ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ideological strains within Javanese religion. It concentrates on the less visible semantic and symbolic aspects of prayer, and to look at the processes of attribution and interpretation involved. The chapter considers some mystical uses of Islamic prayer in East Java which experiment with and play on the boundaries of orthodoxy, and which invoke Islam only to universalise it and thus breach its exclusivism. If we fail to grasp this fact we miss the seriousness of the mystical quest and reduce Javanist/santri differences to a quarrel over definitions, a contest in the sphere of cultural politics. Mystical knowledge is not conceived as a rival system or alternative to orthodoxy, or as a deviation or transformation of it. Unsurprisingly, orthodox Javanese are unpersuaded by the linguistic analogy, insofar as they are aware of it. The word for verbal efficacy in Javanese is mandi, a word which also means venomous.
