My Toko Buku review: PRAY, MAGIC, HEAL: THE STORY OF KETUT LIYER BY DAVID STUART-FOX
Toko Buku2018
Mangku Ketut Liyer became world famous for his role as Elizabeth Gilbert’s guru in her 2006 best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love and in the 2010 film by the same name. The book and the film tell of one woman’s search for spiritual fulfilment and love. Gilbert’s encounter with Liyer was to result in a constant stream of Western visitors to Liyer’s home to consult with him, have their photos taken with him, have their futures told and to buy paintings from him. The man behind the myth was to receive even more publicity in the Indonesian press after his death in June 2016.

Stuart-Fox lived in Bali through the 1970s and 1980s, becoming fluent in the local language. The idea for Pray, Magic, Heal arose out of his personal friendship with Liyer that began in the early 1970s when the home of the balian (folk healer) in Pengosekan was in a quiet village untouched by asphalted roads or electricity and separated from the main town of Ubud by beautiful rice fields. In his book, the author’s aim was to explain the significance of the magic drawings within the traditional practice of a Balinese healer and of Liyer in particular. The interviews were recorded well before the world knew anything about him or anything about traditional Balinese healing arts.

As Stuart-Fox writes in the Preface, from the beginning, the book is as much Liyer’s book as it was the author’s. Starting in the mid-1970s, he began recording conversations with Liyer, and much of the story is told in Liyer’s own words. Looking back on his cherished friendship with the gifted healer, Stuart-Fox recalls that his story had nothing to do with Gilbert’s book or the movie that followed. Julia Roberts, the star of the movie, was attending 2nd grade when Stuart-Fox began his decades-long research project with the Balinese healer.

Traveling widely in the country for decades, the writer has published features for magazines including Garuda, Travel Indonesia and worked as an editor for APA Productions of Singapore in the revisions of their guidebook series on Bali and Java. Stuart-Fox first met the Liyer while staying in a small village south of Ubud. When Stuart-Fox finally published Pray, Magic, Heal, Liyer was already somewhere between 85 and 90 years old. He remembers vividly a visit he made to the old man’s house in 2005, a year before Gilbert’s book was published. It was in July on the day to honor the goddess Saraswati, patroness of knowledge and writing. It seemed the appropriate day to visit. Stuart-Fox had not seen Liyer for several years. Bali had undergone tremendous changes since his first visit with Liyer with travelers arriving in ever greater and greater numbers.

In Bali box in Bali. I have another copy in the USA.