversaries.

So there are monkeys on the roads of Jakarta riding bicycles and my monkey of a mind is alive and well in my head, taking me in all sorts of unexpected directions. I guess I just have to keep watching its antics and try to keep it off my back.

The Joy of Sitting

This image of the sitting Buddha illustrates that is possible to simply sit, do nothing and enjoy the bliss of being. As with all depictions of the Buddha, the hand gestures are significant. The hand gestures here are referred to as the Bhumisparsa Mudra : Subduing Mara, Calling the Earth to Witness. The following is quoted from http://www.buddha-images.com/hand-gestures.asp.

The left hand lies in the lap, palm upward. The right hand bends over the right knee, with fingers slightly touching the ground. During meditation, Siddhartha is subjected to many temptations many posed by the evil Mara, who bombards him with his demons, monsters, violent storms and his three seductive daughters. The Buddha remains steadfast. Then to testify to Mara of his meritorious past, he points to the earth with his hand and calls the Earth Goddess. Thorani, the Earth Goddess rises from the ground and wrings the water from her long black hair, by this action raising a torrential flood that drowns Mara and his army of demons. This gesture symbolizes enlightenment, as well as steadfastness (imperturbability). It is easily the most common Buddha gesture in Thai wats.

Well, the evil Mara certainly assails my meditation but not quite so dramatically. He pulls me via random thoughts into the past and future, distracting me from the stillness within. At least I've started to meditate again and the practice provides the opportunity for detachment from the incessant mental activity that dominates my daily life. Meditation sessions need not be lengthy. I've started to cultivate what I call micro-meditation in which I close my eyes and sink into what is not so much an inner stillness as a mental-emotional slurry but at least the coarser material is settling to the bottom. I can do this practically anytime, anywhere. Of course, longer sessions at home are useful for deeper meditation.

Activity in the outer world provides the opportunity for detachment from the emotions that arise in frustrating situations. Sitting behind the wheel of an automobile that's negotiating Jakarta traffic provides such an opportunity but one's equanimity is constantly under challenge. At such times, my ego is quick to defend me against any challenges even though the driver whose actions have offended me is not targeting me personally. Every minute of every day provides an opportunity to practise detachment from the mind or emotions and the more successful I am the more contentment I find.

The Sound of the Sky

The 21st century with its Internet-connected computers, mobile phones with direct uploads to YouTube, HDTVs, Internet radio, online newspapers etc. stirs my monkey mind to a frenzy at times. Taking the dog for a walk is a way of physically disconnecting from these technological temptations and provides an opportunity to "listen to the sound of the sky". The problem is that the monkey mind comes along for the walk as well.

I try to be as present as I possible, watching and listening to the sights and sounds as they arise. The dog is totally present and taking in the sights, sounds and especially smells. During the walk and following several eruptions of the monkey mind, I made a conscious effort to exercise my olefactory senses. However, "they ain't got no noses those fallen sons of Eve and all I could smell was the smoke from the burning-off in the nearby kampung (or village). Overall, I probably have only a few seconds of being in the now on these walks and the rest of time I am wandering mentally in the past or the future.

However, I'm catching myself earlier so that the lapses are becoming shorter and maybe the moments of mental stillness will grow longer, but it's hard. I'm addicted to thinking and have been all my life. Toward the end of these walks, the focus on my body increases as my muscles and joints tire and this is helpful in reducing the mental static. Bringing attention back to the body by concentrating of the sensory input is probably the best way of quieting the mind during these walks.

Ripple Effect

Having recently become aware of Eckhart Tolle, I watched a movie called Ripple Effect and was instantly reminded of his philosophy. Not surprisingly, I later discovered that Tolle has passed comment on the film and his favourable review is included on the film's website. He describes the film thus: a powerful archetypal journey from unenlightened living, dysfunction and despair to spiritual awakening. It's an impressive film and very well acted.

Meanwhile I've been slowly making my way through The Power of Now and more importantly I've been trying to practise it. As I wrote in an earlier post about taking my grand-daughter to the amusement centre at the local mall. There is an enclosed area that children can enter with an admission ticket and once inside, there is an assortment of play equipment to keep the little ones amused. She will play in there for more than an hour while I sit outside listening to a mind-numbing loop of children's nursery rhymes, sung in a grating sort of sing-song fashion by a group of children. In the past, I filled in the time by browsing the Internet on my mobile phone, catching up on the bogus news. Last time I visited, I didn't do this but instead tried to sit there and be in the now. I more or less succeeded and realised how little of my surroundings that I normally take in. Just sitting there, watching and listening to events as they unfolded, was quite satisfying and not boring at all. I need to do this sort of thing more often.

