If you spend your days with Balinese, you will probably get a story about Leak or Balinese magic. And sometimes it is hard to believe it, but often it will make you very curious. To get someone that can show you about this magic is not as easier as you get someone who can tell you about Leak.
In Bali, people have a bad image of Leak. They believe that Leak can make one fall sick or killed. One wishing to learn about leak should devote his or her self to Durga, in hope that She may bestow upon one the gift of being able to use leak’s mantra effectively. After having achieved one’s end by means of offering and prayers recited during a mystic dance in the middle of the night in the graveyard, then he will transform into a leak.
A leak has a power to change its appearance into an animal, a bike or a car, a flaming ghost (endih), a demon devil, and others that he wants. A Leak has several ways to change its appearance: First, what Balinese call leak pamoroan. It can change completely into animals that appear only during the night. They try to suck their victims or just frighten them.
Second, Tluh, a change of the appearance but only its facial expression: The face is swollen, the eyes are distended and glowing with the fixed gaze. They appear at daytime, exert themselves to stab their enemies into stomach with a knife hidden in their hand.
Third, higher level is tranjana. They can appear during the day or the night. Their appearance is only to be seen indistinctly, partly invisible, or as a shadow to straggle his victim.
However to harm or kill someone, leak can also use papasangan. It does not need to change his or her appearance. Sometimes, leaks are seen involved in fights, measuring their power one against another. Common people usually are unable to see the fights. And the one who losses the fight will fall ill or will show sitting of blood and is doomed to death.
A trained (leak’s master) will usually find it much easier to transform its performance.. Having concentrated on a shape of an animal he is going to change into and recited magical words (mantra) properly, then he will transform directly into a leak. The leak is considered to be lower than mankind because what he eats include corpses and everything putrefied. He sees a dead dog as a delicious food and he mistakes foul smell for fragrance and perfume.
Actually, Leak is not as bad as people think. It is like a knife: It can help us or hurt us, depending on how and what we use it for. Mangku Ketut Rnam said that Leak more is like a sharpened knowledge and “it is not bad as people think, it can be used to help people although it can hurt people, too.”
LK. Suryani, meditation expert, also shared Mangku Tetut Rnam’s view, saying that people have misperception about leak. “People just see it from the negative side. They do not realize that leak is just like a meditation or other kinds of science,” she said. She believes that leak still exist in Bali.
Ngurah Harta realizes that challenges facing those who already have a bad image about leak. “Leak is one of our heritages that need to be retained to prevent it from extinction. If leak is said to be a bad thing, I do not agree. In fact, it will entirely depend on individuals themselves. If leak is used for healing purposes, then it means good but when leak is used to harm people, it means bad,” he said.
