The focus of this chapter has been on the position of supernatural beings and their spokesmen, dhukun, in village life. Supernatural beings have faced diverse challenges from different angles. The first of these is the positivist paradigm backed by science and technology. The positivist paradigm has discouraged villagers from searching for a deeper meaning beyond the observable cause and effect, while science and technology have shrunk the domains in which supernatural beings have privileges to be involved. This challenge, however, has not been successful in eroding the basis of belief in supernatural beings. First of all, science and technology cannot replace all of the roles that supernatural beings have played for villagers. For example, these cannot cure all diseases, cannot find lost things, cannot make one invulnerable to physical attack, cannot help one to be attractive to others and so on, all of which villagers still believe to be attainable with the help of supernatural beings. On the other hand, the surge of the positivist paradigm has not been able to create villagers who are brave enough to show their scepticism about the existence of supernatural beings and their power. This is related to the idiosyncrasy of Indonesia where the development of the positivist paradigm cannot proceed to its logical extreme, namely, denial of all supernatural phenomena including religion. Pancasila has effectively restrained the full development of the positivist paradigm and has urged it to show its allegiance to religion. As a result, its role has been confined to shrinking the domains where supernatural beings work, not refuting their efficacy and ontological position.

The second challenge that belief in supernatural beings has faced is reformist Islam, which has tried to reformulate the position of supernatural beings in accordance with Islamic theology. In this framework, supernatural beings with whom villagers make contact are equated with the jinn, beings created by Allah separate both from human beings and from satan. Although not all jinn are thought to be vicious, only the malevolent jinn are supposed to respond to requests from human beings. As a result, irrespective of whether their involvement in human affairs is benevolent or not, supernatural beings are supposed to be always malignant in so far as they are ready to make contact with human beings. This modification of the nature of supernatural beings by reformist Islam, however, does not challenge directly the efficacy of supernatural beings. They are still thought to have power to fulfil what is demanded by human beings. The difference is that the act of asking something of supernatural beings is now categorised as non-Islamic by reformist Islam.

The third challenge to belief in supernatural beings is related to how to define the being behind supernatural phenomena. In former days when the dominant position of the dhukun as agents to deal with the supernatural world was relatively well preserved in Kolojonggo, supernatural beings had the same degree of monopoly over supernatural power. With the emergence of the new aliran, however, the monopolistic position of supernatural beings has begun to be shaken. Villages are now given a different framework with which to interpret supernatural phenomena and to obtain supernatural power, namely, a monotheistic God. In this sense, the emergence of the competing aliran to the dhukun has much greater potential in eroding the efficacy of supernatural beings than the positivist paradigm and reformist Islam. If villagers can get the same result from a monotheistic God as they do from supernatural beings, there are no reasons why they should resort to the dhukun who are strongly criticised by reformist Islam.

In some parts of the world where traditional society is rapidly incorporated into capitalistic modern society, belief in supernatural beings has provided one of the mechanisms by which people interpret and conceptualise their new experiences (Nash,1979; Ong,1988; Taussig,1980). It is also suggested that, in Indonesia and Malaysia where so-called 'world religions' backed by the state are expanding their influence over the population, belief in supernatural beings is not on the wane but flourishes (Boon,1979; Peletz,1988). Observing the revitalisation of rituals related to supernatural beings, Boon argues that the Balinese society is in the process of reenchantment of the world rather than demystification (1979:288). The position of supernatural beings in Kolojonggo is somewhat different from their counterparts in Bali. Although not forced out of village life, they have not provided a framework with which villagers cope with the changing society. They are under attack both from reformist Islam and the new aliran, facing 'the process of religious rationalisation' in which the sense of sacredness is gathered up from the countless tree spirits and garden spells through which it was vaguely diffused, and is concentrated in a nucleate concept of the divine' (Geertz,1973:173-4; see also Weber,1963:22).

Compared with the rationalisation process suggested by Geertz, what makes this process in Kolojonggo distinctive is that it is not expedited by the replacement of traditional religion with world religion. Although reformist Islam reformulates the concept of supernatural beings, it has not been successful in depriving them of supernatural power and in concentrating it in a monotheistic God. Instead, what reformist Islam has done by imposing a moralistic dichotomy of good and bad on supernatural beings is to equate the power of supernatural beings with the bad. In comparison with that of reformist Islam, the role of the new aliran in the rationalisation process is more crucial in Kolojonggo. By working in the same domain as the dhukun but by using different paradigms to explain the same supernatural phenomenon, the new aliran opens a more effective way for supernatural power to be concentrated in a monotheistic God.

This distinctive rationalisation process seems to be one reason, among others, that the concept of God who is 'apart, above or outside of the concrete details of ordinary life' in a rationalised world religion as is suggested by Geertz (1973:171) is not the only nature that Allah has in Kolojonggo. In addition to this, Allah inherits part of the nature that supernatural beings have and remains a Being who involves Himself 'in an independent, segmental and immediate manner with almost any sort of actual event' (ibid.:172). This then makes it possible for villagers in Kolojonggo to ask the same questions of Allah as they did of supernatural beings, such as 'what should be done to gain more profit in the business?' as well as more abstract and more generally phrased questions such as 'who belongs to the category of the blessed?' In this way, the rationalisation process in Kolojonggo and subsequent concentration of supernatural power in Allah does not result in a widening distance between human beings and Allah. Allah is still thought to be a Being who is close to human beings and of whom villagers may ask the fulfilment of their wishes related to the odds and ends of everyday life.