Eckhart Tolle

A colleague at work recommended Eckhart Tolle's latest book, A New Earth, and told me that it had been chosen for Oprah Winfrey's book club and that Oprah herself was an ardent fan of the guy. I was naturally suspicious but she was persistent so I did a little research. It turns out he knew my old guru Barry Long and had sought his advice after his own "transformation". His ideas, as presented in the Wikipedia article about him, seemed very much like Barry's and I wondered if he'd simply ripped off his advisor's ideas and refashioned them slightly.

However, after reading further, I was impressed by what he had to say and decided today to go out and buy his first book, The Power of Now, that he wrote in 1999 and which became an international best seller. I'm reading it at the moment. Tolle was born in Germany on February 16th, 1948 as Ulrich Tolle and changed his name to Eckhart probably in deference to the famous German mystic Meister Eckart. This struck me as a little pretentious (if true) but I'm prepared to read his book and reserve judgement for the time being.

Others have passed judgement however, and there is an amusing account of et as he is referred to in this article by Avery Wiseman. I'm quoting from the final part of the article:

so to sum up, et goes from....

• being a terminally depressed, emotionally wrecked, failed would-be academic, sitting in his darkened room with his head stuck in dusty volumes of mediaevel theological texts.

• career prospects: very grey indeed

• chances of getting laid: zero

• prognosis: pills or the noose

to......

• internationally most famous guru of all time. primetime talking head.

• record book sales. big venues. own limo.

• pretty asian girlfriend, twenty years younger than him, good figure, she likes swimming, keep fit and bodywork, agrees with everything he says, doesn't argue with him cos there's no one to argue with, and is even awakened herself (by him)!
  

so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, i put it to you:
if that's not enlightenment, then what the fuck is?

This highly cynical and sarcastic article appears on a rather strange website called Sarlo's Guru Rating Service but Sarlo himself gives Tolle the top rating (in terms of credibility as a spiritual teacher) and his reference to an interview by John W. Parker caused me to start taking the guy seriously.

Angel Movies

The more you delve into the business of angels, the more confusing it gets. That's why the above book might be the place to start. The product description runs like this:

You're no idiot, of course. You've seen angels in movies since you were a kid, you made a great angel in the school play, and you've even heard of guardian angels. But when it comes to really knowing about angels, you feel like your wings have been clipped. Don't surrender that halo just yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Angels will enlighten you with fantastic angel stories from around the world, and it includes revelations about who they are and how they came to be.

While understanding angels is a daunting task, it hasn't discouraged Hollywood from making a lot of films about them. I've mentioned the soon-to-be released Daniel and my favourite angel film City of Angels about there are plenty more. On this website, I found an interesting question:

Question: What do Denzel Washington, Warren Beatty, Cary Grant, Nicholas Cage, and John Travolta have in common? Answer: Besides being movie stars, they have all played an angel in a movie.

In fact, there have so many films, books, songs and discussions about angels that it would seem that they are an intrinsic aspect of the human psyche and constitute perhaps an archetype, in the Jungian sense of the term, alongside the mother, father, puer aeternus, senex and other archetypes.

This site has the following to say on the matter:

Psychologist Carl Jung says that angels personify the coming into consciousness of something new arising from the deep unconscious. Jung opened the door to looking at angels as symbols of our recognition of our inner world.

This might be an interesting avenue to explore further.

Personal Elementals and Angels

One of the interesting ideas expressed in Iosos's article referred to in the previous blog is that of personal elementals and angels. He writes:

For each human soul that chose to take the evolutionary route of physical incarnations, there was one elemental being that "volunteered" to make that journey with them - to create and maintain a physical body for them - for as many lifetimes as it took - until they made their "ascension" and graduated from the physical-dimension school room!

This elemental thankfully gets to rest between incarnations. He goes to say this about personal angels:

There are of course, also personal angels, or guardian angels, focusing on the spiritual and emotional well-being of one particular human. Every human has at least one of them.

He makes the point that we should thank both of these "entities" for the largely thankless job that they've both been doing on our behalf. Having a good relationship between your personal elemental and angel is, not surprisingly, good for both physical and psychological well-being.

