SuPeRsTiTiOnS iN mAlAySiA -

                                                     
                                ULEK MAYANG

It is well known that Malaysians are generally a superstitious lot. Irrespective of race, Malaysians still believe that they can better achieve wealth, power, career, love etc with the help of supernatural means. We all know of people that have sought the assistance of bomohs (Malay witch doctors), feng shui masters (Chinese geomancers), Chinese and Indian astrologers and mediums etc to achieve whatever their goals are in life.

     Most Malaysian still remember the famous bomoh Mona Fendy's case in 1993 - She killed and chopped her client, the then Batu Talam Assemblyman, Datuk Mazlan Idris into 18 pieces. Mona Fendy and her 2 accomplices were sentenced to death in 1995 and were hanged in 2001.It was apparently reported by a well known online newspaper, last year, that a famous "bomoh politik"Awang Mohd Yahya admitted that Malaysian politicians seeking top posts in their party elections have sought his help.Apparently Asahan, in Sumatera, Indonesia is well known for "bomoh tourism" - Malaysians visit Asahan to consult its powerful bomohs.It is also rumoured that Blitar, a city in East Java, Indonesia, the birthplace of Sukarno (Indonesia's first president), also attracts "tourists" seeking assistance from its famous bomohs.

It is also not unusual to hear of Malaysians traveling all the way to Thailand and India to seek "spiritual guidance" from spiritualists there.

Are Malaysians the only ones obsessed with the supernatural ?

It has been reported in The Times that Burma’s Junta are intensely superstitious and have long been guided by a belief in prophecies, cosmology, numerology, magic etc

The newspaper further reported that politicians, in general, are superstitious:

• Hitler, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Charles de Gaulle, François Mitterrand and Leonid Brezhnev have all sought advice from astrologers
• President Roosevelt would apparently never travel on a Friday
• Napoleon feared black cats, and believed that eating chicken and crayfish would bring victory
• Catherine de’ Medici consulted Nostradamus

“We stand at the edge of the age of reason. A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising”, said Hitler.

Well, we all know what happened to Hitler, right ?

The Times also quoted Gilbert Murray having once said “The best seed ground for superstition is a society in which the fortunes of men seem to bear practically no relation to their merits or effort.