In 1972, their Indonesian Odyssey in search of the nature, mysteries, and myths of Indonesia, started. Now, 50 years later, we met Dr. Lawrence Blair on the Island of Bali to learn more about his Indonesian odyssey and his view on the development of the archipelago.
Let’s find out what these people, living in the shadows of the volcanoes still know, that we of the west have forgotten.
You started your Indonesian Odyssey in 1972. How do you think Indonesia evolved in the last 50 years?
Now, the last 50 years I have actually seen the most amazing destruction of our forests and
of our waters and of the tribal peoples who’ve been dragged into the 21st century and now have far less of what they had before in the way of fish and trees, but they have cell phones.
So it’s a very significant period in history.
The people we dealt with, the tribal peoples; they are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. In one sense tribal peoples were more evolved than we are, and became very sensitive in areas where we westerners aren’t.
The interconnection of plants, animals and us humans, is a form of ancient internet, which the peoples we’ve met still are connected to and they taught us their ways of life.
The only comfortable island to live on when my brother and I were working on our documentary series, was Bali. And it wasn’t because it had all the modern conveniences like nowadays, it was because it was paradise on earth. When we came back from difficult places like Borneo and New Guinea they treated us like family here, looked after us, and fed us. So, this was more home to me than England or Mexico where I was brought up.
What were the most memorable moments of your journey while making Ring of Fire – An Indonesian Odyssey?
We were making films on mystics, magicians, wise men and healers. And of course, we found many charlatans. But we also found a few real people, and of those few even fewer were prepared to appear on camera.
One who did is a man who we called Dynamo Jack.
I knew him well and during the shooting for Ring of Fire – An Indonesian Odyssey, I followed him all over the place through Java with my brother and we acted as grounders because he touches his patients – sometimes he doesn’t even touch them – and they thrashed around.
He could light up an LED light bulb with his hands and ignite a newspaper.
You hold the feet of the patient, and you begin thrashing around too as if you’ve got your fingers touching electricity. I actually even invited a group of scientists from the States, and they were sure he was a trickster. They came over with all this equipment. We took him to a hotel room which had no setup, just a random hotel and he was all up for it.
The scientists couldn’t uncover him as a trickster at all, as they themselves got electric shocks when they touched him, and they felt it in their whole body.
What were you looking for during your Indonesian odyssey?
As an anthropologist, my interest was to come here to learn from the tribal people because they have an uninterrupted memory that goes back for thousands of years, and a subtle awareness and understanding of how nature works, of the rhythms of the environment, of the sanctity of the environment.
There is something far more powerful and extraordinary and deserving of worship than the western mind understands. So, when you talk about evolution, to me, it isn’t going in the right direction. Globalism is increasingly more right-brained and mechanical and distracted.
Nowadays a lot of people come to Bali for some spiritual experience. What do you think about it?
Well, it is a center for mystical development, Bali is about mystical tourism, isn’t it?
You’ve got marine tourism and mystical tourism, but the difficulty is finding the right reef or right teacher. But that doesn’t matter because it’s a broad menu of things you can do here, all sorts of different ways of yoga, different forms of meditation. So, this is a very rich place for that.
In my day, 50 years ago, you had to hunt for it. Well, I mean, every village had its wise man, but they would often turn out to be tricksters. You have to hunt for the real thing. And now you still have to do it. There are many people who are not good at it.
It is always a private journey.
What are you working on now?
It’s a short film, a half hour about the cutting edge of the biological sciences, the new frontiers of the earth sciences. It has to do with consciousness in nature, something that tribal peoples always talk about and scientists have called nonsense. Recently science came up with something even crazier – quantum mechanics.
According to quantum mechanics, particles can be in two places at the same time, or they can be entangled, meaning that any change in one particle is instantly mirrored in the other, anywhere in the universe.
“We’re actually rediscovering what all those generations 1000s of years ago, had known to a high degree. And now, we in the West, consider them primitive savages who haven’t caught up with how to use a smartphone. But they will tell you exactly when the fish are coming in.”
Dr. Lawrence Blair is an explorer, film maker, author and public speaker on behalf of the peoples and creatures of Indonesia.
A resident of Bali, he has assisted and led marine expeditions throughout the archipelago. He is also the writer, presenter and co-producer (with his late brother Lorne) of the PBS and BBC TV adventure series Ring of Fire – An Indonesian Odyssey.
Lawrence also wrote the companion book Ring of Fire – An Indonesian Odyssey, describing the brothers’ ten years of filming their Indonesian explorations. The book remained for ten weeks on the UK’s TOP TEN BEST SELLER LIST.