The whole grand scheme of things is difficult to grasp and it's probably not all that important that we do. After all, all these "entities" are part of the Creation and thus part of the grand illusion. They live in ignorance of their true nature as most of us do. It's interesting to read what Meher Baba had to say on the matter of angels. On page 1325 of Lord Meher, we read:

There is an Ocean of infinitude in God. In this Ocean there are waves which produce the creation of drops. The drops in the waves, which were created in the beginning with the whim in the infinite Ocean, do not pass through the seven stages of evolution as others do, but immediately assume the form of angels instead. These angels are in the same state for cycles and cycles – for eons and eons. They have subtle forms and are in the second heaven in the third subtle plane. They unconsciously thirst for a human form, even though they are in the highest state of happiness. But this bliss is of no use to them without full consciousness. 

It rarely happens, but after millions and millions of years one angel is born as a human being in order to realize its Real Self. Why? In order to gain consciousness which up to now it lacked, though it has passed numerous years in the subtle world as an angel. After an angel is born as a human being, it does not have to pass through human reincarnation, but becomes Realized in that very first human birth. These angels are not born on the gross plane together, but one at a time.

Therefore, from a spiritual point of view, man is far superior to angels because the angels, in spite of enjoying millions of years of bliss in heaven, have to take human form before attaining liberation.

On page 1189 he also makes similar comments:

The angels are free from the lower animal qualities and possess higher qualities of godliness, but they have no love, longing – real love for God – which makes one worthy of Union. Angels of course have love, but it is in their nature – essence. They have what can be called natural love, which makes angels higher than human beings. But being devoid of love for God, angels cannot realise God. For that, they must assume human form with these higher qualities developed. In human form alone can they create love for God, qualifying them for the attainment of God-Realisation. Realisation of God can never be attained without the human form; angels must assume one human birth to realise God.

One of my favourite movies is "City of Angels" in which one angel decides to take human form for the love of a woman. Basically, the theme of the movie is an allegory of what Baba is saying.

Angels, Elementals and Humans

My previous post about angels reminded me of an interesting article that I read that helped me to understand a little more about where angels stand in the grand scheme of things. It's written by a guy called Iasos (pronounced Ya-sos) who was born in 1947 and as is reported in his biography:

In 1967, to his surprise, Iasos began spontaneously "hearing" a new type of music in his mind, which he then referred to as "paradise music". After graduating from Cornell in anthropology in 1968, Iasos decided to move to California and to dedicate his life to manifesting this "heavenly music" he was experiencing internally, since he was convinced it would have an uplifting, healing, spiritually-invigorating and harmonising effect on many potential listeners.

He has been involved in New Age music ever since and so maybe that qualifies him to talk about angels, elementals and humans. In his account, there are three kingdoms:

• the human kingdom comprising humans whom he describes as "step-down transformers for Divine thought forms"; they work with thought and feeling and energise these thought forms with their feelings
• the elemental kingdom comprising elementals who work primarily on the mental plane and are known as "builders of form"; they translate thought forms into physical forms and are divided into four different types: earth, air, fire and water
• the angelic kingdom comprising angels who administer to the spiritual needs of both the human and elemental kingdoms

This is just a very brief summary of some of what he says and you are directed to the website to explore the matter in more detail. His conception is interesting and I'm interested in exploring it further.

Guardian Angels

I was researching about Tielhard de Chardin when I stumbled upon this article by a guy called Tobin Hart who has written a book called The Secret Spiritual World of Children. He was describing what led him to write the book in the first place and he begins:

Children have a secret spiritual life. They have spiritual capacities and experiences - profound moments that shape their lives in enduring ways. These are sometimes stunning, often tender, and reveal a remarkable spiritual world that has been kept largely secret.

It's quite a touching little anecdote that involves his daughter's guardian angel. His daughter was seven years old at the time. It got me thinking on the subject of angels. The best known angel of all is the Archangel Gabriel, or Jibril as he's known in Islam, and while doing a little investigation I discovered that an Australian film had been made in 2007 with the title Gabriel that is a sort of science fiction tale about this angel. Here is the link to the Wikipedia article about the film. It's gotten mixed reviews but it's certainly one I'll try to watch.

Nursery Rhymes

Today I took my grand-daughter to the amusement centre at the local mall. There is an enclosed area that children can enter with an admission ticket and once inside, there is an assortment of play equipment to keep the little ones amused. She will play in there for more than an hour while I sit outside listening to a mind-numbing loop of children's nursery rhymes, sung in a grating sort of sing-song fashion by a group of children. One of the songs was "Ring a Ring o' Roses" which is supposedly a reference to the symptoms of the pneumonic form of the bubonic plagues of the middle ages. However, the Wikipedia article for the rhyme casts doubt on the theory that a rosy rash ... was a symptom of the plague, posies of herbs were carried as protection, sneezing was a final fatal symptom , and “all fall down” was exactly what happened. It is assigned the status of urban myth. However, The Phrase Finder is a little more accepting of the idea and, while urging caution, suggests it might be possible.

This site on the origin of English rhymes is totally supportive of the idea, although admitting that the idea has its skeptics:

The words to the Ring around the Rosy children's ring game have their origin in English history. The historical period dates back to the Great Plague of London in 1665 (bubonic plague) or even before when the first outbreak of the Plague hit England in the 1300's. The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (Ring around the rosy). Pockets and pouches were filled with sweet smelling herbs (or posies) which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term "Ashes Ashes" refers to the cremation of the dead bodies! The death rate was over 60% and the plague was only halted by the Great Fire of London in 1666 which killed the rats which carried the disease which was transmitting via water sources. The English version of "Ring around the rosy" replaces Ashes with (A-tishoo, A-tishoo) as violent sneezing was another symptom of the disease.

You can actually order of the 27" x 22" poster of the above print for $21.99 from here. If you double click on the image, you get a larger version but it has a very obvious water mark embedded in it to thwart those who might try to print it directly. My personal belief is that the rhyme does refer to the bubonic plague but the debunkers remain and Snopes.com, a site that investigates urban myths and a site to which the Wikipedia article alludes, contains a quite detailed analysis of the possibility and concludes that the claim is false. No matter, I believe!

The Bogus News

With the exception of public holidays, The Jakarta Post arrives every morning at 6am and every school day I read it from about 6:15am until 6:50am. On weekends, I rise much later of course and read it far more thoroughly. The local and international content is depressingly unchanging. The names and faces change but the underlying themes remain the same. This is the bogus news as Barry Long used to say, which is really no news at all. I think I'll stop commenting on it.

I just read a blog by somebody who had written down, in condensed form, his seventy most interesting dreams from the mid-1970s. He was familiar with Jungian psychological concepts and described several dreams involving Meher Baba, so the dreams struck a reponsive chord in me. Reading about this guy's inner world was far more stimulating than the vast majority of articles I've read on the pages of that tawdry rag that masquerades as the expat's daily newspaper here in Jakarta.

In view of the fact that this is my 100th post, I've decided to rename this blog Postings from Inner Space and to renounce its former name, The Jakarta Post. Prior to that it was called Ramshackle Ramblings and initially it was Ramshackle Ramifications. Let's see how long this name lasts but I hope the name change will help give this blog a renewed and more energetic focus.

Black and Light

The recent threats of lengthy, rotating power blackouts in Jakarta have not been been realised fortunately, thanks apparently to self-imposed controls on power consumption by its residents. The power situation remains precarious however, and who knows what games will be played behind the scenes now that the nine month election campaign has kicked off. The energy sector has been badly mismanaged and it will not be fixed in the short term.

The recent crackdown on corruption in customs and immigration is to be applauded but apparently it's now very difficult to get anything processed. It's not exactly clear why. It could be that the incoming staff are still getting their heads around their new responsibilities. For instance, the minister overseeing customs moved the entire staff of 1,300 from the main Tanjung Priok office and relocated them elsewhere. She brought new staff in to replace them.

There's also been some high profile raids on the customs offices that have netted lots of brown envelopes containing lots of money. So right now it is almost impossible to bribe a customs or immigration official but at the same time it's almost impossible to get anything processed. A reasonable suspicion might be that a go-slow strategy has been adopted by employees but I could be wrong.

Like most Indonesians, these customs and immigration employees don't earn a reasonable salary and are strongly tempted to augment their meagre income through bribes. In fact I would imagine that if you didn't collect sufficient bribe money to pass on to your superiors then your chances of promotion would be very low.

Corruption is still deeply entrenched in this society but at least those guilty of the practice are a little more nervous these days. The Corruption Eradication Commission has certainly collected some high profile scalps recently but it may become a victim of its own successes. The politicians are getting increasingly nervous (I can't think why) and moves are afoot to draft some legislation that will blunt the effectiveness of the Commission.

A Booze-Free Lombok

Vice President Jusuf Kalla is doing his bit for Indonesia's 2008 tourism initiative. Yesterday he announced "Make Lombok an Islamic tourist zone without beer or alcohol". Anyone who has ever been to Lombok, the island adjacent to Bali, knows that very few tourists ever visit and turning it into an alcohol-free zone will ensure that almost nobody goes there. It probably won't happen in the short-term. Kalla has been helping the local Golkar candidates in forthcoming gubernatorial elections and his comments were probably intended for voters in West Nusa Tenggara (of which Lombok forms a part).

What's funny about this announcement is that there is strong support to turn another of Indonesia's islands (Bintan, near Singapore) into a legalized gambling area and gambling of course is quite un-Islamic. The Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming reports that "Malaysia's Landmarks Bhd., backed by Asia's largest gambling company, hopes to build Indonesia's first legalized casinos in a $3.1 billion resort project to compete with Las Vegas Sands Corp. in Singapore". It is just waiting for the "green light" from the Government. Of course local Muslims on the island will not be allowed to gamble.

These initiatives are illustrative of a growing fragmentation within the country caused by indecisive leadership that wants to appease Muslim fundamentalists but still attract foreign investment. The fundamentalists can't be appeased without completely capitulating to their demands for an Islamic State. The police meanwhile continue their crackdown on terrorist cells by raiding a house in Palembang, arresting nine terror suspects and finding an assortment of assembled bombs. The fact that this raid occurred on the same day that the police were celebrating their 62nd anniversary raised a few eyebrows and only added to the widespread cynicism that the public feel toward the protectors of law and order within the country.

Journey through Hell

We are back in Medan but only after surviving one horrific, four-hour ride on a supposedly air-conditioned bus. As the bus left Lake Toba, the internal climate was reasonable but at that point we were enjoying the cool air at the Lake's altitude of 900 metres. Before long however, we were descending into the tropical heat of the lowlands and the air being pumped through the bus's interior seemed to be the same as the air on the outside. The windows couldn't be opened and for the next three and half hours I sweated continously and lapsed in and out of consciousness.

As the bus traveled along, the driver picked up more passengers, far in excess of the number of allocated seats, and so the aisle filled up with more bodies who in turn generated more heat. A guy standing in the aisle beside me decided to light up a cigarette in spite of the no smoking signs but was persuaded to extinguish it by some other passengers. Finally, on the outskirts of Medan, the bus broke down completely and we were forced to catch a becak to our hotel.

The becak is a motorcycle with a sidecart for passengers and is intended for two adults at the most. This day it carried two adults (Desy and myself), two children (Sabina and her cousin Ilham) plus a large suitcase, my backpack and several smaller bags. We must have made quite a sight and attracted many stares, especially with a Westerner on board. We battled through Medan's chaotic afternoon traffic (it was about 4pm) and I wish I could have captured the scene with my camcorder or digital camera but I was half-dead by this stage and intent on survival not documentation. The incident,though undocumented, will remain firmly etched in my memory under the category of "things survived but never to be repeated".

Greetings from Lake Toba

I'm surprised that I'm creating this post on the shores of Lake Toba in the north of Sumatra because for many years this place has been a technological backwater. When I first visited in 2002, it was difficult to even get a mobile phone signal and now I'm accessing the Internet from the hotel's free hotspot. It certainly demonstrates how the telecommunications infrastructure in Indonesia has improved over the past six years, although it still has a long way to go.

As wireless Internet connectivity improves with the rollout of WiMAX and the cost of Internet-enabled devices continues to fall, the Internet will become more accessible to Indonesians and play more of a role in the education of its students. Fixed phone lines, that would allow at least dial-up access to the Internet, are never going to penetrate to the more remote areas of this archipelago and thus wireless connectivity of some sort (GPRS, HSPDA, WiMAX) is the future.

But enough of technology, I'm currently looking over a lake that is 900 metres above sea level and is more than 500 metres deep at its deepest point. The tranquility of the location is in stark contrast to the violence of the eruption that created it. About 75,000 years ago, an explosion occurred here that was so powerful and so catastrophic in terms of its effect on the world's climate that the human race at the time may have been reduced to as little as 1000 breeding pairs (see Lake Toba catastrophe theory).

Blue Energy

It all started around the time of the UN climate talks in Bali late last year when an Indonesian company "launched a range of gasoline and diesel products under the name blue energy". Here is part of an article, dated December 5th 2007, that reported on the occasion:

In a lavish ceremony held on the sidelines of this week’s U.N.’s climate talks in Bali, the company launched a range of gasoline and diesel products under the name “blue energy” witnessed by Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself.

Just days before the launch, Indonesia’s environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said that the country would have “its own fuel made out of plain water”.

Five cars, pumped with “blue energy” that have made a 5-day trip from Jakarta to Bali went through a pollution test. The result: 50 percent lower emissions on average.

Yudhoyono dubbed this “a winner for Indonesia”, cheered by the crowd in white-blue uniforms, while songs, written and composed by the president himself, played in the background. The company’s chairman said this could be Indonesia’s way out of the oil economy. In short, it’s a magic fuel.

Even back then the article mentioned that the magic was fading but not enough to deter the true believers. Joko and Purwanto, the masterminds of this scam, had managed to convince the President who "set up a special team to pursue the project, pouring billions of rupiah into the effort" according to today's The Jakarta Post. The research team came from the Muhammadiyah University in Yogyakarta and they "decided to develop the invention and appointed Joko and Purwanto as expert staff".

It all started to unravel only recently however, and the latest statement from the University's rector was that "he felt ashamed his university and researchers were deceived" and he has filed a lawsuit against the two "inventors". Yesterday the research team began dismantling the facilities that had been constructed but not without some resistance from the inventors' lawyers who claimed that radioactive substances could leak from the power project if it were torn down.

These sorts of scams take place everyday in Indonesia where economic pressure makes people vulnerable to get-rich-quick schemes but this one is memorable because it has taken in the President and the scientific wing of a leading University. I'm reminded of the empty energy promises in recent years of "cold fusion" and Peter Brock's "orgone energy".

Homo Domesticus

It's been a quiet week, this first week of my holidays, and the photo of Sabina with her menagerie of soft toys sums up the domestic tranquility of it all. The murderers, psychopaths and robbers are still out there of course but hopefully that is where they'll stay. Next week, we head off to Medan and Lake Toba for a week or more and I'll probably leave my laptop behind and bring some physical books to read.

It's been two years since our last visit to the Lake and back then there was limited Internet access (via my mobile phone's GPRS) but I'm just as happy to leave it all behind me for a week or so. I spend everyday at one computer or another so it's probably healthy to have a respite so I'll declare Lake Toba a technology-free zone for me personally. There's not even a TV set in the hotel rooms where we normally stay and that's certainly not missed. The only thing I can't do without is The Jakarta Post. I have an entrenched habit of reading the paper at breakfast time and I'm out-of-sorts when it's late or doesn't arrive on public holidays.

With our newly acquired camcorder, I will be taking plenty of video footage and of course I'll have my digital camera to take lots of photographs. In that sense, I won't be completely free of technology. It would be interesting, one day perhaps, to go with only a sketchpad and pencils. I have done some sketching over the years, although I discovered early on that I had little aptitude or patience for oil painting or watercolours.

Rising Violence

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Boy band mogul sentenced to 25 years

Boy band mogul Lou Pearlman, who launched Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday for swindling investors and major U.S.banks out of more than US$300 million, in a news article that I read today. This guy provides a prominent example of a psychopath in action. He defrauded his family, his close friends and people in their 70s and 80s who have lost their life savings.

This quote from his cousin Lois Nevler says it all:

Lou Pearlman was robbing me of my savings, while smiling and saying everything was great, with full intent of what he was doing," she wrote. "Any human being that can intentionally do what he has done is a horrible, evil man, without a conscience and definitely without a soul.

Obviously, having managed such famous bands he should have been comfortably off financially and yet he carried on a scam for two decades, amassing more and more wealth at the expense of his victims. He set up two sham companies that existed only on paper and managed to attract investment even from banks, so clearly he was persuasive and convincing as many psychopaths are. I would think the percentage of psychopaths in the ranks of leading entrepreneurs would be well above the level in the general population.

The problem is that people will read about Lou Pearlman and dismiss him as an aberration, clinging to a belief that human beings are basically good and that there's only a few rotten apples amongst us. The reality is that maybe 5% of the apples are rotten, that's 1 in 20, and that is unsettling.